World Getting Better? Depends

I finally finished Charles Kenny's "Getting Better: Why Global Development Is Succeeding – And How We Can Improve the World Even More".  We bought the book when he spoke at the "Confronting Global Poverty" lecture Series of the Alworth Center for Peace and Justice at St. Scholastica in Duluth on Nov. 13, 2012.  You can watch his lecture here.

Many were disappointed in his talk and book because they thought he was painting a rosier picture than reality.  Kenny's thesis is that we should concern ourselves less with increasing GDP and look more at quality of life measures.

These include health, longevity, education, child mortality, and family size.  He claims that throughout the world with a couple of notorious exceptions, the first four measures are getting greater and the last less.  Rather than look at the number of roads and dams, we should look at how people are living day-to-day and what they and we can do to improve daily life.

For an example of a low-tech solution that improved the lives of trash pickers in India, see "Out of India's Trash Heaps, More Than a Shred of Dignity", Sarika Bansal, New York Times, 2013-06-12 .  Do read some of the comments.

Quote of the day: We do not have grown-ups in Washington

Watch "The Economic Argument is Over – And Paul Krugman Won", Daily Ticker, Henry Blodget.

Check the data of those claiming proof of whatever

Many are claiming that high national debt leads to a decline in growth.  According to Mike Konczal, this claim is based on a paper whose results cannot be replicated by other economists.  See "Shocking Paper Claims That Microsoft Excel Coding Error Is Behind the Reinhart-Rogoff Study On Debt",  Business Insider, 2013-04-16.  Among other things, the authors of the study have not released the data they used to determine their results and that they didn't use comparable data from one country to another.

Unfortunately, "This has been one of the most cited stats in the public debate during the Great Recession. Paul Ryan's Path to Prosperity budget states their study 'found conclusive empirical evidence that [debt] exceeding 90 percent of the economy has a significant negative effect on economic growth.'"  And the Washington Post considered it a consensus view of economists!

But the debate doesn't end here.  See also "New Research Undermines The GOP's Austerity Agenda", Jeff Spross, Think Progress, 2013-04-16 and the rebuttal from Reinhart and Rogoff, "Critique of Our Work Still Confirms What We Found on High US Debt", Rob Wile, Business Insider, 2013-04-16.

Capitalists Who Make vs. Capitalists Who Take

I found a wonderful analysis of good and bad capitalism, "Capitalists Who Make vs. Capitalists Who Take".

I haven't finished reading it yet, but I posted the comment below to it.  I think the title is very descriptive of the definition trap we've fallen into.

Aren't we way past the time of evaluating Gross Domestic Product where speculation in tulip bulbs is considered part of the GDP?  Maybe we should keep track of Net Domestic Product, or maybe even Minimum Domestic Product.  The latter would be to evaluate the wealth of the bottom 10 percent.

If we were truly a Christian nation, we would take to heart "whatever you did not do for one of the least among you, you did not do for me." - Matthew 25:45.