Dear
Spengler, I just became prime minister of
Italy, and our economy has a minor problem: it is
disappearing. Only 10 years ago we accounted for
almost 5% of world trade, but we are losing market
share to Asia, and our share of world trade has
fallen to barely half that level. Our family firms
are disappearing because Italians lack
entrepreneurial spirit. Why, every factory manager
still goes home to his mother's for lunch! China
can make a slightly inferior but much cheaper
version of anything our factories can produce.
What should I do? Romano in Rome
Dear Romano, Your question implies its
own answer. You think the problem is that Italian
factory managers insist on having lunch at their
mother's. Have you considered
that the Italian mother's value on the world
market has risen by more than the value of an
Italian factory has fallen? If you can't sell
commodity industrial products, sell the culinary
art of the Italian mother, refined over centuries
of pampering spoiled sons.
Eight hundred
years ago, China exported an inferior product to
Italy, namely noodles, and Italy turned this into
a high-end product, namely pasta. The Chinese
might be making cheap knock-offs of your
industrial products, but they spend their
discretionary income on your improved version of
their own invention. Shanghai has adopted osso
buco alla Milanese as its regional dish. The
market for gremolata in Shanghai alone probably
exceeds the global turnover of industrial valves.
Flash-freeze Italian Sunday dinners and
air-freight them to China. Busloads of Chinese
tourists will descend on the factory towns of
northern Italy to eat a home-cooked Italian meal.
Of course, this is only an interim
solution, for Chinese cooks will learn to prepare
Italian food as well as the Italians, just as
Chinese musicians will learn to play the Viennese
classics as well as the Viennese. But you needn't
worry about a long-term solution. Not only are
your family firms disappearing; with a birth rate
of barely 1.2 children per female, your families
are disappearing as well. But don't worry. When
you Italians become extinct, your culture will be
in good hands. Spengler
Dear
Spengler, Remember me, the chief executive
officer of the world's only hyperpower? Last November you told me
to sit tight and not do anything. Since then my
approval rating has fallen from 37% to 31%, and
things are getting worse by the week. Sounds like
you gave me some pretty bad advice. What do you
have to say now? Worried in Washington
Dear Worried, First of all, don't take
it personally. If you think you have it bad, read
the letter from Romano in Rome above. French Prime
Minister Dominique Villepin's approval rating
dropped to only 20% last week, and Britain's Tony
Blair is barely ahead at 26%.
The trouble
is that the world faces problems no government
possibly can solve to the satisfaction of its
people. That's why there are no popular leaders,
except for the new chancellor of Germany. But
that's only because the Germans are slow on the
uptake.
Your trouble is that you are too
nice a guy. You like to give people good news. Now
it's time to start telling some bad news to the
citizens of your hyperpower. They already have
gotten the message at the gasoline pump. Even
worse for your party, it's the swing voters who
are the angriest. Poor folk will vote for the
Democrats, and high-income people can afford to
vote their ideological preferences.
The
thick middle of the distribution contains the
families who give up the cinema or a restaurant
meal when it costs US$60 to fill the tank of their
sport-utility vehicle. Remember, between 2001 and
2004, median family income in the United States
actually fell by about 4%, and wages fell by more
than 6%. Families at the center of the income
distribution earned $54,700 in 2001 but only
$53,600 in 2004, and the past year and a half of
improvement probably got them back to where they
were five years ago. A New York Times/CBS poll
found that more than half of respondents have cut
household expenditures in response to higher oil
prices.
No matter what you do, things are
going to get worse before they get better. You're
better off being the first to break the bad news.
I suggest a speech along the following lines:
My fellow Americans, we didn't seek
to become the world's only hyperpower. We kind
of stumbled into the role because everyone else
failed at it, or just didn't want the job. As
long as we are on top of the heap, we're going
to have problems.
Now, these are
high-class problems to have. A big one is all
the people who want to get into this country.
It's better to have people fighting to get in
than to have people fighting to leave, but we
still need to address it. A much bigger problem
is jealousy. We are the world's biggest success,
and all the deadbeats of the world try to blame
their problems on us.
The president of
Iran just wrote me a letter telling me in so
many words that if we don't convert to Islam
there will be war. Iran is making a move to grab
control over as many oil resources as it can.
That's why they want nuclear weapons. And that's
why gasoline prices are so high. I'm sorry that
this has made life worse for you. But if we
don't stop Iran, we will have much bigger things
to worry about than gasoline prices. We'll be
picking plutonium out of our posteriors.
And one thing more: we can't fix
everyone's problems, and we can't force them to
adopt our democratic values. We will put our
boys in harm's way to help our friends and deter
our enemies, when it suits our interests, but we
can't take responsibility for the outcome of
other people's politics.
Convince the
voters that Iran is the source of their troubles.
Get your soldiers out of Iraqi cities and into
secure bases, which I understand you plan to do in
any case. Then take out Iran's nuclear
capabilities later this year. Why not launch the
attack on Halloween? "Trick or treat" seems an
appropriate response to President Mahmud
Ahmadinejad.
This strategy may seem risky.
But what have you got to
lose? Spengler
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