Category: Society

A Slow Motion Health Care Crisis

Diabetes has risen to epidemic levels in the United States, and in certain subgroups diabetics and pre-diabetics (those showing early signs of diabetes) exceed 50% of the population. Diabetes is the fastest growing major disease in the US – a major study conducted by the New York City Dept. of Health showed that 12.5% of all New Yorkers have diabetes, and another 23% are pre-diabetic. More than one in three New Yorkers is likely to get diabetes in their lifetime, and these numbers are similar for the nation as a whole.

Among South Asian peoples, multiple studies have found that more than half of South Asians living in the West either have or are on their way to developing diabetes (roughly 20% have diabetes, and above 30% are pre-diabetic). These rates of incidence are so high that diabetes is perhaps on the verge of becoming normal for South Asians, with non-diabetics being the exceptional case!
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Politics and Race: Obama’s Hurdle

Barack Obama looks ever more likely to take the Democratic nomination for President this year, having won every race since Super Tuesday, and with polls showing him closing the gap with Hillary Clinton in the upcoming races in Ohio and Texas. This raises the question: in a general election, will Americans vote for a black candidate to be the next President of the United States?

Polls done on this topic in recent years have shown that an overwhelming percentage of Americans (94% according to a recent Gallup Poll) are willing to vote for a black candidate. While this sounds encouraging, it is important to look at this number from another perspective. What percentage of Americans are willing to vote for a white, Protestant male? Though polls on this are unavailable, the implicit answer is close to 100%, since every president but JFK (and arguably Thomas Jefferson) has been a white Protestant male, and since almost all Presidential candidates fall into this group.
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US Healthcare – Where does all the money go?

The Census Bureau recently released the results of its 2006 Services Industry Survey, which shed light in particular on where US healthcare dollars are spent:

Census Bureau Press Release: “Doctors and Dentists Account for 27 Percent of $1.6 Trillion in Health Care Revenue”

Full tabular data on US healthcare spending in 2006

The second link provides some detail on where US health care spending goes. It’s worthwhile to note that $117 Billion in Social Assistance is included, with line items like children’s daycare, community housing assistance, and other rolled into the overall Health Care and Social Assistance category. Without Social Assistance, health care spending is actually 1.45 trillion, or 11% of US GDP.
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The World My Son Will Inherit

My son Vishnu was born a bit more than three months ago – and what a wonderful whirlwind it has been! Being a father doesn’t leave much time for introspection, but now that I find myself thinking further into the future, I wonder: what sort of world are we leaving our children? The usual laments can be heard throughout mainstream media, that we are running up an insurmountable debt to be born by our children, that Medicare and Social Security are both going bankrupt, that global warming will wreak havoc, and so on. While it’s obvious that the media tends toward hyperbole to draw an audience, some of these are real concerns. Here’s my short list of major American and global issues, and why I’m an optimist with regard to most:
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Arctic Sea Ice Gone by 2013?

Summertime Arctic sea ice is indeed vanishing faster than anyone previously predicted, as this graph makes clear. The National Snow and Ice Data Center at UC Boulder concurs, and there is no disputing that 2007 was a record year for Arctic sea ice melt. That doesn’t bode well for future temperature rises, since the ice acts as a giant sun reflector, and helps cool the oceans.

But hey, looking at the bright side, at least the fabled Northwest passage is now open in summertime!

Arctic Sea Ice Trends 1979-2007

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Peak Oil – I can’t wait!

What is Peak Oil, and why am I so excited about it? Peak Oil theory owes its start predominantly to the work of M. King Hubbert, who correctly predicted in 1956 that US oil production would peak in the early 70’s. Hubbert was a research geologist for Shell, and in his research noted a bell curve distribution in the rate of discoveries of new oil fields. He predicted that the later exploitation of these fields would follow a similar curve, wherein oil production would reach a peak rate at some point in time followed by a steady decline. While highly controversial, Hubbert’s theories proved correct in his own lifetime, and have spawned a generation of Peak Oil theorists who are predicting an imminent peak in world oil production.
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Fatten us all with Farm Subsidies

This New York Times Magazine article does an excellent job of exposing how farm subsidies have contributed to obesity amongst Americans, and particularly amongst America’s poor.

In a nutshell, by subsidizing the overproduction of corn, soybean, and wheat, the American government drives the cost of these staples down, which in turn encourages overconsumption. All the extra caloric energy produced by America’s subsidized farmers gets translated into Twinkies, candy, potato chips, and myriad other junk – junk that interestingly offers far more calories per dollar than more healthy foods. The junk food fits perfectly into a low-income budget, which helps explain the paradoxical poverty-obesity correlation in the US.
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Is Private School Worth It?

The choice of school for one’s children is a very personal one, and is heavily influenced by one’s own childhood experiences. It’s probably true that most parents who went to private school themselves intend to send their kids to private school, and that most public-schooled parents intend to do the opposite. But leaving out for a moment considerations of prestige, status, diversity, and the like, is paying $20k a year for thirteen years of a top-notch private school worth it?
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The Earth is Not Dying

In addition, we cannot cannot destroy the Earth. It’s highly unlikely that humans could even end life on Earth, even if we gave it our best shot (unless Darth Vader loans us a Death Star). Total nuclear holocaust (the simultaneous use of all nuclear weapons on Earth) would lead to the death of most, and perhaps all of humanity, but the Earth would still be around. In perhaps a few decades, and at most a few hundred years, Earth would be teeming with life again. Sure, most of us complex vertebrates would say adios, but give the planet a bit of geologic time, and something equally interesting would probably replace us.Why do I bring this up? With the reemergence of global warming as a major issue in the last few years, alarmists are again making grandiose claims that we’re killing the planet, or that we’re going to destroy life on Earth. Hyperbole may be a way of getting attention (like the title of this post!), but it also tends to discredit an argument. When environmentalists scream that we’re killing the Earth and need to change our ways, what do people do? They tune out.
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2006 Was a Good Year

Despite the bleak headlines about Iraq, conflict in Lebanon, and nuclear confrontations with both North Korea and Iran, 2006 was a good year globally. GDP growth in developing nations surged forward at a 7% pace, while overall global economic growth remained high at close to 4%. Long term economic growth is the only available means to decrease absolute poverty; in India, growth around 7% per year reduced overall poverty by 10% over the last decade. To be sure, much of developing nations’ current growth is owed to rising commodity prices, but in many nations this influx of revenue is being harnessed more effectively than in the past.
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