Anti-war information sources / Complexity problem / Krugman on health care / Daily crono

"You may not be interested in strategy, but strategy is interested in you." Leon Trotsky

Anti-war information sources

My two favorite sources of information are Antiwar.com, which is about to go bankrupt if we do not support it again, and Informed Comment by Juan Cole. Anti-war is more biased, Informed Comment more academic. Read both.

Complexity problem

I have a small problem. I just read an article by Panu Raatikainen, which quite is convincing in saying that one cannot go from the measure of complexity (in terms on Kolmogorov and Chaitin) to the measure of information. Thus, going from information to complexity may not work either. This would be bad, since I was thinking of using that kind of approach. My thesis is getting too close to philosophy and logic. But I was asking for this trouble. Now I need to get some Dr. Pepper for clearing my thoughts.
Dr Pepper did not help, but Dr-to-be S lent me some philosophical help. It seems, that one can go from amount of information to complexity as follows.

I(M) > I(N) => K(M) > K(N)

where M, N are models, I(M) is the amount of information in M, and K(M) complexity of M. Now, is it necessarily so, that the more complex the the model, the more complex the system.

Krugman on health care

Paul Krugman writes on health care in today's NY Times (the link requires subscription to NY Times "Times Select", which come free with the newspaper). He points out, once again, the simple fact that US is paying for the health care more than double the amount other western contries pays, and that the health care is still worse in USA than in Canada or Western Europe.

In 2002 the United States spent $5,267 per person on health care. Canada spent $2,931; Germany spent $2,817; Britain spent only $2,160. Yet the United States has lower life expectancy and higher infant mortality than any of these countries.

Do the math: USA could easily save $2500 per person on health care and get better care. That would save some $675 billion (more or less the amount used in defence and offence).
According to Krugman, Taiwan provides a good example how easy and cheap it is to fix the system

Taiwan, which moved 10 years ago from a U.S.-style system to a Canadian-style single-payer system, offers an object lesson in the economic advantages of universal coverage. In 1995 less than 60 percent of Taiwan's residents had health insurance; by 2001 the number was 97 percent. Yet according to a careful study published in Health Affairs two years ago, this huge expansion in coverage came virtually free: it led to little if any increase in overall health care spending beyond normal growth due to rising population and incomes.

I completely agree with Krugman on his points, and especially on his conclusion

The economic and moral case for health care reform in America, reform that would make us less different from other advanced countries, is overwhelming. One of these days we'll realize that our semiprivatized system isn't just unfair, it's far less efficient than a straightforward system of guaranteed health insurance.

In Massachusetts, there is a health care reform going on, which would, if accepted, move the MA health care system towards a sensible system. I read an article on the reform yesterday and today, but could not really figure it out. Need to read it again some day, if it is accepted.

Daily crono

Up late, no breakfast, getting my bike for the shop, cycling to Chinatown for lunch (in Hong Kong eatery - not good, something wrong with the food), back to home, some anxiety, then writing thesis until I got stuck, getting humble and reading some philosophy, getting some clarity in my thinking, dinner with Kumar, back home thinking and writing a few pages, ready at 1am. Not a bad day at all.

Alun perin julkaistu kuukausikoosteessa "Blogs November 2005".