Curiosidade do dia

"I say I'm surprised at how relaxed he seems to be about the destruction of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID). Musk's "wood chipper" analogy, with its echo of the body-disposing scene in Fargo, struck me as purposefully cruel.

That may be, Lomborg counters, but finite resources should be spent efficiently. "It's like a menu. We're not saying you can't have the most expensive stuff. We're just saying if you order the caviar and the champagne, you won't have as much money left over," he says, motioning to the waiter for a second glass of bubbly (Sprite Zero).

In his drive for efficiency, Lomborg seeks to identify policies that, according to his think-tank, generate returns of at least $15 for every dollar spent. Some aid passes his test, but most does not. A small proportion is frivolous, he says, citing German funding of Peruvian bike lanes and a £200,000 British grant for all-female Chinese opera.

"It's not that I'm against female opera in Shanghai, it's just that, given children die of malaria and some are getting terrible education, I think we need to have a sense of priority. I think we've kind of lost that in the development community. [Moi ici: Faz-me lembrar o familiar que ao serviço da SSVP encontrava "pobres" que queriam um smartphone, mas não em segunda mão, nem um fatela, tinha de ser novo e de marca... e arranjavam-no, para meu escândalo]

...

He pushes back. "Tipping points are good bogeymen. There's a lot of potential things that can go wrong," he says, mentioning meteors that might crash into Earth, cell phones that might rot our brains and bioterrorists who might paralyse our cities. "But you can't spend on everything." Potential catastrophes are fundraising tools, he says. "I make up a scary scenario. Now give me all your money."

...

Numbers, he concedes, do not always capture reality. One of his 12 best policies is to encourage high-skilled immigration. The maths are fairly simple. If a person moves from a low-wage economy to a high-wage one, their income can go up 15 times or more for doing the same job - whether it's working in McDonald's or as a brain surgeon.

But the maths run into real-world political and cultural problems. "If you bring two billion more people to the west, that will probably change the west - and not all for the good. That's why a lot of democracies are going to say no.'"

Trechos retirados de "You can't spend on everything" (Lunch with the FT Bjorn Lomborg) no FT de hoje.