From email to Simon Maxwell, Director, Overseas Development Institute, London.

Matt Berkley

27 July 2000

Subject:  Possibilities
To:  s.maxwell@odi.org

...It was good to talk the other day...I would be very keen to talk further about possibilities for independent policy work, based on a rehumanising of economics.

What I would like to do is get data which reflects the life courses of individuals, then present this to policy-makers and the public in terms that relate to what we value in our own lives - e.g...we think it's worse to lose a child than to lose our job...

Current projections for 2015 must surely be incorporating something over 100 million early deaths...

If these people die, the income figures look a lot better. 

It's possible to say how many people might die early given certain policies. One catalyst for this approach could be "we need a rethink due to HIV and the digital divide".

I hope what I'm talking about here amounts to concentrating on real (blindingly obvious) facts that get obscured.