The Poverty Blog

Good Intention and Hard Economics: Is There A Compromise?

2009-11-02T08:14:00.000-08:00

This is my final post on the health care bill (unless something really interesting happens). I've come to the conclusion that health care needs to be reformed - how that goes about happening is a nuanced matter.

I. Two Possible Beasts of Health Care Reform

Adding a government competitor in the private sector would indeed force insurance companies to lower their rates, but there are two problems that may come of this: either the government will put private companies out of business (by providing Low Cost, Good Quality, and Good Access all at the same time, likely requiring taxes to go above 50% of our income), or it will just become a bigger and meaner Medicaid- Low Cost, Good Access, and better-than-no-insurance quality/hopefully better-than-old-Medicaid-quality - so, it would compete with insurance companies, but with slightly lower quality so it doesn't put them out of business completely. Among the problems facing Medicaid which we've already pointed out is that since Medicaid is a last resort, it doesn't have to compete with anyone (you only use Medicaid if you can't afford the other ones). Thus it's inefficient, full of bureaucracy, and, worst of all, habitually discriminated against by doctors because of insufficient coverage. Either choice (government takeover of health care or Big Medicaid) does attempt to address the needs of the disenfranchised, however, and therefore the intentionality is good and is perhaps a first step to sustainable reform.

If this bill passes, I'm going to cross my fingers and hope for the lesser of the two evils - the latter (Big Medicaid)- since the former would cause the wealthiest, most resource-rich country in the western world to end up like the USSR, go bankrupt and owe China more money than we could ever pay back, which is not even remotely a good idea. Even Dr. Powers, who is a huge advocate for health care reform, backed up that probability. Or, in a not-as-bad-but-still-pretty-bad scenario, we end up like Europe - great access to basic health care but high complacency and almost no innovation whatsoever; there's a reason we lead in medicinal research, and there's certainly a place for innovation not just in health care, but in the healthy psychology of a responsible citizen. We must understand that the US Government cannot provide low cost, high access, high quality health care without transforming our economic system into an entirely different creature.

I am going to go ahead and assume that no one wants to revert to a communist system, because it's a bad idea to give any group of people that kind of control over information and basic needs of citizens. If you disagree with that, we have bigger fish to fry - but before you argue with me, do me a favor and pick up a history book. We do want what Communism aims for, though - economic justice and equal dignity for all human persons.

II. If the Government Doesn't Beat Out All Other Insurance Companies and Operates Within a Budget, How Do We Make Sure The Quality Is Better Than Current Medicaid?

So *if* the bill turns out to not take over the private sector in health care, it will be because it has become Big Medicaid (low cost, good access, medium-low quality health care). Think about it - the cost is going to be less than private businesses - so the only way it won't completely bankrupt them is if their quality of coverage isn't quite as good. Big Medicaid isn't necessarily a bad thing if it provides better insurance to more people than the current Medicaid system does. If Big Medicaid allowed better access and lower cost of health insurance to low-income earners, one further reform would have to take place to improve quality as much as possible *without* taking out of taxpayers' wallets or increasing the deficit.

If the Health Care Bill fixes cost and access, it should leave quality up to another reform: requiring hospitals to set salaries for their doctors to reduce overdiagnoses (take away the commission on keeping people sick). In the case of extraordinary procedures that would cost above a certain amount of money, a review board would have to sign off on it to ensure that the money is not ill-spent. That, in and of itself, would attack the heart of discrimination between insurance policies in hospitals - the doctor doesn't personally financially benefit more depending on which insurance policy he gives more attention to. Thus, more quality care will be given to those who benefit from Giant Medicaid than it would otherwise, because doctors will be more willing to treat them in the first place.

Some argue that this would require a government takeover of hospitals; I say that's silly. We already tell businesses how much carbon emissions they're allowed before they get in trouble, for the good and health of all citizens. Oh, hey, wait! We just intervened in private business without taking it over! Look at that!

Telling hospitals to eliminate the commission system for doctors will not be the end of the world; they're just telling them to operate like a normal business, not a sales business - and also, of course, to recognize the humanitarian nature of their chosen field.

So here we're closing the gap between cost/access and quality. Whereas previously high quality necessarily correlated to high cost, and low quality to low cost, instituting salaries would hopefully compromise by offering medium quality for low cost (doctors wouldn't discriminate at least, but if the person can never cover their share of what Big Medicaid can't, the hospitals will possibly start putting the pressure on doctors to decline them service in the interest of business sustainability. Not perfect, but sustainable and better than what we have now, which is discrimination based on perception, not financial history). Hence, I'd identify the quality they offer as medium - not great, but not bad either.

On the flip side, then, there are ways to narrow the gap on the other side - offer high quality for medium cost. There are ways to drive down costs of insurance policies that already are guaranteed good quality without pouring too much money into the system. Once again, I'd like to draw attention to the Mackey Op-Ed that spells out a way to work within our economic system to competitively drive down insurance costs (it truly annoys me that liberal media summarized this article as "anti-health care" since it's really pro-health care, it's just smart about it. Think outside the box, people! Also, wake up and realize that the government's pockets are not bottomless.) Thus, the highest quality health care of Blue Cross/Blue Shield would become more affordable simply as a result of competition with other private health insurance companies.

III. A Realistic, Sustainable Solution to a Pressing Moral Problem

This is by no means a permanent or perfect solution. It doesn't eliminate the gap in health care between income levels, but it does narrow the gap to a more palatable degree. It is, however, sustainable, which is just as important as a bill being morally right - what's the point of a morally correct bill if it dies out or bankrupts the society it intends to fix? We need to find a compromise between sustainability and morality, and we need to be much more cautious about it than we currently are. The government cannot, by the admission of public health experts, offer all three elements - cost, quality, and access - without an enormous shift in how much money goes into the government, and how much control the government has in the private sector - we have seen time and again that a communist state deprives the individual of innovation and sense of personal responsibility. There is a way to implement morally good ideas in our current economic system, a system that we know works better than a communist one.

We must take into account that we have an enormous national deficit, that security-wise we really really don't want to owe money to a country that's very high on the list of possible wartime enemies in the next two decades, and that we're in a recession where people can't handle the exorbitant tax hike that this would require.

IV. Other Concrete Changes that Must Take Place in Order for the Bill to Maintain Moral Integrity

In terms of the health care bills currently on the table, the following concrete reforms must happen (as well as an admission that we cannot provide the same level of quality as Blue Cross/Blue Shield without bankrupting America):

None of the health care bills on the table leave room for conscience rights of doctors - that is, the bill does not explicitly protect doctors from being forced into engaging in acts that they find morally abhorrent - specifically performing abortions.

The intentional absence of this clause is worrying, especially in light of the dramatic increase of federal use of tax dollars to fund abortions, indicating a very leftist lean within the bill itself. The silence of the bill on conscience rights is therefore deafeningly loud, and must be explicitly addressed within the bill.

Furthermore, the 50% of Americans that now morally oppose abortions should not have their hard-earned money going to fund privately-owned abortion clinics.

Finally, provisions must be made for health care for immigrants; this has not been a priority so far and must be made explicit within the bill.

More Health Care Resources

2009-09-05T10:17:00.000-07:00

Upcoming documentary: Money-Driven Medicine http://moneydrivenmedicine.org/about-mdm

"Atul Gawande's excellent analysis of high-cost, low-quality care in one town (with low-cost, higher-quality neighbors)": (Thanks to Vienna Teng, Ivy League grad and my favorite singer) - http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2009/06/01/090601fa_fact_gawande

The Obama Perspective: http://www.barackobama.com/issues/healthcare/

Blog on Politico: Parallels between clinton's health care plan and Obama's - http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0909/26751.html

Facebook Statuses the New Town Hall? Blog http://blog.newsweek.com/blogs/thehumancondition/archive/2009/09/04/facebook-s-healthcare-revolt-the-real-town-halls-are-social-networks.aspx

An Economic Perspective Blog: http://gregmankiw.blogspot.com/2009/09/more-on-rising-healthcare-spending.html

GoogleBooks: Money Driven Medicine: http://books.google.com/books?id=pOfrTRPgv_kC&dq=health+care&printsec=frontcover&source=bll&ots=Sb74busdFq&sig=wLZgc6TAlNO7oFylfgXNo8-w1tU&hl=en&ei=hZ2iSvStBeac8Qbc-uDhDw&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=19#v=onepage&q=&f=false

Redefining Health Care: Creating value-based competition based on results: http://books.google.com/books?id=pOfrTRPgv_kC&dq=health+care&printsec=frontcover&source=bll&ots=Sb74busdFq&sig=wLZgc6TAlNO7oFylfgXNo8-w1tU&hl=en&ei=hZ2iSvStBeac8Qbc-uDhDw&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=19#v=onepage&q=&f=false

Your Money or Your Life: Strong Medicine for America's Health Care System (GoogleBooks) http://books.google.com/books?id=4bdfmrVxN-IC&dq=health+care&printsec=frontcover&source=bll&ots=nsfhPYzdDz&sig=nbuk0jvJ5mGM4XiaqgxB9_Y7dLw&hl=en&ei=hZ2iSvStBeac8Qbc-uDhDw&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=21#v=onepage&q=&f=false

Catholicism and Health Care Reform

Summary of Catholic Church's Stance: http://catholickey.blogspot.com/2009/09/kansas-city-bishops-issue-joint-health.html

US Bishops criticize Federal funding of abortion currently included in Bill: http://www.usccb.org/prolife/CardRigaliHealthCareReformLetter-08-11-09.pdf

Collection of USCCB letters to Congress regarding the bill: http://www.usccb.org/sdwp/national/health1.shtml

Health Care, Step 1: Does the System Need Reform?

2009-09-03T20:42:00.000-07:00

source: stolaf.edu

Before any of us can form solid opinions on the health care bill, we should probably understand the essential nature of the health care system.

I recently sat down with a man who worked as a doctor for 20 years before he became frustrated enough with the system to pursue a Master's of Public Health; here's a summary of our conversation, which he described as "A semester of Public Health in an hour":

There are three ways to measure the Public Health system in a given country: Cost, Quality, and Access.

COST

1. The US as a whole - government and citizens - spend $2.5 trillion per year on health care - drastically more than any other country on the globe. About $1.2 trillion comes from the US government, and about $1.2 trillion from individual citizens. It comes out to about $7,000 per person, which pulls about $2,000 per person more than the next leading country, which would be somewhere like Switzerland or someplace with excellent health care.

QUALITY

2. Despite this incredible investment of money, the US health care system is not among the best in the world - in fact, we're generally ranked between 25 and 50 internationally on any given standard of measurement (usually decided by the World Health Organization, generally recognized as the main authority in these matters). We are not #1 in anything, and we are behind Western Europe in almost everything. (*Note: I asked about our level of research here - we are #1 in the world in novel innovations - but he said that we are dealing with public health costs/care, not research. I'd be interested in seeing if the two are financially linked, i.e. if cancer research would suffer from funding being cut for the sake of free checkups - which would be an entirely different ethical discussion)

3. One of the reasons that we, according to Dr. Powers, will never be #1 in the world in anything, is our diversity of population. We have much more to worry about than any other country because of our genetic, ethnic, and socioeconomic disparities are so pronounced.

Genetic diversity: We must worry about sickle-cell anemia and the flu, diseases crossing borders through immigration and intra-city passing of diseases. We have a distinct set of challenges to customize medicine to unique persons, whereas Europe generally has a homogenized culture.

Cultural/Religious Diversity: It is difficult to pass any sort of standard of medicine without offending someone.

Socioeconomic diversity: we are more capitalist than Europe. One could debate the pros and cons regarding this - in fact, that would constitute the heart of the health care debate - but a certain result of this is a more dramatic difference in health care depending on one's socioeconomic class. Take infant mortality, a common measure of the standard of health care in a country: a white woman in the suburbs of Chicago would have a very low infant mortality rate - in fact, one of the best in the world, perhaps #1 or #2. Take a Hispanic woman in the inner city of New York, and the infant mortality rate skyrockets - those in the inner city "drag our statistics down." And why? Often for lack of basic prenatal treatment: ultrasounds, prenatal vitamins, regular checkups, which cost more overall for someone without health insurance than someone with insurance (Insurance companies get a discount). Which brings us to

ACCESS

In the US, there are about 300 million people. Around 200 million have access to health insurance and affordable care. The remaining 100 million are either uninsured or relying on a Medicaid program which is typically inadequate to meet health needs.

Of those 200 million, most have employment health insurance, and the rest are on Medicare or are entitled (Veterans or in the Military). In the 1960s, the elderly were among the poorest and sickest, so they developed Medicare. Now, the elderly are among the healthiest and wealthiest. In terms of employment health insurance, jobs and health care have historically been connected since World War II. Some quick history:

During WWII, America had a worker's shortage, since all of its young men went to war. Businesses, striving to stay alive, started competing with each other to offer higher wages to attract more workers. What started to happen, was that big businesses could afford to pay very high wages, drawing workers away from small businesses and overall hurting the economy. So under FDR, a cap was put on excessively high wages. Now the businesses needed to find another element to make them more attractive - and that thing was benefits. They started offering health care benefits along with their employment, beginning the tradition of employment-based health insurance plans. The government supports this system by allowing health care obtained through employers to be tax-free - employers and employees cut the cost of health care about 50/50, easing the burden of health care on the steadily employed.

Now, the other 100 million citizens do not have health care access. About 50 million are unemployed, or work minimum wage jobs. Another 50 million are underemployed - that is, their jobs neither pay enough to cover a cost of living, nor provide health care coverage. Some of these people have access to Medicaid, but, according to Dr. Powers, the Medicaid system is hopelessly flawed.

Under Medicaid, the burden is placed almost exclusively upon the hospital (remember, a private business) to cover health care costs. They are simultaneously required to offer things like emergency assistance to anyone who comes in, regardless of their ability to pay. Well intentioned, but the system is flawed - Dr. Powers worked in the ER for 20 years, and consistently saw hospitals overlook and delay treatment to Medicaid holders, and give preference to Blue Cross/Blue Shield and other insurance providers. Hospitals, like any business, needs to maintain a profit margin, and being required to pay hundreds or even thousands of dollars on a patient is not likely to encourage good or effective service.

Moreover, hospitals are likely to "milk" good insurance policies through excessive health care costs. As Dr. Powers puts it, a patient could come in complaining about how when they eat spicy foods, they get really bad heartburn; when they take over-the-counter medicine it goes away, but it consistently happens after meals. He says that a doctor could do one of two things: he could say "Well, this sounds like a classic case of acid reflux disease - take these meds and come back in a month if the symptoms persist." and bill the insurance company, and get $50-$70. Or he could say "This could be, well this could be bad. I think we need to run some tests - do a biopsy, maybe take an MRI, to make sure everything's okay." And if the patient hears that, of course they'll believe the doctor - he's a doctor! If they go through with it, then the doctor can bill the insurance company $700. So what, then, should stop a doctor from overdiagnosing? And sadly, Dr. Powers said, many doctors do. In other words, doctors are financially benefited not to cure their patients, but rather, in a sense, receive a commission on keeping them sick.

In fact, Dr. Powers speculated that there's already enough money wasted in the system to cover any health care reform needed, if it was redistributed, but that would take a drastic total reformation of the health care system that would take several years - and a government takeover of hospitals. (*Note: I'm unconvinced here: governments control big businesses without taking them over - can't they lay down guidelines in salaries to prevent these kinds of abuses?) One very interesting venue to explore would be whether moving doctors onto fixed salaries would stem this kind of thing - right now, doctors receive a "commission on sickness." Pay a good doctor $125,000-$150,000 a year flat, and let the costs of health care go entirely to the hospitals to cover basic preventative medicine for lower income levels. Or would overdiagnosis drop so drastically that there will no longer be that excessive money "in the system"? That's a question for an economist to deal with.

Based on the conviction that basic health care is a right, not a privilege, Dr. Powers suggests that perhaps government-subsidized medicine wouldn't be too bad. People claim that it's "socialist," but in reality the government already subsidizes half of American health care.

Back to Cost, Quality, and Access - he calls it the "Iron Triangle" - but at any given time, only two of them can thrive. You've either got low cost and good access, but poor quality, good quality and easy access, but only if you've got the money to pay the high cost, or good quality and low cost health care (say, in the military), but limited access (gov't can afford to provide only to military personnel). Obama's mistake, said Powers, is that he tried to say that the US can have all three at once - which is only possible if our economy ends up like the USSR's.

No matter what, says Powers, we need to operate under the knowledge that our current health care system is not sustainable. In just a few decades, the cost of Social Security, Medicaid, and Medicare are going to consume the entire federal budget if the status quo stays the same. Dr. Powers suggests that Medicaid is revamped (it's all pretty much wasted money), and excessive health care spending on overdiagnoses get cut. One way or another, health care needs to be reformed - it's just a matter of how it happens.

--

Overview: Health care should be evaluated by Cost, Quality, and Access. If one seeks to improve cost and access, people fear quality will be neglected. Access is currently rationed according to socio-economic class under a capitalist system; in response to the arguement that government "rationing" is dangerous, the liberal would argue that health care is already rationed according to socio-economic class.

Hospitals waste insurance money on overdiagnoses; this is the heart of excessive spending with little quality to show for it.

Other issues not discussed with Dr. Powers - impact of lack of competition between health insurance companies - partial monopolies = health insurance companies doing what they want.

---

In conclusion - these are simply impressions dutifully reported from the perspective of a Pro-Obama doctor with a Master's of Public Health and 20 years' experience in the field. They do not reflect my own viewpoints. I'm looking for a conservative alternative perspective. Until I get a chance to find one and buy him/her a coffee, we will settle with the now-famous John Mackey Wall Street Journal Op-Ed Article (which deals more with the solution than the problem) - for some reason liberals got pissed about this, which makes not a lot of sense since he's acknowledging there's a problem, but has experience with money and understands that the government's pockets are not bottomless:

The Whole Foods Alternative to ObamaCare

anyone else is welcome to add their two cents.

Ethanol and the Food Crisis

2009-08-24T22:56:00.000-07:00

Resigned myself to the reality that I don't have time to condense this. Read it in all of its original glory . Good to write, even better to read :p

A Closer Look at Haiti and the US' Continued Role in the Food Crisis

2009-03-04T21:48:00.000-08:00

A woman prepares mud cakes to sell for food. Mud cakes, made by mixing oil, sugar, and mud, have grown in popularity as a means to take the edge off of hunger. Associated Newspapers (UK), August 2008.

Haiti by the Numbers

GDP Per Capita: $573.70 (about $1.57 per day)
On average, Haitians spend 75% of their income on food alone
In the US, if you spend over 1/3 of your income on food, you are considered impoverished.
80% of Haitians live in abject poverty(2003)
Haiti also has one of the largest wealth disparities in the world
Following the debt crisis of the 1980s, Haiti now owes $1.5 billion dollars in loans. For all of the aid money flowing from the US to Haiti, more of it is flowing back to us in the form of debt payment
66% of Haitians are farmers although it only comprises 30% of the GDP.
Literacy rate: 52.9%, the lowest in the region. Only 20% of children make it to high school
Haiti has always been unstable – most lately, the riots that broke out last April reinforced the notion that Haitians need to “get their act together.”

April 8, 2008:

"UN Peacekeepers fired rubber bullets and used tear gas to control mobs rioting over rising food prices in Haiti... for months, Haitians have compared their hunger pains to "eating Clorox" because of the burning feeling in their stomachs" - The Guardian, UK

April 18, 2008:

Marc Lacey of the New York Times publishes a compassionate article for the victims of the spike in food prices, but says "Haiti, its agriculture industry in shambles, needs to better feed itself."

Before 1986, Haiti was self-sufficient in rice production

Nineteen Eighty-Six

January - February: Dictator Baby Doc is ousted by the US government. He flees, taking with him all of the money in Haiti's treasury

April: American Rice, Inc., succeeds in lobbying Congress for subsidies on their rice. They can now sell rice that costs $400 to produce for only $250

December 30, just eight months later, the International Monetary Fund, influenced heavily by US businesses, offers a $24.6 million loan to Haiti - with the stipulation that they would cut public spending and liberalize their trade policy - that is, virtually take away their tariffs on imported goods. Haiti, about to default to bankruptcy, accepts.

1987-Present

Subsidized US rice floods the country. Haitian consumers rejoice at the low prices. Within two years, most subsistence farmers are put out of business.

The newly-subsidized American Rice, Inc., gradually secures its monopoly over the Haitian market. Haiti becomes the #3 importer of American rice in the world.

No longer producing its own food, Haiti transforms from a net exporting country to a net importer. It becomes very sensitive to changes in the global food market.

Millions of people move from rural areas to urban areas to find work. In cities, all food is purchased, not grown, leaving the urban population especially sensitive to the globalized economy.

Now, Haiti is sensitive to the global food market. When prices rise, people starve, and then riot. It is stuck in debt, imports more than it exports, and its political and economic policies are indirectly controlled by the people they owe money to - notably, the World Bank and the IMF

Why Did the IMF include stipulations to liberalize the economy?

Theory #1: The IMF believes int the "free market theory" and that capitalism is best for all. Providing cheap rice to impoverished people can't be bad, right?

Theory #2: The US wanted to flood Haiti's market with rice so that we (and American Rice, Inc., which was struggling in the international markets) could gain a major importer of our goods

Theory #3: The IMF, created after WWII to regulate the international currency to the gold standard, lost its mission in 1971 when the gold standard was suspended.

Since then, it has been looking for a reason to exist. It established itself as global economic policeman. It began with loans during the oil crisis of the 1970s, to more powerful loans during the debt crisis of the 1980s.

The IMF has emerged as one of the most powerful organizations in the world, powerfully influencing the political, social, and economic policies of virtually every developing country in the Western Hemisphere.

First-Hand Accounts of the Impact of Subsidized Rice

"American rice invaded the country. It was sold for so little that we could not compete. There was a very serious struggle. When they brought the [American] rice up from Port-au-Prince, they had to escort it in military convoys, to prevent us from seizing it. By 1987 and 1988, there was so much rice coming into the country that many of us stopped working hte land," - Charles Suffrard, rice farmer.

“Within less than two years, it became impossible for Haitian farmers to compete with what they called ‘Miami rice.’ The whole local rice market in Haiti fell apart as cheap, US-subsidized rice, some of it in the form of ‘food aid,’ flooded the market. There was violence, ‘rice wars’ and lives were lost.” – Dr. Paul Farmer

“In the 1980s, imported rice poured into Haiti, below the cost of what our farmers could produce it. Farmers lost their businesses. People from the countryside started losing their jobs and moving to the cities. After a few years of cheap imported rice, local production went way down.” – Fr. Gerard Jean-Juste

Recent History

March, 2000 - 60 rice farmers and their families pool their money and buy a rickety boat to sail 150 miles north to some British islands to escape their poverty. The boat capsized, killing everyone on board.

In Haiti, most former farmers are living in the slums of the city.

“I come here every day in the hope that one day there will be work, but there never is. When I leave the house, my children hope that I will earn enough money to come back with food. But very often, I have to walk home because I don't have enough money for a bus.” - former farmer living in the slums of Port-au-Prince

With employment down, and importation up, urban Haitians are very sensitive to changes in food prices.

From 2007 - 2008, the price of basic foodstuffs went up 40%.

Two factors contributed to the outbreak of riots around the world in April - an announcement of new subsidies for the biofuel industry, and a spike in rice prices.

The US is a central exporter of rice and corn, two basic foodstuffs. The price of both have risen drastically in the last few years.

Why?

Next - Ethanol and the Food Crisis

City of Williamsburg, by the numbers

2008-12-23T14:38:00.001-08:00

http://www.city-data.com/ has more numbers than you'll ever need for any city you could ever want to know about. There's data for both the City of Williamsburg and Williamsburg the county.

Some interesting/relevant tidbits:

(Williamsburg city)

Population in July 2007: 12,434. Population change since 2000: +1.7%

Estimated median household income in 2007: $46,254 (it was $37,093 in 2000)

Williamsburg:	$46,254
Virginia:	$59,562

Estimated median house or condo value in 2007: $427,735 (it was $182,000 in 2000)

Williamsburg:	$427,735
Virginia:	$262,100

Mean prices in 2007: All housing units: $500,825

2008 cost of living index in Williamsburg: 104.6 (near average, U.S. average is 100)

According to our research there were 64 registered sex offenders living in Williamsburg, Virginia in early 2007.
The ratio of number of residents in Williamsburg to the number of sex offenders is 194 to 1.

Daytime population change due to commuting: +9,499 (+79.2%)
Workers who live and work in this city: 2,212 (52.2%)

Unemployment in September 2007:

Here:	4.1%
Virginia:	2.8%

Residents with income below the poverty level in 2007:

This city:	18.3%
Whole state:	9.6%

Residents with income below 50% of the poverty level in 2007:

This city:	9.3%
Whole state:	4.3%

There's a whole page with numbers on the poverty levels in Williamsburg:
http://www.city-data.com/poverty/poverty-Williamsburg-Virginia.html

(We will definitely talk about this on the first morning).

Next, if you type in "poverty in Williamsburg virginia" in Google, this memo will show up:
http://www.wrl.org/info/Demographic_Update.htm

One little bit from there caught my eye:

Income and Poverty

The Census Bureau¹s model-based estimates for income and poverty should be used with caution. Still, they reflect the existence of a relatively intractable segment of the population in poverty in both James City County and Williamsburg.
Poverty is more prevalent in Williamsburg than in James City County. Part, but not all, of this trend can be attributed to William and Mary students.
Black youths are especially likely to live in poverty. This trend is most noticeable in Williamsburg where 49% of black youths were in poverty in 2000.

If you're very interested in the issue of affordable housing, here's a site that might be worth a look. Every year they have the "Va Governor's Housing Conference," a major gathering of everyone involved in the area. The presentation powerpoints can be found here (most are very technical):
http://www.vagovernorshousingconference.com/presentations.html

Out of all the presentations, those of you living in NoVA will find this one particularly relevant, as it details the unusually high number of foreclosures in the NoVA area:
http://www.vagovernorshousingconference.com/PDFs/Presentations/11_13/Economics%20of%20Homeownership/Economics%20of%20Homeownership%20-%20B%20Merchant.pdf

Food crises and US policy

2008-12-23T14:37:00.002-08:00

This article explains how subsidized US rice, sold to Haiti, undercut the local Haitian farmers and precipitated a food crisis. Shows how good intentions can sometimes go awry.
http://opinion.inquirer.net/inquireropinion/talkofthetown/view/20080503-134390/US-IMF-role-in-Haitis-food-riots

This article, "Manufacturing a Food Crisis," details the role that the WTO, IMF, and US played in exacerbating hunger abroad, with particular emphasis on Mexico and the Philippines.
http://www.thenation.com/doc/20080602/bello

POSTnotes on Global Health

2008-12-23T14:37:00.001-08:00

Apparently the UK Parliament keeps a gaggle of PhDs on-hand to write 4-page briefs for them about the latest trends in science and technology. There's also a fair amount relevant to both national and global health. Since there are so many, I'd suggest reading the ones on topics in which you are interested-- although since they're only four pages, they tend to go by fairly quickly.

POSTs related to national health (in the UK)

Health Behaviour
http://www.parliament.uk/documents/upload/postpn283.pdf

Ethnicity and Health
http://www.parliament.uk/documents/upload/postpn276.pdf

POSTs related to developing countries

HIV/AIDS in developing countries
http://www.parliament.uk/documents/upload/postpn210.pdf

Fighting Diseases of Developing Countries
http://www.parliament.uk/documents/upload/POSTpn241.pdf

Access to Medicines in the Developing World
http://www.parliament.uk/post/pn160.pdf

Tackling Malaria in Developing Countries
http://www.parliament.uk/documents/upload/postpn284.pdf

Food Security in Developing Countries
http://www.parliament.uk/documents/upload/postpn274.pdf

Adapting to Climate Change in Developing Countries
http://www.parliament.uk/documents/upload/postpn269.pdf

***

Full List of publications on "Science, Technology, and the Developing World"
http://www.parliament.uk/parliamentary_offices/post/postpublicationsdevelopment.cfm

Full List of publications on biological sciences and health
http://www.parliament.uk/parliamentary_offices/post/biology.cfm

Obesity and Global Health

2008-12-23T14:36:00.003-08:00

Newsweek interviews Barry Popkin, author of "The World is Fat," who offers some suggestions on why obesity is on the rise globally. His main argument seems to be the growth of an "obesogenic environment," i.e a surplus of food plus a culture of inactivity.
http://www.newsweek.com/id/175954

Some interesting points at the end, too, on the subject of intervention:

Some people are going to respond to all this by saying it should be a matter of individual responsibility — that diet and weight are a matter of choice and the government shouldn't meddle.
That's OK if those people want to pay for the extra health-care costs that come with obesity. But right now this is affecting everyone in America, because we all pay those costs. It's the same issue we had with seatbelts. People who didn't use them were only hurting themselves, physically, but in the process, they were raising insurance costs for everyone. Now we are at a point where people can't even walk and they need scooters to get around, where we have to build special beds and chairs in hospitals, where we're taking toes and feet off people that have diabetes. If the government is going to pay for all of this, that affects everyone, and we need to do something about it. But America is a society that prefers to break things and then pay to fix them.

Unemployment

2008-12-23T14:36:00.001-08:00

Brief article on the state of joblessness in America right now.
http://money.cnn.com/2008/12/18/news/economy/jobless_claims/?postversion=2008121810

Takeaway:

The Labor Department said that initial filings for state jobless benefits fell to 554,000 for the week ended Dec. 13. That was a decline of 21,000 from the 26-year high of a revised 575,000 claims a week earlier.
A week ago, the government reported the highest number of jobless claims since Nov. 27, 1982 when initial filings hit 612,000.

Moral Obligation

2008-12-23T14:35:00.003-08:00

Peter Singer argues that the affluent have a moral obligation to help the poor in his extremely influential article Famine, Affluence, and Morality. Regardless of whether you agree or disagree with his position, this is definitely worth a look.

http://www.utilitarian.net/singer/by/1972----.htm

FTA:

My next point is this: if it is in our power to prevent something bad from happening, without thereby sacrificing anything of comparable moral importance, we ought, morally, to do it. By "without sacrificing anything of comparable moral importance" I mean without causing anything else comparably bad to happen, or doing something that is wrong in itself, or failing to promote some moral good, comparable in significance to the bad thing that we can prevent. This principle seems almost as uncontroversial as the last one. It requires us only to prevent what is bad, and to promote what is good, and it requires this of us only when we can do it without sacrificing anything that is, from the moral point of view, comparably important. I could even, as far as the application of my argument to the Bengal emergency is concerned, qualify the point so as to make it: if it is in our power to prevent something very bad from happening, without thereby sacrificing anything morally significant, we ought, morally, to do it. An application of this principle would be as follows: if I am walking past a shallow pond and see a child drowning in it, I ought to wade in and pull the child out. This will mean getting my clothes muddy, but this is insignificant, while the death of the child would presumably be a very bad thing.

More from Peter Singer and the morality of consumption:
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/17/magazine/17charity.t.html?partner=permalink&exprod=permalink

Found via MetaFilter.

Poverty and the Youth

2008-12-23T14:35:00.001-08:00

A poverty-related article from ESPN? Believe it: they compare the football careers of two high school students from the same area, one a rich school and the other.. well.. read on!
http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/eticket/story?page=sandiegohs&lpos=spotlight&lid=tab1pos1

Hard times have fallen on even the upper-middle class. Falling allowances? Kids getting jobs? Tragedy in suburbia.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/13/nyregion/13teens.html?em

Girl receives a $2 unemployment check:
http://www.ireport.com/docs/DOC-158591

Compare our youth situation with that of those in Greece. (Spoiler: they were selling rocks for throwing in protest. Yes, that's right, selling rocks.)
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/dec/14/greece-riots-youth-poverty-comment

Cost Calculators and Financial Success

2008-12-23T14:34:00.001-08:00

Mint.com is a lovely site that offers an incredibly useful tool for personal finance management, and also some general advice on how to manage your money:
http://blog.mint.com/blog/finance-core/three-principles-of-personal-finance-all-you-need-to-know-for-financial-success/

Pulled from the above article, a series of "cost calculators" for just about everything you can imagine...

What's the cost of raising a child? Find out here:
http://www.babycenter.com/cost-of-raising-child-calculator

What about the cost of moving to a new city?
http://www.bankrate.com/brm/movecalc.asp

The "real cost" of a car?
http://www.edmunds.com/apps/cto/intro.do

Finally, how long will it take you to pay off that credit card debt?
http://finance.yahoo.com/calculator/banking-budgeting/det-01

Tackling the doctor shortage

2008-12-23T14:31:00.001-08:00

What do you do when there aren't enough doctors to meet the primary care needs of a community? Rosenberg profiles one relatively successful answer in India: train community health workers from among the laypeople. Whom do you pick from, considering everyone probably has a busy life and won't want to work for free? Try a historically disadvantaged population, thereby giving them a chance at higher social status (the Untouchables, in this case)!

[ Special note here: I actually really want to start a similar program like the one detailed in the article in the future. So the article has a little extra meaning, at least for me. ]
http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2008/12/community-doctors/rosenberg-text

There's a problem of "medical migration" out of developing nations for better-paid jobs elsewhere. This colorful diagram depicts it quite artistically:
http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2008/12/community-doctors/follow-up-text

Found via Metafilter.

Help for the Homeless

2008-12-23T14:30:00.000-08:00

Today, some facts and figures about homelessness in the US from PBS:
http://www.pbs.org/now/shows/305/homeless-facts.html

A neat LA Times article about a new technology designed to improve upon the living conditions of the homeless.. kind of.
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-edar10-2008dec10,0,5253031.story

Visit the Home of the EDAR for more info on that.

In other news, Dr. Helene Gayle offers Obama some advice: Fight Extreme Poverty!
http://www.rd.com/your-america-inspiring-people-and-stories/fight-extreme-poverty/article113161.html

Yet women and girls are disproportionately marginalized. Women work two-thirds of the world's working hours and produce half its food, yet earn only 10 percent of the world's income and own less than 1 percent of its property. Approximately 500,000 women die each year in childbirth—a number unchanged in more than 20 years—and almost all those deaths are due to preventable causes.

Found via MetaFilter.

Healthy Eating vs. Thrifty Eating

2008-12-23T14:28:00.001-08:00

There's tension between how healthy you can eat and how much you can spend on food, as many low-cost foods tend to be junk foods. Can you eat healthy while on a strict budget? This NYT article examines that question:

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/04/health/nutrition/04well.html?_r=1&ref=science

The blog of the two Social Justice teachers who lived on a dollar a day can be found here (links to the Food Cost Index, something neat to look at):
http://onedollardietproject.wordpress.com/

Paternalistic Aid

2008-12-23T14:27:00.000-08:00

On the global front, you have to be careful about how you deliver foreign aid-- the relentless desire to help can sometimes cause charitable organizations to neglect simple human dignity, resulting in reactions like this one, by Binyavanga Wainaina:
http://www.granta.com/Magazine/92/How-to-Write-About-Africa?view=articleAllPages

His website, link below, features additional perspectives on that theme:
http://speakingoffaith.publicradio.org/programs/2008/ethics_of_aid-kenya/

Finally, an earlier article from Wainaina, expressing the same tone:
http://www.mg.co.za/article/2007-12-03-oxfamming-the-whole-black-world

Mental Illness and America's Prisons

2008-12-23T14:26:00.001-08:00

This is.. troubling, to put it lightly. America's prisons have become the de facto mental health institutions as actual mental institutions lose funding. Documentary and article by Jenn Ackerman.

http://www.indepth.jennackerman.com/trapped/feature.html

Related, another video piece about prisons, called, appropriately enough, "Getting Out of Prison":

http://current.com/items/89586411/getting_out_of_prison.htm

Info:

Laura Ling follows several young inmates out of prison and into the often losing battle to keep from going back in. With a record two million Americans behind bars, hundreds of thousands of inmates are released on parole every year, and most of them end up going back to prison. Laura takes us through the entire system, from the moment of release, to the first days out of freedom, to the struggle parolees have to resist going back to the lifestyles that originally put them behind bars.

A guide for the newly poor (in LA)

2008-12-23T14:25:00.001-08:00

Today features a pair of articles from the West Coast, plus a bonus (fun?) article at the end.

The LA Times publishes "A guide for the newly poor"... in Los Angeles. Goes through many of the social services available there.
http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-cover7-2008dec07,0,7416907.story

"10% of U.S. homeowners in arrears or foreclosure." Pretty much says it all, things are not looking good for homeowners trying to make it right now.
http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-foreclose6-2008dec06,0,2672022.story

Finally, some unexpected/unintentional/unusual consequences of the recent downturn in the economy (selling hair?):
http://www.cnn.com/2008/LIVING/personal/12/08/weird.ways.to.make.money/index.html?iref=mpstoryview

Global Issues

2008-12-23T14:24:00.000-08:00

First up, an extremely compelling narrative about the consequences of foreign aid and foreign development in Kabul. One of the most interesting questions: Can architecture actually affect the level of violence in an area?
http://www.walrusmagazine.com/articles/2008.12-international-affairs-the-archipelago-of-fear/

Next, a companion to the above, an opinion piece essentially making explicit the policy changes hinted at in the above article..
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/23/opinion/23stewart.html

Third, women in the Congo testify about an onslaught of rape:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/dec/05/congo-women

Fourth, Pakistan prepares for a water shortage:
http://www.aycworldnews.com/water-availability-hard-times-ahead/

Income vs. Brain Development

2008-12-23T14:23:00.001-08:00

Here's the headline, and you'll see immediately why this is relevant, and why it ruffled a few feathers:

Cal Study: Poor Kids Lack Brain Development

http://www.nbcbayarea.com/news/local/Cal-Study-Kids-Might-Not-Get-Full-Brain-Development-if-Poor.html

FTA:

"This is a wake-up call," Knight said. "It's not just that these kids are poor and more likely to have health problems, but they might actually not be getting full brain development from the stressful and relatively impoverished environment associated with low socioeconomic status: fewer books, less reading, fewer games, fewer visits to museums."

Related: Kirstof argues that the world's IQ could be raised simply by introducing iodine into the diet..
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/04/opinion/04kristof.html?_r=1&em

What is the connection between Poverty and Health?

2008-12-23T14:22:00.001-08:00

"Poverty and Health: Asking the Right Questions" by Victor Fuchs

Hint: It's not completely intuitive. This is a definitive article, a must-read.

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qa5461/is_/ai_n28620464

Article highlights:
1) Low income is probably not the cause of poor health, at least in developed nations.
2) Low income is still correlated with higher mortality, even in countries with universal health care.
3) Education may be the "third variable" that explains the relationship between income and health.

Related:

Here, you'll find the highlights of the WHO's "Global Burden of Disease" report, which essentially predicts how we will die in the next few decades. Some of the numbers may surprise you..
http://www.foreignpolicy.com/story/cms.php?story_id=4560

I suppose this is health-related too; a map of the world disaster hotspots!
http://blog.foreignpolicy.com/node/8885

Re: Why is there poverty? - Two Interviews

2008-11-16T17:58:00.001-08:00

From: PW
Date: Wed, Nov 12, 2008 at 12:54 PM
Subject: Re: Why is there poverty? - Two Interviews
To: The Amazing Long

Long,

You seem to have captured most of what I said. Either you had a recorder or you're an incredible note taker!
A few corrections, though, for the record:

1) A number of transient homeless individuals feel safer in smaller towns, rather than large cities. Williamsburg has a bus/train station where individuals get off, and it is a "microcosm" of what is happening nationally.

2) On the example of the homeless man in Connecticut, I let him stay on the couch at the halfway house/aftercare program that I ran (since we were full), not in my home. I was also the VP for the local homelessness coalition that started a shelter, etc.

3) Tioga Motel was here in Williamsburg, not Connecticut. It's been torn down as of this past year. Until recently, $39.99 + tax was about the cheapest price for one night's stay in a motel in this area.

4) I'm not sure how much of the "poverty' discourse was mine, but the root causes are complex and varied:
individual circumstances health issues: mental & physical; addiction; (old) age or disability; (lack of) education, training, or other skills; high cost of living; lack of jobs, health care, affordable housing; no family or community support, supply-demand economy, etc, etc.

Viable solutions are costly, labor intensive, and require a tremendous amount of collaboration & cooperation across the board. They require public and prviate partnerships on local, state, and federal levels, as well as goernmental, business, education, organizational, and faith-based cooperation within geographic areas. In history the "poor" have always been there. Their numbers and degrees of poverty vary by all these factors in a given region, and, to a great degree, are driven by societal factors. It's when people, despite their hard work and efforts, cannot advance and improve their lives, that creates a permanent underclass in any society.

Hope some of these clarifications were helpful.

Peter

Poverty Resources from the UNC Poverty Center

2008-11-16T17:55:00.001-08:00

Val also sent along a link to the UNC Center on Poverty, Work, and Opportunity, where Gene Nichol is now the Director.

Two parts of the site immediately present themselves as a great wealth of information:

*Poverty Resources - with Quick Facts, statistics, and links to other reliable sources. Example:

Rising Costs
The rising cost of food and fuel are frequently the two major reasons cited for the growing reliance on food stamps and/or food pantries.
The Bureau of Labor Statistics, which tracks the Consumer Price Index, reports that nationally the cost of "food at home" went up an average of 5.8% between May 2007 and May 2008. However, the price of some essential grocery items has skyrocketed well beyond that rate.
Cereal and bakery items are up 10.5%
Bread is up 15.9%
Eggs are up 18.2%
Milk is up 10.2%
Rice is up 19.9%
Moreover the cost of household energy has risen 11.9% (with states that depend on oil and kerosene for heating especially hard-hit). And no one needs to be told that the cost of regular unleaded gas has jumped--20.5% on average.

*Publications and Video - with links to many "policy briefs" written by the faculty.

Community Organizing

2008-11-16T17:40:00.001-08:00

Valerie shared this article with me, written by Obama back in 1990:

http://www.edwoj.com/Alinsky/AlinskyObamaChapter1990.htm

FTA:

In my view, however, neither approach offers lasting hope of real change for the inner city unless undergirded by a systematic approach to community organization. This is because the issues of the inner city are more complex and deeply rooted than ever before. Blatant discrimination has been replaced by institutional racism; problems like teen pregnancy, gang involvement and drug abuse cannot be solved by money alone. At the same time, as Professor William Julius Wilson of the University of Chicago has pointed out, the inner city's economy and its government support have declined, and middle-class blacks are leaving the neighborhoods they once helped to sustain.

Neither electoral politics nor a strategy of economic self-help and internal development can by themselves respond to these new challenges. The election of Harold Washington in Chicago or of Richard Hatcher in Gary were not enough to bring jobs to inner-city neighborhoods or cut a 50 percent drop-out rate in the schools, although they did achieve an important symbolic effect. In fact, much-needed black achievement in prominent city positions has put us in the awkward position of administering underfunded systems neither equipped nor eager to address the needs of the urban poor and being forced to compromise their interests to more powerful demands from other sectors.

Global Sustainable Tourism Criteria

2008-11-13T07:00:00.000-08:00

So I was looking through news articles awhile back and found this and meant to post it but never did...it's an interesting article.

http://www.unfoundation.org/press-center/press-releases/2008/ted-turner-global-sustainable-tourism-criteria.html

Woolcock lectures on poverty - The Flat Hat

2008-11-09T18:48:00.000-08:00

Great job Impact! We're in the Flat Hat:

http://flathatnews.com/content/69126/woolcock-lectures-poverty

The article actually contains a great summary of his lecture by Jessica Kahlenberg. Check it out, especially if you weren't there or if you want a refresher on what he said.

Video of the full lecture can be found here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hjn9IvvPb1s

Cost of Living vs. Typical Service Worker Salary

2008-11-08T08:49:00.001-08:00

View it here:

http://spreadsheets.google.com/pub?key=plIoMY5FEDa0h2CpyGtvNYw

Excel version:

http://www.filesavr.com/costofliving

(Play with the "Year" numbers to adjust the results).

Re: Why is there poverty? - Two Interviews

2008-11-06T22:12:00.001-08:00

On Fri, Nov 7, 2008 at 1:11 AM, The Amazing Long <ljvinh@wm.edu> wrote:

Hi everyone,

Recently we had a chance to meet with Peter Walentisch, the person who is basically in charge of all social services in Williamsburg, to ask him about, among other things, the causes of homelessness and poverty in Williamsburg. This is part of our greater effort to conduct research on both local and global poverty. I'm writing to share my notes from the meeting with you. A caveat: they are as accurate as possible, but may contain misprints from the process of transcribing.

If you're interested in learning more about local and global poverty, considering coming to our regular meetings: 8:00pm on Mondays in Tucker 114.

peace,
-Long

P.S. The notes are reprinted below, for your convenience. Also included is a short interview with Prof. Bisconer, an Adjunct Professor of Psychology who also supervises the Colonial Services Board Emergency Department.

Notes from Meeting with Peter Walentisch, Director of Human and Social Services for the City of Williamsburg

First Question: Why isn't there a homeless shelter in Williamsburg?

Mr. Walentisch emphasized the point that just because we don't see homeless people often and just because we don't have a big obvious building to put them all in, it doesn't mean that people aren't doing everything they can to help.
Williamsburg uses what he called a "scattered-site sheltering" approach. Because the City is a tourist town, we have plenty of motels, many of which have plenty of empty rooms, especially in the winter when the tourist season dies down (which, conveniently enough, is also when the need for shelter is often at its highest). So the City has contracts with many of the local motels, which allows them to offer rooms at discounted rates.

When someone comes to social services for help, the social worker first tries to address their immediate needs: putting a roof over their head, and getting them vouchers for food. Once that is taken care of, they move on to develop a longer-range plan. An important question they ask at this point is, "What's realistic?" This also allows social services to address individual needs-- for instance, if the client is homeless due to domestic violence, then they can be referred to Avalon for appropriate assistance. Another resource available to clients is the Colonial Services Board's shared housing program. Oxford House and the Substance Abuse Coalition are examples of other organizations that sponsor apartments for the purpose of helping those in need.

Mr. Walentisch discussed the importance of "community wraparound services" which allow better targeting, more individual attention, and greater community contribution. This is exemplified by groups like the Homelessness Task Force. They have determined that the need in the community is not for a building, but rather for services. To build a homeless shelter, you'd have to spend about $300,000 to hold about ten beds, and the shelter would also require round-the-clock staff.

The "scattered site approach," on the other hand, utilizes a network of organizations to more effectively deliver services. Contributing organizations include the United Way, local churches, social services, and various service organizations (such as "Vibrant Life Ministries"-- CK). We also have links to groups all over the Peninsula.

Williamsburg is actually participating in the National Alliance to End Homeless' "Ten Year Plan to End Homelessness." The plans are still in draft, but show great promise.

Second Question: What are the main causes of homelessness?

Williamsburg is a microcosm of the nation as a whole. Consider DC and other urban areas, where you routinely see people on the street. Relatively speaking, we are doing okay in Williamsburg because we are able to put people up quickly. The homeless population is fluid.

Who is homeless? There are three major types:
1) Local residents who are struggling to make ends meet (they often have health issues or job issues and if they can't make rent due to these or other factors, they will lose their apartment).
2) People who are discharged from jails or mental institutions and suffer from a lack of support during the transition back to working life.
3) "Transients," many of whom travel up and down the East Coast seeking shelter. They end up here because Williamsburg has a bus system. Note that many homeless people would rather be here than, say DC.

Third Question: What are the main causes of poverty?

-Not having skilled work
-Williamsburg's tourist economy is dominated by unskilled labor jobs
-The cost of living has increased and is still increasing, as is the cost of housing. Can you make it on $9 an hour? (There's an incentive to share rooms in apartments, which is fine if you're single, but what if you have a family?).

Try to add up the costs. For a family of four, how much does it cost to eat? What is your grocery bill every week? ($150?). Day care is also extremely expensive, about $150 a week even, which adds up to $7500 a year (as much as in-state tuition!).

The cost of everything has gone up, and wages don't meet the cost of living. That is why people are poor.

Even in the middle class, some are living paycheck to paycheck and straddled in debt (when things don't add up, forced to take a loan). People in this situation are at high risk of sinking into real poverty, because in a family of four, a lost job or a medical emergency essentially halves your family income.

In Williamsburg, we have a seasonal economy. So someone might work 60 hours per week during the "on-season" and make it okay, but during the off season, they might work, say 20 hours per week and take odd jobs on the side and still not make it.

In the nation at large, we have a recession-- these are cyclical, in Mr. Walentisch's view, which puts even more people at risk for homelessness.

Mr. Walentisch told the story of a time when he worked at a homeless shelter in Connecticut. Out in the northeast, homeless shelters tend to fill up quickly, especially during the winter. So many people are turned away. One client who had tried pratically every other shelter in the area came to Mr. Walentisch's shelter for help. Mr. Walentisch had to turn him down as well, which prompted much fuming and uttering of expletives from the client. So Mr. Walentisch decided to make a bet with him, thinking that his networking abilities and social status could get him a place in a shelter easily. He bet the client that he would live three days as a homeless person and that he could find shelter for them both in those three days.
Mr. Walentisch soon found out that for the poor and the homeless, there is often no starting point. They went to the welfare office, but how could they verify your information and how could they send you checks without an address? How could they contact you without a phone number? To rent an apartment, you had to put up $2,000 as a down payment, upfront. And if you're homeless, looking ragged, wearing the same clothes for days on end, and frustrated from being turned down again and again, how would you look to an employer? Mr. Walentisch concluded the system simply didn't work.
Eventually, Mr. Walentisch pulled out a couch in his own home for his client. They helped him shape up, getting him clean-shaven and sending him for some job interviews. The client needed major, personal intervention. They eventually got him a place to stay, but all in all it cost them $3,000-$5,000 personally. Another problem was that even if you get a job, there's still a one month delay before you receive your first paycheck.
"I did not know," Mr. Walentisch confessed. When you're not eating, you go into survival mode. You're probably not all that presentable to an employer. And even if you somehow miraculously get cleaned up, what if you feel miserable?

The Tioga Motel was the cheapest one in Connecticut, at $40 per night. That's $280 per week, and $1120 per month. At that rate, how do you save money to get out of the motel? It's a Catch-22, Mr. Walentisch explained.

People would act crazier just to get into the state hospital.

There is a long process of stabilization for a family, even after all services have been delivered, that takes about 1-2 years.

Additional Questions:
1) How is the system accessed?
2) What are the statistics for this area? How many are homeless and how many are in poverty? Where do we find them?

Analysis:
(1) Poverty is a systems-level property. It is not accountable in terms of individual, business, or group decisions. In a way, "the system makes the decision for you." So to answer the question, "Why is there poverty?" one might say, "Because people make low wages compared to the cost of living?" This prompts the question, "Why do businesses pay low wages?" One answer to this might be, "Because the cost of their supplies and the delivery of their services leaves them that much room in their budget for wages." This then prompts the question, "Why are the costs of services and supplies so high?" And so on. There seems to be an infinite regression of questions here, which does not point to any one group or individual decision as the root "cause" of poverty which, if eliminated, would subsequently eliminate poverty itself. To say poverty is irreducible is not to say that one couldn't explain it in terms of its parts (many decisions of many parties), but even in that case, something would be missing.
(2) Even if all social services were operating at full capacity-- say, with infinite volunteer manpower and infinite budgets-- poverty would not be eradicated. This is because social services are a response to poverty, not a cure for it.
(3) Perhaps poverty should be viewed metaphorically as a disease. You cannot completely eradicate it from a population (can't stop people from getting sick), but you can minimize suffering and quickly deliver treatment. So the ideal solution to poverty does not involve identifying the "root cause" (because there is none; it is systemic), but rather it means creating a robust network of social services to quickly lift people up when they fall down.

Brief Interview with Prof. Bisconer (Dept. of Psychology at W&M, Emergency Services at CSB)

What is a Colonial Services Board?

They provide many services:
1) Emergency Services (usually the first stop)
2) Outpatient care
-Substance Abuse
-Individual therapy (depression, anxiety, family loss)
-Case Management (major depression, schizophrenia, bipolar disorder)
3) Psychiatric services
-Geriatrics (Alzheimer's)
-Children

There are 44 CSBs statewide. The one where Prof. Bisconer works has jurisdiction over Poquoson, Yorktown, JCC, and Williamsburg

Their fees are on a "sliding scale" based on the patient's income. They don't turn anyone down, and the fee is $1 if the patient cannot afford the services.

I asked her to estimate the volume of services they provide. She said on a typical week, she will receive about 75 calls in the Emergency department. About 40 out of those 75 will be for detox, either from the patient themselves or the patient's family. About 25 of those 75 will be for major mental illness, which often results from noncompliance and decompensating. Approximately 35 of those 75 lead to evaluations, of which around 8-10 will be hospitalized.

She mentioned an issue dubbed the "criminalization of mental illness," whereby many of the CSB's patients arrive because the police pick them up off of the streets. So for instance, someone who is chronically schizophrenic, or a homeless person who is mentally ill, might find themselves at the CSB only after being found by the police. She suggested that there needs to be a better way to shift from the legal system to the treatment system.

Stats:
(Consumers by Special Population)
At-risk for Emotional Disturbance   29
Serious Emotional Disturbance   123
Serious Mental Illness   559

Website: http://www.colonialcsb.org/

IMPACT minutes 11.3.08

2008-11-03T21:50:00.001-08:00

VOLUNTEER OPPORTUNITIES

Grove Food Bank
Wednesday, November 5 from 11am-1pm
e-mail Long (ljvinh@wm.edu) if interested

Housing Partnerships
THIS FRIDAY, meet outside PBK at 2:50
e-mail Kate (klchelak@wm.edu) if you can come

ANNOUNCEMENTS / UPDATES

Wallentisch Meeting
notes forthcoming

Colonial Services Board
notes forthcoming

Next Speaker -- Paul Farmer???
He was at UVA a few years ago...if you have friends at UVA ask them if they know how UVA got Paul Farmer to come.

LOCAL AND GLOBAL POVERTY RESEARCH

Local Poverty Group
Lisa
Jordan
Long

Global Poverty Group
Jeewon
Kate
Clare

*if you were not at the meeting, please choose a group and do the appropriate research for next week*

What We Will Be Researching

causes of poverty
effects of poverty
why it's an issue not being resolved
what to do about it ideally
what to do about it realistically

Possible Methods of Distribution

paper
powerpoint
website
pamphlet
information sheet
Flat Hat article

Goals for Next Week
Local --> 1 or 2 reliable resources/data for the area
Global --> statistics on the national level

IMPACT minutes 10.27.08

2008-10-27T18:47:00.001-07:00

ANNOUNCEMENTS / UPCOMING EVENTS

Beyond Confusion Corner: Service and Civic Engagement in the City of Williamsburg
Wednesday, October 29th at 7pm in Morton 20
to quote from Long's e-mail..."Mayor Jeanne Zeidler, SA President Valerie Hopkins, and Social Services Director Pete Walentisch will engage students in a presentation entitled "Beyond Confusion Corner: Service and Civic Engagement in the City of Williamsburg". This is the city we live in for most of the year, and we all have a responsibility to be informed and active in our political decisions. A question and answer period will follow the presentation."

Food-Preparation Shift at the DC Central Kitchen
Friday, November 21 from 1:30pm-midnight at DC Central Kitchen
Organized by OSVS/Commuity Service Leaders...this is the blurb from the OSVS listserv:
*new* Nov 21: Interested in learning about alleviating hunger sustainably in the DC Metro Area? Volunteer for a food-preparation shift at the DC Central Kitchen (http://www.dccentralkitchen.org/) on Friday, November 21. A van will depart from campus at about 1:30pm and will return to campus around midnight of the same day. For more information and/or to sign up, email rdwils@wm.edu! Join the Community Service Leaders for a great service opportunity!Housing Partnerships Update

Housing Partnerships Update:
have not heard back from Brandie Wieler (volunteer coordinator) about Fridays; Kate will send her an e-mail

PLANS/DISCUSSIONS

Our Mission(?)

What are the causes of poverty in Williamsburg?
Are they being addressed?
If not, what can we do to address them?

Areas of Focus for the Rest of the Semester:

local poverty and its characteristics (ie: Housing Partnerships and FISH)
local poverty research
global poverty research

*note -- next meeting we will divide into research groups for local and global poverty*

Goals for the End of the Semester:

have research that can be put in a report or perhaps even more condensed format
connect local poverty issues and research with what we discover about global poverty and solutions to global poverty
come up with ideas about the causes of poverty in Williamsburg, and perhaps direct the group to influencing Williamsburg practices regarding poverty (end of year)

Update on the UN's Millenium Development Goals

2008-10-19T14:03:00.000-07:00

Someone in my epidemiology class posted this link on our class blog, and I found it very interesting...lots of nice graphs. :-)

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/6943975.stm

Minutes 9.24.08

2008-10-06T15:24:00.001-07:00

Sorry I took so long to get the minutes from last week posted...

9.24.08 MINUTES

Peter Wallentisch—Director of Williamsburg Human Services

· Friday afternoon meeting? ~3:30, 4 October 24

· Thursday afternoon?

Campus Garden

· Tuesdays, 4pm-6pm

· ALL FOOD TO FISH!!!

Housing Partnerships

· **Training Thursday at 7

· Weekends still on

Long’s Winter Break Service Trip

· In Williamsburg…stay at CCM Catacombs (just behind Alumni House on campus)

· January 18^th – January 23rd

· Work with: Housing Partnerships, Head Start

· LET HIM KNOW AT MEETING NEXT WEEK if you are interested

Woolcock Publicity

**Clare Will Write Form Letter this Weekend

2.5-3 weeks prior: Contacting Department—Government (Katie), Econ (Jeewon), Soc (Lisa), Women’s Studies (Lisa), IR (Devin), Global Studies (KB or Clare), Anthro? (Kat), History (Katie), Hispanic Studies? (Kat), ENSP (Clare)

3 weeks: Facebook!!! Clare—event and event summary

2 weeks: Professors—contact anyone who might be interested! Let everyone know once you have contacted one professor

2 weeks: **OSVS—Melody Porter (Emily)

2 weeks: *Ginger Ambler and Taylor Reveley

Flat Hat (Katie)

SA (Clare)

1.5-2 weeks: Other student organizations—SEAC (KB and Clare), SSDP (KB), APO (Long), Wesley (Emily), TLSC (KB), CKI (Kat), Vox (Lisa), Feminist Majority Leadership Alliance (Lisa), Student Organization for Animal Protection (Lisa), HOPE (Long), CCM (Kate), Lutheran Students Organization (Lisa), CPALs (Clare), IR club (Katie), Sharpe (Clare), Young Democrats (KB), Monroe Listserv (Lisa Grimes—Long), Obama Students (Clare)

2 weeks (consistently): Student Happenings, at or near top of e-mails (Long)

1.5 weeks: Flyers—Grace

SC Banner and feltboard—Kate and Grace

In-class announcements—Civic Engagement

IMPACT minutes 9.22.08

2008-09-23T21:26:00.001-07:00

Ok. Here it goes:

First, turns out the Housing Partnerships training for this week was Tuesday at 7pm...sorry I didn't get that out earlier. I'm going to send the volunteer coordinator an e-mail letting her know there are three or four people who weren't at either training session but are interested in volunteering and were wondering if they could come this Saturday anyway. I'll let you all know what she says.

Now for the actual minutes:

Updates
James City County Social Services -- Jeewon got in touch with them, but no one who knew the demographics was in. She'll call again when they are there.
Housings Partnerships -- THIS SATURDAY from 8:30am-1pm. Meet in the PBK parking lot. Need to be trained first (see note above).
Make A Difference Day -- Probably not going to do this, because work isn't exactly what we though it would be.
Community Action Agency -- Emily still working on getting in touch with them.
Human Services -- Long still trying to get in touch.
Hospice -- Once again, not quite what was imagined at first (paid service, not free we believe). BUT Lisa mentioned Edmarck, a non-profit organization that does hospice care in the Hampton Roads area. So we will look into that?

Youth Service America
Grace mentioned it. We would develop a project and then submit it to the above organization for a grant to do the project. Potential???

Woolcock Funding/Advertising
Clare will contact Devin about what we currently have, but we still need some as-of-right-now undetermined amount of money.
[note: I cannot find the advertising minutes right now, but I'll send them out as soon as I get my hands on them.]

And that is all!

- Kate

Re: [ihuman] Important Information and Minutes from 9.9.08

2008-09-10T21:27:00.001-07:00

So I hope this works...

Unfortunately I wasn't able to get in touch with Sarah, but I still plan on heading over to the Food Bank tomorrow...and I realize this is pretty short notice but if anyone would like to join me please give me a call! My number's 610 308 7161, and I only have one class tomorrow from 2-3:20 so I'm free the rest of the day to go.

Hope everyone's having a fabulous week!

Minutes from 9.9.08

2008-09-10T13:12:00.000-07:00

So apparently attachments don't post when e-mailed to the blog...anyway, here are the minutes:

Monday, 8 September 2008 – General Meeting

Kate and Clare started with the Introduction/Framework of IMPACT humanity

IMPACT humanity’s primary mission is to help mitigate poverty in our (the
Williamsburg) community
- Our focus, at least for this semester, is on local poverty issues, though we will
address some principles of global poverty and efforts against it later in the year
In order to be able to address local poverty, we will be learning about poverty in the
area through working with local organizations that serve the poor and the
economically disadvantaged in Williamsburg and James City County
Three general things will come out of these service experiences:
· We will become more educated about poverty in Williamsburg
· We can then act on this knowledge against poverty in the Williamsburg
community
· We will then be able to teach the greater William and Mary community what we
have learned

Jeewon and Grace continued by talking about the Research/Reasons Behind Service with Pre-existing Organizations

Research will be done by teams who will focus on work with a particular organization
These teams will then teach the rest of the group what they learned through the
service education experience
Reasons for Working with Other Organizations
- To learn about what is already being done about poverty in Williamsburg
- To better understand the causes of poverty in Williamsburg
- To understand better what we can do to contribute to the efforts already being
carried out by other organizations

Katie and Karen then discussed Organizations We Will Work With

Housing Partnerships
Avalon
Head Start
Food Bank
Dream Catchers
Tutoring at local churches hosting programs for elementary school children in need of
tutoring (branching off of a Sharpe scholars program from last year)

Long and John presented an Example of What We Mean (Lackey Free Clinic) – see Long’s e-mail/post for more information

Important Information and Minutes from 9.9.08

2008-09-10T13:10:00.001-07:00

Hello to everyone!

Thanks to all who came out this Monday! For those of you unable to make it, you missed out on a very informative meeting (and some really good cookies), but I wrote it all down in the minutes just for you.

Some IMPORTANT INFORMATION...
- Our website (all minutes will be posted here, as well as relevant articles/"reports") --> www.wm.edu/so/impacthumanity
- If anyone is interested in going to the Food Bank, contact KB (kebrower@wm.edu).
- High Impact Ultimate Frisbee – THIS Thursday (9/11) at 10pm in the Sunken Gardens

NEXT WEEK's General Meeting
- When: Monday, 15 September 2008; 8pm
- Where: Tucker 114
- We will have a comprehensive list of organizations and will continue to split into groups.
- KB and Sarah will speak about the Food Bank OR Grace and Jeewon and Kat will speak about Dream Catchers.

Have a wonderful week!

Kate Chelak
Chair of Communications
klchelak@wm.edu

~~~
The true meaning of life is to plant trees under whose shade you do not expect to sit. [nelson henderson]

Lessons from Lackey Clinic

2008-09-08T18:27:00.001-07:00

Attention Poverty Fighters,

The test of the Impact Humanity listserv is now complete. We apologize for the previous message, and assure you that the individual who did not understand the listserv has now been vanquished.

Today, during the meeting, we discussed our recent expedition to Lackey Free Clinic, a nonprofit health care facility that serves the underprivileged of Williamsburg and Yorktown. Beginning as a one-room clinic in a local church in 1995, Lackey Clinic now serves 5,400 patients throughout the region, filling 28,394 prescriptions and providing over $5 million worth of health care services to the area per year. Given the high cost of providing emergency care, the Lackey staff estimates a total savings of $4 million to area urgent care facilities.

We asked Mrs. Olivette Burroughs, the chief TPC (The Pharmacy Connection) staff member, "What situations or circumstances cause patients to turn to Lackey for care?" She cited numerous factors, including:
-Unemployment
-Marital status (often, spouses who are dependents are stranded after a divorce)
-Education (many patients have less than a high school diploma, which makes it difficult to find employment)
-Language barriers (often further exacerbating the job search; many seek shelter with friends or live in homeless shelters)
-Being undocumented (also makes it difficult to find work)
-Mental illness and mental health
-Being formerly incarcerated (makes it hard to find a job-- a common theme here)
-Many work, but their employers do not provide insurance

As you can see, many of the factors that cause patients to come to Lackey for medical services also contribute to poverty in general. Although Lackey caters primarily to the "working poor," many of its patients do not work, often because they cannot find a job. We were told one story of a patient who had eight people in her family, went to Social Services for food stamps, and was turned down because her income was $2 over the limit.

We also asked, "What are the five most common diseases, illnesses, and conditions reported by patients at the clinic?" They are:
1) Acute injury
2) Asthma / COPD
3) Autoimmune disorders
4) Cardiovascular disease
5) High cholesterol

In addition, to get a sense of the epidemiological profile of Lackey's patients, we inquired, "What are the five most-commonly prescribed drugs at Lackey?" They are:
1) Protonix (ulcers, GERD)
2) Cymbalta (depression)
3) Norvasc (hyptertension)
4) Nexium (depression)
5) Lipitor (cholesterol)

Relating this local data to global health, it is evident in both cases that poverty renders people more vulnerable to health emergencies, and poor health contributes to poverty. Circumstances that hinder the flourishing health of the underpriviledged include lack of access to health care, antibiotic resistance, overcrowded living conditions, and poor nutrition (which leads to compromised immune systems). Especially damaging to underdeveloped countries is the rise of urban air pollution from economic development and a curious rise in tobacco use (smoking in general, by comparison, has tended to decrease in developed countries).

The underprivileged of developing nations face different challenges. While Lackey's patients report primarily chronic conditions (diabetes, hypertension, CVD, depression), much of the developing world confronts the threat of many infectious diseases. These include:
-Lower respiratory inflections, especially pneumonia
-Diarrhea (cholera, rotovirus, e. coli) - exacerbated by poor sanitation and contaminated drinking water
-TB (90% of cases occuring in the developing world, risk exacerbated by HIV/AIDS)
-Malaria and measles (partly responsible for high rates of infant and child mortality)
-HIV/AIDS (almost a subject unto itself)

Thus, while poverty impedes access to health care and lack of health care contributes to poverty both locally and globally, the epidemiological profile-- that is, the various diseases and conditions faced by the underprivileged, varies.

That's all for now,
-(Long)

http://www.lackeyfreeclinic.com/about.html
http://www.globalhealth.org/view_top.php3?id=228
http://www.globalhealth.org/view_top.php3?id=229

UPDATE: "Two other prominent diseases are Diabetes and Hypertension. A medication associated with Diabetes is Novolin."

human development, so-called cultural steamrolling globalization, "frontier colonialism", and mash-up cultural creation-A Letter From Guizhou

2008-06-19T07:42:00.000-07:00

Hello Family and Friends (Profs count),

So I won't be too specific in this post, for cautionary reasons, but I've just a few ideas of many lately that I'd like to share with you. They may be redundant to your knowledge, or they may be strangely foreign. Hopefully they're complementary and clarifying, or at least eye-opening. I recommend you go out and search on the foreign, as I am not making a huge effort to explain a bunch of currently swirling and mixed ideas. (that would frankly take up more time than I currently have!)So I would just like to talk about a few development perspectives and concepts of human development.

Actually, so I just decided I'll list some names for you all to check out, since I have even less time than I originally thought I did...my apologies...the following are a few thinkers who have influence on my current honor thesis research here in Guizhou, China.
In no particular order:

Adam Smith, Friedrich Hayek, Dan Klein, Paul Bauer--and Classical Liberal Economic Theory in general
Amartya Sen and fellow Human Development promoters (which take much from Classical Liberal perspectives)
Modernist and Postmodernist perspectives on political economy and development schemes in a "globalocal" context, namely Tim Oakes (and some others I currently forget...)
Development Skeptics and Economic Rebels--William Easterly (Paul Bauer is really his precursor)
Critical Poverty/Development/Methodology Scholars--Michael Woolcock, Christopher Gibson, Deepa Narayan.
Mash-Up Culture/Remix Culture--www.remixtheory.com--Eduardo Navas, Roland Barthes and Michel Foucault (and power theory, as far as Foucalt goes)

So I am currently navigating my way through Chinese bureaucratic waters, fraught with snakes and crocodiles of potential research impediment, but I will hopefully be village-side by this weekend, and will then be out of reliable contact for about 2 months.

Well, those are the only ones I can recall without my computer here, and I apologise for the frustrated brevity of the lot.

Off to take care of some things!
peace, love,

devin.
(and I leave with the nagging feeling that I've forgetten some important stuff...curse my crappy memory)

Managing Ecosystems to Fight Poverty--from the UN Development Programme, the UN Environment Programme, the World Bank, and the World Resources Insti.

2008-06-11T20:53:00.000-07:00

Managing Ecosystems to Fight Poverty--from the UN Development Programme, the UN Environment Programme, the World Bank, and the World Resources Insti.
I have not read this document yet, but it looks to be an incredibly useful resource for environment and development issues, especially considering the authors.

My occular consumption

2008-06-03T00:42:00.000-07:00

Howdy folks, and greetings from Guiyang, Guizhou, China. Been here for about 3 weeksish now, and i've been living for relatively free (connections, connections, connections), with limited internet (as in, i go to cafes to steal signals...and buy drinks every once and again). I've been doing much research, swimming in paper, as i would describe it. I just wanted to share some reading material with you great people, and hopefully expand your horizons on some subjects that perhaps you're not so familiar with. I certainly have much material to get up to snuff with. Well, here's just a quick list, as i fear the imminent crash of my internet access:

The Elusive Quest for Growth, by William Easterly

The White Man's Burden, by William Easterly

Development As Freedom, by Amartya Sen

"The Fiction of Development," by Michael Woolcock

Several other BWPI working papers by Woolcock and colleagues (#12 on Mixed Methods for Assessing Social Capital in Low Income Countries, #8 on Empowerment, Deliberative Development and Local Level Politics in Indonesia) (BWPI=British World Poverty Institute)

Some P-A Theory (Principal-Agent), International Relations whatnot

"Human Rights as Cultural Practice: An Anthropological Critique," by Ann-Belinda S. Preis

"What's Tourism Got to Do With It?: The Yaa Asantewa Legacy and Development in Asanteman," by Lynda Rose Day
Various papers and angles on tourism policy development in China
Primary sources on Guizhou's tourism development and character
"Bathing in the Far Village: Transnational Capital, and the Cultural Politics of Modernity in China," by Tim Oakes (Tim Oakes is a great source on so-called 'frontier colonialism,' in historical Guizhou, and the social position of ethnic minority groups in relation to the nation and majority Han populations...and he relates this historical, cultural topography to the way development schemes and fdi then map onto such predetermined social conditions...)

Well, there's just a few things of late. Hope you enjoy! Have a stimulating summer my friends. I'll be gone for about 2 months in 2 weeks or so.
paz, amor,

devin.

Rethinking Poverty: Videos from TED

2008-04-28T20:36:00.001-07:00

For all you video-watchers like me out there, I just found out that TED has a whole section dedicated to speakers on poverty. You can view them all here:

TED Theme: Rethinking Poverty

From the site, a description to give you an idea of what you're in for:

The catchphrase goes, "Make poverty history." But how? These speakers' innovative ideas may convince you to forget the traditional models -- grants, aid, charity -- and consider business, technology and trade instead.

Jacqueline Novogratz, founder of the Acumen Fund, argues for a combination of philanthropy and investment -- highlighting personal dignity and choice as the path to progress. Academic and policymaker Ashraf Ghani, meanwhile, urges us to rethink capital in terms of security, social connectivity and education. And Hans Rosling's dazzling, animated statistics reveal the true discrepancies between emerging and developed economies.

Iqbal Quadir explains how he improved a Bangladeshi business model -- by replacing cows with a new component: mobile phones. Majora Carter details her efforts to bring green space to the blighted South Bronx, offering an eye-opening look at how flawed urban policy allows ghettos to exist. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, meanwhile, lets us in on a secret: business in impoverished countries is viable, and a "few smart people" have already made millions of dollars.

Two of the videos that I've seen and liked so far are Hans Rosling on world poverty statistics, [in fact there are two-- here is the follow-up], and Bjorn Lomborg on priorities (he answers the question, "If we had $50 billion to allocate into one issue, which would be the most cost-effective?"

Miniature Earth

2008-04-28T17:35:00.000-07:00

This is a breathtaking video that really drives home many of the common statistics we normally hear about poverty and the general composition of the world's population.

Miniature Earth Home

And for people who really love looking at numbers, World-o-Meters is a site that displays various world statistics in real-time.

Food Crisis 粮食危机

2008-04-26T18:06:00.000-07:00

Ok folks, so I found the Economist's latest briefing on the Food Crisis, dubbed the "silent tsunami," wholly illuminating. I will just proceed to summarise its points and observations:

The End of the Era of Cheap Food--Subsidies in rich countries and heavy distortions in the international food market will be leveled by the recent outburst of the slow but sure suckerpunch the world just received. It's odd, I remember reading about so-called "peak grain" in an article in a Chinese magazine (粮食危机 or something to that effect) last November, and reading about the Scandinavian Seed Bank construction, and I am ashamed to say that the component that then grabbed my attention was the Seed Bank. It appears that the root problems should have been what was on my mind, but more importantly, on the minds of those responsible for addressing policies geared towards mitigating the global expression of such a structurally massive humanitarian crisis. We are now at a point higher than our past equilibrium, and while the market will (hopefully) level out at a new equilibrium, with farmers producing higher yields to respond to the current high prices, the transition will be very painful (it already is. see Haiti, just one example of the extremeness of this current debacle).
Retroactive Effects on Poverty Reduction--According to Bobby Z at the World Bank (President, and former U.S. WTO representative), the current "food inflation" has the potential to send 100 million back where they came from-poverty. This would wipe out "all the gains the poorest billion have made during almost a decade of economic growth" (2008. 5. 19. p.33).
Response from "Smallholder" Farmers Needed--The world is home to some 450 million so-called "smallholders," farmers in developing countries, who, individually, due not farm much in terms of acreage, only a few a piece. Supposedly a supply-side response from these small-scale farmers is desirable, and for three reasons: 1. It would serve to reduce poverty. 3/4 of them live on $1/day, live in the remote countryside, and are heavily reliant on the health of their plots and yields of their crops. 2. Environmentally speaking, this makes sense. These smallholders manage a "disproportionate share" of global water and vegetation resources. Therefore, improving their productivity and efficiency presents a better alternative to cutting down more rainforest and creating new farmlands. Invest in existing ones, improving their outputs. 3. Supporting these smallholders is more efficient. For example, the Economist cites African grain output v European grain output as an example. "In terms of returns to investment, it would be easier to boost grain yields in Africa from two tonnes per hectare to four than it would be to raise yields in Europe from eight tonnes to ten. The opportunities are greater and the law of diminishing returns has not set in." (33) There is a helpful chart in the article that I am sorry I can not include here. Just go find the issue. It's a good one.
Input Costs Present Barrier to Scaling Up--Unfortunately, there is not a "smallholder bonanza" as of yet. Apparently, in East Africa, farmers are actually scaling down their operations because of the rising costs of fertilizers (cost rise due to oil price escalations). India, however, is not a member of this trend. Neither is South Africa. Both have had boosts in output over the past year.
Sticky Prices--A greater trend is that of the inelastic response of supply to rise in cost of their produced goods. Farmers are not, and currently can not, respond perfectly and in a timely fashion to the spike in food prices, a phenomenon that expresses increased global demand. Agriculture is special in this way. At the very quickest, response time from farmers takes a season (several months), and in reality, crop yields and increases are contingent on multivariate factors including, technology investment (e.g. irrigation and seed engineering). These are long-run trends, and rely on persistent research and development from both private and public sectors.
Green Complacency--Following the "Green Revolution" of the 1960s, many governments, assuming that the food crisis had been successfully hedged against and invested in, actually cut back spending on farming by half (from 1980-2004). These cut-backs set in during the 1980s/90s. This neglect has had a gradual, yet terrible effect on seed strength, infrastructure, etc...and had contributed to the lag in supply and its subsequent sluggish response to the rapidly increasing global demand for grains, rice, and meat (wheat is a value-added component of meat, as cows are grain-guzzling machines, resembling developed-world nations' automobiles).
Shrinking Farmlands--Another crucial factor at play here is the global trend of decreasing farmland acreage. This phenomenon is taking place quite clearly in the People's Republic (of China), with strictly agricultural-use land dipping below the supposed "red line" (the base line for self-sustaining national grain production) of 120 million hectares. Grain security has clearly been compromised, as more farmlands are razed for apartment complexes.

And these are the main issues covered, the main questions begging for answers, solutions. Try to meditate on these issues, and remind yourself every time you at a good meal, instead of a mud sandwich (no hyperbole). Just more food for thought folks.
peace, love,

devin.
I love the Economist.

Global Food Prices and Hunger Pt. 4

2008-04-24T23:45:00.000-07:00

http://www.rgemonitor.com/blog/economonitor/252507/
great (general) article summing up recent events and trends in what seems to be a tragic coalescing of many disparate forces. what really interested me and was news to this kid was the bit about the raised food tariffs and export bans (e.g. India), and how such actions actually exacerbate the current crisis. also, i'll add some more based on the recent Economist's briefing on the "silent tsunami," as they term it.

Global Food Prices and Hunger, Pt. 3

2008-04-22T14:10:00.000-07:00

Some interesting news articles that I found...

Asian countries are limiting rice exports

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/2a037e5a-102e-11dd-b8d6-0000779fd2ac.html?nclick_check=1

G8 summit has put the food crisis at the top of their agenda

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/edfdc39c-0fca-11dd-8871-0000779fd2ac.html

Hunger and Biotechnology

2008-04-21T18:55:00.001-07:00

Apparently, with the rise in global food prices, companies are becoming less reluctant to buy genetically modified crops. Read about it here:

In Lean Times, Biotech Grains are Less Taboo

Global Food Prices and Hunger, pt. 2

2008-04-20T18:45:00.001-07:00

A recent story in the Economist affirmed Devin's earlier post regarding the connection between rising food prices and growing world hunger.

http://www.economist.com/opinion/PrinterFriendly.cfm?story_id=11050146

Quote from the article:

"Roughly a billion people live on $1 a day. If, on a conservative estimate, the cost of their food rises 20% (and in some places, it has risen a lot more), 100m people could be forced back to this level, the common measure of absolute poverty. In some countries, that would undo all the gains in poverty reduction they have made during the past decade of growth."

A related article, specific to Bangledesh.

"The new face of hunger," a longer article about the economics of the situation.

Development's Greatest Hits (DGH)

2008-04-19T13:13:00.000-07:00

Just thought I'd put this up in a more focused way than my jumbled copy of a document several posts below. Taken directly from my notes on the Woolcock Google.org speech, here is what he identifies as the successes of development efforts aimed at alleviating poverty and solving pressing world issues. One will notice the inclusion of "Basic Information Technology." This would include cellular phone ownership and network access, things we perhaps take for granted. Though the failures are many in development's history, here are 10 things to learn from. I'll post more parts of my notes from the below document (which I apologise for) in due time.

Also, of important note, Professor Woolcock is down for coming to W&M in the fall! We've got to really get things moving as far as funding and scheduling goes. I'd like to work this out if not by this upcoming Monday (April 21st) then during our meeting. We'll go over costs and the like at the meeting. I've got an estimate, and a tentative date, assuming we can confirm with SA.
peace, love,
dmoney.

1. Universal vaccination (prevention)
2. Community Health (cure)
3. Property Rights (Hernando de Soto!) “Nobody washes a rental car”
4. Microfinance
5. Conditional Cash Transfers (Latin America--paying mothers to keep their kids in school)
6. Rural Roads (making accessible routes between rural areas and markets all times during all seasons)
7. Girls’ Education
8. Green Revolution (India—Getting basic seeds, tech, etc…to rural farmers) (Need a GR for Africa) (First step to industrializing is strong investment in agricultural productivity)
9. Basic Information Technology
10. [Economic growth, migration]

"Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger"--French Electronic Artists Understand

2008-04-19T12:40:00.000-07:00

So it is occurring to me (sometimes it's a slow burn) how important technology's role is in transforming peoples' lives, anywhere from providing added convenience to opening up previously unimaginable doors for the dispossesed and disadvantaged. This great article about the role of a psuedo-anthropologist ("user anthropologist") demonstrates the powerful (and positive) effects simply gaining access to a cellular phone can provide someone in trying to provide medical attention for his/her child or secure an order for his/her produce. Page two of this article has a couple of insightful points on this issue. check it out y'all. good reading.

Also, William Easterly (the man) describes how technology and technological progress can provide a deal of the impetus for the gradual improvement of peoples' lives and the opportunities available to them. Of course, technology is not the holy grail to reducing poverty (one might not be surprised to discover that nothing presenting itself as THE solution to any problem is such, let alone a problem as multifaceted, interlocked, and complex as global poverty and equality divergence). However, it can help raise the level of flexibility and efficiency in the life of someone unaccustomed to such historically upper-crust accoutrement. This gets at the heart of the technological leapfrogging trend of the past decade--providing a means to make life more egalitarian on a global scale. In the words of Daft Punk "Technologic, technologic..."

NGOs vs. Institutions...again

2008-04-18T10:54:00.000-07:00

Not to beat this topic into the ground with a stick, but this article (which provides a summary of a report released by Women's World Banking on the differences between NGO-based and institutional-based microfinance organizations) struck me as extremely relevant to the discussion we had two weeks ago on the pros and cons of both NGO-based microfinance and institutionalized (if that's the right word) microfinance.

http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1731718,00.html

Global Food Prices and Hunger

2008-04-17T14:10:00.000-07:00

A critical issue that has arisen recently around the world (and in the United States, with some 35 million Americans going hungry--for information on this listen to Bill Moyer's PBS report on 4/11/08 Hunger in America). As Australia's rice production comes to a grinding halt, the effects are being felt around the world, most potently in Haiti. In Dakar, Senegal, the government dispersed rioters protesting skyrocketed food prices in the street, angry at their government's seeming inability to deal with pressing issues, distracted by the development of five star hotels and other such gentrifying processes. People are hungry, and subsequently angry around globe, in every continent. Despite all of this chaos and riotous outrage, Mark Lacey states that "most of the poorest of the poor suffer silently, too weak for activism or too busy raising the next generation of hungry."
So IMPACTers, what's to be done? Is it aid, investment and growth? Is it proactive NGO involvement and investment in human capital? Is it a concerted international effort to promote "stability" in the political realms of such conflict-embroiled nations as Haiti or Sudan?

Running for Water

2008-04-14T20:55:00.000-07:00

Six Maasai leave Tanzania for the first time in their lives and run a marathon in England to raise money for their village's water fund. Innovative, but simple approach to development. If you can run, why not get paid to do it, and turn that extra income into prosperity?
http://sport.guardian.co.uk/athletics/story/0,,2273114,00.html

Money that Impoverishes

2008-04-14T19:03:00.000-07:00

The Consequences of Traditional Lending: Some Reasons for the Failure of Global Development Efforts

Severe poverty continues to be endemic to many developing nations despite numerous efforts at its eradication. The current economic practice of offering large-scale loans to nations dealing with poverty perpetuates rather than mitigates economic inequality. The administration of such ineffective or detrimental “aid” is often external to the location of the problem and is globally instead of locally controlled. Because this control is exercised by nations that do not experience such problems and often, nations that potentially stand to benefit from acting as lenders, the root causes of and local issues surrounding severe poverty are not effectively addressed. Since offering loans to nations struggling with poverty fails to be a sustainable solution to poverty, its widespread use must be called into question.

Internationally organized loans such as those provided by individual nations, the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (World Bank), and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) are commonly marketed as effective strategies for reducing poverty in developing nations. These loans are large-scale loans given by such organizations to the governments of developing nations. Theoretically, they are intended to mitigate poverty by providing governments with the capital to foster national economic growth, in the hope that this will “trickle down” to those experiencing poverty. However, very little money loaned to developing nations actually benefits those in severe poverty. Large portions of the funding officially reported as loan money is actually spent on costs for implementing programs in recipient nations. In addition, those funds that are actually spent in recipient nations usually go to projects such as building infrastructure that rarely benefits those who are truly poor. Between 1977 and 2003, Bangladesh received $30 billion in aid, but only 25% of this was spent in Bangladesh itself (Yunus, 145-146). That so little funding reaches borrowing nations themselves indicates serious structural flaws in this economic practice.

The tremendous scale of these loans themselves also creates a positive feedback cycle wherein nations borrow more money to pay off the original loans. This spiraling indebtedness leaves little to no ability for debtor nations to invest in national programs that would benefit the citizens for whom the loan was originally intended. Additionally, frequent debt crises resulting from the practice of large scale lending has led to the necessity of restructuring loans, consuming monetary resources and energy that could have been put towards sustainable development (Ocampo, 117-119). Fluctuations in amounts of aid given to developing nations also cause periodic economic crises and instability. Thus, poverty in debtor nations is actually exacerbated by this practice, as such circular debt structures burden all citizens with the resulting economic depression and instability (Ocampo, 10-11,19).

Additionally, the lending organizations tend to place severe restrictions on the economic activity of borrowing nations, including restricting social programs. For the most part, lenders to developing nations are strongly capitalistic and attempt to promote free market economies through their international policies. Economic problems are seen as stemming from improper economic structure within a country. Therefore, lenders often place restrictions on nations benefitting from loan money that include privatization of national industries and most strikingly, limits on social programs such as pensions. In nations that already struggle with large sectors of impoverished, underprivileged citizens, strict restrictions on spending that could directly benefit these groups of individuals seems to directly contradict with the claimed purpose of these loans. Not only does limiting this type of aid limit the access of the poor to necessary services, it also limits opportunities for economic advancement, because those who are severely impoverished generally have few means with which to enter an economy that is rapidly growing in its upper sectors (Vreeland, 23-25). In the case of the IMF, this practice is known as conditionality, and claims to help nations stabilize their economies through sound policy. However, these conditions tend to restructure economies so that the burden of debt payment shifts away from the richest members of society. By restricting the use of borrowed monies to only select economic sectors, very little loan money reaches the people for whom poverty is a daily reality. With IMF conditionality, this has been shown to actually be detrimental to national economies in addition to failing to help impoverished members of borrower nations (Vreeland, 2-3).

The practice of international lending also suffers from the fatal flaw of attempting global solutions for largely national and regional issues. Most lenders and aid donors to developing nations are based in locations far removed from the poverty they seek to mitigate. In the case of global lending organizations such as development banks, they are rarely (if ever) located in developing nations. For example, the World Bank and the IMF are both headquartered in Washington, D.C. Thus, they have less sensitivity to the effects of their actions on regional and national circumstances (Yunus, 147). Despite the existence of chains of command, citizens of receiving nations have little to no effect on policies set by these organizations (Vreeland, 38), leading to very little accountability. Both global organizations and lending nations also stand to benefit from offering such loans due to the profit received from the interest on these loans. Therefore, they have tremendous incentive to offer large-scale loans, with very little incentive to act in the best interest of the citizens of borrowing nations.

In addition, because most members of aid-providing institutions do not live in the areas receiving the aid, their perceptions of the results of aid are reduced to numerical measurements that may not accurately reflect actual conditions. Economic progress in debtor nations is generally measured by indicators such as the increase in the Gross National Product , which indicates very little about the actual standard of living of individual citizens (Yunus, 146). Instead of a hierarchical model of institutions and other nations effectively mandating policy and aid methods in other nations as well as how they measure the progress of their programs, global anti-poverty efforts should have a much more egalitarian structure. The input of developing nations should be given considerable weight in aid type, allocation, and the determination of effectiveness of programs. Nationalities and localities should have the greatest amount of control over the allocation of funding, provided that the funding does go to programs that effectively combat poverty. Through such a structure, the problem of nations abandoning possibly beneficial social programs in favor of receiving more aid could be mitigated.

Underlying all of these issues is a refusal to focus on sustainability in seeking solutions to chronic problems. In many situations, the solution applied is not chosen for its ability to actually cure the problem nor for its long-term advantages. Rather, “solutions” seem to be derived from an overwhelming desire for expediency and by the desire of those driving the decision making process to experience a short term gain. In establishing this system of international indebtedness and lending in the years shortly after World War II (Vreeland, opening page), the political victors who now dominate the process (such as the United States) saw not simply an opportunity to encourage development in a capitalistic model, but an opportunity for their own economic benefit in functioning as lenders. Instead of choosing this expedient but temporary method of mitigating poverty a more careful, cautious process, had been employed, sustainable methods of combating poverty, or at least less detrimental ones, could have been arrived at.
Thus, large scale loans from externally focused and located sources offer few workable solutions for poverty and often exacerbate the problem, due to their limited exposure to the actual effects of their actions and their self-interest in offering such loans. Hence, what was meant to be a solution to a problem has become, instead, a significant cause of that problem due to carelessness in the original planning of its structure and implementation. In the future, much more carefully guided and monitored solutions must be sought so as to eliminate this particular cause of poverty if there is to be a chance of mitigating it and its effects.

Works Cited

Ocampo, José Antonio et. al., ed. International Finance and Development. Zed Books Ltd., London: 2007.

Vreeland, James Raymond. The International Monetary Fund: Politics of Conditional Lending. Global Institutions Ser. Ed. Weiss, Thomas G., Wilkinson, Rorden. Routledge, New York: 2007.

Yunus, Muhammad. Banker to the Poor: Micro-Lending and the Battle Against World Poverty. Public Affairs: New York: 2003.

Resources for "Poverty and the Environment"

2008-04-14T18:03:00.001-07:00

Here are many articles pertaining to sustainable development, particularly slash-and-burn agriculture and deforestation.

"Finding Balance: Forests and Family Planning in Madagascar"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cAl8bJ-3MSU

ENVIRONMENT-POVERTY CONNECTIONS IN TROPICAL DEFORESTATION
http://siteresources.worldbank.org/INTPOVERTY/Resources/WDR/stiglitz/Chomitz.pdf

Poverty, Environment, and Sustainable Development: A Thematic Bibliography
http://www.sandeeonline.org/publications/bibliographies/pdf/poverty_environment.pdf

Excerpt from Conway's article "The doubly green revolution: balancing food, poverty and environmental needs in the 21st century"
http://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=XT10X4KweFoC&oi=fnd&pg=PA17&dq=conway+doubly+green+revolution&ots=sczcaYOLqR&sig=554HbOEfWizxZM8sz8Nb8Or-zBQ#PPA33,M1

Food for All in the 21st Century, Gordon Conway
http://web.ebscohost.com/ehost/detail?vid=1&hid=17&sid=cde448e7-a901-47c4-be11-3b74043d06cc%40SRCSM2#AN0002655295-4

Poverty, policies, and deforestation: The case of Mexico
http://www.worldbank.org/html/prddr/prdhome/peg/wps05/mexico.pdf

Effects of Poverty on Deforestation: Distinguishing Behavior from Location
ftp://ftp.fao.org/docrep/fao/007/ae401e/ae401e00.pdf

Rethinking the causes of deforestation: Lessons from Economic Models
http://wbro.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/reprint/14/1/73.pdf

Deforestation in Cameroon, and Poverty in the Rural Zone
http://www.csae.ox.ac.uk/conferences/2004-GPRaHDiA/papers/2p-Gbetnkom-CSAE2004.pdf

Land use intensification potential in slash-and-burn farming through improvements in technical efficiency
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B6VDY-4FC3S0D-1&_user=650606&_rdoc=1&_fmt=&_orig=search&_sort=d&view=c&_acct=C000035099&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=650606&md5=18c36c005ed1bccb7d5a7eb7c0dcca8c

Minutes for 4.14.08

2008-04-14T17:59:00.001-07:00

Hey poverty fighters,

Here's what we talked about today, and information about what we'll be doing in the future!

There will Free Chairs given out next meeting (including Outreach, Meeting Facilitation, Research, Publicity, Women's Issues, and Communications).

On SHH,
We learned from Megan, the VP of SHH, that Siete de Abril is 15 minutes away from the nearest big city (and market), El Progreso. This limits the options for microfinance projects. SHH also has an entire class at UMW led by a Professor of Economics who specializes in microfinance, and the class is about how to set up a microfinance institution in a setting like Siete de Abril. So they have their microfinance research pretty well-covered. Currently, they are looking at either busing the villagers to the nearest market, or setting up a cooperative similar to the way Impact and Hatemalo are partnered.
In light of this, we decided that we should broaden our research to include other methods of poverty alleviation that can work in the absence of nearby markets. Clare suggested a "village or village leader loan" that can be used to decrease the cost of purchasing transportation.

There is a program called "Hadetha" started by a W&M alum where organizations can adopt a businesswoman in Iraq. Katie is on this and will contact the head about taking part in this next year. We will also look into Avalon and the way they help women in need.

On Poverty and the Environment, it is such a complex issue, and is better known as "Sustainable Development" (thanks Clare). Case studies in particular include the Three Gorges Dam and slash-and-burn agriculture in general. We will post many resources on our website, www.wm.edu/so/impacthumanity/ , for those interested in pursuing this issue further.

See you next week!
-L

Bird's Eye View of Poverty and Development (History, Successes, Failures, and the Future)

2008-04-14T13:07:00.000-07:00

This is a video covering the subjects mentioned in the title. It is the Michael Woolcock video I had previously sent out on the William and Mary impacthumanity listserv.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VCWFGMn9nJY

Below are the notes I took while I watched the video. I hope this clears up any confusion, and allows you to make your way through the swamp of development literature. While this is by no means a comprehensive introduction to development, I believe it to be a great (and correct) start to looking at these issues. Enjoy!

Global poverty is not a problem that can be addressed immediately and without humility. Many great minds have attempted to tackle the problem, and have not solved the problem. However, humility is not meant to be a ceiling for uncreative, un-striving thought.—Google.org

Every place in the world has a local culture, therefore, while there are common strategies globally, these must respect and merge with contextual circumstance.—Google.org

1. what is all this divergence?
2. what is poverty?
3. how important is growth in addressing poverty?
4. what can we learn from success stories? (South Korea, Botswana…)

1. Global Disparities: pretty recent phenomenon in human history.
2. National Level Poverty: it is not a permanent condition (Korea, Japan, Botswana, etc…have had upward national mobility). Also downward mobility (Argentina)
3. Good Governance helps development. (Africa)
4. Location Matters: Geography is not destiny, but bad locales can influence development.
5. Poverty: Poverty is not simply low income or unfair suffering. However, it is, according to Ray Offenheiser, Janis Pearlman, a lack of opportunity and socio/economic/political agency. The poor must be seen as economic agents, not simply recipients.
6. Economic Growth and Poverty Alleviation: Usually a strong correlation between average GDP per capita and GDP per capita of lowest quintile of population. However, correlation is not causation…?
7. Inequality and Distribution: presents hurdle to growth. Better distribution, access to services, education, etc…Davesh Kapoor.
8. Borders: Pritchard. Labor mobility is essential as well. Freer movement of the poor.
9. Development assistance (foreign aid): not traditionally the big driver of development.
What can google people do to make a constructive effort to alleviating poverty?? The point of the video- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VCWFGMn9nJY&NR=1

Michael Woolcock of the Brooks World Poverty Institute (BWPI) of Manchester (chaired by Joseph Stiglitz) discusses the comparative advantage of google to approaching poverty alleviation.
Though Manchester is the origin of global industrialization, it still contains many poor people.
Woolcock wants to approach the issue from an interdisciplinary angle, and bridge the north-south gap.

Slide 1: Development’s Greatest Hits (DGH): Top 10 interventions that ‘really work’: (Tina Rosenburg)
1. Universal vaccination (prevention)
2. Community Health (cure)
3. Property Rights (Hernando de Soto!) “Nobody washes a rental car”
4. Microfinance
5. Conditional Cash Transfers (Latin America--paying mothers to keep their kids in school)
6. Rural Roads (making accessible routes between rural areas and markets all times during all seasons)
7. Girls’ Education
8. Green Revolution (India—Getting basic seeds, tech, etc…to rural farmers) (Need a GR for Africa) (First step to industrializing is strong investment in agricultural productivity)
9. Basic Information Technology
10. [Economic growth, migration]

Slide 2: How do we know DGH ‘works’?
Because, in most cases, rigorous evaluation says it does…
And because these types of projects lend themselves to such an evaluation
Because a charismatic figure has been a persuasive advocate (e.g., Yunus, de Soto)
Great, BUT…
These ‘successes’ are small islands in a large sea of mediocrity and failure
A good Development theory must account for both
Even so…
Slide 3: Shouldn’t we just replicate and expand DGH?
After all,
Problems are urgent
Time is short
Resources are finite
Voters, politicians are skeptical (even hostile)
Just doing DGH effectively is hard enough
Why waste money ‘reinventing the wheel’?
Maybe…but maybe not…

Slide 4: DGH revisited
Most of these projects…
Began as local experiments
Not initially successful; only became so over time
Initial costs heavily subsidized (esp. microfinance)
Still have high variance (work great in some places, and not in other places)
Have core standardized (context invariant) components, which…
facilitates ‘gold standard’ (randomized) evaluation
enables high returns to diligent-but-low-skill field staff
still rely heavily on local intermediaries (the meat in the sandwich, between “The project” and “The community”)
Don’t automatically make people “not poor”

Slide 5: More fundamental concerns
Focus should be on finding solutions to prevailing problems, not re-working problems to fit the solutions we happen to have
Big danger: Have hammer, see nails
Huge bureaucratic imperatives to do just this
You’re a star-a bona fide development expert-if you can provide a universal ‘tool kit’ based on global development
Deep, pervasive, ‘binding constraint’ poverty problems may or may not map onto a known project or policy instrument
Inflation does, but what about ethnic violence
What if it’s not even clear what ‘the problem’ is? The essence of many problems do not have, ex ante, known solutions.

Slide 6: Solutions when pushing for the solution is itself the problem
Consistent failure in even mainstream interventions (e.g., health, irrigation) often a product of ignoring:
1. Local Knowledge (‘metis’-Jim Scott)
2. Core aspects of provision entailing decisions that are
Discretionary
i.e., require lots of ‘professional’ choice, hard judgement calls
and Transaction intensive
i.e., require numerous face-to-face interactions (e.g. teacher-student, doctor-patient, therapist-client, school lunches)
Consider HIV/AIDS…

Slide 7: What if there is no knowable solution?
What if the core problem doesn’t have a known or knowable (ex ante) ‘policy’/project solution?
ethnic grievances
rampant injustice
high corruption
religious strife
qualitatively different understandings of how the world works (“clash of ontologies”)
e.g. ‘science’ versus ‘witchcraft’ to explain illness

Slide 8: A basic typology of decision-making
Discretionary?
Transaction Intensive?
Low/High
Example of Low: Algorithms (“Better Machines” e.g., cells phones, ATMs…person plus money equals withdrawal)
Example of High: Policies (technocratic) (the power of policy makers, Ben Bernanke and the Fed, the stew over numbers and problems, and then divine a solution which then affects the market noticeably…this type of decision-making is not necessarily applicable to non-macroeconomic, policy issues)

Discretionary? (across)

Transaction Intensive? (down) Low High
Low Algorithms
“Better Machines”
e.g. ATMs, cell phones Policies
(technocratic)
“10 smart people”
e.g., Interest rates
High Programs
(bureaucratic)
“10,000 faithful functionaries”
e.g., Vaccines Practices
(idiosyncratic)
“100 teams”
e.g.,Teaching

Slide 9: What to do? 21st Century Development (21CD)
1.Deploy the ‘wisdom of crowds’
Development marketplace
www.globalgiving.com
Delimit technocrats; harness local knowledge; empower entrepreneurs
2. Recognize that big and small is beautiful
Kecamatan Development Project (Indonesia)
Scale+context specificity+conflict management (airing grievances)=the holy grail of development (taking place with Kecamatan)
3. Promote “social will be everywhere” (Google) Decentralizing decision-making, and putting them into the hands of more affected people
Participatory budgeting (Brazil),
PETS (Uganda)
Enhancing relationships of accountability
Reducing information asymmetries
4. See development as ‘good struggles’
Cambodia Arbitration Council
Establishing forums for more equitable contests
Focus on institutional ‘functions’ more than ‘form’
Slide 10: DGH 2.0
Short term
DGH 2.0
Refine, adapt, expand access, lower costs
Worthy and noble, but…

Medium term
Upgrade to 21CD
Develop new ‘learning to learn’ technologies
Scale+context+conflict+’practices’+feedback
Getting there…

Slide 11: Implications, challenges for Google
Long Term
Chang the whole operating system!

Sponsor ‘New Bretton Woods’ conferences
Mountain View consensus?
Build broad constituencies for change
Educate, mobilize, coordinate
Need entirely new complementary architecture for managing aid, trade, labor, migration, finance, and dispute resolution
i.e. how we conceive and respond to problems (especially of production, interaction, exchange, and difference)
Development is not some simple Manhattan Project, or even a Marshall Plan
History can’t be “engineered”

love, Devin.

How to Email Directly to the Blog

2008-04-13T14:36:00.000-07:00

I just discovered a useful feature whereby we can send emails to both the listserve and the blog simultaneously. This can be particularly convenient if, say, you just discovered an article or video that you'd like to share with the organization, but would also like to post on the blog for further discussion.

First, from your dashboard, click on "Settings."
Then, click on "Email" from the links at the top.
Next, enter something for your "Mail-to-Blogger Address." For me, I use shadowzero359.impact[at]blogger.com .

After that, any time you want to both inform the group about a great article AND post it on the blog for future reference, send your email to both impacthumanity[at]lists.wm.edu and your mail-to-blogger address.

Yay technology!

Meeting Monday at 8pm in Tucker 131! (Details inside..)

2008-04-13T14:29:00.001-07:00

Hey all,

We have a meeting tomorrow at 8pm in Tucker 131. We'll be talking about three main topics:

(1) The current situation in Siete de Abril and the prospects for microfinance, with information we've just acquired from the VP of SHH,

(2) If and/or how we want to structure our leadership positions, and

(3) "Poverty and the environment," the scheduled discussion topic for next week (however, if you've been doing research in other areas, feel free to share).

Also, we now have a website(!!), which can be accessed by visiting www.wm.edu/so/impacthumanity/ . Please bear in mind that it's still in its testing stages. If you'd like to be added as a contributing author, please email me, Clare, or Devin.

Cheers,
-L

First Post

2008-04-10T19:37:00.000-07:00

This will be a place where we can combine all of our research and information-gathering. I'm hoping to have it hosted on William and Mary webspace as Impact Humanity's official website soon.

Where to start? I suppose we begin with the basics.

http://www.poverty.com/