Responses to Summit
Posted by Fred Argy on Wednesday, April 1, 2009
Costello went through all the documents relating to the summit, to see if there was anything at all on the global financial institutions. He said he looked hard and found nothing.
He failed to look hard. This is my submission.
This entry was posted on Wednesday, April 1st, 2009 at 8:26 AM and filed under Economics and public policy.
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In fairness to the Hamlet of Higgins, he says he looked through the report; he does not mention the submissions.
Your paragraph about oncoming financial difficulties would have been ignored at the time because it didn’t fit the inflation-dragon-slaying narrative; it would be ignored today because it doesn’t fit the nobody-foresaw-it narrative.
Come to think of it, a smart opposition would mine the submissions for stuff like this.
Posted on 01-Apr-09 at 9:55 am | PermalinkI think your post is interesting in that it highlights difference in attitudes between investing in human capital and “seeable” infrastructure (and just wasted money). It’s disappointing that politicians seem far less amenable to suggestions like yours (most of which are to do with the quality of human capital) than suggestions where you actually have to build something (a bridge, a road, something in a primary school…). I presume this is because they can actually point to something concrete at the end and get to say “I did this” no matter how worthless it is.
Posted on 01-Apr-09 at 4:44 pm | PermalinkYou can’t turn a silver spade on a life seeking wisdom.
Posted on 01-Apr-09 at 8:09 pm | PermalinkIn fairness, too, that submission didn’t scream ‘global financial institutions’ at me.
And not one of those words actually appears in the document, so SEARCH(“GLOBAL”NEAR”FINANCIAL”NEAR”INSTITUTIONS”) would not have returned it :)
Posted on 01-Apr-09 at 11:24 pm | Permalink“He failed to look hard”
The story of his political life.
Posted on 03-Apr-09 at 1:24 pm | Permalink