organization:organization for economic cooperation and development

79 percent of right-wingers believe Jews are the chosen people. Are you for real ?
Whereas belief in God is a private matter, the belief in a chosen people provides the outlines of policy that explains a great deal about Israel’s actions. When they say that they are the chosen people, it reveals their psychosis
Gideon Levy - Sep 15, 2018 11:28 PM
▻https://www.haaretz.com/opinion/.premium-79-percent-of-right-wingers-believe-jews-are-the-chosen-people-are

https://www.haaretz.com/polopoly_fs/1.6471910.1537036805!/image/3179163753.jpg_gen/derivatives/headline_1200x630/3179163753.jpg

I would like to meet representatives of that absolute, decisive, arrogant and patronizing majority reflected in a recent Haaretz poll and ask them: Are you guys for real? How did you come up with that? On whose say-so? Are you, the absolute majority, so sure that we are the chosen, the very best, that we are the champions, head and shoulders above the rest?

How did you come to this conclusion? I’d like to ask you, dear majority: On what basis are you convinced that we are the chosen people, that we know everything better than all the other nations; that we deserve more than everyone else; that what applies to them does not apply to us, because we are superior.

This is how a majority of Israeli Jews responded in the Haaretz-Dialog poll published last week: We are a chosen people. A majority, 56 percent, are sure of this. The figure rises to 79 percent, an overwhelming majority, among self-identified right-wingers. In a country where 76 percent of people believe in God or another higher power, perhaps that is obvious. But whereas belief in God is a private matter, the belief in a chosen people provides the outlines of policy that explains a great deal about Israel’s actions.

https://www.haaretz.com/polopoly_fs/1.6464669.1536439566!/image/791522148.png_gen/derivatives/size_1496xAuto/791522148.png

Credit : Haaretz

Let’s turn from theology to pathology. The Israeli Jews who think they belong to a chosen and select people owe an accounting to themselves and to others. It’s easy to declare that God does or doesn’t exist. No one is expecting evidence, but when the majority of a nation is convinced that it is superior to all other nations, some evidence is necessary. In Israel’s case, it’s easy to prove that it’s a case of detachment from reality, a dangerous delusion. In any event, a people that is convinced that it is chosen poses a danger to itself and its surroundings.

The Jewish people is indeed special, with a glorious and bloody history. Israeli Jews, too, have cause for pride. But when they say that they are the chosen people, it reveals their psychosis. It’s doubtful that any other nation thinks that of itself today. Israeli Jews have no grounds to think this either. In what way are we chosen? In what way are we better? And what is the Swede, the French person, the American, the Briton or the Arab supposed to think about this insufferable arrogance?

There’s no need to elaborate on Israel’s questionable morality as an occupier. Any Israeli with even a modicum of self-awareness recognizes that an occupying nation cannot be the chosen people. Nor would a bit of humility hurt when it comes to a few other characteristics of the people of Israel, before it crowns itself a light unto the nations. I recommend, for example, reading the comprehensive, horrifying analysis in Haaretz by Dan Ben-David of the country’s education system, which did not prompt the necessary outcry. Half of Israel’s children receive a Third World education.

A little modesty would also become the citizens of a state that ranks 87th in the 2018 World Press Freedom Index, below Togo and the Ivory Coast. Nor is No. 32 on Transparency International’s 2017 Corruption Perceptions Index something to celebrate. Health care is yet another area where Israel’s self-esteem should be curbed: The country ranks 28th in health-care spending, of the 36 Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development member states, and 30th in the number of hospital beds.

The behavior of Israeli tourists abroad is also not always befitting a chosen people. Perhaps Israel ranks high on an index of German submarine purchases, and maybe that’s the key to understanding the sense of superiority.

Basking in self-glorification has recently become a salient characteristic of Israel’s national character. Just regularly read the Israel Hayom daily or listen to the prime minister: How lovely we are from morning to night.

The right spreads this lie, for its own purposes. Sycophantic populism thrives not only in Israel, but it is only here that the disparity between dream and reality is so great. A chosen people? If only it were finally like all the other nations.

Child Mortality In The US And 19 OECD Comparator Nations: A 50-Year Time-Trend Analysis | Health Affairs

▻https://www.healthaffairs.org/doi/10.1377/hlthaff.2017.0767

The United States has poorer child health outcomes than other wealthy nations despite greater per capita spending on health care for children. To better understand this phenomenon, we examined mortality trends for the US and nineteen comparator nations in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development for children ages 0–19 from 1961 to 2010 using publicly available data. While child mortality progressively declined across all countries, mortality in the US has been higher than in peer nations since the 1980s. From 2001 to 2010 the risk of death in the US was 76 percent greater for infants and 57 percent greater for children ages 1–19. During this decade, children ages 15–19 were eighty-two times more likely to die from gun homicide in the US. Over the fifty-year study period, the lagging US performance amounted to over 600,000 excess deaths. Policy interventions should focus on infants and on children ages 15–19, the two age groups with the greatest disparities, by addressing perinatal causes of death, automobile accidents, and assaults by firearm.

#démographie #santé #états-unis #mortalité #mortalité_infantile attntion #pay_wall peut-être @simplicissimus ou @seenthis a un solution.

Let Syrians Settle Detroit

Syrian refugees would be an ideal community to realize this goal, as Arab-Americans are already a vibrant and successful presence in the Detroit metropolitan area. A 2003 survey by the University of Michigan of 1,016 members of this community (58 percent of whom were Christian, and 42 percent Muslim) found that 19 percent were entrepreneurs and that the median household income was $50,000 to $75,000 per year.

https://static01.nyt.com/images/2015/05/15/opinion/15laitin/15laitin-master1050.jpg

#réfugiés #économie #asile #migrations #Detroit #ouverture_des_frontières #frontières #bénéfice #ghost-town #renaissance #travail

Globalization Hits a Wall - Bloomberg View
▻https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2016-09-07/globalization-hits-a-wall

https://i0.wp.com/gcaptain.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/4608648934_9d8a133218_b.jpg

For the first time since early 2014, the dollar value of goods imported and exported by the G-20 countries actually grew a little in the second quarter of this year, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development reported last week.
[…]
The world trade volume index maintained by the Netherlands Bureau for Economic Policy Analysis fell 0.7 percent in the second quarter. […]
By this metric, global trade has been sputtering since early 2015, and the sputtering has been getting worse lately, not better.
[…]
There are lots of possible explanations, some of which I have explored before in this column. China, which drove the last decade of globalization, is trying to rebalance its economy toward services and domestic consumption. Automation is reducing the importance of labor-cost differences between countries, and manufacturers are rediscovering that it can be better to make products near customers rather than across the world. Flows of data and information are supplanting flows of goods and money. And it just seems obvious that global trade’s share of GDP couldn’t keep increasing forever. There is a limit to how globalized the global economy needs to be.

J’aime bien l’illustration « du mur de la globalisation » ci-dessus qui n’est pas dans l’article original mais dans sa reprise par gCaptain
▻https://gcaptain.com/globalization-world-economy-hits-wall

The best health care system in the world? Nonsense!
▻http://www.publicintegrity.org/2015/06/01/17426/best-health-care-system-world-nonsense

To understand how foolish we are, let’s consider the war of words that recently erupted between health insurers and drug companies.

First, though, let’s take a look at a new study that compares how much Americans pay for prescription medication compared to what folks in a few other industrialized countries pay.

The study, released last week by the Kaiser Permanente Institute for Health Policy, showed that pharmaceutical spending in the U.S. per capita had reached $1,010 in 2012. The next highest spender was Germany at $668 per capita. Australia came in at $558.

Am I the only one who finds it more than a little upsetting that the Germans spend 66 percent of what we spend for drugs and the Aussies spend just 55 percent?

As the Kaiser researchers point out, those countries’ citizens get a much better deal on their meds because their federal governments have policies in place to regulate drug prices. And those nations are not alone. Every other country in the developed world has instituted some kind of price control mechanism. Except, of course, the United States.

Kaiser’s numbers are consistent with those from a 2013 analysis by the 34-member Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), which showed that Americans spend 40 percent more on drugs than the next highest spender, Canada.

As PBS pointed out last year in a report on drug prices around the world, government agencies in other countries set limits on how much they (and their citizens) will pay drug makers for their various products.

“By contrast,” as PBS further pointed out, “in the U.S., insurers typically accept the price set by the makers for each drug, especially when there is no competition in a therapeutic area, and then cover the cost with high copayments.” (Emphasis mine.)

PBS nailed it. American insurance companies are essentially powerless when it comes to negotiating prices with Big Pharma, just as they are becoming increasingly powerless in controlling the cost of hospital care and physician services. The way insurers continue to make money is not by doing a good job for their customers but by constantly shifting more of the cost of care to those customers.

If we were paying close enough attention to what insurers were saying during the health care reform debate, we would have realized that they are, for all practical purposes, impotent when it comes to holding down costs. All we had to do was read between the lines.

#santé #etats-Unis #

Game Change : U.S. Oil Revolution Has Torn Up the Rule Book | Foreign Policy
▻http://foreignpolicy.com/2015/02/10/game-change-u-s-oil-revolution-has-torn-up-the-rule-book-iea-shale-op

This, the International Energy Agency said Tuesday, is most definitely not your father’s oil market.

In its annual five-year oil market outlook, the IEA, which is the energy agency of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), said that the rise of the United States as a heavyweight crude producer, OPEC’s abdication of its historical role as the arbiter of world oil supply, and sluggish oil demand growth worldwide will have big implications for oil producing and consuming countries alike.

The upshot: generally smooth sailing for the United States, a few years of discomfort for cash-rich oil giants in the Persian Gulf, and years of turmoil, crippled finances, and political instability in petrostates like Venezuela. Russia will be hit hardest, the IEA said.

On rappellera juste que l’AIE, historiquement Agence Anti-OPEP, a pour règle fondamentale de

ne pas irriter les Américains.

(cité par WP : ▻http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agence_internationale_de_l'énergie )

63 pct. of Saudi students in majors ‘unsuitable’ for market - Al Arabiya News
▻http://english.alarabiya.net/en/business/economy/2014/09/28/63-pct-of-Saudi-students-in-majors-unsuitable-for-market.html

A majority of young Saudi men and women in colleges study subjects which are not in demand in the labor market, an economist was quoted as saying in a section of the Arabic press here on Saturday.

It is important that high school graduates focus on technical and vocational training, especially in light of the fact that 90 percent of those who signed up for Hafiz Unemployment Aid Program hold degrees with specializations unsuitable for the market, Dr. John Sfakianakis, chief economist at Saudi-Fransi Bank, told Al-Hayat newspaper.

Some 46 percent or 290,000 of the kingdom’s unemployed youth hold bachelor’s degrees. The percentage of unemployed women with bachelor’s degrees stands at 88 percent. Hafiz program has 320,000 applicants in its database.

Sfakianakis believes that the percentage of high school students admitted into college should be reduced. Official reports indicate that 78 percent of high school graduates have joined universities this year, the highest around the world, compared with 56 percent in member countries of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD).

What is really alarming is the fact that currently 63 percent of Saudi students are enrolled in majors unsuitable for the needs of the labor market such as education, humanities, social sciences, and Islamic studies. The private sector is not interested in such specializations, said Dr. Sfakianakis.

“High school graduates should be encouraged to enroll in technical and vocational colleges,” noted Sfakianakis.

Only 9 percent of high school graduates have taken up technical and vocational programs in the kingdom compared with 41 percent in OECD member countries and 37 percent in Turkey. The global average of students who join technical and vocational colleges is 40 percent.

What the U.S. Can Learn About Health Care from Other Countries
▻http://www.sanders.senate.gov/newsroom/recent-business/us-can-learn-other-countries-health-care

Other major countries offer better health care at less cost than the United States, according to witnesses who testified on Tuesday at a Senate hearing chaired by Sen. Bernie Sanders. “What this hearing is really about is two fundamental issues. First, the U.S., the wealthiest country on the planet, is the only major industrialized country in the world that does not guarantee health care as a right to its citizens. Should we consider joining the rest of the world? I’d argue we should,” Sanders said. “Second, the U.S. spends twice as much as other countries that have much better health outcomes. What can we learn from these countries?” asked Sanders, chairman of the Senate Subcommittee on Primary Health and Aging.

Citing World Health Organization data, Sanders said the U.S. spends as much as three times more on health care than other industrialized countries. Health care outlays in the U.S. account for about 18 percent of our Gross Domestic Product, significantly more than in France, Germany, Denmark, Canada, Great Britain, Australia, Norway, Taiwan and Israel.

In Denmark, “all citizens have access to care; no one may be denied services on the basis of income, age, health or employment status,” according to Jakob Kjellberg, an economist from Copenhagen. Victor Rodwin, an expert on the French health care system, said “the French have easy access to primary health care, as well as specialty services, at half the per capita costs of what we spend in the U.S.”

Other witnesses said the money Americans sink into their expensive health care system does not buy better care. “Canada achieved health outcomes that are at least equal to those in the U.S. at two-thirds the cost,” according to one witness at the hearing, Dr. Danielle Martin of Women’s College Hospital in Toronto.

The United States ranks 26th in life expectancy compared to other countries ranked by the Paris-based Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. People who live in Italy, Spain, France, Australia, Israel, Norway and other countries live 2 to 3 years longer than Americans.

The Affordable Care Act has improved access to insurance, but millions of Americans still lack insurance or have plans with such high deductibles and copayments that they cannot afford the care they need. As a result, some 45,000 uninsured Americans die each year because they didn’t go to a doctor in time.

A major factor driving up health care costs in the U.S. is the high cost of prescription drugs. Hospital stays also cost more. While hospitals in Germany and France charge $3,000 for an appendectomy, for example, the average price for the same procedure in American hospitals is $13,000. Some U.S. hospitals charge $28,000.

“It is time for the U.S. to join the rest of the industrialized world and guarantee access to health care as a right of all people, not just a privilege for those who can afford it,” Sanders said.

#Système_de_soins_de_santé

Immigration Costs Are Overstated, Study Finds

Public debate about immigration is being distorted by unfounded concerns over the financial burden that new arrivals put on government, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development said in a report Thursday.

▻http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/14/business/global/immigration-costs-are-overstated-study-finds.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

#migration #économie #coûts #bénéfices #OCDE

Patents And Inequality | ThinkProgress
►http://thinkprogress.org/yglesias/2011/08/31/309483/patents-and-inequality
d’après l’OCDE les #brevets seraient le marqueur le plus clair des #transferts d’argent des pauvres et classes moyennes vers les riches :

Then, as now, drugs are cheap to produce, and it is only patent monopolies that make them expensive to buy. The main beneficiaries of patent protection are invariably more highly educated workers. A recent study of wealthy countries by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) found that the number of patents per capita was the most important factor determining the extent to which income was redistributed upward from those at the middle and bottom to those at the top over the last three decades.

#inégalités via @latrive #cdp