This is really weird.
I heard a thud, went out to investigate, and found a thunderbolt in the lawn. Metallic, hot, curiously worked, and with a little paper message tied to it.
It read:
"Dear Earthpersons,
I am really really sorry about Haiti, but to make a decent life supporting planet you do have to use plate tectonics and stuff. I appreciate that people would be attracted to live over fault lines because of the minerals &c, but I calculated (wrongly as it turned out) that on balance, once humans worked out what was going on, they would put in earthquake early warning systems, and also would make buildings with base isolation and triangulation in their structures so they wouldn't collapse like a house of cards every time the earth shifted around a bit.
So really, if there was a design fault, it was not so much with the geology as the psychology.
I didn't calculate the amount that denial and lack of foresight would come into play.
OK, blame me if it makes you feel better, but with the greatest possible respect, it would be more productive to set your own failings to rights rather than indulging in theological speculation, a subject which I find invariably risible.
(Signed)
Slartibartfast.
Make of it what you will. I'm just the messenger.
Link: Reconstructing Haiti
Showing posts with label s. Show all posts
Showing posts with label s. Show all posts
Monday, January 25, 2010
Thursday, August 13, 2009
Unemployment is not rational and not necessary
Letter to Guardian
Your Leader ((The mounting scrapheap, August 13) lays out the dire human costs of unemployment, but like the Government, offers only symptomatic relief. The political problem lies in the social security system, which grants benefits grudgingly, and withdraws them at the point when a claimant has the amazing luck actually to find some work. It is utterly irrational to pay people on condition that they do no work when there is so much good work that needs to be done in the green sector of the economy - in energy conservation, renewable energy technologies, energy efficient goods manufacture, pollution control technology, waste minimisation, repair, recycling, water management, sustainable agriculture, forestry and timber use, countryside management, housing - new building and refurbishment, improvements to visual environment, public transport, education and training, counselling, caring and healing, community work, leisure and tourism, innovation, research and development, and any business which passes a certain threshold in its environmental audit. In 1996 I identified between one and two million jobs to be created in this sector. Work can be created in these areas by assessing enterprises, public and private, for positive outcomes in terms of the health of environment and society, and giving those that are so accredited a license to take on new labour from the Job Centres. The incoming workers will bring their benefit in to work with them. The new employer will bring their wage up to the going rate for the job.
This will amount to a Wage Subsidy for environmental and socially beneficial work, stimulating the green sector of the economy, which is generally labour intensive. There will be no extra cost to the public finances, since the benefits would have been paid in any case. This measure would enable a gradual transition to Citizen's Income, which is a far fairer and less complex approach to social security than the present system.
Your Leader ((The mounting scrapheap, August 13) lays out the dire human costs of unemployment, but like the Government, offers only symptomatic relief. The political problem lies in the social security system, which grants benefits grudgingly, and withdraws them at the point when a claimant has the amazing luck actually to find some work. It is utterly irrational to pay people on condition that they do no work when there is so much good work that needs to be done in the green sector of the economy - in energy conservation, renewable energy technologies, energy efficient goods manufacture, pollution control technology, waste minimisation, repair, recycling, water management, sustainable agriculture, forestry and timber use, countryside management, housing - new building and refurbishment, improvements to visual environment, public transport, education and training, counselling, caring and healing, community work, leisure and tourism, innovation, research and development, and any business which passes a certain threshold in its environmental audit. In 1996 I identified between one and two million jobs to be created in this sector. Work can be created in these areas by assessing enterprises, public and private, for positive outcomes in terms of the health of environment and society, and giving those that are so accredited a license to take on new labour from the Job Centres. The incoming workers will bring their benefit in to work with them. The new employer will bring their wage up to the going rate for the job.
This will amount to a Wage Subsidy for environmental and socially beneficial work, stimulating the green sector of the economy, which is generally labour intensive. There will be no extra cost to the public finances, since the benefits would have been paid in any case. This measure would enable a gradual transition to Citizen's Income, which is a far fairer and less complex approach to social security than the present system.
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