I am woefully ignorant of this area of human endeavour. My daugher asked me yesterday why can't we just print a ton of money and send it to the poor people in Africa so they could buy houses, cookers and showers ?! (sic)
I told her about rampant inflation in pre-2nd World War Germany and even showed her some pictures from Google Images of ladies shopping with full barrow loads of bank notes and burning them in their fires because that was a cheaper way of keeping warm than buying wood.
So she asked me the same question again.
Then I started on about "supply and demand" and that people only wanted things that were hard to come by and if you printed more money it would just make people want it less.
She asked me to explain it to her in a way that she could understand. And I couldn't. I completely failed in this, I can explain mathematics and science to her in a way that she understands, she says "I wish our lessons were like that!" but I cannot explain basic economics to her. Which means a couple of things at least 1) I do not understand basic economics and 2) It's almost impossible to teach something you have been unable to create any enthusiam within yourself for and possibly ... 3) the best teachers have a passion for whatever is they are teaching; from this passion comes the desire to articulate the subject in a way that the recipient can "get".
On well I must try harder, I have a responsibility to educate my daughter to the best of my abilities whilst she is here with me.
Here in America our illustrious Congress has exempted themselves from darn near every law they impose upon us.
Does that mean they are not accountable to anyone? Here in the UK their are "watchdog" bodies that regulate the activities of politicians - do you not have something like that in the USA?
The UK Blair government has made it their business to stick their noses in lots of places that aren't welcome, every street corner seems to have a camera watching (ala 1984) and The Courts interfere in family life where they are not welcome - with the blessing of the government. Blair seems happy to make millions for himself, his wife too. So clearly they are capitalists. I'm not sure if they want to exempt themselves from any laws though.
+++
Manned Mission to Mars? Not sure. I think I'd rather see the money spent on an observation/defence program to scan the skies for the wormwood and work out ways to deflect it. I agree with robotic missions to the planets for sure, I don't think you're way off base. The one factor that might make a manned mission worthwhile is the imagination of children that such a mission captures. Once sparked this can lead the children to grow up wanting to go into science, which is a benefit to everyone.
+++
Yes the 747 is iconic. I think I read somewhere that it was first designed to haul goods rather than people. The new airbus will get lots of use in China and India as those economies come on line and Japan of course. One day the Chinese economy may even be bigger than that of the US. It's funny, K said to me about a month ago "How come everything is made in China?" Hehe.
When I was a kid, aged 11-14 or so, I used to make little Airfix models of planes, you know glue them together, paint them, hang them from the ceiling etc. I must have made 75-100 planes in my time. The Concorde is probably the most iconic of passenger jets I think. And the Spitfire is the most beautiful plane I ever saw, still is.
No comments:
Post a Comment