Government Spending Priorities

To kill or heal? Long-term solutions or short?

As I said in my earlier post, the costs of war in Iraq, we could have used 2 trillion dollars for quite a lot of other priorities. But let's look to the future, instead of parcelling blame or mourning opportunity costs. Besides solar, we could put money into healthcare. Let's get everyone into shape, with good food and exercise. We spend way too much for our current system. I'm all for Canadian-style socialized medicine. Personally, I like to wrestle. I'm a democrat, and 70% of us believe in socialized medicine, while 70% of republicans don't . These are percentages of those who know what it means. We really need to get bipartisan on this, though. And global. Doctors without borders rule. Healthcare is a human right. Everyone should have nutritious food, clean water, sanitation, shelter, and healthcare. Everyone.

I believe people are inherently good, and want to do well.

There are doctors, who heal. And there are soldiers, who kill. Of course, I am aware that there are doctors who kill and soldiers that heal. Still, you get my point. Should there be a budget priority? Healthcare costs for our country are 16% of GDP (higher than any other nation), and the military budget (in '03) for the U.S. was 956B (47% of the world's expenditure). Of course, they're kind of the same thing -keeping us alive. It depends on who you define as "us", of course. I prefer global solutions to national ones, especially when keeping us safer in the short term could make the world more dangerous in the long term. This is what I fear has happened with Iraq.

Should we support arms sales and militarism?

(Just for the sake of argument, I'm going to say that:) Public policy has, and should have, a dark side. There doesn’t need to be a "shadow" government. The truth should be told. There are simply too many people in the world, and the numbers are only growing (it seems). There are now roughly 6.7 billion people on earth, as of November 2007. The global population is expected to hit 7 billion by 2012 and go over 9 billion by 2050. In their study Food, Land, Population, and the U.S. Economy, David Pimental, professor of ecology and agriculture of Cornell University, and Mario Giampietro, senior researcher at the National Research Institute on Food and Nutrition, claim that to achieve a sustainable economy and avert disaster (human extinction?) the world population needs to be reduced by 2/3, as of NOW. That’s about 4.5 BILLION people too many, in their opinion. I read this on Wikipedia’s eschatology (scientific) article. A die-off that size would be biblical. So it looks like we’re screwed, just by being good, according to them. Or, at least our children will be. The authors seem to be saying we need to make a hard decision about whether we want to doom the human species, or somehow off 4.46B people.

It seems we have no other choice but to doom ourselves, as moral beings, and try to find solutions to muddle our way through the mess, to the best of our ability and abilities. That's what Chevron says in their inside cover ad of my Feb. 23 Economist. Speaking of mud...

Water Facts
Like healthcare and good sanitation, clean water is also a human right. 40% of humanity has insufficient water for minimum hygiene. Over the next 20 years, there will be 30% less clean water for each of us. Water is a strategic resource, and dwindling because of overpopulation, misuse, pollution, and mass consumption. Agriculture, manufacturing, and energy all use water. 5 million a year die from polluted drinking water. A child dies every 15 seconds from water related issues, like sanitation. The earth is covered with 71% water (mostly saltwater). The human body is 55-78% water, depending on age. This problem is soluble, so to speak, I think.

I went to the WHO (World Health Organization) website and looked at their tables, so to speak, on water and sanitation. 2004 is their most recent data.

Lake Baikal in southern Siberia in Russia, is the world's largest by volume freshwater lake (in addition to being the deepest), and holds approximately 20% of the world's total surface fresh water. And there's all the ice in the arctic and antarctic, if we can keep it from melting. Fill 'er up.

Here's some h2o info: Freshwater is defined as <.5 parts per thousand of dissolved salts. (Note: that's point five). Only 3% of water on earth is fresh. 2/3 of that is in glaciers and polar ice caps. Most of the rest is underground. Only 0.3% is surface water, of which Lake Baikal and the Great Lakes compose 7/8. 1.2B people, or 18% of humanity, lack access to safe drinking water. This is TOTALLY inexcusable. The world can redistribute water. If we can move militaries throughout the world, we can move water. It's called logistics.

Also, I bet if we made a Manhattan Project out of desalination efforts, we could help the world out immeasurably. Doesn't Israel know their desalination sh**?

Personally, I think the "Developing Economies" should be a Government Priority. I am a citizen of the World, like John Nash, and my pledge of allegiance goes like this:
I pledge allegiance to the flag of the united states of the world. (the earth flag) And to the unity, for which it stands, one planet, over God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. (You can say under God if you want). Under and over is just a matter of perspective, anyway.

Please read my Inequality, Costs of War in Iraq, and Third Word Development posts for further info on setting priorities.

Everyone on earth should be healthy and happy. It can be done. We can stop the fighting. We, as humankind, can address population issues, AIDS, tuberculosis, malaria, depression, anxiety, mental illness, loneliness, illiteracy, whatever. There are answers. Wholistic answers. I believe this. Shout at the devil! Making a difference does not mean subtracting people from the population.