Tamilnadu is poised for facing the elections for the Assembly about May 2011. The opposition leader Jayalalitha had promised to fulfill the desires of the christians in her Kanyakumari meeting. She may follow up with more promises to the muslims also, perhaps to more communities who may approach her for any promise, because this is the time to extract promises from major parties!
But the question is, would the declaration of schemes like funding a trip to Palestine for christians like the Haj pilgrims funded by govt for muslims, help the state in a big way, when we have more daunting problems like the unsettled inter state riparian issues threatening the livelihood of farmers in millions or the poor power supplies that threatens to tell on industrial productions?
Rising costs of essentials, high corruptions in govt and exploitation in trade sector are driving the poor people to the limit of tolerance! Unemployment rates hiking, law and order issues increasing exponentially, etc have also much unsettled the average citizens! They are desperately looking for a party that would give the good governance, by optimal use of resources without waste of the revenue in sops to communities of sorts, dissipating the govt revenues for sops to film makers, while fleecing people for more price on petro products etc!
What are your thoughts on the so called practical administrator Ms Jaya’s announcements being made on election eve? Is she also failing to give right focus to the burning issues of people, in line with the DMK?
It will not work in a big way.Now people are aware of burning problems they are facing and definitely they may seek a change in electing their representatives to Assembly.But they have limited choices only.Either of the two,D M K or A D M K .If they weigh it correctly,the choice will fall on D M K in spite of corruption,inefficiency and family affiliation due to it s populous schemes,proper distribution of essential good through ration shops, and alliance with almost every major and minor political parties even though A D M K may get more percentage of votes.
When life imitates fiction, shouldn’t the world stop to think?
The government’s decision to stop the mining is being described as the victory of the tribals fighting to save the Niyamgiri Hills from slipping into the hands of a "cash-hungry corporate". The Orissa tribals and Cameron’s Na’vi are both pitted against powerful big business interests who want to exploit the mineral wealth in the land which they venerate. In the case of the Dongria Kondhs, the hills where the mining was planned is both sacred and a source of livelihood-just like the ‘Tree of Souls’ in Avatar.
As would be expected, the Dongria Kondhs live in easy communion with nature.
Activists and government sources have pointed to ethical issues and the huge human cost of going ahead with the plans put forth by Vedanta, a UK-based FTSE-listed company. Vedanta Resources sank 5.69 per cent on the London Stock Exchange in early trade after the Niyamgiri project was rejected by the environment ministry.
Niyamgiri is the source of two major rivers, the Vansdhara and Nagvalli that provide water for irrigation in the plains below. It is a storehouse of rare flora and fauna-the four-horned antelope and the golden gecko being among them.
The hills provide food for the tribals. Fruits that grow there are sold in village markets. In short, the Niyamgiri Hills, the home of Niyam Raja, are at the centre of Dongria Kondh culture.
This had also been prompted by the efforts the British charity Survival, which took up their cause. In fact, Survival put out an advertisement in the entertainment magazine Vanity Fair as an appeal to Cameron saying ‘Avatar is fantasy and real’. The advertisement went on to describe the Dongria Kondh case saying the tribals were "struggling to defend their land against a mining company hellbent on destroying their sacred mountain. Please help the Dongria."
Actions taken to protect vulnerable species may affect some people’s livelihoods, because the decision to protect biodiversity is an expression of public will, should governments have an obligation to assist families and businesses whose livelihood is harmed by a conservation plan?
Yes, a government’s responsibility is to it’s citizens.
or be sensitive toward the rest of the British population who may be losing their livelihoods and who are facing financial hardship. I realise that they should not be made to feel responsible for the country’s economic plight but if they funded the whole occasion it may go some way to making us believe they care about our country’s predicament. Whats your thoughts people
Why should the tax payer pay for a lavish wedding for the already super wealthy Royals? We are suffering major cuts in services, increased taxes and severe financial hardship. It is like asking beggars on the street to donate their Big Issue money to fat people so they can feed their faces with junk food from McDonalds. An insult. They should fund the wedding themselves. Prince Charles takes millions from the Duchy of Cornwall – let him pay for it. Leave the poor tax payer alone. After all, it may end in divorce a few years from now just like his parents who had a lavish wedding at the expense of the tax payer. And if you think that is beyond the realms of possibility, just remember that this couple split up once already, even before they got engaged. That is surely a sign that things are not as perfect as the press and media would have you believe.
We’re gonna have to do a research on cultures. Not literally foreign cultures, just a culture different from my own. Could be of my neighbor. A friend. Someone. We have to do interview.
The topics suggested were:
Life stages (pregnancy/delivery/infancy/parenting/childhood/puberty/adulthood/old age/death)
Family Life (Family structure/family relationships/play and leisure)
Economic Life (Livelihood/consumption pattern/fashion)
Religion
So basically we have to choose (or make up our own) topic from the suggested things inside the parenthesis. Then we have to interview them, and then compare how their culture differs from my own.
For example, death. Different people would probably have different traditions, practices when someone passes away. And you also have your own way. You need to compare.
And this would be a lengthy paper, so I need a ”juicy” topic. Unfortunately I find most of these boring. Although Religion came to my mind, like, interview an atheist.
I think if you were doing Religion it would probably be more interesting to interview someone who’s religious. Just because they would have more to explain regarding their religion and culture, that’s just my thought though…
I think if you choose the right person/culture you can get some really "juicy" and interesting info with the topics that were suggested to you. You could find out how that culture views pop-culture topics like same-sex marriage, same-sex adoption, evolution, homosexuality, abortion, etc.
Well that, combined with stricter regulatory measures for the Mortgage and Derivative Products.
Anyway you cut it, we need to create new jobs here at home (instead of outsourcing our workers’ livelihoods to China and India), before realistically hoping for a lasting economic turnaround.
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Yes, this would be a good way to revive the economy. The bazillions of dollars of ‘bail out’ money was a foolish waste. Bush and Obama spent 3 times more than was spent on FDR’s New Deal, that pulled the USA out the great depression by creating jobs building infastructure. The New Deal gave real working people real work building tangible infastructure such as roads, bridges, hospitals, schools, parks, ships, etc, etc. This improved infastructure, and thus the real wealth of the nation. The Bush-Obama ‘stimulus package’ pissed away bazillions of dollars on wall street speculators, bankers and financier’s who use the money for little more than commodity speculation to drive up prices, and on silly grants and social programs that discourage work, and produce nothing of any value or use. It would have been better if the fed threw money out of airplanes, to ‘stimulate’ the economy, at least that way there would not be government dis-incentives to work, or governmetn subsidized volitility and instability causing higher commodity prices.
In the 1930′s New Deal, tens of thousands of men were employed for a few dollars a week to build national parks, roads, pavilions, rest rooms, campsites, etc.. using hand tools such as shovels, saws and axes. In the 2010′s stimulus spending, tens of thousands of teens were paid several dollars an hour to roam around aimlessly in mobs around national parks with clipboards conducting surveys about deer ticks and the opinions of campers. See the difference? … the 1930′s plan created ‘real’ jobs that improved the infastructure that americans have enjoyed for 80 years; the 2010′s stimulus pisseed away money on ‘fake’ projects that created nothing of use or value, and serve only to annoy campers and others, and put tax money into the hands of the same greedy reckless financiers and speculators that caused the mortgage crisis, and the resulting recession and high unemployment that stripped the retirement, incomes and savings of US workers.
SE LA = provides our nation with 1/3 of our seafood. Thousands of people make their living in the Seafood industry and the greed of BP has ruined it for these poor people that have nothing to fall back on. They also ruined the Gulf and the vast marshlands of Louisiana. This problem will still be present when our children are old. Once the crude oil gets into the marshes (seafood breeding grounds), the marsh will die and so will the marine life and then the shore birds.
What an ecological and economic mess BP is responsible for.
BP officials are nothing but fat, greedy , pigs who couldn’t give a darn about the environment . Its not their front door so who cares. Not them obviously. Make them get in there physically and clean it up. Pigs.
How would you refute this argument? Don’t get me wrong, it’s not a challenge. I myself am neutral. It’s a request.
Part 1: "Education is NOT FREE, and never will be. You can pontificate about how no one should have to pay for it as much as you want, but it ultimately will not resolve the fact that the upkeep of schools, supplies, and educational research costs money. People will always have to pay for education, whether they do it through the market, or through government taxes. It’s only a question of who and how much.
1) What type of school system will provide the highest quality education at the lowest possible cost?
Without a doubt, without debate, without room for dissent, the economic system that will provide the best education at the lowest possible cost overall is a privatized, free market system. What this means is that rather than the government siphoning off your income for the funding of "public education," you as the consumer make a choice in the market with your own money about which school you would like to purchase services from, either for yourself or for your kids.
Reasons why this system is by a nearly infinite shot the most efficient:
- In public education, the income of school officials is not directly dependent on the performance of the school they are in charge of. Since the government forcibly collects and channels large amounts of money directly from tax payers to schools, the schools themselves have no direct incentive to use resources efficiently and strive for higher achievement. Now, obviously, the government can try to do things like impose state standards, and have a bureaucrat walk around once and a while and "check" the quality of a given school. Obviously, in extreme situations, even public employees can be fired. But the point stands that the economic livelihood of those who manage public schools is not dynamically dependent on the success of their school. In a private system, however, the relationship would be dynamic, because it would behave the same way as it does for a business in any other industry. A school that was not performing well would see a gradual decline in enrollment rates, leading to a direct loss of money to the school, leading to the shareholders electing a new principal-E-O.
- Competition in the market place mandates efficiency. Often people who think they disagree with this principle are actually disagreeing with something else, or are alienated by the fact that the "empirical evidence" doesn’t seem to support free-markets. Truth is, it does, and they’re wrong (Obama’s pathetic attempts to paint the Bush era as one of "laissez-fair capitalism" is one of the most dishonest acts of slander I have seen in a long time). Just think about it. If two schools are competing in the same area for students, then both of them have to perform at a certain level, or else risk being shut out of the market by their competitor. This system encourages both schools to find innovative ways to cut costs, and to look for creative solutions to problems. The overall result of this competition is that costs are lowered and quality increases. This principle works successfully in 99.9% of industries, so why should we assume it won’t apply to education? Education is not fundamentally a different type of commodity from anything else; it follows the same economic rules as any other service. People just instinctively resist treating it like a normal economic good because of all the "fundamental right" sentiment that is attached to it.
- The free market allows choice, which helps economic mobility enormously. Under the current system, people pay a lump sum of their annual income to the government, in exchange for the right to a public education, along with the requirement that they go to the public school in their "zone." While this seems like a reasonable way to manage the system, there are key problems with the "zones." For one, compulsory zones make students captive consumers, providing even less incentives for failing schools to improve the quality of their service. Once can easily imagine an anecdote about a dedicated student from a poor neighborhood, who, despite his significant economic disadvantages, has nevertheless transcended the circumstances in which he has been brought up and reached a high performance standard as a student. Under our current system, if this student lives in the ghetto, he is forbidden from taking the bus across town to the well-managed suburban school where his academic potential could be fully realized"
2) To what extent is education a "fundamental right" that people deserve regardless of their ability to pay for it? And if it IS a fundamental right, what is the best mechanism for providing it to the disadvantaged without disrupting the system we agreed is best in answering the first question?
While the free market is without a doubt the most efficient economic system, it is a legitimate charge to argue that it is not always the most just one. People who are born in significantly disadvantaged economic circumstances will indeed find it a challenge to move up substantially in the world within the span of their own lifetime.
So, is education a fundamental right? I personally still cling to traditional views of earned property, regardless of your disadvantages going into life, but I am highly sympathetic to the opposite perspective. What I am about to describe is a possible system that provides welfare to the less fortunate without tampering with the fundamental framework of a f
framework of a free market system.
One word: vouchers.
The government collects taxes, disproportionally from the rich. It then redistributes these taxes disproportionally to the poor, in the form of education vouchers. Let’s say these vouchers are for $10,000 dollars a year per person. These vouchers are now redeemable at any school as a contributor to the price of tuition. This way the poor have the resources to PURCHASE their education without disrupting the price mechanism of education in the market.
And it’s that simple. This avoids the public bureaucracy, and maintains the competitive forces that makes schools efficient, all the while allowing the disadvantaged to get opportunities-
That’s it. So, to all those who don’t agree with it (I already said I’m neutral), could you please refute it? I like to read people’s arguments, because it teaches you different ways of viewing issues. Thank you all!
In handing out vouchers, you’re increasing the demand for more expensive schools. This is because more people are now able to afford more expensive education. Because the privatization of schools would render school prices subject to basic free market principles, as the demand increases so does the price. Basically schools would just increase their prices. If you hand out $10,000 vouchers, the least expensive education would become $10,000. The $10,000 vouchers would then just be a waste of money (for the wealthier tax payers and the government that then has to eat the opportunity cost associated with distributing the vouchers). So now government is paying for absolutely nothing except the perpetuation of a system conducive to socio-economic inequity, and the average American would end up paying A LOT more for education then they do currently. You could institute a price ceiling, but then you’re using the same bureaucratic tactics you criticized earlier.
Granted the alQueida attack caused more loss of life; but the economic attack has caused more loss of livelihood
Also the dollar figure is greater in the economic attack
The WTC was a one off. The economic attack is on going. Its full effects will not be seen for a decade.
And it is not only the loss of livelihood, it is the psychological damage that accompanies it, to the worker and his/her whole family.