Archive for October 2024

On health, the increased income had insignificant effects on most indicators – not too surprising, given that the study took place over three years, while health problems develop over lifetimes. However, mental health was one clear exception consistent with other studies on basic income-like interventions. The study found “large improvements… in mental health measures like stress and psychological distress.” This could be observed, however, only during the first year of the experiment. Why was this improvement so short-lived?

A 25-year-old woman, who claimed to be a child refugee to Northern Ireland, has been jailed for stabbing a social worker…. She attacked the victim without warning, stabbing her in the arms and head.

The Health and Disability Commissioner has found two psychiatric workers in breach of their obligations, and fault in the police who did a limited handover.

Three strategies include increasing cultural competency among health care providers, expanding the use of suicide screening tools, and conducting more research to understand risk factors, according to Dr. Michael Lindsey, Dean and Paulette Goddard Professor of Social Work at New York University’s Silver School of Social Work.

George Kennan, head of the State Department planning staff and one of the leading architects of the post-World War II order, outlined the basic thinking in an important 1948 planning document:
We have about fifty percent of the world’s wealth, but only 6.3 percent of its population in this situation, we cannot fail to be object of envy and resentment. Our real task in the coming period is to devise a pattern of relationships which will permit us to maintain this position of disparity We need not deceive ourselves that we can afford today the luxury of altruism and world-benefaction… We should cease to talk about vague and unreal objectives such as human rights, the raising of the living standards, and democratization. The day is not far off when we are going to have to deal in straight power concepts. The less we are then hampered by idealistic slogans, the better.