Obama, Romney and the Shards of Politics

Obama and Romney are neck and neck in the polls and there is a final Presidential debate is schedule for Monday, 22^nd October 2012. While the debate is ostensibly focused on foreign policy, it is very likely that the combatants will introduce the need for the US to be economically strong if it is to occupy its “rightful” (sic) place in the world.

All of this is tragic. Romney has no credible idea for the future of the US economy. His “five point plan” is actually a single point: if he is elected, confidence will return to the markets and this in turn will lead to job creation. He actually said this at one time.  Romney believes in the confidence fairy.

Obama has offered no serious vision for his second and final term and is not helped by Joe Biden’s rhetoric, flamboyance and arrogance are getting in the way of a serious campaign based on policies, issues and evidence based thinking.

What we are seeing is a lowest common denominator election in which less than half of those eligible to vote will do so, making getting the vote out a real key challenges for all parties. In swing states, it’s the base that will make the difference, not the swing voters.

(As a side issue, what is it that a swing voter is now waiting for? Some flash of inspiration from Romney – like a policy that is based on a serious working out of the numbers and impacts? A new strategy from Obama for working effectively with both side of the house? A new agreement on health care? I cant imagine what it is that is keeping them from deciding or what either candidate can do to “bring them onside”).

With just fifteen days to go and the “fiscal cliff” looming at the end of the year – the automatic ending of tax cuts and automatic cuts to budgets – neither party  is engaged in a serious, meaningful analysis and policy proposals with respect to the economy.  The Romney-Paul rhetoric is just that – rhetoric, based on skillful deception and downright lies. Obama is simply suggesting more of the same. The US is in trouble. Neither of these candidates is offering a strategy for its future that is credible, and this should be of concern to all.

The next two weeks will be frenetic. The candidates will dash hither and thither trying to look convincing, trying to appear resolute and clear and trying to persuade the voters to first go to the poll and then select their “dancing with their future” star. This is more of a Hello magazine campaign – about style – rather than about substance.

There is a lot of talk in the US about American exceptionalism. What is exceptional about this election is its lack of substance and its pursuit of ignorance.

American politics is broken. We are watching the shards of politics fracture in front of the electorate.  It will get worse before it gets better. 

The Thing About China..

The forecast for growth in the Chinese economy has been lowered from 8.2% to 7.7% for the current fiscal year. This is serious news and bad for Canada, the US and Europe. Strong growth in China drives global demand for goods and services: any weakening of this growth reduces demand and deepens the recessionary forces at play in the developed world.

While many initially saw the problems of the US and Europe in terms of excessive public borrowing and government debt, the real culprit for the economic woes we face is the lack of demand and the resultant lack of growth. Until we can stimulate demand, unemployment will remain high and firms will struggle with their strategic position in complex and shrinking markets.

China and India are major demand drivers in the global economy. In the last ten years these two economies have risen by an annual average of 10% and 9% respectively - massive growth. To fuel this growth they have increased demand for natural resources, technological resources and materials needed for infrastructure and advanced manufacturing. When demand slows, firms lay off staff and stop buying the goods and services they each need and these decisions ripple through the economy.

Higher unemployment places demands on public services, including social services and health, and at the same time reduces revenues for governments. This in turn leads them to both spend more and borrow more. When growth is strong, revenues are strong and demands for services are generally lower.

So now we see the perfect storm: high unemployment, especially in Europe and the US, which is likely to worsen as demand falls; low rates of growth and demand, slowing the growth of firms and inducing a risk-averse view of capital - its better to sit on it then use it; and increased demands on public services while taxation and other revenues fall.

What is needed is less of a focus on austerity and more of a focus on growth and development. Governments may need to consider economic stimulus, even if it means increasing debt and borrowing. The specter of large numbers of young (18-24 year old) unemployed and near retirement seniors caught in the unemployment-poverty cycle is a more compelling policy driver than the relentless pursuit of austerity.

The Next President of the United States

Twenty four days from now a select group of Americans will go to the polls to elect a Government, a President and a Vice President. It is a close race with Mitt Romney - the man who ponders why airplane windows do not open and has dismissed 47% of Americans as tax avoiders - looking stronger all the time and President Obama struggling to engage his own democratic power base.

Much depends on emotion. Which of the candidates will evoke an emotional response from a voter - enough to trigger them to vote at all and to vote for a specific candidate. Most thinking Americans appear to suggest that, while they recognize the need for real focused and courageous leadership, "none of the above" is their real choice. Turn out is typically low and many are not able to vote due to the complex voter registration processes at play in some US states.

The Romney-Ryan ticket talks a story, but that is just what it is: fiction. The so-called Ryan plan is focused on rhetoric and the return of the confidence fairy. The real issue in the US is the lack of demand, but Romney-Ryan are likely to pursue austerity coupled with deals for the very rich. There is no compelling, focused economic plan from the Republicans and no one is really sure which of the various versions of Mitt Romney evident since he became a Governor will show up at the White House if he is elected.

It is not as if the Obama team have a plan either. More of the same is not what the US needs right now - its a rethink of government, a refocused growth strategy and a rethink of social responsibility, social supports (including Medicare) and public spending that is needed. But there are few specifics coming from the Obama team, with the exception of the plans for medicare.

The catalogue of challenges facing the next President of the United States and congress is formidable:

• a broken system of government and dysfunctional political system
• a decline in the economic and political power of the US
• a fiscal cliff caused by past decisions which will begin on January 1st as the Bush tax cuts expire and automatic cuts in public spending kick in
• lack of a clear, focused strategy for growth and economic recovery - currently characterized by the fact that the Obama administration has not been able to get a budget passed for sometime
• challenges to the sustainability of social programs, especially social services and health care
• a raft of energy and sustainability challenges which have been postponed pending the election - the Keystone pipeline being just one
• ongoing issues of the corruption of politics by lobbyists and access to power, information and influence

When I was a teacher, one of my special needs students told me that "it doesn't matter who you vote for, the government always gets in". This may well be the story of this election. Rome (or Washington) isn't burning (just smouldering), so "more of the same" is likely whoever wins, though the "spin" will be very different.

But this election will also reshape politics in the US. If Romney-Ryan find themselves in power but the Senate is (by a slim margin) democrat, the real issue will be about the nature of government and the dysfunction of the current US constitution. A related issue will be the very nature of the Republican Party - more specifically, the blend of tea found in the White House Tea Party. There will be also a rethink within the Democratic Party about how it can reconnect with its roots and reinvent politics - look to Hilary to engage in this conversation.

If Obama-Biden win, which looks possible, then the key will be the extent to which Obama stops being a community organizer and ideas man and becomes a President. He has done some things, make no mistake about it, but not enough. He must focus on economic responsibility and pursue strategies which enable growth of demand for goods and services. This requires courage - not a key characteristic of his first term.

Some suggest that the US is "too far gone" to be saved. They are wrong. The US remains hugely important to us all - it remains a key economic power, a key influencer globally and militarily key to the stability of the world. But a new, focused, courageous leadership is needed if we are to see a renaissance in the US.

Europe, Nobel and Economics

The Nobel Peace Prize committee has twice in recent times done strange things. They awarded President Obama, just a few months into his term, the prize for holding out the potential of peace – not something he has been able to deliver on. Now they have awarded the European Union the prize for maintaining peace and promoting justice for the last sixty years.

Reactions to the most recent announcement range from the grateful to the disdainful. Just before the announcement was made, Greek citizens wore Nazi uniforms in protest at the visit of Chancellor Merkel of Germany, the Queen of Austerity and author, in their eyes, of the dismemberment of the Greek economy. Portugal, Ireland, Greece and Spain (and to some extent Italy) are struggling for survival as nations in the face of daunting economic challenges and over 21 million across the EU are unemployed, including a large tranche of young people (18-24) who increasingly look like a “lost generation”. But the EU was not awarded the Nobel prize for economics.

The idea that a strong Germany after the second world war might have a resurgence of its ambitions to own more land to enable German expansion – Hitler’s main ambition – and therefore the EU has been instrumental in the work of peace keeping is nonsense. But that is not what the Nobel committee was pointing to. They pointed to a post-second world war Europe rebuilt on the basis of co-opetition, transparency and a focus on freedom – freedom of movement of people, capital and resources. The EU project has achieved amongst twenty seven countries some remarkable things, not least of which is the promotion of justice and human rights.

The EU project is fragile. At the heart of this fragility is a tension between those who recognize that the survival of the Euro as a currency requires the political integration and loss of sovereignty for all who wish to use the Euro and others who seek to protect and preserve sovereignty of nations. In short, national identity versus integration is the major tension at the heart of the EU. While the trigger for this tension is economics, the real issue is identity and nationhood.

There are other issues within the EU too. The growing power of the EU justice system and parliament to impose laws and regulation on a nation that has little opportunity to oppose, reject or select the laws relevant to them. The growing costs of the EU at a time when nations have little economic room to pay more. The massive bureaucratization of government and the growing power of unelected officials – the Commission – to impose regulation or to make decisions against the interests of particular nations.

But one cannot deny that, love it or hate it, the EU has been one of the most interesting and compelling stories of peace seeking, justice making and collaboration on the planet. Its not perfect, but deserves some recognition before the EU implodes as countries like Britain hold votes to determine whether to stay or go and the Eurozone falls apart as the costs of bailing out economies like Greece, Spain and Italy spiral beyond the EU’s ability to pay.

One British parliamentary friend suggests that the Nobel prize is the violin playing as Rome burns – a last gesture of good will before the proverbial stuff hits the fan. He may be right (he is a former Foreign Secretary, so knows a thing or too). But the prize does recognize some real achievements. It is also involves an injection of cash – something the EU desperately needs.

What Happened to the University of Alberta?

In 2008 President Samarasekera of the University of Alberta set the goal of the University becoming a top 20 university in the world by 2020. At the time the University was ranked 74^th in the world. This bold declaration of strategy named Dare to Discover reflected two things – the growing confidence of the University of Alberta and the culture of performance it was then pursuing and the rhetoric of the Government of Alberta, which wanted its lead research institution to be “world class”.

The 2012-13 rankings appeared this last week from the Times Higher Education Supplement (THES), created in partnership with Thomson-Reuters. Rather than moving up the table, as the Dare to Discover strategy hoped, the University has fallen in the rankings – it is now 121^st in the world.

There are three reasons for this. First, and most important, is the growing investment in education in China, Asia and other jurisdictions in the world. It is not that the University of Alberta is in decline, but that other universities have become significantly better than they have been before. In particular, the US has made major investments in education – there are fifteen US universities in the top 20 – and Universities in Australia and Japan have risen up the table quickly. Even Canada’s highest ranked university, the University of Toronto, has fallen out of the top twenty this year (its ranked 21^st).

Second, Governments appear to have lost interest in the idea of “world class” as they themselves struggle with economic issues and deficits. At one time, the University of Alberta received 65% of its operating budget from government sources. In 2010-11 the Government of Alberta funded just 33%. The leadership team at the University, excellent though it is, struggles with operational survival issues at a time when other jurisdictions see Universities as a critical key to their future. Alberta clearly sees a much more functional role for universities and they are impacted by this decision. One impact is that they seek to attract more international students who pay higher fees and another is that students generally pay more of the costs of operations, creating high student loans and debt at a time when the global economy is fragile.

The third reason the University of Alberta finds itself falling is that it is seeking to please too many stakeholders. Some want it to be excellent in teaching and research – its primary mission. Others want it to be a centre for practical problem solving and innovation – not at all its primary mission, though it does sometime solve problems which are tangible now and relevant now. Universities are not “hot beds of innovation”, they are centres of excellence in invention – some of which go on to become innovations. Yet others want all Albertan’s aged 18 and 19 to go to university and the University of Alberta is tasked with providing a solution to Alberta’s growing challenge of social equity. Mission drift based on contradictory messages is a common problem for organizations.

Now that we have six universities – Athabasca, Alberta, Calgary, Mount Royal and McEwan – we should start to recognize that we have just one in the top 200 universities in the world and that one is struggling with issues of identity, focus and resources. It needs serious investment to raise it back up the rankings and a strong focus on research and teaching. If the Province wants some of its smartest people to solve industrial problems and help build jurisdictional advantage it should follow the advice of the Premiers Council on Economic Strategy and create a virtual Institute for Advanced Technology (see pages 54 and 55 of Shaping Alberta’s Future) and second smart people from our institutions and industry to solve problems that matter. Lets get back to funding not based on enrolment but on the basis of strategy and intention. Lets make the University of Alberta a focus for excellence in the world – a flagship for Alberta’s exceptional talent.

Science, Learning and Sustainability

Students and teachers are challenged to make sense of all the claims and counterclaims about our future, especially with respect to issues of sustainability. For example, virtual science based on computer modeling is the basis for most predictions and scenarios about climate change, extreme weather events and biodiversity. But we do not teach modeling as a scientific practice in schools, we teach science in terms of discrete disciplines (physics, biology, chemistry) rather than as the practice of model building. When students are confronted with skeptical scientists who base their skepticism on data and observation rather than models, they are unsure how to evaluate evidence.

A concrete example may assist in making clear the point. All eighteen computer models of ice formations in the Antarctic suggest that ice sheets should be experiencing continued decline.  Each shows a decrease in each month, with the greatest multi-model mean percentage monthly decline of 13.6% in February and the greatest absolute loss of ice in September. The models have very large differences in the rate and extent of loss over 1860 – 2005. However, data collected through satellite observations make clear that sea ice has been expanding , with the September 2012 extent of 19,1702 million square kilometers being amongst the largest extent ever recorded (see here for data). The models are clearly wrong, but it is the model data and their gloomy predictions that gets the press not the optimistic data from real observation.

Similar issues exist between models and data for such things as polar bear extent (with the exception of two specific communities, the polar bear population is actually growing and is very healthy), extreme weather events (no established connection to climate change according to the IPCC’s analysis and other studies) and other issues with environment and sustainability.

What then do we teach students? Students are generally being taught that the Antarctic ice is melting, that polar bears are in decline and that extreme weather events are linked to climate change. They are not being asked to look critically at the difference between different kinds of scientific inquiry and evidence – e.g. between virtual science, experimental science and natural observation.

They are also not generally taught the difference between evidence based policy, such as the war on DDT fought by Rachel Carlson with selective and biased evidence use and the evidence based policy approach, which uses a systematic and inclusive approach to evidence so as to reach a comprehensive understanding of the challenge. Cold hard looks at evidence for Carlson’s claims (see here and also here) suggest that she used a very flawed approach to science. The same can also be said of Lord Sterns’s review of the policy implications of climate change (see here).

We have similar challenges in biology and medicine. Claims are made about homeopathy, for example, which have no scientific basis whatsoever, yet various health systems promote and enable its practice (see here) and some schools and colleges actually teach homeopathy as “an alternative medicine” (sic). Claims are made about new treatments and discoveries which, when looked at critically and scientifically are problematic, as reviews by the Cochrane Collaboration make clear (see here for useful columns by Ben Goldacre describing some of these challenges).

How do we encourage students to look at such claims and to look at skeptical responses to them? How do we teach the basis of scientific inquiry and skeptical analysis in a systematic way so that the educational process is not simply “buying in” to a politically correct narrative, but is actually developing scientific and critical skills?

This is a real challenge for those who are committed to sustainability and development. Unless we fall into the trap of buying into the narrative that the future is one in which we are doomed in ways which are “inevitable” according to science, we need upcoming generations to be able to reason scientifically, understand evidence, be able to be critical of science (especially pseudo-science) and be able to practice the scientific methods. We also need them to see science as informing public policy not determining it and to recognize the difference between campaigning and scientific inquiry – lines which, after the work of Feyerabend (e.g. Against Method, 1975) , have become blurred.

Students need the skills to recognize “bad” science, polemics and campaigning science and the skills to be able to undertake critical scientific inquiry. I am not sure that our current teaching of science is achieving these intentions. A sustainable planet needs schools, colleges and universities to produce scientists that understand not just their discipline, but the philosophy and history of science. Otherwise, progress will be inhibited by bias and polemic.

First published by the Club of Reykjavik - see http://educationsustainability.blogspot.ca/2012_10_01_archive.html