Right. OK. The new year then. Let’s get into it.
What’s new about the new year? Well so far it’s been full of flashbacks for me.
First off, the Girlie asked me the other day if I’d pay her university fees. It was a simple proposition. She wasn’t trying to get out of her student loan, which is now everyone's birthright. She just wanted to save the interest and pay me back.
“Girlie,” I said, “are you familiar with the concept of inter-generational theft?”
She wasn’t.
“Okay, this is how it works,” says I. “I never paid for my education, so why the hell should I pay for yours?”
That had her flummoxed.
“But, Dad, you didn’t pay because your parents paid.”
“No they didn’t,” I say.
And it’s true. First, paying through tax is different. Why? Because by doing so you are, one way or another, funding public programmes that are considered of benefit of society and not just to the individual.
I still believe that in the case of education, and health just as I believe it in the case of spending on defence or police or roads or customs services.
Second, I believe the free education I received was a darn sight better than the very expensive vocation-driven education now being offered by many alleged universities. I can’t prove that. I just thought I’d hang it out there and wait for the abusive emails to roll in.
Anyway, I’ve just given the Girlie her first good reason to hate baby boomers.
That was flashback number one.
Flashback number two was Colin Powell saying pre-emption was not a cornerstone of US foreign policy in the same week Richard Perle releases a new polemic aiming to take the US to even more extreme international stances. One aim of this policy is to split the European Union by forcing governments to choose between supporting Washington or Paris.
You’d have to say Perle won the last round. That's where I'd have to put my money.
Then, flashback number three, I was watching TV and saw an item on the World Bank or some-such (a rare international institution the unilateralists support. I wonder why?) lecturing Bolivia on how they should develop. Here’s the formula: privatize everything, remove all barriers to trade, create an environment amenable to foreign investment, bend over and lube up.
Now correct me if I’m wrong but weren’t such policies disastrous in the case of Argentina? Isn’t that formula the exact opposite of the very successful policies used to develop that model socialist state, Singapore? Or Japan. Or China. Or Russia.
I can’t see anybody lecturing Singapore about privatising Singtel or Singapore Airlines.
Yes I know the economies of some of those states aren’t going well at the moment, but the most communist of all, China, is growing real quick. These societies have developed successfully and quickly from extremely low bases into modern industrial societies, and they didn’t do it by bending over.
Flashback number four was weighing myself and seeing I am now 93kg, despite eating well, not drinking too much, and jogging and swimming over the holidays. I was very well behaved and I still weigh sodding 93kg!
There is no justice in this cruel world.