A Case for Higher Public Spending

Studies by psychologists, sociologists, and economists indicate that increases in incomes beyond a moderate level are not related to happiness nor significantly with the objective quality-of-life indicators (which increase with scientific and technological breakthroughs at the global level). Yet everyone wants more money. This may be explained by environmental disruption, relative-income effects, inadequate recognition of adaptation effects, and the materialistic bias due to our accumulation instinct and advertising. These factors cause a bias towards private consumption, making public spending, especially on research and environmental protection (with their long-term and global public-good nature) well below optimal. This is made worse by economists’ emphasis on the excess burden of taxation, ignoring the negative excess burden on the spending side. As Kaplow argues, if taxes are raised in accordance to the benefits of the funded public goods at the respective income levels, no disincentive effects are involved.

Pengembangan Bakat dan Minat Peserta Didik Di Madrasah Ibtidaiyah Miftahul Muna Kesilir Banyuwangi

Each student has different potentials from one another, because each person is indeed born with a variety of different talents and has brought out his or her own nature, namely good nature that encourages tawhid and other natural qualities in the form of various innate potentials such as talents, intellectual abilities and others. The research approach used is a descriptive qualitative approach with the type of case study. The techniques used are interviews, observation, and documentation. While the validity of the data used triangulation of techniques and sources. The results of this study indicate: (1) Mina talents at MI Miftahul Muna through recruitment where students choose and register themselves to take part in the extracurricular program. Such as: drumband, dance, qiroat, scout, Pencak Silat, Chess, Volleyball, football, hadrah, singing, fashion, culinary, and calligraphy. (2) Interest talent planning, namely: Learning Implementation Plan, preparing experts who are competent in their fields as well as students recruited through extracurricular registration. Except for the drum band in this case bringing in experts from outside. (3) Implementation of talent and interest development at Madrasah Ibtidaiyah Miftahul Muna Kesilir, which is carried out once a week every Friday unless the drumband is held on Fridays and Sundays and if you want to appear at certain events, you can adjust the trainer's schedule or not. (4) Supervision is carried out directly at the time of the activity and some is carried out in an indirect way such as in this drumband activity because it brings in a trainer and is reported to the Madrasah Head. Keywords: Development; Talents and Interests; Students Setiap peserta didik memiliki potensi yang berbeda-beda antara satu dengan yang lain, karena setiap orang memang dilahirkan dengan berbagai bakat yang berbeda-beda dan telah membawa fitrahnya masing-masing, yaitu fitrah baik yang mendorong bertauhid maupun fitrah lainnya dalam bentuk berbagai potensi bawaan seperti bakat, kemampuan intelektual dan lain-lain. Pendekatan penelitian yang digunakan adalah pendekatan kualitatif deskriptif dengan jenis studi kasus, Adapun tehnik yang digunakan adalah wawancara, observasi, dan dokumentasi. Sedangkan keabsahan data menggunakan triangulasi tehnik dan sumber. Hasil penelitian ini menunjukkan: (1) Pemetaan bakat mina di MI Miftahul Muna melalui perekrutan dengan peserta didik memilih dan mendaftarkan diri mengikuti program ekstrakurikuler. Seperti: drumband, tari, qiroat, pramuka, Pencak Silat, Catur, Bola Volly, Sepak Bola, hadrah, menyanyi, tata busana, tata boga, dan kaligrafi. (2) Perencanaan bakat minat, yaitu: Rencana Pelaksanaan Pembelajaran, menyiapkan tenaga ahlinya yang berkompeten dibidangnya serta peserta didik yang direkrut melalui pendaftaran ekstrakurikuler. Kecuali drum band dalam hal ini mendatangkan tenaga ahli dari luar. (3) Pelaksanaan pengembangan bakat dan minat di Madrasah Ibtidaiyah Miftahul Muna Kesilir yaitu dilaksanakan seminggu sekali setiap hari jum’at kecuali drumband dilaknakan hari Jum’at dan Minggu serta kondisional jika mau tampil pada event-event tertentu menyesuaikan jadwal pelatih bisa atau tidak. (4) Pengawasan dilakukan secara langsung pada saat kegiatan dan ada pula yang dilakukan dengan cara tidak langsung seperti yang dilakukan di kegiatan drumband ini karena mendatangkan pelatih dan dilaporkan ke Kepala Madrasah. Kata Kunci: Pengembangan; Bakat dan Minat; Peserta didik

Pengaruh Kepemimpinan Dan Loyalitas Terhadap Kinerja Pegawai Di PT PLN UID Jawa Timur

This research aims to find out the Influence of Leadership and Loyalty on Employee Performance at PT PLN UID East Java. Data collection methods include check lists, questionnaires, interview guidelines, to cameras for photos or to record images. In this case the method of collecting data through questionnaires by spreading questionnaires to employees of PT PLN UID JATIM. Modeling in the analysis of this study is to use PLS. The results showed that leadership styles that give a very good influence in improving employee performance, as well as employee loyalty have an influence in improving performance. The conclusion of this study is that employees will easily excel and easily improve their performance if the leadership or manager has a good nature, firm and not arbitrary towards employees. Meanwhile, employees who have high loyalty to the company will automatically improve performance directly. Keywords: Influence of Leadership, Loyalty, Employee Performance

Conservation

This book explores the process by which people decide to conserve or convert natural resources. Building on a seminal study by Harold Hotelling that connects conservation to expected changes in the value of resources, the authors develop the general principles involved in conservation science. The focus of the book is the resources of the natural environment. This includes both directly exploited resources such as agricultural soils, minerals, forests, and fish stocks, and biodiversity—the wild species and natural ecosystems put at risk when people choose to convert natural habitat, or to discharge waste products to water, land, or air. The theory of conservation shows how much or how little to extract from the environment, and how much to leave intact. It also shows how conservation decisions are influenced by the existence of market failures—the external impacts of market decisions on ecosystems, and the public good nature of many ecosystem services. It shows how conservation connects to expected changes in the relative importance or value of natural resources, and what is needed to uncover that value. It shows how context matters. Decisions about the conservation of natural resources are influenced by property rights—whether land is private property or in the public domain; by environmental policies, laws, and regulations within countries; and by environmental agreements between countries. Finally, this book shows how conservation differs within and beyond protected areas, how it connects to the system of environmental governance, and how governance structures have evolved over time.

Generosity in Buddhist thought and generous education for today's Vietnamese students

With the theory of reincarnation and karma, Buddhism thinks that everything has cause and effect, the sowing cause will reap that fruit. Therefore, in order to be reborn in good lives after death, people need to sow good karma. From a moral perspective, we all know that generosity is a positive quality, people should practice to live in harmony in society. When we do a good thing, there will be a wealth of benefits that it can bring. That may be the subject of the act perceived, and may not be, but because of the good nature, honesty they still d

A Choice-Modeling Approach to Inform Policies Aimed at Reducing Wildfire Hazard through the Promotion of Fuel Management by Forest Owners

The public-good nature of benefits of fuel management explains its current undersupply and the consequent wildfire blow. Policies to promote fuel management are thus required. To be cost-effective, they need to be informed by context-specific estimates of forest owners’ willingness-to-accept (WTA) for managing fuel. This study develops a choice-modeling approach to this problem. A survey of forest owners was undertaken in a wildfire-prone parish in Portugal. Respondents were asked about their willingness to subscribe different management contracts. A choice model was estimated and used to predict owners’ WTA for different fuel management commitments, and the marginal cost of reducing burned area in the parish. Estimated WTA amounts depend on owner type and commitment. Active owners demanded lower amounts for adopting silvicultural intervention commitments, and higher for those implying income foregone. The marginal cost of reducing burned area through fuel management increases with area, but it currently is yet smaller than the corresponding marginal benefit. Our results suggest that zero burned area is not an option and optimum fuel management lies beyond the current level. It will be shifted even beyond by targeted (key-spot) fuel management approaches; WTA differences across owners can be used to design context-specific policies that are more cost-effective.

"Thoughts on Waters and Lands of Japan" by Nishikawa Joken (1648 – 1724)

The present publication is a translation of Nishikawa Joken’s (1648 – 1724) treatise Nihon Suido Ko:(“Thoughts on Waters and Lands of Japan”), with commentaries and a preface. The treatise was composed approximately in 1700 and published in Kyoto in the beginning of the 18th century. Nishikawa based his work on traditional East-Asian system of knowledge as well as on the European geographical data. This eclectic combination produced an original work, which one can hardly attribute as a reproduction of Western science, neither as Japanese traditional thought. The aim of the author was to describe the position of Japan within the world and to explain why this position was unique and advantageous. Although attempts to reconsider Japan’s inferior to China position were not uncommon during the Tokugawa age, Nishikawa’s originality lies in his way of argumentation. He uses the rhetoric of geographic determinism. It is due to a specific location and consequently the advantageous interaction of elements and branches that Japan is the home for luminous deities. The good nature and the devotedness to the right rituals of the Japanese people are also the product of the beneficial geomantic characteristics. The other topics the author considers are the attempt to confound the bias that Japan is small in size, the underneath meaning and the etymology of different names of Japan, the general structure of the world. Nihon Suido Ko: is a valuable source on the early development of Japanese national self-identification as well as on the history of Japanese geographic thought.

Ralph Lainson. 21 February 1927—5 May 2015

Ralph Lainson was a distinguished protozoologist and a parasitologist of many abilities. Above all, he was a naturalist, as reflected both by his approach to work and by his two principal hobbies, fishing and collecting butterflies. Besides this, he had a strong artistic streak, expressed by his love of playing the trombone and painting. Many of his published works are exquisitely illustrated with his own watercolour and pen and ink drawings. These talents are present throughout his scientific career. He was a ‘traditional protozoologist’, who wanted to find out how parasites were transmitted and related to each other. Although many of the organisms he discovered were associated with a disease, Ralph openly admitted that his ultimate interest would always be the parasite. His research methods were simple, but he would readily embrace a technology if it solved his problem. He admitted to not being good with equipment. As an example, he mentioned an aptitude test used by the British Army: to put together a dismantled bicycle tyre pump—for him this was an impossible task! This shows his ability to use such tales to get others to do tasks he preferred not to, as they distracted him. His self-control was remarkable; in the 30 years that we worked together, I cannot remember a single instance of him raising his voice to anybody. He was extremely dedicated to whatever he did, be it work, hobbies or play. His stories at the dinner table or around a campfire, when out in the field, were a source of joy that reflected his good nature.