By Graham Cooke
The farcical sending off of Brazilian Ricardo Kaka for a supposed foul on Ivory Coast's Abdelkader Keita in the World Cup of football has finally convinced me. Video evidence must be introduced into the game at this level.
For years I have resisted this call, but things are getting out of hand. Top players are increasingly becoming cynical cheats; the game is now too fast and the cheats too cunning for a referee and two assistants to monitor.
At the same time, technology has never been better. We can view an incident from a dozen different angles. A top-quality referee, sitting in front of a screen, would know immediately which angles to check, a decision could be delivered to the man in the middle within seconds. A cheat revealed will see the red card rather than the opponent he was trying to sucker.
And the fact players know this this will very quickly end the play-acting, rolling about on the ground, stretchers being brought on. We might actually save time in games.
I know the arguments that will be brought to bear against using video evidence: It will create two classes of football because obviously video technology will be too expensive for all but the top leagues; it will change the way the game is played, interrupting its rhythm and turning it into a stop-start spectacle rather like American football; the referee in the middle will lose authority with players demanding he consult the video referee at every turn.
It will certainly change the game, but what's wrong with that? The game is constantly changing, and you don't have to go back to the days when the goal uprights were joined by pieces of tape rather than a crossbar and referees in tweed jackets officiated from the sidelines using a pocket watch.
Check out a few grainy black-and-white videos from the 1950s and 60s to see how the game has changed. Watch the incident in the 1958 FA Cup final when Nat Lofthouse shoulder-charged goalkeeper Harry Gregg and the ball into the net for Bolton's second goal against Manchester United. A modern Lofthouse would have been sent off for that.
Check out the 1966 World Cup and the cynical fouls that put Pele and Brazil out of that tournament. Those were the days when no substitutes were allowed. Remember the four-step rule for goalkeepers or the days when only one match ball was allowed? Remember when football on Sundays was a total no-no? How many times have we changed the offside rule?
Football changes. It has to change to meet the demands of a fast-changing world. The fact it has done so is part of its continued success - and we are now in the era of instant and ubiquitous communication.
And yes, it will mean that top-level football is governed by video evidence while 95 per cent of the game will have to carry on as before with just the referee and his assistants to make the decisions. It was ever thus. Can we honestly say that the officials at the local recreation ground are of the same quality as those in the English Premier League; that playing surfaces are of the same standard; that players have the same support services? Of course not.
Football always was a hierarchical game, and at its top level it is now too much of a showcase to be governed by the same process of refereeing decisions as exist in the Victorian League Division Four. Top games deserve top treatment
Embrace video technology, use it to stamp out phantom fouls and dives in the penalty area. The game will be the better for it.
Sunday, June 20, 2010
Tuesday, June 1, 2010
A sad story from another time
By Graham Cooke
I have just received a communication from the National Gallery of Australia. Nothing unusual in that, I am a member and attend many of their functions and exhibition previews.
I have also been contributing to their Masterpieces for the Nation Fund, under which members contribute small amounts - whatever they can afford - which are put together to purchase an artwork of significance for the NGA. The latest campaign is for a work by Robert Dowling - Miss Robertson of Colac (Dolly).
The picture is of a young woman with a rather wistful expression on her face, sitting, rather uncomfortably, bolt upright in a garden chair, a book in one hand and a tea service and plate of cakes within easy reach. A dog looks lovingly up at her.
But it was not so much the painting, as the accompanying background notes that stirred me. Dolly, or Elise Christian Margaret Robertson, to give her full name, was the daughter of a wealthy Victorian grazier, William Robertson.
The attractive Dolly - she was in her late teens at the time of the painting - had already attracted a number of suitors, but her father had forbidden them all, saying they were not good enough for her. She never married and died in 1939.
Reading this I felt overwhelmed with pity and anger for this long dead lady, denied the opportunity of married life by her overbearing father.
I rather suspect that William Robertson's real reason was to ensure his daughter stayed at home to take care of him in his old age - this was often considered a duty for one unfortunate child in large Victorian families. However, if this was the case Robertson was rich enough to have employed servants and nurses to look after him.
There is no doubt that Dolly bridled against this restriction on her life. She originally wore a white dress for the siting but asked Dowling to change the colour to dark brown because, as the story goes, "if I am never to marry , then I will be in mourning for the rest of eternity".
And what of Dowling's thoughts in this? The painter was in his late 50s and close to the end of his life, yet there are hints in the painting that he was very much on Dolly's side. The tea service was her favourite as were the vanilla slices. The faithful dog was added later.
There is also just a hint of eroticism in the way her foot protrudes ever so slightly from beneath her long dress, a suggestion that she was a tall, leggy lady.
Perhaps Dowling was a little in love with her, although in those times, and in that society, he would have kept such thoughts very much to himself.
So I will be contributing towards Miss Robertson of Colac (Dolly). Denied her right to seek happiness in life, she should at least be displayed to be admired by us in these more liberal, enlightened times.
I have just received a communication from the National Gallery of Australia. Nothing unusual in that, I am a member and attend many of their functions and exhibition previews.
I have also been contributing to their Masterpieces for the Nation Fund, under which members contribute small amounts - whatever they can afford - which are put together to purchase an artwork of significance for the NGA. The latest campaign is for a work by Robert Dowling - Miss Robertson of Colac (Dolly).
The picture is of a young woman with a rather wistful expression on her face, sitting, rather uncomfortably, bolt upright in a garden chair, a book in one hand and a tea service and plate of cakes within easy reach. A dog looks lovingly up at her.
But it was not so much the painting, as the accompanying background notes that stirred me. Dolly, or Elise Christian Margaret Robertson, to give her full name, was the daughter of a wealthy Victorian grazier, William Robertson.
The attractive Dolly - she was in her late teens at the time of the painting - had already attracted a number of suitors, but her father had forbidden them all, saying they were not good enough for her. She never married and died in 1939.
Reading this I felt overwhelmed with pity and anger for this long dead lady, denied the opportunity of married life by her overbearing father.
I rather suspect that William Robertson's real reason was to ensure his daughter stayed at home to take care of him in his old age - this was often considered a duty for one unfortunate child in large Victorian families. However, if this was the case Robertson was rich enough to have employed servants and nurses to look after him.
There is no doubt that Dolly bridled against this restriction on her life. She originally wore a white dress for the siting but asked Dowling to change the colour to dark brown because, as the story goes, "if I am never to marry , then I will be in mourning for the rest of eternity".
And what of Dowling's thoughts in this? The painter was in his late 50s and close to the end of his life, yet there are hints in the painting that he was very much on Dolly's side. The tea service was her favourite as were the vanilla slices. The faithful dog was added later.
There is also just a hint of eroticism in the way her foot protrudes ever so slightly from beneath her long dress, a suggestion that she was a tall, leggy lady.
Perhaps Dowling was a little in love with her, although in those times, and in that society, he would have kept such thoughts very much to himself.
So I will be contributing towards Miss Robertson of Colac (Dolly). Denied her right to seek happiness in life, she should at least be displayed to be admired by us in these more liberal, enlightened times.
Thursday, May 20, 2010
Thank you John Howard - for gun control
By Graham Cooke
Two incidents that made the Australian news this morning involved firearms. First there was the case of a religious cult, Agape Ministries International. Police raiding its Adelaide headquarters had found a shipping container stashed with prohibited weapons, slow-burning fuses, detonator cords and around 20,000 rounds of ammunition.
In Melbourne an obviously disturbed young man who attacked a bus driver and tried to steal his bus, was subdued when a police officer shot him in the chest after he produced a knife and capsicum spray had failed to subdue him. The offender is currently in a stable condition in hospital.
I do not wish to comment on the specifics of either incident, but it occurred to me that it is because I live in Australia that I know so much about them
They are news because they are so unusual.
How much would I have learnt about these stories if I had been living in Los Angles or New York?
The fact of a religious cult stashing weapons might have raised a headline or two, but probably not the blanket coverage it has received on radio, television and in newspapers here. As for the police shooting incident - well the guy's not dead, he didn't kill anyone, no one was even injured. No story.
How fortunate are we that firearms are so rare in this country that their use, even by the police in the legitimate pursuit of arresting a suspect, is news. Let's give thanks that we will never have situations as does happen in the United States, where a simple incident of road rage results in handguns being produced with multiple deaths and injuries.
When future historians look back on the Howard Government - and I really mean look back, much as we do today on the 19th century with all the main players long dead and only the bare records of the day and their consequences as a guide - I believe they will list its greatest legacy as not the introduction of the Goods and Services Tax, or its economic management, but its strict firearms control legislation in the wake of the Port Arthur Massacre.
We are now an effectively disarmed country. Those who wish to practice the art of pistol or rifle shooting can do so under strictly controlled conditions on registered ranges. A few individuals, such as farmers, are allowed to keep registered weapons for use on the land.
There will always be illegal ways for sophisticated criminal elements to acquire firearms - witness the active gangland environment in Melbourne - but the old American catch-cry: 'if guns are outlawed only outlaws will have guns' is largely irrelevant here.
We live in a society which is generally safe and which has considerable respect for human life. Thank you, John Howard for that.
Two incidents that made the Australian news this morning involved firearms. First there was the case of a religious cult, Agape Ministries International. Police raiding its Adelaide headquarters had found a shipping container stashed with prohibited weapons, slow-burning fuses, detonator cords and around 20,000 rounds of ammunition.
In Melbourne an obviously disturbed young man who attacked a bus driver and tried to steal his bus, was subdued when a police officer shot him in the chest after he produced a knife and capsicum spray had failed to subdue him. The offender is currently in a stable condition in hospital.
I do not wish to comment on the specifics of either incident, but it occurred to me that it is because I live in Australia that I know so much about them
They are news because they are so unusual.
How much would I have learnt about these stories if I had been living in Los Angles or New York?
The fact of a religious cult stashing weapons might have raised a headline or two, but probably not the blanket coverage it has received on radio, television and in newspapers here. As for the police shooting incident - well the guy's not dead, he didn't kill anyone, no one was even injured. No story.
How fortunate are we that firearms are so rare in this country that their use, even by the police in the legitimate pursuit of arresting a suspect, is news. Let's give thanks that we will never have situations as does happen in the United States, where a simple incident of road rage results in handguns being produced with multiple deaths and injuries.
When future historians look back on the Howard Government - and I really mean look back, much as we do today on the 19th century with all the main players long dead and only the bare records of the day and their consequences as a guide - I believe they will list its greatest legacy as not the introduction of the Goods and Services Tax, or its economic management, but its strict firearms control legislation in the wake of the Port Arthur Massacre.
We are now an effectively disarmed country. Those who wish to practice the art of pistol or rifle shooting can do so under strictly controlled conditions on registered ranges. A few individuals, such as farmers, are allowed to keep registered weapons for use on the land.
There will always be illegal ways for sophisticated criminal elements to acquire firearms - witness the active gangland environment in Melbourne - but the old American catch-cry: 'if guns are outlawed only outlaws will have guns' is largely irrelevant here.
We live in a society which is generally safe and which has considerable respect for human life. Thank you, John Howard for that.
Thursday, May 6, 2010
British election - what next?
By Graham Cooke
At the time of writing, just about the only certainty in the British General Election is that Prime Minister Gordon Brown is doomed.
With just over 100 seats still to be declared his Labour Party is trailing the Opposition Conservatives by around 60. Overtures to the Liberal Democrats will not help him, as the third party has, at this point, polled just 40 seats, a surprisingly poor performance after so much was expected of them.
And anyway, the price of Liberal Democrat support for Labour in the House of Commons would have been the immediate departure of Brown.
That seems to be increasingly irrelevant as the Tories power on, probably to a position where they will be just short of an absolute majority.
So the question is what happens next? Convention has it that the sitting Prime Minister always has the first shot at trying to form a Government if the result is not clear-cut.
This means Brown will probably spend the next day or two going through the motions of talking to the Lib-Dems and possibly the Welsh and Scottish Nationalists to see if some unlikely deal can be forged.
Assuming that is impossible, he will advise Queen Elizabeth to call on Opposition Leader David Cameron to form a Government. This Cameron will do, possibly trying to shore up an absolute majority by seeking the support of the Democratic Unionist Party in Northern Ireland.
However, the price of DUP is demanding - outlined in the weeks leading up to the election - of cordoning off Northern Ireland from any Tory spending cuts, is simply too high.
In which case Cameron will try to go it alone with a minority Government.
The last time that happened under Labour Prime Minister Harold Wilson in 1974, the Government lasted six months. However, at the subsequent election, Wilson managed a tiny majority.
Labour strategists will be mindful of this and may conclude it would be to their advantage to let Cameron's inexperienced team stagger on for a year or two in the hope the public quickly become disenchanted and switches back to them. Nick Clegg's Liberal Democrats may take a similar view.
All of which suggests that Britain may have a continuing political crisis to add to the economic one it is already facing.
Interesting times lie ahead.
At the time of writing, just about the only certainty in the British General Election is that Prime Minister Gordon Brown is doomed.
With just over 100 seats still to be declared his Labour Party is trailing the Opposition Conservatives by around 60. Overtures to the Liberal Democrats will not help him, as the third party has, at this point, polled just 40 seats, a surprisingly poor performance after so much was expected of them.
And anyway, the price of Liberal Democrat support for Labour in the House of Commons would have been the immediate departure of Brown.
That seems to be increasingly irrelevant as the Tories power on, probably to a position where they will be just short of an absolute majority.
So the question is what happens next? Convention has it that the sitting Prime Minister always has the first shot at trying to form a Government if the result is not clear-cut.
This means Brown will probably spend the next day or two going through the motions of talking to the Lib-Dems and possibly the Welsh and Scottish Nationalists to see if some unlikely deal can be forged.
Assuming that is impossible, he will advise Queen Elizabeth to call on Opposition Leader David Cameron to form a Government. This Cameron will do, possibly trying to shore up an absolute majority by seeking the support of the Democratic Unionist Party in Northern Ireland.
However, the price of DUP is demanding - outlined in the weeks leading up to the election - of cordoning off Northern Ireland from any Tory spending cuts, is simply too high.
In which case Cameron will try to go it alone with a minority Government.
The last time that happened under Labour Prime Minister Harold Wilson in 1974, the Government lasted six months. However, at the subsequent election, Wilson managed a tiny majority.
Labour strategists will be mindful of this and may conclude it would be to their advantage to let Cameron's inexperienced team stagger on for a year or two in the hope the public quickly become disenchanted and switches back to them. Nick Clegg's Liberal Democrats may take a similar view.
All of which suggests that Britain may have a continuing political crisis to add to the economic one it is already facing.
Interesting times lie ahead.
Sunday, May 2, 2010
Why the cheque book should not rule
By Graham Cooke
At risk of turning this blog into a sports column, I am again entering the debate over the Melbourne Storm rugby league saga, this time to reject the assertion, made in a British-based magazine dabbling in Australian Affairs, that the salary cap is a hindrance to the development of the sport and should be scrapped.
The view of the magazine is that the cap is anti-free market, anti-competitive and unfair to players whose careers are necessarily short. "No other industry operates according to a bizarre set of rules that punishes the successful in such a manner," it states.
To compare the National Rugby League with industries outside sport is equally bizarre. Rugby League exists on competition. If there were no competition there would be no sport and no source of income for the players, coaches, officials etc.
The public, apart from those who are shareholders, does not care whether PricewaterhouseCoopers is doing better than Minter Ellison, or if Woolworths is more successful than Coles. If a company finds its performance is declining, it reforms or goes out of business. There is no wooden spoon and a chance to do better next season.
The business of all rugby league clubs and indeed all sports teams is to do better than the other fellows and win a championship, but if those results and wins become too predictable the sport itself suffers. There are already signs that the early success of the English Premier Football League, which does not have a salary cap, is beginning to stall as fans tire of repetitive outcomes.
It's worth remembering that in the days when the English Football League ran the show, a significant proportion of the revenue generated by the top clubs was filtered down to those in the lower divisions. The elite thought they should keep all the money and with the connivance of the Football Association, resigned from the EFL and formed the Premier League.
Just a handful clubs have won the title in the 20 years since. Pick the winner in 2010-11? Any one from Manchester United, Arsenal and Chelsea? Got it.
Meanwhile dozens of smaller clubs have struggled to survive, going in and out of administration. Once quite successful teams like Luton Town and Oxford United have disappeared into non-league football.
The salary cap operates as a brake on the rich getting richer and the poor getting poorer. It's not the only possibility - a draft system where the bottom club in the just-completed season gets first pick on the new crop of young players coming into the game works well in other codes.
The aim, as it must always be, is to keep the competition reasonably even, ensuring that qualities other than fat cheque books are the criteria for success. A free-for-all, while it may have some initial attractions, would ultimately be to the detriment of the sport.
At risk of turning this blog into a sports column, I am again entering the debate over the Melbourne Storm rugby league saga, this time to reject the assertion, made in a British-based magazine dabbling in Australian Affairs, that the salary cap is a hindrance to the development of the sport and should be scrapped.
The view of the magazine is that the cap is anti-free market, anti-competitive and unfair to players whose careers are necessarily short. "No other industry operates according to a bizarre set of rules that punishes the successful in such a manner," it states.
To compare the National Rugby League with industries outside sport is equally bizarre. Rugby League exists on competition. If there were no competition there would be no sport and no source of income for the players, coaches, officials etc.
The public, apart from those who are shareholders, does not care whether PricewaterhouseCoopers is doing better than Minter Ellison, or if Woolworths is more successful than Coles. If a company finds its performance is declining, it reforms or goes out of business. There is no wooden spoon and a chance to do better next season.
The business of all rugby league clubs and indeed all sports teams is to do better than the other fellows and win a championship, but if those results and wins become too predictable the sport itself suffers. There are already signs that the early success of the English Premier Football League, which does not have a salary cap, is beginning to stall as fans tire of repetitive outcomes.
It's worth remembering that in the days when the English Football League ran the show, a significant proportion of the revenue generated by the top clubs was filtered down to those in the lower divisions. The elite thought they should keep all the money and with the connivance of the Football Association, resigned from the EFL and formed the Premier League.
Just a handful clubs have won the title in the 20 years since. Pick the winner in 2010-11? Any one from Manchester United, Arsenal and Chelsea? Got it.
Meanwhile dozens of smaller clubs have struggled to survive, going in and out of administration. Once quite successful teams like Luton Town and Oxford United have disappeared into non-league football.
The salary cap operates as a brake on the rich getting richer and the poor getting poorer. It's not the only possibility - a draft system where the bottom club in the just-completed season gets first pick on the new crop of young players coming into the game works well in other codes.
The aim, as it must always be, is to keep the competition reasonably even, ensuring that qualities other than fat cheque books are the criteria for success. A free-for-all, while it may have some initial attractions, would ultimately be to the detriment of the sport.
Sunday, April 25, 2010
Why the NRL got it wrong
By Graham Cooke
Does the Australian Rugby League really have the health of its competition at heart or are its officials and administrators simply incompetent?
That was the question I asked myself after hearing the list of punishments meted out to the Melbourne Storm for its failure to keep within the mandated salary cap.
The Storm deserves to be punished - and the punishments should be severe. This was no bureaucratic bungle, no error of bookkeeping by a slipshod financial officer who didn't understand the rules. This was a deliberate and cynical rort. It is amazing that Melbourne Storm would have been able to assemble such a group of high-quality and obviously high-paid stars without arousing suspicions before.
So agreed there should be sanctions; agreed that the premierships and minor premierships should be stripped away - although the game's historians will be the only ones seriously perturbed about the blank spaces in the record books - agreed prize money should be returned and agreed there should be a monetary fine on top of that.
What I can't stomach is the decision to bar the team from accruing any points during the current season - even though it must keep on playing.
This is an unfair and devastating blow to the playing and coaching staff. For all the brave words currently being bandied around in the dressing rooms, the effect of playing week after week for no reward against teams that still have the incentive of taking two points will eventually sap the players' will to put in 100 per cent effort.
Why risk injury in a futile exercise? Team performances will decline, crowds will drop off and players and their agents will start to look elsewhere. I am afraid I join the increasing numbers of commentators who believe the Storm will not survive.
And if the AFL thinks it can just plonk in another franchise as a replacement it had better think again. League has a perilous enough toe-hold in the AFL stronghold as it is, and what fans the Storm does have will not easily forgive the code for treating it with contempt.
I believe rugby league's administrators missed the obvious solution to this part of the club's punishment - one that has worked well enough in the English Football League.
Instead of simply being told it cannot accrue points this season, the Storm should have been fined points, for argument's sake let's say 50.
The eight points already won this season would go towards the fine, reducing it to 42, and from then on the Storm would be playing to reduce the deficit further - every time it won the fine would be reduced by two points.
With 24 game in the regular season the total number of points available is 48, so there would bound to be a carry-over into the next season, but the storms incentive would be to have as few owed points as possible left at the end of the year, so it would start in a reasonably competitive position in 2011. In effect it would be playing for next season's premiership, while still having the ignominy of finishing at the foot of the table in 2010.
With the season continuing it is probably too late for a re-think, but in its haste to get sanctions into place the NRL may well have dealt the Storm - and the future of rugby league in Victoria - a fatal blow.
Does the Australian Rugby League really have the health of its competition at heart or are its officials and administrators simply incompetent?
That was the question I asked myself after hearing the list of punishments meted out to the Melbourne Storm for its failure to keep within the mandated salary cap.
The Storm deserves to be punished - and the punishments should be severe. This was no bureaucratic bungle, no error of bookkeeping by a slipshod financial officer who didn't understand the rules. This was a deliberate and cynical rort. It is amazing that Melbourne Storm would have been able to assemble such a group of high-quality and obviously high-paid stars without arousing suspicions before.
So agreed there should be sanctions; agreed that the premierships and minor premierships should be stripped away - although the game's historians will be the only ones seriously perturbed about the blank spaces in the record books - agreed prize money should be returned and agreed there should be a monetary fine on top of that.
What I can't stomach is the decision to bar the team from accruing any points during the current season - even though it must keep on playing.
This is an unfair and devastating blow to the playing and coaching staff. For all the brave words currently being bandied around in the dressing rooms, the effect of playing week after week for no reward against teams that still have the incentive of taking two points will eventually sap the players' will to put in 100 per cent effort.
Why risk injury in a futile exercise? Team performances will decline, crowds will drop off and players and their agents will start to look elsewhere. I am afraid I join the increasing numbers of commentators who believe the Storm will not survive.
And if the AFL thinks it can just plonk in another franchise as a replacement it had better think again. League has a perilous enough toe-hold in the AFL stronghold as it is, and what fans the Storm does have will not easily forgive the code for treating it with contempt.
I believe rugby league's administrators missed the obvious solution to this part of the club's punishment - one that has worked well enough in the English Football League.
Instead of simply being told it cannot accrue points this season, the Storm should have been fined points, for argument's sake let's say 50.
The eight points already won this season would go towards the fine, reducing it to 42, and from then on the Storm would be playing to reduce the deficit further - every time it won the fine would be reduced by two points.
With 24 game in the regular season the total number of points available is 48, so there would bound to be a carry-over into the next season, but the storms incentive would be to have as few owed points as possible left at the end of the year, so it would start in a reasonably competitive position in 2011. In effect it would be playing for next season's premiership, while still having the ignominy of finishing at the foot of the table in 2010.
With the season continuing it is probably too late for a re-think, but in its haste to get sanctions into place the NRL may well have dealt the Storm - and the future of rugby league in Victoria - a fatal blow.
Wednesday, April 14, 2010
Dictatorship false path to prosperity
By Graham Cooke
Nouriel Roubini is an interesting character and it’s worth taking a look at the website of Roubini Global Economics www.roubini.com where he claims to understand and promote ‘the logic of the global economy’.
Professor Roubini is an economist pure and simple. Political and social issues do not concern him, except when they get in the way of his theories for economic growth, in which case they should be brushed aside.
As an example, one his writers currently argues that dictatorships have served Brazil well at times in the past - benevolent dictatorships admittedly, but the problem with that they inevitably end up serving the needs of the dictators and their cronies rather than the people over which their authoritarian rule is exercised. Something about absolute power corrupting absolutely.
China is certainly one major economy that would enthusiastically embrace Professor Roubini’s theories, while the professor himself is an unabashed admirer of the way the mandarins in Beijing conduct their affairs.
For instance, he predicts the Chinese yuan will usurp the United States dollar as the world’s reserve currency sometime in this century because of its large current account surplus, focussed government and few of the economic worries that the US faces.
He tends to overlook that its current account surplus is built on the backs of the low wages and appalling conditions faced by its lowest strata of workers – an average of seven miners die every day for instance – that allows it to flood the world market with under-priced goods.
The policy makes a few people very wealthy, promotes a strong middle class of several hundred million, while leaving perhaps half a billion others in conditions that a medieval peasant would recognise. Far from being the communist utopia, China today represents the unacceptable face of capitalism.
There might be more sympathy for a yuan-based world economy if the Chinese Government allowed it to float and find its own level, instead of being artificially pegged in order to ensure China's exports remain riduculously cheap.
Professor Roubini is known as ‘Dr Doom’ for his continuously bleak prognosis of the West’s economic health. What he fails to see are the social problems that China is storing up for itself by retaining an iron grip on its population and giving no outlet to the aspirations of so many of its people.
China is a pressure cooker with no safety valve. It is something the leadership will have to deal with in the years and decades ahead or face a social explosion of its own making.
Professor Roubini and his cohorts may be enchanted by dictatorships, but history demonstrates that dictatorships don’t last for ever, and often end in unpleasant circumstances.
Nouriel Roubini is an interesting character and it’s worth taking a look at the website of Roubini Global Economics www.roubini.com where he claims to understand and promote ‘the logic of the global economy’.
Professor Roubini is an economist pure and simple. Political and social issues do not concern him, except when they get in the way of his theories for economic growth, in which case they should be brushed aside.
As an example, one his writers currently argues that dictatorships have served Brazil well at times in the past - benevolent dictatorships admittedly, but the problem with that they inevitably end up serving the needs of the dictators and their cronies rather than the people over which their authoritarian rule is exercised. Something about absolute power corrupting absolutely.
China is certainly one major economy that would enthusiastically embrace Professor Roubini’s theories, while the professor himself is an unabashed admirer of the way the mandarins in Beijing conduct their affairs.
For instance, he predicts the Chinese yuan will usurp the United States dollar as the world’s reserve currency sometime in this century because of its large current account surplus, focussed government and few of the economic worries that the US faces.
He tends to overlook that its current account surplus is built on the backs of the low wages and appalling conditions faced by its lowest strata of workers – an average of seven miners die every day for instance – that allows it to flood the world market with under-priced goods.
The policy makes a few people very wealthy, promotes a strong middle class of several hundred million, while leaving perhaps half a billion others in conditions that a medieval peasant would recognise. Far from being the communist utopia, China today represents the unacceptable face of capitalism.
There might be more sympathy for a yuan-based world economy if the Chinese Government allowed it to float and find its own level, instead of being artificially pegged in order to ensure China's exports remain riduculously cheap.
Professor Roubini is known as ‘Dr Doom’ for his continuously bleak prognosis of the West’s economic health. What he fails to see are the social problems that China is storing up for itself by retaining an iron grip on its population and giving no outlet to the aspirations of so many of its people.
China is a pressure cooker with no safety valve. It is something the leadership will have to deal with in the years and decades ahead or face a social explosion of its own making.
Professor Roubini and his cohorts may be enchanted by dictatorships, but history demonstrates that dictatorships don’t last for ever, and often end in unpleasant circumstances.
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