Michael Laws it's a two-way street

Michael Laws thinks we need the rich more than they need us. The Standard has a post too about his article.

These are the key things I'm going to peck at:

1. There was no underclass in the 1970s.
2. A flat tax is true equality.
3. We need the rich more than we need them, so they deserve more respect.

 1. There was no underclass in the 1970s: Well actually there was. There were people who had little food, little clothes, dirty and uninsulated homes. There were also people dealing with medical issues that doctors couldn't recognise that made it impossible to work. Children were suffering due to a lack of child rights as well. Social problems of the past contribute to an underclass Mr Laws.

2. A flat tax is true equality:
Well yes and no. It will give everyone the same tax regardless of income. But it will take away government revenue. After that the government will either cut services or go into debt. If you cut services you cut stability, things like the welfare system, healthcare system and police. It will increase crime, lead to more suffering and discourage the rich from ever coming to New Zealand. It will cause more inequality in access to healthcare and social services than we have now. If you think the underclass is bad now, wait until you implement a flat tax Mr Laws.

3. We need the rich more than we need them, so they deserve more respect:
As human beings we all deserve respect as a inherited human right. Regardless of income, disability and any kind of status. The rich don't always get their money through hard work or by fairness. The rich don't always provide jobs that people need to work. They don't always pay their taxes and it's a two way street. You can't have a pyramid unless there's a bottom to support it Mr Laws.

On another note, good on you Maori communities up north for defending yourselves from Michael Laws.

Revised: 25 May, 2010, 8:13 PM

A sore truth in New Zealand dental care

I was watching 60 minutes about 60 minutes ago. The programme talked about problems with dental care in New Zealand. People were finding it hard to afford with one man dieing of an abcess. Dental problems don't occur just in New Zealand, they occur in Canada and Britain as well. But that doesn't mean we shouldn't do something about them.

Southland District Healthboard Director Tim McKay was on the program. When asked why things are expensive he replied(but don't quote me on this) "We are perfectionists. And we like working to the gold standard." He also said "We could do better." and "It's difficult to learn how to provide cost effective dentistry." Of course 60 minutes wouldn't show what the full interview and I think they might of wanted Tim to look like a dork. But he's right, there are problems surrounding dentistry. A dentist studies hard for five years for their licence. They'd want it to be worth their while after working as a student and having a big loan. But should this worth be in money or satisfaction from helping others? These issues don't mean we shouldn't try to make dentistry affordable.

Jim Anderton thinks we need to invest 100 million each year for effective dentistry. That comes to around $25 per person in New Zealand to have affordable dental care. Jim Anderton's often thought of as a "bludging MP" who is a labour voter who wanted extra money by being in another party. I don't always agree with him and think he should rethink his stance on marijuana. Especially after saying "Alcohol is by far the most damaging drug in the country" but not pushing for a alcohol ban. But I think he's well-intentioned, smart and has good ideas. We need solutions if we want more accessible dental care, it wont be cheap but it'll have a great payoff. He also stated how because we don't subsidise adults, they end up in our hospitals costing millions. This is partly due to people not being able to afford it.

Access to healthcare is a human right, article 25. While many of us have access to emergency care, it is not all healthcare. Just because someone can get to the emergency room doesn't mean they will be ok. They could become injured severely or die.

The young adults 18+ and the elderly in this country both have problems accessing dental care. The head of AUT's school of oral health explains that “There is a gap [for them] but there is gap for a lot of adult patients including low income earners and beneficiaries – these people are all falling through the cracks". This was in 2006 and while some strides had been made to get better oral healthcare, they couldn't be rolled out completely before the new National government.

The New Zealand Medical Journal investigated the cost of oral healthcare for the elderly. The concluded that: "Problems exist in the provision of affordable oral health care for the older population in Aotearoa New Zealand. They struggle to afford dental care. They receive little financial support to access oral healthcare services and are dependent on developing their own strategies to enable such care. Health professionals and policy decisionmakers’ challenge is to bridge this gap."

This is not an easy issue but it's only going to get worse if it isn't addressed. While National have put some preventatitive strategies in place, it doesn't mean we should ignore problems we have now.

Water Poverty: How to combat it (from the WHO)

DEVASTATION: This startling picture of the White House, by Saddington & Baynes for WaterAid and End Water Poverty, marks a meeting of 30 nations to discuss the problem of water poverty.

Four days after my last post discussing water and oil, the World Health Organisation released its annual sanitation and drinking water report.

"There is no doubt that if ministers and leaders had to endure these conditions in their own backyard they would take immediate action. Today they have the opportunity to do so and help bring an end to this scandalous crisis." - Barbara Frost (on Stuff)

The Global Annual Assessment of Sanitation and Drinking-Water (GLAAS) (warning, 23.7 MB)

The report found that diarrhoeal disease in children has a greater impact than malaria, tuberculosis and HIV/AIDS combined. Improving sanitation and drinking water could reduce the death of 2.2 million children a year. Sanitation would save a lot of money for these developing countries. Money that could be spent on healthcare, food, protection and education. There is four reccomendations in it:

Recommendation 1 - Developing countries and external support agencies to demonstrate greater political commitment to sanitation and drinking-water, given their central role in human and economic development.

Reccomendation 2 - External support agencies and developing countries to consider how to better target resources to accelerate progress towards meeting the sanitation and drinking-water MDG(Millenium Development Goal) target.

Reccomendation 3 - Developing countries and external support agencies to strengthen national and subnational systems to plan, implement and monitor the delivery of sanitation and drinking-water services, especially to unserved populations.

Reccomendation 4 - All stakeholders to work in partnership to support the development and implementation of national plans for sanitation and drinkingwater, using their particular skills and resources and aligning with national systems.

So what do these reccomendations mean? What are supporting agencies, stakeholders, subnational plans and the MDG target? Do these words really mean anything? Let's have a look. Specifically at page 70, where they expand on these reccomendations. However instead of writing in UN english, I'll be writing in plain english or at least trying to.

Recommendation 1 - There needs to be a bigger commitment to clean and drinkable water. Specifically from developing countries and any supporting agencies like the Red Cross or United Nations Development program. This is because water's essential for health and their businesses. Here's how you do it:

• Increase money and effort into sanitation and getting more drinkable water. This is done through developing countries and external support agencies, like the ones mentioned. (R1a)
• Find how much resources(eg. money, volunteers, vehicles) you need for drinking water and sanitation compared to other social services. This way you can use them more efficiently. For instance, if your village has two cars available, use one to pick clean water up early in the morning from the well. Then use it to do whatever the village needs done the rest of the day. Have the other one reserved as an ambulance. (R1b)
• Convince the people affected by water poverty, mostly the government and citizens, that having more drinking water and sanitation will boost the economy. That it's worth working towards. (R1c)

Reccomendation 2 - Think of how to use resources more effectively. This is so a country can reduce by half people without access to safe drinking water and basic sanitation(Millenium Development Goal). This means:

• Have your highest authorities discuss resources available for basic sanitation and drinking water for people without access to them. (R2a)
• Measure your progress on reducing the people without clean water and basic sanitation by half. Have set goals per year. It's a bit like going on a diet. You're a 160 kg overweight man trying to get down to 80 kg. For your first year you aim to lose 10 kg, a year after that 15 kg etc until you're down to 80. (R2b)

Reccomendation 3 - Strengthen national and regional systems to plan, implement and monitor the delivery of clean drinking water and sanitation. Make sure this is done especially for people without access to clean water and sanitation.

• In country development plans, make sure there are clear roles in institutes responsible for delivering sanitation and drinking water. The leading institutions and roles are accountable for delivery. This gives a clear frame work to work in and wont cause confusion. (R3a)
• Make sure that accurate and reliable data is available for regions. This means nobody's slacking off or making up figures. (R3b)
• Prepare and implement plans to use people available who will get sanitation and clean drinking water. This means who will be cleaners, water deliverers and who'll be responsible for maintaining certain facilities. (R3c)

Reccomendation 4 - A partnership of people with the needed skills and resources to implementing national clean drinking water plans.

• Have external support agencies find ways to deliver clean water and sanitation. Let them partner with investors wanting economical benefits or organisations that have money to support them. Don't reveal who they are. Their role is to give money and follow their legal contract to give it. (R4a)
• Have the countries and citizens work with external support agencies to lower by half people without clean water or sanitation. (R4b)

Of course these are only reccomendations. Some developing countries might try something completely different. But I hope these developing countries will get access to clean and safe drinking water. It will be a cornerstone for peace. For more information on Water Poverty, you can check out the WHO's booklet: The Right to Water

“Access to safe water is a fundamental human need and, therefore, a basic human right. Contaminated water jeopardizes both the physical and social health of all people. It is an affront to human dignity.” - Kofi Annan, United Nations Secretary-General.

Meritocracy: Whose reward?

Ah that Genghis, what will he do next?

On a serious note, finding a balance between being awarded for work and being able to live from it is an issue. Many people work in sweatshops to earn what a checkout person in New Zealand earns working for 15 minutes. Thats if your lucky.

Dosomething.org shares several facts about Sweatshops. Facts such as how many earn as little as 1/4th for their basic human needs. Most of their income is spent on food. The US government also selectively gives aid to countries that have sweatshops operated by US companies. The Anti-Slavery society gives more insight into sweatshops: "Many children in Asia are kidnapped or otherwise trapped in servitude, where they work in factories and workshops for no pay and receive constant beatings."

In highschool I remember a world vision volunteer visiting my class before New Zealand's yearly 40 hour famine. He discussed how the conditions in sweatshops were better than many alternatives. These alternatives included digging in the trash, trying to look for garbage to sell. If you were blind or disabled, you would dig in the garbage at night. I think he didn't want to break our young spirits by explaining other some of the other alternatives. Unfortunately I think some of us could already guess.

Harvard Business School doctoral student Neeru Paharia and Professor Rohit Deshpandé have several ideas to stop sweatshops. They include:

• Stopping the desire for sweatshop products
• Empowering consumers to drive the opinion on how products should be made
• That shoppers become more self-aware about sweatshops themselves

Neeru Paharia also had this to add: "It's troubling that so much of our social and economic system is based on our moral judgment, especially if it's easy for us to justify our actions based on what we want." If you want it, it's yours as long as you can pay for it. You can be awarded for your work. No worries about the child's award for all their hard work. Their hard work can be your award.

This is a problem with Meritocracy in our system. Of course in New Zealand we aren't a pure meritocracy. We do have a mininum wage and a welfare system that is suppose to ensure people aren't in poverty in New Zealand. However problems do exist and so does poverty in New Zealand for that matter. Who receives an award can vary based on age, race and sex.

Individuality does have a link with Meritocracy. Humans have a long history of working towards their goals and being awarded for doing so. However some people forget that we don't all play on a level playing field. The work we can do is influenced by our DNA, the circumstances we were born under and the community. As well as this there are people who want to steal awards and claim them for themselves. Sweatshops are an example of this.

Dr. Joseph H. Saleh is Assistant Professor of Aerospace Engineering at the Georgia Institute of Technology. He was also a technical consultant for NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory. When working for the Michigan Institute of Technology, he had some comments and suggestions for a fairer Meritocracy:

"Consistency and transparency on what constitutes merit are necessary conditions for a meritocracy to actually be one... Meritocracy requires that we first articulate what constitutes "merit," and what constitutes merit in turn should reflect 1) our values, 2) what kind of people we want to attract and retain, and 3) what kind of behaviors we want to promote and encourage. So while talking about meritocracy, perhaps even better while talking about a "caring meritocracy," we can also talk about our shared values at MIT."

With this combination of ethics and engineering, maybe we could use this to benefit New Zealand's social and economic system? We could make our system:

1. Have more transperacy about how products are made and come from
   
2. Reflect Aotearoa New Zealand's values
3. Attract people to our country that appreciate these values
   
4. Promote and encourage behaviours based on Aotearoa New Zealand's values
   

To some extent our system does these four things already. But not to a totally large extent. I'd say many some products sold in New Zealand have involved slave labour in some form unfortunately. I also think the Warehouse wouldn't be too pleased if people knew where their bargains were coming from. However recognising a problem is usually the first way to fixing it. As well as this, some people feel they are too small to change the system and may be blind to the benefit of working as a group.

As for Aotearoa New Zealand's values, they can be hard to pinpoint. Our national anthem doesn't give us much of a clue about what these values are. I'm all for saving the Queen but I'm also for saving other people as well. The well-regarded New Zealand historian Michael King does give us some suggestions about where New Zealand's values come from.

In his interview with Kim Hill Michael talked about the values within New Zealand which are from Maori and Pakeha(NZ Europeans): "Pakeha culture is largely derived from Europe, its more individually oriented whereas Maori culture is more communally oriented. Pakeha culture has all sorts of other values that New Zealanders think are precious, like protecting the underdog, not having great extremes of wealth and extremities of poor. There’s a whole list of these things." How do you define a underdog? What is extremely wealthy or poor? And how can you have a combination of collectivism and individuality? For instance in individuality you usually earn your respect. Generally though in Maori culture, you are already born with it due to your inherited mana. As Michael explains, the values New Zealanders share are many. Investigating some practical definitions would be helpful.

Dwight Furrow is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at San Diego Mesa College, USA. Furrow(2005, p.4) explains in his book Ethics that humans often base their ethical behaviour on beliefs and habits they've learned early in life. Infact Furrow(2005, p.1) also says teachers and parents are responsible for teaching ethical behaviour. We are all individuals with our own individual needs and thoughts. But there are things that must be taught by the collective in order for people to be in a safe society. A collective teaching and encouraging New Zealand's values would play a part in a fair New Zealand Meritocracy.

David Perry director of Vann Center for ethics at Davidson College gives some insight into preventing people being exploited by meritocracy. Within his review of Tobias Wolff's novel Old School, he states that "our ethical system [at Davidson] is opposed to the contemptuous, arrogant and cruel sort of meritocracy advocated by Ayn Rand (91-96). Our code of honor at Davidson, unlike hers, is joined at the hip with mercy and forgiveness." He acknowledges that problems and unfairness happen in the real world and meritocracy should make room for this.


Genghis Khan shows us some of meritocracys pros and pitfalls. We can earn rewards through hard work. But these rewards aren't always earned fairly, they can be stolen from others and we don't always get the same rewards for the same work. Rewards play a part in our individuality and can help us gain meaning to our lives. But exploiting others for rewards makes us earn them unfairly. This hurts society, which hurts us for being part of society.

Peak Oil VS Peak Water

I hear about Peak Oil. There is growing concerns that the world will not meet its energy supply needs. It seems to me that we have a much bigger problem on our hands. Humanity's water supply is limited right now. But let's compare Oil and Water first.

Let's look at Oil first.



Oil

How much do we have?

According to the US Government's Energy Information Administration, at least 1184.208 to 1238.892 billion barrels of oil. Infact according to the International Energy Agency: "The world’s energy resources are adequate to meet the projected demand increasethrough to 2030 and well beyond." In 2006 we were consuming 30 billion barrels a year. Of course I'm not saying we own the earth(Private property is theft rar rar. Just kidding.). I'm talking about the oil we have available.

So why the fuss?

Well, according Kjell Aleklett(Professor of Physics at Uppsala University, Sweden, and President of the Association for the Study of Peak Oil & Gas): "The oil industry and IEA accept the fact that the total production from existing oil fields is declining."(World Watch 2006, p. 10) As well as this, the US military says our surplus oil production capacity could disappear as early as 2015. This means while we have lots of oil, we aren't able to get to it enough to meet our needs.

The use of oil also contributes to the widely academically accepted fact of man-influenced climate change. As well as this the oil we mostly have is in countries with a track record of corrupt government.

























Now I think we need to eventually switch to an alternative. But right now there's just not anything like oil to help us. We need it for our ships, our planes, cars and buses.

So what can be done?

Well I think we can do quite a bit. We could invest more money into energy research instead of war. We can make use of economical vehicles. Yeah this is pretty basic.

So here's something complicated: "[Government] Policy[s] should impose a large Btu or carbon tax on energy that is phased in over a long period, perhaps 20 years. This would signal entrepreneurs that there will be a market for alternative energies. Furthermore, increases in the energy tax should be offset by reducing other taxes, such as payroll or corporate taxes. Economic studies show that such an approach can generate a win-win solution—reduce energy use (and the environmental damages not paid by users), stimulate research and development on alternative energies, and speed economic growth."

So what is Rober Kaufmann(World Watch 2006, p. 20-21)(Professor in the center for Energy & Enviornment studies at Boston University) saying? Make a oil tax that slowly increases over a 20 year period. At the same time, personal and business taxes would slowly be reduced. Entrepreneurs will try to make alternative economical fuels or very economical engines, hoping to get rich. It'll be win win for both of us. Personally, I'd prefer for governments to do the research. If there's an alternative energy business monopoly it could screw everybody over. It could be more expensive than oil, though more enviornmentally friendly. However this is something we could do.

Now let's look at water.



Water

How much do we have?

They say if aliens discovered earth, they wouldn't call it earth. They'd call it water. That's because at least 70% of the earths surface is covered in water.

So what's the fuss?

Canada's Enviornment Department says our drinkable rivers, aquifer and lakes are limited. They are 2.5% of the water in the world. It's scattered and not everybody has access to it. Over 1 in 6 people don't have access to safe drinking water. Nearly 5/12 people have no water sanitation (UN 2005). As well as this, 2/3 people could face water scarcity in the next 20 years due to political and climate issues. (UN 2009)

So what can be done?

The World Health Organisation states that a clean water supply and sanitation is one of the greatest things we can do to reduce poverty. Infact they state for every dollar put into drinkable water and sanitation, we would achieve a return of 3 to 34 dollars. That's a 1:3-34 cost to benefit ratio. The cost of drinkable water and sanitation is $11.3 billion a year. Considering the world has around 2.5 billion people without proper sanitation, that would be $4.52 per person. $4.52 a year to give someone a basic necessity of human life (WHO 2005, p. 32). United Nations Deputy Secretary-General Asha-Rose Migiro has also warned we need to insure we have integral ecosystems. This "means promoting peaceful collaboration in the sharing of water resources, particularly in the case of boundary and transboundary water resources.” (UN 2009)

Now let's draw a conclusion.


I think we could live in a country where oil is strictly regulated if we end up with not much oil. It would annoy us at first but we could adjust. I doubt we'll be doing that however. It's too authoritarian for peoples tastes. But the fact is oils likely to get more expensive. I don't think we could live without water. One of my biggest fears is that we will neglect the issue of accessible drinkable water in favour of looking for alternative energy. Political corruption and terrorism is affecting humanitys supply of water. Lack of water is affecting humanity far more right now than a lack of oil.

"Human ingenuity is one resource that won’t peak—but whether it can be mobilized quickly enough to surmount these challenges is not yet clear." - Christopher Flavin, President of the Worldwatch Institute.