USA: What's Wrong with Washington?

When president Obama says that American politics is effectively broken and beyond even his repair, then the time has come to wonder, just how can Washington be changed?

With Tuesday November 6th. fast approaching, The State and Washington, and the state of Washington are understandably top of the President's agenda, but if he's unable to fix the problem, then what hope is there for change in the capital of the erstwhile world's leading Nation?

Second Term Presidents are noted for their desire to leave some sort of lasting legacy, so will Obama really tackle the bribery and corruption, otherwise known as election contributions and lobbying, if he gets to serve a Second Term?

One thing's for sure, if the other guy gets in, he won't even try.

LIBOR: When the circus comes to town.

So the Interest Rate fixing kerfuffle has crossed the Atlantic, with another set of indignant and surprised investigators and commentators, but I am left to wonder what all the fuss is about.

A bunch of large corporations manipulate a market to their mutual advantages, so what's new?

Laws are broken and trust is abused, but that's why we pay for police and regulators. 

And it's not just the Financial Sector that's guilty, almost every business, and a great many individuals, will do dirty deeds if left to their own devices; but that is precisely why we legislate against monopolies and why business ethics are essential to free enterprise.

The only surprising thing here is the pretend outrage and ignorance that it goes on.

Financial Fraud: A very necessary evil?

Anyone believing that sustainable economcs will be a wonderful, egalitatian experience, should look closely at what is happening around the developed world today.

Setting aside the spreading popular unrest, it is the utter cluelessness of our politicians and business leaders that is most startling.

Europe much prefers to borrow than to build, and the new American Way is to plunge itself deeper into debt, rather than to fairly tax those who can well afford it: the economics of the madhouse.

But we all know the truth.

Over-consumption and over-population are flame and fuel, and cannot co-exist indefinitely, so, like it or not, we'd best get used to these changing circumstances.

It could be that the financial fraudsters and bent bankers have unwittingly given us a ray of hope. As global output falls, new economic systems and social structures will evolve to take us forward.

Sounds a bit utopian, though. And as the rest of us learn to live within this more austere environment, the rich and the greedy just become richer and greedier.

What's that about money is power, and power corrupts...

2012: A Year to remember?

Although 2011 was yet another year that many would prefer to forget, could 2012 buck the trend of recent history?

Keeping focused on the clear and present dangers facing us all becomes increasingly difficult as governments flounder and flap in the face of economic and political turmoil, but here are a few of the perenial problems that we would do well to remember:-

Climate change - denial is still surprisingly popular (and profitable).

Corruption - what used to be a Third-world condition has now reached epidemic proportions in the English-speaking world.

Over-population - not so much the elephant in the room, more the acid in the bathtub.

Pollution - from the plastic Pacific to any place else you care to look, the only question here is where to begin.

Iraq - it started with political isolation followed by sanctions and invasion: sound familiar?

If only one of these issues was even partially addressed, then 2012 might actually become a year worth remembering.

2011: A strange and eventful year

Lots of surprises this year, but which bit of 2011 didn't you understand?

Was it the Arab Spring, or why people don't really like dictators?

Fukushima, or why building nuclear reactors on geological fault lines might not be such a good idea?

Could it be Russia's singular example of how protest can be both peaceful and productive?

Perhaps you were puzzled at how the same bankers that screwed us last year (and the year before, and the year before that, and...) were allowed to carry on regardless?

Or was it how their rating agencies, so complicit in the financial collapse, now have opinions that can place the stability and viability of entire nations at risk?

There were many more ongoing oddities in the last 12 months, but what surprises me most about 2011, is that we seem consigned to more of the same in 2012.

Brazil: A nation saved by a game, again?

In the two years since my last visit, much has changed in Brazil.

Now proudly proclaiming itself the world's fifth largest economy, there is certainly plenty of evidence of growth and prosperity.

The potholes are disappearing, and large flat screen TVs, recently such a rarity, are now commonplace. Even the European car makers have ventured into the previously uncharted regions far away from Rio and Sao Paulo.

But it appears to end there.

Although government building continues apace, there are few signs of the crazy land-rush economics that left parts of Europe on the brink of collapse. And while consumer credit, and inflation, are rising, the population seem to be taking this new found prosperity in their collective stride.

What's so different here, then?

Well, it's not all been good news, because Brazil has struggled where it matters most: on the football field.

After an unconvincing Confederations Cup victory in 2009, the much anticipated 'homecoming' of Brazil's players of African heritage could not lift the first World Cup played on African soil in 2010.

Nor did their return to South American football fare any better, with an early exit from the 2011 Copa America.

Little wonder that the wild, spend, borrow, spend mentality, so characteristic of other booming economies, has not taken hold here. As so many pundits are quick to point out, financial growth is all about confidence.

And that confidence is under threat.

With Brazil hosting the 2014 World Cup, defeat might still be unthinkable, but it is no longer as unlikely as it once seemed.

Fitting, then, that a game which held a nation together when times were hard, should now be tempering and moderating that same nation, as times get better.

Does all this mean that Brazil can look forward to steady, sustainable growth?

Best wait to see what happens during June/July 2014.

Barack's bit of Blarney

The Merrie Month of May is almost done, and what a month it's been for the American President.

He got his man in Pakistan, slept at Buckingham Palace, and most importantly of all, discovered his roots in the Emerald Isle.

For once, the American public are seeing their leader as the rest of the world sees him: a charming and inteligent politician able to win hearts and minds, and the odd battle too.

The significance of all this has not been lost on the Republican Party, and Donald Trump has already ruled himself out of what is likely to be an unwinnable presidential race in 2012. At the same time, Sarah Palin is being promoted as a possible candidate, the words cannon and fodder seem to sit well together here.

So, what would a second term for Obama mean?

The world gets an extra four years of sanity, and maybe the Republicans get to reallize that the Palins and Trumps of this world are not what they, or us, or America, needs.