Jan 31st 2012, 19:02 by J.A.
TODAY Cassandra bids his readers farewell, or more precisely au revoir, since our prediction is that we will be back online in November, ready to cast the runes for 2013. In the meantime, I live in hope that Sachin Tendulkar, despite the collapsing fortunes of India’s cricket team, will get his 100th international century at some point in 2012, and that Andy Murray (still a Briton despite the ambition of First Minister Alex Salmond to declare independence for Scotland) will finally win a grand slam tennis tournament in 2012. I also hope, rather than predict, that the euro zone will get its act together; that peace will break out between Israelis and Palestinians (very unlikely, as Daniel Barenboim sadly hinted in The World in 2012); that the summer Olympics in London will be drug-free; and so on.
There could, of course, be some carping individuals among you who will keep account of any predictions of Cassandra and The World in 2012 that for some extraordinary reason turn out to be false…I would only crave their forgiveness and point to those things, as outlined in The World in 2012, that will not happen. One of them is the end of the world. In defiance of followers of the Mayan calendar, I confidently forecast that we will still be around after December 21st. Until then, may you all enjoy a prosperous Year of the Dragon.
Jan 31st 2012, 10:56 by J.K.
“We are now ready to take this giant leap forward to ensure peace of mind and well-being of all our future space-travelling customers.” With that, German insurer Allianz late last year announced plans to offer travel insurance to space tourists. It expects to sell its first policies this year, in time for the launch of commercial space flights.
All manner of newfangled spacecraft will be blasted towards the heavens this year. The highest-profile “spaceline”, Sir Richard Branson’s Virgin Galactic, will launch crucial test flights in 2012 before paying customers blast off next year, at $200,000 per passenger. Some 430 people are booked for launch from Virgin’s spaceport in New Mexico, some of whom surrendered their $20,000 down-payments in 2004. Despite repeated delays, a recent rise in British-accented English on the streets of Las Cruces is seen as a sign that the official launch is indeed imminent. The equivalents of low-cost carriers are also appearing on the scene; XCOR and Armadillo Aerospace are both taking bookings for around $100,000 per passenger, with test flights scheduled throughout 2012 and potential commercial launches in late 2013.
Equally exciting, if less glamorous, will be the maiden voyages of spacecraft at the blue-collar end of space travel. Under a contract with NASA, SpaceX and Orbital Sciences Corporation will send the first privately-built ships to the International Space Station in 2012. SpaceX’s unmanned supply craft, the “Dragon” capsule, is scheduled for launch in the Spring, while Orbital’s “Cygnus” craft will take off in the Autumn. If Virgin Galactic is the luxury yacht of the cosmos, these are the tugboats.
The biggest space story so far in 2012, however, comes from an unlikely source: Republican presidential candidate Newt Gingrich. His recent pledge to build a permanent moon base if elected—coincidentally fleshed out ahead of today’s primary in "space-mad Florida"—is generating plenty of headlines. Mr Gingrich extols the lunar outpost as a boon to the tourism industry as well as a source of potential mineral wealth. But why would holidaymakers pay to go all that way to visit an open-pit mine? The insurance premiums alone would be astronomical.
Jan 30th 2012, 15:58 by J.A.
CASSANDRA must first declare an interest: I am a decades-long customer of Britain’s Royal Bank of Scotland, and an extremely small shareholder in RBS. So should I be pleased that Stephen Hester, the bank’s CEO, has just announced that he will not take a bonus (in shares) worth just under £1m ($1.56m)? Or should I resent the fact that Mr Hester’s decision seems entirely the result of pressure from the government (which owns 83% of “my” bank, having bailed it out after the disastrous and hubristic regime of Sir Fred Goodwin)?
Actually, my reaction is one of wry amusement. By most accounts Mr Hester, wooed by the government to bring RBS back to health, has been doing a pretty good job—though there is justified criticism that the bank has failed to meet its targets for lending to small and medium-sized businesses. But it is instructive to see how public near-fury over the outrageous awards common in the banking sector affects politics. The Conservative-led government (supposedly in favour of free-market pay) puts pressure on the RBS remuneration board to make sure that the Hester bonus does not break the voter-sensitive £1m mark; and the opposition Labour Party joyfully calls for a full-scale House of Commons debate (ignoring its own role in agreeing RBS contracts when in office). Meanwhile, the RBS chairman, Sir Philip Hampton, adds to the pressure on Mr Hester by voluntarily rejecting the £1.4m bonus awarded to him as a “golden hello”.
But what strikes me as bizarre is Mr Hester’s “tin-ear” to the situation. Since he is obviously a very smart guy, and already very rich and well-paid, surely he should have seen that the smart thing to do would have been either to reject his bonus as soon as it was offered or to announce that he would give it to charity. As it is, his belated decision to forgo his bonus looks grudging rather than generous.
The question, of course, is whether in the course of this year other bankers will also find themselves under pressure to trim their pay-packets. For some, the answer is surely yes. As The World in 2012 argues, pointing out that the party's over:
The lives of a great many bankers will change for the worse. They will still be hated by politicians and the public. They will still work very hard and should, barring some unforeseen cataclysm, be as clever on average as before. But they will be considerably poorer for it. This will be the year in which most bankers in the world’s large banking markets will take their first big pay cuts in the four years since the banking system blew up the global economy.
Of course, money is not the only form of reward. Cassandra notes that Mr Hester is still a “Mr”, whereas his chairman is a “Sir”…Will Mr Hester’s decision bring him a knighthood—or will his delay mean he can forget it? And, while we’re on the subject, will the politicians’ desire to curry favour with the voters lead to Sir Fred (“Fred the shred”, as the tabloids call him) being stripped of his?
Jan 27th 2012, 20:29 by J.K.
This year is not shaping up well for South Korea’s ruling Grand National Party (GNP). Mired in scandal, the GNP is lurching towards parliamentary elections in April, with many MPs nervous about their chances. The party’s prospects in December’s presidential election are even murkier.
In contrast to the country’s hand-wringing politicians, many members of South Korea’s business elite see 2012 as their time to shine. Samsung will spend more than $40 billion to boost its product lines this year, hiring some 26,000 new employees in the process. Samsung Electronics became the world’s top smartphone producer last year; it will probably overtake Nokia as the largest maker of all types of mobiles in 2012. The broader Samsung group’s bold bid to conquer industries as disparate as electric-vehicle batteries and biotech drugs will also begin to take shape.
Meanwhile, South Korean carmakers like Hyundai and Kia will look to build on recent success. Hyundai has just reported robust annual profits and, earlier this month, its Elantra model was named “North American Car of the Year” at the Detroit Auto Show, the second win for the company in four years. Thanks largely to buoyant demand abroad, South Korean automakers sold a record 6.3m units last year, up 17% from 2010. Hyundai and Kia are tempering expectations for sales this year, but after making huge strides in quality while managing to keep price points low, the pair’s products seem well positioned for these cash-strapped times. The implementation of free trade agreements with America and the European Union signed last year will give the South Korean auto industry a further boost.
However, South Korea’s globe-trotting conglomerates are not immune from scandals and intrigue (like that currently bedevilling the country’s parliament). Corporate governance at the family-run behemoths is notoriously opaque, and the looming succession to third-generation managers at both Samsung and Hyundai represents a risk to an otherwise bright outlook. Rapid growth also breeds its own problems, for firms as well as entire countries.
And speaking of succession, what about the third-generation leader of that particularly opaque operation north of the border? His inscrutable plans are sure to preoccupy Koreans across the peninsula this year, whatever their current fortunes.
Jan 26th 2012, 18:51 by J.A.
TODAY was Australia Day in “Godzone”, as Aussies can legitimately describe their lucky country. And it warms the heart of Cassandra, glued to his TV this morning in wintry London, that Roder Federer and Rafael Nadal marked the occasion with the most sublime tennis in their semi-final at the Australian Open in Melbourne (Nadal yet again the winner).
But sadly the country’s prime minister, Julia Gillard, was distracted from the tennis. Instead, her Australia Day was a rather humiliating affair: at a ceremony in Canberra she found herself barracked by protesters demanding more rights for aborigines—and had to be hustled away by her security guards, losing a shoe in the process. Does this augur badly for Ms Gillard and her minority Labor government in 2012? One suspects so. Only four days ago her parliamentary majority was reduced to just one seat after an independent MP withdrew his support for the government. As The World in 2012 correctly argued,
Labor will limp into 2012 with the party’s worst opinion-poll ratings in decades. Only two things may stop Labor from ditching Ms Gillard: the lack of an obvious replacement (Mr Rudd, though more popular than she is with voters, is deeply unpopular with his colleagues); and the fear that sacking yet another leader would damage the party at the election due in 2013.
Meanwhile, it is tempting to think that Kevin Rudd, ousted by Ms Gillard as party leader and prime minister in 2010, will find a certain amusement from Ms Gillard’s present discomfiture…
Jan 25th 2012, 17:58 by J.A.
WITH its usual flair for headlines, the World Economic Forum today began its annual jamboree in Davos for the elites of politics, business and the media. In their efforts to solve the world’s problems, the participants will clearly have plenty to ruminate on: the euro zone is on the edge of recession; Iran is defying the world in its quest for nuclear weapons; bloodthirsty sectarianism is rife from Iraq to Nigeria; climate change continues; and so on and on…But, as an excellent article in the New York Times’s DealBook points out, lurking beneath all the platitudes will be the issue of the “have-lots” and the “have-nots”—an issue that has spawned the much-imitated Occupy Wall Street movement and which will surely feature in a lot of this year’s political discourse (including the American presidential election).
Whether the smart folks at Davos will have any solutions is debatable. But will there be any solutions from the annual rival to Davos, the World Social Forum, meeting in Porto Alegre, Brazil? Frankly, Cassandra doubts it. But I do applaud the concept of the WSF as a means of deflating some of the hubristic behaviour of Davos-man in the past. After all, the lefties of the WSF have been attacking capitalism and banging on about the dangers of social and income inequality for the past decade, including the years when Davos-man seemed to think bull-markets would never stumble. The irony is that this year, when the world’s capitalists are unsure of themselves, the WSF will be less well-attended than in previous years. Still, the 15,000 who are taking part will be rewarded with a speech tomorrow from Brazil’s president, Dilma Rousseff. Even though Brazil will be a hot topic in Davos, the World Economic Forum apparently merits not Brazil’s president but rather a couple of its ministers.
Jan 24th 2012, 19:02 by J.A.
AH, LUCY in the Sky with Diamonds…Suddenly Cassandra is transported back to those gloriously psychedelic days of the ‘60s thanks to the discovery by British re
searchers that psilocybin—the mind-altering ingredient in “magic mushrooms”—helps combat depression. Actually, it surely does far more than that, as Aldous Huxley wrote half a century ago in “The Doors of Perception” (a title that was warmly embraced by Jim Morrison, hence his group “The Doors”).
The implication of the research into the mysteries of the human brain is that psychedelic drugs such as LSD could have a therapeutic value—but the obvious snag is that they are illegal. In which case, perhaps drugs should be legalised? Why not treat narcotics as an issue of public health—rather like smoking—than a matter of criminality? This has long been the policy of The Economist, and I am pleased to see that Sir Richard Branson is taking up the cause, both in a newspaper column and today before MPs in Britain’s House of Commons. As “the bearded one” points out:
Just as prohibition of alcohol failed in the United States in the 1920s, the war on drugs has failed globally. Over the past 50 years, more than $1 trillion has been spent fighting this battle, and all we have to show for it is increased drug use, overflowing jails, billions of pounds and dollars of taxpayers’ money wasted, and thriving crime syndicates. It is time for a new approach.
Jan 23rd 2012, 15:54 by J.A.
KUNG HEI FAT CHOI…Cassandra is pleased to wish everyone a happy new Chinese year of the dragon. Supposedly, those born in a dragon year (they occur every 12 years) will enjoy health and wealth—which explains the eagerness of Chinese couples to time their pregnancies accordingly. But will this year be a truly good one for the People’s Republic? The World in 2012 in its spe
cial section on China worries about rising debt and the property bubble, and it gives a soberly balanced view of the months ahead:
The government will be relieved that one potential trigger of unrest, inflation, will be less of a threat in the coming months as food prices stabilise. GDP growth will ease, but not dramatically (to perhaps 8.3%, down from an estimated 9% in 2011).
Even so, the authorities will remain edgy. A huge middle-class-led demonstration in the north-eastern city of Dalian in August 2011 over an environmental issue, which resulted in a rapid government climbdown, will encourage others to try.
But surely the underlying point is that, in comparison with the West, China will remain in good shape. Moreover, at its 18th congress (probably in October) the Chinese Communist Party will organise a smooth leadership transition for the following spring: President Hu Jintao will be succeeded by Xi Jinping and Prime Minister Wen Jiabao will give way to Li Keqiang. Whether the leadership changes will mean much to ordinary Chinese is perhaps doubtful. What is certain is that they will be overjoyed if later this year Chinese “taikonauts”—including the country’s first female astronaut—travel to the Tiangong-1 space module, practising the techniques which eventually will establish a permanent Chinese outpost in Earth orbit.
Jan 20th 2012, 18:56 by J.A.
WILL the voters of South Carolina in tomorrow’s Republican primary add momentum to Mitt Romney’s quest to be the GOP presidential candidate? Or will they spoil that measured progress by giving a boost to Newt Gingrich (the conventional wisdom being that neither Rick Santorum nor Ron Paul will be in the top two)? Cassandra’s hunch is that, whatever tomorrow’s result, Mr Romney will eventually be the nominee—but in the meantime there will be lots of entertaining exchanges between the candidates that verge on the insulting or the scandalous. This is partly because Mr Romney, a member of a religion considered by many Americans to be a heretical cult, is a wooden-mannered multi-millionaire paying lower taxes than ordinary voters. And it is partly because the intellectually brilliant Mr Gingrich is a much-married hypocrite (he was calling for Bill Clinton’s impeachment while simultaneously indulging in an extramarital affair) who has become rich through activities more-or-less identical to the lobbying that he affects to despise. But most of all, of course, it is because American politics is a hardball game. At which point, Cassandra recommends that you watch this video of Mark Penn, formerly an adviser to both Bill and Hilary Clinton and now CEO of Burson-Marsteller, giving his thoughts in December at the World in 2012 festival in New York. Doubtless, he may be biased, but he’s surely right when he talks of the importance of the independents. And I rather like his notion that for the Republicans it must be “Romney or suicide”.
Jan 19th 2012, 16:53 by J.A.
CASSANDRA is always on the look out for other people’s predictions for 2012 (some, of course, would call it plagiarism; I prefer to think of it as a service to our readers…). Plenty of predictions are simply wacky; others are obvious (for example, that London will put on a big show for the Queen’s jubilee celebrations). But some are both intriguing and useful. In this category, I recommend looking at the top ten business ideas for 2012 selected by Springwise.com, which bills itself as “your essential fix of entrepreneurial ideas”. I was particularly intrigued by number one—perhaps proof that I drink too much coffee—and by number 10, a terribly smart way of paying for your coffee. But just as interesting is number 4, which could be a boon for teachers trying to teach dyslexic pupils to read. Ironically, of course, there are so many dyslexic but triumphant entrepreneurs (Sir Richard Branson is one; Ingvar Kamprad, founder of Ikea, another) that some might argue that dyslexia has been a spur to their success.
Jan 18th 2012, 17:38 by J.A.
THE countdown to the French presidential election—just 94 days to the first round on April 22 if Cassandra has his maths right—is getting interesting. Poor Nicolas Sarkozy is finding that becoming a father (in October) and toppling a tyrant in Libya (one day later) are no guarantee of popularity. The latest opinion polls predict that his Socialist opponent, François Hollande (on the left in our picture), will be ahead of the president in the multi-candidate first round and, assuming a run-off between the two on May 6, will win decisively. Meanwhile, France has just lost its cherished AAA rating from Standard & Poor’s, which, of course, reminds voters that Sarko once said:
If France loses its AAA, I’m dead.
But is the president’s demise inevitable? In a rather obvious attempt to boost his fortunes, Mr Sarkozy today unveiled a €430m ($550m) back-to-jobs-and-growth package (the unemployment rate is now almost 10% of the workforce). He will emphasise that only he—and certainly not Monsieur Hollande, who has never held ministerial office—has the experience to guide France through the crisis of the euro zone. Most of all, he will campaign with an unmatched energy and instinct for his opponent’s weaknesses (in 2007 he ran rings around the Socialists’ Ségolène Royal, who at the time was Mr Hollande’s partner).
Perhaps all that explains why, according to Le Nouvel Observateur, Mr Hollande, who looks more like a provincial bank manager than a world leader, is refusing to count his chickens. Throw Marine Le Pen, of the far right Front National, into the electoral mix and anything could happen: she could damage both Sarko and Mr Hollande in the first round. For an interesting reflection on how both men are plotting their campaigns, I recommend this article in today’s Guardian by Christine Ockrent, a very distinguished French journalist whose partner, Bernard Kouchner, served as health minister in a Socialist-led government and then as foreign minister in Mr Sarkozy’s government. As Mme Ockrent points out, Messrs Sarkozy and Hollande are both looking to the late François Mitterrand for strategic and tactical inspiration. After all, the wily Mitterrand served for 14 years as president of the French Republic.
PS: The Economist’s marketing people, who love to bombard Facebook and Twitter, would love to know what you think of The World In…and so have devised a special survey. Apparently, the survey comes with the chance to win a “luxury Ettinger Cotswold weekend bag valued at £450”. Bonne chance…and just click here.
Jan 17th 2012, 15:08 by J.A.
TODAY Muhammad Ali—born Cassius Marcellus Clay in Louisville, Kentucky—turns 70 with a birthday that will be celebrated by millions of his admirers around the world. Quite simply Ali remains “the Greatest”, a nickname that he gave himself early in his boxing career but which soon seemed eminently deserved. One reason, of course, was his supremacy as a boxer (three times world heavyweight champion). But the bigger reason, in Cassandra’s view, is that Ali transcended his sport: he defied his government over the Vietnam war, saying he would refuse to be drafted ("I ain't got no quarrel with them Viet Cong ... They never called me nigger."); and he converted to the Nation of Islam, which advocated black separatism (Ali later became a conventional Sunni Muslim). Yet he subsquently won almost everyone to his side: he has lived for more than two decades, without complaint, with Parkinson’s disease; he has established the Muhammad Ali Center “to inspire adults and children everywhere to be as great as they can be”; and he has been awarded the President Medal of Freedom.
So will there ever be another sportsman to match him? I doubt it. Today’s sportsmen may be “the greatest”, or even the greatest ever, in their own field—for example, Lionel Messi in soccer, or Roger Federer in tennis, or Sachin Tendulkar (still, maddeningly, without his 100th international hundred) in cricket—but they are confined to sport. True, Sebastian Coe has moved seamlessly from being the greatest 800 and 1500 metre runner of perhaps any age to being an effective politician and now the supremo of the London Olympics—but, unlike Ali, Coe’s face is not (and will never be) recognised everywhere from Detroit to Dhaka or Vancouver to Vientiane. Let us therefore recognise Ali’s greatness as unique. I, for one, will drink a toast tonight to his health.
Jan 16th 2012, 18:55 by J.A.
HAIL to the Golden Globes—the awards just handed out by the Hollywood Foreign Press Association (interested, it seems, only in the movie business despite the title) at their annual jamboree in Beverly Hills. It is hard to criticise their choices: for example, “The Descendants” as best drama; “The Artist” as best comedy or musical; George Clooney as best actor (drama), for “The Descendants”; Meryl Streep, playing Margaret Thatcher, as best actress (drama) in “The Iron Lady”; and so on.
Ricky Gervais, the British comedian hosting the event for the third time and always happy to provoke his audience, described the awards as like the Oscars but without the esteem:
The Golden Globes are to the Oscars like Kim Kardashian is to Kate Middleton—a bit louder, bit drunker, bit trashier, and more easily bought…Allegedly.
But the film business is, of course, perfectly happy to play along with all the razzmatazz: stars on the red carpet, glamorous dresses, live television coverage, etc. The whole point, after all, is to garner as much publicity as possible.
So the intriguing question is whether the Golden Globes are a good indicator of the Oscars that the grandly named Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences will award next month (nominations will be announced on January 24th). Only once in the past seven years have the Golden Globes and the Academy agreed on the best picture (for “Slumdog Millionaire”), even though the Golden Globes, with its separate categories for drama and for comedy or musical, has two shots at the choice. Last year, the Golden Globes chose “The Social Network”, while the Oscar went to “The King’s Speech”. Will there be a mismatch again this year? Frankly, Cassandra is unconcerned. But Steven Spielberg may think differently: his “War Horse” was nominated at the Golden Globes, but failed to win. Still, if the statistics amassed by The Hollywood Reporter are accurate, he may well have better luck next month.
Jan 13th 2012, 18:26 by J.A.
WHAT a surprise—and what a pleasure: the front page of today’s Guardian newspaper in Britain is dominated by a photo of Kate Bush. The reason? Ms Bush has been nominated in the best British female solo artists category of next month’s Brit Awards (the UK’s version of America’s Grammys). That puts her in competition with the wonderful Adele, who has been wowing audiences on both sides of the Atlantic (before, that is, she had to stop for a throat operation). Oddly, the Guardian chooses on its website to picture Adele rather than Ms Bush, so let us link to the Daily Telegraph instead…
But what pleases Cassandra is that Ms Bush has been nominated precisely a quarter of a century after she last won the award. A triumph, in other words, for the music and musicians of a generation ago. We should not, in truth, be surprised. As a marvellous article in
The World in 2012 notes, old rockers (and their more low-key peers) just keep on rocking. Paul McCartney will be 70 in June; Mick Jagger (Sir Mick…) and plain Mr Keith Richards will both be 69. But they all keep playing concerts to huge crowds (and Sir Mick has enough energy to start a new group: SuperHeavy). Dave Gilmour of the Pink Floyd is a stripling of just 65 but keeps wowing audiences with his limpid guitar solos. He must now be feeling particularly chuffed by Ms Bush’s nomination, since it was he who discovered her in the mid-1970s.
Since Cassandra is of a certain age (I remember hobnobbing with Mr Gilmour as a teenager…), this raises an obvious question. The musicians of the Beatles generation have managed to make music that lasts for generations. Will the same be true of hip-hop and rap? I find it difficult to imagine that in 2050 middle-aged couples will look lovingly into each other’s eyes and chant the lyrics of Snoop Dogg or Jay-Z.
Jan 12th 2012, 18:15 by J.A.
CASSANDRA is a great admirer of Google. Indeed, his wife constantly berates him for not taking advantage of its IPO in 2004 (I claim it would have compromised my journalistic integrity). And, as The World in 2012 points out, this year is going to be a fascinating battlefield as Google and the other giants of the internet fight each other both for new territory and for each other’s territory. But I wonder whether Google, in seeking to invade the land of Facebook, is making some tactical errors.
Frankly, I find Google+ irrelevant—and so do many hundreds of millions
of others still committing far too much of their time to Facebook. But my real beef is with Google’s sudden integration with “personal results” of social media such as Facebook and LinkedIn into its search engine. When I put a name into Google’s search engine, I don’t necessarily want a top result to be their Facebook page, and I certainly don’t want it to be their Google+ page. Yet it is clearly Google+ that the geniuses of Mountain View are trying to boost…Still, enough of my displeasure (with its possible Luddite overtones). For a much better critique of the Google battle plan, I recommend that you read this diatribe from Slate’s excellent Farhad Manjoo (and don’t forget to Google him…).
Jan 11th 2012, 12:24 by L.M.
CASSANDRA isn’t the only Cassandra in town. The first few days of the new year traditionally see a glut of predictions from think tanks, consultancies and PR firms eager to milk a dull news week. The best ones make precise, opinionated and sometimes unexpected predictions. The annual forecast from the Centre for Economics and Business Research, an economics consultancy, is one of them.
Their list of ten predictions for this year includes the usual suspects: the euro (wobbly), Asian economies (almost ditto), European banks (bailouts galore!). What caught my eye was the verdict on how the year will turn out for London. CEBR predict that the Queen’s diamond jubilee, to be celebrated with a flotilla down the Thames on the first weekend of June, will be a rousing success. Britain will erupt in monarchical fervour and “the nation will take her to their hearts”. As the royal wedding showed last year, the British (and indeed the many non-Brits who live on this fair isle) have a remarkable appetite for pomp and pageantry. Barring a sudden outbreak of republicanism, this forecast seems spot on.
But it is the other big London event of 2012 where CEBR are more controversial. The Olympics, they say (contradicting prime minister David Cameron and others with a vested interest in optimism), “will almost certainly reduce London’s GDP”. Tourists uninterested in sports – or indeed in packed tube carriages, interminable traffic delays and overpriced hotels – will avoid the city. (I can vouch for a few cancelled trips myself.) It’s worth adding that the thousands of days off that Londoners will collectively take off, to say nothing of the troubles getting into work for those that stay, will hardly help British businesses. But Douglas McWilliams, CEBR’s boss, is particularly annoyed with special traffic lanes that will be reserved for Olympic officials. His minor rant makes for an entertaining read:
The ‘ZIL lanes’ for transporting the IOC officials (many of them people who in a civilised country would be in jail) around in limos, which are required because they wanted the Olympics to be in East London for the ‘legacy’ effects and made the athletes stay there but who themselves insisted on being put up in the Dorchester, will make London’s traffic lanes hell. Obviously I don’t approve of throwing stones at the cars in the ZIL lane but I hope that the contempt of sensible people for the IOC’s behaviour will be registered in some way.
Worse, Britons are unlikely to be rewarded for all this effort. Unlike China, which won the most gold medals for the first time when it hosted the Games in 2008, Britain will slip down the table, predict CEBR. “Other people have learned our trick of investing money in obscure sports to buy relatively easily earned Olympic gold medals,” writes Mr McWilliams. If it’s any consolation, CEBR does foresee a win for the English cricket team over the West Indies andSouth Africa. Perhaps its time to lobby for cricket as an Olympic sport.
Jan 10th 2012, 16:00 by J.A.
IN THESE dire economic times for the Western world, it is comforting to see Asia—in particular, China—as our saviour, with its economy forever growing (8.2% for 2012, we predict) and now in the process of becoming less mercantilist. But let’s not get too relaxed…For a sobering look at what is happening in the credit-profligate People’s Republic, Cassandra advises you to read an excellent article in the China section of The World in 2012 and then to listen to Carl Walter, an investment banker in Beijing, who shared his thoughts on China’s future at The World in 2012 festival in New York.
Jan 9th 2012, 13:35 by J.A.
IS THE United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland doomed to lose the beautiful mountainous bit at its north? In other words, will 5m Scots (or rather those adults entitled to vote) choose independence for Scotland in a referendum that looks increasingly likely?
Cassandra thinks such a result is unlikely: Scottish animosity towards “the auld enemy” (ie, the English) tends to be confined to the rugby pitch, and the English often point out that an awful lot of the politicians who govern them have been Scottish (eg, Messrs Tony Blair and Gordon Brown).
On the other hand, following the UK’s devolution of political power in the 1990s, there is now a Scottish government, led by the Scottish National Party, with the SNP leader Alex Salmond as “first minister”. Mr Salmond, as his article in The World in 2012 demonstrates, is a persuasive politician committed to independence for his country—and I can’t help thinking that this is the reason why the UK’s prime minister, David Cameron (a rather Scottish-sounding name, incidentally), is now bringing up the idea of giving Mr Salmond’s government’s the power to hold a legally binding referendum (referendums, I seem to remember, have normally been consultative in the UK). Moreover, rumour has it that Mr Cameron wants the referendum to take place within the next 18 months. The cynical suspicion, therefore, is that Mr Cameron’s Conservatives, whose very identity—the formal name is the Conservative and Unionist Party—involves the unity of the UK, reckon that the sooner the Scots are asked, the less likely they are to vote to leave the union. Mr Salmond doubtless fears the same thing, hence his apparent preference for a referendum in 2014.
Whatever happens, there is sure to be plenty of preachifying this year on what it means to be British, Scottish, English, Welsh, Irish and so on…Meanwhile, the historically minded will point out that Scotland and England have been together for a very long time: King James VI of Scotland became James I of England in 1603, and the Acts of Union, formally joining the two countries, date from 1707. And Cassandra’s own preference? As the Americans might say, “If it ain’t broke, why fix it?”
Jan 6th 2012, 16:44 by J.A.
THERE is a fascinating article in The World in 2012 on how scientists will this year begin mapping the human brain. The author, Alun Anderson (one of Britain's most distinguished science writers) asserts that the brain is the most complex object in the universe—and who is Cassandra, whose knowledge of science is abysmal, to disagree? However, one of our readers does disagree, hence this very well argued letter.
Sirs -
In your "The World in 2012" issue, the statement is made (in "Brain work," Alun Anderson, p. 153) that "[h]uman brains are the most complex objects in the known universe."
With due respect, this statement is silly - for two reasons. First, we lack any rigorous definition of "complexity," rendering comparisons by that measure meaningless. Second (even if we ignore the lack of quantitative measures) there are countless examples of systems which surpass the putative "complexity" of the human mind. From the quantum interactions of the constituents of even a small protein molecule - which are sufficiently computationally intractable to be essentially incomputable by any known human technologies - to the deeply enchained interactions amongst living amongst the vast numbers of living beings in, say, a 10-liter bucket of living seawater - and through the fluid dynamical behavior of superheated gases at the surface of our Sun, the "visible universe" is in fact replete with exquisitely "complex" systems at all scales and groupings.
Instead, what the assumption that our primate brains are the apex of complexity in the known universe tells us, perhaps, is something much less proud (though perhaps all the more important): the one thing at which humanity unquestionably excels is a solipsistic worship of its own, self-declared primacy in the universe (and on our living planet). In other words, we're exquisitely good at coming up with metrics by which we can claim ourselves to be the most, greatest, or biggest inhabitant of our perceived surroundings. That's a far cry from being, in fact, any of these things; self-delusion is not equivalent to genuine primacy.
Respectfully,
D.B. LeConte-Spink(Douglas Bryan LeConte-Spink
founder, Deep Symbiosis Institute)
And here is Alun's elegant riposte:
From: Alun Anderson
To: World InEditor <WorldInEditor@economist.com>
Subject: Re: Letter (on behalf of Douglas Spink)Thanks for this letter from the Deep Symbiosis Institute.
I understand the purpose of his argument, which is to get away from human "exceptionalism" by arguing that on some measure, a bucket of sea water is as complex as a human brain (maybe you would measure the number of viruses it contains or something). This kind of argument leads you to respect all things as somehow equal, which is a nice enough sentiment, and perhaps even to believe that everything is conscious.
I think the bucket of sea water is not an "object" in the same way a brain is, nor is it as complex in terms of "interconnectedness" as used as the measure in the article. So although I don't t think his argument is correct I don't mind at all to see it aired in Cassandra, as there are lots of people aruging for oness with everything in the Universe!
(NB The Deep Symbiosis Institute works towards expanded awareness and appreciation of truly bidirectional, reciprocal, respectful relationships between Homo sapiens and other sentient, self-aware species)
Best,
Alun
Jan 5th 2012, 19:05 by J.A.
THE times may be dire in 2012, but you can be sure that there will still be plenty of rich people around to make the poor feel jealous (or even, at times, violent…). But will there also be the really rich, the super-rich? You bet there will, especially in China, India, Brazil and Russia. And who better to ask about the super-rich than Robert Frank, who writes the Wealth Report for the Wall Street Journal (Cassandra remembers delighting in his book "Richistan" some years ago)? I particularly liked his prediction about the good fortune that awaits "the repo man", the man with the delightful task of repossessing assets from those who can no longer afford them. Incidentally, the journalist asking the questions, at the recent World in 2012 festival in New York, is my colleague Matthew Bishop, whose own literary speciality is writing about philanthropy...
Jan 4th 2012, 17:15 by J.A.
SO MICHELE BACHMANN is the first casualty of the primary season, withdrawing today from the Republican race after a dismal showing yesterday in the Iowa caucus (Cassandra leaves aside Herman Cain, who has technically only “suspended” his campaign). Doubtless there will be more soon enough (my bet is that the hapless Rick Perry will not last much longer, and Jon Huntsman must surely give up if he fails in New Hampshire next week. Meanwhile, America’s TV screens will be filled ad nauseam with all the expensive cacophony of election year: shrieking pundits, disingenuous politicians and misleading commercials.
But what does it mean for the rest of the world? I sense an attitude of bemused European bafflement. Why do so many Americans feel alienated from President Obama, apparently feeling ill at ease with his obvious intelligence? And why do the Republicans insist on putting up so many flawed candidates, some of whom make a point of denying science (Jon Huntsman, you may remember, was pilloried for saying that he believed in science…and now is belatedly trying to backtrack)?
Cassandra, who does not have a vote in America (though he has twice been a resident), will not venture an opinion—save to say that while America is the world’s pre-eminent power, the man (there will be no woman nominee) it elects in November will matter to everyone in the world. Perhaps what we really want is the fantasy president nominated by The World in 2012—a mix of Franklin Roosevelt, Reagan, Washington and Lincoln. Sadly, he’s not available.
Jan 3rd 2012, 18:30 by J.A.
YOU may recall that yesterday Cassandra confessed his love of the euro, but was far from convinced that the euro zone would survive 2012 with all its 17 members. The obvious candidate for departure is Greece, but then the question is whether the Greeks themselves should want to leave. For her part, Arianna Huffington, the Athens-born eponymous creator of the Huffington Post, is in no doubt—the austerity programme is simply not worth its consequences, as she explained at the recent World in 2012 festival in New York...
Jan 2nd 2012, 18:56 by J.A.
CASSANDRA has fond memories of the occasion, ten years and one day ago, when he first took possession of euro notes (I was living in beautiful Paris at the time…). Fond, because Europhiles such as I foresaw a glorious future in which the EU’s single market would be more-or-less completed with the free flow of capital, goods, services and people. It has not, of course, worked out quite as we had hoped—there is still plenty of subtle protectionism, especially in services—but until Greece woke us up to the sovereign-debt crisis it seemed as though the euro was as solid as, well, the dollar.
Now, of course, we know better, with Chancellor Merkel of Germany and President Sarkozy of France struggling—against plenty of people’s odds—to save the euro zone from a split, if not a collapse (hence the miserable new year’s messages from the two of them). The thing is, of course, that we should have known better long ago. I remember when I was based in Brussels being slightly amused that a vengeful European Commission had sacked one of its senior civil servants, Bernard Connolly, for rubbishing the euro project as long ago as 1995 in a well-argued book, “The Rotten Heart of Europe”. Poor Mr Connolly was pilloried by the Brussels elite for noting that perhaps the emperor would end up with no clothes. In contrast, some other Britons were praised rather than pilloried in what the French call the "Anglo-Saxon" press because they were journalists working for some rabidly Eurosceptic British newspapers (notably, though not invariably, those owned by non-Britons…).
Frankly, I have no idea whether the euro zone will survive 2012 with all its current 17 members, but I do hope that the euro itself survives. Obviously, as the critics delight in pointing out, there are inherent flaws in the euro project (how can you have a single currency without some single body to determine fiscal and monetary affairs, etc?…), but in terms of what eases travel for ordinary European citizens and eliminates exchange risks for European businesses the euro has clearly proved its worth. Long may it live!
Jan 1st 2012, 16:08 by J.A.
WELCOME to the new year (at least according to the Gregorian calendar—Cassandra notes that the Chinese New Year, the auspicious year of the dragon, will begin on January 23rd). Two of our distinguished editors, Daniel Franklin and Tom Standage, have already given us their predictions for the politics of 2012, but what do they foresee for business, economics and sport? Well, in some aspects they are (predictably) a little gloomy. How else could they be when talking of euro-zone economics? But Cassandra was rather impressed by Tom’s talk of the imperial ambitions of GAFA. If you want to know what that acronym stands for, just click here…and begin 2012 with some instructive viewing!
Dec 30th 2011, 19:22 by J.A.
“LIES, damn lies and statistics”, as Britain’s Benjamin Disraeli supposedly said—and Mark Twain definitely said. The phrase came to Cassandra’s mind when ruminating on the “world in figures” section of The World in 2012, in particular when looking at the predicted rankings for economic growth in the year ahead.
I have no quarrel with the figures themselves, all drawn from the acknowledged number-crunchers at the Economist Intelligence Unit. But as Bobby Kennedy famously said in his 1968 speech at the University of Kansas:
Too much and too long, we seem to have surrendered community excellence and community values in the mere accumulation of material things. Our gross national product ... if we should judge America by that - counts air pollution and cigarette advertising, and ambulances to clear our highways of carnage. It counts special locks for our doors and the jails for those who break them. It counts the destruction of our redwoods and the loss of our natural wonder in chaotic sprawl. It counts napalm and the cost of a nuclear warhead, and armored cars for police who fight riots in our streets. It counts Whitman's rifle and Speck's knife, and the television programs which glorify violence in order to sell toys to our children.
"Yet the gross national product does not allow for the health of our children, the quality of their education, or the joy of their play. It does not include the beauty of our poetry or the strength of our marriages; the intelligence of our public debate or the integrity of our public officials. It measures neither our wit nor our courage; neither our wisdom nor our learning; neither our compassion nor our devotion to our country; it measures everything, in short, except that which makes life worthwhile. And it tells us everything about America except why we are proud that we are Americans.
With Kennedy’s words in mind a 15% growth rate for Macau—a tiny gambling haven for punters from Hong Kong and China—is meaningless. And sh
ould we really be impressed by the figures for Libya and Iraq, since they so clearly reflect a virtually automatic bounce-back from war? Much more significant in Cassandra’s view is the healthy 8.2% prediction for China. That may, of course, reflect a boom that eventually must burst (The World in 2012 worries about China’s growing debt), but with the economies of the western world in the doldrums we had better keep our fingers crossed that the prediction proves right.
This blog accompanies The World in 2012, our almanac of predictions for the year ahead. The blog is named after the mythological Cassandra, who was cursed by Apollo to make prophecies that were accurate, but disbelieved
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