Bipartisanship. Remember that? It's been so long since I've seen it in any of the world's major democracies that I had to go to dictionary.com and check what it meant again.
Oh yes, here it is: "bipartisan" (adjective) means of, consisting of, or supported by members of two parties, especially two major
political parties. Noun form - "bipartisanship". Nope, doesn't ring any bells. Certainly not here is Australia, where anything the government proposes generates not constructive criticism from Abbott and the Coalition, but rather a torrent of emotive and singularly unhelpful abuse. Certainly not in Europe either, where the solution to the Eurozone mess is bleedingly obvious to anyone with even a passing grasp of economics, but the leaders of the constituent states won't pay the political price of taking the correct course of action. And most definitely not in the USA, where both sides would rather risk dropping the country into an economic abyss than agree to take what are "no brainer" compromise measures to stabilise the situation and calm down financial markets.
The results that this intransigence produces are there for all to see right now in the political arena. Instead of taking the appropriate long-term measures needed to get their economies back on track, the competing interests in Europe and America have been locked in a cycle of brinkmanship which results not in a viable solution, but rather stopgap measures which last for a few months before the fundamental problems re-emerge and there is another market panic while everyone works out how best to apply the latest band-aid. Meanwhile, back in Australia instead of dealing with the important issues like tax and labour market reform which have all got too hard for the government, the debate has become centred on relatively trivial issues led by the minorities in government like gay marriage, poker machines, boat people and what Peter Slipper does in his spare time. Because financial markets have completely lost confidence in the ability of governments to debate and resolve issues sensibly, business confidence and therefore investment remains low, making the already significant economic problems far worse.
How did this unsatisfactory state of affairs come about, you might ask? It certainly wasn't always the case. Look for example at the USA and Australia during the 1980s. In America's case, you had a Republican in Ronald Reagan presiding over the country during a time when both Congress and the Senate were controlled by the Democrats. In Australia, Labor had the numbers the House of Representatives for all of its 13 years in power but never enjoyed a similar advantage in the Senate. This didn't however stop either country from being governed effectively over this time and enjoying great economic prosperity over much of the decade. Why therefore have things turned so nasty and partisan in the modern age, especially at a time when governments can least afford to act in this way?
There are probably a number of factors at play but I think a big contributor is the fact that with all the polling and media scrutiny that modern politicians often find it difficult to look past the end of their noses. The efforts of government have become so directed towards scoring points against their political opponents and winning the 24 hour news cycle that the actual business of government has taken a back seat. Also the amount of carping and vitriol that flies around the internet, Twitter and the mainstream press probably doesn't help establish a co-operative negotiating environment between the different parties. I'm sure there are capable people within both the major political parties whose job it is to develop cogent policies and to help their political masters with the task of converting them into draft legislation and shepherding them through Parliament, but right now they must be tearing their hair out as they are taking a back seat to the internal pollsters and "numbers men" in each party.
Whatever the reason, it high time that governments and oppositions everywhere round the world toned down their partisan grandstanding and directed their energies instead to productive and collaborative negotiation. It's also time they realised that being able to reach a compromise position is not just fundamental to good government, but is an essential skill needed for the survival of mankind as a whole. Right now in the Gaza Strip we are witnessing the tragic results that happen when parties on two sides of an argument have neither the will nor the wherewithal to sit down and work out a diplomatic solution to their problems. God knows what might have happened at any time during the Cold War if the Russians and Americans had adopted a similar approach to the one that the Israelis and Palestinians are currently taking.
Similarly, if businesses went about things the same way that politicians currently do, global trade and commerce would grind to a halt. Any successful business knows that a fundamental key to success is understanding the markets they are in and negotiating terms with their customers and suppliers which reflect those conditions. If they just stood back and refused to negotiate or compromise with the counterparties they deal with, I am betting that they would wind up going broke pretty quickly.
Given that most people intuitively understand the benefits of acting collaboratively and making some compromises in the interests of achieving a greater outcome, it's a hard thing to accept when our elected leaders decide to engage in grandstanding rather than acting in the national interest, which let's face it is what they were elected for in the first place. I don't know who Parliament or Congress they think they are impressing when for example they engage in irresponsible behaviour like leaving asylum seekers indefinitely in limbo or pushing the US Government to the brink of insolvency. Possibly some loony nuts at either end of the political spectrum, but certainly not the vast majority of voters who just want to see leadership and outcomes instead of more partisan bickering.
Will we see a new spirit of co-operation and some positive policy outcomes here in 2013 after the election happens and we get a Parliament which isn't at the mercy of independent MPs who most of didn't vote for? Will we see the same thing in the USA now that Obama has been returned by a fairly convincing margin?
Let's hope so. I'm not sure I can stand this idiocy for much longer.
19 November 2012
02 August 2012
Kicking the Defence Habit
As a keen observer of how much money gets flushed down the toilet annually by the United States in its "War on Terror" - for anyone who is interested, the final bill is likely to top US$4 trillion, or about $12,750 for every person living in the USA today - I was intrigued by comments made by Tony Abbott on a recent trip to Washington that Australia was currently spending less on defence than any year since 1938.
When I read the comments, I felt a sudden surge of patriotic pride. If what Tony was saying was correct, then as a nation, we ought to be congratulating ourselves that we were making significant progress towards eradicating what, in the modern world, is a significant but largely redundant government overhead. Of course, as is his wont, Tony didn't frame his remarks in a manner which were complimentary to the government. Instead he was stating what a disgrace it was that Labor had let our US allies down by cutting defence spending to historically low levels and how he would immediately redress this when he took office. Which, by the way, is now looking depressingly likely barring a Lazarus-style comeback by either Julia Gillard, or preferably, Malcolm Turnbull.
Naturally, the fact that Abbott was prepared to invest in a few more popguns and water cannons to put the frighteners on some rogue Afghans would have warmed the cockles of a few crusty old generals in the Pentagon, who surely must be under a bit of pressure from their political masters for blowing so much cash in the achievement of so little. However, apart from gaining a few brownie points from our friends in Washington, you kind of have to ask yourself - what's the point?
A lot of things about conservative politicians puzzle me. How, for instance, they can all be experts in climate change science with no education whatsoever in that area. Or their stubborn insistence in the face of overwhelming economic evidence that the way to generate jobs is to cut government spending to the bone and give tax cuts to the mega rich. The one that really gets me though is that despite being totally hawkish about spending government money on things like education, public health care and providing a safety net for their citizens, when it comes to spending public money on defence, all restraint goes out the window and they wantonly throw cash about in a manner reminiscent of Imelda Marcos in a shoe shop. What sort of message does this send to your constituents? Sorry, Jemaine from Alabama, we're not prepared to pay for your college education, but we're happy to furnish you with an AK-47 free of charge so you can fly to the Middle East to open a can of whoop-ass on the Taliban. But don't even think about applying for welfare when you get back home shell-shocked and unable to work.
It appears though Abbott wants to head down a similar path and bulk up the military, despite the obviously crippling effect that excessive militarism has had on the United States' finances. Undoubtedly, this would probably prove to be a popular measure, for we Australians are a seriously frightened bunch: frightened of a few hundred boat people, frightened of migrants taking our jobs and frightened of non-existent terrorists that might be in our midst. Wouldn't it be good to lie tucked up safe in bed knowing that Uncle Tony has thrown a few more billion on some armaments to ensure that the yellow hordes can be sent back packing from whence they came?
However, before committing to this and the host of other unfunded spending measures he seems to have in mind, Abbott would be well advised to consider the following modern geopolitical realities:
When I read the comments, I felt a sudden surge of patriotic pride. If what Tony was saying was correct, then as a nation, we ought to be congratulating ourselves that we were making significant progress towards eradicating what, in the modern world, is a significant but largely redundant government overhead. Of course, as is his wont, Tony didn't frame his remarks in a manner which were complimentary to the government. Instead he was stating what a disgrace it was that Labor had let our US allies down by cutting defence spending to historically low levels and how he would immediately redress this when he took office. Which, by the way, is now looking depressingly likely barring a Lazarus-style comeback by either Julia Gillard, or preferably, Malcolm Turnbull.
Naturally, the fact that Abbott was prepared to invest in a few more popguns and water cannons to put the frighteners on some rogue Afghans would have warmed the cockles of a few crusty old generals in the Pentagon, who surely must be under a bit of pressure from their political masters for blowing so much cash in the achievement of so little. However, apart from gaining a few brownie points from our friends in Washington, you kind of have to ask yourself - what's the point?
A lot of things about conservative politicians puzzle me. How, for instance, they can all be experts in climate change science with no education whatsoever in that area. Or their stubborn insistence in the face of overwhelming economic evidence that the way to generate jobs is to cut government spending to the bone and give tax cuts to the mega rich. The one that really gets me though is that despite being totally hawkish about spending government money on things like education, public health care and providing a safety net for their citizens, when it comes to spending public money on defence, all restraint goes out the window and they wantonly throw cash about in a manner reminiscent of Imelda Marcos in a shoe shop. What sort of message does this send to your constituents? Sorry, Jemaine from Alabama, we're not prepared to pay for your college education, but we're happy to furnish you with an AK-47 free of charge so you can fly to the Middle East to open a can of whoop-ass on the Taliban. But don't even think about applying for welfare when you get back home shell-shocked and unable to work.
It appears though Abbott wants to head down a similar path and bulk up the military, despite the obviously crippling effect that excessive militarism has had on the United States' finances. Undoubtedly, this would probably prove to be a popular measure, for we Australians are a seriously frightened bunch: frightened of a few hundred boat people, frightened of migrants taking our jobs and frightened of non-existent terrorists that might be in our midst. Wouldn't it be good to lie tucked up safe in bed knowing that Uncle Tony has thrown a few more billion on some armaments to ensure that the yellow hordes can be sent back packing from whence they came?
However, before committing to this and the host of other unfunded spending measures he seems to have in mind, Abbott would be well advised to consider the following modern geopolitical realities:
- Australia is not, and hasn't been for the last 60 years, under serious military threat from any other foreign power. Nor is this situation likely to change in the medium to long term given the productive engagement over the past 40 years by Australian leaders with our northern Asian neighbours. Fortunately, unlike Israel and the Arab nations, we live in a part of the world which is relatively politically stable and so should be able to enjoy the luxury of investing public money in more socially beneficial things as opposed to maintaining an outsized defence force.
- Even if we were under threat, do we really think that a defence force the size of ours could repel say the Chinese or the Russians? Of course we couldn't, so in reality the defence force we do have is nothing more than a security blanket which doesn't offer any real protection anyway.
- Say the worst happened and we were the subject of an invasion, do you think that the major powers in the world would stand idly by and let the vast mineral and agricultural wealth of this country fall into hostile foreign hands? Of course not, they would round up a posse and run the offenders out of town quicker than you could say "rack off back to Djakarta".
- Finally, if things really got out of hand and the conflict became global, defence forces would be largely redundant anyway. A few well aimed warheads at New York, Shanghai and a few other places would end things before the first destroyer made its way out of Port Phillip Bay.
Politicians on both sides are probably aware of a lot of this, but regrettably the backlash that would be invoked among the general public by massively reducing the defence forces makes this too much of a political hot potato to touch. It's a shame really because it would be great to have some extra cash to spend on all the urgent nation building priorities in this country instead of blowing a fortune on following the USA into every tin-pot desert country that they decide to invade, or chasing a leaky sieve full of refugees up and down the coast of Western Australia.
Maybe the breakthrough will come when the next generation of Australians who have grown up in a true multi-cultural society and without the spectre of war reach their adulthood. This generation may well look at the example of China, who are gradually coming to dominate world affairs without utilising military force, and compare them to the US and Russia, who will no doubt still be dealing with the financial and social legacies of past conflicts for many generations to come. Maybe this generation will make the connection between peaceful methods and economic prosperity and force their leaders to direct funds away from Defence into more productive areas.
Maybe also they could force the government to send Gina Rinehart, Andrew Bolt, Mark Holden, Alan Jones and John Steffensen into exile on Nauru, however let's deal with one problem at a time.
11 June 2012
Laud Achievers, not Cretins
Despite being a long-time subscriber to Foxtel, some months ago my wife and I started to seriously question whether we should continue with it. Most of the channels seem to run either tedious documentaries, unfunny sit-coms or unwatchable movies that should have never even made it to video, let alone the cinema. The few channels that ran programmes that you might actually want to watch had ruined the viewing experience by interjecting so many ads that even the most unscrupulous Channel 10 executive would blush with embarrassment.
It was only one Monday night when I looked at the choices on the free to air channels that I realised I had to continue with the subscription, no matter how poor it had become. ABC was showing its godawful "Australian Story", which ought to be re-named, "Suicidal Story", while the commercial channels had a choice between watching a bunch of people trying to sing, another bunch trying to cook and the final bunch trying to shed 30% of their body weight while being berated by a mob of sadistic hard-bodies who looked like extras from the film "Gattaca". Suddenly all those moldy documentaries about the Kennedy assassination and Hitler's rise to power started to look pretty appealing.
Of course, this isn't a new development in free-to-air network programming. These sorts of shows which are glibly titled "Reality TV" have been around for years and barely a night goes by where some hapless soul doesn't get made a fool of on national television for their complete lack of cooking, singing or dancing talent. One can conveniently blame the networks for putting this dross on television but then again, why would they do it unless it delivered superior ratings to other forms of programming? Unfortunately, the blame must ultimately rest with the viewing public, who are getting exactly the programs that they deserve.
The fact that these sorts of reality programmes, together with such vacuous fare from America such as "The Kardashians" dominate the airwaves did however get me thinking about what this says about modern-day humanity as a species. The conclusions to be drawn are not at all good and to my mind, the drivel that is modern-day television is a symptom of a broader malaise in society in that we will tend to prefer anything which gives us a short, sharp burst of titillation or our 15 minutes of fame over endeavours that have a longer gestation period but which are substantial and might actually benefit us in the long run.
This sort of thinking (if you can call it that) is unfortunately prevalent everywhere. Witness the appalling standard of political debate in this country since, and indeed before, the last election. If for a minute we are able to get Craig Thomson and his prostitutes or Peter Slipper and his boyfriends out of the news, then do we have politicians debating the big issues like industrial relations, tax reform and sensible immigration policy that could help all of our prosperity? No, instead they want to score points about issues that are peripheral to most of the population like gay marriage, poker machines and boat people. Frankly, I despair about the quality of people on all sides of the political divide. It is impossible to imagine any party at the moment having the foresight, intellect or will to implement ground breaking reforms that their predecessors did such as floating the dollar, introducing the GST or establishing Medicare. Instead of actually doing anything, all that anyone in government seems to care about is winning the battle of the 24-hour news cycle.
Apart from the obvious examples of television programming and our political leaders, if you look deeper, this preference for "bling" over substance is prevalent everywhere. I for one have always found it bizarre that the average Herald Sun reader can castigate teachers for going on strike over seeking a pay rise of about 4-5% but at the same time defend someone like Travis Cloke seeking over $1 million a year for playing football. Now, let me think, a teacher is responsible for ensuring your children get a proper education, while the other catches a bit of leather and kicks it 15 times on a weekend - mostly not through the big sticks, either. While I do enjoy my weekly fix of football (especially like this weekend when St Kilda were playing the Gold Coast), I know who I'd much rather see get the loot.
It's high time we reversed this appalling and frankly, worrying trend and started showing some respect, appreciation and admiration for those who warrant it rather than some dimwit who manages to get their head on television for a few minutes. To get most people's attention though for our hard working and/or eminent Australians, we might need to stoop to the lowest common denominator. Maybe we should concoct a reality TV show where the people who invent our vaccines, donate millions to charity or successfully run our public companies sit in judgement of the likes of Mark Holden, Dicko or Matt Preston? Imagine Paul Keating giving that pompous twat Preston one of his legendary sprays, now that would be great television. Or maybe we could have a Gladiator-style show where say Geoff Dixon got to throw custard pies at his simpering Irish successor or the fund manager dingbats who scuttled the $6 buyout of Qantas five years ago? That alone would be worth the price of a Foxtel subscription.
In the meantime though television remains a wasteland, so I think I will spend this Queen's Birthday Monday night reading through all of our new ACs, AOs and AMs. Now THERE is a list which reconfirms one's faith in human nature. Plenty of doctors, philanthropists and judges, and not a Big Brother contestant or celebrity chef in sight. The trick is now to get people to aspire to get on that list instead of aspiring to get on television.
It was only one Monday night when I looked at the choices on the free to air channels that I realised I had to continue with the subscription, no matter how poor it had become. ABC was showing its godawful "Australian Story", which ought to be re-named, "Suicidal Story", while the commercial channels had a choice between watching a bunch of people trying to sing, another bunch trying to cook and the final bunch trying to shed 30% of their body weight while being berated by a mob of sadistic hard-bodies who looked like extras from the film "Gattaca". Suddenly all those moldy documentaries about the Kennedy assassination and Hitler's rise to power started to look pretty appealing.
Of course, this isn't a new development in free-to-air network programming. These sorts of shows which are glibly titled "Reality TV" have been around for years and barely a night goes by where some hapless soul doesn't get made a fool of on national television for their complete lack of cooking, singing or dancing talent. One can conveniently blame the networks for putting this dross on television but then again, why would they do it unless it delivered superior ratings to other forms of programming? Unfortunately, the blame must ultimately rest with the viewing public, who are getting exactly the programs that they deserve.
The fact that these sorts of reality programmes, together with such vacuous fare from America such as "The Kardashians" dominate the airwaves did however get me thinking about what this says about modern-day humanity as a species. The conclusions to be drawn are not at all good and to my mind, the drivel that is modern-day television is a symptom of a broader malaise in society in that we will tend to prefer anything which gives us a short, sharp burst of titillation or our 15 minutes of fame over endeavours that have a longer gestation period but which are substantial and might actually benefit us in the long run.
This sort of thinking (if you can call it that) is unfortunately prevalent everywhere. Witness the appalling standard of political debate in this country since, and indeed before, the last election. If for a minute we are able to get Craig Thomson and his prostitutes or Peter Slipper and his boyfriends out of the news, then do we have politicians debating the big issues like industrial relations, tax reform and sensible immigration policy that could help all of our prosperity? No, instead they want to score points about issues that are peripheral to most of the population like gay marriage, poker machines and boat people. Frankly, I despair about the quality of people on all sides of the political divide. It is impossible to imagine any party at the moment having the foresight, intellect or will to implement ground breaking reforms that their predecessors did such as floating the dollar, introducing the GST or establishing Medicare. Instead of actually doing anything, all that anyone in government seems to care about is winning the battle of the 24-hour news cycle.
Apart from the obvious examples of television programming and our political leaders, if you look deeper, this preference for "bling" over substance is prevalent everywhere. I for one have always found it bizarre that the average Herald Sun reader can castigate teachers for going on strike over seeking a pay rise of about 4-5% but at the same time defend someone like Travis Cloke seeking over $1 million a year for playing football. Now, let me think, a teacher is responsible for ensuring your children get a proper education, while the other catches a bit of leather and kicks it 15 times on a weekend - mostly not through the big sticks, either. While I do enjoy my weekly fix of football (especially like this weekend when St Kilda were playing the Gold Coast), I know who I'd much rather see get the loot.
It's high time we reversed this appalling and frankly, worrying trend and started showing some respect, appreciation and admiration for those who warrant it rather than some dimwit who manages to get their head on television for a few minutes. To get most people's attention though for our hard working and/or eminent Australians, we might need to stoop to the lowest common denominator. Maybe we should concoct a reality TV show where the people who invent our vaccines, donate millions to charity or successfully run our public companies sit in judgement of the likes of Mark Holden, Dicko or Matt Preston? Imagine Paul Keating giving that pompous twat Preston one of his legendary sprays, now that would be great television. Or maybe we could have a Gladiator-style show where say Geoff Dixon got to throw custard pies at his simpering Irish successor or the fund manager dingbats who scuttled the $6 buyout of Qantas five years ago? That alone would be worth the price of a Foxtel subscription.
In the meantime though television remains a wasteland, so I think I will spend this Queen's Birthday Monday night reading through all of our new ACs, AOs and AMs. Now THERE is a list which reconfirms one's faith in human nature. Plenty of doctors, philanthropists and judges, and not a Big Brother contestant or celebrity chef in sight. The trick is now to get people to aspire to get on that list instead of aspiring to get on television.
21 April 2012
Curiosity Gets a Bad Rap
In light of the time since my last publication I have had a couple of people ask me whether I have suddenly become satisfied with the way the world operates and therefore no longer have a need to write this blog. I can assure you that the answer to both these questions is a resounding "no". I have however been busy with other matters which have required my attention but having found a couple of quiet hours on the weekend, I can now complete my latest missive.
After all the political idiocy on Labor's part over the last couple of months and the retarded utterancess of the cashed-up bogans who run the mining industry, it is very tempting to unload once more on these easy targets. However instead I intend turning my mouse and keyboard to a less obvious subject, namely that much-maligned and vastly underestimated human quality, curiosity.
I was prompted to choose this topic by a passage I came across in Stephen Fry's latest autobiography. He was reminiscing about his school days and lamenting the fact that so many people often use the excuse that they weren't taught something in school as a basis for explaining away a gap in their knowledge. He made the very good point that humans have been blessed with an enquiring mind so why is it that so many of us rely on being spoon-fed learning at school or university as opposed to being sufficiently driven to find things out for ourselves? Especially, as he rightly points out, that since the establishment of the Internet, we have for the first time in human history almost all of the world's learning at our disposal with a simple click of a button.
It's a very valid point he raises but like a lot of puzzling deficiencies in humankind, I suspect the answer can be found in how people are brought up, the conditioning that our parents give us as children and the behavioural expectations of society that we are all expected to conform to. For example, how many times can you remember being told as a child: "Mind your own business !"or "Don't be nosy?". I know it happened to me a lot, as having been raised practically as an only child I had to keep myself amused from a young age and was always sticking my nose into places that it wasn't necessarily welcome.
Another tired expression which is used to berate people for showing an undue level of interest in someone or somebody is "Curiosity killed the cat, you know?". I've always found this expression somewhat odd, as apart from those occasions involving the torture of a creature lower than them in the food chain, most cats of my acquaintance have not displayed much curiosity at all. Indolence, capriciousness, duplicity and cruelty, certainly - but curiosity, no. These qualities are part of the reason cats would make such great human resources directors if they could just speak a bit more English.
It turns out though that the expression dates back to the 16th century and in fact appeared in its original form as "Care killed the cat" (which is equally as strange) but some time over the past 400 years it has evolved into its current form. See, there you go, show a bit of thirst for knowledge and this and trillions of other unhelpful facts are yours for the keeping.
While it is true that humans value their privacy to a degree and all of us carry around secrets of one kind or another, the fact is that the parental sanctions and trite admonishments I have mentioned above are by and large a load of rubbish. The simple fact is that most people I have come across in life welcome you taking an interest in them and what they do, and enjoy nothing more than talking about themselves. On the odd occasion where one crosses the line into "no go"areas, they will usually pull you up, but then more than likely blurt out what you wanted to know anyway, often in far more explicit detail than you originally sought.
Deep down I think we all know this to be true. Certainly Mark Zuckerberg did, otherwise he wouldn't have made squillions from establishing Facebook. If humans were inherently reluctant to share things with other people, then why would they publish their tedious daily routines or dirty laundry on the internet where millions of strangers can read it?
Apart from the benefits of discovering friends deepest darkest secrets and unearthing useless facts on the internet, the other benefit of a curious mind is that will generally lead you to greater success than if you just go with the flow and accept things at face value. I have accumulated a lot of acquaintances over the years both in a professional and personal capacity, and it is generally the ones who go the extra mile in terms of listening to others, gathering information and working out how to draw the right conclusions from it who have met with the greatest success. Those I have met who are self-absorbed and think they know everything have usually suffered a come-uppance at some point.
In fact, I would go so far as to say as not having the ability or the inclination to make due enquiry about things is downright dangerous. For example, time and again we see on vapid current affairs programs stories about people who have signed over their life savings to con men when seeking the right advice or even asking a few simple questions would have exposed the crooks for what they were and even better, given these shows one less story to put on air. I think it's terrible that people do this sort of thing to other people, but I would be lying if I said I had any sympathy whatsoever for their victims.
Unfortunately, in an age where we are constantly bombarded with information from numerous media sources, much of it conflicting, humans' ability to concentrate for more than 5 minutes, take in the right information and then probe further to find out what is really happening seems to be alarmingly on the wane. You see evidence of this when newspapers print verbatim press releases from companies or governments instead of delving further to get to the real message behind the spin. You see it where media like Twitter with its pithy soundbytes spring up overnight and prove incredibly successful at the expense of more comprehensive and considered media formats. And, most regrettably, you see it all the time in workplaces nowadays where bosses wilfully ignore the advice of highly qualified and skilled employees in favour of something that appeared that morning in a "Financial Review" headline.
So, people - use that brain that evolution gave you (or for all you Republican presidential candidates, God gave you when he created the world 6000 years ago). Feel free to enquire, probe and do whatever else you need to in order to find out what you want to know. I promise you, the rewards from a personal and professional perspective will far outweigh any backlash you might get from the odd curmudgeon who might resent the intrusion.
As for the cat, I am pretty sure it wasn't curiosity which did it in. Doubtless the cat would have displayed far worse attributes than that over the course of its pampered life, all of which are more likely to have caused its demise than poor old curiosity. And in any case, the cat will be all right in the end, as apparently it has 9 lives.
Now where did THAT expression come from? Must dash, got to get straight on to Wikipedia.
After all the political idiocy on Labor's part over the last couple of months and the retarded utterancess of the cashed-up bogans who run the mining industry, it is very tempting to unload once more on these easy targets. However instead I intend turning my mouse and keyboard to a less obvious subject, namely that much-maligned and vastly underestimated human quality, curiosity.
I was prompted to choose this topic by a passage I came across in Stephen Fry's latest autobiography. He was reminiscing about his school days and lamenting the fact that so many people often use the excuse that they weren't taught something in school as a basis for explaining away a gap in their knowledge. He made the very good point that humans have been blessed with an enquiring mind so why is it that so many of us rely on being spoon-fed learning at school or university as opposed to being sufficiently driven to find things out for ourselves? Especially, as he rightly points out, that since the establishment of the Internet, we have for the first time in human history almost all of the world's learning at our disposal with a simple click of a button.
It's a very valid point he raises but like a lot of puzzling deficiencies in humankind, I suspect the answer can be found in how people are brought up, the conditioning that our parents give us as children and the behavioural expectations of society that we are all expected to conform to. For example, how many times can you remember being told as a child: "Mind your own business !"or "Don't be nosy?". I know it happened to me a lot, as having been raised practically as an only child I had to keep myself amused from a young age and was always sticking my nose into places that it wasn't necessarily welcome.
Another tired expression which is used to berate people for showing an undue level of interest in someone or somebody is "Curiosity killed the cat, you know?". I've always found this expression somewhat odd, as apart from those occasions involving the torture of a creature lower than them in the food chain, most cats of my acquaintance have not displayed much curiosity at all. Indolence, capriciousness, duplicity and cruelty, certainly - but curiosity, no. These qualities are part of the reason cats would make such great human resources directors if they could just speak a bit more English.
It turns out though that the expression dates back to the 16th century and in fact appeared in its original form as "Care killed the cat" (which is equally as strange) but some time over the past 400 years it has evolved into its current form. See, there you go, show a bit of thirst for knowledge and this and trillions of other unhelpful facts are yours for the keeping.
While it is true that humans value their privacy to a degree and all of us carry around secrets of one kind or another, the fact is that the parental sanctions and trite admonishments I have mentioned above are by and large a load of rubbish. The simple fact is that most people I have come across in life welcome you taking an interest in them and what they do, and enjoy nothing more than talking about themselves. On the odd occasion where one crosses the line into "no go"areas, they will usually pull you up, but then more than likely blurt out what you wanted to know anyway, often in far more explicit detail than you originally sought.
Deep down I think we all know this to be true. Certainly Mark Zuckerberg did, otherwise he wouldn't have made squillions from establishing Facebook. If humans were inherently reluctant to share things with other people, then why would they publish their tedious daily routines or dirty laundry on the internet where millions of strangers can read it?
Apart from the benefits of discovering friends deepest darkest secrets and unearthing useless facts on the internet, the other benefit of a curious mind is that will generally lead you to greater success than if you just go with the flow and accept things at face value. I have accumulated a lot of acquaintances over the years both in a professional and personal capacity, and it is generally the ones who go the extra mile in terms of listening to others, gathering information and working out how to draw the right conclusions from it who have met with the greatest success. Those I have met who are self-absorbed and think they know everything have usually suffered a come-uppance at some point.
In fact, I would go so far as to say as not having the ability or the inclination to make due enquiry about things is downright dangerous. For example, time and again we see on vapid current affairs programs stories about people who have signed over their life savings to con men when seeking the right advice or even asking a few simple questions would have exposed the crooks for what they were and even better, given these shows one less story to put on air. I think it's terrible that people do this sort of thing to other people, but I would be lying if I said I had any sympathy whatsoever for their victims.
Unfortunately, in an age where we are constantly bombarded with information from numerous media sources, much of it conflicting, humans' ability to concentrate for more than 5 minutes, take in the right information and then probe further to find out what is really happening seems to be alarmingly on the wane. You see evidence of this when newspapers print verbatim press releases from companies or governments instead of delving further to get to the real message behind the spin. You see it where media like Twitter with its pithy soundbytes spring up overnight and prove incredibly successful at the expense of more comprehensive and considered media formats. And, most regrettably, you see it all the time in workplaces nowadays where bosses wilfully ignore the advice of highly qualified and skilled employees in favour of something that appeared that morning in a "Financial Review" headline.
So, people - use that brain that evolution gave you (or for all you Republican presidential candidates, God gave you when he created the world 6000 years ago). Feel free to enquire, probe and do whatever else you need to in order to find out what you want to know. I promise you, the rewards from a personal and professional perspective will far outweigh any backlash you might get from the odd curmudgeon who might resent the intrusion.
As for the cat, I am pretty sure it wasn't curiosity which did it in. Doubtless the cat would have displayed far worse attributes than that over the course of its pampered life, all of which are more likely to have caused its demise than poor old curiosity. And in any case, the cat will be all right in the end, as apparently it has 9 lives.
Now where did THAT expression come from? Must dash, got to get straight on to Wikipedia.
12 January 2012
Exhuming Keynes
A new year is once again upon us, and invariably people's thoughts are drawn to what is going to happen during the course of 2012. Now that the Australian test team finally seem to have found some bowlers capable of taking 20 wickets and no Australian of either gender has anything more than a remote chance of winning the Australian Open, there is little immediately of concern on the sporting front, so it's perhaps not surprising that minds turn towards the global economic situation. Will the USA start to recover, as recent data suggests it might? Will China continue to prop up Australia with its demand for our resources? And perhaps most importantly, what is the fallout from the current mess in Europe going to be?
The last one in particular is a question I find myself discussing a lot with colleagues in the industry, probably because funds management depends a lot for its prosperity on investor confidence and when a major part of the world's economy like Europe keeps imploding, confidence takes a battering and investors tend to put their money under the bed instead of riskier assets like shares or property. The short answer of course is that no-one really knows how the situation in Europe is going to play out over the course of the coming year and probably the only accurate prediction one can make is that there is going to be a lot more volatility in the market before a clear direction emerges. However as a student of history, I do have a growing sense of alarm at some of the measures that are being imposed on the PIIGS countries by the stronger European nations, as they are eerily reminiscent of the 1930s thinking that led to the Great Depression.
Before I elaborate on that last statement, I have to confess that I find the whole concept of European economic union quite intriguing. For a bunch of countries as socially, politically and economically diverse as the Europeans to suddenly put millenia of fighting and arguing with each other in the space of 50 years after World War 2 is quite remarkable when you think about it. This is especially when you consider that a key reason for the success that each of the major European nations like Britain, Spain, France and Germany had with their empire building was because they were all so diverse and competitive, and continually strived to outdo each other both in an economic and military sense. To all of a sudden cede what made each of them great and throw their lot in with each other is quite puzzling on one level. However, assuming everything went according to plan, you can understand the logic as together the Euro countries represent a formidable trading bloc.
The problem is now though that despite being joined economically, the political and cultural diversity of each of the member states lives on and is probably the major reason why there are serious concerns about the whole Eurozone unravelling. I think it is far too simplistic as the media have done to paint a picture of the industrious north having to bail out the indolent south, but equally it is true that the wildly disparate domestic policies of the different member states have had, and will continue to have, a major effect on how the whole crisis plays out. The fact that the governments that are most in trouble like Greece, Italy and Ireland don't have control over either their currency or fiscal policy just exacerbates the problems they face.
So, what's to be done? Well, thus far the leaders of the more prosperous member countries have done a lot of "tut tutting" and insisted on the likes of Greece and Italy passing significant austerity measures and raising taxes with a view to bringing their debt levels under control. On the face of it, this seems sensible to most people - after all, what is the course individual households take when facing tough financial times? They cut back on spending and work harder to try and make more money to help make ends meet. The problem with that thinking though is that when you apply it on a more macro or even national level, it usually winds up in a vicious spiral of unemployment and deflation that is very hard to break out of. Which is why it took an economic genius like John Maynard Keynes to demonstrate the folly of depression-era governments and show them the pathway back to prosperity.
Central to his thinking was the concept that during economic downturns, instead of scrimping and saving, governments needed to become relatively bigger spenders of money in order to generate employment and help fill the economic void left by the shrinking private sector. This way of thinking eventually became economic orthodoxy - even today governments generally take the view that during booms, they need to run surpluses and during downturns, they need to run deficits. Although watching Julia and Tony wringing their hands about Australia's infinitesimal debt, you kind of wonder whether this is still the case.
The only problem with this idea is when governments themselves go broke like they have already in Greece and are threatening to do in Italy, Spain, Portugal and Ireland. It's hard to spend money to support your flagging economy when you haven't got any of your own to spend and you can't borrow any more except at prohibitively high interest rates. This is the reason I think there is going to be no quick fix to the problems in Europe - the tried and true methods of dragging the economies out of depression simply aren't available to the leaders of the affected countries. Small wonder then is it that you are suddenly seeing a plethora of young Europeans in Australia working in pubs, restaurants and other service-related jobs. When there's no career for you back home, you might as well travel. It's also small wonder that the austerity measures are proving deeply unpopular in the countries that are being forced to impose them. Anyone with half a brain can see what the ultimate effect is going to be, and it isn't going to be pretty.
European leaders therefore find themselves on a very sticky wicket, with precious little economic ammunition to deal with the problems. This I acknowledge, but at the same time what I find a little frustrating is the lack of creativity being brought to bear on the situation. Clearly, countries like Greece need to take their medicine to an extent and implement political reforms which will help stop this sort of thing happening again. But to simply give these countries a spanking and make them tighten their belts is not going to lead the way out of recession.
Creative solutions for boosting economic activity and bringing liquidity back to credit markets are desperately needed, but the leaders could do a lot worse than simply starting with one of Keynes's basic principles. Right now, instead of working out how they can save money, they need to focus on how the hell they can spend it.
Over to you, Merkel, Sarkozy et al. Maybe start by having a little chat with the Chinese. They seem to be doing all right.
The last one in particular is a question I find myself discussing a lot with colleagues in the industry, probably because funds management depends a lot for its prosperity on investor confidence and when a major part of the world's economy like Europe keeps imploding, confidence takes a battering and investors tend to put their money under the bed instead of riskier assets like shares or property. The short answer of course is that no-one really knows how the situation in Europe is going to play out over the course of the coming year and probably the only accurate prediction one can make is that there is going to be a lot more volatility in the market before a clear direction emerges. However as a student of history, I do have a growing sense of alarm at some of the measures that are being imposed on the PIIGS countries by the stronger European nations, as they are eerily reminiscent of the 1930s thinking that led to the Great Depression.
Before I elaborate on that last statement, I have to confess that I find the whole concept of European economic union quite intriguing. For a bunch of countries as socially, politically and economically diverse as the Europeans to suddenly put millenia of fighting and arguing with each other in the space of 50 years after World War 2 is quite remarkable when you think about it. This is especially when you consider that a key reason for the success that each of the major European nations like Britain, Spain, France and Germany had with their empire building was because they were all so diverse and competitive, and continually strived to outdo each other both in an economic and military sense. To all of a sudden cede what made each of them great and throw their lot in with each other is quite puzzling on one level. However, assuming everything went according to plan, you can understand the logic as together the Euro countries represent a formidable trading bloc.
The problem is now though that despite being joined economically, the political and cultural diversity of each of the member states lives on and is probably the major reason why there are serious concerns about the whole Eurozone unravelling. I think it is far too simplistic as the media have done to paint a picture of the industrious north having to bail out the indolent south, but equally it is true that the wildly disparate domestic policies of the different member states have had, and will continue to have, a major effect on how the whole crisis plays out. The fact that the governments that are most in trouble like Greece, Italy and Ireland don't have control over either their currency or fiscal policy just exacerbates the problems they face.
So, what's to be done? Well, thus far the leaders of the more prosperous member countries have done a lot of "tut tutting" and insisted on the likes of Greece and Italy passing significant austerity measures and raising taxes with a view to bringing their debt levels under control. On the face of it, this seems sensible to most people - after all, what is the course individual households take when facing tough financial times? They cut back on spending and work harder to try and make more money to help make ends meet. The problem with that thinking though is that when you apply it on a more macro or even national level, it usually winds up in a vicious spiral of unemployment and deflation that is very hard to break out of. Which is why it took an economic genius like John Maynard Keynes to demonstrate the folly of depression-era governments and show them the pathway back to prosperity.
Central to his thinking was the concept that during economic downturns, instead of scrimping and saving, governments needed to become relatively bigger spenders of money in order to generate employment and help fill the economic void left by the shrinking private sector. This way of thinking eventually became economic orthodoxy - even today governments generally take the view that during booms, they need to run surpluses and during downturns, they need to run deficits. Although watching Julia and Tony wringing their hands about Australia's infinitesimal debt, you kind of wonder whether this is still the case.
The only problem with this idea is when governments themselves go broke like they have already in Greece and are threatening to do in Italy, Spain, Portugal and Ireland. It's hard to spend money to support your flagging economy when you haven't got any of your own to spend and you can't borrow any more except at prohibitively high interest rates. This is the reason I think there is going to be no quick fix to the problems in Europe - the tried and true methods of dragging the economies out of depression simply aren't available to the leaders of the affected countries. Small wonder then is it that you are suddenly seeing a plethora of young Europeans in Australia working in pubs, restaurants and other service-related jobs. When there's no career for you back home, you might as well travel. It's also small wonder that the austerity measures are proving deeply unpopular in the countries that are being forced to impose them. Anyone with half a brain can see what the ultimate effect is going to be, and it isn't going to be pretty.
European leaders therefore find themselves on a very sticky wicket, with precious little economic ammunition to deal with the problems. This I acknowledge, but at the same time what I find a little frustrating is the lack of creativity being brought to bear on the situation. Clearly, countries like Greece need to take their medicine to an extent and implement political reforms which will help stop this sort of thing happening again. But to simply give these countries a spanking and make them tighten their belts is not going to lead the way out of recession.
Creative solutions for boosting economic activity and bringing liquidity back to credit markets are desperately needed, but the leaders could do a lot worse than simply starting with one of Keynes's basic principles. Right now, instead of working out how they can save money, they need to focus on how the hell they can spend it.
Over to you, Merkel, Sarkozy et al. Maybe start by having a little chat with the Chinese. They seem to be doing all right.
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