PPCC: Pisitófilos Creditófagos. Invierno 2020/2021

[bluebeetle]

(...)
Inocentes..., pero santos.

"Algún día seremos santos, pero no mártires." - El último Don. Mario Puzo.

 

[Maloserá]

Un artículo seleccionado entre lo mejor de 2020 por Project Syndicate. Pre-Covid.

https://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/social-democracy-beats-democratic-socialism-by-daron-acemoglu-2020-02?utm_source=Project+Syndicate+Newsletter&utm_campaign=7d1310c46d-sunday_newsletter_12_27_2020&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_73bad5b7d8-7d1310c46d-105693509&mc_cid=7d1310c46d&mc_eid=663724af14

Social Democracy Beats Democratic Socialism
Feb 17, 2020
DARON ACEMOGLU

Now that US Senator Bernie Sanders has emerged as a leading contender for the Democratic Party's presidential nomination, his brand of democratic socialism warrants closer scrutiny. Simply put, it is neither a close approximation of the "Nordic model" that Sanders often invokes nor a solution to what ails the American economy.

CAMBRIDGE – It used to be an unwritten rule of US politics that a socialist could never qualify for high national office. But now a self-proclaimed “democratic socialist,” US Senator Bernie Sanders, is the leading candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination. Should America embrace the change?

Democrats have made the primaries about much more than US President Donald Trump. Sanders’s momentum reflects a yearning for radical solutions to serious structural economic problems. In the decades after World War II, the US economy became steadily more productive, and wages for all workers – regardless of education – grew by over 2% per year, on average. But that is no longer the case today.

Over the last four decades, productivity growth has been lackluster, economic growth has slowed, and an increasing share of the gains have gone to capital owners and the highly educated. Meanwhile, median wages have stagnated, and the real (inflation-adjusted) wages of workers with a high-school education or less have actually fallen. Just a few companies (and their owners) dominate much of the economy. The top 0.1% of the income distribution captures more than 11% of national income, up from around just 2.5% in the 1970s.

But does democratic socialism offer a cure for these ills? As an ideology that regards the market economy as inherently unfair, un-equalizing, and incorrigible, its solution is to cut that system’s most important lifeline: private ownership of the means of production. Instead of a system in which firms and all of their equipment and machinery rest in the hands of a small group of owners, democratic socialists would prefer “economic democracy,” whereby companies would be controlled either by their workers or by an administrative structure operated by the state.1

Democratic socialists contrast their envisioned system with the Soviet-style brand. Theirs, they argue, can be achieved wholly by democratic means. But the most recent attempts to socialize production (in Latin America) have relied on anti-democratic arrangements. And that points to another problem with the current debate in the US: democratic socialism has been conflated with social democracy. And, unfortunately, Sanders has contributed to this confusion.

Social democracy refers to the policy framework that emerged and took hold in Europe, especially the Nordic countries, over the course of the twentieth century. It, too, is focused on reining in the excesses of the market economy, reducing inequality, and improving living standards for the least fortunate. But while US democratic socialists like Sanders often cite Nordic social democracy as their model, there are in fact deep and consequential differences between the two systems. Simply put, European social democracy is a system for regulating the market economy, not for supplanting it.1

To understand how social-democratic politics has evolved, consider the Swedish Social Democratic Workers Party (SAP), which distanced itself early on from Marxist ideology and the Communist Party. One of the SAP’s early and formative leaders, Hjalmar Branting, offered a platform appealing not only to industrial workers but also to the middle class.

Most important, the SAP competed for power by democratic means, working within the system to improve conditions for the majority of Swedes. In the first election following the onset of the Great Depression, SAP leader Per Albin Hansson presented the party as a “people’s home,” and offered an inclusive agenda. The voters rewarded the SAP with a remarkably high 41.7% of the vote, enabling it to form a governing coalition with the Agrarian Party. Following another overwhelming election victory, the SAP organized a meeting in 1938 of representatives of business, trade unions, farmers, and the government. That gathering, in the resort town of Saltsjöbaden, launched an era of cooperative labor relations that would define the Swedish economy for decades.

A key pillar of the Swedish social-democratic compact was centralized wage setting. Under the Rehn-Meidner model (so named for two contemporary Swedish economists), trade unions and business associations negotiated industry-wide wages, and the state maintained active labor-market and social-welfare policies, while also investing in worker training and public education. The result was significant wage compression: all workers doing the same job were paid the same wage, regardless of their skill level or their firm’s profitability.

Far from socializing the means of production, this system supported the market economy, because it allowed productive firms to flourish, invest, and expand at the expense of their less competitive rivals. With wages set at the industry level, a firm that increased its productivity could keep the resulting rewards (profits). Not surprisingly, Swedish productivity under this system grew steadily, and Swedish firms became highly competitive in export markets. Meanwhile, similar institutions developed in other Nordic countries – in some telling cases introduced not by socialists or social democrats but by center-right governments.

Social democracy, broadly construed, became the foundation of post-war prosperity everywhere in the industrialized world. That includes the United States, where the New Deal and subsequent reforms strengthened or introduced important components of the social-democratic compact, including collective bargaining, social welfare policies, and public education.

When intellectual and political currents deviated from the market-based social-democratic compact, things generally didn’t work out too well. Starting in the late 1960s, Swedish and Danish trade unions, under the influence of more radical left-wing forces, embraced democratic socialism and started demanding economic democracy and direct control of profits. In Sweden, this led to intense negotiations with businesses and the introduction of “wage earner funds,” whereby portions of corporate profits (usually in the form of new stock issues) would be put into company-level funds for the workers. This change destroyed the cooperative agreement between businesses and unions, and distorted the incentives that had previously driven investment and productivity growth. By the early 1990s, the system’s flaws had become apparent, and it was duly abandoned.

When free-market intellectual currents led to rightward deviations from the social-democratic compact, the results were just as bad. Inequality widened amid equally tepid productivity performance, while social safety nets were left in tatters.

What is needed, then, is not market fundamentalism or democratic socialism, but social democracy. The US needs effective regulation to rein in concentrated market power. Workers need a greater voice, and public services and the safety net need to be strengthened. Last but not least, the US needs a new technology policy to ensure that the trajectory of economic development is in everyone’s interest.

None of this can be achieved by socializing firms, especially in an age of globalization and technology-led companies. The market must be regulated, not sidelined.

[Maloserá]

Y otro de hoy,

https://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/post-covid-economy-more-deaths-of-despair-by-anne-case-and-angus-deaton-2020-12

Living and Dying in America in 2021
Dec 28, 2020
ANNE CASE, ANGUS DEATON

In addition to killing at least 340,000 people in America alone, COVID-19 has accelerated economic trends that promise to undermine the lives and livelihoods of less-educated people in the years ahead. While the pandemic eventually will be brought under control, there is still no end in sight for the epidemic of deaths of despair.

PRINCETON – American capitalism is not serving most Americans. While educated elites live longer and more prosperous lives, less-educated Americans – two-thirds of the population – are dying younger and struggling physically, economically, and socially.

This growing divide between those with a four-year college degree and those without one is at the heart of our recent book, Deaths of Despair and the Future of Capitalism. The rise in deaths that we describe is concentrated almost entirely among those without a bachelor’s degree, a qualification that also tends to divide people in terms of employment, remuneration, morbidity, marriage, and social esteem – all keys to a good life.

The COVID-19 pandemic is playing out similarly. Many educated professionals have been able to work from home – protecting themselves and their salaries – while many of those who work in services and retail have lost their jobs or face higher occupational risk. When the final tallies are in, there is little doubt that the overall losses in life and money will divide along the same educational fault line.

The pandemic is also changing the business landscape, favoring large firms over small ones, and e-businesses over brick-and-mortar firms. Many of the large firms – especially Big Tech – employ few workers relative to their market valuations, and do not offer the good jobs that once were available to less-educated workers in old-economy companies.

These changes in the nature of employment have been ongoing for many years, but the pandemic is accelerating them. The share of national income accruing to labor has been – and will continue to be – in long-term decline, which is reflected in today’s record-high stock market. The market’s bull run during a pandemic illustrates, once again, that it is an indicator of expected future profits (not national income): stock prices rise when labor’s share of the pie shrinks.

Depending on how quickly and widely the recently approved COVID-19 vaccines are administered, some of these trends will be reversed, but only for a while. What death toll can America expect for 2021? The United States has already recorded more than 340,000 deaths from COVID-19 in 2020, and total excess deaths – including COVID-19 deaths that were not classified as such, and deaths from other cases that were indirectly caused by the pandemic – are about a quarter larger.

Moreover, even if vaccines are widely distributed by mid-2021, there could be several hundred thousand more pandemic-related deaths in the US before all is said and done, not to mention the additional deaths that could have been prevented by early detection or treatment of other illnesses that were missed during the pandemic.

In any case, we can at least look forward to a future in which COVID-19 has receded as a major cause of death in the US. The same cannot be said for deaths of despair (suicide, accidental drug overdose, and alcoholic liver disease), of which there were 164,000 in 2019, compared with the past “normal” US level of roughly 60,000 per year (based on data from the 1980s and early 1990s).



Although drug overdoses rose in 2019, and were rising in 2020 before the pandemic, predictions of mass suicides during lockdowns have not yet been verified in any country, nor do we expect them to be.

In our past work, we showed how suicides and other deaths of despair tracked with the slow destruction of working-class life since 1970. It is now entirely plausible that deaths in the US will rise again as the structure of the economy shifts after the pandemic. For example, cities will likely undergo radical change, with many businesses moving out of urban high-rise buildings and into suburban low-rises. If there is less commuting as a result, there will be fewer service jobs maintaining buildings and providing transportation, security, food, parking, retail, and entertainment. Whereas some of these jobs will move, others will simply vanish. And while there will be entirely new jobs, too, there is sure to be much disruption in people’s lives.

Overdoses today are largely from illegal street drugs (fentanyl and heroin), rather than from prescription opioids, as in the recent past, and this particular epidemic eventually will be brought under control. But, because drug epidemics tend to follow major episodes of social upheaval and destruction, we should be prepared for new ones in the future.

The US economy has long been experiencing large-scale disruption, owing to changes in production techniques (especially automation) and, to a lesser extent, globalization. The inevitable disturbances to employment, especially among less-educated workers who are most vulnerable to them, have been made vastly worse by the inadequacy of social safety nets and an absurdly expensive health-care system. Because that system is financed largely by employer-based insurance, which varies little with earnings, it places the greatest burden on the least skilled, who are priced out of good jobs.

[Derby]

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-eu-china-investment-idUSKBN29217W

EU-China investment deal likely this week - senior EU official

China and the European Union are likely to clinch an investment deal this week that would give EU companies much better access to the Chinese market and protection for their assets there, a senior EU official said on Monday.

Talks on the agreement launched in 2014, but were stuck for years as the EU complained that China was failing to make good on promises to lift curbs on EU investment, despite a pledge to open up the world’s second largest economy.

But tensions in trade relations between the United States and China may have helped change the Chinese position and bring about a deal between Beijing and Brussels, the official said.(...)

[Mad Men]

Creo que en la única parte del mundo con un aumento exponencial del rentismo solo se ha dado en Europa (quizás en EE.UU también). En el resto del mundo (muchas veces mal llamado subdesarrollado) se da un mayor nivel de corrupción pero no de rentismo, o en todo caso, una corrupción menos rentista.

El sistema del bienestar social rentista, es pura ironía, pues ni es social, ni instaura el bienestar.

Quizás la aspiración de la población era rentar y exprimir como los antiguos reyes y nobles. La cuestión es numérica, un puñado de nobles por más que roben, roban mucho menos que el pueblo entero.

Saludos.

[CHOSEN]

FICHA || SECTOR PÚBLICO.—
La economía tiene tres agentes:
— familias,
— empresas privadas y
—Sector Público (Estado en sentido amplio), que se compone de:

Aprovecho para decir que viendo las medidas políticas -NO sanitarias- tomadas "para atajar la pandemia"  (cierre de negocios según CNAE, toque de queda nocturno, eliminación del derecho a culto, etc) habría que echarle un ojo a la Taxonomía de Peleas y ver donde encaja la batalla
- Estado Vs Ciudadanos (¿o debería decir ciudadanos contra ciudadanos?)
Entiendo que no es directamente relativa al capitalismo popular, pero le hemos visto las orejas al lobo en este contexto de pandemia, y desgraciadamente no ha sido nada agradable. Me ha parecido con diferencia la peor y mas grave de todas.

Me encaja esta batalla para explicar el separatismo Brexitero, al ser el aparato estatal el que actúa EN CONTRA de los intereses de una gran parte de la población (sino toda), también eslabón provincial (separatismo catalán) y también local, con decisiones administrativas de ayuntamientos donde se extralimitan de sus funciones (por ejemplo cierres perimetrales, o limitación del número de licencias en ciertos negocios)
Nose, es cuanto menos preocupante.

[pedrito]

Propongo un esquema sencillo con el ánimo de que alguien lo pueda rebatir y así poder confrontar ideas, y yo aprender un poco más.

Mi objetivo es poder hacer un mapa lógico para poder entender por qué entramos en 2021 y no ha habido los cambios que se predecían hace más de 10 años.

Tomo como hipótesis las siguientes afirmaciones:

-Ningun cambio estructural vendrá de la población civil a la hora de reconocer la inmoralidad de la extracción de rentas sobre bienes de primera necesidad.

...y en eso se resume todo el análisis: la pisitofilia no va a aceptar ningún cambio en la distribuciión de rentas, ni en su posición extractiva de rentas al Trabajo&Empresa; todo lo demás, es hablar por hablar. La politica fiscal, monetaria y cualquier otra está política está supeditada a ese enunciado.

La izquierda asesta cinco golpes mortales a los propietarios de vivienda
- Seguir leyendo: https://www.libremercado.com/2020-12-28/gobierno-okupas-morosos-vivienda-suministros-desahucios-6693401/

El Gobierno de Pedro Sánchez y Pablo Iglesias le ha declarado la guerra a los propietarios de vivienda, que en España rondan el 80% de la población. Por el momento, ya ha implementado tres medidas que, de facto, constituyen una expropiación de uso, al tiempo que estudian otras dos intervenciones cuya puesta en marcha también penalizará de forma muy sustancial el derecho a la propiedad privada.
1. Prohibición de desahucios

La primera y más importante es la prohibición de los desahucios. PSOE y Podemos aprovecharon el estallido de la pandemia el pasado mes de marzo para suspender los desalojos por impago de alquiler.

A diferencia de lo que han hecho muchos otros países ricos, cuyos gobiernos han concedido prestaciones y ayudas a los afectados para que puedan seguir pagando sus rentas, el Gobierno optó aquí por derivar el coste de la crisis hacia los propietarios, de modo que estos tengan que asumir obligatoriamente las pérdidas causadas por la morosidad de sus inquilinos.

Además, lo que empezó siendo una medida de carácter extraordinario y temporal durará un mínimo de 14 meses, después de que el Consejo de Ministros haya prolongado hasta el 9 de mayo de 2021 la suspensión de los desahucios. Los propietarios no podrán recuperar su vivienda en caso de morosidad o finalización de contrato de alquiler, siempre y cuando sus inquilinos sean considerados "vulnerables" y no dispongan de una "alternativa habitacional" por parte de la Administración.

La categoría de "vulnerable" engloba a parados, afectados por ERTE, familias cuyos ingresos no superen, como mínimo, los 1.613 euros al mes o que el pago del alquiler y los suministros básicos (electricidad, gas, gasoil para calefacción, agua, telecomunicaciones y comunidad) supongan el 35% o más de los ingresos netos de la unidad familiar.

Esta medida supone una expropiación temporal de viviendas. Tanto es así que hasta el Gobierno establece en el real decreto una compensación a los propietarios afectados, a modo de justiprecio, si las comunidades autónomas no ofrecen a los inquilinos una "vivienda digna" en el plazo de tres meses desde que queda acreditada su vulnerabilidad económica. Compensación que, en todo caso, no cuenta con el visto bueno de Podemos.
2. Cortes de suministros

Y sucede lo mismo con los cortes de suministros básicos. Los propietarios de los inmuebles tendrán que hacer frente a las facturas de luz, agua y calefacción de sus inquilinos morosos durante el tiempo que dure la suspensión de los desahucios, tanto si tienen contrato como si no. Es decir, tampoco podrán cortar los suministros a los okupas.
3. Legalización de okupas

Por si fuera poco, el real decreto aprobado por el Gobierno extiende la prohibición de los desahucios a los okupas si se hacen con viviendas vacías de grandes tenedores (propietarios de más de diez inmuebles), aunque estos podrán solicitar una compensación si demuestran que la suspensión del lanzamiento les ha ocasionado un perjuicio económico "al encontrarse la vivienda ofertada en venta o arrendamiento con anterioridad a la entrada en el inmueble". Es decir, sólo podrán reclamar justiprecio en determinados casos, excluyendo así muchas vivienda vacías.

Según denuncia la Asociación de Propietarios de Vivienda en Alquiler (Asval), esto "supone la legalización de la ocupación ilegal, lo que va a convertir a España en el único país avanzado que permite este tipo de prácticas fuera de la ley y peligrosas". Se trata, por tanto, de una anomalía a nivel internacional.

Con estas tres medidas, el Gobierno da cumplimiento a buena parte de las demandas de Podemos contra la propiedad privada, consistentes en prohibir los desahucios por impago de alquiler e hipoteca, junto con los cortes de suministros, y despenalizar la okupación.
4. Precio máximo de alquileres

Pero no son las únicas. Hay, al menos, otras dos propuestas que se podrían materializar en los próximos meses. Por un lado, la fijación de un precio máximo en los alquileres de determinadas zonas calificadas como "tensionadas" a través de la futura Ley de Vivienda. Este tipo de controles ya se ha intentado aplicar en otros países y, de hecho, ya está vigente en Cataluña, y el resultado ha sido un rotundo fracaso, puesto que se ha reducido la oferta de alquiler, con la consiguiente subida de precios.

La Agencia Negociadora del Alquiler (ANA) advierte de que es "una medida puramente ideológica, contraria al libre mercado de alquiler, donde los pequeños propietarios particulares, que son más del 90% del sector, se van a ver perjudicados y muchos de ellos preferirán cerrar sus viviendas al alquiler".
5. Expropiación de pisos vacíos

Y, por último, el Gobierno también barajó en su día la posibilidad de penalizar a los propietarios de viviendas vacías mediante nuevos recargos fiscales. De hecho, Podemos va incluso más allá y habla abiertamente de la posibilidad de expropiar, de forma temporal o definitiva, e incluso confiscar, sin indemnización posible, los inmuebles vacíos de grandes tenedores de vivienda.

Estas cinco medidas constituyen en conjunto la mayor ofensiva contra la propiedad privada que ha experimentado la democracia española.

[wanderer]

Supongo que será por ser el día que es:

[...]
Para lograrlo, los investigadores han diseñado un nuevo tipo de redes neuronales profundas que denominan «caóticas y no dirigidas». Bautizadas como Chaotic Undirected Neural Networks And Deep Operating Systems (CUNNADOS)  , estos sistemas se caracterizan por ser capaces de multiplicar las hipótesis tanto como haga falta para explicar un resultado, un rasgo que hasta ahora era exclusivo del ser humano.
[...]
https://www.investigacionyciencia.es/noticias/nace-el-campo-de-la-estupidez-artificial-19378

 

[Lurker]

Y otro de hoy,

https://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/post-covid-economy-more-deaths-of-despair-by-anne-case-and-angus-deaton-2020-12

Living and Dying in America in 2021
Dec 28, 2020
ANNE CASE, ANGUS DEATON

In addition to killing at least 340,000 people in America alone, COVID-19 has accelerated economic trends that promise to undermine the lives and livelihoods of less-educated people in the years ahead. While the pandemic eventually will be brought under control, there is still no end in sight for the epidemic of deaths of despair.

PRINCETON – American capitalism is not serving most Americans. While educated elites live longer and more prosperous lives, less-educated Americans – two-thirds of the population – are dying younger and struggling physically, economically, and socially.

This growing divide between those with a four-year college degree and those without one is at the heart of our recent book, Deaths of Despair and the Future of Capitalism. The rise in deaths that we describe is concentrated almost entirely among those without a bachelor’s degree, a qualification that also tends to divide people in terms of employment, remuneration, morbidity, marriage, and social esteem – all keys to a good life.

The COVID-19 pandemic is playing out similarly. Many educated professionals have been able to work from home – protecting themselves and their salaries – while many of those who work in services and retail have lost their jobs or face higher occupational risk. When the final tallies are in, there is little doubt that the overall losses in life and money will divide along the same educational fault line.

The pandemic is also changing the business landscape, favoring large firms over small ones, and e-businesses over brick-and-mortar firms. Many of the large firms – especially Big Tech – employ few workers relative to their market valuations, and do not offer the good jobs that once were available to less-educated workers in old-economy companies.

These changes in the nature of employment have been ongoing for many years, but the pandemic is accelerating them. The share of national income accruing to labor has been – and will continue to be – in long-term decline, which is reflected in today’s record-high stock market. The market’s bull run during a pandemic illustrates, once again, that it is an indicator of expected future profits (not national income): stock prices rise when labor’s share of the pie shrinks.

Depending on how quickly and widely the recently approved COVID-19 vaccines are administered, some of these trends will be reversed, but only for a while. What death toll can America expect for 2021? The United States has already recorded more than 340,000 deaths from COVID-19 in 2020, and total excess deaths – including COVID-19 deaths that were not classified as such, and deaths from other cases that were indirectly caused by the pandemic – are about a quarter larger.

Moreover, even if vaccines are widely distributed by mid-2021, there could be several hundred thousand more pandemic-related deaths in the US before all is said and done, not to mention the additional deaths that could have been prevented by early detection or treatment of other illnesses that were missed during the pandemic.

In any case, we can at least look forward to a future in which COVID-19 has receded as a major cause of death in the US. The same cannot be said for deaths of despair (suicide, accidental drug overdose, and alcoholic liver disease), of which there were 164,000 in 2019, compared with the past “normal” US level of roughly 60,000 per year (based on data from the 1980s and early 1990s).



Although drug overdoses rose in 2019, and were rising in 2020 before the pandemic, predictions of mass suicides during lockdowns have not yet been verified in any country, nor do we expect them to be.

In our past work, we showed how suicides and other deaths of despair tracked with the slow destruction of working-class life since 1970. It is now entirely plausible that deaths in the US will rise again as the structure of the economy shifts after the pandemic. For example, cities will likely undergo radical change, with many businesses moving out of urban high-rise buildings and into suburban low-rises. If there is less commuting as a result, there will be fewer service jobs maintaining buildings and providing transportation, security, food, parking, retail, and entertainment. Whereas some of these jobs will move, others will simply vanish. And while there will be entirely new jobs, too, there is sure to be much disruption in people’s lives.

Overdoses today are largely from illegal street drugs (fentanyl and heroin), rather than from prescription opioids, as in the recent past, and this particular epidemic eventually will be brought under control. But, because drug epidemics tend to follow major episodes of social upheaval and destruction, we should be prepared for new ones in the future.

The US economy has long been experiencing large-scale disruption, owing to changes in production techniques (especially automation) and, to a lesser extent, globalization. The inevitable disturbances to employment, especially among less-educated workers who are most vulnerable to them, have been made vastly worse by the inadequacy of social safety nets and an absurdly expensive health-care system. Because that system is financed largely by employer-based insurance, which varies little with earnings, it places the greatest burden on the least skilled, who are priced out of good jobs.

Health/Wealth inequality (con un insight de Sapolsky, un héroe personal, de quien recomiendo su enorme Behave).

Muy interesante:

https://newrepublic.com/article/153870/inequality-death-america-life-expectancy-gap

The Gross Inequality of Death in America

One of the most disquieting facts about life in the United States today is that the richest American men live 15 years longer than the poorest men, while for women it’s 10 years. Put a different way, the life expectancy gap between rich and poor in the U.S. is wider than the gap between the average American and the average Yemeni or Ethiopian.

This gap is only getting wider. According to a report by the Health Inequality Project, from 2001-2014, the richest Americans gained approximately three years in life expectancy while the poorest Americans experienced no gains. A three-year difference in life expectancy may seem trivial, but, as the report’s authors note, this gain in lifespan is the equivalent of curing cancer for only the rich. Going back further, the numbers only get worse: The richest American males gained six years in life expectancy from 1980 to 2010, while outcomes for the poorest men remained stagnant.

These facts would seem to justify the Democratic Party’s widespread support for universal health care. Presidential candidates including Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, Cory Booker, Kamala Harris, and Julian Castro support some form of Medicare for All, and many of the candidates who haven’t fully endorsed MFA have gone to all lengths to convince voters—sometimes unconvincingly—that their plans will guarantee low-cost universal coverage.

When it comes to the health-wealth gap, though, Medicare for All may not be the silver bullet that progressives hope for. Most evidence suggests that while universal health care is a necessary step to closing this gap, it is nowhere near enough. That’s because there are two other major factors that cause the rich to live so much longer than the poor.     

If the health-wealth gap is merely the product of access to quality health care, then the gap should largely disappear when health care access is equalized across society. But that’s not the case in countries that already have universal health care coverage. In France, which has one of the best and most extensive health care systems in the world, the health-wealth gap is about 11 years. Even in the United Kingdom, home to the most robust single payer health care system on the planet, the rich live about 9 years longer than the poor.

The researchers at the Health Inequality Project found a similar result when comparing states within the U.S. “Differences in life expectancy among the poor,” their final report stated, “are not strongly associated with differences in access to health care.”

The health-wealth gap also exists for diseases that have nothing to do with health care access, namely juvenile diabetes and rheumatoid arthritis. Furthermore, the recent fall in life expectancy in the U.S. has been driven by what Princeton economists Anne Case and Angus Deaton have dubbed “deaths of despair”—namely, suicides and drug overdoses—which have little to do with health care access and disproportionately impact the poor nonetheless. (These conditions do, however, have much to do with mental health and drug addiction services.)

This health-wealth gap also remains when taking behavior into account—for example, the fact that poor people tend to be heavier smokers and drinkers. The famous Whitehall studies of the British Civil Service led by epidemiologist Michael Marmot found that only about one-third of the health-wealth gap can be explained by “risk” factors such as smoking, alcohol consumption, and reliance on fast food. When you add in “protective” factors such as access to health care or workout facilities, the number still represents less than half of the total gap.

So, what is responsible for the majority of the health-wealth gap? Stanford neuroscientist Robert Sapolsky, who has been speaking and writing on this question for decades, offers a simple answer: poverty itself. Or, as Sapolsky puts it, “the psychosocial impact of being poor.”

Drawing on research from neuroscience, psychology, and neurobiology, Sapolsky found a powerful link between poverty, chronic stress, and severe health outcomes. As our body’s adaptive response to external threats, short-term stress can be a good thing: It prompts the fight-or-flight response that can help us survive dangerous situations. However, human beings uniquely experience what is known as “chronic stress”: prolonged psychosocial stress that can last for months or even years.

Chronic stress can literally kill us. It increases the risk and severity of diseases like type 2 diabetes and gastrointestinal disorders, impairs the growth of children, suppresses our immune system (rendering us less able to fight even basic sicknesses), and increases our likelihood of becoming depressed or addicted.

While all humans experience stress, Sapolsky points out that the experience of chronic stress is not evenly distributed across society. An extensive biomedical literature indicates that people are more likely to experience stress-related diseases when they lack control over, and social support for dealing with, stressful conditions. The poor disproportionately face such conditions.

A life of poverty can mean a life of constant stress. The poor have little control over their work schedules or wages. (In the Whitehall studies, one’s level of control in the workplace, even for workers within the same organization, accounted for one-half of health disparities.) They fear suddenly losing their job and being unable to pay the bills. They despair over their own future, and how to give their children a better life. They are exhausted and socially isolated by second or third jobs, long commutes, and weekend shifts. They lack the means to take much-needed time off or pay for relaxing hobbies. And often their social support systems are decimated by incarceration, addiction, and depression.

It’s no wonder that the poor have consistently worse health outcomes. Their brains are working overtime all the time.

Yet poverty and its antecedents may only be the beginning. As Sapolsky notes, recent research indicates that living in “poverty amidst plenty”—inequality—is also an important part of the health-wealth equation. For example, Psychologist Nancy Adler has demonstrated that how people rate how they are doing, relative to others, is at least as predictive of health or illness as are any objective measures such as actual income level, and research by epidemiologists Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett has shown that by just about every health indicator—infant mortality, overall life expectancy, obesity, you name it— inequality can be even worse than poverty. In the Whitehall studies, Marmot found a fourfold difference in rates of cardiac disease mortality between the lowest and highest rungs of the British Civil Service, despite the fact they were all paid a living wage.

What this research shows is that health outcomes are not simply a matter of access to healthcare: Poverty and inequality are themselves matters of life and death. Policies that provide a basic income, institute a living wage, eliminate college debt, guarantee affordable housing, and give workers collective bargaining power are thus equally important for closing the egregious gap in life expectancy between America’s rich and poor. If the health of all Americans is a priority for the Democratic Party, candidates must be as serious about lifting people out of poverty, increasing workers’ control, and reducing income inequality as they are about implementing universal health care.

Sds.

[sudden and sharp]

Supongo que será por ser el día que es:

[...]
Para lograrlo, los investigadores han diseñado un nuevo tipo de redes neuronales profundas que denominan «caóticas y no dirigidas». Bautizadas como Chaotic Undirected Neural Networks And Deep Operating Systems (CUNNADOS)  , estos sistemas se caracterizan por ser capaces de multiplicar las hipótesis tanto como haga falta para explicar un resultado, un rasgo que hasta ahora era exclusivo del ser humano.
[...]
https://www.investigacionyciencia.es/noticias/nace-el-campo-de-la-estupidez-artificial-19378

Se caracterizan... por lo que se quiere conseguir. (Ya, claro...; como dirían en mi barrio:"Y mi culo, un futbolín.")

 

[Derby]

Health/Wealth inequality (con un insight de Sapolsky, un héroe personal, de quien recomiendo su enorme Behave).

Sí, magnífico Sapolsky. Sus clases en Standford y otras conferencias que pueden verse en Youtube contienen siempre un excelente análisis de la naturaleza humana (centrado en el comportamiento humano, sí). 

[Hynkel]

...y en eso se resume todo el análisis: la pisitofilia no va a aceptar ningún cambio en la distribuciión de rentas, ni en su posición extractiva de rentas al Trabajo&Empresa; todo lo demás, es hablar por hablar. La politica fiscal, monetaria y cualquier otra está política está supeditada a ese enunciado.

La izquierda asesta cinco golpes mortales a los propietarios de vivienda
- Seguir leyendo: https://www.libremercado.com/2020-12-28/gobierno-okupas-morosos-vivienda-suministros-desahucios-6693401/

Creo que no deberíamos dar tanto pábulo a estos panfletos. Es como la prensa deportiva, si lees el Sport no esperes piropos al Real Madrid, ni piropos del Marca al Barcelona.

Hace no mucho, poco antes del bicho, perpetraron esto:

La nueva Ley Hipotecaria dificulta la compra de vivienda

Ni palabra acerca de que Bruselas ya estaba a punto de poner a España multas millonarias por pasarse tres años por el forro la directiva europea que obligaba a este cambio legal. El personal ya no puede comprarse casa porque no le dan hipotecas. Con dos cojones. Si eso ya hablamos mañana de que los precios son absurdos.

Pero es el mismo cuento de siempre, y por eso no hay que hacerles tanto caso. El pisito es la última trinchera del rentismo, no me cansaré de decirlo. Y el alquiler, especialmente. Si cae eso, el personal se dará cuenta de que es más pobre que una rata y que (la mayoría) no tiene ni formación para hacer trabajo de verdad, ni puede recurrir ya a robarle a otros.

[siempretarde]

Parece que el nuevo se ha enterado que se pueden cambiar los parametros de entrada de una red neuronal?.

Tengo la impresion de que el "pedo" que cogieron fue monumental .... y la chapuza total .....pero ...ya veis todo wuapi-lerendi. Es mas, ese caotico, suena a "NO FUNCIONA".

PD: Nunca entendi, ni entiendo el dia de los inocentes. Por si acaso ...

Supongo que será por ser el día que es:

[...]
Para lograrlo, los investigadores han diseñado un nuevo tipo de redes neuronales profundas que denominan «caóticas y no dirigidas». Bautizadas como Chaotic Undirected Neural Networks And Deep Operating Systems (CUNNADOS)  , estos sistemas se caracterizan por ser capaces de multiplicar las hipótesis tanto como haga falta para explicar un resultado, un rasgo que hasta ahora era exclusivo del ser humano.
[...]
https://www.investigacionyciencia.es/noticias/nace-el-campo-de-la-estupidez-artificial-19378

 

[senslev]

Inocente!!

AeroCentury marca récords en Wall Street al subir más de un 1.300%

https://cincodias.elpais.com/cincodias/2020/12/28/companias/1609185517_483103.html

Ah pues no, era verdad. Supongo que es lo normal. Estoy empezando a cansarme de la mierda esta.

[Derby]

Ya colgué la noticia ayer, BBC da algún detalle más sobre el contenido del acuerdo UE-China

https://www.bbc.com/news/business-55464564

China and EU 'on verge' of major investment deal

(...) According to multiple reports, the deal would open up China's manufacturing sector to EU companies, as well as construction, advertising, air transport and telecoms.

One of the sticking points was China's demands for access to the EU's energy market given sensitivities over national security. The deal is expected to give Beijing access to a small part of the European renewable energy sector on a reciprocal basis.

The pact is also designed to remove barriers to investment in China such as joint-venture requirements and caps on foreign ownership in certain industries.

Once the expected deal is reached, it needs to be ratified by the European parliament, a process that may not begin until the second half of 2021.

Hard labour

On Monday, the European Commission reported progress on the talks with Beijing, including the core issue of workers' rights in China.

This is a contentious issue given reports that China uses Uighur Muslims detained in large numbers in the Xinjiang province as forced labour. Beijing denies these claims.

Under the agreement, China is being asked to pledge to subscribe to the International Labour Organisation's rules on forced labour. An EU-China agreement is expected to cause frictions with the incoming administration of US president-elect Joe Biden.Earlier this month the EU published a transatlantic strategy in which it urged the US to work with it to meet the "strategic challenge" posed by China.

China and the US have been locked in a trade war since 2018 and the Trump administration has targeted a number of Chinese tech companies as threats to national security.EU-China relations themselves have been strained this year, over China's imposition of a new security law in Hong Kong and accusations it spread disinformation about the coronavirus.