Modern libertarianism is the disguise adopted by those who wish to exploit without restraint. It pretends that only the state intrudes on our liberties. It ignores the role of banks, corporations and the rich in making us less free. It denies the need for the state to curb them in order to protect the freedoms of weaker people. This bastardised, one-eyed philosophy is a con trick, whose promoters attempt to wrongfoot justice by pitching it against liberty. By this means they have turned “freedom” into an instrument of oppression.

via This bastardised libertarianism makes ‘freedom’ an instrument of oppression | George Monbiot | The Guardian

A very refreshing and important viewpoint about how the word ‘freedom’ is so often misused to serve selfish aims and goals.

George Monbiot, the author has pretty impressive credentials!

James Richard Verone woke up June 9 with a sense of anticipation.

He took a shower.

Ironed his shirt.

Hailed a cab.

Then robbed a bank.

He wasn’t especially nervous. If anything, Verone said he was excited to finally execute his plan to gain access to free medical care.

via Bank robber planned crime and punishment | bank, richard, hailed – Gaston Gazette.

A Facebook post of a friend led me to this article in The Wall Street Journal titled The Henry Ford of Heart Surgery. And through this and subsequent googling I discovered the man behind the name Dr. Devi Shetty, a name I have heard a hundred times amongst friends and family in India.

Whenever heart disease and its remedies are discussed in India this name inevitably pops up and I knew that Dr. Shetty is a famous heart surgeon who started in a hospital in Calcutta, became Mother Teresa’s doctor and then founded a couple of his own hospitals in Calcutta and Bangalore. But what I did not know are the following:

• His Narayana Hrudayalaya hospital in Bangalore charges around $2,000 for open-heart surgery. The same operation costs around $5,000 in other Indian private hospitals and anything between $20,000 and $100,000 in the U.S.
• Almost a third of Narayana’s patients are covered by a farmers’ insurance plan started by Dr. Shetty in partnership with the state government of Karnataka. This insurance costs just $3 a year per person and pays $1,200 for each cardiac surgery, which is lower by $300 from the hospital’s break-even cost of $1500 per operation.
  
• 3,174 cardiac bypass surgeries were performed in Narayana in 2008 – a huge number, compared to the 1,367 in the renowned Cleveland Clinic, U.S.A. 2,777 operations were performed on children – Children’s Hospital Boston performed only 1,026.
  
• But quality does not suffer. Narayana’s mortality rate within 30 days of coronary artery bypass graft surgery, a common procedure, is around 1.4%. The U.S. average in 2008 for the same procedure was 1.9%.
• And they still make profits! Narayana Hrudayalaya Private Ltd., which runs the hospitals, reports a 7.7% profit after taxes. This is slightly higher than the 6.9% average for a U.S. hospital.

Astounding! And all of this is possible thanks to one man’s vision and private enterprise!

Before Devi Shetty, it was considered impossible to drive down costs to such levels; even now, no one has been able to replicate this. Top-flight management researchers want to understand how Shetty does it. “The mortality rate in Narayana Hrudyalaya is much lower than in New York State for similar kinds of heart disease,” says University of Michigan’s C.K. Prahalad. The hospital has been discussed extensively in his 2004 bestseller, The Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid. It has also become a case study at Harvard Business School. Adds Kokila P. Doshi, professor of Economics at University of San Diego’s business school, “Till now the trend was that government serves the poor. Shetty has shown that private enterprise can serve the poor profitably.”

Forbes India - The World’s Largest Heart Factory

The WSJ article reports that a couple of Mother Teresa’s pictures adorn the walls of Dr. Shetty’s office. One of them has the following words,

Hands that serve are more sacred than lips that pray.

Additional Link:

Forbes India Slideshow – Day in the life of Devi Shetty

(Photo courtesy Narayana Hospitals)

(Thanks PD for the WSJ link!)

A boat docked in a tiny Mexican village. An American tourist complimented the Mexican fisherman on the quality of his fish and asked how long it took him to catch them.

“Not very long,” answered the Mexican.

“But then, why didn’t you stay out longer and catch more?” asked the American.

The Mexican explained that his small catch was sufficient to meet his needs and those of his family.

The American asked, “But what do you do with the rest of your time?”

“I sleep late, fish a little, play with my children, and take a siesta with my wife. In the evenings, I go into the village to see my friends, have a few drinks, play the guitar, and sing a few songs … I have a full life.”

The American interrupted, “I have an MBA from Harvard and I can help you! You should start by fishing longer every day. You can then sell the extra fish you catch. With the extra revenue, you can buy a bigger boat. With the extra money the larger boat will bring, you can buy a second one and a third one and so on until you have an entire fleet of trawlers. Instead of selling your fish to a middle man, you can negotiate directly with the processing plants and maybe even open your own plant. You can then leave this little village and move to Mexico
City, Los Angeles, or even New York City! From there you can direct your huge enterprise.”

“How long would that take?” asked the Mexican.

“Twenty, perhaps twenty-five years,” replied the American.

“And after that?”

“Afterwards? That’s when it gets really interesting,” answered the American, laughing. “When your business gets really big, you can start selling stocks and make millions!”

“Millions? Really? And after that?”

“After that you’ll be able to retire, live in a tiny village near the coast, sleep late, play with your grandchildren, catch a few fish, take a siesta, and spend your evenings drinking and enjoying with your friends!”

(Thanks Prasun!)

I got this in a mail (Thanks Joe!). I am not sure who to credit this to. Googling for it led me to this.

Lifehacker was running a poll a while back that I wanted to feature here.

“In an effort to save money on operating costs, lots of cities are switching over to a four-day workweek: instead of working five eight-hour days, employees work four ten-hour days with Fridays off.”

Whatever the rationale, I would love to opt for such an option. Many of us end up working ten-hour days any way. So why not get an extra day off for the weekend? But I doubt if we would still be able to get over the feeling that the weekend got over too soon!!

Ayiti: The Cost of Life is an online game designed to highlight the issue of poverty as an obstacle to education. The game was designed in collaboration with the Global Kids’ Playing 4 Keeps program and a group of students at South Shore High School in Brooklyn, NY. In this game you are supposed to help a poor family struggle to make ends meet and get ahead in life. The game is set in Haiti.

Play…

“The Australian trade minister, Mark Vaile, pointed out the other day that a typical cow in the European Union receives a government subsidy of $2.20 a day – more than what 1.2 billion of the world’s poorest people live on every day.
…
A cow in France shouldn’t make more than a farmer in Burkina Faso. That is just shameful.”

Cow Politics

Ending famine, simply by ignoring the experts