The last day of school; semester one
Today are the parent-teacher conferences. Once finished, the semester is over, save the Christmas concert.
After a glance through the world news, I noticed some interesting developments. Chiefly, President Musharraf of Pakistan has stated that Pakistan will give up its claims to Kashmir if India will do the same. The proposal is that Kashmir would have a sort of self-autonomy that falls short of independence and that Pakistan and India would share governance officially. This is really quite something. Pakistan and India are nuclear powers and have warred three times since the late 1940s. Kashmir has been a bone of contention for some time. So far as I know, India has not repsonded to this proposal.
Hugo Chavez in Venezuela is going to allow his supporters to push for an end to term limits so that he can stay in power indefinately. I have respect for a lot that Chavez has accomplished in terms of health care and literacy. He may be a blowhard and egoist, but he does genuinely care about the poor. Speaking of the poor, a new study has found that the richest two percent of the global population own over 50 percent of the world's wealth. The disparity between the "super rich" and the rest of the world is greater than ever before. As one researcher put it, if the world had only 10 people and 100 dollars, the richest one person would have 99 dollars and the remaining nine would share the remaining 1 dollar. Wealth is also concentrated in very specific regions. The study reports that “wealth is heavily concentrated in North America, Europe and high-income Asia-Pacific countries. People in these countries collectively hold almost 90 per cent of total world wealth,” the survey said. By Asia Pacific countries, they are referring to Japan, mainly--then South Korea, Taiwan and Singapore though S. Korea and Taiwan still have many, many desperately poor citizens. The reason for much of this disparity has everything to do witht the history of colonialism. As we currently stand, economists in the wealthiest countries talk about globalization as "the tide that lifts all boats" although that idea is not supported by any evidence in the real world at all and it uniformally suggests that developing nations should eschew all environmental and labor regulations in order to attract investment.
Of course there is poverty in the US and other wealthy nations, and we can see it in both rural and urban settings, but it is quite unlike what one finds in Indonesia. In America, there is still some safety net (though it's despised by conservatives). In Indonesia a worker can be dismissed for any reason at any time without any compensation. The weakest are left to their own devices, the richest can buy their way out of most any problem. My father, perhaps, will be able to give his perspective regarding this when he returns. He arrives tomorrow night.
Thanks to Jamison for the Onion headlines. Now, where is that god damned guest post? I hope people will comment on the multiply site. I have sent out more invitations. I'm not sure when the next post will be, hopefully sooner rather than later. Check out the pictures on multiply. Thanks to J. for posting them. God bless.
After a glance through the world news, I noticed some interesting developments. Chiefly, President Musharraf of Pakistan has stated that Pakistan will give up its claims to Kashmir if India will do the same. The proposal is that Kashmir would have a sort of self-autonomy that falls short of independence and that Pakistan and India would share governance officially. This is really quite something. Pakistan and India are nuclear powers and have warred three times since the late 1940s. Kashmir has been a bone of contention for some time. So far as I know, India has not repsonded to this proposal.
Hugo Chavez in Venezuela is going to allow his supporters to push for an end to term limits so that he can stay in power indefinately. I have respect for a lot that Chavez has accomplished in terms of health care and literacy. He may be a blowhard and egoist, but he does genuinely care about the poor. Speaking of the poor, a new study has found that the richest two percent of the global population own over 50 percent of the world's wealth. The disparity between the "super rich" and the rest of the world is greater than ever before. As one researcher put it, if the world had only 10 people and 100 dollars, the richest one person would have 99 dollars and the remaining nine would share the remaining 1 dollar. Wealth is also concentrated in very specific regions. The study reports that “wealth is heavily concentrated in North America, Europe and high-income Asia-Pacific countries. People in these countries collectively hold almost 90 per cent of total world wealth,” the survey said. By Asia Pacific countries, they are referring to Japan, mainly--then South Korea, Taiwan and Singapore though S. Korea and Taiwan still have many, many desperately poor citizens. The reason for much of this disparity has everything to do witht the history of colonialism. As we currently stand, economists in the wealthiest countries talk about globalization as "the tide that lifts all boats" although that idea is not supported by any evidence in the real world at all and it uniformally suggests that developing nations should eschew all environmental and labor regulations in order to attract investment.
Of course there is poverty in the US and other wealthy nations, and we can see it in both rural and urban settings, but it is quite unlike what one finds in Indonesia. In America, there is still some safety net (though it's despised by conservatives). In Indonesia a worker can be dismissed for any reason at any time without any compensation. The weakest are left to their own devices, the richest can buy their way out of most any problem. My father, perhaps, will be able to give his perspective regarding this when he returns. He arrives tomorrow night.
Thanks to Jamison for the Onion headlines. Now, where is that god damned guest post? I hope people will comment on the multiply site. I have sent out more invitations. I'm not sure when the next post will be, hopefully sooner rather than later. Check out the pictures on multiply. Thanks to J. for posting them. God bless.
posted by athensinternational at 4:16 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home