BELGIANS TAKE LOTS OF SICK LEAVE, AND WHY NOT, THEY'RE DEPRESSED
Belgians, like many Europeans, are entitled to extensive or even unlimited sick leave and they tend to stretch the definition of the word. Government employees have been known to call in sick in droves to pack before vacations and to sleep off holiday hangovers. Some government departments were averaging 35 days of paid sick leave per employee each year, more than most western countries.
Europe has long suffered from sick-day disease, and many European governments are trying to fix the problem.
Half of all Belgians on medical leave say they suffer from depression. The country has Western Europe's highest suicide rate.
Source: John W. Miller, "Belgians Take Lots of Sick Leave, And Why Not, They're Depressed," Wall Street Journal, January 9, 2009.
For text:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123145414405365887.html
Wednesday, January 14, 2009
Monday, January 12, 2009
Contemporary Topics in GP
- What do scientists do?
- How does science affect society?
- What makes a humane society?
- Should the punishment fit the crime?
- Is it nature or nurture that best explains human behaviour?
- Where do our values and opinions come from?
- Mass media; representation or reality?
- Do the arts challenge or reflect society?
- Is your country really a democracy?
- Does the world have to change?
- How do new ideas come about?
- How have inventions affected society?
- How do changes in social attitude come about?
- How and why do we measure change in society?
- Do we need religious beliefs?
- Should everyone have the same moral responsibilities?
- How do we decide what is right and wrong?
- Why do people do what they do?
- How should art be valued?
Some worthy website
http://www.natlotcomm.gov.uk/CLIENT/content_subpage.ASP?ContentId=374
Women and Gambling Conference Highlight Report
Women & Gambling Conference
Women & Gambling conference
Women and UK National Lottery Play 2007
Gender and the jackpot 2007
http://www.genewatch.org/ - Genetics Engineering
www.greenpeace.org
Greenpeace exists because this fragile earth deserves a voice. It needs solutions. It needs change. It needs action.Greenpeace is an independent global campaigning organisation that acts to change attitudes and behaviour, to protect and conserve the environment and to promote peace by: Catalysing an energy revolution to address the number one threat facing our planet: climate change. Defending our oceans by challenging wasteful and destructive fishing, and creating a global network of marine reserves. Protecting the world’s ancient forests and the animals, plants and people that depend on them. Working for disarmament and peace by tackling the causes of conflict and calling for the elimination of all nuclear weapons. Creating a toxic free future with safer alternatives to hazardous chemicals in today's products and manufacturing. Campaining for sustainable agriculture by rejecting genetically engineered organisms, protecting biodiversity and encouraging socially responsible farming.
www.genwire.com
Welcome to Gen-Wire.com, for Gen-Yers everywhere! Designed to encourage dialogue, provide articles that can be a resource for professional "Gen-Wire's" & serve as an insight to all visitors
www.britainexpress.com/history - English history and heritage guide
www.theory.org.uk - Explore complex links between media and identities
http://www.britannica.com/ - Online encyclopedia
www.sosig.ac.uk - Social Sciences pages of Intute
Sunday, January 11, 2009
Something to think about.
SHOULD WE PRIVATIZE AIRPORTS?
The regulation of airlines is still a hot topic. Supporters claim that deregulation worked: fares fell dramatically as new entrants clamored to serve competitive markets. Critics point to numerous bankruptcies, industry upheaval and the increasingly miserable experience of passengers as evidence of its failings. Indeed, the United States' first large-scale experiment with private airport ownership began just a few months ago, when Chicago's Midway Airport was sold for $2.5 billion to a consortium.
Yet, in "Aviation Infrastructure Performance: A Study in Comparative Political Economy," several authors explore aviation privatization in other countries:
In Australia, where airports are privately owned in order to optimize efficiency; however, airport operators "under pressure from regional interests" have incentives to make "excessive investments."
Canada's major airports are owned by nonprofit corporations designed to boost airport investment; their investment objectives have been largely achieved, but the nonprofit model has led to higher airport fees than might otherwise prevail.
China's 6 largest airports are publicly listed in order to improve airport efficiency.
However, the UK's big experiment in aviation infrastructure privatization was a failure; privatized in 1986, BAA plc owns London's 3 largest airports, Heathrow, Gatwick and Stansted which together comprise 91 percent of passenger traffic in the southeast of England, but this common ownership has had anticompetitive effects. Moreover, BAA is only capable of handling 1 major project at a time, leaving its other airports and London travelers to languish.
These results affirm that competition, choice and proper incentives are the essential components of a safe and efficient aviation infrastructure sector. U.S. policymakers and airline executives ought to pay close attention.
Source: Evan Sparks, "Should We Privatize Airports?" The American, December 5, 2008.
For text:
http://www.american.com/archive/2008/december-12-08/should-we-privatize-airports
The regulation of airlines is still a hot topic. Supporters claim that deregulation worked: fares fell dramatically as new entrants clamored to serve competitive markets. Critics point to numerous bankruptcies, industry upheaval and the increasingly miserable experience of passengers as evidence of its failings. Indeed, the United States' first large-scale experiment with private airport ownership began just a few months ago, when Chicago's Midway Airport was sold for $2.5 billion to a consortium.
Yet, in "Aviation Infrastructure Performance: A Study in Comparative Political Economy," several authors explore aviation privatization in other countries:
In Australia, where airports are privately owned in order to optimize efficiency; however, airport operators "under pressure from regional interests" have incentives to make "excessive investments."
Canada's major airports are owned by nonprofit corporations designed to boost airport investment; their investment objectives have been largely achieved, but the nonprofit model has led to higher airport fees than might otherwise prevail.
China's 6 largest airports are publicly listed in order to improve airport efficiency.
However, the UK's big experiment in aviation infrastructure privatization was a failure; privatized in 1986, BAA plc owns London's 3 largest airports, Heathrow, Gatwick and Stansted which together comprise 91 percent of passenger traffic in the southeast of England, but this common ownership has had anticompetitive effects. Moreover, BAA is only capable of handling 1 major project at a time, leaving its other airports and London travelers to languish.
These results affirm that competition, choice and proper incentives are the essential components of a safe and efficient aviation infrastructure sector. U.S. policymakers and airline executives ought to pay close attention.
Source: Evan Sparks, "Should We Privatize Airports?" The American, December 5, 2008.
For text:
http://www.american.com/archive/2008/december-12-08/should-we-privatize-airports
Saturday, January 10, 2009
"Multilateral Free Trade: The Obama Letdown"
Jagdish Bhagwati is disappointed with Obama’s position on multilateral trade, and with his "failure to balance his protectionist appointments with powerful trade proponents that would produce a 'team of rivals'":
There were several reasons why one could be optimistic that Obama would follow a pro-trade policy despite “prudential” protectionist talk on the primaries circuit. But his eloquent silence on key trade issues, and his failure to balance his protectionist appointments with powerful trade proponents that would produce a “team of rivals” require that we abandon these illusions and sound an alarm.
Consider Obama’s support for the multilateral trading system. At the outset, it must be admitted that the Doha Round is on hold, and Obama could not move it forward even if he so desired. A principal problem is that its completion turns critically on the US making further reduction in its distorting agricultural subsidies. But the issue has become even more difficult with the collapse of commodity prices and hence increases in support payments. Besides, history shows that the freeing of trade is nearly impossible to manage in times of macroeconomic crisis.
But Obama (unlike Prime Minister Gordon Brown, whose fulsome support for trade is in strong contrast) missed the opportunity, provided by the G20 affirmation of the importance of trade, to affirm resoundingly that he attaches the highest priority to closing the Doha Round and will work on this urgent task throughout the first year of his Administration.
More important, Obama has missed the bus on the question of preventing a slide back into protectionism. His pronouncements on the auto bailout disregard the lessons of the early 1930s when the Smoot-Hawley tariff was legislated in 1930 and a competitive raising of tariff barriers ensued. We learnt then that tariffs and trade restrictions could indeed increase our national income by diverting a given amount of insufficient world demand to our markets. But then others could do the same to divert our demand to their goods, so that the end result was reduced trade and deepened depression. Far better to keep markets open and to increase aggregate world demand instead. So, the architects of the GATT (merged in 1995 into the WTO) built into it institutionalised obstacles to such a destructive outbreak of mutually harmful trade policies.
But really Jagdish, isn't it a bit too early to judge the guy?
There were several reasons why one could be optimistic that Obama would follow a pro-trade policy despite “prudential” protectionist talk on the primaries circuit. But his eloquent silence on key trade issues, and his failure to balance his protectionist appointments with powerful trade proponents that would produce a “team of rivals” require that we abandon these illusions and sound an alarm.
Consider Obama’s support for the multilateral trading system. At the outset, it must be admitted that the Doha Round is on hold, and Obama could not move it forward even if he so desired. A principal problem is that its completion turns critically on the US making further reduction in its distorting agricultural subsidies. But the issue has become even more difficult with the collapse of commodity prices and hence increases in support payments. Besides, history shows that the freeing of trade is nearly impossible to manage in times of macroeconomic crisis.
But Obama (unlike Prime Minister Gordon Brown, whose fulsome support for trade is in strong contrast) missed the opportunity, provided by the G20 affirmation of the importance of trade, to affirm resoundingly that he attaches the highest priority to closing the Doha Round and will work on this urgent task throughout the first year of his Administration.
More important, Obama has missed the bus on the question of preventing a slide back into protectionism. His pronouncements on the auto bailout disregard the lessons of the early 1930s when the Smoot-Hawley tariff was legislated in 1930 and a competitive raising of tariff barriers ensued. We learnt then that tariffs and trade restrictions could indeed increase our national income by diverting a given amount of insufficient world demand to our markets. But then others could do the same to divert our demand to their goods, so that the end result was reduced trade and deepened depression. Far better to keep markets open and to increase aggregate world demand instead. So, the architects of the GATT (merged in 1995 into the WTO) built into it institutionalised obstacles to such a destructive outbreak of mutually harmful trade policies.
But really Jagdish, isn't it a bit too early to judge the guy?
Cooking Indian Style
HOW do you convince 250,000 shareholders, a board including four professors, and a “big four” accounting firm that you have over $1 billion in cash that does not in fact exist? India is still rubbing its eyes in disbelief at the audacious illusion conjured by B Ramalinga Raju, the founder of Satyam, which was once India’s fourth-biggest IT company and is now its most spectacular corporate scandal. He claims to have inflated Satyam's profits over “several years”, cooking the books slowly like the best biryanis. But others think perhaps Satyam’s cash did exist until recently. Now, they conjecture, the money is probably buried in a “land bank”, invested in real estate and property deals that may, or may not, have gone sour.
Economists have shown some ingenuity in detecting the tell-tale signs of private fraud in public data. Most pertinent to the Satyam case may be a paper by Marianne Bertrand, Paras Mehta and Sendhil Mullainathan, which found evidence of “tunnelling” in India in the 1990s. Tunnelling is a term coined in the Czech Republic to describe the transfer of assets out of a company (as if by an underground tunnel) to the detriment of minority shareholders.
In India, the tunnels run through business groups arranged into “pyramids”. The top of the pyramid is a firm controlled by a business family or corporate “promoter”. That firm will then hold controlling stakes in a number of other businesses, which will, in turn, own stakes in a third tier of firms at the base of the pyramid. In this way, the promoters can control the entire pyramid, even though they own the lower tiers of firms only at one or two removes.
What really perplexes me is that despite already having millions, these cavalier business icons who have been entrusted with 1000's of lives, continue to play the market as if it were a game of monopoly. What use is it, if the wealth of the wealthy cannot help others, but be the seed of ruin for thousands.
Economists have shown some ingenuity in detecting the tell-tale signs of private fraud in public data. Most pertinent to the Satyam case may be a paper by Marianne Bertrand, Paras Mehta and Sendhil Mullainathan, which found evidence of “tunnelling” in India in the 1990s. Tunnelling is a term coined in the Czech Republic to describe the transfer of assets out of a company (as if by an underground tunnel) to the detriment of minority shareholders.
In India, the tunnels run through business groups arranged into “pyramids”. The top of the pyramid is a firm controlled by a business family or corporate “promoter”. That firm will then hold controlling stakes in a number of other businesses, which will, in turn, own stakes in a third tier of firms at the base of the pyramid. In this way, the promoters can control the entire pyramid, even though they own the lower tiers of firms only at one or two removes.
What really perplexes me is that despite already having millions, these cavalier business icons who have been entrusted with 1000's of lives, continue to play the market as if it were a game of monopoly. What use is it, if the wealth of the wealthy cannot help others, but be the seed of ruin for thousands.
Sunday, January 4, 2009
Resolution for 2009
We all make one, so why shouldn't the world.
1. Climate-change deal by the end of the year.
2. Lift the embargo on Cuba.
3. Piracy be wiped out in S.E.Asia and in Gulf of Aden.
4. Scaled down operations by coalition forces in middle-east.
5. Solve the financial mess.
Anything else?
1. Climate-change deal by the end of the year.
2. Lift the embargo on Cuba.
3. Piracy be wiped out in S.E.Asia and in Gulf of Aden.
4. Scaled down operations by coalition forces in middle-east.
5. Solve the financial mess.
Anything else?
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