Nov 30, 2013
NEWS ANALYSIS
Finesse and better timing could have helped avert backlash, experts say
By Esther Teo
CHINA'S announcement of its first-ever Air Defence Identification Zone (ADIZ) a week ago sparked strong criticism from neighbours Japan and South Korea to countries farther afield like the United States and Australia.
The Chinese ADIZ not only partially overlaps the zones set up by neighbouring countries, but it also includes a group of disputed East China Sea isles called Diaoyu by China and Senkaku by Japan.
The outrage the new zone has caused prompts the question: Could Beijing have prevented the backlash or at least mitigated it?
Saturday, November 30, 2013
Monday, November 25, 2013
Is Fracking worse than Coal? Selected comments from the SDMB.
A partial answer. The US may be on the cusp of an oil boom.
From SDMB.
I have to take issue with Cecil Adams' latest article regarding fracking. In it, he says that fracking and natural gas use are bad, but not as bad as other options like coal. This is flatly untrue. According to a recent Cornell study, up to 8% of the natural gas released by fracking escapes unburnt into the atmosphere, and since natural gas as a greenhouse gas is much more potent than CO2, the resulting emissions make natural gas extraction three times worse for the environment than coal. This isn't to say we should be burning coal instead, but that we should reject false solutions that lock us in to a fossil fuel future. With Vermont Gas Systems trying to ram a gas pipeline extension down the throats of the Vermont public as I write, it's important that we keep scrupulously to the facts on this subject.
From SDMB.
I have to take issue with Cecil Adams' latest article regarding fracking. In it, he says that fracking and natural gas use are bad, but not as bad as other options like coal. This is flatly untrue. According to a recent Cornell study, up to 8% of the natural gas released by fracking escapes unburnt into the atmosphere, and since natural gas as a greenhouse gas is much more potent than CO2, the resulting emissions make natural gas extraction three times worse for the environment than coal. This isn't to say we should be burning coal instead, but that we should reject false solutions that lock us in to a fossil fuel future. With Vermont Gas Systems trying to ram a gas pipeline extension down the throats of the Vermont public as I write, it's important that we keep scrupulously to the facts on this subject.
Sunday, November 24, 2013
Welfare must not undermine value of hard work
Nov 10, 2013
Boost wages of poor to keep them in jobs, and to get the able-bodied to work
By Radha Basu Senior Correspondent
Just 37, Madam N already has eight children and a grandchild. Her third husband, a factory worker, earns $1,400.
The family receives close to $1,400 in monthly cash handouts and vouchers, the bulk of it from the Government.
Factor in medical and education subsidies, and what they get in state aid is considerably more than the money they make from work.
The handouts, the housewife acknowledged, have increased over the years. The state has also exercised flexibility in allowing the large family to live by themselves in a three-room Interim Rental Housing flat, whereas the temporary housing scheme usually requires two families to share a roof.
I chanced upon the former beautician after following her children home one afternoon last month, while wandering along the corridors of their Boon Lay housing block.
Chatting in their cluttered flat as her teenage daughter played on a Samsung tablet, I realised that this family was living proof of the rapid and relatively recent widening of Singapore's social safety nets.
Boost wages of poor to keep them in jobs, and to get the able-bodied to work
By Radha Basu Senior Correspondent
Just 37, Madam N already has eight children and a grandchild. Her third husband, a factory worker, earns $1,400.
The family receives close to $1,400 in monthly cash handouts and vouchers, the bulk of it from the Government.
Factor in medical and education subsidies, and what they get in state aid is considerably more than the money they make from work.
The handouts, the housewife acknowledged, have increased over the years. The state has also exercised flexibility in allowing the large family to live by themselves in a three-room Interim Rental Housing flat, whereas the temporary housing scheme usually requires two families to share a roof.
I chanced upon the former beautician after following her children home one afternoon last month, while wandering along the corridors of their Boon Lay housing block.
Chatting in their cluttered flat as her teenage daughter played on a Samsung tablet, I realised that this family was living proof of the rapid and relatively recent widening of Singapore's social safety nets.
Tuesday, November 19, 2013
This economic slump could be permanent
TODAY
19 Nov 2013
By Paul Krugman
Spend any time around monetary officials and one word you will hear a lot is “normalisation”. Most, though not all, of such officials accept that now is no time to be tight-fisted, that for the time being, credit must be easy and interest rates low.
Still, the men in dark suits look forward eagerly to the day when they can go back to their usual job, snatching away the punch bowl whenever the party gets going.
But what if the world we have been living in for the past five years is the new normal?
What if depression-like conditions are on track to persist, not for another year or two, but for decades?
19 Nov 2013
By Paul Krugman
Spend any time around monetary officials and one word you will hear a lot is “normalisation”. Most, though not all, of such officials accept that now is no time to be tight-fisted, that for the time being, credit must be easy and interest rates low.
Still, the men in dark suits look forward eagerly to the day when they can go back to their usual job, snatching away the punch bowl whenever the party gets going.
But what if the world we have been living in for the past five years is the new normal?
What if depression-like conditions are on track to persist, not for another year or two, but for decades?
Refuelling American power
Nov 18, 2013
EYE ON THE WORLD
The shale revolution could shatter predictions of America's demise as a superpower and impact geopolitical dynamics.
By Jonathan Eyal, Europe Correspondent
PREDICTIONS about the United States' inevitable decline as a superpower are banal - even senior American officials are preparing for a world in which Washington no longer acts as the ultimate arbiter.
But what if all such predictions are wrong? What if the US confounds its doomsayers by performing another economic revival miracle that again leaves all competitors trailing behind?
EYE ON THE WORLD
The shale revolution could shatter predictions of America's demise as a superpower and impact geopolitical dynamics.
By Jonathan Eyal, Europe Correspondent
PREDICTIONS about the United States' inevitable decline as a superpower are banal - even senior American officials are preparing for a world in which Washington no longer acts as the ultimate arbiter.
But what if all such predictions are wrong? What if the US confounds its doomsayers by performing another economic revival miracle that again leaves all competitors trailing behind?
Friday, November 15, 2013
The myth of organic agriculture
By Henry I Miller
TODAY
14 Nov 2013
Organic products — from food to skincare nostrums to cigarettes — are very much in vogue, with the global market for organic food alone now reportedly exceeding US$60 billion (S$75 billion) annually. The views of organic devotees seem to be shared by the European Commission, whose official view of organic farming and food is: “Good for nature, good for you.”
But there is no persuasive evidence of either.
Thursday, November 14, 2013
Why a ‘fat tax’ won’t work in Singapore
TODAY
12 Nov 2012
By Jeremy Lim
Taxes on sugared drinks and other unhealthy food have been in the media spotlight recently.
Mexico, recently crowned the fattest country in the world with 32.8 per cent obesity among adults, pushed through price increases of 8 per cent for junk food. The Mexicans will also add one peso (about S$0.10) to the price of a litre of sugary drinks.
Over in the United Kingdom, a British Medical Journal paper modelling the effects of taxes on sugary drinks suggested a 20 per cent tax would reduce the number of obese adults by 180,000 and those who are overweight by 285,000.
12 Nov 2012
By Jeremy Lim
Taxes on sugared drinks and other unhealthy food have been in the media spotlight recently.
Mexico, recently crowned the fattest country in the world with 32.8 per cent obesity among adults, pushed through price increases of 8 per cent for junk food. The Mexicans will also add one peso (about S$0.10) to the price of a litre of sugary drinks.
Over in the United Kingdom, a British Medical Journal paper modelling the effects of taxes on sugary drinks suggested a 20 per cent tax would reduce the number of obese adults by 180,000 and those who are overweight by 285,000.
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