Wealthy Persons Research Articles

Egalitäre und individualistische Gerechtigkeitsvorstellungen zur gesundheitlichen Versorgung: Ergebnisse einer Befragung von Patienten und Studenten

This study focuses on the following question: How are health care reform proposals accepted by different groups of insured persons? Two perceptions of justice or fairness are compared. The "egalitarian view" states that the financial burden should be distributed as equally as possible across all insured persons and that health care should be offered to all insured persons in the same way. The "individualistic view" states that health care should be provided according to the individual's willingness to pay for it, and also according to the individual health behaviour. In 2003, a standardised questionnaire was answered by a random sample of 343 persons (175 elderly patients and 168 students). The egalitarian view was assessed by four questions and the individualistic view by five questions. The questionnaire included vignettes. Based on this method it is possible to assess if an answer depends on the "frame" that is presented as an example (framing the question as: thinking of a poor or a wealthy person). A bivariate analyses show that the egalitarian view is mostly present in the following groups of patients: higher age group, insured in a Statutory Sickness fund, high medication, many physician visits. Concerning students, this view is also associated with low physical activity. The individualistic view can be found mostly in the following groups of patients: male, insured in a private health insurance, higher educational level, employed, high physical activity, non-smoker. Concerning students, very similar associations can be seen. These results are largely confirmed by multivariate analyses. It can also be seen that the answers are strongly influenced by the vignettes. The insured persons seem to approve or disapprove of health care reform proposals according to their personal characteristics. The overall acceptance of health care reforms will largely depend on the ability to integrate these different perspectives.

Citizen Power, Politics, and the “ Asian Miracle”

DOI: 10.1355/ae23-2i Citizen Power, Politics, and the Miracle. By O. Fiona Yap. Boulder and London: Lynne Rienner Publishers, 2005. Pp. 186. Yap's innovative volume stresses the importance of symbiotic relationships among citizen power, political processes and miracle economic performance in four Asian economies. She offers an alternative to the foci of the genre of academic literature that characterizes governments as overlords and Asian citizens as politically and docile (p. 187). Her alternative model is designed to test the validity of the hypothesis that citizens co-operate and invest their economic resources when economies are strong but when economic performances are poor they withdraw their resources if governments demonstrate a lack of accountability and choose not to exhibit transparency. In her analysis, people count and when Asian governments know this and are accountable and transparent during economic downturns, citizens will continue to co-operate and support them by providing resources required to bring about recovery and propel growth. Citizen support has been, and continues to be, an indispensable building block upon which miracles in Taiwan, South Korea, Singapore, and Malaysia can continue to flourish. At first glance, her model might appear to be simplistic and not particularly useful. However, such premature judgement about her work is misleading and will be abandoned once readers embark on their journey through the book's pages within which the author explores the dynamic interactions between state and citizenry in the arena of economic policy (p. 187). Citizenry and state interaction is a timely topic as evidenced by what recently happened in Thailand where former Prime Minister Thaksin was widely viewed as being far from a benevolent overlord dedicated to the interests of the citizenry. He was widely viewed as a powerful and wealthy person who acted in his personal, political, and financial interests. The citizenry was far from naive and docile and consequently took steps that eventually forced the former Prime Minister to resign. During February and March of 2006 a substantial segment of the citizenry took actions that were detailed daily and with great care and professionalism by The Bangkok Post and The Nation. Their daily accounts of the political steps that Thai citizens were taking and their actions confirmed that citizen power made a difference. The Prime Minister was forced to call a snap election, which he was unable to win, and this is why he resigned. Thaksin was seen as neither accountable nor transparent in his actions and, in response to this perception, hundreds of thousands of Thai citizens living in Bangkok and other urban centres gathered in demonstrations aimed at calling for a more open, transparent, democratic, and accountable political system. If no such system can be created, a significant portion of the electorate will likely continue to withdraw their political support, thereby setting the stage for a prolonged political conflict that could impede the sustainability of the country's half decade of economic progress. The forthcoming election's result and aftermath will answer this question: will there be a symbiotic relationship between government and the citizenry that promotes a resumption of the economic progress that characterized the period 1985-97 and 2000-05. Or will the result be a recurrence of the 1998-2000 economic and financial collapse? Yap's alternative model provides an analytic framework via which to examine the degree to which there are no such symbiotic connection between Thai citizens and their current government. Her book contains a warning that unless governments embrace acceptable levels of liberalization and democratization featuring transparency and accountability, citizens might withdraw their support. The essential symbiotic relationship between the citizenry and government leads the author to raise this question: what elicits citizens' economic and political co-operation that is at the core of economic and political stability and development. …

Moore's paradox and Evans's principle: a reply to Williams

us call one such person Gill Bates. Since Gill Bates has done all that is humanly possible to accumulate wealth (she is a multimillionaire many times over) yet is far poorer than Bill Gates merely as a result of brute luck beyond the control of her choice, she too must be helped up. The resources for topping up Buffett, Gill Bates, and the NEs to Bill Gates's level would then come from taxing everyone, including ordinary hardworking people. To conclude. I had argued that, according to choice-egalitarianism, since Non-Effectives lack the pertinent choices, they cannot receive less than the wealthiest person, Bill Gates. Tal Manor's response argues that almost all of us cannot receive less than Bill Gates. I claim to have shown here that his response is not convincing, even today, and that his attempted refutation would be even less applicable in an ideal CE society. To some extent, we can apply the CE rule of 'Index to Bill Gates' beyond persons who are NEs, but the targets for such equalization would largely lie among the atypical cases Warren Buffett and the Gill Bates's of this world not the common man or woman. And that, surely, does not make choiceegalitarianism morally (or, indeed, pragmatically) more appealing.3

James Habersham: loyalty, politics, and commerce in Colonial Georgia

James Habersham was an early American success story. After arriving in Savannah in 1738, he failed in his efforts to wrest a living from the Georgia wilderness and lived his first year at public expense. Then, by dint of his own efforts and through the connections he forged, Habersham emerged as one of the colony's most influential and prosperous citizens, making his name as a planter, merchant, evangelist, and political leader. The third wealthiest person in the colony at the time of his death in 1775, Habersham had a public career that included service as the secretary of Georgia, president of the King's Council, and acting Governor. But Habersham's story is more than biography. It also provides a window into colonial Georgia and its transformation from a struggling colony on the brink of collapse in the 1740s to a prosperous province in the 1770s, confident enough to defy the Crown. Ranging over such topics as the rise of Methodist missionary fervor, the development of transatlantic trade, the introduction of slavery, and the escalating debate over American independence, Frank Lambert tells how Habersham's success is inextricably tied to Georgia's fortunes and how he played a major role in helping the colony exploit its abundant resources. Habersham's economic development plan provided a blueprint for attracting new settlers, supplying an abundance of cheap labor, and opening new markets. Habersham's achievements, however, are obscured by his unpopular stance on American independence. While his three sons distinguished themselves as Patriots, Habersham remained loyal to the Crown, though he had opposed Britain's new imperial policies in the 1760s. Nevertheless, it was Habersham's loyal service to colonial Georgia that enabled the colony to separate successfully from the mother country and assume its place in the new republic as a prosperous, vigorous state.

Sentimental Police: Struggles for "Sound Policy and Economy" Amidst the Torpor of Philanthropy in Mathew Carey's Philadelphia

Sentimental PoliceStruggles for "Sound Policy and Economy" Amidst the Torpor of Philanthropy in Mathew Carey's Philadelphia S. D. Kimmel The Gospel is the most economical police on earth. Home Missionary Society, 1839 Wealth is attended with power, by which bargains and proceedings contrary to universal righteousness are supported; and hence oppression, carried on with worldly policy and order, clothes itself with the name of justice and becomes like a seed of discord in the soul. John Woolman, A Plea for the Poor, 1793 Like Benjamin Franklin, Mathew Carey dedicated himself to philanthropic work after he retired from a profitable career in publishing.1 Franklin had [End Page 164] employed Carey in 1780 at his press in Passy, France, during Carey's first political exile from Ireland. Fleeing British political imprisonment in Ireland for the last time in 1784, Carey, a Roman Catholic, made the transatlantic journey to settle in Philadelphia, and by the 1820s had established his wealth and independence as the largest and most successful publisher in the early United States. Upon retirement, like the colonial Quaker philanthropist John Woolman before him, Carey devoted his talents as a publicist to advocating the cause of the poor. Between 1828 and his death in 1839, Carey decried the lack of public spirit and philanthropy among the wealthy of Philadelphia, New York, and Baltimore, and sought to arouse, in his words, "the sleeping charity and benevolence of thousands of wealthy persons, possessed of ample means to dispel the gloom of destitute families, dry up the tears of widows and orphans, and rescue their fellow beings from the depths of despair." Although Carey feared censure for emphasizing the "destitution" or "torpor" of public spirit in Philadelphia, he committed himself to "full and free exposure" of the decay of charitable societies and their lack of support among the city's wealthy citizens, believing that concealment of such realities would undermine the character of a democratic republican political economy.2 [End Page 165] Through his advocacy for the poor, Carey exposed to his contemporaries a fundamental problem of power at the core of the early nineteenth century's developing liberal system of police. This problem of police was not new to the nineteenth century, as evidenced by John Woolman's eloquent words written in the 1760s, which criticized the ways wealth united with power, "carried on with worldly policy and order" and "clothed . . . with the name of justice," could undergird oppression. In 1837 when Carey in his own Plea for the Poor noted "the miserable clamour about the idleness of the poor, of which the direct and dire effects are . . . to harden the hearts of the rich, and to debar the poor of the succour to which their sufferings furnish so fair a claim," he gave expression to a "seed of discord in [his] soul" that had been nurtured to maturity by witnessing the ways oppression had refined its capacities to conceal itself behind the names of justice and sound policy during the 1820s and 1830s. Carey's work to expose operations of power concealed behind the cloak of sound policy provides the pivotal frame for this article, which seeks to clarify the strategic significance of practices of democratic republican and liberal republican political economy that diverged early in the nineteenth century. By exploring the connection between Carey's critique of what he termed the "new school of political economists" and his analysis of the failures of public spirit and philanthropy, this article makes visible the constitution of a liberal regime of police that would later become naturalized as the "invisible [End Page 166] hand" of the market. Through Carey's critique, we can begin to understand how the coercive force of today's dominant ideology of free-market economics came to be concealed behind, and thus protected from criticism by, the totem force of a hand whose police powers remain largely beyond public supervision.3 Click for larger view View full resolution Figure 1. Portrait of Mathew Carey, by John Neagle. Courtesy Library Company of Philadelphia. Before the middle of the nineteenth century, when the development of professionalized urban forces of uniformed men considerably narrowed the meaning of police to the work...

Morals and Markets: The Significance of Pre‐Tax Ownership

The question as to the grounds on which the state can collect private resources for the purpose of public expenditure is a key one in political philosophy. It inspires passionately held and widely polarised views. Contrast Robert Nozick's famous statement, '[t]axation of earnings from labor is on par with forced labor',l with Peter Unger's argument that a wealthy person'must give away most of her financially valuable assets, and much of her income, directing the funds to lessen efficiently the serious suffering of others.2 Liam Murphy and Thomas Nagel's The Myth of Ownership deals with this important question. The provocative title gives some indication of the authors' aim: to show that the traditional perception of taxation, as an interference with private property rights, is at best a naive mistake and at worst deceptive ideology. In this review I shall outline the content of the book and suggest objections to Murphy and Nagel's intriguing argument. First, I shall argue that the authors' concept of property paves the way to a purely consequentialist state that is unrestrained by any moral rights of its citizens. Secondly, I shall attempt to show more specifically why pre-tax ownership has moral significance. However, my argument does not aim to establish that market outcomes are absolutely sacrosanct. The core question pursued in this review is whether we should accept a normatively founded burden of proof against taxation.

Fat and Sugar: An Economic Analysis

As incomes rise, the share of income spent on food decreases. To Engel's law should be added the observation that the diet structure changes as well. Incomes and the macronutrient composition of the diet are linked at the aggregate and-most likely-the individual level. People in higher income nations consume more added sugars and fats than do people in lower income nations. Lower income consumers within rich nations consume lower-quality diets than do higher income consumers. The lowering of energy costs ($/MJ) through technological innovation has been most marked for foods containing added sugars and fat. Although wealthier persons in poor nations are more likely to be overweight, obesity in the United States is associated with lower incomes. Obesity in the United States and similar societies may be a socioeconomic, as opposed to a medical, problem and one that is related to diet structure and diet costs.

Do the Wealthy Risk More Money? An Experimental Comparison

Are poor people more or less likely to take money risks than wealthy folks? We find that risk attraction is more prevalent among the wealthy when the amounts of money at risk are small (not surprising, since ten dollars is a smaller amount for a wealthy person than for a poor one), but, interestingly, for the larger amounts of money at risk the fraction of the nonwealthy displaying risk attraction exceeds that of the wealthy. We also replicate our previous finding that many people display risk attraction for small money amounts, but risk aversion for large ones. We argue that preferences yielding “risk attraction for small money amounts, together with risk aversion for larger amounts, at all levels of wealth,” while contradicting the expected utility hypothesis, may be well-defined, independently of reference points, on the choice space.

Specific situations related to acute schistosomiasis in Pernambuco, Brazil.

The present work reports on two epidemiological episodes resulting in acute schistosomiasis involving wealthy persons living in the State of Pernambuco, Brazil. The authors discuss the epidemiological, clinical and serologic characteristics of the acute infections and also the way in which the conditions for transmission occurred.

The Myth of Old Money Liberalism: The Politics of the "Forbes" 400 Richest Americans

According to the conventional view, old money is more liberal than new money. Although widely shared, this thesis of old money liberalism has never been demonstrated empirically. In this paper, I discuss the origins and elaboration of this thesis within the social science literature. I then present evidence to refute the thesis from a study of the politics of the Forbes 400 richest Americans and several similar samples of wealthy persons drawn from earlier decades. The results of this study show that old money is, if anything, more uniformly conservative than new money. The paper also reviews the explanations commonly given for the reputed liberalism of old money and argues that the acceptance of the thesis is based less on the persuasiveness of these arguments than upon longstanding beliefs about old and new wealth that are invoked by the theory. In the conclusion, I sketch an alternative theory of the political differences between old and new money that is more consistent with the empirical evidence.

Formation of trusts and spend down to Medicaid.

To identify the proportion of community-dwelling elderly persons (70+) who could affect their eligibility for Medicaid financing of a nursing home stay through the use of a trust and to quantify the prevalence and predictors of trusts. State-specific Medicaid eligibility regulations were used to determine eligibility and to identify those who could affect the same through the use of trusts. Multivariate logistic regression was used to identify correlates of having a trust. Wave 1 of the Assets and Health Dynamics of the Oldest Old (AHEAD) data base was used. Four in 10 elderly community dwellers could potentially qualify for Medicaid by using a trust; however, less than 10% had a trust. On average, wealthier persons had trusts. Avoidance of probate and controlling assets after death appear to be stronger motivations for trust creation among the elderly than achieving Medicaid spend down. The use of trusts was not common, and motives other than spend down were more important for those with trusts. Our results suggest little need for policy efforts to limit the use of trusts to achieve spend down.

...big steps for a young group

Founded in 1996, IAVI has grown rapidly in stature, becoming an internationally recognized advocacy group for HIV/AIDS vaccine research and development. It has also succeeded in attracting famous donors to its cause: Microsoft chairman Bill Gates—the world's wealthiest person—has given $1.5 million financial support to IAVI as part of an expanding philanthropic effort, which last month included a $100 million donation to support childhood vaccination worldwide. And Sir Elton John, a long−standing supporter for AIDS programs, who also gave CHF100,000 ($134,000) to the World Health Organization in November to purchase Hepatitis B vaccine for developing countries, donated �150,000 ($90,000) to the two new IAVI projects.

Access to care is the centerpiece in the elimination of socioeconomic disparities in health.

Many health care professionals have sustained an almost single-minded conviction that disparities in access to health care across socioeconomic groups are the key reason for the major discrepancies in health status between wealthy persons and poor persons. Others, however, have argued that a host of factors work to create major impediments and that reducing or eliminating financial barriers to health care in particular will do little to reduce discrepancies in health status. This paper, while acknowledging the spectrum of contributing factors, argues that the elimination of financially based differences in access is central to any effort to create equity in outcomes across socioeconomic groups. Through selected review of the many studies on health insurance, access, outcomes, and socioeconomic status, it establishes that a core links affected populations, their difficulty in financing health care, and the threat to their well-being. In so doing, it cites findings that strongly associate lack of insurance (especially for persons who live in poverty), inability to obtain services, and adverse health outcomes. It also uses the example of Medicaid and other coverage for HIV-infected persons in particular as an important positive instance in which leveling the discrepancies in health care across socioeconomic groups can move toward creating quality in access and outcomes. The competitive pressures in today's health care environment threaten to drive socioeconomic groups further apart, especially insured and uninsured persons. However, the recent enactment of state actions, especially the State Child Health Insurance Program, represent powerful examples of health insurance expansion that have lessons for policymakers at all levels for the monitoring and reduction of socioeconomic disparities.

Asia Pacific retirement: Models for Australia, Fiji, Malaysia, Philippines and Republic of Korea

Survey data from Australia, Fiji, Malaysia, Philippines, and the Republic of Korea are used to model older workers' choices. The co-existence of a traditional sector along with a modern sector in much of the Asia Pacific region offers a traditional family lifestyle, as well as paid work and retirement choices. Differences are analyzed between countries, by expanding choices to include traditional family support, and within countries by use of ethnic group dummies along with economic factors. Results demonstrate the importance of cultural and developmental factors within and between countries. There is less dependency on family in more developed countries but inverse effects for wealthy persons. Wealthier households in more developed countries depend upon income from their own work while in developing countries they depend on families. Women in the developing countries work whilst those in developed countries tend to retire with their husbands to share retirement leisure.

Effects of consanguineous marriages on fertility among three endogamous groups of Andhra Pradesh.

To assess interrelationships between consanguineous marriage and fertility, 3 caste groups in Andhra Pradesh--the Desuri Kapu, an affluent agricultural caste; the Devanga, an artisan caste in the middle range of the hierarchy; and the Mala, a scheduled caste at the bottom--were selected for field study. Consanguineous marriages are an essential part of the social structure in this area of southern India. A total of 2524 marriages were analyzed, of which 46% were consanguineous. 19% of consanguineous marriages were between uncle and niece, 22% were between 1st cousins, and 5% were between more distant cousins. The Devanga had the highest rate of related marriages (48%), followed by the Desuri Kapu (47%) and the Mala (41%). Higher caste individuals, and wealthier persons within each caste, are more likely to marry relatives so they can avoid splitting their properties through dowry of bride price. The consanguineous unions as a whole were significantly more fertile than nonconsanguineous unions. The mean number of pregnancies, live births, and surviving offspring was 4.85, 4.44, and 2.99, respectively, among consanguineous couples compared with 3.41, 3.32, and 2.87, respectively, among nonconsanguineous couples. Although the number of pregnancies and live births was significantly higher among consanguineous couples in all 3 castes compared with nonconsanguineous couples, the difference in the number of surviving children between consanguineous and nonconsanguineous unions was not significant among the wealthier castes. This suggests that child mortality is higher among the offspring of consanguineous unions, despite their greater wealth.

Happiness of the very wealthy

The subjective well-being of very wealthy persons was compared with that of a control group who lived in the same geographical area. One hundred persons from Forbes list of wealthiest Americans were queried, as well as 100 control persons selected from telephone directories. The 49 wealthy respondents reported average levels of subjective well-being which were higher than the 62 control group respondents and any subgroup of respondents in a national sample. However, there were unhappy wealthy people and the average level of this group was only modestly higher than for other groups. None of the respondents believed that money is a major source of happiness. When the major sources of happiness mentioned by the two groups were coded for Maslow's needs, it was found that the wealthy group more often mentioned self-esteem and self-actualization and less frequently mentioned physiological and security needs.

A bibliography of the scientific writings of Thomas Say (1787–1834)

Thomas Say (1787-1834) was one of the first Americans to devote himself completely to the study of natural history. He was a prolific and respected contributor to the zoological literature and a thoughtful observer of nature. Say's early work on insects and mollusks established his credentials as a scientist and led to his selection as a participant in government expeditions to the American frontier. In addition to these field experiences, he held appointments in several prestigious institutions. The wide range and quality of Say's scientific work have led to his designation as the Father of American Conchology (e.g., Stansbury, 1980:27) and the Father of American Entomology (e.g., Lindroth, 1975:121). Some have even called him the Father of American Zoology (Weiss and Zeigler, 1931 :vii). Clearly, Say is a key figure in the development of natural history in the United States. He pursued his interests with a thorough professionalism that elevated natural history from an amusement for wealthy persons to a respected field of study. His legacy is a body of work that established North American students as authorities on the native fauna.

Respect and Admiration

Participants estimated their respect and admiration for persons described by their age, level of education, and income. When provided with one item of information, participants gave increasing respect to older, more educated, and wealthier persons. When provided with all three items of information, participants combined education and income information in accordance with algebraic models, admiring most those persons who have achieved both the highest education and the largest income. However, information about age did not combine algebraically with education and income. Instead, participants gave increments of respect to younger persons in the higher education and income brackets, indicating that some configural integration process occurs when age is involved. These results are discussed according to their implications for other achieved and ascribed characteristics.

The Units of Account in Eurobonds

Since 1957 and at an accelerated pace since 1963, an international capital market for bonds, called the Eurobond market or Euro-issue market, has been developing in Western Europe and the United States. It is a market for bearer bonds issued by international organisations, large industrial concerns or their subsidiary finance corporations, States, state enterprises and local authorities. They are placed with an international clientele: wealthy private persons (oil sheiks among others), banks and institutional investors. The distribution is entrusted to issuing syndicates in which bankers from London, Luxembourg, Frankfurt and Amsterdam, and securities brokers from New York co-operate. The European capital market is a parallel market in addition to the domestic market, and should be distinguished from the traditional international markets of, for instance, London, New York and Zurich. Direct state influence is but little. The bonds are usually expressed in U.S. dollars, D-Marks or units of account, or they may have an option of currency. International loans may also be expressed in Dutch guilders, or in French or Belgian francs. The bonds are often issued by subsidiary finance corporations in Luxembourg, in the Netherlands, in the American state of Delaware or in the Netherlands Antilles, where no withholding taxes are levied on the interest payments. The absence of coupon tax has stimulated the development of the Eurobond market.

Wages and Employment under Uncertain Demand

This paper examines some implications of two postulates for firms' wage and employment policies. The first is that firms, or stockholders, have easier access to capital markets at lower costs or higher returns than do small investors, such as workers. Second, there are important mobility and turnover costs incurred when a worker moves from one firm to another. The existence of mobility costs means that the labour market is not a perfect market. Each firm is not restricted to taking as given some exogenous market wage, period by period, but has some amount of freedom about the wage strategy it sets. The firm cannot choose any wage-employment path it wishes, however, and I shall assume that in the long-run the firm must offer the same (expected) utility as that available elsewhere. In the short-run there is a constraint that the wage offer must never be so bad that all the firm's workers will quit and incur the mobility cost. There are solid grounds for believing that great differences exist between stockholders and workers with regard to capital markets. The majority of stocks are held by very wealthy persons indeed, who also hold almost all the state and local bonds and large proportions of the property and other assets.3 In addition, stockholders are frequently company executives or professionals with greater financial expertise and salaries many times that of the average industrial worker. The worker typically has a rather small net worth. His assets are durable goods and a rather small holding of money. He frequently has consumer credit liabilities outstanding.4 He also has much less knowledge of financial assets and institutions. A principal function of capital markets is to allow wealth-holders to diversify their holdings and so reduce the risk of their total portfolios. Stockholders, through their greater wealth and expertise, are much better able to bear risks than are workers.5 The difference in ability to bear risk between the two groups immediately suggests an opportunity to trade. In deciding what wage-employment strategy to set, the firm will be willing to reduce worker risk. By doing so, the firm is offering a joint product, employment plus an insurance or financial intermediation service. The firm does not do this simply because workers prefer it. Risk-reducing policies are the cheapest and hence most profitable way of attracting any given work-force. The choice of a risk-reducing policy by the firm will have an important impact on both the wage set and on employment variations-and hence the probability of unemployment. The firm will, in general, wish to reduce the uncertainty of the workers' incomes. An important feature of the model presented here is that the tendency of the firm to reduce risk has an asymmetrical effect on the wage strategy and on the employment strategy.