X-Message-Number: 29638 References: <> From: David Stodolsky <> Subject: Re: "The Future Aint What it Used to Be!" Date: Thu, 5 Jul 2007 11:37:30 +0200 On 4 Jul 2007, at 16:49, wrote: > And, there is a great concept I have often referred to as the > "USEFUL MYTH." > > > (To my knowledge, this verbiage is original with me...but it > probably is > not. See Ernest Becker / TMT on the 'vital lie'. > And I FEEL...or at least I desperately WANT to feel... that life > is INDEED > getting better for most of us. The neo-liberal economic program is increasing inequality and decreasing the incomes of the poorest. The World Bank's Structural Adjustment Programs have eliminated public health and immunization programs. These are major causes of declines in health status. Another is the Bush/Pope/other religious fundamentalist attack upon condom use, which has accelerated the spread of AIDS and sexually transmitted infections. So, the improvements that we saw in the 60's and 70's are grinding to a halt for the vast majority and actually going backward in some cases. This is causing a loss in labor power and is a source of social instability. It is the failure to use the technology we have, not the lack of technological progress that is impacting the vast majority. With this dynamic, the complaints of a few that life extension technologies aren't progressing fast enough will not be taken very seriously. dss www.wider.unu.edu/publications/ rps/research-papers-2006.htm Research Paper No. 2006/10 Health Improvements and Health Inequality during the Last 40 Years Giovanni Andrea Cornia and Leonardo Menchini February 2006 Abstract This paper juxtaposes changes over the last forty years in income growth and distribution with the mortality changes recorded at the aggregate level in about 170 countries and at the individual level in 26 countries with at least two demographic and health surveys covering the last twenty years. Over the 1980s and 1990s, the infant mortality rate, under-5 mortality rate, and life expectancy at birth mostly continued the favourable trends that characterized the 1960s and 1970s. Yet, especially in the 1990s, the pace of health improvement was slower than that recorded during the prior decades. In addition, the distribution between countries of aggregate health improvements became markedly more skewed. These trends are in part explained by the negative changes recorded in sub-Saharan Africa and Eastern Europe, but are robust to the removal of the two regions from the sample. This tendency is observed also at the intraregional level, with the exception of Western Europe. Thirdly, demographic and health survey data for 26 developing countries point to a frequent divergence over time in the within-country distribution of gains in the infant mortality and under-5 mortality rates among children living in urban versus rural areas and belonging to families part of different quantiles of the asset distribution. The paper concludes by underscoring the similarities and linkages between changes in income inequality and health inequality and suggests some tentative explanations of these trends without, however, formally testing them. David Stodolsky Skype: davidstodolsky Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=29638