Archives for the 'International' Category
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Great Britain’s vaunted National Health Service denied a 61-year-old woman a heart operation because she was too old. Can’t waste the money!
But then the media got involved. Reports the Daily Mail:
However late yesterday, following media interest in Mrs Simpson’s plight, the PCT backed down and agreed to fund her treatment.
Medical director Dr David Geddes apologised to Mrs Simpson for the “distress” caused by the delay.
He said: “We have reviewed the case in the light of the additional clinical information and national guidance and, as Mrs Simpson fits the clinical criteria, we have agreed funding for her treatment.”
“All decisions are taken on individual clinical needs; we do not discriminate on the grounds of age.
“Our procedures exist to ensure fair decision-making, based on clinical evidence, for all our patients.”
Of course. Just an innocent mistake.
Remind me again why we should nationalize health care in America …
Job-Killing Sugar Quotas Continue, Milking Consumers
Say bye bye to more American manufacturing jobs. The Washington Post editorialized today about sugar import quotas and price supports contained in the bloated federal farm bill, which have ”driven some U.S. candy producers either out of business or overseas” by increasing U.S. sugar prices. It costs consumers a bundle in higher prices to benefit a handful of subsidized American sugar producers, while antagonizing and impoverishing poor countries in the Caribbean and Latin America. The President has criticized the bloated farm bill, but may not do anything to block it, given his weak political position and other priorities. In Reason, Ronald Bailey describes the many ways that the current farm bill wastes taxpayer money and takes from the poor to give to the rich. In the National Review, Fran Smith earlier wrote about “the outrageous U.S. sugar regime,” which has cost taxpayers billions to benefit “a small number of large sugar-cane and sugar-beet producers.”
Reality causing anti-biotech hegemony to waver
As reports of food prices going through the ceiling are trickling in, some of the countries that traditionally reject plants bred with molecular plant breeding methods (PMBs) are reconsidering.
Japan’s largest corn processor have started buying PMB corn for human consumption, although Japan have permitted PMBs for animal feed.
63,000 tons of PMB corn arrived in Seoul, South Korea on Thursday last week and officials said that they couldn’t get hold of enough non-PMB corn because the European’s are sweeping the small supply that exists off the market.
The trouble with getting hold of non-PMB crops has hurt inside Europe too, a corner stone factory that processed food oils in my hometown in Norway shut down in 2005, and EU official’s thinks that the rice in food prices might sway the European political opposition against PMBs, we can only hope and see…
How many EU bureacrats does it take to lift an import ban?
How long should it take to lift an import ban, when all the parties agree that there are no health safety or science issues involved? In the EU, it has taken 11 years and it is still working on the issue.
My buddy Richard North, author and former food safety inspector blogged about the EU ban on US poultry imports recently, when EU promised to deliver a “progress report” on their efforts to lift the import ban.
According to North, the EU banned US poultry imports because US poultry farmers wash the poultry in a disinfectant to eliminate pathogens such as e. coli and such. This is not allowed in the EU, so they stopped importing poultry from the US. EU’s version of the FDA has said this practice is not only safe, but desirable. EU bureaucrats however, know how angry EU poultry farmers will be if the ban is lifted, so they are dragging their feet, just like they do in every other case of import bans on agricultural products.
North says if it comes down to the safety of EU consumers and the coddling of EU food producers, EU will choose coddling any day. Gods forbid that the benevolent government should protect the consumers they repeatedly claim they protect!
-And the answer to the question in the headline? I don’t know, cause the EU has yet to lift an import ban of importance…
EU not likely to settle PMB haggling in May either…
EU was supposed to have an authoritative discussion on plants bred with molecular plant breeding techniques (PMB’s) in May. The organization has been fined by the WTO for using PMB bans as a trade barrier but stubborn politicians are blackmailing each other with approvals and denials of various organisms, costing consumers and companies billions of Euros. According the story from Reuters, it does not seem that the May discussion will resolve any issues either…
Wealth is created one person at a time
Many people I know are passionate about eradicating poverty. Out of all the ailments that humans suffer from, poverty is one of the cruelest and dehumanizing situations that one can find one self in. Poverty is not defined by how many dollars you have to live on every day, it is not defined by what percentage of income you are below. Poverty is lack of options; it is that simple.
The problem with our political class today is that they build these amazing projects to help poor people, organizations like the UN, the Worldbank, and countless NGO’s create these projects that supposedly will help the people with the fewest options in the world. They are spending millions and millions of dollars and failing miserably.
The Grameen Foundation, with their micro loans and micro utility systems has understood that wealth is created at the individual level. If you help people get credit, so they can do the investments needed to expand their livelihood, their lives will change. Grameen got the Nobel Prize in 2007 for this insight.
Someone else who has understood this is a guy named Paul Polak. After years of being a psychologist, he found that alleviating financial troubles had a profound effect on alleviating their mental illnesses. A trip to Bangladesh inspired him to start up International Development Enterprises, a non-profit that helps adapt modern farming technologies to small rural farms and helps build micro economies and local markets.
In the last 25 years, Paul Polak has helped individuals in the poorest rural communities around the world increase their income by $200 million. No government-to-government program can claim such a success. Polak wrote about his work and his method in a book called Out of Poverty, that was published recently, and you can also learn more about his work by listening to the NPR interview with him.
Eat a Kangaroo to Save the Environment?
A story in the Wall Street Journal suggests it is time to once again eat kangaroos, to protect the environment, and cope with Kangaroo overpopulation problems. “Greenpeace has recommended that Australians substitute kangaroo meat for consumption of other red meats to reduce land clearing and the release of methane gas from flatulent cattle and sheep. Kangaroo meat is a sought-after meal in Australian restaurants and charcuteries. Recipes like kangaroo escalopes with spinach and anchovy butter, kangaroo tail soup, or kangaroo strip loin pan roasted on balsamic mash are not unusual on the menus of fine restaurants.”
Of course, as Doug Bandow noted earlier today, eating animals can also save endangered species by giving people an incentive to harvest them rather than destroying their habitat or exterminating them. People owning animals helps ensure their survival, too: that’s part of why there are a heck of a lot more chickens than passenger pigeons (a now extinct species which were once as numerous in America as chickens are today), and far more cattle than buffalo.
Eating locally, touted as good for the environment, often isn’t: one study found it was better for the environment for English people to eat lamb that was imported from New Zealand rather than raised in England. And culinary prejudices often keep people from eating local foods that truly do tax the environment less, like cicadas, which are very tasty when microwaved for just a short time, but which few people eat despite the fact that they can easily be collected in large quantities when they periodically emerge from the earth. (In the Washington, D.C. suburbs, they come out in huge numbers once every 17 years).
Fed Cuts Interest Rates, Triggering More Inflationary Pressures
The Fed has cut interest rates again, reducing its key rate to 2 percent — a real interest rate of less than zero, after taking into account inflation. It will be about as ineffective (in stimulating the economy) as pushing on a string. But it will trigger renewed inflationary pressures. International investors are already disgusted with the Fed’s inflationary attempts to bail out borrowers by chopping interest rates, and this will make them even more reluctant to invest in the U.S.
Drill for Oil to Save the Environment
In the Washington Post, Robert Samuelson’s column “Start Drilling“ points out that ethanol production is far worse for the environment than drilling for oil in Alaska’s Arctic tundra, yet Congress promotes ethanol subsidies to reduce our reliance on foreign oil, even as it blocks drilling in the Arctic and ”the Atlantic and Pacific coasts” that would do far more to reduce our reliance on foreign oil. “What keeps these areas closed are exaggerated environmental fears, strong prejudice against oil companies and sheer stupidity,” he writes.
A news story today in the Post describes how ethanol production is devouring our food supply, even though a study shows that “greenhouse-gas emissions from corn and even cellulosic ethanol ‘exceed or match those from fossil fuels and therefore produce no greenhouse benefits.’ By encouraging an expansion of acreage, the study added, the use of U.S. cropland for ethanol could make climate conditions dramatically worse. And the runoff from increased use of fertilizers on expanded acreage would compound damage to waterways all the way to the Gulf of Mexico.”
In the American Spectator, Iain Murray notes that ethanol production has caused “food shortages and massive increases in food prices around the world. There have been food riots in Indonesia, Mexico, Egypt, and most recently, Haiti — where the poor have been reduced to eating cakes made with bleach and are on the verge of bringing the government down. Even in America, some grocery stores have begun to institute a form of rationing. Meanwhile, massive tracts of rainforest are being cleared in Indonesia to produce biodiesel, threatening the orangutan and other magnificent animals with extinction. In Brazil, the growth of sugar cultivation for ethanol is forcing food producers into the Amazon.”
By contrast, one of the Audubon Society’s chief bird sanctuaries (the Paul J. Rainey Wildlife Refuge in Louisiana), has 37 oil wells on site, and has produced natural gas for 50 years without harming the environment. Drilling for oil hasn’t harmed the birds a bit. But ethanol production causes environmental destruction, mass hunger, starvation, and rioting worldwide.
Disclosure: like many Americans, I have a retirement plan (both a 401(K) and an IRA). Like most retirement plans, it contains mutual funds. And most of those mutual funds own some stock in oil companies. So when politicians demand that the government impose a “windfall profits tax” on oil companies, what they are really trying to do is take money from my retirement plan — and your retirement plan, too, if you have one. That’s not going to encourage exploration for new sources of oil, or reduce our dependence on foreign oil.
More on Deadly Ethanol Subsidies
Nate Beeler has an an excellent editorial cartoon, “Food for Thought,” that captures the deadly and costly consequences of ethanol subsidies, in today’s Washington Examiner. Many go hungry because of the greed of a few. We wrote earlier about how ethanol subsidies are causing hunger and starvation worldwide. Rioting and violent protests have occurred in many countries, including Mexico, Pakistan, Egypt, Indonesia, Haiti, El Salvador, Bangladesh, Burkina Faso, Ivory Coast, Cameroon, Senegal, Ethiopia, Mauritania, Madagascar, and the Philippines. Ethanol subsidies are also contributing to environmental destruction.
Kristof: Stop Antagonizing the World
Nicholas Kristof has a column today in the New York Times, “Better Roses Than Cocaine,” in favor of the proposed free-trade agreement with Colombia, and debunking common claims made against it. We earlier described how House leaders pushed through special tax breaks for an oil company controlled by Venezuela’s anti-American dictator, even as they seek to undermine Colombia’s pro-American government and block a deal that would spur even more economic growth here than in Colombia. The Washington Post, in an editorial, also questioned why they’re helping Venezuela’s “repressive government” while attacking Colombia’s “democratic government.”
Congressman Frank’s Mortgage Bailout Pays A Disastrous “Ransom”
In his interview with The Economist, Congressman Barney Frank undermines the case for his much-criticized mortgage bailout bill. He admits that such bailouts create serious “moral hazard” problems, and that any recession they are intended to mitigate will probably be over by next year anyway. But he says his bill is needed to keep home prices from falling faster than he thinks they should, even if we as a society “have to pay a ransom” to do that. His bill, he claims, pays that ransom in the least objectionable way, since it focuses on bailing out borrowers rather than lenders. (The American public opposes mortgage bailouts, both for borrowers and for lenders, according to public opinion polls).
But his bill is an insult to thrifty people everywhere. Frank’s bill proposes to bail out people who borrowed so much (and made such small down payments) that their mortgages are actually bigger than the current value of their homes. He would reward those borrowers by writing down their mortgages to their homes’ “current market value” (a write-off that by definition would not apply to thriftier, more responsible borrowers who made larger downpayments), even though he admits that for some of them, their plight is the result of “their own irresponsibility.” Such a bailout will foster future housing bubbles, as subprime borrowers realize that they can gamble at taxpayer expense on housing prices continuing to rise, and expect a bailout if they end up not being able to afford their mortgage.
In his interview, Frank admits that his bill would guarantee $300 billion worth of risky mortgages. But he claims that it would cost taxpayers only 1 percent or so of that. The Wall Street Journal takes a different view. It warns taxpayers to “hold onto your wallet.” It says that Frank’s bill would actually encourage borrowers to default on their loans to be eligible for a bailout. Under it, bailout beneficiaries would get something (a new, smaller, lower-rate mortgage) for nothing. And the Journal predicts, based on economic studies, that a lot of irresponsible borrowers would default on their new, smaller loan, too, sticking taxpayers with the tab for even more money.
There is absolutely no reason for Congress to bail out subprime borrowers who took out bigger mortgages than they could afford (especially since some of them exaggerated their incomes to get those mortgages, or borrowed to live beyond their means so that they could buy big houses and fancy cars).
Back in March, Congressman Frank gave an even more dubious rationale for his bailout proposal: to prop up property tax collections by local governments in the United States. He complained about “a drop in the tax revenue” in “communities where foreclosures cluster.”
That is a very weak rationale for bailing out irresponsible people. During the real estate bubble, local government revenue exploded as property values — and thus property taxes — skyrocketed. As a result, public employee compensation grew to absurd levels. In New Jersey, many public employees can retire at age 55 for close to their full salary. In Washington, D.C. suburbs, even teachers — who are far from being the best paid public employees — now often have generous compensation packages that average over $100,000 annually, including salaries of over $70,000, and pension and other benefits worth around $30,000 annually, far more than most private-sector employees receive.
With a little belt-tightening, local governments could easily make do. But instead, they’re doing just the opposite. For example, a typical Washington, D.C. suburb (Arlington County, Virginia) has adopted a so-called “austerity” budget that increases spending by over 5 percent! There’s nothing austere about increasing spending faster than inflation.
The real estate bubble needs to pop. Until it does, the U.S. economy will not experience strong and sustained growth. The government should stop trying to artificially prop up home prices, which just delays the inevitable. Doing so encourages sellers to keep their homes on the market for months on end at artificially-inflated prices no buyer will pay, in the vain hope that the government will come along and somehow pump home prices back up to that inflated price. As George Mason University Law Professor David E. Bernstein notes, some would-be sellers simply refuse to sell their homes at their true current market value, stubbornly insisting instead on receiving the value at which their home was assessed at the height of the real estate bubble.
In the meantime, American politicians’ support for bailouts that shower money on irresponsible borrowers, their apparent unwillingness to let borrowers suffer the consequences of their financial irresponsibility, and America’s lax monetary policy, are leading to a loss of confidence in our economy by international investors. That’s triggering a fall in the dollar, reduced investment in the U.S., and renewed inflationary pressures.
Food Crisis Round Up
As food prices soars to new heights, researchers at Texas A&M makes a potentially revolutionary discovery. They discover a plant gene for saline tolerance in Arabidopsis. Arabidopsis is the trusty old model organism for plant scientists, and this discovery will help us produce new plants using molecular plant breeding methods (PMB’s), if the environmentalists will let us.
Although some of our current ailments are based on ill conceived ethanol mandates, subsidies that skew the food markets, and increased consumption in India and China, a recent op ed in the Telegraph joins a more and more unified Brittish demand for adopting PMB’s. The op ed also points the finger in the direction of OPEC, and the hypocrisy of leaders like Hugo Chavez. Chavez is supposedly a champion of the poor, but the high oil prices caused by the cartel’s price fixing are part of the problem with the rise in the cost of food.
Parts of the Arab world are harvesting the riches from the price fixing, it is important to remember that not all countries in the Arab world have oil. The region is balancing on a precarious edge between civil unrest and political chaos by choosing either of the options available to alleviate the situation.
Zimbabwe is again looking at starvation, not only due to the food prices, but also due to new bouts of drought. Last time they faced this situation, about 6 years ago, the government in Zimbabwe refused to accept aid shipments of maize because the grains came from PMB’s. This is the same corn that Americans eat every day. Luckily the starving population would not stand for this decision, spurred on by jet-setting environmental activists from Europe and USA. They raided the food containers, so the grain eventually got the people it was intended for, but what will the misguided leaders in Zimbabwe do this time around?
On the good news side, Ethopia opened up its first commodity exchange last week, which will lower the transaction cost for several major commodities in the country. Hopefully that will help Ethiopian farmers and consumers with lower cost for important foodstuffs.
Is Sweden Really Green or Just Rich?
Brian Williams and his team at NBC announced Sweden to be the greenest country on the planet, and I sure hope their correspondent enjoyed her Sweden junket. However, according to the environmental performance index, Switzerland is the greenest country in the world. But that probably doesn’t work for people who want to portray overly regulated and taxed countries like Scandinavia as the best places in the world to live.
Ok, so granted, Sweden has done a great job at meeting their Kyoto goals, because they do not have oil and have relied on nuclear power for so many years. Sweden is also a rich country, and this is where NBC’s reporting fall way short. If you look at the environmental performance index, it is easy to see that the countries that are ranked high on environmental performance with few exceptions are countries with a high GDP per capita.
The conclusion is the one that you will hear the amazing policy fellows at CEI repeat over and over again, wealthier is healthier and richer is cleaner. The greenest thing you could have done to celebrate Lenin’s birthday today, eh…, I mean to celebrate earth day today is to help increase free trade, help do something to get another poor farmer or factory worker in a developing country get out of poverty. If they get rich, they can afford to clean up their environment, just like the countries on top of the environmental performance index have been able to do.
Ethanol Subsidies Kill Forests and People and Scar the Planet
In the Washington Post, two prominent environmentalists have an editorial, “Ethanol’s Failed Promise,” which explains how ethanol subsidies and mandates are destroying the environment and fueling hunger and violence worldwide. “Turning one-fourth of our corn into fuel is affecting global food prices. U.S. food prices are rising at twice the rate of inflation, hitting the pocketbooks of lower-income Americans and people living on fixed incomes. . .Deadly food riots have broken out in dozens of nations in the past few months, most recently in Haiti and Egypt. World Bank President Robert Zoellick warns of a global food emergency.”
Moreover, note Lester Pearson and Jonathan Lewis, ”food-to-fuel mandates are leading to increased environmental damage. First, producing ethanol requires huge amounts of energy — most of which comes from coal. Second, the production process creates a number of hazardous byproducts, and some production facilities are reportedly dumping these in local water sources. Third, food-to-fuel mandates are helping drive up the price of agricultural staples, leading to significant changes in land use with major environmental harm. Here in the United States, farmers are pulling land out of the federal conservation program, threatening fragile habitats. . .Most troubling, though, is that the higher food prices caused in large part by food-to-fuel mandates create incentives for global deforestation, including in the Amazon basin. As Time Magazine reported this month, huge swaths of forest are being cleared for agricultural development. The result is devastating: We lose an ecological treasure and critical habitat for endangered species, as well as the world’s largest ‘carbon sink.’ And when the forests are cleared and the land plowed for farming, the carbon that had been sequestered in the plants and soil is released. Princeton scholar Tim Searchinger has modeled this impact and reports in Science magazine that the net impact of the food-to-fuel push will be an increase in global carbon emissions — and thus a catalyst for climate change.”
In Human Events, Deroy Murdock explains how rising food prices resulting from ethanol have forced Haitians to literally eat dirt (dirt cookies made of vegetable oil, salt, and dirt), caused tortilla riots in Mexico, and fueled violent protests in unstable “powder kegs” like Pakistan and Egypt.
We previously wrote about the unsavory politics that led to this crisis, the rioting it has caused, and the starvation that countless people across the globe face as a result. Finance ministers and central bankers are now calling for an end to ethanol and other biofuel subsidies and mandates in an effort to prevent enormous loss of life.
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