13 Antidotes to economic 'doom and gloom'

Antidote to personal doom and gloom .. (adapted from  Luke Johnson’s suggestions: Financial Times: Nov 9, 2011)


1) Study history:   It puts the present situation into context. Worse situations have occurred many times before

2) Avoid the news:  Editors believe bad news sells better than good. Neither do many hesitate to exaggerate

3) Spend more time with the young:  Age and experience make too many older people cynical and at times melancholy

4) Remain rational :  The worst almost never happens

5) Avoid pessimists:  Keep the company of sunny characters

6) Read the Stoics:  Writers such as Marcus Aurelius have given uplifting advice for hundreds of years

7) Admit mistakes and move on ; We all make bad decisions at times. Don’t dwell on them. Recognize them, learn,  and move on

8)  Keep busy:  dynamic individuals don’t have time to become depressed nor are interested in doing so

9) Get fit:  physical exercise is an excellent antidote for stress. Endorphins help banish the blues

10) Focus on small wins:   we all have little victories every day

11) Ignore events over which you have no control:   worrying about such things, such as what will happen to the Euro,  is a waste of intellectual effort.

12) Concentrate on your own micro-economy: forget the macroeconomic climate.

13) Laugh:  seek out comedy when you can.  Don’t take yourself too seriously

Cancer in devoping countires; huge increase

Cancer incidence in developing countries is increasing at a staggering rate. The disease now kills more people in those countries than malaria, AIDs and tuberculosis combined.   But a Global Task Force  on Expanded Access to Cancer Care and Control in Developing Countries  (GTF.CCC) released a report in November (2011) showing that by using affordable and readily available drugs, more than 2.4 million lives could be saved each year.

While medical effort have increased survival from infectious diseases in developing countries, this has not been the same for cancer where  the increased survival has meant a greater predisposition to contracting the illnesses of the richer countries, cancer, cardiovascular disease and diabetes.

According to the report of GTF.CCC, 26 out of 29 key drugs that could treat the most prevalent and curable cancers are now off-patient. People could receive a course of treatment for less than $100.

In Canada the survival rate for childhood leukemia is around 90%, In low-income countries it is around 10%. Access to drugs would increase this dramatically.  A couple of  hundred million dollars (the cost of 100 cruise missiles) would treat all of these childhood leukemias.

Elite takers-over spell social discord

A good indicator of mature states on the verge of collapse is the degree of corruption found in elitist group(s) perpetuated on their fellow citizens.  With mathematical modeling Peter Turchin of the University of Connecticut has predicted this fact. ‘War and Peace and War’  Pi  press 2005)

In healthy growing societies resources are shared with a degree of equity, with high employment.  After this though the population outgrows the demand for labour, which grows cheap and employers become rich, causing inequality to widen. ‘Elites’ proliferate and compete for power and patronage, and if one group succeeds in grabbing a bigger slice of the pie than others there is generally trouble ahead.

There are many examples in history leading up to the present day. In 16th Century France for example, decades of civil war followed when one aristocratic clan elbowed out the others and Turchin also notes that Egypt saw a quadrupling of graduates, a classic sign of a burgeoning elite in recent years.

Do broad faces really rule ?

Men with broad faces tend to feel  more powerful than those with longer faces. So say researchers at the University of Wisconsin. (Proceedings of the Royal Society B, DOI;10.1098/rspb.2011.1193). This could explain the findings of the same workers that broad faced men are more likely to engage in unethical behaviour, for example, lying in negotiations.

The researchers speculate that the cause behind this may be that people possibly view the ratio of height to width of a male face as an indicator of certain personality traits, notably aggression and untrustworthiness and so behave more deferentially to wide faced individuals. This could  generate a psychological sense of power in such individuals over time.