that's enough to argue.
~American Idiot, Green Day
One of my biggest question has always been, How Could A Government Be So Stupid?
With Indonesia, it’s a treacherous question and has yet to answer itself. I look to America as a case study of a supposedly functional system.
Watching the American politics (and economy) in the last few days gave me an insight of how the it responds to a major crisis. Thomas L. Friedman wrote at the New York Times, “I’ve always believed that America’s government was a unique political system — one designed by geniuses so that it could be run by idiots. I was wrong. No system can be smart enough to survive this level of incompetence and recklessness by the people charged to run it.”
I agree with the first part, American system fundamentally works because the system was unique - it was designed to be run (even) by idiots. That was the beauty of the system. It relies on specific set of ‘Rights’ with check and balances to regulate how it interacts - like stone, scissor and paper but with more complex rules. The system has an excellent history in overcoming its problems: aggressions, wars, economic crises, and most importantly, incapacitated leaders. Abraham Lincoln, John F. Kennedy, Nixon and the current President Bush are the notable mentions.
Much of the rest of the world keep hopes for America, almost singularly in trusting that the system will prevail: a more reasonable leadership will emerge and fix the world. At the very least, they will fix America’s own current mess and stop bombing people in other places.
The Economist had done a survey on it somewhere and seems to suggest that most of the world have problems with President Bush almost on ideological grounds. The sentiment against America lies a whole lot on its leadership - not the Idea of America, which is rosy and acceptable to most of the world – even the Iranians seem to like it.
The idea is a system that regulates itself and leads its people. Not any particular people, but people, elected and chosen (only) on merits by their peers. It supposes to sell the dreams. Back in the days of the Founding Fathers, this was the American Dream. Free from the old Kings and Queens of Europe. The ‘idea’ that the country was designed to be run by idiots could be traced back even to these days. The country with Sarah Palin on the ticket illustrates this very well.
The astute leaders of the American Revolution debated on the idea of resting so much power on ‘everyone’ – idiots included and accepted after the fact. The Independence removed the mystique of a Royal protection but also by definition placed all of them as equals (some documents of the time referred to them as ‘Englishmen’). It allows men and women to set themselves apart on merit - and on merit alone – in a Free Land.
On merit, those extraordinary men and women continued to shape America and lead it for many years to come. America works wonderfully and had largely removed any obvious traces of hereditary elites in the most prosperous civilization of the Modern World. Or at least that is what most of the world are being led to believe. The system seems to work just fine and envied by people all over.
Mr. Friedman’s follow up paragraph struck me as very peculiar, he said, “This is dangerous. We have House members, many of whom I suspect can’t balance their own checkbooks, rejecting a complex rescue package because some voters, whom I fear also don’t understand, swamped them with phone calls. I appreciate the popular anger against Wall Street, but you can’t deal with this crisis this way.”
While I understand that the ‘rescue package’ (aka. Bailout) was amazingly complex, it would seem that Mr. Friedman’s advice was for the politicians to ignore the electorate. He was probably very right, too in assuming that the magnitude of the problems – and therefore its resolutions – is something beyond comprehension for the common men. Only economists could understand the problems – bankers and other leaderships have spectacularly failed. Even American generals were brought to shame in the rumbles of Afghanistan and Iraq. It’s time to look elsewhere and Mr. Friedman seems to suggest that America surrendered Power to the Literate Few.
He explained that the immediate problems for America right now is unique, “ This time, we are doing it to ourselves. This time, it’s our own failure to regulate our own financial system and to legislate the proper remedy that is doing us in.”
The system – according to Mr. Friedman – is failing. Economists describe the events differently but generally when they have no idea of what is happening, they say that the system is failing (and use catastrophic language for metaphors of these Great Events). It will cost $700b (almost an arbitrary number since this was what Secretary Paulson was asking. It is smaller than the total bad credit but larger than what is minimally required to stopgap further mess on Monday) to fix it.
If the Congress did nothing, something very bad will happen (President Bush reiterated it several times). For once in his eight years in office, the whole world seems to agree in this assertion.
The Congress needed to do something so things won’t be as bad as what things could be.
To most men and women, this is a very abstract calamity, a limbo state between ugly and uglier. Most wouldn’t know how bad is bad, the polls were saying that the people were more confused rather than opposed to it. Mr. Friedman suggested that Americans trust those who knows (or at the very least, appearing like they do) what they’re doing.
The only person who knows how bad things are the people with the most immediate problems but they will not quite comprehend the magnitude of it beyond their immediate reach. They are most likely busy with their foreclosures – therefore their calls and opinions ought to be disqualified.
Mr. Friedman dismissed it as ‘popular anger’. They’re the Illiterate Mass.
I am not an American but I have financial interests to see the market go back to where it was (if possible, circa 2005). Similar to America, I’m up to my neck in debt and survive only on steeply declining asset and a line of credit. I don’t get to vote for American president and I don’t have a representative to call. I get to watch the whole thing from television and the internet, and I truly wonder if anyone there really knows what they’re doing. I sincerely hope so.
I have more faith on the American system than Mr. Friedman and I think the system will resolve itself. It is probably a good thing – in a much more remote and grander scheme of things – that it is happening so near the election. It will respond quicker to its problems.
I immediately thought of that picture I saw on the internet. It reads, Somewhere in America, the World is Missing Their Idiot.
UPDATE: The revised bill passed by the Senate, $150bn more in Christmas presents and it's now 400 pages long (the original was all of three pages).
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