About 2,500 years ago, something really BIG happened in history.
The Greeks gave us Democracy. No, they did not give us Economics.
But to this day, they have felt safe in the knowledge the world owes them. No “Grexit” anytime soon.
And ever since then, those in power have had to face in regular intervals those who for a defined period of time have entrusted them with that power – their voters – and convince these to let them stay in office.
We live in difficult times. Just by fleetingly following the news you cannot but feel Europe and the wider Mediterranean world, the cradle of our Western civilisation, are in flames – the largely unresolved Euro zone crisis; the daily killing of innocent people by terrorists; the “Arab Spring” gone terribly wrong; migrants and refugees arriving 24/7 in a seemingly unstoppable flow of humanity; the distinct possibility of military conflict with Russia; and ever-clearer social, economic, and educational fault lines within our societies.
And faced with all of this, and then some, like rabbits caught in headlights, are our elected officials and the governments they form – the politicians who have no clue whatsoever what to do about any of these problems but are motivated by one thought, and one thought only: to be re-elected.
Not necessarily because of their strong convictions, or driven by a burning desire to turn these into glorious reality for everybody, but simply because it’s so much more fun to be in Parliament than not; to be in Government than in Opposition; and to be ithe Cabinet rather than just a humble back bencher.
I distinctly remember 8 October 2013, a Tuesday.
Then European Union (EU) Commission President José Manuel Barroso for the day flew down to the Italian island of Lampedusa – a blip of land of 20-odd square kilometres actually located closer to Tunisia than to Europe and traditionally the primary entry point for those poor people trying to escape from the plight of sub-Saharan Africa and the turmoil of the Middle East who have somehow survived their long land journey and the passage across that stretch of the Mediterranean. Barroso went there for some photo ops and the delivery of sympathetic sound bites to cameras of the accompanying TV crews. Having shed an appropriate amount of crocodile tears, he boarded his private jet again and returned to the relative safety and absolute comfort of Brussels, leaving behind the hapless migrants and the helpless local island administration.
Fast-forward from the boss' no doubt stressful whirlwind visit to the front lines,
in Lampedusa two summers later the situation has actually become worse than ever, beyond crisis point really. But who cares. For EU politicians, bureaucrats, and their staffers, life in Brussels and Strasbourg is still good.
For ordinary people in Athens, it is less so.
Not knowing how to address the seminal issues and challenges we jointly face – and I’m the first to admit I don’t have ready solutions either, but then I don’t run for office and subsequently get well remunerated, tax-free mind, to come up with the answers – politicians will go for the low-hanging fruit.
It’s important to be seen to be doing something, anything in order to secure that Holy Grail, re-election.
The latest project, by the way, and I kid you not, that EU bureaucrats and Parliamentarians have vowed to dedicate their rich and seemingly unlimited resources to – the Americans have a term for special offers in restaurants and bars on (sadly mostly soft) drinks that you can get as many free refills for as you like: “they’re bottomless” – is bringing in sync the time that elapses between the red, the amber, and the green phases on traffic lights across the 28 Member States, from the Danube Delta to Derry; from Lapland to, dare I say it, Lampedusa.
The magic word, encapsulating the very raison d’être for all things EU, is Harmonisation.
Now, as long as legislation as per the above example is totally irrelevant to all citizens, this is a low-risk approach to succeeding in the democratically elected politicians’ mission of job protection.
But slowly running out of nonsensical things to regulate - there's probably a top-secret internal task force of highly-paid bureaucrats, the best brains from 28 Member States, working on identifying opportunities (the curvature and length of bananas and cucumbers have sadly already been covered) - and driven by the ever-pressing need to be seen to be doing something, anything, they are now more and more setting their sights on other “easy” stuff in urgent need of being taken care of.
Enter broader lifestyle regulation.
The reality being, of course, that 90 per cent of adults / voters consume alcohol, snack on confectionary, and imbibe sugary sodas, at least from time to time.
So by extending the precautionary principle that seems to have worked so well with smoking to just about everything the vast majority of people enjoys doing, politicians may actually be derailing and hitting a wall called electorate.
Plus, just imagine PP for Tanqueray Gin, Mars Bars, and Coca-Cola? You thought “Big Tobacco” was tough? Well, brace yourselves.
In France, much to crusader Health Minister Marisol Touraine's dismay, the Loi Evin of 1991 (!) which severely restricts not just advertising for alcohol and tobacco products, but also other forms of communication about them, has just been amended to exempt to a certain degree products of “cultural heritage” – a huge success for the French wine industry of course that has some grounds to claim their products are indeed reflective of France’s heritage and a prop indispensable to the foreigner’s stereotypical picture of a Frenchman, along with la baguette, les Gauloises, la moustache, and le képi?
Meanwhile, in Australia - once upon a time truly the continent of the free and easy, populated with guys and sheilas enjoying a barbee on the beach, consuming red meat, cold beer, and, the horror, ciggies - that has, unremarked by the rest of the world, become the ultimate Nanny State (just try getting a late-night beer in Sydney, and you will know what I mean), David Leyonhjelm, Senator (MP) for New South Wales, representing the Liberal Democratic Party, has launched a parliamentary inquiry by the Economics References Committee. Its remit:
But to this day, they have felt safe in the knowledge the world owes them. No “Grexit” anytime soon.
And ever since then, those in power have had to face in regular intervals those who for a defined period of time have entrusted them with that power – their voters – and convince these to let them stay in office.
We live in difficult times. Just by fleetingly following the news you cannot but feel Europe and the wider Mediterranean world, the cradle of our Western civilisation, are in flames – the largely unresolved Euro zone crisis; the daily killing of innocent people by terrorists; the “Arab Spring” gone terribly wrong; migrants and refugees arriving 24/7 in a seemingly unstoppable flow of humanity; the distinct possibility of military conflict with Russia; and ever-clearer social, economic, and educational fault lines within our societies.
And faced with all of this, and then some, like rabbits caught in headlights, are our elected officials and the governments they form – the politicians who have no clue whatsoever what to do about any of these problems but are motivated by one thought, and one thought only: to be re-elected.
Not necessarily because of their strong convictions, or driven by a burning desire to turn these into glorious reality for everybody, but simply because it’s so much more fun to be in Parliament than not; to be in Government than in Opposition; and to be ithe Cabinet rather than just a humble back bencher.
I distinctly remember 8 October 2013, a Tuesday.
Then European Union (EU) Commission President José Manuel Barroso for the day flew down to the Italian island of Lampedusa – a blip of land of 20-odd square kilometres actually located closer to Tunisia than to Europe and traditionally the primary entry point for those poor people trying to escape from the plight of sub-Saharan Africa and the turmoil of the Middle East who have somehow survived their long land journey and the passage across that stretch of the Mediterranean. Barroso went there for some photo ops and the delivery of sympathetic sound bites to cameras of the accompanying TV crews. Having shed an appropriate amount of crocodile tears, he boarded his private jet again and returned to the relative safety and absolute comfort of Brussels, leaving behind the hapless migrants and the helpless local island administration.
Fast-forward from the boss' no doubt stressful whirlwind visit to the front lines,
in Lampedusa two summers later the situation has actually become worse than ever, beyond crisis point really. But who cares. For EU politicians, bureaucrats, and their staffers, life in Brussels and Strasbourg is still good.
For ordinary people in Athens, it is less so.
Not knowing how to address the seminal issues and challenges we jointly face – and I’m the first to admit I don’t have ready solutions either, but then I don’t run for office and subsequently get well remunerated, tax-free mind, to come up with the answers – politicians will go for the low-hanging fruit.
It’s important to be seen to be doing something, anything in order to secure that Holy Grail, re-election.
The latest project, by the way, and I kid you not, that EU bureaucrats and Parliamentarians have vowed to dedicate their rich and seemingly unlimited resources to – the Americans have a term for special offers in restaurants and bars on (sadly mostly soft) drinks that you can get as many free refills for as you like: “they’re bottomless” – is bringing in sync the time that elapses between the red, the amber, and the green phases on traffic lights across the 28 Member States, from the Danube Delta to Derry; from Lapland to, dare I say it, Lampedusa.
The magic word, encapsulating the very raison d’être for all things EU, is Harmonisation.
Now, as long as legislation as per the above example is totally irrelevant to all citizens, this is a low-risk approach to succeeding in the democratically elected politicians’ mission of job protection.
But slowly running out of nonsensical things to regulate - there's probably a top-secret internal task force of highly-paid bureaucrats, the best brains from 28 Member States, working on identifying opportunities (the curvature and length of bananas and cucumbers have sadly already been covered) - and driven by the ever-pressing need to be seen to be doing something, anything, they are now more and more setting their sights on other “easy” stuff in urgent need of being taken care of.
Enter broader lifestyle regulation.
The reality being, of course, that 90 per cent of adults / voters consume alcohol, snack on confectionary, and imbibe sugary sodas, at least from time to time.
So by extending the precautionary principle that seems to have worked so well with smoking to just about everything the vast majority of people enjoys doing, politicians may actually be derailing and hitting a wall called electorate.
Plus, just imagine PP for Tanqueray Gin, Mars Bars, and Coca-Cola? You thought “Big Tobacco” was tough? Well, brace yourselves.
In France, much to crusader Health Minister Marisol Touraine's dismay, the Loi Evin of 1991 (!) which severely restricts not just advertising for alcohol and tobacco products, but also other forms of communication about them, has just been amended to exempt to a certain degree products of “cultural heritage” – a huge success for the French wine industry of course that has some grounds to claim their products are indeed reflective of France’s heritage and a prop indispensable to the foreigner’s stereotypical picture of a Frenchman, along with la baguette, les Gauloises, la moustache, and le képi?
Meanwhile, in Australia - once upon a time truly the continent of the free and easy, populated with guys and sheilas enjoying a barbee on the beach, consuming red meat, cold beer, and, the horror, ciggies - that has, unremarked by the rest of the world, become the ultimate Nanny State (just try getting a late-night beer in Sydney, and you will know what I mean), David Leyonhjelm, Senator (MP) for New South Wales, representing the Liberal Democratic Party, has launched a parliamentary inquiry by the Economics References Committee. Its remit:
“The economic and social impact of legislation, policies or Commonwealth guidelines, with particular reference to:
(a) the sale and use of tobacco, tobacco products, nicotine products, and e-cigarettes, including any impact on the health, enjoyment and finances of users and non-users;
(b) the sale and service of alcohol, including any impact on crime and the health, enjoyment and finances of drinkers and non-drinkers;
(c) the sale and use of marijuana and associated products, including any impact on the health, enjoyment and finances of users and non-users;
(d) bicycle helmet laws, including any impact on the health, enjoyment and finances of cyclists and non-cyclists;
(e) the classification of publications, films and computer games; and
(f) any other measures introduced to restrict personal choice ‘for the individual’s own good’.” [my emphasis]
And finally, billionaire Michael Bloomberg, former Mayor of New York City who famously failed in his attempt to introduce a levy on oversized sweetened fizzy drinks while in office and has traditionally been a bona-fide leader of the anti-tobacco brigades, recently shocked many of his long-time friends and allies when he stated in public that government regulation of the tobacco industry had gone too far and defended smokers’ rights: “It must be permitted to kill oneself.”
Bill and Melinda Gates, along with the good folks at the U.S. “Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids”, must have asked themselves what their old buddy had been smoking. To be honest, I wondered too.
Elegantly returning to Economics, the Gates' would have to make a very conscious effort if they wanted to live beyond their means - unlike the rest of us, both as individuals and as citizens of countries where many politicians have been practicing state-sponsored largesse too long and too indiscriminately in their quest for popularity and re-election. It is maybe no coincidence the Greeks gave us the system of political Democracy but not the ideal of fiscal Discipline.
And until recently, 2008 to be precise, ever since the end od World War Two, things had been going too well in Western countries to worry about incurring debt and the inevitable need one day to have to pay it back. But now, we all live in a VUCA world – one characterised by Volatility, Uncertainty, Complexity, and Ambiguity; and less and less responsibly governed by those we entrust with running it, our elected politicians.
Elegantly returning to Economics, the Gates' would have to make a very conscious effort if they wanted to live beyond their means - unlike the rest of us, both as individuals and as citizens of countries where many politicians have been practicing state-sponsored largesse too long and too indiscriminately in their quest for popularity and re-election. It is maybe no coincidence the Greeks gave us the system of political Democracy but not the ideal of fiscal Discipline.
And until recently, 2008 to be precise, ever since the end od World War Two, things had been going too well in Western countries to worry about incurring debt and the inevitable need one day to have to pay it back. But now, we all live in a VUCA world – one characterised by Volatility, Uncertainty, Complexity, and Ambiguity; and less and less responsibly governed by those we entrust with running it, our elected politicians.
I remember when my eldest daughter Nora went off to study at Oxford University and I made the terrible mistake of transferring her the funds she needed for her living expenses not on a monthly basis, but for the whole first trimester in advance (and I can’t resist adding it’s the one called Michaelmas, followed by Hilary, and Trinity).
Well, after four weeks she contacted me to say she had spent the money and could I please send more. She had simply not grasped the concept of a budget – that basically you cannot spend more than you have in the period of time you have it for.
In her own endearing and irresistible way, she had disregarded The Micawber Principle.
“The what?” you may well ask.
In Charles Dickens’ novel David Copperfield (published in 1850), there is a character called Wilkins Micawber, who has become famous through the ages for his unshakeable hope that “something will turn up”.
Today, the Merriam-Webster Dictionary defines a “Micawber” as "one who is poor but lives in optimistic expectation of better fortune".
But Mr Micawber was not alone in the world – in addition to fending for himself, he had to feed a numerous family. Thrown into debtors’ prison for failing to pay back the money he owed to his creditors, he learned the hard way about the very simple necessity of keeping to a budget:
"Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure nineteen pounds nineteen and six, result happiness. Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure twenty pounds nought and six, result misery."
Maybe the infamous Troika, aka “The Institutions” should distribute copies of David Copperfield in Greece.
In my professional life, I have found that not overspending budgets is one of three principles of sound management, along with not missing deadlines and not doing typos. Result success.
