Mood:  a-ok

Australia has 'group think' new Labor Government. Consensus is the buzz word. Everyone thinking the same with same words and same actions.

Posted by richard-lipscombe at 11:41 AM NZT

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Mood:  a-ok

Much has been written about change lately.  Much of what has been written has been about the fear people feel when contemplating such dramatic shifts in markets, politics, and social mores.  The markets are down - asset prices are tanking around the world.  The political agenda is for change - most of this change is from what we have to something else, almost to anything else.  The social mores set back in the 1960s through to 1980s are being challenged - those were advantgarde but now they are deemed passe.  Most of the writers anchor their stories about, or analysis of, our current predicament with history lessons on The Great Depression, The New Deal of President Rosevelt, 1960s reformers who promised a better land, or the politics of hope from past crises.  They anchor their commentary to past fears.

The real story today is all about new fears.  The newest fear is not being spoken about much at all.  It is the fear of "the speed of change".  In a few short weeks you pension funds are cut in half.  In a few short months a long-term government is overthrown for a new one that is built around a little known leader.  In a few moments the social mores of two generations are seemingly cast aside by the election of a black President in America.  

Some changes occurring today are very welcome so are not.  What is universally not welcomed by most folk is the speed of these changes.  These change occur at blistering speed.  These changes are so fast that they take on gigantic proportions and thus cripple us with fear.  

 Why is this so?

We are not prepared for the speed of change.  We are use to having time to react.  We are accustomed to having time to analyse our situation, seek advice, consider our options.  We find to day that if we take the normal amounts of time that have ussually been available to make sensible decision we are caught behind the curve of change.  We are reacting to worse and worse situations each time we set out on our normal decision-making cycle.  We find that once having decide on a right and proper course of action that indeed that course of action no longer exist for us.

What can we possibly hope to do about this situation?  

Well we need to forget being right or wrong, risk taking or risk averse, and simply get ahead of the curve of change.  We need to establish a framework for decision making that is commensurate with the speed of changes we face.

If we jump ahead of the curve we are just as fearful as everyone around us but we are more in control of our decision making process and thus our resultant actions. Ir we stay behind the curve we are likely to become swamped by fear and petrified by the changes we are experiencing.

Posted by richard-lipscombe at 5:07 PM EADT

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Mood:  blue

Drifting towards an Economic Depression is where we all are....  How long it takes to arrive is a moot point.  Why it will happen is clear.  It will happen because the US is tanking.  The US economy is stretched by debt, rising costs, falling housing prices, and rising unemployment.  It is stretched by its big spend on the Iraq War.  It is stretched by the implosion of key investment banks.  It is stetched by falling house prices.  It is stretched by an adiction to oil.  It is stretched by public, private, and consumer debt.

Debt has built up within the US economy over the past decade to unbelievable levels.  Every crisis since 9/11 has seen an expansion of money supply.  This expansion put excess liquidity into the local and global economy.  This led to an expansion of credit to the US housing sector and thus an asset bubble.  This led to an expansion of consumer credit for household related expenditures.  In 2008 the expansion of credit slowed and then sharply contracted.  Suddenly the elephant in room - within the global economy - was US debt.

Every time the elephant has appeared this year it has been restrained by a further expansion of US liquidity backed by taxpayers funds.  All the time the policy settings have let the US economy drift into an Economic Depression.  External debt is building due to the mounting cost of oil imports, products from China, etc.  The US economy is drifting towards a sticky end.  Are we all heading that way too???   

Posted by richard-lipscombe at 8:05 PM NZT

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Mood:  energetic

The Chattering Clusters have chosen the right man in Obama even though he is a left leaning Democrat. Or is he?

Having dispensed with the race to become Democratic Party nominee Barack Obama now faces up to a tough electoral college battle with his Republican Party opponent John Mc Cain. All through the Primaries the media commentators had Obama pinned as a Liberal Democrat. He was clearly an ideologue and this would be in undoing because the electors did not want such a President.

But hold the phone! Obama is moving his political rhetoric and his policy positions towards the center of the continuum. Oops! What does this mean? What is a media pundit to make of this move? What does it do to all those projections about which candidate wins which States in the fall election?

Well the first thing Obama has to do is win an election so these moves are seen as part of the political strategy to win the White House. So he had to move to policy positions that appealed to the wider electorate and more especially to the so called 'independent' or non committed voters. These voters were not his concern when he was facing down Hillary Clinton for the nomination. Now they are front and center in his political calculations for winning office. That is as it should be.

What we are seeing with Obama is emergence of a gifted politician in a race for the highest office in America. His ability to read the politics of the race for the White House is begining to become his greatest asset. Why?

First he has won the Chattering Clusters and they will elect him no matter what he says in the lead up to the fall election. He is their teflon candidate and so nothing sticks to him except their votes. Second he has to now appeal to the Chattering Clans. Those independent minded voters who might either stay at home and not vote or vote for Mc Cain. Obama can appeal to them by showing how he will govern. Yes govern. They are going to see Obama running for the job of President of the United States with the same strategy around issues that he will have when he sits in the Oval Office.

It is important that Obama runs a campaign based on what he intends to do not what he has to say to get elected for two reasons. First he needs to win over the support of the independents so that he has a resounding victory in the fall election. Second he needs to demonstrate to the Democratic Party how he will act as the incoming President.

My guess is the 'independent voters' will like what they see of Obama in this election but the Democratic Party leaders will not.

Posted by richard-lipscombe at 6:45 PM NZT

Updated: Thursday, 17 July 2008 1:30 PM NZT

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