Health Economics

I read an interesting point today. Surprisingly it is from one of my study book. (How often can someone find something ‘interesting’ in a study book?) I am taking Health economics this semester. The basic concept of the course is to consider health as a capital. I was astounded to consider health as a capital. I mean all this time I used to consider capital as either money or infrastructure that give direct profit. But then even health gives you pleasure and good health. Thus, health is the capital which you spend in order to get happiness. Sounds so crazy!

When one person eats healthy food and exercises every day then that person is investing in health capital. The more you invest, more are the returns in terms of good health, and there by better productivity and happy life. Drinking alcohol, smoking and eating McDonald food reduces your health capital as you are more prone to diseases and you loose productivity. By this concept, now, even human health can be converted in dollars. One example – productivity loss due to cold is worth $6 billion in US per year.

Another fascinating fact I read in the book is that, when economy of a particular country booms the overall health of the society of that particular spirals down. As unemployment is high, lot of people have spare time to look after themselves. In general people eat on time and sleep regularly. And most importantly the stress level is low. So people are healthier. The situation is exactly opposite when economy is booming. People eat unhealthy food as they do not have time. The sleep less and are more anxious and under stress.

No wonder that the overall health of Indian health post 1990 boom is drastically deteriorating. Gobble few facts for taste.

1) While city-dwellers account for only 5 percent of India's billion-plus population, they consume 40 percent of the country's fat intake, according to The Times of India.

2) Nationwide, 31 percent of urban Indians are either overweight or obese, according to professor Anoop Misra, a specialist in metabolic diseases at the All India Institute of Medical Sciences, the country's leading medical school.

3) Recent studies using the criterion of 140/90 mmHg as the cut-off point for hypertension have shown a prevalence of 10%– 30.9% in urban areas, while earlier reports since 1950 showed a prevalence of 1%–3%.

Aniket Kamde

I don’t know why I suddenly remembered this incident. It happened long time ago. Lot of things happened after that. I experienced so many other events, some good and some bad that, I scarcely had time to keep this event in mind. But today, while coming from gym I remembered that event and realized that it’s worth writing because I learned a lot from it.

Aniket Kamade was my classmate in 6^th grade. I am not sure if I can still call him my friend because after certain incidences I stopped considering him as my friend. It was immaturity and silliness of me but I guess for him I continued to be his friend because he always used to talk nice to me.

Usually students complete their education up to 10^th grade in ten years. Few students complete this journey in 11 and rarely some requires 12 years. Aniket was one of those few but the way he was going he was sure to require lot more than twelve years to cross 10^th grade. He was already in school for at least eight years. But he was still in 6^th grade. And when I entered 7^th grade he remained loyal to our 6^th grade teachers.

Academic success was never an integral in my definition of a good person. So Aniket was my good friend. Though I used to stand in top five ranks in class, I was a back bencher like him. Another point that made us friend was that we used to live in same direction so sometimes we used ride together.

Once I had a fever for almost a week. Not to say I missed whole week of school but when I joined school I was very weak. My father or brother used to drop me to school and while coming back I used to come with one of my friends on their bicycle. One day there was heavy rain. I forgot my raincoat at home. I didn’t want to get wet as I just had lengthy fever. Then Kamade came and said let’s go home, I will give you ride. I told him that I can’t come as its raining pretty heavy. So, he offered me his raincoat so that I won’t get wet. I asked him what he is going to do. He gave me very funny answer. He said “I live near medical college so if I get fever I will have few injections and I will be just fine.” it was funny because even I could get few injections but I didn’t think that way and I took his raincoat. I was riding with him on his bicycle wearing his raincoat and he was paddling fast so that we can reach home (my home) early. By the time we reached my home he was soaked but he looked so happy and content because I was completely dry. And I was happy too because I was dry. I was so engrossed in myself that I didn’t look at him.

May be this incidence isn’t that great. But living in U.S. gave me plenty of different or weird experiences. It is hard for me understand someone in US. Granted, I am from totally foreign culture. But still things did not go as smooth as I expected. Selfishness is paramount behavior trait here. I am not saying that people in U.S.are worse or better, but it’s just different. And in such environment I certainly miss people like Aniket and I wish I could make more friends like him in US.

Iran War

Nothing special happened over last two weeks. There was one event, something called Iraq election but apart from that nothing in particular. Bush is busy in selling his Medicare and Social Security plans to people. Prince Charles is finally marrying his long time mistress and Condi. Rice said that US and Europe should go hand in hand now. Let the bygones be bygones in short. Wonderful! I am always amused at the US and Europe goes on destructing the world by either capitalism or by military power and after that they always come together. Anyways, a lot had been said about that and I don’t want to go into it.

In my last AIR (Association of International Relation – Rutgers current affairs discussion group) meeting we were discussing Bush Foreign policy part II. Everybody was giving their own opinions whether Bush will attack Iran or not.
In my opinion, at this moment it’s impossible for Bush to attack anyone else. Not because U.S. is stuck in quagmire in Iraq but simply stating U.S. do not have enough people to fight with Iranians. Also, Iran is much more united country than Iraq. Even though they are fundamentalist their rulers are not brutal and most importantly, their rulers are ‘their own’ rulers – that is they are Iranian and Shias. So there won’t be any ‘red carpet’ welcome for U.S. troops in Iran (there was none in Iraq what so ever!) and Iran’s army is well trained and in good spirit to fight with anyone. On the top of that I guess Iran has some weapon that has some relation with the word ‘nuclear’. So basically they have insured themselves with nuclear policy.

Well! That is it for now. I will get back if anything unexpected or expected event happens.

P.S. – Oh yes! If Bush could somehow sell war through NATO then it is possible that Iran will come under war cloud

Coming out of closet.

Why don’t US come out of closet? If James McGreevy can come out of closet and save his (ass) political life and his corrupt money then why doesn’t US government learn something from him? The reasons that US give to invade Iraq are as absurd as it can get. But such reasons makes its task of capturing oil (if indeed, they will be able to capture oil!) more difficult.

Inadvertently, the mask of humanity, freedom and democracy that US constantly wear is harming US more than ever. Consider this option. Instead of saying that we want free democracy in Iraq, what if US says that we are superpower and we practically depend on oil, and Iraq is second largest reservoir of oil. So, in our quest of new oil deposits we want Iraq. I mean, this wouldn’t be any strange or unheard argument. Since the beginning of Stone Age when humans used to fight with stones, the powerful rules the world.

I really doubt if Alexander the Great gave any reasons to invade other countries. His ultimate quest to win India did not spawn from the ideology of spreading freedom. In fact India was more advanced and rich civilization, but he wanted to win the entire known world so that he will be infinitively richer and powerful. There are scores of such example spread throughout the human history. In every era there is a superpower and it gave no reasons to any of its acts.

Is it practical to ask Genghis Khan that why did he killed millions of people? Or to Hitler? What is the reason behind Britain’s quest of dominating half of the world in 18^th century? Simply stated they needed more money and power so that they countryman will be able to live more luxurious life.

I sincerely believe if George Bush gave similar argument then world will be better off. First, all the moral arguments that are against war in Iraq will cease to exist as morality does not apply to powerful. (Michael Moore will loose his job!) Secondly the insurgents in Iraq will understand that they are fighting with Americans who are now ready to fight till death. That means till death of all insurgents.

The ruse of spreading democracy is not working properly nor will it work in future. On the other hand it is tarnishing the image of US in the areas where US actually does good work, for example in United Nations AIDS prevention efforts.

It’s high time that US people (US government already know this!) that their country is superpower. And whatever way they go, rest of the world will always keep bickering about their acts. So they better come out of closet and state that it’s their way or highway.