This squib was published in Letters to the Editor, The Dominion, on the 26 May, 2001. I discovered it recalled in a report, A Question of Ethnicity – One Word, Different People, Many Perceptions: the Perspectives of Groups Other Than Mäori, Pacific Peoples and New Zealand Europeans, a prepared for the Statistics New Zealand Review…
Continue reading this entry »
Listener 26 May 2001
Keywords Political Economy & History
In front of me as I write this, is a 1990 circular to journalists by a media chief, who reports being approached by a public relations consultant complaining that too much space was being given to opponents of rogernomics (the euphemism is ‘continue to use the same small group of commentators’), and suggesting that other economists should be used. Attached was the consultant’s suggestions. The circular does not mention which interests the lobbyist represented, nor that a goodly number of those proposed were employees or advisors to the consultant’s clients.
Why We Should Do it Even Though We Shouldn’t Pay Too Much Attention to the Bottom-line Results
Paper presented at the annual meeting of the Kettil Bruun Society for Social and Epidemiological Research on Alcohol, Toronto, May 2001 by ERIC SINGLE and BRIAN EASTON.[1]
Keywords: Health Economics
Abstract
A coalition of provincial, national and international addictions agencies has sponsored a series of international symposia leading to the developing of international guidelines for estimating the costs of substance abuse. These guidelines have now been utilized in national studies in four continents, with more consistent and comparable results than in previous studies. Although the bottom-line results have been utilized to argue for alcohol issues having a higher place on the public policy agenda, the real value in such studies lies in the detailed results regarding mortality and morbidity attributable to alcohol, the relative contribution of acute vs. chronic conditions to overall problem levels, and the role of alcohol in adverse social consequences such as crime and economic productivity. Recent updated estimates are presented regarding the attributable proportion of various causes of disease and death due to alcohol misuse in Canada. There are a variety of factors which undermine the robustness of the findings, including lack of data, laying of assumptions and changes in the epidemiological knowledge base. It is argued that economic cost estimates should nonetheless be conducted and continually refined, as the detailed findings are of great utility to the design and targeting of prevention programming and policy.
Listener 12 May, 2001.
Keywords: Macroeconomics & Money
Richard’s Brattigan’s four hour film of Hamlet included bits of the plot which are often omitted in the cut version of the play. I was particularly struck how the invasion of Denmark by Prince Fortibras of Norway, suggests that the events at Court at Elsinor were but petty politicking. I had similar feelings while reading the New Zealand media pages on the internet while I was overseas. The nation’s main concerns seemed to be the activities of various members of parliament and their spouses. Now, just as there is a problem if one suspects one’s stepfather has bumped off one’s father and taken over his job, it is important we have honest and competent politicians. But perhaps the economic storms outside the country deserved a little more attention.