Bookofezekiel3's Blog

Dear United Nations:

I think it is not good that the Human Development Index measures the entire population.
Because, living could deteriorate for most of the people, drastically increase for a few rich, and when the population is averaged out, the Human Development Index would be the same as if everyone shared wealth equally.

So, the Human Development Index should only measure the standard of living of the poorest 50% of a country.
Or, the poorest 80% could also work.

But the poorest 50% is better.    That is the better indicator of how life is in that country.

Also, in addition to this Index of living standards (and ability to purchase things),   the United Nations should come up with another Index:

The Index of  social justice.

It would be calculated by:

• The average wealth of the richest 1%, compared with the average wealth of the poorest 40%.
• The average wealth of the richest 10%, compared with the average wealth of the poorest 40%.
• And, repeat the calculation, but using the average income.
• The health condition of the richest 10%, compared with the health condition of the poorest 40%.
• The education accessibility of the richest 10%, compared with the education accessibility of the poorest 40%.Ideally, the poor man should pay 1/10 of his income,  the rich man pays 1/10 of his income, and that’s the education fee.   And they’d have access to the same quality of education.
  Numerically the rich man would pay more.
• The judicial accessibility and fairness towards the richest 10%, compared with the poorest 40%.
  (in other words, if a poor man is horribly oppressed by a rich man in that country, would the poor man have easy access to redress the wrong?
  Or, if a rich man commits a crime, and a poor man commits a crime, does the judicial system do the same justice in both cases?
  Or, if a rich man commits a crime against a poor man, and a poor man commits the same crime against a rich man,   does the judicial system do the same justice in both cases?)
• The government’s speed at addressing the concerns or petitions of the richest 1%, richest 10%, and poorest 40%.
• In the amount of media (newspapers, TV, movies, magazines, radio) freely or easily accessible by most of the population, how much time-span is given to entertainment, how much time-span is given to Corporation advertising (buy this merchandise and all your life’s problems are over!), how much time-span is given to education and documentaries,  how much time is given to discussion of issues relevant to everyday life?
• In the amount of media (newspapers, TV, movies, magazines, radio) freely or easily accessible by most of the population, how much attention is given to the benefit of the richest 1% (or richest 10%) of the population,   how much attention is given to the benefit of the poorest 40% of the population?(for instance, how much attention is given to the stock market, compared to the poisonings and pollutions and low wages given by large Corporations?
  95% of Stock market is owned by the richest 1%, in America.
  So stock market talk is only relevant to them.
  Hardly any talk is made about the poisoning of Charleston, Virginia residents by coal factories,  the water poisoning in New York done by Exxon, and the 1401 Ecuadorians killed by Chevron-Texaco)
• Accessibility to government office:A poor man from the poorest 40% of the population
  A rich man from the richest 10% of the population

  Is candidacy for political office equally available to both of them, should either of them decide they want to represent their community as local leaders or legislators?

  It does no good to have a “democracy”, if a few rich/powerful men pre-select the candidates, then present the choices for people to vote on.
  Like in China, the Communist Party officials at the very top pre-select the candidates (and they must be Communist Party members), then the candidate list is given to the local regions, to be voted by other officials.
  In America, the candidates are pre-selected by wealth:  the privatization of airwaves (TV time used to be owned by the government)     resulted in exorbitant prices for speaking on TV during election time.    After 1980, only rich or very rich people could run for government office, so the pool of candidates has been narrowed down to the richest 10% of the population.

• Availability of criticism of the rich and powerful:How easy is it to start an independent media source, for moral accountability criticisms of the rich/powerful?

  How protected are people who criticize the rich/powerful (not only their body, but also their careers and income, and reasonable ability to live without terrorist harassment and stalking).(the usual criticisms all over the world:  government officials or private merchants stealing public money, laws favoring the rich over the poor, rich people using factories and low wages to rob the poor, rich/powerful people controlling the media to brainwash the poor with irrelevant information, rich/powerful people lying, torture of dissidents …   in fact,  anything that would go against this Index of social justice…)

America’s Human Development Index may be high, maybe it even increased since 1970?
But truly, the living standards (and actual earnings) decreased for the poorest 40% of the population, and also for the poorest 80% of the population. Only the rich and the very rich have become richer, by robbing everyone else.

And, with the bloating of the pockets of the rich, they have become corrupt and evil, and seized control of much of the government. This is totally anti-democracy, because a few in the population should not be controlling the government, in a democracy the poorest 80%should control the government. But the few rich (no more than 5% of the population) are actually controlling (much of) the US government. They also pervert the laws. The large Corporations commit crimes against the Americans, and they are not punished. Wall Street steals astronomical amount of money, and the bankers aren’t dragged to jail. But an average person commit a small crime (or, no crime, merely marches in Pittsburgh) and is dragged to jail. An average person steals some modest amount of money (like $60) from a bank and goes to jail. But the bank steals the annual budget of most the states together, and the bankers don’t go to jail.
(and, the large Corporations perversely use the 14th Amendment to say that they are persons equal to human beings, thus getting extra protection from the Bill of Rights)

This is why the Human Development Index needs to measure the living conditions of the poorest 50% of the population (maybe the poorest 80%).

America’s dropped since 1970, by much.
China’s dropped like a stone since 1990.   The urban affluent people have gotten entertainment by gorging on the poorer people’s deaths, health damage, exhaustion, oppression, missed education, missed health care, missed opportunities, total lack of justice in court, when killed/maimed/extorted by the organizations and Corporations that are helping to make the lifestyles of the urban Chinese rich and comfortable.

And that’s why there needs to be a Social Justice Index   at the UN.
It would help measure Human Rights.    !

America’s would have decreased by much since 1970.
China’s was never great to start with, but it still would have decreased much since 1989/1990.

I am grieved at the thought that China would sacrifice the life and health and justice of most of its population,  to ramp up the living condition of the coastal area,   so as to climb a few ranks on the Human Development Index, in order to show off.

By the way, anybody ever point out that the 1/5 of the Planet’s population with the highest living conditions are consuming 80% of the Planet’s resources?    And the rest of humanity (4/5) is left to scavenge the remaining 20% of the resources.
Or, put it in another way,  the 1 or 2 billion people living in the most industrialized or “developed” countries,   are consuming (hoarding!) 80% of the Planet’s resources.    And the other 4 or 5 billion people  are left to scavenge among themselves, 20% of the Planet’s resource.

It’s because Americans and Europeans (and the richest Chinese)   consume so much, use so much electricity (in advertising, in films, in amusement parks, in office buildings, in night-lighting of downtown skyscrapers)  that there is heavy pollution in the rest of the world, and there is starvation in the rest of the world.

The TVs lie.
It is not possible for everyone to live the American advertisements.
It is not possible for everyone to live the TV advertisements.
There is not enough resources on Planet Earth to provide for that kind of luxurious and comfortable and wasteful lifestyle!

There are more people on Earth now.
Any one person who is rich, means you cause poverty for 100 people.
Any one person who is very rich, causes poverty for 1000 people or more.

Because you (and the commercial methods that provide the comfortable lifestyle)  consume inordinate amount of resources,  denying it to other people in the world.

The “free-market” is a demonic ideology, just like Marxism.
It is not possible for market to infinitely grow.   Because there is limited resources on earth.  The air can only dissolve limited amount of smoke, the waters can only carry limited amount of poison (because it starts killing people, and fish), there is only so much arable land on the surface of the earth.
It’s even more demonic that only the richest 5% of a country benefit from the economic growth of “the Market”, everyone else is used as pawns to increase the wealth of these richest 5% in every country.   The pollution and toxins from industrial production is dumped on the poorer people, while the profits are reaped by the richest people.

No, United Nations.    How a community (like a country) provides for the living conditions of its poorer half of the population,  THAT is the indicator of the living standards for the average person there.    It also gives great insight into social justice.

But there is an even better of measuring social justice: the Index Social Justice computed with the criteria I mentioned.    As for how to get the numbers, I am sure the human rights workers can come up with a method.