At the risk of over egging this particular conversational pudding I'd agree that medics can always take their skill set elsewhere - people, by and large, are the same biological entities wherever they're found, but in practice that's not going to happen. Out of the 13 doctors at my wife's practice 11 of them have strong family commitments and links to the area - such as children at local schools etc, so they're not going anywhere. And that's not even mentioning the relationships and responsibilities that build up with their patients. Not quite the same in hospital medicine but I'm sure the government knows the "churn" statistics for junior doctors.

Your point about academic freedom to move is interesting as our family group has 2.5 () academics. One (working in artificial intelligence) is now based abroad and the 0.5 (my son) went abroad to one country for his MsC and to another for his PhD (partly) because of economics. Interestingly (for me anyway) about a third of his peer group from school (the local comprehensive) have gone on to do doctorates, a percentage totally unimaginable to my generation. I very much doubt whether he'll be back in the UK any time soon (other than for holidays) but much of the ease with which they've been able to move has largely been due to the existence of the EU. Now there's a debate for the future.

I did have in mind the movement of academic staff to overseas posts, such as the anthropologist (I know I keep quoting this guy, but he is highly typical).
He has sinecures in the USA, France and the UK.

But, yes, the introduction of "going rate" higher education fees has led to students voting with their feet.
Similarly, individuals I know who work overseas go to, say, Thailand for medical treatment rather than return to the UK.
Conversely, there are plenty of UK nationals living within other countries of the EU who do come back here for, specifically, surgery.
"ERAMUS" was a scheme of exchange students with which I had some dealings; nowadays later generations can make those same moves through their own volition.

As I touched on earlier: when everyone has a first degree that particular form of qualification has less perceived value, irrespective of the true value.

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Dave

Well, todays' reading for me has included a further denouncement of the all embracing academic system - it appears in the final 1/3 of the link which I cite as evidence for the veracity of my earlier statements.
America Is Being Destroyed By Problems That Are Unaddressed -- Paul Craig Roberts - PaulCraigRoberts.org

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Dave

The world is going to the dogs I'm telling you.
It's rather depressing.
So what do these "rich people" think I often wonder ?
How much money do you need to live a nice comfortable life ?
There are people "worth" Billions. What the F**k do you do with an amount of money like that ? "Invest it to make more!" Please don't make me laugh.
I'd love to take it up against those people to make a living with a few basic tools and your own hands. How can you even think to be proud of being succesfull as a money hoarder ? It's not even real, it's a number in a computer system !
Right, I'll get off my soapbox now

I feel your potential pessimism; I know that reaction when learning of something that perhaps had not been clearly in view previously - it is especially easy to become downhearted when that newly-found-view is very at odds with any earlier personal views, opinions etc etc held up to that time.
But, the overall net effect on me has been to want to know more, understand more if only to be better able to engage in discourse such as this.
Ultimately;
"you can fool all of the people some of the time, or some of the people all of the time, but you can't fool all of the people all of the time".


To write a meaningful answer I would tend to be way from this thread, and within here we have already moved some distance along the road from climate change - personally, the latter is "OK" as an area of interest but (I think I mentioned earlier) my big concern for at least the last 3 years has been the economy, in the broadest of terms.
To me, that area of my personal research impacts on all manner of areas of study including, for instance, the psychology of humans and what drives people to behave in certain ways.
For instance, much research has shown that leaders of large corporations and the like display psychopathic symptoms.

And when you look at available information about "the economy", taking the broadest of views and discounting nothing, you can start to see recurring themes about how the world does it's business.

Another thread in the HUBB pub has been around for at least 4 years on this theme: I commend it to you and anyone else who might want to understand better how things are done in various places around the world.
http://www.horizonsunlimited.com/hub...crisis-59853-8

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Dave

It would help you immensely if you avoided some of the sights (blogs) you frequent for your information.
I was truly waiting for the Bundy battle cry at the end of Roberts blog.

How much money do you need to live a comfortable life? Probably more than most people have. I know very few people (that are not in their eighties anyway) that wouldn't be able to make use of more money - and that includes people that by most standards would seem to be very well off. I know a lot of people (ourselves included) who are paper millionaires (based on house valuations, pension funds etc) but who struggle to pay the gas bill. Everybody juggles their finances - mainly because people tend to live up to the limit of their income. Earn more, buy a bigger house etc. You have to go quite a long way up the scale before that relationship breaks down.

And it's almost expected that you'll do that. It's not that long ago we were being encouraged to spend every penny as our civic duty. One person I know who tried to "forward plan" (pensions, investments etc) his finances has just got divorced because his wife thought he was tight fisted. She wanted to spend now, he wanted to save now, spend later.

Some people might remember the Alan Clarke quote (a rich right wing UK 80's / 90's politician if you've never heard of him) along the lines that you're not rich if you're living off the interest from your capital, you need to be able to live on the interest from the interest (presumably said before 0.1% bank accounts).
By that definition I doubt whether there's more than a few thousand people in the UK who count as rich. Over the years I've met a few of the very rich in my professional capacity (richest was worth £8 billion (ish) 20yrs ago) and my brief observations of their lifestyles wasn't all that positive. There was something "living in a bubble" about it. I'd rather have less money and more freedom - although a "little" more than I have now would be nice. Still, there's always tonight's lottery draw. If I win the big one I'll finance the next trip for everyone who's contributed to this discussion!

In that case I've got my fingers crossed for you

I bought a house when I married my first wife. Got divorced after 9 years and always paid for every single thing that was ever asked for and more. Married again and was had for half I owned again (after paying for everything again) and because I'm a stubborn idiot I married a third time. This time to someone who got into biking and off-roading just like me and this year we'll put the house up for sale and be off on our merry way to North and South America end of this year or in 2017 when we'll be married for 10 years
We share the same interests and have the same views on life and are each other's best friend. We like to help people and we don't need much in the way of material things.
In short: We're seeing where life is taking us being sat here and we don't like the direction so we've decided to jump ship and take the biggest risk we've ever thought of and I can hardly wait !

In among all the hype and grief over the anthropogenic global warming debate it never quite seems right to me that folks oin this planet appear to consider themselves as something special; set aside from the birds and the other mammals etc that are crawling around on the earth.

Here is some evidence that we are, indeed, nothing special.
Global Warming: A closer look at the numbers

In short, if every human being was to disappear tomorrow, the world wouldn't notice, or give a damn.

However, for those who still follow the quasi-religion, it would be somewhat logical to campaign to cut emissions of water into the atmosphere; you know, that stuff you drink to keep you from dehydrating, and then sweat to remain cool.
Or, perhaps we need more H2O in the atmosphere to provide a balanced planet earth?
(news item: a place in Wales, UK has received rain every day for the past 81 days or thereabouts and is well on the way to setting some kind of UK record for "everyday" rainfall).

Ps
It's taken a couple of weeks and nine pages of postings in this thread to arrive at the subject of water vapour in the atmosphere.
Strange how that wee matter is so ignored in the big climate debate, especially in the top-down approach that emanates from the level of the UN.

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Dave

Oh yes the world will exist without us nonsense which is as poorly thought out as the world will take care of itself insanity. Sorry you are here, you will have off spring as will they. It is your duty as the dominant intelligent species to be stewards of the planet. Regardless of ones belief in global warming or not we have a duty to mitigate our impact on the planet, which we can and should do.
What we should not do is leave a pile of waste for our offspring to deal with, if they indeed can.
So simple steps for all of us on both sides of the fence, recycle, conserve yet live, and always think of the impact for generations to come.

Simple.

Broadly, that's a given.
It must be about 10 days ago that we touched on the subject of pollution and the need to deal with that; back in my days, a key topic used to be lead in paints and lead in fuels.


I am a little bemused otherwise.
My last post drew attention to the small influence that CO2 concentrations in the atmosphere have compared with those of H2O.
Along the way it is recognised science that CO2 is essential to plant life photosynthesis, as is the presence of water of course.
CO2 Science

Some years ago the USA EPA was considering declaring water vapour to be a pollutant.
Endangerment and Cause or Contribute Findings for Greenhouse Gases under Section 202(a) of the Clean Air Act | Climate Change | US EPA
What became of that concept?

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Dave

Just hanging out in the bar on a saturday night brings to mind another dastardly gas.

Methane: The Irrelevant Greenhouse Gas | Watts Up With That?

There is a lot of scientific bar talk in the linked discussion.

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Dave

Clearing up in the HUBB pub bar after another mid-winter saturday night session, I came upon some on-topic reading matter that is possibly published on a weekly basis:
http://www.sepp.org/twtwfiles/2016/TWTW%201-9-16.pdf

It has some interesting views concerning recent flooding events in the UK, US policy, the recent conference in Paris and a few other commentaries including the concensus of 97% of scientists.
Oh yes, and, the location of North Pole.

It's in pdf format, so it can lie around on the bar for anyone to read.
The owner is here:-
Which Way for Now

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Dave

Talking to yourself is the first sign of madness ::

So you post another link to another online source.

The pdf in question blames the recent flooding in the UK entirely of the WFD stopping people dredging rivers................what about the exceptional levels of rainfall over the December period and the continued development in flood plains?

A natural river system does not require dredging to function, this is only needed when man kinds activity affects the natural process whether that be through intensive agricultural practices, constructing in the flood plains removing the natural ability to flood or our habit of constraining natural watercourses in artificial channels.

And just so we are clear the Water Environment (Water Framework Directive) (England & Wales) Regulations 2003 can be found here

http://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2...0033242_en.pdf

Dredging does not appear in this legislation once

Broadly so, although I don't think the commentator in the link was completely blaming lack of dredging; the people of the Somerset levels were of that view a year ago however when there was no doubt that dredging of their local rivers had ceased for some years in order to protect or otherwise preserve or enhance the local wetlands for the use of wildlife (or words to that effect at that time).
The folk of Glenridding are also of a similar view concerning the shambles that their village became in December 15 - 3 times in one week I think it was.

Flood RE is the answer to the issue; coming into force in April of this year, it gets the current govn out of a hole and passes the problem over to all those who carry house insurance in the UK.
It does this via the simple expedient of imposing a tax on all household insurance so that flood insurance is provided by "Flood RE", still at a cost, to those who live on the flood plains. In effect, it provides insurance cover against the occurance of a racing certainty (3 times in one week?).
But, some flood insurance policies now carry an excess of £10K or 25% of the total bill per event; Flood RE may do similar (3 times per week?).
As I understand it this day, it does not apply to properties built after 2009 - connect with the OTOH below.

Many of our towns and cities were first located upon flood plains, and the confluences of rivers, many centuries ago for goodish reasons at that time, and haphazard development of them continued over many more centuries.
Arguably, they are no longer fit for purpose and should be relocated within this "crowded" island.
OTOH, those who choose to live next to a known flood hazard need to man up to their own responsibility for taking that personal decision.

anyone?

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Dave