At 02:52 02/01/2013, AC wrote:
(AC) I agree. I often wonder how many of the charity drives featuring starving children are cons of some sort or outright theft or where the majority of the “take” goes for “administrative” costs. There is theft and stealing.

(KH) I'm wary of charities which tout for money to save donkeys, or pandas or some other "cuddley" type of animal. (On the other hand, I know a donkey charity near here which saves badly-treated donkeys and they do a wonderful job.) However, I've noticed over the years that many adverts of these "cuddley" charities seem to appear only once. I have the impression, therefore, that the Charities Commission in the UK quietly investigate those which are indeed contricks and make sure the police prosecute them.

On the other hand (I sound like Tevye in "Fiddler on the Roof"!), adverts for children's charities don't seem to last long in the UK press unless they are genuine. We have two big, and altogether splendid childrens' charities in the UK, Barnado's, and the RSPCC (Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children), but we also have a few very large charities which never seek money but are able to function out of enormous invested funds, Amelia Peabody, Joseph Rowntree Foundation, and there are also many scores of smaller ones in smaller cities which never advertise but were established in prosperous Victorian times. (One is usually totally unaware of these until one has lived in a city for long enough. In my home town of Coventry, where I lived for 47 years, I got to know of three well-invested children's charities, and in Bath, where I lived for over 20 years, I got to know of two. (The equivalent American ones, established by highly successful family businesses of the 1910s, 20s, 30s tend to devote their funds to medical objects rather than specifically children (needs were different).

(AC) There is also the case that sometimes people invest in stocks and bonds and with everything on the “up and up” there is still loss. Risk carries rewards but sometimes losses.

(KH) I've avoided giving to charities set up in modern times, no matter how worthy and tear-jerking their intentions appear to be. I do this for the same reason as, over the years when I lived in Coventry, I'd noticed young idealistic young lawyers intending to help the poor and unfortunate as well as their normal paid work. I noticed them compromising and becoming corrupted as the years went by. It doesn't take much to corrupt someone. There are quite a number of psychological research studies which show that small and modest bribes are more quickly established than big ones. E.G. top charities like OxFam -- as worthy a charity as anybody in the UK can think of. I noticed over the years from BBC documentaries, etc that quite senior administrators of Oxfam (who'd no doubt started out years ago as idealistic volunteers) seemed to be spending a lot of time on foreign travel. Over the years I'd often wondered whether I was being too cynical -- but no, I wasn't. An hour-long documentary on Channel 4 a week ago exposed many deficiencies that have been going on in even the most reputable charities. They move large quantities of food around to be sure, but, in many cases in Africa, it didn't end up with the starving but with the local warlords who sold the food in order to buy guns and ammo, or if there were a government thereabouts, senior officials would be building luxurious homes for themselves. Hundreds of fishermen who lost their boats in the 2004 Indian Ocean Tsunami and were promised wood (they build their own boats) still haven't received any. Yet the money had been collected in the UK within the first week of the catastrophe!

Keith


arthur

From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Ray Harrell
Sent: Tuesday, January 01, 2013 9:33 PM
To: 'RE-DESIGNING WORK, INCOME DISTRIBUTION, EDUCATION'
Subject: Re: [Futurework] Nobel Prize -- was Re: [Ottawadissenters] Hey, you gotta watch dem machines...

My father had a Doctor's degree in psychometrics and my mother was an accountant who taught in the local high school. When they both retired, they had to beat the market vultures off with a stick. Even with the stick they were stuck it by their religion with Jimmy Baker, the preacher felon, and Heritage Village as well as the deluge of "free" junk to try to trick them into "investing" their retirement. My mother was smart but when she was infirm, with us on the East coast, she was vulnerable until we realized. "Entrepreneurs" vultures feeding on the defenseless and the elderly. Theft is theft and a con is a con.

REH

From: <mailto:[email protected]>[email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Arthur Cordell
Sent: Tuesday, January 01, 2013 3:18 PM
To: 'RE-DESIGNING WORK, INCOME DISTRIBUTION, EDUCATION'
Subject: Re: [Futurework] Nobel Prize -- was Re: [Ottawadissenters] Hey, you gotta watch dem machines...

Not to be too Clintonesque but it depends on what you mean by steal.

arthur

From: <mailto:[email protected]>[email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Ray Harrell
Sent: Tuesday, January 01, 2013 2:51 PM
To: 'RE-DESIGNING WORK, INCOME DISTRIBUTION, EDUCATION'
Subject: Re: [Futurework] Nobel Prize -- was Re: [Ottawadissenters] Hey, you gotta watch dem machines...

How is that different from a man who uses his gifts and expertise to steal from the poor through market cycles?

REH

From: <mailto:[email protected]>[email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Arthur Cordell
Sent: Tuesday, January 01, 2013 1:16 PM
To: 'RE-DESIGNING WORK, INCOME DISTRIBUTION, EDUCATION'
Subject: Re: [Futurework] Nobel Prize -- was Re: [Ottawadissenters] Hey, you gotta watch dem machines...

No I mean like having power in one area and exploiting it in another. E.g. the policeman who takes an apple from the corner grocer or the president who exploits an intern or the senator who accepts gifts etc.

From: <mailto:[email protected]>[email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Ray Harrell
Sent: Tuesday, January 01, 2013 1:05 AM
To: 'RE-DESIGNING WORK, INCOME DISTRIBUTION, EDUCATION'
Subject: Re: [Futurework] Nobel Prize -- was Re: [Ottawadissenters] Hey, you gotta watch dem machines...

You mean like virtue = wealth production or
You can't be a good businessman and pay taxes or
You owe your loyalty to your shareholders not to the poor of America or..........

REH

From: <mailto:[email protected]>[email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Arthur Cordell
Sent: Monday, December 31, 2012 1:25 PM
To: 'RE-DESIGNING WORK, INCOME DISTRIBUTION, EDUCATION'
Subject: Re: [Futurework] Nobel Prize -- was Re: [Ottawadissenters] Hey, you gotta watch dem machines...

Of course we all have biases. But those who trumpet the truth while pretending that they are not biased are those that I avoid.

arthur



From: <mailto:[email protected]>[email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of michael gurstein
Sent: Monday, December 31, 2012 10:47 AM
To: 'RE-DESIGNING WORK, INCOME DISTRIBUTION, EDUCATION'
Subject: Re: [Futurework] Nobel Prize -- was Re: [Ottawadissenters] Hey, you gotta watch dem machines...

So who isn't "biased"…

M

From: <mailto:[email protected]>[email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Arthur Cordell
Sent: Monday, December 31, 2012 6:39 AM
To: 'RE-DESIGNING WORK, INCOME DISTRIBUTION, EDUCATION'; 'Keith Hudson'
Subject: Re: [Futurework] Nobel Prize -- was Re: [Ottawadissenters] Hey, you gotta watch dem machines...

I used to read Buckley for the same reason. A very interesting conservative thinker.

Krugman’s biases sometimes get in the way, as did Buckley’s. Both interesting. Both biased.

arthur

From: <mailto:[email protected]>[email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Ed Weick
Sent: Monday, December 31, 2012 6:53 AM
To: RE-DESIGNING WORK, INCOME DISTRIBUTION, EDUCATION; Keith Hudson
Subject: Re: [Futurework] Nobel Prize -- was Re: [Ottawadissenters] Hey, you gotta watch dem machines...

Not sure of why people on this list are going after Krugman. Personally, I think he writes a very good, very readable column on a diverse range of topics. In today's column, he deals with a very relevant topic, the hidden influence of big money on politics, a very important but largely ignored topic. OK, so he got the Nobel prize because he pointed something in an academic field that Henry Ford already knew as a practical person and the Japanese already knew as well. However, what he said wasn't recognized in the field of economics until he said it. I did my undergrad work back in the 1950s, and the Ricardian idea of comparative and absolute advantage is what we had to learn and how we had to view the economic world. I did a graduate degree in the late 1960s and things were still very much the same. What Krugman did to get his Nobel was open economics up and make us see that while Ricardian theory may still apply to growing grapes and oranges, it may only very partially apply to the modern industrial and increasingly cybernetic economy, if it applies there at all. I for one will continue to read Krugman's columns not because he is an economist but because I find him an interesting liberal thinker.

Ed

----- Original Message -----
From: <mailto:[email protected]>Keith Hudson
To: <mailto:[email protected]>RE-DESIGNING WORK, INCOME DISTRIBUTION, EDUCATION ; <mailto:[email protected]>Ed Weick
Sent: Monday, December 31, 2012 3:38 AM
Subject: Re: [Futurework] Nobel Prize -- was Re: [Ottawadissenters] Hey, you gotta watch dem machines...

At 16:26 30/12/2012, you wrote:
(EW) Not sure of where all of this is going. Prior to Krugman, the theory of international trade was based on the Ricardian notion of comparative advantage. Countries would produce those products in which in which they had an advantage, given their resources, and then trade with each other. From what little I know, Krugman brought in the idea that, given a certain level of technological development, resource advantage didn't really matter very much.

(KH) But that idea didn't need Krugman! Or anyone else for that matter. The Japanese had been importing resources ('cos they had none of their own) for decades before Krugman was even born. I believe those who say that Krugman got a Nobel for the same reason as Paul Samuelson (who only copied Marshall's ideas of Sale and Demand curves) -- that he was an economist very much in the public's eye. (EW) Any advanced country could, and would, produce cars and, given consumer willingness to buy, these cars would be shipped to markets all over the world. As others have pointed out, economies of scale were very important in this. The more cars that could be produced, the lower the unit costs; the more cars that could be shipped, the lower the costs of shipment.

(KH) And Henry Ford had known that decades before Krugman was born!

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