The Rich Stay Healthy, The Sick Stay Poor
I was in the kingdom of the mad, autocratic king of Nepal (© guy in todays Guardian) a few years ago watching some English language Indian TV with some other backpackers as you do when the ads came on. It’s the sort of thing that you get used to after a while, seeing products advertised that most people outside have never even heard of, let alone be able to afford. But then there was one that seemed outrageous even by those highly compromised standards.
“You’re going to a party in a weeks time and you just cant fit into this dress?”
Well, no actually, for all sorts of reasons but… someone else had the remote control.
“Well, try new magi-slim! You can lose 10lb in a week!”A Scandanavian guy asked how much that was; I told him about 4.5 kilos. He nodded.
Then we heard a list of all the places in India where you could get this product, which was a
not inconsiderable one.
Then the punchline.
“Now available in Bangladesh!”
What could I do but laugh at the sheer absurdity? Normally advertisers try to sell us things we don’t need and can’t afford, but now they were trying to sell things that people could neither need nor afford or even want.
I’d heard before that big pharma companies in the US had been taking advantage of tax breaks for donating medicine to 3rd World countries by dumping some unused appetite stimulants on the people of Sudan, but I thought this was even more bizarre.
It’s bizarre not only because most people and Bangladesh have at best barely enough food to eat but because being fat is considered a sign of wealthy status there, as it still is in India, and was in the west until a few generations ago.
Look at sketches for Dickens’ novels and you’ll see emaciated, staving waifs next to bloated businessmen. It’s an image that has stayed with us even though thin is very clearly now in. We still talk of “Fat Cat” businessmen and the Dickensian imagery serves cartoonists calling for a better deal for the 3rd world well.
This is in spite of the fact that obesity is a much bigger problem in the west as a result of the so-called “green revolution” of the 40’s when petrochemical fertilisers were invented. Since then, at the mere cost of almost completely eliminating biodiversity in much of the world, cutting down most of the rainforests and developing a insatiable appetite for a dwindling supply of fossil fuels, everyone in the west has enough to eat and most people have more than enough.
Or so I though until yesterday.
Ireland has certainly come a long way since the famine, although even back then we were still producing enough food to feed 10 million people. If I had a cent for every time I heard that we were now the fourth richest country in the world (per capita) and I invested them all wisely we’d probably be the third richest country in the world. As for the rest of the west our problem is now having too much food which leaves us paying more money to go to gyms and run on treadmills, which are an apt metaphor for our society as a whole.
But yesterday we learnt that starvation, shockingly, is still with us.
When I heard that an old woman in Enniscorthy had rotted after starving to death in her own filth, those images of Dickensian waifs came flooding back. Unfortunately, it doesn’t help that the person in charge of the health care system is both in thrall to the fat cats of Private Health care and… how shall I say this? In need of a few tins of Magi-slim herself?
It may seem like a tasteless metaphor, but the horrible truth is that just as there was more than enough food being produced to feed everyone during the famine, there’s at least enough money to feed everyone 100 times over in our economy and yet people are still starving to death.
I’d love to think that the one good thing that might come out of this tragedy would be that David McWilliams would reconsider his “Wonderbra Effect” theory that recycles the old Smithsonian “rising tide” maxim to the effect that everyone’s life has improved under the Celtic Tiger. Sadly, he’ll probably find some way rationalise that in the bad old days things would have been even worse for her, though I’m at a loss as to how anything could be worse than starving to death in your own filth.
I’d love if Mary Harney would take the blame for this tragedy as eagerly as she could took credit for all the places she opened. I’d love if she gave us an honest explanation for why there are more than twice as many home help workers in the far poorer North than there are here.
I’d love if Bertie Ahern would admit that if he was really a socialist, that a country where an acre of land sells for €89million when some people don’t have enough food to eat would represent somewhat of a non-success for him.
Yet, a few days after media move onto their next big story, Red Ahern, Fatty Harney and the other Celtic Jackals will be up to their old tricks, telling us how we’ve never had it so good, and how much better our country is than those sclerotic economies on the continent.
But snort this up your nose with a €500 note, McWilliams: What happened in Enniscorthy would never happen in Sweden, in France or in any country in the EU. Or in Canada, Australia or New Zealand, or Japan. In fact the only other industrialised country where this would happen is the US, the root of all god things for the jackalocracy. There’s and old joke that there’s no point in telling politicians to go to hell as they’re trying to build it for us. If you want to know what sort of hell Mary Harney wants to build for us, take a look at the US, where care for older people is only available to those that can afford it, and where older people are treated with contempt as they don’t contribute anything to the economy.
It’s true that running the health care system isn’t easy and that countries with good health care systems didn’t build them overnight. But it also throws the efforts of Bono, Bob and Brown into sharp relief: How will they ever feed Africa if one of the richest countries in the world leaves one of it’s citizens to starve?
And if this happens in a time of plenty while the state still largely controls the health care system, what will things be like when the multinationals outsource somewhere else and the fate of older people is in the hands of grubby, bean-counting businessmen?
“You’re going to a party in a weeks time and you just cant fit into this dress?”
Well, no actually, for all sorts of reasons but… someone else had the remote control.
“Well, try new magi-slim! You can lose 10lb in a week!”A Scandanavian guy asked how much that was; I told him about 4.5 kilos. He nodded.
Then we heard a list of all the places in India where you could get this product, which was a
not inconsiderable one.
Then the punchline.
“Now available in Bangladesh!”
What could I do but laugh at the sheer absurdity? Normally advertisers try to sell us things we don’t need and can’t afford, but now they were trying to sell things that people could neither need nor afford or even want.
I’d heard before that big pharma companies in the US had been taking advantage of tax breaks for donating medicine to 3rd World countries by dumping some unused appetite stimulants on the people of Sudan, but I thought this was even more bizarre.
It’s bizarre not only because most people and Bangladesh have at best barely enough food to eat but because being fat is considered a sign of wealthy status there, as it still is in India, and was in the west until a few generations ago.
Look at sketches for Dickens’ novels and you’ll see emaciated, staving waifs next to bloated businessmen. It’s an image that has stayed with us even though thin is very clearly now in. We still talk of “Fat Cat” businessmen and the Dickensian imagery serves cartoonists calling for a better deal for the 3rd world well.
This is in spite of the fact that obesity is a much bigger problem in the west as a result of the so-called “green revolution” of the 40’s when petrochemical fertilisers were invented. Since then, at the mere cost of almost completely eliminating biodiversity in much of the world, cutting down most of the rainforests and developing a insatiable appetite for a dwindling supply of fossil fuels, everyone in the west has enough to eat and most people have more than enough.
Or so I though until yesterday.
Ireland has certainly come a long way since the famine, although even back then we were still producing enough food to feed 10 million people. If I had a cent for every time I heard that we were now the fourth richest country in the world (per capita) and I invested them all wisely we’d probably be the third richest country in the world. As for the rest of the west our problem is now having too much food which leaves us paying more money to go to gyms and run on treadmills, which are an apt metaphor for our society as a whole.
But yesterday we learnt that starvation, shockingly, is still with us.
When I heard that an old woman in Enniscorthy had rotted after starving to death in her own filth, those images of Dickensian waifs came flooding back. Unfortunately, it doesn’t help that the person in charge of the health care system is both in thrall to the fat cats of Private Health care and… how shall I say this? In need of a few tins of Magi-slim herself?
It may seem like a tasteless metaphor, but the horrible truth is that just as there was more than enough food being produced to feed everyone during the famine, there’s at least enough money to feed everyone 100 times over in our economy and yet people are still starving to death.
I’d love to think that the one good thing that might come out of this tragedy would be that David McWilliams would reconsider his “Wonderbra Effect” theory that recycles the old Smithsonian “rising tide” maxim to the effect that everyone’s life has improved under the Celtic Tiger. Sadly, he’ll probably find some way rationalise that in the bad old days things would have been even worse for her, though I’m at a loss as to how anything could be worse than starving to death in your own filth.
I’d love if Mary Harney would take the blame for this tragedy as eagerly as she could took credit for all the places she opened. I’d love if she gave us an honest explanation for why there are more than twice as many home help workers in the far poorer North than there are here.
I’d love if Bertie Ahern would admit that if he was really a socialist, that a country where an acre of land sells for €89million when some people don’t have enough food to eat would represent somewhat of a non-success for him.
Yet, a few days after media move onto their next big story, Red Ahern, Fatty Harney and the other Celtic Jackals will be up to their old tricks, telling us how we’ve never had it so good, and how much better our country is than those sclerotic economies on the continent.
But snort this up your nose with a €500 note, McWilliams: What happened in Enniscorthy would never happen in Sweden, in France or in any country in the EU. Or in Canada, Australia or New Zealand, or Japan. In fact the only other industrialised country where this would happen is the US, the root of all god things for the jackalocracy. There’s and old joke that there’s no point in telling politicians to go to hell as they’re trying to build it for us. If you want to know what sort of hell Mary Harney wants to build for us, take a look at the US, where care for older people is only available to those that can afford it, and where older people are treated with contempt as they don’t contribute anything to the economy.
It’s true that running the health care system isn’t easy and that countries with good health care systems didn’t build them overnight. But it also throws the efforts of Bono, Bob and Brown into sharp relief: How will they ever feed Africa if one of the richest countries in the world leaves one of it’s citizens to starve?
And if this happens in a time of plenty while the state still largely controls the health care system, what will things be like when the multinationals outsource somewhere else and the fate of older people is in the hands of grubby, bean-counting businessmen?
posted by seamus @ 8:06 pm
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