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Iain Anderson
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They used to call economics the 'dismal science'. Now it's politics.
For over 150 years since Thomas Carlyle first coined the phrase, it has been the political class that has looked to lift our heads beyond the day-to-day and the 'art of the possible' and to present electorates with political solutions which, most of the time, just might work.
But soaring rhetoric isn't working anymore - and neither are the policy solutions. Not in America or Europe, not anywhere.
Project Twist in the US seems to have left markets in a tangled mess.
In Europe we lurch from Eurozone crisis to crisis with no economic solution in mind, and none over the horizon.
Following the IMF and World Bank meetings in Washington this weekend, we now all look to the November G20. But what hope there? The economist policymakers who continue to drive the policy solutions offer nothing for us to hold onto other than their own insular back-stabbing.
They entreat their peers and the political class with nothing but their own rhetoric now.
And it is clear politicians don't have the answers to this crisis. For it is a crisis of confidence in politics and economics.
All our politicians are now setting expectations for a very bumpy ride. They are talking us down with talk of economic 'war'. What happened to 'hope', what happened to 'leadership'?
The dismal science seems to have taken our politicians to a fairly dismal place.
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What we need is people who really understand the issue making sensible recommendations and politicians accepting those recommendations.
The politicians don`t have much skin in the game (except for looking out for their own hides), and won`t have to live with the consequences of their actions (or blame someone else if they are found wanting). Like you, I have no set of solutions, but I think we are not being unreasonable in making the observation that the `professional` politicians are pretty much clueless.
We have a common enemy that threatens our very existence. Fossil fuel exhaustion. We have the technology and expertise to wage war on that adversary, and secure our continuity. Everything we invest in that quest will be repaid to either us or our descendants. In addition, we will be freed from the influence of external energy providers. The markets may menace us with their machinations. We must take them by the scruff of the neck, and make them work for us not against us. Since with out us, they are as nothing.
Greece out of the EU, thereby also providing an objective lesson to any other ne'er do well nations sponging off the Union.
I share Iain Anderson’s frustration.
Whilst the European politicians engage in pointless posturing, it is abundantly clear that the current economic mess is way beyond their comprehension.
I hate to be negative, but I have no hopes of any meaningful solutions coming out of the G20 meeting in November, and I do not expect it to contribute to anything (except, perhaps, global warming).
I sincerely hope that I am wrong.
On the positive side, however, we should remember that life will carry on. The Greeks can take comfort from the fact that countries do not go bankrupt. After all, the Germans are not going to send the bailiffs into Greece and turf everybody out. While the politicians engage in even more useless posturing, the rest of us will somehow find a way to muddle through.
Yours Sincerely, Derek Lantin, http://dereklantin.booksabuzz.com