President-elect Obama: what should his agenda look like + Debategraph
This blog tells how a person quest led me to thinking about President-elect Obama’s prospective international agenda and how it can fit into Debategraph, a wiki debate visualization tool provided under Creative Commons.
(1.) GLOBAL FINANCIAL CRISIS, 16 September 2008:
(2.) INTERNATIONAL ISSUES, Iraq War opposition (2002 to election campaign):
(3.) CLIMATE CHANGE, 18 November 2008:
The domestic issues I’ll omit here but they are readily available at the Barack Obama site.
A JOURNEY BEGINS
Earlier this month I went in online search of a dear man called Giorgio Bertini, with whom I’d been swapping notes about the current financial crisis as well as much mirth. Giorgio, for the uninitiated, is the Chile-based Administrador for “Conversaciones Locales” - Comunidad Agentes Locales de Desarrollo, and has previously worked for the UN. He’s very interested in fostering net communities to educate and to collaborate as well as to solve serious major world issues, and has a terrific joie de vivre (in addition to personal kindness).
Finding Giorgio led me to the Global Sense-Making (GSM) Ning and opened my online life up even more.
From this week until President-elect Obama’s inauguration on 20th January 2009, David Price, the creator of the GSM Ning and the co-founder of debategraph, is collaborating with the Independent newspaper online to produce some visual tools to stimulate participation in and interaction with.
The project’s objective is to model what should be on Obama’s agenda and can provisionally be viewed here:
* Obama’s potential agenda, the Independent online
My notes to David to contribute my US$0.02 to the process can be read via the link as well as in full below:
* Twain’s notes on David Price’s debategraph on Obama’s potential agenda
1ST ITERATION OF THE DEBATEGRAPH
David,
This is a fantastic way to present visual data for the Independent readers online!
To my mind there are 5 main agenda items which President-elect Obama needs to focus on and I wonder whether the map can designate prioritization (e.g., each subsidiary electron is numbered)? The items are:
(1.) Cabinet Appointments:
— Secretary of State (Bill Richardson cf. Hillary Clinton — which represents real change? International diplomatic experience vs international recognition. Dove versus hawk. Who has endorsed each potential candidate and what are the implications? Henry Kissinger has publicly come out in favor of Clinton)
— Treasury Secretary (potential candidates being speculated upon range from Larry Summers, formerly Principal of Harvard and Treasury Secretary during the Clinton Administration, to Paul Volcker, former Chairman of the Federal Reserve)
— Secretary of Defense (speculation is between present incumbent Bob Gates or Gen. Wesley Clarke)
(2.) Global financial crisis
— US$700 billion bailout (structure + implementation timetable)
— US specific regulatory reforms
— executive compensation oversight
— plans to acquire (or otherwise) toxic assets
— support for non-financial sector businesses affected
— support for homeowners
— international frameworks for financial stability
(3.) International policy, principally focused on:
— Iraq + Afghanistan issues
— Middle East Peace Roadmap
— Russian hegemony
— China + trade relations
— EU ties compared with “special relationship” with the UK
(4.) Domestic policy:
— Healthcare
— Education
— Green economy that can be exported as a business model in replacement of Wall St model
(5.) US reputation abroad:
— Guantanamo Bay
— Flights of rendition
— ‘Walk the Talk” and lead the way in a GREEN future
In addition to referring to direct source material from Obama’s campaign and the Independent’s digital assets, it may be worthwhile to cross-refer to these sites:
Professor Roubini of Stern University is widely credited in the US for predicting the current financial travails.
I hope this helps. Good luck!
RESPONDING TO GIORGIO BERTINI + MARK SZPAKOWSKI’s COMMENTS
Following on from what Giorgio and Mark wrote, I’d like to pick up on three points:
(1.) Green employment policy
(2.) Complexity of interconnectedness
(3.) Future modeling and tech tools
On the first point, previously I shared with Mark a report from the PERI Institute which covers in some detail how, potentially, 2 million new jobs in the green sector could be created within 2 years with a change in economic and labor policy:
* PERI — creating 2 million green jobs
My contention has always been that the green movement needs to move upstream from campaigning about recycling marketing materials and packaging to these areas:
* significant job creation in the sector, particularly in the MANUFACTURE of green technologies;
* consumer influence at the product design stage as a form of green quality control; and
* more appropriate inventory systems to meet GENUINE demand with supply and thereby reduce the surplus (that wastes electricity to produce, resources to refrigerate and / or house, etc.)
On the second point, I agree with Giorgio and Mark that the global system is much more complexly connected than current technology tools will actually allow us to model. The closest I’ve seen of any technology which offers us more insight into what can potentially be done is Quantum4D:
* Gallery of RDF and 4D nodal perspectives
Nonetheless, even with Quantum4D there are limitations and I’ll cover this in my final point.
As an associated sub-strand to (2.), Mark’s insight on the STYLE of leadership (responsive, listening, and empathetic) is an important and — to my mind — a critical one. No one of a rational and democratic intelligence likes or wants a dictator, bully, megalomaniac or tyrant as a Head of State. We reject these types in our daily lives and they command almost negligible trust or respect as leaders of men.
In corporate life, this is also true. The narcissists and the egomaniacs (aka the hubris oriented) have proven to be the cause of long-term value destruction rather than value nurturing. By comparison, leaders who can combine strong technical skills (i.e., work their ways around a balance sheet and understand the appropriate drivers and levers to exercise in order to foster sustainable growth and profit generation) with nuanced EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE are often successful in both innovating and implementing 360-2020 win-win sustainable solutions.
I make the distinction between value nurturing as opposed to value creation because it would be relatively easy for President-elect Obama to seemingly create value but if it’s not nurtured, it won’t develop or become self-sustaining and strategic — merely tactical point-scoring.
On the final point, what technology should we be looking to build? Well, personally, I believe Alan Kay has absolutely led the way in this with the Squeak and Tweak languages (current iterations of smalltalk-80). In his writings, Alan often refers to how this OOP is an attempt to more closely proxy in computer language how the biochemical world works.
Why and how is it relevant to politics and policy-making?
Well, both are complex organic systems which are not bound by linear cause and effect impetus alone. In an ideal scenario, the technology tools would allow us to map a policy in the same way that we can map the pharmacology of a drug at a particular point and its subsequent effects throughout the body.
In the same way, we would then be able to track all the moving parts of a policy and how it permeates domestically and internationally — as well as how it interacts with other countries’ policies and changes form and shape as a result.
When we can model policy like biochemical reactions is when we’ll be able to capture the full complexity of international connectedness.
2ND ITERATION OF THE DEBATEGRAPH
The Climate Change and Response to Financial Crisis spheres are shaping up really well.
If I may, a few minor edits and adds?
* Typo — there are two L’s in HiLLary Clinton.
* The 4th person in the cornerstone being considered for Sec. of State is Chuck Hagel.
* Another person being considered for Treasury Secretary is Robert Rubin.
* Under Response tFC:
(i.) Identify and ring-fence off problem financial institutions.
(ii.) Compile and communicate information on companies not affected by the toxic assets — this is a more immediate measure that can help restore confidence. At the moment, people are selling “blind” otherwise solid stock due to lack of information from authorities.
(iii.) Implement timely bans on short-selling.
(iv.) It’s capital injection in exchange for stock rather than stock injection plan. Stock injection has a result of diluting earnings per share (EPS) which would cause further loss of confidence in the company.
(v.) Wrt Resolution Trust Corp, I think “apply the more effective measures learnt from the RTC” is better than wholesale re-creation of it. As far as I can recall from articles it wasn’t profitable and if US govt. is going to use US$700 billion of taxpayers’ money it needs to have a respectable ROI.
(vi.) Increase transparency of hedge funds and bring them under closer SEC/FSA etc regulation
(vii.) Re-work Basel II and international GAAP (accounting frameworks)
* Under Policy Measures on Climate Change:
(i.) Severe fines and other punishments for companies which violate green principles — ordinarily, I wouldn’t advocate the stick, but in the case of Climate Change and the urgency of the challenge it may be necessary.
(ii.) Develop an independent kitemark standard to award green companies — just like the Blue flag in the UK indicates which beach is clean, so there should be a universal Green Kite.
TECHNOLOGY + the INTERNET
This should also be added as a key sphere of President-elect Obama’s agenda. He is the first President to be elected by the deployment of Internet campaigning (his eponymous website, YouTube, Facebook and MySpace).
Eric Schmidt, the CEO of Google, has been discussing the role the Internet played in this election:
* Eric Schmidt on the Internet + Presidential Election 2008
There’s also material in the blogosphere and business technology sites on what an Obama presidency may mean for the sector.
I’m looking forward to the next iteration of the graph!
ADDING MORE DIMENSIONS TO THE DEBATE
hi David,
This debategraph’s becoming quite brilliant! Thanks for incorporating my suggestions.
A few more quick ones.
(1.) Triggers to the global financial crisis include:
* American banks sought better revenue streams with high-yielding, risky and complex securities (since yields on long-term US bonds had been depressed by heavy international demand).
* relaxed US monetary policies until 2004 (Fed rate, July 2003 — July 2004: 1%). As a comparison between Jan — July 2007 it was at 5.25%.
* crisis of confidence dislocated the money markets where ordinary investors are involved; they withdrew their savings (as in the case of Northern Rock and in the States forced the US govt to intervene with financial support to mutual funds).
Prior to this triggered contagion the confidence issue was purely institutional, so banks were reluctant to lend to each other. When it affected the money markets was when the crisis became acute.
(2.) In the Political Implications of the global financial crisis, one of the key debates is about the demise of exported American capitalism of the Wall Street variety:
* Death toll for American capitalism — Newsweek
(3.) In International Economy as well as facilitating the devaluation of the Yen, the Americans need to consider their policies re. the Chinese renminbi. There was a great article in capital.fr (in French about this; I’ll try to re-find it).
Meanwhile this YouTube video is informative:
(4.) Under technology there are are two strands related to green issues:
(i.) tech co’s advancing energy efficiency through shared data centers — please see Green Grid roster of companies here:
(ii.) Google itself has a made substantial investments and strategic moves into renewable technologies:
* Google crunches the green numbers
* Google and GE go green together
(5.) Under International Policy, with the appointment of Hillary Clinton as Secretary of State there’s some more material on what some of the topics may be:
* How will Hillary Clinton work with President-elect Obama as Secretary of State?
WHY I’M INCLUDING MY NOTES ON “ALWAYS THE TWAIN”
I plan to use my blog as some type of time capsule for my shared thinking online……….
HOW THE DEBATEGRAPH’S PROGRESSING
It’s now available as an embed:
<iframe src=’http://debategraph.org/flash/fv.aspx?r=7714&d=2&i=1′ frameborder=’0′ width=’490′ height=’650′ scrolling=’no’></iframe>
ABOUT DEBATEGRAPH
Debategraph is a wiki visualization debate tool provided under Creative Commons. It was co-founded by David Price, a Cambridge University graduate has worked in diverse roles with a wide range of organisations including: the BBC, the European Commission, the UK Prime Minister’
s Office, H. M. Treasury, and Virgin TV; and Peter Baldwin, a former Australian cabinet minister who has leveraged his programming experiences to develop the debategraph software.
Some of the debate topics covered so far include:
· Can computers think?
· Whose identity is it anyway?
· Flash versus Ajax
· Sport and Genetic Enhancement
· To be or not to be? (a light-hearted take on Shakespeare)
What they’re attempting to do is interesting and I wish them success with it.
December 1st, 2008 at 4:13 pm
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