Hi Ed, Now the second half of your message:
At 12:06 27/12/01 -0500, you wrote: (KH) >> But, since the State takeover of charity, the 5% "unworthy" element (my >> inference) of the population has now grown to something like 25% (my >> present-day estimate) making unjustified claims in one way or another. (EW) >I wonder how judgemental we should be here? I'm old enough to remember the >Great Depression, and the enormous day by day struggle of the "unworthies" >of those days, my father among them, to keep their families badly housed and >barely fed. "Relief" was a last resort, but ever so many people had to use >it, even though they hated to do so. For a start, let's not confuse the Great Depression (in which my father was out of work for 9 years), caused by governments raising tariffs and competitively devaluing their currencies last century, with the period of the Industrial Revolution with its rock-solid gold-based currency with no hank-panky of the previous century. (EW) >I've done some work at a local food bank and encountered some of the >"unworthies" of the present. Some are young immigrant mothers, perhaps the >wives of guys like the Slovak immigrant who gets up at four in the morning >to make sure I have my newspaper by five thirty. Some are middle-aged men >from the Ottawa Valley whose local economy had changed radically, giving >them, with their limited skills, no place to fit in. They had come to the >city to look for work, but there was nothing here for them either. A few >were students, trying to improve themselves, and looking for something to >supplement their usual diet of Kraft Dinner. There were a few Native >Indians trying to make sense of a world whose culture was alien to them. >There may have been some people in that crowd that were in some sense >"unworthy", but I would hesitate to try to identify them. Yes, you can always find individual cases -- and, I dare say, in these complex times, that the % of "worthy" poor has risen from, say 5% in the 1800s to, say 10% (in England) today. But let me tell you of one unworthy person whom I know extremely well. This is a middle-class doctor (with wealthy parents) who, after qualifying, decided that she didn't want to work in a hospital or private practice and somehow "acquired" ME. Now "ME" is supposed to be a viral disease which affects muscles and leaves patients totally exhausted most of the time. (Needless to say, no such virus has yet been found after 20 years of research but the Social Services has been conned into believing its existence.) She has been flat on her back most of the time in the last 15 years and receives a substantial disability benefit from the State -- large enough to drive a car and give her minimum luxuries of life (and to pay a mortgage on a small cottage). As I say, she is in bed most of the time Until, that is, she's invited to give lectures on ME in America, South Africa, Australia and other places. Then she suddenly bursts with energy, getting herself organised, travelling and so on. A real bundle of energy and a delight to behold! Once she gave a lecture tour that would have exhausted an American Presidential candidate. Now I also know two other intelligent middle-class people (one with a degree in mathematics) who are also rooking the State because . . . well, they don't really want to work. They're very nice people . . . but they're bloody lazy. Full stop. These cases are most unrepresentative, of course. With the greatest respect from an unqualified economist to a qualified economist, I do suggest that when we talk of economic matters we confine ourselves to statistical figures and not make selections of individual cases. (KH) >> Fact: there is no longer enough money to pay for the continuation of the >> Welfare State. Claims will always rise above tax income. (EW) >I have no problem with the state being in the welfare business, the >education business, the health business, etc., etc. In fact, I believe >these things are its business, and should be paid for by a fair, progressive >tax system. I personally deplore the current ideologically based campaign >to weaken, erode and destroy many of the good services that the modern state >has come to operate over the past two centuries. Public spending that's above 40% of GNP appears to be the critical threshold. If a country goes above that it's in great danger. (As Argentina is today.) A succession of Prime Ministers/Chancellors in the UK (Callaghan, Thatcher, Major, Brown) gradually -- and with great effort -- brought ours down from over 50% 20 years ago when we had to be given a loan by the IMF to about 40% today (when we're the only country with positive economic growth in the European Community). I think that 30% would be a good next target, but let me leave it here. (EC) <<<< It's almost as though educating children has been placed in the same category as selling junk at Walmart. >>>> Some of my best friends buy from ASDA (the UK subsidiary of Walmart). Surely you would never suggest that my friends buy junk! As for educating children, well, in India, its most profitable import earning industry, computer programming and IT, is mainly fed with staff not from the State schools and universities (whose computer education is quite definitely junk) but from fee-paying, commercial schools, mainly a chain called NIIT. Most employers won't touch BScs in computer science (mainly because they only know Cobol) but will jump at the chance of a mere diploma earner from NIIT. NIIT also run elementary schools and secondary schools. NIIT is highly profitable because it uses its classrooms on an 18-hour a day shift system. Its fees are set so that the poorest families can afford them. There are many other effective educational chains around the world -- catering to the poor as well as the middle-class. If you're interested I suggest a reading of "The Global Education Industry" by James Tooley, Prof of Education at the University of Newcastle, and sometime lecturer at Simon Fraser University (Canada, of course). I think your eyes would be opened. Keith __________________________________________________________ �Writers used to write because they had something to say; now they write in order to discover if they have something to say.� John D. Barrow _________________________________________________ Keith Hudson, Bath, England; e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] _________________________________________________
