Class.
11. Historically, a story about people inside impressive buildings ignoring or even taunting people standing outside shouting at them turns out to be a story with an unhappy ending.
via by Lemony Snicket – OccupyWriters.com.
Thoughts and wanderings around the internet, e-government and geekdom.
Archive for the 'Government' Category
Coaching a Surgeon: What Makes Top Performers Better?
Elite athletes use a whole raft of coaches to help them peform more effectively. So do elite musicians. Why shouldn’t elites in other sectors such as medicine, business and government administration?
Fascinating article and the conclusion seems clear, if in need of wider testing to go beyond anecdata.
Scott Adams Blog: Creativity Spurt. As the man himself would say, don’t take advice from cartoonists. However, it is an interesting thought that society is well placed to take part in some substantial new thinking about the way the state works now we know it is broken.
Really interesting summary: the war on drugs has been lost despite falling rates of drug use in many countries. Let’s legalise and regulate just as Argentina, Mexico, Portugal and Spain have. Doesn’t have to lead to increases in drug taking or drug tourism. So why don’t we all do it?
Very useful historical perspective and analysis of the current recession in the West.
Summary: with the “rich” taking a wildly disproportionate cut of many countries’ income, the “middle class” (non-rich, non-poor) have run out of avenues to continue their spending (no more debt, wages falling behind inflation). This hurts the whole of society, including the “rich”. How can we design a society which allows us all to have fun, but live within our capacity limits? And what should be the role of government within in?
NB this has all happened before, people:
“with great economic power had an undue influence in making the rules of the economic game.”
Quote from Eccles in the 50s about the 20s. And Karl Marx had it pretty much spot on, too (about capitalism).
Also worthwhile noting the relative lack of extreme income inequality in Germany.
Jobs Will Follow a Strengthening of the Middle Class – NYTimes.com.
Der Spiegel is convinced that the financial sector is once again an imminent threat to the world economy. (As I wrote that I found myself wondering if financial markets were the world economy. They aren’t of course, just as the occasional shutting down of governments doesn’t halt countries.) Sadly the article argues for more regulation but then says it will never happen.
Regulation doesn’t in and of itself stifle innovation, but when regulators get deep into the detail of the industry they are regulating (such as energy, telecoms, healthcare, finance) they tend to become part of the industry rather than a true check and balance on the industry. A simple prescription for finance? Separate liquidity provision and maturity transformation into open-book accounted and taxed entities (which should have low profit margins) and then tax transactions of the speculators (just as with gambling).
I loved Vogl’s presentation of financial markets (and why they are so unlike anything else):
“Someone who doesn’t have a product, and neither expects to have it nor will have it, sells this product to someone who also neither expects nor wants to have it, and in reality does not receive it.”
The only product the financial markets want is money, which lead many banks to lie about their use of loans from the Federal Reserve during the crisis. This was additional propping up to the tune of $1.3trn. Admittedly, the Fed says it made several billion on these transactions, but the fact is the banks would have gone bust without them. Other industries don’t have this lender of last resort (or any lender for some small businesses).
Die Welt quotes an interesting viewpoint: “the west has already consumed part of its future” and will therefore lose a decade or so of its development (analogous to the Japanese lost decade). During this time the yuan will appreciate as a global currency (and there’s a suggestion of a super-rouble, too). To be sure, China has its own debt bubble which could yet haunt it.
Figaro also argues that we have to drop our Keynesian approach of kickstarting global demand. Going further, Monbiot writes convincingly on the need for non-growth economics. Again, he doesn’t really explain the underlying concept enough for me (so I’ve downloaded Jackson’s book to stop my whining).
Lots to digest in there, but the summary is that the capitalist financial system is broken and we need to change it substantially. There are ideas out there that could form part of a future and less fundamentally broken system.
Terrifying article in Spiegel about the lack of any sensible options for the Eurozone. Time for Plan B: How the Euro Became Europe’s Greatest Threat.
I’d be keen on a nuclear option, because at the moment, it appears that the main effect of the pressure on countries such as Greece is a transfer of monies from the public to the financial sector (even German banks have been reducing their holdings of Greek debt; who holds it now? Central banks, i.e. the public). The nuclear option may be horrific, but at least it would rebalance the power relationship back towards governments.
Similar, if smaller-scale issues with the PFI scheme in the UK. Terrible to have a hospital reduce staff and services to pay for its building cost. How did the business plan get approved? Do other infrastructure projects have inflation-linked increases for sunk costs?
Very helpful explanation of the manner in which power is likely to be transferred in China.
I’m particularly interested in the effect that a markedly new generation of politicians will have on the country. In contrast to the Western-educated engineers that have run the country for the last decade, the new breed are Chinese-educated lawyers, economists and historians.
One can only speculate as to how serious and bloody the power struggles must have been behind the scenes.
Simple summary: Wikileaks is as good a place as any to release the cablegate and Afghanistan war logs. Julian Assange should be treated as innocent until proven guilty and should stand trial in Sweden.
I believe that the stealing of the cablegate files was illegal. However, the publication of them is less clear. The UK press publishes what feels like a leak a week and no clear action is taken against the leakers. Sweden has an absolute protection of journalistic sources (part of the reason for Assange’s fateful visit).
The leaks could have been made anywhere, but they chose Wikileaks. The need for a “wikileaks” is clear: whistleblowers have to be able to blow the whistle in some manner. Wikileaks admirably fulfils this requirement, with the additional requirement that published disclosures are new and newsworthy, taking it close to journalism.
While the manner of their disclosure (e.g. of civilian names in Afghanistan) can be less-than-brilliant, I do think the military and diplomatic documents stand the test of newsworthiness. Read Johann Hari for more on the value of the leaks and Shirky for the conflicted feeling I share part of.
My take on newsworthiness and value of leaks is this: remember that Wikileaks published (among other things) the Operating Thetan manuals of the Scientologists. I think this is a Good Thing to expose a secretive and powerful organisation. Substitute your pros or cons with respect to cablegate with Scientology and see if they still hold.
The whack-a-mole attempt to shut down Assange and Wikileaks shows how much governments have to learn about the networked world, and networked organisations. They are also distasteful and unsupportable.
On Assange: it does feel that there’s a case to hear in the sexual allegations (but I’m not a Swedish lawyer). Is the timing suspect? It would have been if the allegations had come three months before or after, so therefore irrelevant.
Who’s Lobbying is a useful resource to see who’s meeting which departments and for what purpose. Great use of open data and some whizzy matching tools.
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