Information Landmine

"The Americans keep telling us how successful their system is. Then they remind us not to stray too far from our hotel at night." - An un-named EU trade representative quoted during international trade talks in Denver, Colorado, 1997.

Monday, September 22, 2008

From the Newly Restructured Brownite Department of Tautology...

Just as one government alone cannot combat global terrorism, just as one government alone cannot combat climate change, so one government alone cannot deal with the consequences of globalisation.

That's kind of right there in the definition of the term "globalisation", right Gord? Or did you just get so used to using "globalisation" as a glorified way of saying "It's nothing to do with me!" that you forgot it could have any other meeting?

Beyond the shallow sniping, I don't actually have much of an opinion about his plan until I get to hear some more of the details, but it all sounds kind of weak to my uneducated (if sizable) ears. There's a lot of talk about irresponsible behaviour and bonuses, which is all very nice, but obviously that horse has already bolted (not that it wouldn't be fun to see some yuppies whining, but it seems to me that the benefits at this stage would be strictly psychological).

And aprt from that, Gordon talks about some big global plan he's got where he gets to look all statesmanlike but won't actually make much difference one way or the other, and then talks a bit about how we need to weed out the bad apples. All seems a bit like fiddling while Rome burns.

Maybe I'm wrong, and someone better informed than myself will explain why that the Labour party actually have a master-plan that they're just selling very, very badly. But you wouldn't think they could be thinking too far outside the box if they can still have Ed Balls pissing around at the Labour party conference coming out with gems like this:

It’s not a question of light-touch regulation against heavy-handed regulation. It’s about effective regulation.

Did I miss some sort of meeting where we all decided it was 2006 again?

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