“100 years from now we will know that the biggest crime against humanity was vaccines.” Guylaine Lanctot, MD
As previously stated in the newsletter Vaccination Controversy: What is Fact and What is Myth?, vaccination requirements in the U.S. are much more extensive than in Bolivia, so there is a much higher likelihood of adverse side effects in the former, and indeed many horror stories be found on the Internet (1).
Most people would find the answer to that question so obvious that they wouldn’t even bother to check the data.
According to UN data, the number of people counted as living outside their country of birth has almost doubled during the last 50 years–increasing to 191 million in 2005, the highest number ever recorded (1). But the World population has more than doubled during the same period, so international migrants still constitute just a bit less than 3% of the World’s population.
“The Aid Industry is completely out of control.” Simon Maxwell
The last decade has seen a tremendous increase in remittances from migrant workers in developed countries to left-behind relatives in developing countries. So much so that global remittances are now at least the double of official development aid (1).
“Patriotism is your conviction that your country is superior to all other countries because you were born in it.”
George Bernard Shaw (1856 – 1950)
There are surprisingly few international migrants in the world. Only around 3% of the worlds population live in another country than the one where they were born (1).
Considering how many fantastic places there are in this world, it is quite surprising that most people are contented with staying all their lives in the place where they just happened to be born. Read More »
“Money often costs too much.”
Ralph Waldo Emerson
If children were to learn just one thing in school, it should be The Power of Compound Interest. If everybody understood and applied that simple principle, poverty could be permanently eradicated in one life-time.
Let me explain how it works by comparing two persons, A and B, who, for simplicity, both live for 100 years.
The perception that women are disadvantaged and discriminated against in Bolivia is almost universal. Achieving gender equality is of so high priority that it is very difficult to get a research proposal funded, unless you promise to analyze the gender dimension of whatever topic you are interested in.
But is that perception still true?
Economists usually make the simplifying assumption that salary is roughly equal to productivity, but that is at most acceptable for informal and self-employed people who are not exploited by an employer, not subsidized by tax-payer money, do not exploit non-renewable natural resources, and do not pay significant taxes.
A few examples from La Paz will illustrate what I mean. A typical self-employed mini-bus driver who works 12-15 hours per day 7 days per week will typically take home around $100-120 per month, implying an hourly wage of about a quarter of a dollar. A driver formally hired by the public sector, on the other hand, will typically earn at least the double, say $250 per month for working 8 hours per day 5 days a week, implying an hourly wage of about $1.50, i.e. 6 times higher than the mini-bus driver.
Giving birth the natural way (vaginally) is extremely painful and often inconvenient, which is why some women decide on a planned Cesarean section instead. According to the latest national health survey in Bolivia (2003), 47.1% of mothers in the richest quintile have C-sections, while this only happens to 4.0% of mothers in the poorest quintile. Such a large difference is obviously not due to more pregnancy complications among the rich. C-section rates vary greatly from doctor to doctor, but the rate medically justified is usually around 10-15%.
I recently came by a simple but astonishing experiment that shows you how easily you can be deceived. If I told you too much about it, I would ruin it for you, so please do the experiment yourself before reading my comments.
You will have to watch a short video of about 1 minute. In the video you will see a group of basketball players, some in white and some in black passing two balls around. Your goal is to count how many times the ball is passed by those wearing white shirts. It’s that simple. Once the movie is over, write down the number of passes you have counted.
At this special anniversary of the Monday Morning Development Newsletter (75 issues), I would like to thank the faithful readers for all the comments, ideas and encouragements you have been sending over the years. Without all the positive feedback we have been receiving, the Newsletter certainly would not have survived as long.
However, it cannot survive on praise alone either, and we do want to keep it free for the readers, so we are now inviting sponsors to make contributions to the next 75 issues.
Development Roast Giving international development a proper roasting