On 2/19/2012 1:24 AM, Kristofer Munsterhjelm wrote:
> On 02/19/2012 06:18 AM, Richard Fobes wrote:
>> ...
>> More specifically, European politicians seem to be as clueless as U.S.
>> politicians about what is needed to "create jobs" and restore widespread
>> economic prosperity.
>
> Let me just say that, as a Norwegian, that does not match my experience
> at all.
Ah, indeed Norway has a better political system than the "main" European
nations (France, Germany, Spain, etc.). Also, oil exports put Norway in
a much better position economically than what's going on here in the
U.S. (and tighter budgets result in greater dysfunctionality). And,
culturally, Norwegians seem to be enlightened more so than many other
countries.
The need for Norway to resist the European Union in its effort to "bite
off too much" underscores my point about European nations, on average --
which implies a lack of wise leadership in both the EU and the countries
that dominate the EU.
A point about the EU: Personally I think that creating the Eurodollar as
a monetary unit that is represented in currency was a mistake. Before
the Eurodollar was instituted, I publicly (in "The Futurist" magazine)
suggested that something called a "Unidollar" should be created as a
monetary unit that is defined in a way that does not inflate or deflate
with respect to tangible "things" and services, but without being
available as a tangible currency. That would allow people in different
countries to talk about monetary amounts in Unidollars without having to
know the conversion rate for the country of the person they are talking
to. (They only have to know the conversion rate between their country's
currency and the Unidollar.) The fact that the EU leaders didn't
anticipate the possibility of Greek and Italian (and other) defaults
before they even instituted the common currency (and did not realize
that just asking new EU nations to make a promise to spend taxpayers'
money wisely, with no real way to back up those promises) reveals a lack
of wisdom.
As for the U.S., the biggest (but not the only) election unfairness
occurs in primary elections as a result of vote splitting. "Special
interests" -- the people who give the largest amounts of money to
election campaigns -- have learned to give money to candidates in the
primary elections of _both_ the Republican party and the Democratic
party (as needed), and give additional support to "spoiler" candidates
when needed. The result is that the money-backed candidate in each
party's primary election wins, and then it doesn't much matter whether
the Republican or the Democrat wins the "general election".
Simply getting one political party or the other to use a fairer voting
method (any of the ones supported by the Declaration of Election-Method
Reform Advocates) in the primary elections would greatly improve the
ability of voters to elect problem-solving leaders -- instead of
special-interest puppets. (After one party adopts such fairer primary
elections, the other party would soon have to do the same or else risk
losing lots of support.)
That's all I have time to write now.
Richard Fobes
On 2/19/2012 1:24 AM, Kristofer Munsterhjelm wrote:
On 02/19/2012 06:18 AM, Richard Fobes wrote:
I have in mind European parliaments where coalitions are typically
needed.
In my opinion, coalitions require back-room compromises that most voters
would not like (if they knew what those compromises were).
I have not seen any parliamentary democracies in which voters are able
to elect problem-solving leaders. Instead, special-interest puppets are
elected.
More specifically, European politicians seem to be as clueless as U.S.
politicians about what is needed to "create jobs" and restore widespread
economic prosperity.
Let me just say that, as a Norwegian, that does not match my experience
at all.
Clearly, politics here isn't perfect. I would say that the current
coalition's largest member (the Labor Party) holds certain positions
about which the majority does not agree, and that said party uses its
power as "a majority of a majority" (i.e. the largest - majority - party
within the largest - majority - coalition) to push its own views through
even when they're unpopular.
(I'm thinking of the Labor Party accepting (de jure optional) European
Union regulations too readily, in particular, because the party likes
the idea of the EU even though the union has been growing steadily less
popular with the people due to the whole business with Greece.)
However, the coalition did manage to steer the country through the last
(European/American-induced) economic turbulence without too much
problem; and the Labor Party had to concede on some local-vs-central
issues because of the nature of coalition government, whereas they
probably would not have had to do so if they were the majority in a
two-party state.
Instead, I'd say that the European problem is that the ones in power are
trying to bite off too much. The European Union, in growing so quickly,
had to be built on compromise at all costs, and that compromise has led
to many solutions that only go some of the way. The Euro matter is a
good example: the management of the currency (along with attendant
financial policy) is partially centralized, partially decentralized, and
that doesn't work. They also have their undemocratic, bureaucrat-ruled
past to deal with, though they've come some way by giving some of the
Commission's power to the Parliament.
I agree that a lot can be accomplished without making this change.
I also agree that there are no "unchangeable" laws that would prevent
changing how voting is done in Congress.
Yet special interests -- i.e. the biggest campaign contributors -- will
never intentionally allow such changes -- because they know how to
control ("rig") the system under the current laws/rules.
That seems to say that you can't expect the rules to change to favor
third parties first, because under the current system, the campaign
contributors would want the status quo to prevail.
So you'd have to weaken the power of the campaign contributors. And how
would you do so? Perhaps by competition?
I guess the risky part would be that you get multipartyism, and then the
rules don't work, and then instead of the coalitions altering the rules
so that they *do* work (now that campaign contributors can't buy all the
parties off), the people say "oh, it's not working, let's return to the
old lesser-evil system -- at least that did work".
Is that something like what you're imagining?
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