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July 28, 2004
Empire in Decline
Why do I have a creepy feeling that the first country with enough nerve to land an army on American soil is going to rip right through? Maybe it's this headline from MSN.com today. I try not to forget that Thirds are robust. So why do we let puff journalists waste our brainspace with such notions.
Avery was talking about teenage pregnancy. My fundamental argument is that God didn't make mistakes. If a human body can get pregnant, then how can that be wrong? But we have to balance the complications of American society. The problem is not that teenage girls want to have babies - there's almost no wrong reason to want to bear a child, but that our economy will squash the mess out of those who can't deal.
I would like to believe that there is some town in Alabama where you can buy a house with running water, electricity, gas heat, cable tv and sewage hookups for 40k, and that within commuting distance there's a job that pays 18k/year. Lots of people from around the world would love to get to that place, and most everybody I ever knew in my social circles would avoid it like the plague. That's just fine. At least we'd know where there's an economy for teen mothers. Forget welfare, just buy them a bus ticket. I don't know how, but I'd like to quantify this distribution problem and then push towards rectifying it. It's my mama's logic: "There's a time and a place for everything." Surely America is big enough a place to have enough such places.
But if every malltown we build has to be brand spanking new and every new house has to be 250k; if every old town has to die and every downscale gig has to be sucked into Chennai; if the whole damned world has to be efficient then we're going to have some serious problems. Because human bodies aren't going to stop functioning any time soon. But let me clear, I'm not Malthusian. I accept war. I accept the concept that some lives are cheaper than others.
My point? That baby ain't worth 250k.
Posted by mbowen at July 28, 2004 11:05 AM
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Comments
I was actually planning to tackle that exact angle. I just got caught up doing something else. I think I will pick it back up and run with it some more, though.
Posted by: avery at July 28, 2004 01:54 PM
Especially not with that thing in its mouth. How's it supposed to eat?
:)
Posted by: TLL at July 28, 2004 02:02 PM
"...The problem is not that teenage girls want to have babies - there's almost no wrong reason to want to bear a child, but that our economy will squash the mess out of those who can't deal..."
B*lls**t!
The 10th percentile child in this country gets better nourishment, better health care, better opportunities in education and vocation than the 90th percentile kid in MANY third world countries.
Such is the fruit of rotten, corrupt capitalism. We are -- ahem -- the worst country on the planet, UNTIL YOU START LOOKING AROUND!
Posted by: True_Liberal at July 28, 2004 03:32 PM
OK let's say you're an actuary. You have the precise calcs on the value of human life. What's making the cost life go up?
I mean say the kid breaks a leg. How do you measure the relative effort required of people in different countries to respond to the problem?
I know Indian co-workers who can get equal dental care in India for less than in America INCLUDING THE PRICE OF AIRFARE. To me that means the kid in Alabama better not get a cavity because so many Americans are rich that it has artificially inflated the cost of living.
See what I'm saying? Let's say you're in the 20th Percentile in America because you only have a 10th grade education. You therefore on average have to work 22 hours to raise enough money for the cost of setting the average broken leg on your kid.
Now let's say you take that 10th grade education to Mexico. It puts you in the 40th percentile and you only have to work 10 hours. Hmmm.
Posted by: Cobb at July 28, 2004 06:13 PM
Well, that says something about the power of the doctors' and dentists' unions (the AMA & ADA, for the uninitiated) in this country.
BUT - costs aside, if you want to get your root canal done in India, be my guest. Just hope the power doesn't fail.
(Ooops - you're in the PDR of California, ain't you? You know all about them there blackouts...)
Posted by: True_Liberal at July 28, 2004 06:35 PM
PS - as long as you're actuarially speaking, consider the additional cost of keeping an American alive until some doctor finally signs the certificate to stop funding his vegetative state.
Well, OK, that's a bit over-the-edge. But the Indian's life expectancy today is about what the American's was several decades ago, actuarially speaking.
Posted by: True_Liberal at July 28, 2004 06:50 PM
I understand the writer's experience is probably atypical, but I enjoyed Nancy R. Newhouse's May '04 article "Detour in Rajasthan"
Posted by: George at July 29, 2004 05:43 PM
It occurs to me there is another factor in the higher _average_ cost per capita of health care in this country: demographic disparity in treatment. It's related to the difference between _median_ vs. _average_ treatment.
In Canada, for example, there is a much longer waiting list for MRI's, CAT scans, and other diagnostics. One effect of this is that delayed diagnosis and treatment brings about faster mortality. Faster mortality means lower costs to the system; the patients either die sooner or hustle across the border for (more expensive) US care.
I don't know why it took me so long to decipher this.
Posted by: True_Liberal at July 31, 2004 04:12 PM