Some updates on previous posts
On drug testing: Lance Armstrong has been accused of doping. If he did, then he should be discredited. But is there not something wrong with a system that discredits so many of its best athletes?
On rioting: I have thought about the argument that protestors that have been disadvantaged because of profligate spending on the part of the older generation. I have no sympathy for the Montreal rioters; you shouldn’t either. The same applies for Greece and the Wall Street protestors. Montreal students are the easiest to deride. If they were not rioting about the increase in tuition then what are they actually rioting about? Canada is one of the most resilient countries coming out of the recession. Youth unemployment is 14.7%, which is high, but nowhere close to the rates in other developed countries. The fact is a quarter of Canadian firms find it hard to find talent. Then, the fault of unemployment is very well shared by a lack of useful skills (rioting, for example, is not a useful ability).
A similar argument applies for the US and Greece. Half of US firms find it hard to employ people; quarter of Greek firms find it difficult (http://www.economist.com/blogs/graphicdetail/2012/05/daily-chart-18). It is easy to blame others. The Greek population blamed the government then subsequently put into power fringe parties and ignored reasonable requests for austerity.
At the end of the day, these are all Western, democratic and free nations. Its citizens are masters of their own soul. They can do whatever they want with their lives. Instead they choose to riot. That is why I find them uninspiring.
Some interesting thoughts:
· Surely the economic situation is precarious. “Let me restate this because it is important; from the current levels we would expect on average no growth in corporate profits over the next five years and the absolute best historical experience is 4.4% annualized growth.” (http://www.valuewalk.com/2010/11/corporate-profits-current-level-tells-sp-500-returns-years/).
· You know Europe’s screwed when the strongest economy in Group C of the EURO cup is Croatia.
· * SIR – Greece has a mobile-phone penetration rate of 139%, it may be about to abandon its paper currency and it has an existential problem raising tax revenue. This is the perfect opportunity to leapfrog an inefficient legacy payment system: cash.
Greece should avoid the pain, delay and expense of printing drachma, and instead move straight to allowing mobile payments only in drachma. Paper euros will continue to circulate—as they do in Montenegro—regardless of whether a paper drachma is reintroduced. National efficiency would be given a rare advantage over Germany and the tax-raising ability of the state radically improved: every taxi driver would pay tax.
Mark Martin
Moscow