AIDS victims – our forgotten people
THE National Research Institute intends to carry out HIV and AIDS behavioural surveillance between this year and 2010.
The Health Secretary has indicated that the research will be aimed at capturing an image of people’s behaviour and the way they think and respond to the two aspects of the disease.
Such research, as Dr Malau has stated, is vital to allow the Health Department and indeed the whole health sector to make decisions that are informed by hard evidence.
We commend and support all such dedicated research that seeks to address medical and social issues within our community.
A further report in The National yesterday told of another thinly veiled plea from the director of the Friends Foundation who again drew attention to the plight of those infected with HIV and AIDS.
As regular readers of our editorials will know, this has been a growing concern of The National for many years.
We would be foolish to deny the huge international and national efforts that have been made to conduct awareness campaigns in our country.
Tens of millions of kina have been lavished on these campaigns.
Today, we see a bewildering number of well-meaning groups committed to making people realise the grim future they will face unless the growth of infection is halted.
It is virtually impossible to determine how much effect this is having on slowing the spread of the disease.
Scientists and health specialists, economists and medical anthropologists, researchers in sexual behaviour and a host of other medial and behavioural experts have landed on our shores, tried to come to grips with the PNG situation and ultimately departed.
The products of their stay have proven to be limited and in many cases, not particularly helpful.
Parallels between the spread of HIV and AIDS in our country and in Africa may establish some statistical bases against which our experience can be measured.
But the differences between the African and PNG experience are considerable and even daunting.
And so while we applaud the unveiling of yet another research effort and while we recognise the potential for that plan to contribute meaningful results, we remain deeply concerned over the fate of the HIV positive and the AIDS victims in our society.
Tessie Soi is a realist.
She speaks of tiny children buried in donated coffins in mass graves and of the plight of orphans whose parents have both succumbed to AIDS.
She states what should be blindingly obvious – the number of bedridden HIV and AIDS patients at Port Moresby General Hospital continues to rise.
And in turn, we continue to ask the same questions and they continue to attract no official answer and little apparent concern on the part of the community.
Where are the dedicated wards for these patients in PNG public hospitals?
How many PNG doctors have an in-depth knowledge of the medical, physical and mental requirements of these patients?
How many fully trained nurses with a real concern for these patients are working in PNG hospitals?
How many hospitals do their best to deter the relatives of AIDS patients from bringing the seriously ill and dying for admission because there are no ways of handling their special needs?
Where are the trained social workers who can help relatives to understand what these victims need when they are at home?
How many committed home nurses are there who can visit HIV and AIDS patients each day and monitor their condition and the relationships they have with their families and friends?
Tessie Soi makes it clear that many relatives shun the handful of victims who are bed-ridden in hospital.
How much worse is their situation when they are hidden as shameful objects in villages and are eventually unable to even attend to their most basic daily needs, such as toileting, washing themselves, even drinking and trying to eat?
We support Tessie Soi and we again urge the nation to fight to provide adequate facilities for the sufferers of this disease.
For despite all the glossy awareness campaigns and the assurances that HIV and AIDS are 100% avoidable, the disease once contracted remains 100% fatal.
We plead for the victims of this scourge.
 
The shape of America’s recession
By NOURIEL ROUBINI
NOW that it is clear the United States is in recession, the debate has moved on to whether it will be short and shallow or long and deep – a question that is as important for the rest of the world as it is for the US.
The answer depends on the shape of the US recession: if it is short and shallow, sufficient growth elsewhere will ensure only a slight global slowdown.
But if it is long and severe, the result could be outright recession in some countries (Britain, Spain, Ireland, Italy and Japan, and even financial crises in vulnerable emerging-market economies.
In principle, the US recession could end up being shaped like a V, U, W or L. Which of these four scenarios is most likely?
The current consensus is that the recession will be V-shaped – short and shallow – and thus similar to the US recessions in 1990-91 and 2001, which lasted eight months each.
Most analysts forecast that gross domestic product (GDP) will contract in the first half of this year and recover in the second half.
I expect a longer and deeper U-shaped recession, lasting at least 12 months and possibly as long as 18 months – one of the most severe US recessions in decades – because today’s macroeconomic and financial conditions are far worse.
First, the US is experiencing its worst housing recession since the Great Depression, and the slump is not over. Construction of new homes has fallen about 50%, while new home sales are down more than 60%, creating a supply glut that is driving prices down sharply – 10% so far and probably another 10% this year and next year.
Already, US$2.2 trillion of wealth has been wiped out, and about eight million households have negative equity: their homes’ are worth less than their mortgages.
By 2010, the fall in home prices will be close to 30% with US$6.6 trillion of home equity destroyed and 21 million households – 40% of the 51 million with a mortgage – facing negative equity. If owners walk away from their homes, credit losses could be US$1 trillion or more, wiping out most of the US financial system’s capital and leading to a systemic banking crisis.
Second, in 2001, weak capital spending in the corporate sector (accounting for 10% of GDP) underpinned the contraction.
Today, it is private consumption in the household sector (70% of GDP) that is in trouble. American consumers are shopped out, saving less, debt-burdened (136% of income, on average), and buffeted by many negative shocks.
Third, the US is experiencing its most severe financial crisis since the Great Depression. Losses are spreading from sub-prime to near-prime and prime mortgages, commercial mortgages, and unsecured consumer credit (credit cards, auto loans, student loans).
Total financial losses – including possibly US$1 trillion in mortgages and related securitised products – could be as high as US$1.7 trillion.
Given these staggering sums, the US could face a double-dip, W-shaped recession.
The main question is whether the tax rebate that US households will receive in mid-2008 will be consumed – thus leading to positive third-quarter growth – or saved.
Given how financially stretched US households are, a good part of this tax rebate may be used to pay down high credit card balances (or other unsecured consumer credit) or to postpone mortgage delinquency.
Fortunately, an L-shaped period of protracted economic stagnation – Japan’s experience in the 1990s – is unlikely. Japan waited almost two years after its asset bubble collapsed to ease monetary policy and provide a fiscal stimulus, whereas in the US, both steps came early.
Moreover, whereas Japan postponed corporate and bank restructuring for years, in the US private and especially public efforts to restructure assets and firms will start faster and be more aggressive.
Still, given a severe financial crisis, declining home prices, and a credit crunch, the US is facing its longest and deepest recession in decades, dashing any hope of a soft landing for the rest of the world. While a global recession will be averted, a severe growth slowdown will not.

Note: Nouriel Roubini is Professor of Economics at New York University and chairman of RGE Monitor (www.rgemonitor.com).
Editorial