The BBC producer has been in touch and remains interested in featuring my family and I as a typical household that will be affected by this election and, yet, atypical since we seem to be less apathetic and more informed than most Chinese households. Awareness about global current affairs is a norm for us rather than an anomaly and we’ve had some extremely interesting and involved discussions over the dinner table. If we do take part it will be the first time a Chinese family has appeared on British media and not to talk about cooking, alternative medicines or feng shui but about economic policy, NHS reforms and education. That’s quite a responsibility to be entrusted with as a representation of the Chinese community. The 2010 election is particularly significant for the Chinese community because it’s the first time there are Chinese-origin candidates standing for MP.
As I’ve often highlighted on this blog, we are a family that registers and exercises our rights to vote — unlike the majority of the population who are either switched off from the politicians or simply “don’t get around to it”. Having said this, we are not the types of people who knock on doors or campaign on behalf of any party. There’s sufficient diversity amongst us that every party gets equal discuss-space at the dinner table. We’re less pro fluffy dogmatic ideology and more pro-smarts and pragmatism, so whichever party shows these qualities tends to be regarded more favorably. Generally speaking, we’re politically informed but also politically impartial; we try to critique the coherency of all parties’ policies on a level playing field.
Maybe this family practice explains why when I was at college the politics students elected me as Chair of the Social and Political Sciences Forum — despite the fact that I studied the natural sciences and was not even in any politics classes. Whilst they debated passionately about nuclear proliferation, whether Left / Right / Centrist ideology was the best and “how to revolutionize the world, end poverty and be good citizens” I simply ensured that the forums observed fair play and no one came to fisticuffs. Some people (including my mother and a boyfriend or two) would probably say it’s just as well that I didn’t study law or politics because I’d have natural advantages: articulacy, Devil’s advocacy, assertiveness that diverse perspectives have merits and absolute refusal to be bullied into accepting any position that makes no sense (this includes more senior people telling me mortgage CDOs and prop trading were the way forward prior to the financial crisis when my analysis suggested otherwise).
As it is, technology, science and business are infinitely more fascinating and open up avenues to innovation which is what ultimately makes me tick, so even though I can throw curve balls about Plato, Hobbes, Wittgenstein, Nietzsche, et al for fun……Galileo, Descartes, Tesla, Huygens and Nash et al are the ones who throw curve balls at us and make me really think. I like it when curve balls are thrown that challenge existing concepts towards some sort of “Coherent Super-Smart Solution”, btw.
Anyway………….
Today, the Conservatives launched their election manifesto with David Cameron making a call to arms that invoked JFK: “Ask not what your country can do for you, but ask what you can do for your country.” There were also obvious nods to President Obama’s successful campaign approach with his “Yes, we can” notes, tailored towards British vernacular and tastes:
“Some politicians say: ‘give us your vote and we will sort out all your problems’. We say: real change comes not from government alone. Real change comes when the people are inspired and mobilised, when millions of us are fired up to play a part in the nation’s future.
Yes this is ambitious. Yes it is optimistic. But in the end all the Acts of Parliament, all the new measures, all the new policy initiatives, are just politicians’ words without you and your involvement.
:
Together we can even make politics and politicians work better. And if we can do that, we can do anything. Yes, together we can do anything.”
This has been analyzed as a clear delineation between the Conservatives preference for a “Big Society” rather than Labor’s practice of a “Big State”. The details and implications of the Conservative manifesto have been picked apart by journalists on both the Labor and Conservative ends of the spectrum which makes for good sanity-checking:
* http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2010/apr/13/conservative-big-society-corruption-warning
* http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/election-2010/7165000/Conservative-manifesto-2010-general-election-party-policy.html
Interestingly I paraphrased that JFK quote myself when I successfully campaigned for election to the Student Council at university. I designed a poster with a rocket launch pad accompanied by the tag line, “Ask not what maths can do for you. Ask what more I can solve for the students of the maths department.” This was after I created the Link-Up Scheme that meant third and second year students voluntarily mentored first year newbies (sold them their books; passed on lecture notes; provided tips on where to find good safe accommodation; which societies were worthwhile to join; etc).
Before readers assume that a mutual appreciation of a JFK quote means that I’m gravitating towards the Conservatives, I’d say that a “Big Society” risks being bloated, even more bureaucratic, even more costly and is a bit “So what?” Now if David Cameron’s speech had said something along the lines of this:
“It’s time for this country to become a SMART SOCIETY again. A smart society that’s respected around the world for our strong economy, for our educational standards, for our democratic values, for our scientific innovations, for our ability to be tolerant as well as considered about our cultural diversity. A smart society that encourages world-class companies and entrepreneurialism and embraces success whilst also providing support for and reaching out with our hands to help the more vulnerable (children, the elderly, the under-employed) ….This is the opportunity and potential to achieve before us — as individuals, as members of our extended families, as contributors to our local communities, as citizens and shareholders in UK PLC.
Now…..To make this country worthy of its Triple A rating, we need to appreciate that we’re all in this together. That it makes sense to work together in order to achieve anything in life. That is… by our minds, our hearts, our hands and our collectivity WE WILL DO THIS. We will make our society better and become the benchmark and beacon of bright futures. Not simply that we can, but we will.
To borrow Mark Twain, he said that, “I have a higher and grander standard of principle than George Washington. He could not lie; I can, but I won’t.” In the same way, this society — the people of Britain — have the chance to show that we have higher and grander principles than Gordon Brown. He could not deliver on previous Labor manifestos — whether as Chancellor or as Prime Minister; we can and WE WILL.”
Now that sort of speech would have more of a punch and commitment to action rather than what the Conservatives conveyed today at Battersea Power Station.
As for the Liberal Democrats, I read that Nick Clegg wants to ban bankers’ bonuses or at least cap them at GBP2,500 with any other benefits being payable as shares which have to be vested and cannot be exercised for at least 5 years. Hmmn…..let’s examine some consequences of introducing this policy:
(1.) Bankers would be less incentivized to competitively chase down those US$ billion dollar transactions that earn US$ hundred millions in revenue fees that go into a bank’s balance sheet ===> EARNINGS WHICH CONTRIBUTE TO CORPORATION TAX that then gets funneled back into government spending on public services;
(2.) Bankers wouldn’t be out there spending any of those huge cash bonuses to help drive the retail or housing economy (on client lunches, in wine bars, in clothes stores, on healthcare, in investment properties — all sectors that employ people for whom bankers contribute notable revenues); and
(3.) Brain drain because those bankers would simply relocate to Singapore, New York, Rio etc. and stimulate those countries retail and property economies. Their children would be educated in those countries which means those educational fees would not flow back to the UK and the next generation of professionals (who would otherwise belong to UK PLC) will belong to Other Country SA / INC.
I am as disappointed as the next person about the global financial crisis and I also believe reforms are needed. However, any poorly thought out / knee jerk populism reform for electioneering purposes is as unhelpful as any “business as usual” modus. We need to have the imagination, the knowhow and the commitment of purpose to properly examine the information that’s going into systems which affect the decision-making process and economic models — whether that is at global CEO and board level or at local Joe/Jane Public commercial level.
There was a lot of quantitative information available about a potential market for subprime mortgages, about interest rate movements, about debt repayment schedules, about the risk layers of compounded CDOs, about governments wanting to stimulate investment by foreign funds seeking higher returns from those subprime CDOs.
However, there was insufficient QUALITATIVE INFORMATION about the perceptions, tastes, emotional states and time dynamics of those subprime mortgage households, the bankers who constructed the financial instruments, the risk exposure of the banks and the culpability of governments, regulatory agencies and external consultancies. So if we are to get any cogent handle on the global financial crisis we need to grasp the importance of those missing QUALITATIVE ELEMENTS that drove and affected the quantitative value losses.
See? It requires more intelligence than simply pointing lazy fingers at the bankers and abjugating the contributions to the global financial crisis by governments, by those who borrowed to buy housing for which there was no way they could meet the repayments for, by regulatory agencies and by professional entities (accountancy firms, management consultancies, the media etc.). The latter group are mentioned since they’re supposed to form a sort of Fifth Estate that sanity-checks the strategic coherency of companies, governments and economies.
Most importantly, the contribution of INCOMPLETE AND INCOHERENT INFORMATION IN THE I.T. SYSTEMS AND ON THE INTERNET which —instead of enabling informed 360-2020 perspectives for sound decision making — only enforced blind spots and ignorance that resulted in the subsequent implosion of the global financial system in multiple ways and from different directions.
No reader should underestimate how much I iterate 360-2020 with these questions:
* What is information? Is it a mere series of 0′s and 1′s? Yes and no? -1 / 0 / +1? Or does it have dimension (quality, color, context, time and more)?
* How are we capturing information PRIOR to them being processed by the machines and algorithms?
* Where in the algorithms are the improvements needed?
* How will we include and convert quantitative AND QUALITATIVE elements into differentiation objects that can be read and processed smartly by the machines?
* To what extent will this affect and improve business, economic and decision-making models?
* How will this change in approach to information reduce the risks of another global financial crisis occurring at this level?
So……….it’s not “Big Society” or “Big State” or “Big Ban on Bankers’ Bonuses” which will revolutionize the future as far as I’m concerned.
It’s IMAGINATIVE, SMART, COHERENT THINKING AND REALIZATION on the nature of information as it’s applied to the Internet and the interfaces between humans and the machine algorithms which will affect all our futures (way beyond any national politics or cultural differences).