More Efficiency, Less Equity

Housing rescue will benefit economy

I was taking an economic class last year. I learned that there is a tradeoff between equity and efficiency. In order to clean up the housing mess, President Obama just proposed a housing rescue plan to help the people who can't really afford the loans they got. Otherwise it will still be so hard for the lenders to lend money because they haven't got the money back from the borrowers. However, this plan is not going to help every borrower. For those who bought houses as an investment, owned far more on their house than it is worth, and worked so hard to keep up their house payments won't get help under this plan. It is so unfair that the people who didn't consider their ability on buying house and failed to pay off the loan can get benefit from the government, but the people who are able to keep up their house payments won't receive any help from the government. On the other hand, if the government chooses to have more equity in this case, for example the money is spent on helping every borrower, that won't be efficient to solve the problem.

I think this article is intended for the people who are paying attention to the economic issues. This article addresses an argument that whether we should choose efficiency or equity. The author is pretty natural, but I think this person agrees slightly more on efficiency and which is what I agree with. Choosing to have more equity to keep everyone happy is short-term, I believe nobody is happy in the declining economics. On the other hand choosing to have more efficiency is long-term, because once the econmic starts growing again everyone can live easier.

More Food Inspectors is a must

http://www.statesman.com/news/content/region/legislature/stories/02/17/0217health.html

The Plainview peanut plant is being investigated that it might be relative to the salmonella outbreak. This plant is owned by Peanut Corporation of America. After the long request of investigation, bird feathers and dead rodents were discovered. This plant is currently close. They already ordered a recall of all the products from this plant. Since March 2005, this plant has been operating without state license or being inspected.

Surprisingly, there are only 46 sanitarians inspecting more than 17,000 food manufacturers. As we see there is definitely a labor shortage of doing the inspection. Dr. David Lakey of the Department of State Health Services is proposing the increasing salary for that job. However, he said there is trouble attracting candidates for these positions because federal jobs pay more. Food is a natural need of human. The food contains harmful bacteria may cause deaths. After reading this article I hope government will do a better job on inspecting food manufactures in order to protect the health of people.