Tuesday, 20 January 2009

Obama Writer’s Block

I never thought this would ever happen to me. I have an Obama Writer's
Block. (Check the time stamp of the previous post.) I have been
waiting to chew on something, and there is nothing given. His 825bn
package, I could tear apart (at least part of it) with harsh words on
'more of the same', with 'hey, don't you get it, you cannot achieve
much without global action' etc. But, my mature and and well placed
friends keep calming me down. Not so fast. He can hardly emerge as the President he is elected before the inauguration, and cannot possibly
act as the leader of the world, I have been betting on.

And thus, there was the long wait (and my pause). Until yesterday, I
heard the first global reference. Not much, but at least global
something: 'mankind'.

Today evening (well, our time at least) he will be sworn in, he will
give that speech. He'd better tell us that he will want to build a new
global economic policy architecture. A truly global regulatory
framework, an institution delivering global harmonisation of monetary
policy (and, yes, including currencies), some sort of global fiscal
policy co-ordination (with enforceable rules), and maybe, some form of
universal development agency (going way beyond the World Bank's
mandate). He'd better tell us that he will be all of mankind's
president, not just the American president. He'd better recognise the
political capital that he piled about around the world. And he'd
better promise to use it.

Khm.

Talk about the impossibility of meeting inflated expectations...

1 comment:

  1. I am at a Royal Society workshop on the evolution of societies. Incredibly, the conference will close earlier so that they can switch over and project the Obama inauguration for the entire lot. Wow.

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