This is a blank post, put here to deal with problems linking to the top post on the page.
I’m still in relaxation/holiday mode, so I don’t plan a permanent fix of the problem for a while. Thanks to Yobbo, who has pointed out a diagnosis and possible solution in the comments.
I watched some of the telethon last night and was impressed by the amounts of money being raised. The entertainment was a little less to my taste, but I suppose you can’t please everybody, so the aim is to attract as many as possible.
The worldwide response to the tsunami disaster has been equally impressive, though no more than was merited by a tragedy on such a large scale. But tsunamis are not the only disaster affecting humanity. Preventable diseases kill millions every year, and the disability caused by diseases like malaria is a huge drain on economic growth in many poor countries. For $US50 billion a year, we could implement the program proposed by the Commission on Macroeconomics and Health which would, quite literally, save millions of lives. Based on our share of developed-country GDP, Australia’s share of this would be only about $1 billion. The US could finance the entire program with the money currently being spent in Iraq. Europe and Japan could easily meet their shares by scrapping farm policies that harm both domestic consumers and poor farmers in less developed countries. Or the whole thing could be done out of private donations of around fifty dollars per person per year – well below one per cent of personal income.
If we could only make the kind of concern that’s been displayed over the past couple of weeks a permanent feature of our personal and political priorities, the world would be a much better place.
Update Reader and Uni of Maryland colleague Darrell Hueth points me to this piece by Nicholas Kristof arguing that the use of DDT in anti-malarial programs should be expanded. This issue has been debated at length on this blog, and I think Kristof gets the balance abotu right. Also, if you’re interested in an economic take on the costs and benefits of malaria prevention, the chapter by Mills and Shilcutt in Bjorn Lomborg’s book Global Crises, Global Solutions , coming out of his Copenhagen Consensus exercise, is well worth reading[1].
fn1. As I’ve previously observed, the Copenhagen Consensus, considered as a ranking exercise purporting to private that action to mitigate global warming is a bad idea, was a dishonest political stunt. But a lot of resources went into it and they weren’t all wasted.
The news that the number of university students is declining is far from surprising. The number of Australian students commencing degrees has been roughly static since the Howard government was elected and, contrary to election commitments, imposed broad-ranging cuts on the sector. Writing in the Oz, and also at Catallaxy, Andrew Norton argues that this isn’t a problem.
Norton makes a reasonable case that the decline is due more to a reduction in HECS-funded places than to increases in fees, but since both are policies of the same government, this is a distinction without a difference.
Norton continues with the general line that a contraction in the supply of university graduates isn’t a problem for Australia. His only evidence, though, is that some graduates are in jobs that don’t use their skills. As he concedes, this has always been the case, and the proportion hasn’t changed significantly. The BA driving a taxi was a stock figure in the 1970 (I knew several, so it wasn’t entirely an urban myth). It may well be that some relative expansion of TAFE would be a good thing, but we need expansion in postsecondary education across the board. In any case, TAFE has plenty of problems
Underinvestment in human capital is a big problem for Australia, and we will all pay the price in future.
While most attention has been (rightly) focused on the tsunami tragedy, mayhem has continued in Iraq, leading to suggestions that the elections due for Jan 30 should be postponed. It’s clear enough by now that, in this respect as in others, the Fallujah operation has been a complete strategic failure, as well as being a moral catastrophe for the US[1]. The population, forced by the threat of US terror to flee the city, has not returned, and the idea that elections can go ahead there is a nonsense. Things are little better in the rest of the Sunni triangle. As a result, the elections will be far from satisfactory.
That said, the only real hope is that the elections will be held on time, that they will produce a clear majority for the Shiite coalition endorsed by Sistani, and that the newly elected government will simultaneously reach out to the disaffected Sunnis and demand an immediate timetable for US withdrawal. It’s clear by now that the presence of US forces has done more harm than good in the long run. If Bremer had gone along with Sistani’s proposal for elections a year ago, things would be much better in every way. On the other hand, the situation is now so bad that only a gradual withdrawal can effectively be contemplated. It appears that Sistani and the groups he has backed recognise both of these facts.
John Howard’s response to the tsunami catastrophe has been exactly what I would have (and in fact did) advocate. I’m sure there is some fine print, but a billion dollars is a big commitment. Assuming it’s all new money, it will roughly double our aid/GDP ratio. Even if some of it isn’t new, it’s a big effort.
Update As pointed out by PeterL in comments, my holiday mental arithmetic is out by a factor of ten – current aid is about $1.5 billion per year, and the package is $200m per year
Jack Strocchi sent me this piece by Anne Applebaum asking Does the Right Remember Abu Ghraib? . Since I’ve been critical of her recently, I’m pleased to endorse her comments here.
As recent comments on this blog have shown, the answer to Applebaum’s question is undoubtedly “Yes”. Commenters compared torture in Abu Ghraib and elsewhere to fraternity hazing. As Applebaum observes
U.S. soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan have, according to the administration’s own records and my colleagues’ reporting, used beatings, suffocation, sleep deprivation, electric shocks and dogs during interrogations. They probably still do.
The legal adviser who provided the advice supporting torture as government policy, Alberto Gonzales, will shortly become Attorney-General of the United States.
As most of the world tries to help those stricken by the tsunami disaster stave off starvation and disease, the most depressing news for me is that the Indonesian army is still fighting Acehnese rebels. If ever there was a good time for a unilateral ceasefire, this would surely be that time. I hope that the new Indonesian president will act firmly to put a halt to this, and more generally to bring the army under proper civilian control. I hope also that the rebels will realise that their energy would be better directed towards rebuilding Aceh than towards an almost certainly futile struggle for independence. Much the same could be said of Sri Lanka where the aid effort is being hampered by the long-running civil war there.
Don Arthur, now firmly established at Troppo Armadillo has a characteristically erudite post on Quigginism: John Quiggin’s left wing conservatism As the title indicates, it starts off from my discussion of conservatism and the precautionary principle, but it doesn’t end there. Don has a series of updates on more eminent thinkers such as Oakeshott, Rorty and Giddens. It’s well worth reading, and I look forward to continuing the discussion during 2005.
Even though 2004 was a pretty awful year, there was at least some good news. At the global level, Europe has continued to give an example of a path towards spreading democracy that is not carried on the end of bayonets. The peaceful resolution of the crisis in the Ukraine and the election of a government committed to integration with Europe was one instance, as was the decision to open negotiations with Turkey, which has made great progress in the last few years towards providing a model of an Islamic democracy. As a couple of commentators have already pointed out, there are big challenges ahead and the whole enterprise may fail. Still such challenges have been overcome in the past as the admission of ten new members shows.
Russia’s decision to ratify the Kyoto protocol was another hopeful development. But we’re going to need more than Kyoto and it seems unlikely we’ll get it as long as Bush is in the White House.
At a local level, it’s worth remembering that the loss of life from even the worst disasters that have affected Australia is tiny by comparison with the continuing carnage from road crashes. In this respect, at least, we are making progress. New South Wales recorded its lowest toll in 55 years in 2004, and Victoria its second-lowest
Finally, there is some hope that the response to the tsunami disaster may go beyond the usual short-lived outpouring of sympathy and half-delivered promises of aid. Criticism of the stinginess of the initial response struck a chord, and focused attention on the weakness of the rich world’s aid effort, a weakness made more striking by the willingness to spend hundreds of billions on war. If we must have international rivalry, a race to see who can give most to help others seems like a good outcome.
Update An important piece of good news I forgot to mention was the signing of a peace settlement between the Sudanese government and the southern rebels. Assuming it holds, this will bring to an end a war that has lasted for decades and cost hundreds of thousands of lives. Unfortunately, the fighting in Darfur (in the western part of Sudan) which began more recently is still going on. The world’s attention to this problem has been fitful and inadequate, but perhaps we’ll see something better in 2005.
There have been worse years in recent history than 2004, but not many. The Bam earthquake came just before the beginning of the year, and the tsunami disaster at the end. But man-made catastrophes were probably equally devastating in terms of lives lost, and much worse in terms of the behavior they’ve involved. Just thinking of names like Abu Ghraib, Beslan, Darfur and Fallujah is a reminder of how terrible a year it was.
The standards supposedly upheld by the civilised world have been comprehensively betrayed at places like Abu Ghraib. And whatever evil has been done in our names, our terrorist enemies have shown, in Beslan and in the kidnappings and horrible beheadings that have now become routine, that they can and will do far worse. A few of those directly involved in these crimes have paid, a price, but the leaders who ordered them have not.
The news hasn’t all been bad, and I’ll try to do a post soon pointing to some more hopeful events. But not just now.
