Solar cycle and climate

(Note: this is my article for The Lobbyist today)

In almost all literatures by the anthropogenic global warming (AGW) or man-made warming camp, natural factors that can influence planet Earth’s climate are either degraded or denied. Such natural factors include the Sun, Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO), volcanoes, water vapor and natural GHGs, among the more prominent ones.

A solar scientist, Paul Vaughan, M.Sc., recently produced a new paper, The North Pacific and Solar Cycle Change. With few words and discussions, he showed three graphs plotting the solar cycle length (SCL) and sea surface temperature (SST) of North Pacific from 1855 to 2010. A solar cycle averages 11 years. Some solar cycles have shorter than 11 years, others, like the recent solar cycle 24, was longer, at about 12.5 years. The result of the SCL and SST North Pacific plot is very interesting as shown below:

There is almost a perfect fit between SCL and SST. Warming-cooling-warming-cooling cycles of SST correspond to longer-shorter-longer-shorter SCL cycles – which suggests that the Sun is the main driver of SST here, at least for the North Pacific.

A known solar physicist from the Harvard Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics in Boston, Dr. Willie Soon, also came up with the same result when he plotted total solar irradiance (TSI) and temperature in Greenland, Atlantic Ocean, Pacific Ocean, from 1880 to 2005. TSI is an indicator of solar activity or inactivity. More TSI means more active Sun, which means more warming.

Paul Vaughan also plotted SCL and the PDO. Pacific Ocean occupies almost one-third of the Earth’s total surface area, or bigger than all land surfaces and continents combined. Thus, PDO with its own internal dynamics is being watched as a contributing factor to the planet’s global temperature. The result of the SCL-PDO plot is also interesting.

There is also a close fit between SCL and PDO, except in years between 1945 to 1955. In general, warming-cooling cycles in PDO corresponded with longer-shorter PCL cycles, except in the middle of the last century. The above graph also shows that PDO has entered a cooling trend since around 1998 up to now.

Man-made warming literatures do not discuss these natural factors. From the “science is settled, debate is over” mantra, we were told that we should accept monstrous environmental regulations, (“dirty”) energy taxation, (“clean”) energy subsidies, endless global climate meetings, new climate bureaucracies created in many countries.

The idiocy and alarmism of man-made warming claims have caused lots of damage to our lives. Foremost of which is intellectual dishonesty.

The Interest Payment Burden

(Note: this is my article for People's Brigada News last weekend)

The President submitted its proposed 2011 budget to Congress last week. It is a staggering P1.645 trillion budget, that will constitute some 18.2 percent of the projected gross domestic product (GDP) next year.

If we include the total budget of local governments as they have revenues of their own aside from the transfers they receive from the national government, the consolidated or combined budget of the whole government bureaucracy should be at least 21 percent of GDP.

National Government Expenditure by Recipient Unit, In P Billion

Recipient Unit : 2009 / 2010 / 2011

1. National Govt Agencies: 815.3 / 927.6 / 964.6
2. Local Govt. Units: 272.9 / 297.5 / 300.0
3. Government Corporations: 67.1 / 39.3 / 23.3
4. Creditors/Interest Payment: 278.9 / 276.2 / 357.1

Total Budget: 1,434.1 / 1,540.6 / 1,645.0

Source: DBM, Budget of Expenditures and Sources of Financing (BESF), Table B.9

The interest payment for our public debt, both domestic and foreign, will be a big burden next year. The P357.1 billion will comprise 21.7 percent of the total budget next year, much higher than the 19.5 percent ratio in 2009 and 17.9 percent ratio this year.

Here is another way at looking at the above table. The increase in total budget from 2010 to 2011 is P105 billion. The increase in interest payment from 2010 to 2011 is P81 billion. Meaning P4 out of every P5 increase in total expenditure was accounted by increase in interest payment alone.

The only consolation in the budget next year is that subsidies to government corporations has drastically declined to only P23 billion, or only 1/3 of its level in 2009. But we should aim for zero subsidy for those government corporations. They are supposed to be net contributors to the total revenues, not net subsidy-seekers. This should be an important argument why many of those government corporations should be privatized soon.
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A related paper I wrote last June 29, 2010

Public Debt and Government Failure

On the roundtable discussion by IBON Foundation today in UP Diliman, "Global public debt troubles: the next phase of the global crisis?", I will argue that the current public debt woes of many governments around the world is a clear case of government failure.

What do you call a person or household who earns P20,000/month but spends P23,000/month (or higher) on average? Gastador, mayabang, iresponsable, engot...? I think all of the above.

So what do you call a government that earns 1 trillion (whatever currency) but spends 1.2 trillion, and the budget gap is repeated every year for several years or decades? Irresponsible, braggart, bleeding-heart,...? All of the above?

The Economist magazine last week (June 24 issue) also has a good interactive map and graph of the consolidated debt of key rich countries. Well, all G7 member countries, no exception, all Gof them are heavily indebted, especially Japan and UK.

Among G20 countries which met in Canada only over the weekend, ALL of them except Saudi Arabia, are running fiscal deficit (revenues lower than expenditures) and resort to lots of public borrowings. Many of them have been running fiscal deficit for the past decade or more.

Government failure is difficult to solve as the usual remedy by many politicians is to create another bureaucracy or to expand existing ones, that will look into the wastes, inefficiency and robbery that happened in other agencies. That is why it is important to remind governments and their politicians and bureaucrats, to stick to their more important function of protecting the citizens' right to life, right to private property, and right to liberty. Then let go of other functions that are better left to market players in a competitive environment.

Healthcare Monopoly 1: France and Canada

In late July 2009, I wrote this:

The best health care system in the world, just don't get sick

Mandatory health insurance and increased government financing of health care, are among the "key policy interventions" that many governments, rich and poor alike, are undertaking. Such policies are also being peddled by the UN, WHO, and various multilateral institutions.

Competition, not monopolization, of various aspects of health care -- physician consultation, diagnostic tests, hospitals, medicines, etc. -- remains the better, if not the best, way to allow health care providers to cater to various patients with varying health needs and with varying budget. Market segmentation with price segmentation will allow different people to meet their respective supplier of health care, especially medical insurance.

When government steps in to further regulate, consolidate and later centralize and monopolize, health costs would not necessarily go down. On the contrary, it will increase as more bureaucracies will be created to impose and monitor the various regulations and restrictions. Also, the socialized health care system will soon be abused by both patients and health care providers (physicians, clinics and hospitals, drug suppliers, etc.).

My Filipino friend working in Japan told me how some Japanese patients would abuse the socialized and government-managed health care system. Patients pay only around 5 percent of the total hospitalization bill in case of confinement. Some patients who can be discharged from the hospital within 2 or 3 days, are staying 2 weeks or more. Such patients pay only very small, they get excuses from their employers not to report for work, while physicians and hospitals are assured of bigger revenues from prolonged stay of some patients as government payment for hospitalization is assured.

Below is a good article by a Canadian and European authors, describing the adverse effect of State monopolization of health care, citing the Canadian and French system.

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http://blogs.reuters.com/great-debate/2009/07/20/healthcare-reforms-warnings-from-france-and-canada/

Healthcare reforms warnings from France and Canada

By Brian Lee Crowley and Valentin Petkantchin

 

JULY 20, 2009

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CANADA | DOCTORS | FRANCE | HEALTH INSURANCE | HEALTHCARE | PATIENTS | THE GREAT DEBATE

– Brian Lee Crowley is the founding president of Atlantic Institute for Market Studies (AIMS), a public policy think tank in Canada (pictured left) and Valentin Petkantchin is director of research at the Paris-and Brussels-based Institut économique Molinari. The views expressed are their own. –

President Barack Obama’s package of heathcare reforms – mandatory health insurance, public health option and increased federal government financing – is being sold as preserving independent high quality care and choice for patients while keeping down costs. Taxpayers and patients in both Canada and France know better.

Unfortunately, our experience is that once the government gets its nose in the healthcare tent, not only is spending not contained, but health care professionals lose their freedom to practice. Left with few choices, patients face shortages and waiting lists.

Washington’s proposed new public health insurance option, while not imposing Canadian-style single-payer monopolistic public health insurance immediately, will almost certainly lead to that result in the end.

One of two things will happen. If doctors prove reluctant to accept patients covered by the public option and it is thus unable to compete successfully with private insurers, the politicians will not stand idly by.

Physicians’ freedom to practice outside the public option will become increasingly hedged with restrictions, perhaps ultimately ending up, as in Canada, with doctors in the public system being prohibited from taking private patients.

Or, more plausibly, in the short term at least, private insurers will gradually withdraw from the business, incapable of winning against a government-subsidized “competitor.”

In both cases, competition in the health insurance sector will progressively vanish and the U.S. will wake up with a monopolistic-style health insurance system, à la France or Canada.

Consider yourself warned.

Our respective health care systems have proven incapable of reining in rising costs. Health spending in France, while lower than the U.S., is among the highest in the world, whatever the indicator, despite decades of mandatory, subsidized health insurance. After 1988, the public health care system has regularly been in the red, with deficits numbered in the billions of euros. The forecast deficit for 2009 alone: 9.4 billion euros (over US$13 billion).

French officials are scrambling to take more control of the system to bring these costs down, but Canada, where government controls all “medically necessary care,” shows that this is no solution at all. A growing share of Canadian provincial budgets is also swallowed by the health care system, going in 20 years (1983-2003) from 32% to 41% and on the way to 50% in a few short years. As a portion of GDP, and adjusting for population age, Canadian health care spending even ranked ahead of France’s in 2005.

But the oxymoron of government cost containment is not the only problem. In the name of restraining costs – so fashionable currently in Washington – governments are adding further inefficiencies by piling on more bureaucracy.

Since 1996, there is a cap on national health care spending in France and growing pressure on health care professionals in the public system to cut costs. In 2004, patients’ choice of physician and specialist was also severely limited.

Independent private medicine – once one of the main pillars guaranteeing quality and timely care in the French system – is being slowly strangled. At the end of 2008, nurses lost their freedom to practice where they please, while a new law will do the same for physicians by imposing an annual financial penalty if they refuse to practice where the government tells them to. Specialists’ fees are increasingly regulated. The last pillars of competition among providers, and choice for French patients, are thus undermined.

Canada again is a good example of where the logic of such policies will lead the French and the Americans in the future.

North of the border, decades of total government control over health care have led to chronic doctor shortages and waiting lists. Roughly 1.7 million Canadians were unable to find a family doctor in 2007 and have to queue in impersonal clinics where they exist. Yet only a physician can order tests or get a patient in to see a specialist.

Despite continual infusions of fresh tax dollars, waiting times for hospital treatment went from an average of 7.3 weeks in 1993 to 17.3 weeks in 2008, although there was a minuscule decline last year as a result of massive political pressure. The problem is so severe that the Supreme Court of Canada acknowledged in a historical 2005 ruling that patients die as a result of waiting lists for public health care.

Finally, coverage of new drugs is delayed by a year or more for patients relying on the public system. Even with this delay, by October 2007 less than half of new drugs launched between 2004 and 2006 had been listed for payment.

Based on experience in both our countries, government health insurance and government financing inescapably lead to a crackdown on health care providers and bureaucratization of the entire health care system. Americans should look carefully at our experiences before going any further down the slippery slope of state-controlled health care.

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A certain "Dan" commented to my note above, said:

Since health care is a service, A better comparison of health care systems around the world would be to poll consumers from various nations as to what they like and dislike about their systems. This has already been done by various polling companies.
A google search for "heath care poll, Harris" should yield some interesting insights.
The results are surprising for those of us who have always believed that the US system was second to none.

I have a former officemate at CPBO, House of Representatives, Quezon City, who migrated to Vancouver, Canada. She told me that one time she suffered itchy hair/head scalp, she got it after a brief mountain hiking. She went to a government hospital or clinic, the staff and doctor there noted that her condition was not serious, she was told to wait for several months as doctor services have a long queue, and was told to take some medications, gave her prescriptions.

Days and weeks have passed, her itchy hair or head scalp was getting worse, she went back to the doctor but was told that her condition was not serious, told her to come back on the specified date which was several weeks away. Her dandruff was growing thick then plus other maladies in her hair, she could not sleep well in the evening and her work was already affected. Desperate to get treatment, she went to a private physician and paid big amount just to get treated. That action solved her problem.

When things are made free or highly subsidized, expect the demand to be higher than the supply, which will later result in rationing of such goods or services.

Climate loans racket, part 2

(Note: this is a continuation of the earlier topic here, Climate loans racket last August 6, 2010)

The ADB would be lending the Philippines $280M ADB loan for more tricycles, electric tricycles. See the report here last August 25, 2010,
Government eyes P12.7-B ADB loan to fund shift to environment-friendly transport system. Portions of the report said,

THE Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) plans to use a $280-million (P12.7-billion) soft loan from the Asian Development Bank (ADB) to promote the shift in the country to environment-friendly public transport or from gasoline-fed to electrically fueled engines.

Paje said that initially, the ADB will donate 30 e-tricycles or trikes that run on electric power to be pilot-tested by local government units.

In the first place, we need less tricycles, we need less jeepneys. If the ADB top officials don't agree with that, I propose that tricycles be allowed to ply around ADB avenue.

Secondly, we need less climate loans racket. It could be enough to say,
"more foreign aid to save the poor", but not "more foreign aid to save the planet".
What the officials of those foreign aid bodies do not say is "more foreign aid to save ourselves."


January this year, the ADB also lent the government of Thailand $300 million "to help finance investment in energy conservation and environmental preservation programmes." The article in The Bangkok Post, ADB sets aside B9.94bn loan for green projects in Thailand, reported that

"The World Bank, the ADB and other development banks are responsible for managing $6.24 billion in funds pledged by donor countries such as the US, Japan, Germany and Australia as part of a global initiative to help developing countries finance initiatives to combat climate change."

For those wanting to see regularly updated scientific data on climate, like sea surface station (SST), sea level height (SSH), check this site, http://wattsupwiththat.com/reference-pages/ensosea-levelsea-surface-temperature-page/

See if there indeed was "alarming man-made warming" before foreign aid institutions like the WB and ADB will pursue more climate loans racket,

The advantage of that site is that it presents only data, zero discussion or interpretation and hence, free from politics and alarmism. And many data are updated everyday, I think.

If one is in the mood to chew more scientific data, check global sea ice extent for both Arctic and Antarctica, with satellite picture, also updated daily,
http://wattsupwiththat.com/reference-pages/sea-ice-page/

See if statements like "ever melting polar ice" have scientific basis or simply parroted to expand the idiocy of "man-made warming" religion, to make huge money for certain sectors. Like climate loans racket.

Green jobs are myth

A new report on "Seven Myths About Green Jobs" was released early this week by the International Policy Network (IPN, London). IPN is the main convenor of a big international coalition, the Civil Society Coalition on Climate Change or CSCCC. Our think tank, Minimal Government Thinkers, is the only Philippine-based institute that is a member of that 60+ independent institutes from 40 countries.

The report is 32 pages long, pdf. Below is the description of the report. It briefly explains why "Green jobs" are a myth while new bureaucracies, new wastes and new debts in pursuing green jobs are realities.

And talking about new debts, the Philippines' top climate official, the vice-chairman of the Climate Change Commission (CCC), former Senator Heherson Alvarez, proposed that the Philippines should borrow $100 billion over the next 10 years (at $10 billion/year) in climate loans. See the report here.

The total external debt of the Philippines as of end-March 2010 was $55.42 billion. And that includes debt by the national government, monetary authorities, private commercial banks, private corporations. That also includes shenanigans under the previous administrations, especially the Erap and Gloria governments.

But such debts and political shenanigans will become loose change compared to the planned multi-billion dollars climate loans racket by the country's climate officials if they will have their way.
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Seven Myths About Green Jobs

Authors:
Andrew Morriss
William T. Bogart
Andrew Dorchak
Roger E. Meiners

Publication date: Monday, August 30, 2010

Teaser:

While governments around the world pour taxpayers' money into a whole range of supposedly win-win "green investments", this paper finds that these waste resources and reduce economic growth without necessarily protecting the environment.

A study published today reveals the hidden costs of so-called “green investments”, bringing a key policy of Britain’s coalition government into question. The study, from International Policy Network, a global development think tank based in London, shows that subsidising “green jobs” wastes resources and reduces growth without necessarily protecting the environment.

The government has recently laid out plans to pour taxpayers’ money into “green investments”, claiming that the high costs will be offset by long-term benefits to the economy and the environment. The new study finds that this “win-win” attitude is a delusion. Hidden costs include:

Bureaucracy: In practice, “green investments” get spent on red tape. “Green jobs” are taken by bureaucrats, siphoning resources away from the productive sectors of the economy.

Waste: For those advocating “green jobs”, inefficiency is a virtue. A United Nations study on green jobs actually calls for fruit to be picked by hand rather than machine. “Green” subsidies effectively pay companies to make everyday items more expensive and scarce, taxing the public twice over.

Debt: Today’s “green investments” are made by increasing Britain’s colossal national debt, borrowing heavily in the hope of making future generations richer. If the green gamble fails, our children and grandchildren will be left with the bill.

“Green investment” isn’t even a reliable way to improve the environment, the study finds. Steel is one of the world’s most carbon-intensive industries, yet the United Nations Environment Programme counts steelworkers as having “green jobs”, because steel is needed to make wind turbines.

Health Transparency 4: Drug Promotions and Government

The Medicines Transparency Alliance (MeTA) - Philippines conducted a series of workshops for various groups and sectors on "Ethical Drugs Promotion and Marketing", August 31 to September 3, at the Asian Institute of Management (AIM) in Makati City. The workshop for civil society groups, consumer and patient groups, was held the other day, September 1, afternoon. Leaders of member-NGOs of the Coalition for Health Advocacy and Transparency (CHAT) like me attended the workshop.

The main resource speaker for all the workshop groups was Ms. Carole Piriou of Health Action International (HAI), a think tank based in Amsterdam. Carole gave a good presentation but I did not agree with some of her analysis and recommendations. We should get a copy of her powerpoint presentation in the coming days, but I took a photo of 2 of her slides.

Here is one of the slides of Carole. Based on some HAI surveys or studies, they say that "newer medicines are not necessarily better" as 69 percent of new (and patented) drugs are "nothing new." This assertion should get the attention and counter-arguments of the innovator pharmaceutical companies because the purpuse of medicine innovation is to develop more disease-killer drugs, or retain the original disease-killing capacity but with the minimum adverse effects. That should be "something new."

Another issue that Carole discussed, was that Continuing Medical Education (CME) via sponsored symposia and conferences by pharma companies for physicians have direct and positive correlations to increased prescription of the drugs produced by the sponsoring company.

I think that point is not surprising. I do not know if there is a neutral or independent body or organization that provides CME to physicians where all new drugs and vaccines from different innovator and generic pharma companies are presented and discussed in terms of their disease-killing capacity, any adverse effects, price, and so on.

In the absence of such independent group, then drug manufacturers will launch their own CME to certain physicians to explain about the properties of their new drugs. This has the indirect effect of active promotion and marketing, of course. If the manufacturers themselves will not do it and there is no independent body that will study and analyze the properties of new drugs coming out from different pharma companies, who will?

Dr. Kenneth Hartigan-Go, a former official of MeTA Philippines, now a professor of health management at the AIM, also gave a short presentation of the kind of promotions and marketing that some pharma companies advertise in media -- radio, tv, newspaper, and so on. The pictures that he showed were indeed very revealing. We hope to get a copy of his presentation in the coming days too.

An important consideration why many pharma companies resort to aggressive advertising and marketing, is because majority of Filipinos do not have outpatient health insurance card/organization. PhilHealth can be used only if one is confined for at least 24 hours. So since people do not have outpatient health insurance cards, they do not see a doctor for their minor diseases (fever, flu, headache, etc.) and get professional advice. People resort to self-medication -- like the drugs what they saw or heard on tv, radio, etc.

The biggest pharma company in the country is United Laboratories or Unilab. Its gross sales in April 2009 for instance, P25.8 billion, was slightly bigger than the combined sales of no. 2 (GSK), no. 3 (Pfizer) and no. 4 (Wyeth). Unilab is also the biggest drug advertiser in the country, its ads are visible in radio, tv, newspaper, billboards, and so on.

So, should government further regulate drug promotions to physicians and the public? My quick answer is No. When there is sufficient competition among various pharma manufacturers, among drugstores and among healthcare providers, that competition is the best regulator in terms of price, product quality, and corporate accountability.

Besides, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA, previously BFAD) has its staff over-burdened already with regulating everything from new (and/or imported) drugs to skin whiteners to fruit juices to processed/manufactured foods, drinks and soda, and so on. So to ask them to create a new set of regulations and monitoring system will simply raise public expectation and later, public disappointment.

Civil society organizations (CSOs) -- NGOs, people's organizations and coops, media, consumer groups, church groups, civic groups, etc. -- bonding into a big coalition can monitor drugs promotion and marketing. Then slam-dunk those firms that exaggerate the properties and healing power of their drugs. This public pressure and consumer vigilance is a more effective regulator than any combined government bureaucracies' regulation.

Healthcare competition 3: Hong Kong

Hong Kong is among the freest economies in the world based on a number of annual international studies like the economic freedom index, world competitiveness index, and doing business surveys. HK is famous for its free trade policy which attracts millions of foreign visitors and shoppers every year. The situation is like this: HK is importing various goods and commodities in large containers (like the 20-ton containers) from many countries around the world, and HK is exporting or re-exporting such goods in hundreds of millions of shopping bags and luggages when foreign visitors and shoppers fly back to their home countries.

The healthcare system of HK is expected to follow its generally free market economy, where there are plenty of private healthcare organizations and enterprises competing with each other in attracting customers.

While such situation is indeed happening, what was rather unexpected is the growing participation of the HK government in providing healthcare to the citizens.

The Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) in its October 2009 Report, as reprinted by the Asia Healthspace blog, noted the following:

Spending on healthcare... ticked up to an estimated 6.2% of GDP in 2009, based on WHO definitions. This is still low compared with healthcare spending of 16.3% of GDP in the US, 10.6% in Germany and 7% in Japan.


The structure of healthcare expenditure has been changing. In the early 1990s the bulk of expenditure was accounted for by the private sector. However, in recent years public-sector expenditure has become more significant, and it now accounts for well over one-half of all health spending—a proportion that will continue to rise....


healthcare in government hospitals is not free but is heavily subsidised, and costs can be waived for those receiving comprehensive social security assistance. The disadvantage of this is that waiting lists can be long. Public subsidies cover around 95% of care costs: virtually all in-patient care costs are covered, but there is a slightly lower proportion of coverage for outpatient care.... the vast majority of outpatient consultations are provided by private doctors.

Never fails. When you provide something at "almost free" cost, you should expect that demand will outpace supply several times. Resulting in rationing of such good or service. In healthcare, such rationing is shown in the form of long waiting lines or long waiting period, before "almost free" treatment would come.

But waiting for several days or weeks for treatment while one is sick is itself costly. The disease may mutate and evolve within the body of the patient, or some complications may develop, and so on.

Like in many economies in Asia, there may not be any government-owned restaurant or food shop in HK, all such enterprises are privately-owned, and it is the stiff competition among themselves that act as the main regulator for the various players to sustain their good service and/or cheaper price (relatively speaking), if not keep improving the services. And public welfare is assured.

So why can't competitive capitalism be allowed to flourish in HK's healthcare system, or at least keep the level of government participation in healthcare to the minimum, like being limited to the poorest households and in cases of disease epidemics like the recent SARS and H1N1 virus.

Check also the observation and advice of an expat based in HK, about healthcare system in that place here, Healtcare in Hong Kong.
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See also:
Healthcare competition 1: Switzerland, August 28, 2010
Healthcare competition 2: Singapore, August 29, 2010

Inequality 2: To Each According to his Needs...

When I was still a Marxist-socialist in the 80s as an undergrad student at the University of the Philippines (UP) Diliman campus, and later as a working professional, I was enamored by a number of beautiful quotes from Karl Marx.

One such quote, referring to social allocation of resources, was:

To each according to his needs,
From each according to his ability.

It was a powerful, dramatic and inspiring formulation for activists who were fighting for social equality, the eradication of mass poverty and exploitation of workers.

But I have left the Marxist and socialist philosophy almost 2 decades ago now. And more so in recent years when I embraced the free market, individual freedom, and limited government philosophies. Why?

      "To each according to his need".

Because need is unlimited, and that's where problems and social conflict arise.

Take healthcare. A couple with a terminally-ill child or spouse or parents, or someone who got lung cancer due to heavy smoking, or got liver cancer due to heavy drinking, or bad hypertension due to unhealthy diet and sedentary lifestyle, will demand that "health is a right, quality healthcare is a need". But if the disease will require very expensive medication and treatment costing xx thousands or million pesos, then the "each according to his need" formulation will go against nature. That we should not die early regardless of our biological, physical and economic conditions. That the state should use its coercive power and resources, to confiscate money left and right from the healthy and hard-working, so the sick and those irresponsible about their body will survive.

Inequality is necessary to allow people to excel and to penalize the lazy and irresponsible. If inequality is outlawed, then we can all demand that we should be equally rich as our wealthy neighbors and friends, even if we do not work as hard and as efficient as the wealthy guys. We can demand that the state should strengthen its income tax collection capacity, to confiscate as much income from the rich and hard-working people as possible, so that the state can redistribute that money to me and other less hard-working people.

The second line of the above formulation,

    "From each according to his ability."

If "need" will be unlimited and overstated, then "ability" will be limited and understated.

In a society characterized by socialized production and collective or state ownership of the means of production, one factory that produces manufactured and processed food has one of its important machines conked out. The machine mechanic may call in sick or pretend not to understand and repair a new machine breakdown. Remember, there is general equality of wages. The salary of the most unskilled or the most unproductive employee is not far from the salary of the most skilled employee. The factory boss, obviously with high salary because he is a party member or official, will call in the alternate mechanics.

The latter may be industrious initially because of possible promotion at least in position and prestige, but may soon realize that they will be called in everytime a machine conks out which sometimes requires overtime work or weekend work, with no corresponding increase in salary or bonus as inequality is frowned upon.

The alternate mechanics will soon adopt the attitude of the original mechanics. And soon, the factory will have diminishing food output; and soon, people will have fewer food supply and may face rationing of certain processed food.

In this case, there will be social equality. People will be equally poor and starved, except the (socialist or communist) party officials, of course.

That is the likely result of "From each according to his ability."