Going Broke Together
1.There is a weekly German TV program dedicated to the background of the news. A recent segment introduced its public to the way Giuliani has made order in New York. The story described the city as having been a murder capital and its subways as a combat zone. Giuliani’s illustrated policy of “no tolerance” followed. Severe chastisement for even minor crimes, the extensive police presence and the neighborhood patrols made for good footage. Close to the finish, the Mayor’s success got the credit it deserves. The case reminds one of Uribe’s accomplishments in Colombia. His resolute actions against the Communist guerilla created security and an economic upswing. Between 2004 and 2008 the GNP doubled and the FDI tripled. Even in the globally recessionary 2009, Colombia’s growth continued.
Therefore, the concluding sentences of the report came as a surprise. Yes, the security the inhabitants now enjoy is outstanding. Many other locations have reasons to envy New York for what it has accomplished by going after even petty crime with rigorous enforcement and omnipresent cops. At that juncture, one would have expected a hint that the concept should be applied elsewhere. Instead of that, the commentary broke with the pattern of its tune and shifted to standard PC. A remark followed that went approximately this way: New York has, through policing and enforcement achieved security. “But would we really want to pay this price”?
The conclusion helps us to understand – once again – what is wrong with our political culture and why public security is going the way of the Dodo bird. Put our leaders, opinion makers and tainted-lens-wearers to a test. A choice is to be made. On the one hand, there is the safety within the confines of the law that productive citizens demand. On the other hand, we have the protection of the rights of impostors whose behavior provoked the issue raised here. Defying logic and all concepts of fairness, the choice of our elites is that the latter group’s rights, by referring to due process, are to be protected. The hard-to-execute and contradictory formula seems to be “content criminals, secure citizens”.
2. Oil discoveries have an odd feature. Especially new reserves are likely to be found in poor world neighborhoods. Generally, such occasions are universally celebrated. The consumers, representing mainly developed economies, rejoice because this means a postponement of “peak oil”. Additionally, textbook economics would make one expect a sense of relief due to the decline of the price in response to the expanding supply. However, oil is in every aspect of its discovery, exploitation, refinement and distribution a regulated commodity. By now, many are aware of the lack of a free market for oil derivates. It is also common knowledge that supply and price are, in the case of this resource, separated Siamese twins.
Significant national income derived from a lucky quirk of nature – oil and the like – will have a little discussed effect. It will give you more of what you already had. If you have good government and a just, that is merit based social order, then these features will firm and the system will improve. If you have an institutionalized tradition that includes the dictatorial abuse of power and a corruption that is pervasive because it is seen as normal, then there will be more of that. This is the reason why countries with “oil”, or some other resource that can make the humble well-off and the well-off richer, do not always make it out of poverty and oppression. The discovery of prerequisites that could make everybody comfortable make tyranny, economic abuse and corruption, into better paying propositions than they were before nature has opened up its purse. Succinctly put, the “rule” could be: “No oil, no Chavez”. Perhaps, before the sudden access to the revenue from a resource, the profit from what could be siphoned off society, amounted to one camel. With the new funds pouring in, the possibilities grow explosively. The one camel to be had at the outset multiplies into a herd that those with power are enabled to steal.
3. A ridiculous but telling case and a fitting theory. The writer would curl up laughing if only there would be no innocent victims embedded in the story. Bureaucracies, wherever they are, differ only in the extent they are inclined to abuse, unintentionally or knowingly, their power. In this endeavor, a country with a federal democratic tradition is handicapped and thus it is unlikely to set world records. Even so, good tries abound.
In the case of the USA the IRS, freed from some of the controls other institutions are subjected to, is busy not only to collect money but is also dedicated to produce “good stories”. Most of these are frightening but also funny as long as you are not directly affected by the man-made tragedy that might be caused. The other government agency that is apt to act like a berserk rodeo-bull is the INS. The incident that is re-told here briefly, seems to your correspondent as another news item that, under its surface, has more to tell than what the story amounts to by itself. It all begins with an American girl who gets involved in a correspondence with another Ph.D. candidate who happens to be a German-British double citizen. In time, they decide to meet. Years of travel follow. Ultimately, the two decide to marry. The groom enters the US on a 90-day visa. Thereafter, the couple follows “procedures” by applying for a residency permit for the man who holds two jobs. The complicated forms are filled out and filed. The rest seems to be a formality. It usually is. But not in this case.
The two Ph.D.s make a minor error as they fill out their papers. For a while, nothing happens. Then they are cited in and, as instructed, they put their material in order. Thereafter they are assured that there is no problem. The calm last until accidentally the file is sent over to an agency that evicts illegals. It is apparently an easy case, so the man gets arrested at work and is taken to jail. Before he could be deported and barred from entering the US for ten years, the wife and his employers succeed to have the error corrected and the prisoner is released.
The disproportional attempt at hard-nosed enforcement makes one think of the news from Arizona and the US-Mexican border. What strikes one as odd here is that it suggests that the law can be applied with petty rigor or that attempts can be undertaken to ignore it. Let it be inserted here that it is absurd that a state (AZ) needs to make a law to enforce the core of existing, but largely ignored, national/federal statutes. Equally astonishing is that doing so provokes Holocaust comparisons to add spice to the concoction. Voting power and party politics seem to count for more than the formal regulations that apply to the issue. The ease by which action can be taken also seems to play a role. What is ignored is the common sense review of cases. The out of proportion action ignored that the alien was an immigrant of great use to the host country. Furthermore, the marriage to a citizen has obviously been genuine and not a means entered into to circumvent the law.
4. Again that Greek crisis. Actually, this label is a misnomer. In reality, the Greeks are a minor dot in a big picture. Cheetah in Tarzan movies is a good comparison. Regardless of Brussels’ stiff upper lip, the crisis suggests that the EU and the € are in need of repair. The central theme is not the money that is now thrown at the wreckage. Nor is the issue the effect the succor will have if measured by what the Greeks will and can do in their own and Europe’s behalf. The core that is melting is the credibility of the EU and the IMF. The union’s management has transgressed. It ignored its own statutes and the common sense rules of precaution. After unwarranted admissions, out of courtesy for a member state, “Europe” ignored the signals that warned of the coming melt-down. The future might tell us that in overcoming the moment’s insolvency crisis, only the gap between fiction and reality was pasted over with a band-aid. Thereby, the foundations of the global economic order, including the sound finances of the rescuers were put into jeopardy.
5. Ultimately individuals and parties will be punished by their unprepared and under-informed electorates if Athens’ stumbling mutes into a general crisis. The ideology’s errors that moved nearly the parties that vied for power will be unmentioned. It is quite likely, that the main actors on the international scene, whether persons or institutions, will not receive the discredit for inspiring the failure either. This teaches us that it is natural to make mistakes. Correcting them by shouldering some sacrifice might also be possible. The case of angry Greek demonstrators that insist upon their right to spend, as they have become accustomed to, the money they do not have tell of the hindrances. The real challenge, however, is to assess mercilessly the causes of the reverse and to proceed from there to prevent the next tremor. This is the greatest challenge and failure at it is the norm.
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