Friday 29 July 2011

Poor form

OK enough serious, wannabe-grown-up, pretending-like-I-understand-the-issues, boring discussions about politics. And back to something that I know a bit more about, and that I am fairly sure everyone can unanimously agree on: That government forms are silly. I also think they are hopelessly and unnecessarily complex, but that is a failing I have already lamented in an earlier post. Today I want to concentrate on their silliness.

I don’t think this silliness is confined to government forms in the USA. In fact I have experienced first hand the silliness of government forms throughout the world. The application for a Kenyan passport is gloriously silly in places, asking the applicant to list their “Colour of eyes”, “Colour of hair” and “Special peculiarities”. Honestly, what are you meant to put for this last question? “Er…well…where do I start? I have an inexplicably ardent passion for golden raspberries, a phobia of Tuesdays, and…I am a little sensitive about it…but since you ask…I have really pointy ears that people always say make me look like an elf”. But the last silly government form I filled in was an American green card application, so American forms will bear the brunt of this savage assault.

Well actually, hopefully it’s not that savage (he said, tittering nervously, and hoping that the government official reviewing his pending green card application can’t somehow access his blog…).

But here are some questions that I had to answer in my form. For each of them you had to check either a “Yes” or a “No” box:

Question 4

“Have you ever engaged in, conspired to engage in, or do you intend to engage in, or have you ever solicited membership or funds for, or have you through any means ever assisted or provided any type of material support to any person or organization that has ever engaged or conspired to engage in sabotage, kidnapping, political assassination, hijacking, or any other form of terrorist activity?”

Who checks the “Yes” box to that question? You would have to be a pretty honest terrorist to own up on a government form, right? I don’t know which is sillier – the form’s naïve optimism that a former or aspiring terrorist will confess his crimes, or that an expensive attorney clearly racked up significant fees drafting a wording for the question that was absolutely watertight.

Attorney: “Aha! I’ve got it! We won’t just ask them if they have engaged in terrorism or if they intend to engage in terrorism. We will ask them if they have conspired to engage in terrorism as well!”
Government official: “That’s inspired!”
Attorney: “Why thank you my good man. (That will be $4,000 please)”

Question 5 a)

“Do you intend to engage in the United States in espionage?”


Honestly, you would have to be THE WORST SPY IN THE WORLD to answer Yes to that question. Surely that is the first thing they teach you in spy school. “Do not admit to being a spy, as this will blow your cover”. You might imagine particularly stupid spies getting caught up by this question if it is asked in a really clever, subtle way, and they have to give an answer really quickly. But the form asks it in a really obvious, straightforward way. And the form-filling spy has all the time in the world to answer it. At least we can reassure ourselves that, even if stupid spies get help from their spymasters in answering this question on the form, we can reasonably assume that they might be tripped up when they arrive at the US border:

[A man wearing a long trench-coat, a pair of dark glasses and an obviously fake moustache, and carrying a magnifying glass and a newspaper with two eye-shaped holes in it, approaches the immigration counter]
Immigration officer: “Hello…Mr…er…Schmidt. Now I want you to think very carefully before answering this question. Are you a spy?”
Herr Schmidt: “Yes”. [4 seconds elapse]. “Vait…Vait…Vait…I mean Nein. I mean No. I meant No.”
Immigration officer: “Sorry I am going to have to take your first answer. Which was that you are a spy. Please go and join that line over there, which is composed of other confessant spies, saboteurs, political assassins, hijackers and other terrorists.”
Herr Schmidt: “Scheize! Alvays the same qvestion every time!”


Question 7

“Did you during the period from March 23, 1933 to May 8, 1945, in association with either the Nazi Government of Germany or any organization or government associated or allied with the Nazi Government of Germany, ever order, incite, assist, or otherwise participate in the persecution of any person because of race, religion, national origin, or political opinion?”

If you committed genocide on March 22, 1933, or May 11, 1945, in you come. (As long as you are not still spying for the Nazi Government of Germany – please see question 5a ).

And another silly thing about forms. They never leave enough space for your e-mail address. I am still waiting to hear back about my green card. And I am completely in the dark about whether that’s because I accidentally ticked “Yes” in the “Do you plan to indulge in espionage?” box, or because the e-mails they send to Jonathan.Pri_x@_____ keep bouncing back.

Toxic Debt


Again, speaking from the wonderful position of outside observer (wonderful because it justifies my complete ignorance), a few ramshackle thoughts on the grave debt crisis facing the “United” States of America.

I think it is generally the right thing for a country (and an individual) to maintain a balanced budget. I don’t think this is always the case. When a budding doctor is in medical school, they might be running up debts, in the reasonable assumption that they will pay them off once they are qualified and well-paid. And when an economy is in recession, my (again, limited) understanding is that a budget deficit is more reasonable, given a) the lower tax revenues that result from the contraction in the economy, and b) that government spending can help to pull the economy out of recession, or at least ease the downward dip (the G in C + I + G + X – M). But generally, budgets should balance.

I also think it is fairly clear that the huge debts that the US Government faces today ($14,548,054,858,928 last time I checked). Are the result of both Democrat and Republican presidents. The deficit has increased substantially in the last couple of years under President Obama (from $10.0T in September 2008 to $14.5T today). And the deficit increased substantially under President Bush II (from $5.6T in September 2000 to $10.0T in September 2008). It increased substantially (by around 350%) under Reagan and Bush I, and slightly under Clinton. The point is, that for Republicans to lay sole blame for the crisis at Obama’s door displays an acute medium-term memory loss.

But “how we got here” is less important than “how we get out”.

In my opinion, the way to do that is gradually. I understand that economies prefer subtle, barely perceptible adjustments to the rudder, rather than sudden, sharp shocks, or violent, lurching changes of course. These subtle adjustments should have been made over the last ten years, and the sad fact that they haven’t, and that we therefore now face such an imminent “do-or-die” moment, reflects poorly on the short-sightedness of the current administration, and the last years of its predecessor. But “we are where we are”, and from here, the best solution seems to me to be to wind down the deficit smoothly and gradually, over a number of years. Restoring a deficit of over $1,000,000,000,000 overnight appears to be more politically motivated, than economically sound.

I also believe that these adjustments should be on both the revenue and the expenditure side. That is, the best solution will encompass both tax increases and government spending reductions. I think this is both good economics (because it mitigates the severity of changes to either taxation levels or government spending required to balance the budget), and good politics (because it involves compromise between Democrats and Republicans). I believe that you can be for tax cuts and against balancing the budget, or against tax cuts and for balancing the budget, but that you cannot be for both. Especially if you are determined to balance the budget in the immediate term.

But what if no compromise is possible, and no deal is reached in the next 4 days?

Given that there seems to be little historical precedent for the largest economy in the world defaulting on its debt, we can only guess as to what the implications of such a default might be. But I think it is safe to say that they will be “bad”. Stocks will undoubtedly crash, as they have been doing for the last week (the Dow Jones has declined by around 5% during this time). And US interest rates will climb, making already steepling interest repayments even more expensive. And perhaps the psychological impacts of such an unprecedentedly gargantuan economic catastrophe on consumer and investor confidence will be even more profound, and permanent.

To my untrained eyes, the tragedy here is that it is not just economic ill-discipline that has brought us to the edge of this precipice, but political recklessness. It seems as though American politicians, of both colours, are more interested in playing political hardball and petulantly digging their heels in, than saving the nation from economic catastrophe. I would say it is a “dangerous game”, but it’s now far beyond a game.

Wednesday 27 July 2011

The Bipartisan Ship

In England, politics is really dull.

Everyone seems to agree on most of the major issues. Neither the Labour Party nor the Conservative Party would ever dare challenge the existence of universal health-care, for example, and so the only debate is around how reforms to the National Health Service should proceed. The last instance of capital punishment occurred in 1964, and David Cameron is about as likely to reinstate the practice, as he is to immediately promote Rupert Murdoch to the position of Chief Communications Officer. Everyone in the country believes in the dangers of climate change, I can not remember the issue of abortion ever entering the political arena, and there are 6 guns per 100 English people (compared to 89 per 100 American people), so this debate is extinct too. American Democrats and Republicans hold genuinely and significantly differing opinions on all of these issues, whereas In England, the opinions differ more by degree than direction. English politics feels more about the personalities than the issues.

I think the American version is a lot more interesting.

I get much more excited and passionate about politics in America than I do about politics in England, despite (or perhaps because of) my minimal understanding of the political landscape, history and factbase here in my adopted home. I could (and often do!) talk about American political issues for hours. I would be about as interested in talking about English political issues for hours, as I would be in inviting George Galloway to be the godfather of my first child – even if I could find any English political issues to talk about.

But I also think the English version is “healthier for the nation”.

Firstly, for reasons of national unity. Because Elephants and Donkeys are so deeply divided on so many fundamental political debates, over the years their ideological positions have become more and more entrenched, giving rise to more and more distrust, resentment and anger directed at “The Other Side”. (And while this is just a hunch, I fear that this ill-feeling and resentment has escalated in the last decade – although perhaps the Civil War of the 1860s suggests otherwise). Republicans despise Obama. Democrats hated Bush, and don’t even get them started on Sarah Palin. Such mutual resentment is clearly a “bad thing” for the unity of the country. After Obama’s election, it feels like 47% of Americans were “furious” about their new head of state, and intent on seizing every opportunity to undermine his position. In England, after Cameron’s election, anyone who voted for Labour was simply “slightly peeved”. And crucially (I suspect), keen for the new Prime Minister to succeed. People were willing to give him the chance that it doesn’t seem to me that most American Republicans were willing to give Obama.

And secondly, for reasons of effective governance. The partisan battles that now scar the American political scene mean that every policy proposed by a Democratic President is invariably vociferously vetoed by the Republican opposition (and vice versa). If everything that the Obama Whitehouse enacts is swiftly unwound by the next Republican president, and then reenacted by the subsequent Democrat, no progress will ever be achieved. If corporation taxes are lowered and then raised and then lowered and then raised, businesses’ uncertainty will hinder their investment and economic growth. Staunchly entrenched divisions prevent compromise, which in turn prevents real progress.

I don’t think that either side is any more to blame than the other for the hostilities that now characterize American politics and society – but I do think they are ugly, and unhelpful.

Maybe this simmering antagonism (which now, with the current debates over the debt ceiling, is veritably boiling over) is unavoidable, given the stark differences in opinion between the two camps. But I would hope that it can at least be mitigated.

As always, the key is to strive for a balanced approach. For Democrats to admit their mistakes, and for Republicans to admit theirs. For Republicans to compromise on raising taxes, and for Democrats to compromise on reducing spending. I think the media plays an important role here. While newspapers in England are clearly left-leaning (The Guardian) or right-leaning (The Telegraph), the coverage is nowhere near as biased as the polemic of Fox News, which I suspect plays an important role in exacerbating inter-party conflicts. I am not advocating that we impose mandates on what TV channels can broadcast, but I might venture to suggest that we reward more impartial media coverage with our viewing figures.

And as always, the power to effect change lies with individual people. By taking the other side’s perspective, by seeing the planks in our own eyes before the specks in our brothers’, by striving for and rewarding compromise. And by making it clear to our political leaders that stonewalling and steadfast refusal to find any middle ground is ineffective and unwanted.














The road to unwinding the distrust that has been building up in American politics for decades will be a long and bumpy one, but I believe that it is one the country should embark on. Soon.