Tactical versus strategic acumen

The ranks of political casualties are awash with names of those who have underestimated Jacob Zuma’s tactical acumen. This list includes some notable heavyweights, not least former president Thabo Mbeki, trade unionist Zwelinzima Vavi, and youth firebrand Julius Malema, among other eminent political figures. 

He has demonstrated the idea that to be underestimated by your political opponents is among the grossly unheralded secrets of political success. This position of apparent weakness has been a devastating weapon in his demonstrably febrile tactical arsenal. 

He is a man of limited formal education in an era that worships education, a status that lends itself to confusion as implying an inferior intellect. This status has had the added advantage of endearing him to the multitudes of South Africans who share a similarly disparaged social status. 

His disarmingly guffaw, simplicity and genuinely amiable manner have led many among his opponents to confuse him with a contemptible lightweight. 

His constant portrayal by the media as a feckless buffoon has done much to feed this misperception, to his absolute glee. Something he has effectively used to portray himself as a target of unjustified victimisation. 

Most of his political enemies have come to discover just how mistaken they were about his supposed ineptitude.

Since the great coup of Polokwane that he masterminded, he has sauntered nonchalantly from one political victory to the next. A slew of seemingly endless scandals that would have buried those of lesser tactical acumen have been defused with masterly skill. He seems the embodiment of the idea of the Teflon President, the epithet ascribed to the irrepressible former US president, Ronald Reagan.

The problem with tactical genius is that it lends itself to the kind of sustained success that invites a more formidable opponent – hubris. This, referring to that all-consuming state of delusion that imagines its objects as uniquely impervious to defeat. One that is usually fanned by a ubiquitous phalanx of ingratiating sycophants. 

Perhaps no one epitomises the dangers of hubris better than Hitler. He possessed it in droves as did Napoleon before him, among countless other historical figures. 

Not without reason. His effortless conquests of firstly, the German public imagination, followed by Czechoslovakia, Austria, Poland, Denmark, France among other nation states that succumbed like dominoes before the overwhelming might of the advancing Third Reich, seemed ample justification. It conferred upon him that delusionary sense of invincibility that inexorably lends itself to overreach and with it fatal miscalculation. 

This same hubris has come to be disturbingly recognisable among the contemporary South African political elite. The growing audacity of their actions betray that historically familiar delusion that they are uniquely exempt from the principles that all of us must account to. 

The predictable release of Shabir Shaik, immediately following the ascension to the presidency of Jacob Zuma, sadly presaged the shape of more sinister things to come. He came to be unceremoniously replaced by the notorious Guptas, who have come to enjoy such privilege that even our military base once came to serve their personal needs, all with vexing impunity. 

As though this was not jarring enough, we came to learn of a personal mansion, built upon the toil and sweat of the overburdened South African taxpayer. The President was nevertheless summarily rewarded by the ANC and South African voter with a second term. A statement that would have reinforced the sense of imagined immunity from personal accountability. 

This sense of untouchability usually leads to greater daring. For Zuma this to took the form of the subsequent Russian nuclear deal that we must now contend with. The deal has a look of a fait accompli despite the charade that will masquerade as due constitutional process. 

This brings me to the fatal shortcomings of tactical when weighed against strategic acumen. The primary distinction being the reach of the temporal horizon. 

The tactician is concerned about outmanoeuvring the enemy in order to win the immediate battle, lending itself to a short-term outlook. The strategist on the other is preoccupied with finding the most propitious paths towered ultimate victory. 

Indeed, the superior tactician might win battle after battle while the strategist remains the only one with the assurance of ultimate victory, despite defeat upon ignominious defeat. 

South African history bears ample evidence of this principle. 

n the darkest moments of seeming Apartheid invincibility, when victory for the oppressed majority seemed but a remote refuge of quixotic dreamers, this knowledge is precisely what energised them. 

They knew that theirs was a just struggle. That is all they needed to know, and thus its eventual success was guaranteed. This is despite the fact that much of the developed world, not least the US, were counted among its opponents until much later in the game, when the momentum of history had shifted irrevocably. 

This audacious hope leaned on no other pillar than the universal principle that is abundantly adorned by history – that despite the length of their battle and the number of their tactical defeats, those on the side of what is true, right and just are never denied ultimate victory. 

To this end we can surmise that the reason for the Soviet Union’s loss of the Cold War was ultimately due to no want of tactical nous but that it positioned itself on the wrong side of this question. Precisely as it was a murderous regime that robbed its citizens of freedom, incarcerating and executing millions of them. 

Martin Luther King captured this idea with characteristic eloquence when he thus paraphrased Theodore Parker:

“The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends towards justice.”

This is exactly where the master tactician is exposed. He is so consumed in the details of winning the immediate battle to the point of failing to ask whether the war is in fact a winnable one. Indeed, the sheer weight of success lulls him into the false belief that the status quo can only indefinitely endure. 

Thus, despite the abundant tactical acuity, the bankruptcy of strategic acumen makes defeat merely a question of time even though at the height of his powers, this may appear a remote possibility. 

Decades or centuries of success had convinced the proponents of the apartheid-colonialism nexus that victory was their birthright. The strategic momentum reached an inflection point in a twinkle of an eye, at an innocuous historical moment in 1976 when certain students dared to question this conventional wisdom. 

Perhaps it was not clear at that moment that those students were setting into motion forces that would ultimately bring the mighty apartheid machine to its knees. Our historical vantage point gives us a better perspective of the fruit of their heroic actions.

On that occasion, as is so often the case, driven by typically boundless idealism, energy and a certainly reckless audacity, the youth became catalysts in shifting the balance of political forces towards the direction that the true strategist would have foreseen decades before as inevitable, despite the towering odds.

This is because strategists align themselves not with expedient victories, that inevitably prove ephemeral, but with the grand historical themes of nobility, justice and truth, that may suffer momentary setbacks but for which victory can never be denied. 

Recently we have witnessed similar audacity from the very same constituency, whose actions have issued President Zuma with perhaps his very first genuine political defeat.

Their vigorous protest action seems a strange throwback to a bygone era. 

Might they be midwives of shifting tectonic forces towards ushering a new political era in South Africa, that sweeps the current political elite into the dustbin of history? Only time will tell.

They occur, nevertheless, amid a smouldering consensus, corroborated by damning evidence that is embodied in the jarring juxtaposition of the impudent opulence of Nkandla against a sea of penury, that President Zuma has chosen to align himself in opposition to these grand universal principles.

And thus the sheer weight of historical evidence compels us to wonder not whether he will join the annals of historical ignominy in one way or the other, but when.

A new dawn for the land of the rising sun?

Students of history will tell you that the illustrious heritage of these proud and industrious islands has not been spared the vicissitudes of bitter adversity. They will also tell you that Japan is amongst a handful of non-western countries not to bear the acerbic yoke of modern colonial rule. Thanks to deeply imbedded martial samurai traditions that evinced a strong sense of nationhood, enmeshed with a famous work ethic and discipline, it has always proven more than a handful for attempted foreign subjugation. 

The rise of modern Japan, as is so often the case, is traceable to effective leadership. In this case that of Emperor Mutsuhito, also known as the Meiji, whose reign began in 1868. Instead of a typical wholesale rejection of Western ways, as many had done and continue to do, he epitomised shrewd pragmatism, with the common sense to embrace what works, even if from the hand of bitter cultural or ideological foes. 

Eager to emulate Western progress, Mutsihuto assiduously studied western systems of government, industry, military and naval technology and hastened to implement them in Japan. In a matter of decades, a backward feudal country was transformed into the first non-western country to industrialise and one of the leading world powers by the outbreak of WWI. As one of the founding members of the League of Nations, it emerged from the Great War, with even greater geopolitical clout.

Entering into the brief interwar period, a cohesive, industrialised and adolescent Japan was at the cusp of great things in the world. Leadership was to play a key role in its immediate destiny, this time not for all the right reasons. Its newfound status in the world gave rise to a hubris that spawned an imperialistic belligerence that was to prove disastrous for the nation. A growth induced thirst for mineral resources coupled with a solicitous eagerness to test its newly found military muscle, led to the invasion Chinese Manchuria in 1931. 

Following widespread condemnation for this act, like a spoilt adolescent, it responded by abandoning the League of Nations, invading hapless Mainland China with impunity. The characteristic absence of resistance, one of many indicting examples of the impotence of the now defunct League of Nations, served to fuel this acquisitive zeal, with further invasions across Asia during the period leading up to WWII. This coincided with similar bellicose activities by Germany across the world, a country with which it was to enter into an ill-fated alliance. The USA in turn applied trade sanctions on Japan, including a debilitating oil embargo. 

Consumed with a misplaced sense of invincibility, Japan saw itself as left with no option but to plan a surprise attack on an unsuspecting US naval base, Pearl Harbour. This event was to prove a decisive turning point for the war and the century, awaking a reluctant post-war super power from its untimely slumber. Japan was to pay dearly for this gross overestimation of might, losing two million of its people, along with the regrettable fate of being on the receiving end of the inaugural use of futuristic nuclear weaponry in military combat. 

The crushing defeat, suffered at the hands of the Allied Forces, led to solemn reflection that culminated into another of its many turning points. A chastened and contrite Japan saw an opportunity to once again redefine itself, something it accomplished with characteristic distinction. In fact such was the extent of its success that it rapidly grew into the second largest global economy. 

At its apogee, some thought it only a matter of time before it would overtake the US to become the world’s largest economy. Its secret was a strategy to go beyond the production of low margin consumer goods. Reasoning, as David Landes notes, “if they were to have a modern economy, they had to master the heavy work: to build machines and engines, ships and locomotives, railroads and ports and shipyards”.

The implementation of this export oriented strategy, including the gross under valuation of its currency, however, concealed some serious flaws, which were to be brutally revealed in the post 1989 period known as the “lost decade”. A period characterised by ubiquitous spectres of deflation coupled with anaemic economic growth rates (So much for the omniscient pundits who saw its rise to economic hegemony, a mere formality!). 

This era of an enduring, incurable national economic malaise lasted for more than a decade. Indeed, the country is still yet to fully extricate itself from it. Trillions of Yen injected by the Japanese government in hopes of resuscitating the apoplectic economy, have thus far only succeeded in compounding its problems, plunging it into another morass of excessive indebtedness.

The recent apocalyptic events, that have captured the world’s imagination, have coincided with continuing attempts to resolve this enigmatic economic trap. Not without macabre irony, these events could prove to be just what the doctor ordered. The expected investment in necessary infrastructure (unlike many of the failed government sponsored white elephants) may be exactly what is required to jolt the Japanese economy out of its chronic economic comma into some semblance of dynamism.

Without a doubt, the immediate future will pose innumerable testing questions for Nippon, many of which simple answers will not suffice. Beyond the passing shadows of tragedy hanging over Japan, awaiting it is the promise of a long awaited economic dawn for the land of the rising sun. History offers a demonstrable account of a people endowed with legendary resilience and resourcefulness, the kind of which has often found unexpected expression, in moments like these.

 

The tragic dénouement of a heroic age

It was not to be long before the optimism that greeted the advent of the twentieth would be met with its first significant test. And the nature of this test could not have been more portentous. The ship that “even God could not sink”, the Titanic, collided with an inanimate object, an iceberg, on its first voyage, tragically sinking with it over 1500 people.

It was unsurprising that the ship would be named as such given the confidence in human brilliance typical of the times. This masterpiece of human ingenuity was until that point, unexcelled in technical sophistication and luxury. Such was the confidence of the shipbuilders that basic safety features like lifeboats were deprioritized. Perhaps not unsurprisingly, after all this was the ship that “even God could not sink”

Not unlike the Titanic, the unlimited optimism of the times founded on the supposed sovereignty of man was such that the venture into the unchartered sees of the twentieth century overlooked an obvious reality – man’s amply demonstrable capacity for self-destruction. A taste of the true state of the human heart was to be revealed during the Great War (WWI), a war considered at the time as one to “end all wars”. 

It had been imagined that education had advanced man beyond his historically demonstrated capacity for self-destruction. It was soon to be discovered, on the contrary, that education and the technology it spawned, would merely become instruments of this very proclivity. This was portrayed in acts of such savagery during the twentieth century that man’s erstwhile swagger would suffer an enduring blow. 

Reflecting on this rude reminder de la Croix writes: “Everything bears witness to the eternal and incorrigible barbarity of man”. Almost nine million people died during the First World War, a casualty rate of unprecedented proportions. The First World War thus brought with crushing humiliation the closure of the enlightenment and its boundless idealism. 

The untested radical ideas of the late Karl Marx found a perfect opportunity in war weary Russia, one that his most committed disciple Vladimir Lenin was not going to miss. The social inequalities spawned an atmosphere of discontentment in Russia that were ideal for the launch of his version of Marxism, later to be called Marxist-Leninism, which sought to accelerate the so called dialectical process of history through violent revolution. 

From its small beginnings it was to grow into perhaps the most influential political movement of the twentieth century. As impressive as this success was, the cost was astronomical. Estimates put the number of people who died under repressive communist government well in excess of 100million. 

Following the roaring twenties, the Great Depression of the 1930s was to bring the juggernaut of the world economy to a screeching halt. All manner of State interventions failed to resolve this mysterious phenomenon. British economist John Maynard Keynes offered what seemed an elegant solution. Governments could stimulate their economies through debt-induced fiscal interventions. And thus began the idea of deficit spending, the consequences of which our generation is well familiar (let the Greeks tell you all about it!). When questioned about the long-term consequences of this indebtedness, he retorted with these (in) famous words “in the long-term we are all dead”. 

While the rest of the world battled the Great Depression, a humiliated Germany was busy rising from the ashes of its WWI defeat, quietly growing from strength to strength. Its inspirational leader, Chancellor Adolf Hitler, seemingly could put no foot wrong. Having rescued the country’s economy from its post-war shambles and restoring the self-respect of Germany, he was not satisfied. He was now hungry for world conquest and revenge! The world was therefore plunged into an even bloodier world war, accounting this time for 60 million lives. 

The first half of the 20th century was perhaps the darkest in all history. It seemed an eternity from the soaring euphoria of the enlightenment and the Renaissance, where man was thought capable of carving himself out of an allegorical rock with his own hands. To the discerning, the message was unequivocal, “left to himself man is capable of immeasurable destruction”, bringing to mind the biblical admonition, “the (human) heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked; who can know it?” Fredrick Nietzsche’s words penned in 1882 in his famous Parable of the madman, pronouncing the consequences of the shadow that was to be cast on the world with the supposed ‘death of God’, were startling in their prescience:

Are we not straying, as through an infinite nothing? Do we not feel the breath of empty space? Has it not become colder? Is not night continually closing in on us? Do we not need to light lanterns in the morning?

Critical conversations about the South African economy, Part II

The task that confronted the post-apartheid South African government was no small one. Cavernous racially tinged economic inequalities, commingled with social antipathies that had been painstakingly nurtured through centuries of conflict, conquest and subjugation implied an unpromising prognosis for the country’s future.

But hope is a powerful force. It galvanised the country towards a triumphant rainbow-hued narrative in hopes of transcending the gravitational pull of its difficult past. Such was its influence, the true scale of the daunting realities momentarily retreated into the invisible background.

Twenty one years into the democratic era, the complexity of these socioeconomic fissures has re-emerged to loom much larger. That all important fuel of hope seems in short supply nowadays.

Political leadership is ultimately about solving the pressing problems of the day. Its mettle is ultimately assessed on the scale of results. On this score the assessment is mixed, with pockets of excellence juxtaposed with areas of unmistakable disappointment.

Success in solving problems in turn hinges on unsullied clarity about the nature of the problem. From this, strategic directions can be plotted.

Missing among the multiplicity of proposals that bespatter the local discursive landscape, is analysis on the implications of the industrial structure of the South African economy. Specifically its relation to the sphinx problem of unemployment, which remains the defining economic challenge confronting post-apartheid South African society.

The evolution of economic modernisation in South Africa was shaped by two distinct politico-economic forces. The nexus of Colonialism and English Capital on one hand as well as that of Apartheid and the emergent Afrikaner Capital on the other.

Both of these deserve much credit for their role in building the economy to the dynamism it became. Albeit appreciably aided by the abundance of land and cheap “surplus” labour that has been previously discussed.

The mining industry, with its large capital outlays, lent itself to a concentrated ownership structure that eventually cascaded into broader South African industry.

The two icons of this structure on the mining side of things were Anglo American, representing English capital and Gencor (subsequently Billiton), which flew the flag for Afrikaner Capital. The financial services sector was a mirror image of the mining edifice, with Old Mutual and Sanlam, playing identical roles in representing the two poles of the apartheid power constellation. 

There certainly were other players but these were among the most conspicuous. Their control extended well beyond the mining and financial service sectors. In fact, such was the dominance of Anglo American, in 1987 the group constituted as much as 60% of the Johannesburg Stock Exchange market capitalisation alone.

The decline of the relative importance of mining to the South African economy as well as timely exits to London and elsewhere have diminished their dominance here. But the legacy of industrial concentration remains an inescapable feature of the contemporary economy.

The implications on unemployment are notable only by their absence from popular analysis. Nevertheless they cannot be avoided.

It is no earth-shattering proclamation to assert that Capitalism is driven by the quest for profit maximization.

Oligopolists, by definition, are in the privileged position of competing with fewer players. This makes for easier coordination between them in the interest of the overarching quest for profit maximization.

Oligopolists are subject to a unique production curve according to economic theory. According to this curve profit maximisation occurs at lower production levels to what can be expected under perfect competition. Lower production entails lessened supply. This in turn culminates in higher consumer prices.

The absence of competition thus makes reducing supply easy for South African oligopolists across a range of sectors.

The comparatively higher prices with which South African consumers are quite familiar are a discussion for another day. My concern today is the reduced demand for labour necessitated by the artificially lower production.

This is because lower production means fewer workers in the production process.

The result is the stubborn unemployment that has proven impervious to the ebb and flow of the local and global business cycles. Thus South Africa has come to be saddled with a problem of structural unemployment that has few peers anywhere in the world.

Restructuring the economy seems the only way it can be rescued from its current dismal loop. There is also no shortage of simplistic suggestions as to how this can be done. Clear thinking is what seems to be in short supply.

Letter to the UCT vice-chancellor

Dear Dr Price,

As a UCT alumni, it has come as an utter shock to learn that a UCT SRC vice-president was suspended from her position on the basis of her Facebook post, “We are institutionalising and normalizing sin. May God have mercy on us...”. This is without mentioning the alleged drive to have her expelled from the university.

Her Facebook post is understood to be associated with the US Supreme Court's ruling, which redefined the meaning of marriage across all of its states.

The presumption is that the forced resignation is on the basis of a construal of her statement as constituting “hate speech”.

I want to state this categorically, I see absolutely no basis for these actions by the university. If anything they are a clear violation of at least two of Ms Pae’s constitutional rights. 

1) The freedom to receive or impart information or ideas (section 16 (1) (b))

2) The right to freedom of conscience, religion thought, belief and opinion. (section 15 (1))

According to the same freedom of expression clause in the South African constitution, it is well understood that freedom of expression precludes (section 16):

i) Incitement of imminent violence

ii) Advocacy of hatred that is based on race, ethnicity, gender or religion, and that constitutes incitement to cause harm. 

It seems utterly preposterous to imply that the post constitutes anything vaguely resembling the “incitement of imminent violence” or “advocacy of hate”. 

It simply expresses an opinion on a court ruling made in the United States, based on her religious beliefs. The post makes absolutely no reference to any groups or individuals, it is a harmless contribution to an ongoing debate.

Furthermore, the court ruling in question was narrowly passed after much contestation. One wonders how the student's own opinion on a matter that continues to be a subject of vigorous debate across the world, could be seen by the University to be so offensive as to warrant suspension from her position on the UCT SRC, let alone expulsion.

Has the university come to see its role as the arbiter of personal opinions and religious beliefs? It would be a tragic day indeed if this has come to be the case.

It is therefore difficult to see these actions as representing anything but intimidation and the abuse of the power conferred to the university, over a defenceless student, of limited financial means.

It is also difficult not to connect these actions with the role that the UCT SRC played vis a vis the recent “Rhodes must fall” campaign.

In the interest of the constitution as well as the University’s own reputation as the unbiased defender of all human rights, I request the immediate reinstatement of Ms Pae to her elected position as the Vice-president of the UCT Student’s representative committee.

Critical conversations about the South African economy, Part I

The recent public release of the Farlam report that explores the causes and possible remedies of the Marikana massacre, has brought to the fore the stark realities and choices facing South Africa. 

Commentator, Brad Cibane, has lamented the failure of the report to address the deep structural issues that gave rise to the massacre. Perhaps unfairly so, given the limited scope of the inquiry. 

This conversation is nevertheless critical if we are to overcome the sphinx problems before us. The Marikana tragedy and its mining backdrop could hardly be more symbolic, given the dominant role the mining industry has played in the modernisation of South Africa, for better or worse.

The South African economy, as we have come to know it, was literally built on gold. Platinum, its successor, only belatedly came to take pre-eminence, following the gradual decline of the gold industry subsequent to its apogee in the 1970s. It is now the country’s leading earner of foreign exchange. 

The true societal cost of developing the gold industry is truly unquantifiable. Much has been said about the induced migrant labour system and the trail of fatherless communities it left in the so-called homelands[1]. So, I will say less about that. 

Much less has been said, however, about the corresponding psychosomatic impact on the socially dislocated men who found themselves in strange new environments, hundreds of miles away from their families. It is easy to see how violence came to define the dormitory township environment. After all, there is much to be said about the trauma of coping with the resultant cutthroat culture of the emergent sprawling settlements, in distant and foreign settings, ripped apart from their ancient communal socio economy. 

Black South African society and by association the entire country continues to bleed from the cruel edge of the nexus of colonialism and capitalism that buttressed the rise of the South African mining industry. The Marikana tragedy is a timely reminder of the deeper challenges confronting post-apartheid South Africa, which we ignore at our own peril. 

There has been much talk about the “ticking time bomb” supposedly implied by the sea of the unemployed that has characterised South Africa for many decades. What is surprising about this analysis is its apparent ignorance of the devastation it has been reaping for decades already. 

What is the violent crime that has tormented us for decades, if not a direct consequence of the sea of angry and desperate men characterised by the pernicious status of having nothing to lose? Have we been imprisoned so long behind our high security walls that we have forgotten that they exist? 

Black Townships have lived with this scourge for decades. Its spread into broader society is a newer reality that reminds us that there is no sowing without reaping. As with the natural pattern, what is reaped is usually much greater than what was sown. 

Ironically, the surplus of black labour that was close enough to the city for accessibility to burgeoning industry but not too close to “dampen” property prices, served Apartheid society well for decades. The “surplus” labour ensured that wages remained low enough to serve the interests of industry and white society. What was then advantageous “surplus” labour is what we have come to call the ranks of the unemployed. The difference is that they have now become human. 

[1] Feinstein. C, H. “An Economic History of South Africa, conquest, discrimination and development” (2007). Cambridge University Press

(2) Terreblanche, S. “A history of inequality in South Africa, 1652-2002” (2002). University of Natal Press

Is QE the panacea for the troubled EU economy?

It would be a profound understatement to regard me as a Quantitative Easing sceptic. In my mind nothing is more absurd than Central Banks creating money out of thin air. In fact I think it is a sign of the times that this has become a contrarian view. 

The ECB recently joined this cavalcade to the tune of €500bn. I suppose the pressure became unbearable given prevailing economic wisdom. A persistently anaemic economic growth environment recently exacerbated by threats of deflation did not help matters much. 

My moral or logical misgivings notwithstanding, QE has yet to convince me of its effectiveness even as a policy instrument, not least its credentials as a facilitator of economic growth. 

Some may point to the recovery of the US economy as evidence of QE’s capacity to drive output. I would encourage caution about rushing to such conclusions. After all correlation is hardly confirmation of causality. 

Indeed, a counter argument could be advanced that an improving housing market and eased levels indebtedness have improved household balanced sheets, releasing more money to the American consumers. Who, as we know, have the reputation of needing little invitation to consume. 

I am willing to entertain the plausibility of QE’s usefulness as bulwark against deflation but not much more. The inflated money supply certainly does lend itself to low interest rates, but that is hardly the medicine needed by the Eurozone at the moment, where interested rates have been hovering around record lows for years. 

The root problem to me seems to be either the unwillingness or the inability of individuals to spend. Which, in turn, translates to the unwillingness or the inability of companies to invest in fixed capital formation. More so in a sluggish global economy. The problem can also be placed at the door of governments who are able but unwilling to do the same. 

To all of these problems, QE hardly seems the solution. What it does is to pump money into the hands of wealthy individuals and institutions, the most likely holders of EU bonds, whose appetite for consumption and lending respectively is questionable at the moment.

What these parties are inclined to do is to pump money into asset markets such as shares and bonds or maybe property, whether in host countries or emerging markets. This precipitates frothy asset growth and deepened economic inequality.

If governments want to put money into the hands of households, the direct route of tax cuts seems the most logical approach. Why go through the banks, whose appetite for lending has shown itself to be so unreliable? 

If there is a potential positive outcome that even a sceptic like myself would need to accept, even if ever so reluctantly, is the prospect of a weakened Euro. In a global environment dominated by artificially deflated currencies, monetary authorities that do not follow suite are subject to unfair competition as their currencies become comparatively expensive. 

As we have begun to see, the Euro is flirting with record levels of weakness, which can only bode well for the ailing European economy. In a global economy characterised by such daunting threats as a slowing Chinese economy, it certainly can use every bit of help it can get.