Hope and Heroism in the Face of Tragedy

               It seems like there are too many major events going on these days for even the most ravenous news stations to keep up. One story that seems to have slightly faded in the mess of updates is the status of Japan as it continues attempts to cope from the major catastrophe  and somewhat more urgently, to stabilize the condition of its nuclear power plants. There have been a lot of misconceptions about what is going on in these reactors particularly that we are on the verge of a nuclear meltdown that could cripple East Asia just as the Chernobyl explosion once did. This post by another blogger appears to shed some well informed light on the issue and I would greatly encourage you to read it particularly if you don’t work at a nuclear plant yourself.

                I feel it worth noting the efforts of Japanese workers who have stayed back as US forces and other on site officials have retreated to safety. We all owe some pride to these individuals who demonstrate true heroism. Though as I said, the situation isn’t utterly volatile, it is dangerous and has the potential for spreading radiation. These workers have been working hard to prevent the situation from worsening, all the while exposing themselves to radiation.

                I thank the efforts of these workers and hope for the best as they continue to alleviate the situation.

Japan: The Economic Picture

The crisis in Japan has taken a huge toll as is evident in the widespread destruction, infrastructural failures and terrible loss of human life. Despite this, from a purely economic standpoint, the natural disaster offers a unique scenario that does not appear very fiscally threatening.

The thing that makes this disaster different from say the earthquake in Haiti or the Tsunami in Indonesia is that Japan isn’t poor. Quite to the contrary it currently stands as the third richest nation in the world and consequently its economy reflects the vitality and resilience of say American or English markets. Sure some regions have lost all manufacturing output. The result is that many manufacturing plants such as automobile lines are shut down for lack of parts supplied by stricken regions. And yet, these areas only account for about 2% of the country’s annual output, and parts can quickly be channeled in from other sources.

NPR’s Planet Money team offered a great historical comparison to illustrate this. During World War II, the allies sought targets that they could bomb to cripple the German economy. After thinking on end, they finally thought a ball bearings factory would be great to destroy and so they did. German production lines were forced to stop almost immediately but soon enough ball bearings were brought in from elsewhere and everything resumed.  To emphasize this further just think of today’s times. I have cell phones on my mind after the At&t and T-Mobile merger, so think about your cell phone. For many of us, our cell phones are our life lines, so imagine for example if due to some disaster or technological failure that Verizon crashed. Sure there’s panic right away; millions will lose their cell service and large portions of the country will be shut out of communication. Yet as morbid as the situation may seem, give it a month or two and if Verizon isn’t already working again, people will have already switched to At&t or Sprint or a smaller carrier and all will be fine. The point is it takes a lot to bring down a modern economic power. Unless perhaps Tokyo were hit, no one part of the country could bring down the entire nation because for every service there is a redundancy.

Now in the less developed countries I mentioned above like Haiti and Indonesia, a natural disaster can be irreparably damaging, but for now it appears that Japan will not be affected. If anything, some predict that reconstruction from the disaster will prove to be a stimulus package of sorts, allowing for investment, new jobs and the movement of capital. But that’s just the economics of it; otherwise this is a terrible disaster whose toll in lives shall never be repaid.

Libya Updates!!!

Over the days since I last discussed the state of Libya, much has happened and at last, necessary measures have been put in place. As you have probably seen on the news, the situation in Libya leading up to the coalition strike only deteriorated as Qaddafi declared total war on rebel groups and effectively declared the genocide of his own people. Since then the United States has taken the lead alongside other UN members under General Carter Ham in a tactical assault primarily involving bombers and cruise missiles on Libya’s air infrastructure. However, these strikes have allowed us to also destroy army ground units and tanks threatening rebel strongholds.

Now, some are saying that the United States’ plan has been a cop-out of sorts. To put this in context, America currently holds a policy of no boots on the ground. Furthermore, we intend to withdraw from fighting for the most part after the initial offensive, only interfering when our “unique (military) capabilities” are called upon. This will leave the remainder of the conflict to other countries and limited US resources. Though I will agree that it is a bit disappointing to see this sort of haphazard effort, this intercession was absolutely imperative considering the circumstances. Little as these attacks may seem they completely turned the tables in a conflict where both sides held what can at best be described as primitive military capabilities in our modern age. Without our help it’s hard to say how many citizens may have been killed. Think of it this way; even as Qaddafi’s forces retreat unable to counter the powerful UN air strikes, they continue to snipe indiscriminatingly at citizens in towns along the way to the point that people don’t dare set foot outside. Furthermore, considering how thinly spread the US army is and the costs, any help is better than none. We have already incurred bills totaling hundreds of millions and any further support is likely to greatly add to that expense. Though you might say that there is no price on human lives, from a pragmatic perspective this is reasonable support.

As for now, the rebels hold out slowly gaining strength and confidence. At this point, I believe one of their top priorities must be to organize some form of government. If utter chaos and disorder are to be avoided a governing body must exist before the current state collapses. As in the interim board in Egypt or even the colonies of a freed America, some form of organization amidst a lack of rule will be extremely important.

The other heated question at the moment seems to be the decision of whether or not to target Qaddafi himself. I personally believe that this is up to the UN. Though killing Qaddafi may seem justified and may very well be the key to quickly ending this conflict, such a decision remains in the hands of those international magistrates responsible for evaluating war crimes and crimes against humanity. If we or any other country were to privately make that decision, it would go against what we deem as unalienable rights and would have great political implications.

In the mean time we must continue to take steps towards freedom and democracy in Libya and hope for the well being of the country’s citizens.

Heroism in the Face of Tragedy

It seems like there are too many major events going on these days for even the most ravenous news stations to keep up. One story that seems to have slightly faded in the mess of updates is the status of Japan as it continues attempts to cope from the major catastrophe  and somewhat more urgently, to stabilize the condition of its nuclear power plants. There have been a lot of misconceptions about what is going on in these reactors particularly that we are on the verge of a nuclear meltdown that could cripple East Asia just as the Chernobyl explosion once did. This post by another blogger appears to shed some well informed light on the issue and I would greatly encourage you to read it particularly if you don’t work at a nuclear plant yourself.

                I feel it worth noting the efforts of Japanese workers who have stayed back as US forces and other on site officials have retreated to safety. We all owe some pride to these individuals who demonstrate true heroism. Though as I said, the situation isn’t utterly volatile, it is dangerous and has the potential for spreading radiation. These workers have been working hard to prevent the situation from worsening, all the while exposing themselves to radiation.

                I thank the efforts of these workers and hope for the best as they continue to alleviate the situation.

Powered By the Heart

As you may have noticed, I recently linked to Powered by the Heart on the left. Powered by the Heart is a project that a senior at my high school, Alli Koch is undertaking this summer. She plans to bike over 2,200 miles from the Canadian border in Minnesota to the Mexican border in Texas. All donations to her website and sponsorships will be donated to the American Heart Association. So as you can see, this is a great cause and a truly phenomenal project so please show you support by visiting her website (many more details) and donating if you can!

Happiness? That'll be $75,000 sir

NPR’s Planet Money team recently investigated whether money buys happiness and recent evidence says that yes, it does. Shocking right? I mean after everything we grew up hearing, how could this possibly be true?

Throughout history, rich people have always seemed happier than poorer populations. But the key observation was that this only holds true within a country. An American with a billion dollars is a lot happier than the American with a million dollars but not necessarily more than the Englishman with a million dollars. Economists reasoned that this was because of relative comparisons; being richer than your neighbor was all that mattered, not the guy living a mile away. But this theory was soon disputed by the fact that money isn’t worth the same everywhere as we can see in the example of the middle class New Yorker who would be rich in the plains of Iowa. And he isn’t necessarily going to make the move. So we decided that instead of being relatively wealthy, people enjoy being absolutely wealthy, or rich on a level field.

Under these new terms, Justin Wolfers an economist at the Wharton School plotted happiness levels and GDP per capita and lo and behold, he found a 0.8 correlation between both factors. In fact, a 10% income rise in any given country buys some more happiness. And this statistic doesn’t stop when people have met their basic needs and even some luxury wants. Nope it just keeps on going.

However this doesn’t hold true for all measures of happiness. When looking specifically at affective measures like if you smile a lot yesterday or things along those lines, we find that rises with income are small and generally stop when we hit approximately the $75,000 mark. But even in this case, far fewer the 1% of the people in the world ever cross this income level. So in nearly every way, money can buy you happiness.

But why? From our current knowledge, it all comes down to how you view that higher income of yours. Being wealthier isn’t as much being able to buy the nicest new car as it is say affording the medical advancement to successfully deliver and nourish a baby into childhood and adulthood. These amenities offer a security that is often key to avoiding traumatizing hardships. Other strong evidence has found that how respected we feel increases with income. And there are several other obvious factors; fewer things to worry about, greater health, freedom of choice.

Yet another part of it is the evidence that in many lower income regions, family ties take precedence to personal happiness. This means that working a little longer takes the backburner to spending a couple of extra hours with even distant relatives. Whereas in well developed countries, the opposite is often true.

The broad implication of this is that living a happy life may not be the most important thing. Happiness may not be as vital to life satisfaction and fulfillment as we ever designate it. So yes money can buy you its weight in happiness, but who knows, life just may not be as great as you thought it’d be.

Third Term! Updates

It’s third term! I am officially over two-thirds of the way through my Junior year which has been flying by. With a new term I’m heading into AP exams, Tennis, ITEDs, SAT subject tests and all that other fun stuff… To kick off the term I thought I’d do a slightly random entry so here it goes.

            I just wanted to briefly follow up on my blog entry on Egypt to discuss the status in Libya. As many of you have probably heard, what started as another protest against unjust government quickly turned into chaos as Libyan dictator Colonel Qaddafi deployed armed forces against rebels. By February 18^th, it became clear that soldiers were using automatic weapons and even snipers to intentionally kill numerous unarmed civilian protesters. As days passed social networking sites and YouTube have brought videos and the news of these horrors in Libya to the world. And yet no action has been taken.

            I must confess myself beyond appalled. Throughout its history, the United States has made it clear that violations of democracy and human rights will not be tolerated. I am not suggesting that we fully go to war with Libya, but I simply can’t understand the current stance of doing almost nothing! But it is my firm belief that the US must work with the UN to mediate the situation in Libya. Though talks and sanctions would be ideal, UN forces must be deployed if such measures fail to protect Libyan citizens and depose Qaddafi if necessary.

            For now all we can do is hope for the success of rebels in Ras Lanuf and elsewhere, and hope that our and other governments take action.

            According to gallup poll data, the hypothetical happiest guy in America would be a tall, Jewish, Asian-American, married business owner who has children, lives in Hawaii and has a household income over $120,000 an year. That’s kinda like me… except I’m not married with children nor tall nor Jewish nor living in Hawaii nor earning over $120,000 but close enough.

            A US Government Accountability Office report’s finding support the theoretical fiscal savings of replacing $1 bills with their equivalent coins. In fact, the US could save almost $5.5 billion over 30 years by making the switch.

            And the reason for the huge savings is pretty simple. Bills stay in our wallets and purses a lot longer than coins which more often than not end up on the closet floor, under sofa cushions or in coin jars. And all money translates to uncirculated currency which is in effect a interest-free loan to the government. For this reason among others, Canada, Japan and several European countries have adopted coins of greater values. Maybe the US will be next.

           

There you have it. And if you reading this are a student as well, I wish you a great end of the year!