On Vegetarianism: Some Considerations

I am glad to say that I have not made a bad decision to become a vegetarian. This is what I had said in one forum:

Question
What’s your reason to be a vegetarian?

Reply
One interesting question that I’ve been asked many times. Perhaps it’s better for me to elaborate in stages?

In 1996, I would say, “I am a vegetarian because of health needs.” FYI I contracted eczema which requires me to abstain from seafood. Other than that, my grandpa was advised by his physician that he better not to eat oily food, so he figured that be a vegetarian wasn’t too bad. So there it goes.

In early 2000s, after some conversations with some other people (not religious figures btw), I was convinced that being a vegetarian helps the environment. (Check out the book by Chang Yung-Fa!)

And now, after reading Walden by Henry David Thoreau, it has taken yet a whole new meaning to me. (It’s available at Wikisource for free!)

A few days ago I had been very fortunate to had a (really) small talk with Dr Joel Cohen on humanitarian aid and development projects. We agreed that economic costs, i.e. accounting costs as well as externalities shall be fully accounted for in planning and implementing the aid. Although these terms are frequently used in textbooks, in reality they had yet to become a common practice. More about that later. (We also discovered that we share something in common: we both practice vegetarianism!)

Earlier in his speech “Human Population: Past, Future and Implications” Dr Cohen recognizes the fact that only sixty percent of the grains produced went into feeding the human population. The remaining forty percent went into poultry’s mouth. If all the grains were to be used for human consumption, it would be enough to provide vegetarian meals for 10 billion people. (Considering the human population now stands at 6.6 billion, that’s huge surplus indeed!) He added that upon leaving poverty, the first demand people normally make is wanting more meat in their meals. This seems absurd to me; but it wouldn’t be too surprising in other people’s eyes.

The above situation clearly represents inefficient use of resources (food). Worse, I argued, in delivering humanitarian aid and development projects, those agricultural developments deemed to be inefficient (e.g. pastorial agriculture) has been given a disproportionately large allotment, where the money could be better spent on other areas that could deliver bigger bang per buck.

I am clearly displaying bias by saying so, but I do not feel regret over it. (I have never regret for being a vegetarian either, although situation may be difficult sometimes.) Isn’t it a cruel joke that we raise poultry by feeding them human food, then slaughter them to feed human, whereas the food could make better use by delivering it into the mouths of those starving?

This is not the greatest worry. The ultimate of the dilemma is that whether it is wise to donate money to support projects that are merely alleviating the food crises, only to create even greater problem in the future. (That’s accounting cost vs. economic cost.) It may seems unethical to refuse assistance to those who are in need, but how ethical could we be in supporting projects that are similar to a calm before the storm?

There has been progress in the problems mentioned, but so far there has been no serious determination in solving the problem. Perhaps you may want to consider making the first step (by eliminating your consumption of ‘the inefficient resources’)?

A Rethink IV

In the last post, I said, “It’s time to think rationally!” I have been fortunate (or rather, unfortunate) that a series of events triggered my curiosity to pursue this so-called “rationality” further. There are two things which caught my attention, among others.

The first concern is my account in Friendster. I opened this account with the intention of keeping myself updated with my friend’s condition so as not to lose contact. Lately, the situation has been quite to the contrary. Instead of receiving updates from my friend, I kept receiving a large number of forwarded messages, which in my opinion is of no utility. To illustrate this with figures, of 1,600 emails I received since October 2005, 532, or 33 1/4 percent, came from Friendster notifying me of ‘messages received’. My daily routine has become sorting messages into folders and deleting the messages from Friendster inbox. These movements with no utility has contributed to the friction of information flow, as Bill Gates said:

The problem, really, is twofold. The first is information overload. Faced with the endless deluge of data that is generated every second of every day, how can we hope to keep up? And in the struggle to keep up, how can we stay focused on the tasks that are most important and deliver the greatest value?

The other problem is something I call information underload. We’re flooded with information, but that doesn’t mean we have tools that let us use the information effectively.

Companies pay a high price for information overload and underload. Estimates are that information workers spend as much as 30 percent of their time searching for information, at a cost of $18,000 each year per employee in lost productivity. Meanwhile, the University of California, Berkeley predicts that the volume of digital data we store will nearly double in the next two years.

Read the full version here.

Therefore, I think it is the best of my interest to terminate the account. Apart from the underload, the account no longer serves its purpose and it has done me more harm than good, so to speak. I apologize if I have caused you inconvenience.

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The second concern is my Windows Messenger account. Of the first side of the problem, while I added many friends’ account to mine, some of these were added on behalf of the other party’s request. However, due to some technical glitch of the prior version of Windows Messenger installed on my computer, some accounts were not added properly. Last night, when I updated the software to the latest version, suddenly all of them got added, which some I have never heard of, and all of them inevitably flooded me with one question, “Who are you?”

I apologize to those I knew but the account did not added properly, as my introduction has faded from your memory and it is understandable for your asking the question. However, some of them, whose name I do not wish to reveal, insisted that I had added them unilaterally without notifying them in advance, and so asked me who I am. I hereby offer my response once and for all,

I am regret to inform you that due to the nature of the question, I may not offer an appropriate answer. I may tell you whose son I am, which country’s citizen I am, which race do I belong to, which telephone number I have registered to, and so on, but these do not answer the question “who are you”, for the responses, in combination, give you an image of ‘me’ the person, but not ‘me’ my self. I am still searching for the answer for the latter.

Nevertheless, I thank you for your insistence upon my giving a response, as it propelled me to think of the question properly. Hopefully, I may provide you and myself with the ‘correct’ answer some day, if the question is deemed sound.

The other side of the problem is that the ’status’, which supposedly reflect the state and activity of the account’s owner, is largely not adhered to. Sometimes, I received message when I was away and my status has stated me as such, or I was online but my status suggested otherwise. I personally feel that this is highly corruptive. Sometimes the status may be inappropriate because of negligence, I understand; however I have sunk into this deeper and deeper. I don’t think the long-term effect of this is good.

My email account of which my Messenger account is registered is suffered from the problem of forwarded messages too. It has drained some of my time which could be put to good use.

My response is to this problem is: halt my use of Windows Messenger. This could cause a great deal of inconvenience to many, but I am still reachable through email, mobile phone and of course, this blog. I will log in to Messenger again if you could clarify all the above confusions to my satisfaction. Otherwise, I will let the account lapse into expiry.

Regards,
Eng Aun

Petroleum vs Budget Surplus: Some Implications?

I have abstained from commenting on topics ‘like this’ for some time. I shall continue doing it henceforth, since the reason of my abstinence seems unjustifiable.

Following is a table showing production and consumption figures of various countries, as well as the income and expenditure of their governments. The data is obtained from The CIA Factbook.

*The Malaysian budget actually shows a $4.03-billion surplus after discounting the capital expenditure of $9.4 billion.

What can be told from the table? Most of the countries show both petroleum production surplus and budget surplus, except the United Kingdom and Malaysia. This surplus is calculated inclusive of capital expenditure.

I could not tell the precise reason of the deficit of the UK and Malaysia. However, it is known that the United Kingdom has a large defense outlay (US$42.8 billion as of 2003), and the oil profit may possibly be erased by the spending. The other spendings, such as welfare bills, may have a similar effect.

However I could see no sensible reason why Malaysia, despite the oil profit, has produced a deficit budget. Is there any huge military spending? Research and development? The answer may be a comfortable “no”; there is no nuclear stockpile nor synchrocyclotron. Where did the oil revenue go then?

I could say nothing conclusive about the last question, for I do not have any prima facie evidence. However I think it is sensible to completely eliminate the petrol and diesel subsidy within a specified period (say, 5 or 10 years). This proposal may enrage many people, I understand; but to complacent ourselves in the status quo is the worst option imaginable. For those of you who uses car as primary means of transport, I said the above without the slightest remorse. My father will get ‘hurt’ either.

Well, to speak in economic terms, there may be two situations after the country runs out of petroleum:

First, the government continues to bear the full brunt. The subsidy is financed through government securities, such as bonds. The government may need to find ways to pay the debt, which roughly equates to raising taxes and reducing spending. Does this sound good (by the way, it’s not like something the Clinton government did!)? Is it beneficial to the economy when a large pie of the earnings of private sector go to the government just to finance the consumption, and not capital investment (e.g. infrastructure)?

Second, the government terminates the subsidy. This may be done one-shot or gradually. If the case is former, there results an adverse supply shock (prices of petrol and diesel increase dramatically). The economy may contract in the short run, or face instability. The government, anyway, would need to finance the ’smoothing’ expense in helping the economy go to the track without subsidy.

But as PM Lee of Singapore said, “Is it better to take your medicine sooner or stretch it out? Take medicine once or two times? I prefer to make my medicine early, why? This is something we need to do, once we have done it, we can move on…”

I humbly admit that my knowledge of economics is unsatisfactory and not being the brightest soul around, however I can’t help but to say, “It’s time to think rationally!”

A Rethink III

The last Rethink article that I could recall was the post on November 1st, 2005. Since then, I wrote virtually nothing of that sort. Today I shall try to write something like that. Hopefully you will not get bored…

The principle of diminishing return is taking place. When I first started this blog, I could write many articles in a day, sometimes three. However, nowadays my productivity is two knots below that level. That is to say, instead of three posts a day, I write three posts a month.

To be precise, it’s the urge to write a post against time la…

What factors cause this trend? I have no answers to offer, however I have some clue. As I blog I develop ‘maturity’. I get some feel of what is ‘blogworthy’ and what is not. You might ask then, how long did I blog that I dare say I’m ‘mature’ bloglitically. It’s not long, by relative means; however this is not my first blog. The first was the one in MSN Spaces, however I closed it down more than a year ago since a particular incident has faded, and that I have no pressing need to continue blogging on that issue. The issue has since made a ‘comeback’ in this blog as I tried to incorporate it into a little story, as to reminisce into the past.

Another factor is that I need more time to write an article. When I started to blog, things are easy to write as I have accumulated opinions over the years and, topics are not hard to find. Over the years, however, my scope of interest and reading becoming more and more limited, as a result of in-depth study towards a particular topic. For instance, I like to talk philosophy when I first started this blog, but lately investing has been my topic. However, I tried to incorporate the disciplines into one broad field, as I believe it will do me good. Diminishing stock of opinions aside, I need to cite and find sources to support my claims within the articles. Sometimes this is easy; sometimes hours over hours of searching and roaming in the library and search engines may be necessary. The latter case is predominant nowadays.

So much about blogging.

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What about I myself? Looking back the past ten months, I have the feeling of being fateful. What can be said, considering the fact that I made the decision of abandoning engineering in favor of economics within ten minutes, in front of the computer screen at my friend’s house? (Side story: I submitted my application of university admission using my friend’s computer, and he was unaware that I put Arts and Social Sciences as my first choice.) I believe everyone was shocked with my choice, but after I read The Intelligent Investor, it took me five minutes, if at all, to realize what I want to do for the rest of my life. (The concept of investment has made great progress in my head since.)

The matter of reconciliation was no less important. True, we can live without each other; however no one could sleep very well with a thorn in the flesh. Moreover, I would regret for the rest of my life if the decades-old relation was to be severed ‘like that’. The process of reconciliation was by no means easy. I consider it remarkable that we could resolve the problem without prior deliberation of any sort; we just meet each other at the ‘premise’, smile, and the confrontation was over. No fault finding, no accusation, no delegation of responsibility. I still wonder the magic behind the mechanism.

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This is long enough, shall I continue next time?