text:
Thriving on adversity

Some companies are finding opportunities in the recession

See article

Readers' comments

Reader comments are listed below. Comments are currently closed and new comments are no longer being accepted.

So CNN was created during a recession? What would it take to make it go away? I'd consider a double-dip for that.

A positive attitude is necessary and this Article has done a great service by highlighting the right approach to the Recession

Harib Wiseman

As a general business managment rule, every obstacle or difficulty entails an opportunity if the correct strategy is adopted and implemented wisely. For instance, when the prices of steel became very high R&D came up with synthetic rubber and strong forms of plastic of even better qualities than steel to replace it in some industries.

Therefore, difficult times must be studied carefully to come up with new innovative ideas and strategies to cope with the new circumstances and find means to stronger existence and contribute even better and less costly products and services.

There is good logic behind the facts set forth in this article. Schumpeter's "creative destruction" has two components - creativeness and destruction. In economic times like this, a good amount of the work necessary for destruction is taken care of. Companies are weakened, established order is questioned, etc.

Overcoming companies and business models in this environment is far easier than overcoming companies and business models when they are strong. Thus, openings for creativity and optimism have a greater chance to take root - the predators are hibernating.

I simply can not accept "creative destruction" as an excuse for the failure of our economic system managers. The whole concept of this creative destruction implies that we should accept these cycles as necessary events producing long term good where only the unproducive and inefficient are removed from the economic system. Having experienced a number of these creative destruction events, I find there is nothing creative about these events but that these events are events of random destruction taking out good efficient businesses and putting solid producive people out of work as much as it produces the creative destruction Schumpeter suggests.

Quite appropriately, Schumpeter would have been pleased with this report. However, while apparently taking advantage of adversity sounds good, very often these approaches as corporate planning do not stand the test of time in times of the next adversity. While expansion and diversification through investment today sounds refreshing (rather than sitting back), a prolonged recession (which hopefully is not probable today) can make such policies not look that sharp. None of us knew that derivatives (an innovation at one time)could turn nasty and became wiser after the event. The same applies to all such innovations. There will invaribly be times when in retrospect these policies would look of of sync. The submission is that let us not be jubilant of these companies for these bold measures, becasue the same stratgy could turn out to be questionable in terms of creation of excess capacity, buy-outs, employment, when the next downturn comes in.

Also because the world market is still expanding : 80 millions new babies every year and many (developing ) countries representing around 50% world GDP growing at reasonable level.

Latest blog posts - All times are GMT
The World Cup: Vorsprung durch Technik
Game theory 1 hrs 56 mins ago
The Economist explains: The meaning of Manhattanhenge
The Economist explains July 13th, 23:50
Alibaba's IPO: Shocked, shocked!
Schumpeter July 13th, 18:10
World Cup predictions: Scoring ourselves
Graphic detail July 12th, 19:03

Products and events

Brazil has kicked off the world's greatest football tournament and to celebrate, The Economist has created a free download featuring special content on this year's competition. Download it for free now.

The Economist Radio is an on-demand social listening platform that allows you to listen, share and recommend The Economist audio content

Our app identifies and explores the issues that will shape the year ahead

Visit The Economist e-store and you’ll find a range of carefully selected products for business and pleasure, Economist books and diaries, and much more


Content-Type: application/http; msgtype=response

WARC-Truncated: length

WARC-Type: response

text:
China's spat with Japan

Deng's heirs ignore his advice

A row over disputed islands goes from bad to worse

See article

Readers' comments

Reader comments are listed below. Comments are currently closed and new comments are no longer being accepted.

So many China haters on this site, those who sided with Japan on this issue have no sense of wrong or right, no basic human morality, you just hate everything that Chinese do, don’t you?! It’s exactly like you think Nazi killing Jews were right, and American invaded Iraq was for its own safety. Just face the fact, it was Japan which brutally invaded China, no matter how rightful they think they are to claim this territory, they must return it to china, just like British and Portugal gave HONGKONG and Macao back to China, needless to say Diaoyu island is in fact still in international dispute!!!! They have absolutely no legal rights to arrest Chinese fishing boats and fishermen!!!

And again shame on you Economist!! What’s the point of manipulate public opinion like this, what the hell is this whole thing to do with Deng’s legacy? If Deng is still alive, he would do the same thing as Mr. Weng is dealing with this conflict now.

Yes the world would have made less noise or rather supported Japan in case the story would have been other way because of a concept called reputation.
China's reputation is in a sorry state.. a country which does not allow its own ethnic population to be free cannot be trusted. Leave apart their approach and treatment to Tibet, Taiwan and the Uighurs.
You cannot put democratic countries and a facist China in the same bracket.. China can be equated to Iran.. except that Iran has religous agenda and China has fascist

As i have been saying over and over again, the sudden spurt of Chinese aggression (its not assertiveness any more) is not going down well with any country. There is already an axis getting formed against China and the number is only going to increase.
The sooner they realise Deng's wisdom the better it would be for them

Don't count on anyone allying against China, South Korea has their own disputed island with Japan, and if the picture should tell you enough about Taiwan's attitude (the banner wrote "Japan leave China's Diaoyuan island), I doubt Vietnam and India have much interest on this part of the world, and the United States could actually benefit if China cuts a deal to switch imports from Japan to US manufacturers, and that's not even getting into the rumored rare earth cut.

like it or not, not many of Japan's neighbors like them very much, China, Taiwan, Korea (North and South), and Russia all dislike if not hates Japan, that will come back to haunt them sooner or later.

Like it or not, Beijing have to read public opinion and not act against it, the amount of anger from the public requires Beijing to act tough, or risk being targeted themselves and creating social instability. Like it or not, China is becoming more democratic and that comes with consequences.

As for Japan, it has about as much maturity on this issue as North Korea, two cost guard ships both twice the size of the fishing boat can not conceivably be under any threat, this is pure nationalism muscle flexing, and just like North Korea, they'll just have to deal with the consequences.

Thanks for the update on the Tibet. I am not too hanged up on the Tibet itself but on the principle that you cannot demand selectively land supposedly lost long ago and at the same time hold on to more recent acquisitions.
Also, apparently Chinese claim to these waters is based on their fishing there in the past. I fear what would happen if it's discovered that some members of the Zheng He naval expeditions fished all over Indian Ocean in 15th century.
To me it is clear that Chinese are looking for a “fight” – hence ramming the Japanese Coast Guard.
There are so many internal problems in China – corruption, pollution, poverty – as usually it is easier to turn mobs attention to an enemy from the past than to solve real problems – a typical totalitarian solution.

Economist: "Deng's heirs ignore his advice".

No, “capitalist roader” Deng Xiaoping did not advise China or the Chinese people not to defend Chinese territory from foreign predators. Neither had he surrendered Hong Kong or Taiwan to foreign powers. He is a Chinese. The Qing Dynasty was overthrown precisely because it conceded Chinese territories to foreign aggressors. In fact historically, no Chinese government could survive, if it fails to defend China’s territorial integrity. The last time the Chinese people really fought was in the Korean War in the 1950’s when they thought an invasion of China was imminent regardless of the overwhelming military superiority of the aggressor (suspected).

This time around, have some Japanese leaders interpreted US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's recent remarks on the South China Sea during the ASEAN Regional Forum on July 23, 2010 as US intention to seek a military confrontation with China by encouraging and underwriting Vietnam to take over territories considered by China as Chinese territories by force? So these Japanese leaders may think now is the opportune time to demonstrate to the whole world that “Senkaku Islands” are Japanese territories like the rest of the Japanese islands that are subjected to Japanese domestic laws and thereby undermines any Chinese claim to the islands without risking military confrontation with China since they have the mighty US military behind them.

As the matter now stands, China cannot negotiate with Japan so long as Japan insists on applying Japanese domestic law to “Diaoyu Islands” without compromising the Chinese claim to the islands.

Already the “western media” have painted a picture of a new-found Mainland Chinese assertiveness or even aggression, conveniently portraying the claim by the Chinese in Taiwan as a Taiwanese claim as if Taiwan is another country. The claim to the islands by the government in Taipei is a duplicate Chinese claim as the Republic of China Government in Taipei is constitutionally another Chinese government.

Would those who argue or insist that Japan has the rights to uphold Japanese domestic laws in disputed territories grant China similar rights? Are they suggesting the Chinese government would be fully justified to clear what it considers as Chinese territories Japanese and other foreign pirates infecting there?

Tibet broke free from China only in 1911, when the Chinese revolution toppled the Qing Dynasty and many provinces declared independence, though none was recognized by any country. Tibet therefore enjoyed de facto, but not de jure independence until the Communists reoccupied it in 1951.

So if you reverted to 1895, Tibet would still be part of China. Here's a Encyclopedia Brittanica map of Asia from 1892:

In any case, the Tibet issue is completely irrelevant to the Sino-Japanese border dispute.

If China insists on having its territory the same as before 1895, maybe it should give back Tibet as it acquired it only 1950?

It sounds like if the islands are not Japanese, though apparently they are, then they are Taiwanese. So China is making a blatant land grab again like with the Spratly chain of islands?

Based on the alleged attack on a Japanese boat, something further than simple deportation is probably justified. I haven't heard the Chinese government condemn ramming, or whatever it was, of the Japanese vessel. Has the Chinese government done so? Maybe the Chinese agreeing to punish and the Japanese agreeing to release would help to solve this particular incident.

I think you are not looking at the typical response when other Taiwanese/Chinese boats have crossed over and were caught by the Japanese coast guard. The crews were deported almost immediately. Instead of tried for illegal immigration. The Japanese knew the islands are in dispute, and thereis a choice.

For some strange reason Japan has decided to detain the captain and try him under Domestic Law. The justification is because the captain rammed the ship.

"According to sources, prosecutors are considering indicting the captain for obstructing coast guard officials in the execution of their public duties on Sept. 29, when the current period of detention is due to expire.

Zhan Qixiong, the skipper of the trawler, has admitted to both coast guard investigators and prosecutors that he rammed the patrol ships but justified his action on grounds that "Japanese ships entered Chinese territory."

Zhan's decision to contest the allegations against him resulted in his detention being extended, Japanese officials said.

A senior prosecutor said that judging from the way Zhan suddenly changed course and steered his vessel into the coast guard ships, he jeopardized the safety of the two vessels and their crew members"

The area is clearly in dispute. The rational thing to keep all the crew and send them all to the Hague for attempted piracy. Then ask the company to compensate for the damages. This will stop idiots like the Captain from pulling this stunt again. This will give both countries some breathing space.

"Why must China "heed Deng's advice", when it is Japanese who have illegally detained a Chinese citizen in disputed waters. If the parties truly wanted to observe the status quo, then NEITHER party should insist on the enforcement of its DOMESTIC laws, on a foreign national, in disputed waters."

Was it Japanese who have ILLEGALLY detained a Chinese citizen in disputed waters? I didn't know that. How did you know? Who would decide it's "illegal"?

It has surprised me that Japan's action has not been properly interpreted - there was no choice. Japan has never officially admitted there was a border issue involving the islands, as it was too natural for Japan to treat it as their territory. Then (reportedly) Chinese fisher boat caused damages to a Japanese vessel. If that's what really happened (I don't know if it's the case but) why Japan could take other reaction than that? If it is NOT the case - I just do not understand what Japan's intention is.

In terms of the border issue I just do not know which of what Japan and China are insisting is more reasonable, but I just do not understand why Chinese people took it for granted that it is Japan who is to be blamed.

Finally, I am a Japanese but I am not sure what the Japanese administration and media has reported is true or not - hopefully our judiciary branch, which is independent from the administration (I do not know this is the case in communist China), would give us more info.

Could the Economist reporting be any more biased? Imagine if the situation were reversed: if the Chinese navy had captured a Japanese fishing boat in a border dispute and proceeded to prosecute the captain in Chinese court, and Japan then used diplomatic pressure on China to demand the release of the Japanese fisherman, do you think the Economist would condemn the Japanese reactions as irresponsible and dangerous?

The Diaoyu/Senkaku dispute had not been on China's agenda until Japan arrested the Chinese fisherman and forced China's hand. And with anti-Japanese sentiment boiling at home, the Chinese government simply cannot afford to appear weak while facing what they (rightly) perceive as an extraordinary provocation. Imagine how the British government would react if the Argentinian navy arrested a British fisherman near the Falkland Islands?

The Economist and the Western governments, while urging China to control the nationalist sentiment at home, ought to strongly pressure Japan to release the Chinese fisherman immediately. Realistically, that's the only easy way to defuse the tension. Besides, the charges against the fisherman are nearly frivolous: how much real damage can a fishing boat do to a much larger (and presumably armored) warship, and why would any fisherman in a sane mind intentionally ram his boat into a warship?

China needs to be awarded something as a product of its growing power. People in the west tend to be squeamish about China doing anything, but the facts on the ground so to speak is that China will be more powerful than Japan, Vietnam, etc. It is illogical to expect the strong to acquiesce to the weak.

There will always be those who say that the new power is to be distrusted, to be held down. Such people are either proponents of the current dominant power, America, or personally aggrieved against the new power. The problem with this argument is that "resistance" gets twisted into aggressive wars to prevent...something. They waste valuable political capital, not to mention national resources, to fight an unjust war to deny the aspirations of a successful people. Others say that China should be given something, but they usually trail off into a digression into "global responsibilities" that means nothing to anyone.

Simplistic comparisons are easy, as is pointing and shouting. China does not possess an imperial or ideological mission such as that of Nazi Germany or Imperial Japan or the modern American state for that matter. It has no reason to sustain a military mindset. Rather, it is pushing the boundaries imposed upon it by history. Boundaries which do not conform to the traditional Chinese conception of "China"

For all we know, perhaps in 1978 Deng Xiaoping meant that the next generation in China would resolve the problem of the disputed islands in its favour.

China is now conscious of its economic and military super-power status and loses no opportunity to aggressively promote its geo-political interests. But it should know where to draw the line. It has territorial disputes with India, Vietnam, Malaysia, Indonesia, the Philippines, South Korea and Japan, and there is a real chance of all of them combining in some sort of alliance to make the life difficult for China. The U.S., of course, won't mind such an alliance.

Why must China "heed Deng's advice", when it is Japanese who have illegally detained a Chinese citizen in disputed waters. If the parties truly wanted to observe the status quo, then NEITHER party should insist on the enforcement of its DOMESTIC laws, on a foreign national, in disputed waters.

As to the merits of the claim that the Chinese ship captain smashed into the Japanese ship, that has yet been established. It is somewhat telling though that the Japanese authorities have so far refused to released footage of the incident in its entirety (some 3 hours of video), even though it acknowledges that such footage exists.

As to the other posters who still see China as an expanionist power, they ignore the fact that this has been an outstanding issue for over half a century. It is not some "new" policy on the part of the Chinese. The only difference is that China is more vocal about it now, in light of a must more assertive Japanese action.

Finally, it bears note to point out that the picture included in the article is of the protests in HK, which have not be restrained in any way by the government. The "One Country, Two Systems" regimen allows for restrained protests in HK. If the Chinese government did not discourage those organizers on the mainland, most Chinese cities would be filled with comparable protests, most likely on much larger scales.

Latest blog posts - All times are GMT
The World Cup: Vorsprung durch Technik
Game theory 1 hrs 56 mins ago
The Economist explains: The meaning of Manhattanhenge
The Economist explains July 13th, 23:50
Alibaba's IPO: Shocked, shocked!
Schumpeter July 13th, 18:10
World Cup predictions: Scoring ourselves
Graphic detail July 12th, 19:03

Products and events

Brazil has kicked off the world's greatest football tournament and to celebrate, The Economist has created a free download featuring special content on this year's competition. Download it for free now.

The Economist Radio is an on-demand social listening platform that allows you to listen, share and recommend The Economist audio content

Our app identifies and explores the issues that will shape the year ahead

Visit The Economist e-store and you’ll find a range of carefully selected products for business and pleasure, Economist books and diaries, and much more

warcinfo:
robots: classic
hostname: ip-10-180-212-248.ec2.internal
software: Nutch 1.6 (CC)/CC WarcExport 1.0
isPartOf: CC-MAIN-2014-23
operator: CommonCrawl Admin
description: Wide crawl of the web with URLs provided by Blekko for July 2014
publisher: CommonCrawl
format: WARC File Format 1.0
conformsTo: http://bibnum.bnf.fr/WARC/WARC_ISO_28500_version1_latestdraft.pdf


text:
Pollution in the Himalayas

Time to call the sweep?

Soot gets everywhere. Even into the world’s highest mountains

See article

Readers' comments

Reader comments are listed below. Comments are currently closed and new comments are no longer being accepted.

The Economist converted to the religion of man-made Global Warming several years ago under its new editor (probably shamelessly because of advertising $$$). Therefore I was surprised to see the following admission on the pages of a magazine that has promoted carbon taxes and cap and trade every issue for years, "The worry is not that the Himalayan glaciers will disappear. Despite a foolish mistake in a report by the International Panel on Climate Change suggesting that this might happen quickly, no one believes that to be the case."

However, in the very next sentence following the criticism of the foolish mistake by an IPCC report the article states, "But accelerated melting induced by this soot could cause flooding. That would be bad enough", which is about a foolish a statement as it gets, as everyone knows that rivers rapidly swell each spring from a combination of rain and melting of winter snows (at lower altitudes) rather than from the glaciers themselves (which do not change dramatically from year to year).

Sadly, The Economist has become a joke in its science coverage. I wish I could say it was a lot better in its financial and economic reports but I have also found serious deficiencies there too - most of the problems seem to be due to the political philosophies and beliefs of this magazine's editor, which, in recent years, has lead to overtly blinkered and biased reports and analysis. So sad to see this once incisive and thoughtful magazine, sink to such mediocrity.

The photo shows what looks like a dirty glacier, and yes glaciers are dirty, but not with soot, rather with morraine. If walking on a glacier one rarely needs crampons, instead the morraine provides grip as it is made up of very sharp stones.
So is the area of actual bare ice being used in this calculation, rather than the complete glacial area? This is important as the actual ice area is often less than 50% of the glacial area.

good morning

i firmly believe that we humanbeing will one day be punished by the world we living on, destiny had be arranged and changes won't be happened. facing crisis, we always try to changes the situation not to change our mind, which is harmful to coexistence with nature.

You say:
1. "accelerated melting induced by this soot could cause flooding"
2. "particularly high levels of soot had fallen on the glaciers during the 1950s"
Did this coincide with increased flooding? Even if it did so, now with stricter clean-air regulations, the risk should be reduced.
Contrary "generated3942629" I believe that it is important to monitor the levels of soot and understand the consequences that it may have.
Should industrial development in India and China lead to much higher levels of particulate matter landing on the Himalayan glaciers, this could become one of the components of a more complex problem.
At present the evidence appears to be against the alarmist suggestions you make as the closing statement in your article.

1. more than 90% of river flow in the Indus and Ganges valley comes from rainfall not glacial melt. That glacial retreat will cause flooding makes as little sense as their prior claim that it will cause the rivers to run dry.
2. some of the himalayan glaciers are receding, some are advancing, most are doing neither. the ones that are receding have been doing so before the industrial revolution began. the reality is a lot more complex that the incredibly simplistic model being pushed to show that human activity is causing glaciers to melt.
3. if soot causes flooding why hasn't done so? where is the evidence that soot on glaciers cause flooding?
4. global warming alarmists have been saying for decades that these kinds of terrible things are "already happening" but when asked for evidence fall back to forecasts that will become evident in the year 2100.
5. raising alarm has become an industry that can be manipulated by those who provide research funding. good journalism should investigate this phenomenon. who are these funders and what is their agenda instead of being pliant mindless promoters of sensationalism and fearmongering.

Robert North

So the forthcoming growth in domestic demand (as recommended by TE) by India and China wil lead to further indstrialisation and pollution. Millions more will climb into the middle classes, causing the acceleration of the melting. This is the agenda no?

Latest blog posts - All times are GMT
The World Cup: Vorsprung durch Technik
Game theory 1 hrs 56 mins ago
The Economist explains: The meaning of Manhattanhenge
The Economist explains July 13th, 23:50
Alibaba's IPO: Shocked, shocked!
Schumpeter July 13th, 18:10
World Cup predictions: Scoring ourselves
Graphic detail July 12th, 19:03

Products and events

Brazil has kicked off the world's greatest football tournament and to celebrate, The Economist has created a free download featuring special content on this year's competition. Download it for free now.

The Economist Radio is an on-demand social listening platform that allows you to listen, share and recommend The Economist audio content

Our app identifies and explores the issues that will shape the year ahead

Visit The Economist e-store and you’ll find a range of carefully selected products for business and pleasure, Economist books and diaries, and much more


text:
Thrillers in North Korea

Pyongyang confidential

The draw of a mysterious nation

See article

Readers' comments

Reader comments are listed below. Comments are currently closed and new comments are no longer being accepted.

"Daily life, rather than a particular crime, is the mystery here."

Such mysteries must be bristling with myriad tales of intrigues.

Dear Sirs,

Always difficult to keep up on these details, but just for the sake of accuracy, I offer the following: Pyongyang is no longer neon-free, and the hotel of which you speak is now well on the way to completion.

James Church

Latest blog posts - All times are GMT
The World Cup: Vorsprung durch Technik
Game theory 1 hrs 56 mins ago
The Economist explains: The meaning of Manhattanhenge
The Economist explains July 13th, 23:50
Alibaba's IPO: Shocked, shocked!
Schumpeter July 13th, 18:10
World Cup predictions: Scoring ourselves
Graphic detail July 12th, 19:03

Products and events

Brazil has kicked off the world's greatest football tournament and to celebrate, The Economist has created a free download featuring special content on this year's competition. Download it for free now.

The Economist Radio is an on-demand social listening platform that allows you to listen, share and recommend The Economist audio content

Our app identifies and explores the issues that will shape the year ahead

Visit The Economist e-store and you’ll find a range of carefully selected products for business and pleasure, Economist books and diaries, and much more


text:
This Town: Two Parties and a Funeral—Plus, Plenty of Valet Parking!—in America’s Gilded Capital. By Mark Leibovich. Blue Rider Press; 400 pages; $27.95 and £17.99. Buy from

“THIS TOWN” may be the most pitiless examination of America’s permanent political class—aka “the gang of 500” or “the Beltway establishment”—that has ever been conducted. With a wry touch, Mark Leibovich, a journalist with the New York Times Magazine, chronicles the tawdry work of Washington’s insiders and aspiring insiders. He refrains from presenting big thoughts about what is wrong with American politics and how it might be fixed. But it is impossible to read this book without concluding that something must be done.

Washington has always had a permanent establishment of politicians, lobbyists and journalists. But this class has exploded in size in recent decades, and has become more introspective and self-serving. The news media have produced a hydra of talking heads who are forever yelling at each other (debate) or pontificating about who is up and who is down (analysis). The lobbying industry has spent billions greasing the revolving door: in 2009 alone, special interests spent $3.47 billion lobbying the federal government. In 1974 3% of retiring policymakers became lobbyists. Now 50% of senators and 42% of congressmen do. And the internet has enabled a horde of young journalists to eke out a living peddling tittle-tattle to Politico, which provides constant caffeinated coverage of the city, or to dozens of other websites that trade in political gossip.

The huge expansion of “this town” has coincided with the merging of politics and celebrity culture. People in Washington now build their brands with a relentlessness that rivals Coca-Cola. And the city’s media dote on political operatives as if they are film stars. This fashion reached its apogee when Peter Orszag, Barack Obama’s first director of the Office of Management and Budget, became a Beltway sex symbol. A blog site called was soon devoted to chronicling the affairs of this unlikely Casanova with a calculator, who sported not one but two BlackBerry holsters.

While often amusing, this book is a story of disappointment. It opens with a “change election” that was supposed to sweep aside the old order and create a politics fit for the 21st century. Mr Obama even imposed a ban on lobbyists. But the Washington machine soon took over. When Mr Obama was an Illinois senator with big ideas and a silver tongue, his staff decried the media as “jackals”. But once in the capital, these same figures cashed in on their public service by getting lucrative jobs as lobbyists, bankers or talking heads. David Plouffe, an adviser to the president, joined the jackals at Bloomberg television. Mr Orszag went to Citigroup. Meanwhile, the city’s politicos grew richer while the rest of the country was mired in recession. Washington now has a higher income per person than Silicon Valley.

Mr Leibovich provides a succession of deft sketches. Bob Rubin, Bill Clinton’s first treasury secretary and a man who has made hundreds of millions on Wall Street, is “the undisputed king of the Ritz-Carlton Democrats”. Harry Reid, a senator for Nevada, could “pass for an oddball taxidermist who keeps a closet full of stuffed pigeons”. The slimmed Mr Clinton looks like “a skinny older guy wearing an oversize rubber Bill Clinton head”.

Then there are the parasites who feed off the parasites. The most prominent at the moment seems to be a woman called Tammy Haddad who spends her life throwing parties for the powerful and then basking in their reflected glory (“My job is to be around the most successful people, the most up-and-coming people, and the people who have impact”). She films interviews with her guests on her “Tam Cam”. Not content with throwing a book party for Arianna Huffington’s “Third World America” she provided embroidered “Third World America” pillows as well.

Mr Leibovich observes Washington’s failings brilliantly. He eschews the bias that mars so many political tirades, concluding that the city’s failings are thoroughly bipartisan. He seems to have been everywhere and interviewed everyone. But it is nevertheless impossible to finish this book without feeling a bit cheated. “This Town” is more a symptom of the problems that it describes than a cure. The news that Mr Leibovich was about to publish this book created a firestorm of debate in the city about how bad the place really is (which Mr Leibovich lovingly chronicles in his epilogue). The appearance of the book has sparked a similar conflagration. Washington’s narcissism has reached the point at which it is narcissistic even about its own ghastliness.


text:
An Israeli rabbi

What if he goes?

Will Israel’s beefiest religious party survive its founder’s demise?

See article

Readers' comments

Reader comments are listed below. Comments are currently closed and new comments are no longer being accepted.

L6QjhvJGVk in reply to 9bKySNYLJr

You are right - many aspects of this life have not been fully highlighted. Particularly his racism against the people whose lands have been looted by the Zionists - i.e., the Palestinians. He was a highly racist individual.

The economist has a bizarre description of the Shulchan Aruch and its author R. Joseph Karo. For a description of 22 words, there is inordinate focus on the fact that it was authored by "a refugee to Palestine" despite the fact that R. Karo was 4 years old during the expulsion from Spain in 1492.
There is no mention of the author's name or that the author was an important Rabbi.
Most deficient is the impression that R. Ovadiah Yosef popularized the Shulchan Aruch. In fact it is the quintessential handbook for religios Jews, both Sephardi and Ashkenazi (although Ashkenazim usually read it in conjunction with the mappah of R. Isserles).
It is the single most authoritative work on Jewish law ever produced.

Several inaccuracies and important omissions about his life. He was born in Baghdad, but grew in Jerusalem for where he moved to at the age of 4. He was the son of a greengrocer whose photographic memory and intellectual genius was recognised as a young age. Most of his formative years education was at the Porat Yosef religious Seminar in the Old City of Jerusalem.He was for a one year a Rabbi in Cairo before returning to the newly found State of Israel.

Some contextualisation of his relationship with the Arab community in Egypt; where he had acid thrown in his face and the general historical distrust Arabic speaking Jewish communities felt towards the countries they come from . Not to mention Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), attempt to assassinate him. Placed in context this would help explain some of his more strident views.

Several other important comments about his achievements in life have been omitted. Notably, he's role as Chief Rabbi, his being the first religious leader in Israel's community agreeing to the concept of Land For Peace. His role in providing a pragmatic and often lenient approach to religious problems, notably religious divorce.

Without too much effort the Economist, whose reporting is normally very good could have provided a much better article on his political and cultural legacy. Normally I've thought you're magazine's reporting is good and well researched. Here however you've failed to produce a particularly well written article.

Daniel Isaac (Times of Israel)

So this is one of the main religious leaders of Israel. After stealing their land and years of persecution he has the gall to call Palestinians; “Evil people who were to perish from the earth”.

Someone please explain why the US continues to put its people as risk by supporting these disgusting bigots.

Latest blog posts - All times are GMT
The World Cup: Vorsprung durch Technik
Game theory 1 hrs 56 mins ago
The Economist explains: The meaning of Manhattanhenge
The Economist explains July 13th, 23:50
Alibaba's IPO: Shocked, shocked!
Schumpeter July 13th, 18:10
World Cup predictions: Scoring ourselves
Graphic detail July 12th, 19:03

Products and events

Brazil has kicked off the world's greatest football tournament and to celebrate, The Economist has created a free download featuring special content on this year's competition. Download it for free now.

The Economist Radio is an on-demand social listening platform that allows you to listen, share and recommend The Economist audio content

Our app identifies and explores the issues that will shape the year ahead

Visit The Economist e-store and you’ll find a range of carefully selected products for business and pleasure, Economist books and diaries, and much more


text:
Latin American equity markets

Samba v Ranchero

As stockmarkets go public, Mexico struggles to keep up with Brazil

See article

Readers' comments

Reader comments are listed below. Comments are currently closed and new comments are no longer being accepted.

We all think that reducing the market activity within a monopolistic frame will result on a negative development for Mexico.It is true that Mr. Slim controls the majority of the trades within the Mexbol, but it is important to remark that Mexico will also need to approach different markets apart from the US. One of the main problems that the Mexican Economy suffers is a great dependance on the US Economy. So by this explanation, Mexico needs to focus on different external markets than the US and design long term goals to be a less dependant economy from the US to produce internal benefits.

Latest blog posts - All times are GMT
The World Cup: Vorsprung durch Technik
Game theory 1 hrs 56 mins ago
The Economist explains: The meaning of Manhattanhenge
The Economist explains July 13th, 23:50
Alibaba's IPO: Shocked, shocked!
Schumpeter July 13th, 18:10
World Cup predictions: Scoring ourselves
Graphic detail July 12th, 19:03

Products and events

Brazil has kicked off the world's greatest football tournament and to celebrate, The Economist has created a free download featuring special content on this year's competition. Download it for free now.

The Economist Radio is an on-demand social listening platform that allows you to listen, share and recommend The Economist audio content

Our app identifies and explores the issues that will shape the year ahead

Visit The Economist e-store and you’ll find a range of carefully selected products for business and pleasure, Economist books and diaries, and much more


text:
The euro

Seeking shelter

Countries outside the euro zone are worried, but joining may not be easy

See article

Readers' comments

Reader comments are listed below. Comments are currently closed and new comments are no longer being accepted.

Jon Falmes

Standard&Poor's has lost its credibility in US. You cannot give AAA status to banks that next week go bust! Cause then you are either incompetent or crook!It is easy also to play games with countries like Bulgaria, Romania, Baltic States. Romania do not have a good reputation still in high financial circles (read international crooks). They get out from communism with 0, yes zero, external and internal debt! As about S&P, rumor said they often condition favorable atittude with regards of consulting contracts! If you are really a good journal, as you think you are, just ask these questions!

"Running an independent currency is beginning to look too risky for all but the biggest economies". Does this include the UK?

As Derek Hatton points out, your article is unlikly to get major coverage in the Mail, Telegraph and Sun. "When ignorance is bliss etc."

Random Commentator

Poland's declaration to join the eurozone was simply short-term trick to delay the fall of zloty. No sums were laid in budget for that purpose.Maintaining fixed exchange rate zloty-euro in current financial storm looks especially unrealistic. The same is true for all other candidates to euro.

Poland is not " much too backward"! Zloty is hardening again after the speculative panic over all emerging markets, triggered by the Hungarian and Ukrainian problems. The Polish Central Bank has kept base rates completely static at 6% with stable foreign currency reserves. Certainly the zloty was far too hard earlier this year which caused problems for local exporters including myself but the current rates of exchange are acceptable. The property bubble caused by easy mortgage loans fortunately burst last year. Banks nowadays demand anything from 20-35% buyer participation in property purchases. However a move to the EUR would be a major benefit as a haven in any storm. When to enter the Eurozone is, I think, a technical issue. Poland currently fulfils all the UER zone membership criteria. Most Poles (other than the lunatic ultra nationalist right)realise that sovereign currencies can only be defended if they are really major ones. Even the GBP cannot be easily defended as has often happened in the past (remember the run on the pound in 1992?). The pound at the moment is being regarded over here in Poland as a bit of a "junk currency" given that as recently as 2003 it was nearly 7 zlotys to the Pound, now its only 4.5 (it was down to 4 in August)!

Poland is too much backward to be part of the Eurozone.

The zloty only can fall and interest rates raise to avoid a national financial collapse in Poland.

Latest blog posts - All times are GMT
The World Cup: Vorsprung durch Technik
Game theory 1 hrs 56 mins ago
The Economist explains: The meaning of Manhattanhenge
The Economist explains July 13th, 23:50
Alibaba's IPO: Shocked, shocked!
Schumpeter July 13th, 18:10
World Cup predictions: Scoring ourselves
Graphic detail July 12th, 19:03

Products and events

Brazil has kicked off the world's greatest football tournament and to celebrate, The Economist has created a free download featuring special content on this year's competition. Download it for free now.

The Economist Radio is an on-demand social listening platform that allows you to listen, share and recommend The Economist audio content

Our app identifies and explores the issues that will shape the year ahead

Visit The Economist e-store and you’ll find a range of carefully selected products for business and pleasure, Economist books and diaries, and much more


text:
All in this together

How is the co-operative model coping with the recession?

See article

Readers' comments

Reader comments are listed below. Comments are currently closed and new comments are no longer being accepted.

Erhan Altay is apparently astonished that other forms of ownership should exist and be successful. Well, newsflash, they do and they are. Is he not aware of UK retail group John Lewis Partnership in the UK, owned by its 69,000 employees and with a turnover of £6.9bn a year (US$10bn)? It is consistently named best UK retailer in terms of customer satisfaction and is a growing and profitable enterprise.
Alternatively, look at the UK building societies, which have been (Dunfermline apart) a comparative rock of stability in a financial sector in turmoil.
Common ownership, whether by customers or workers, is a model we should be promoting, protecting and favouring as an alternative to the smash and grab types of ownership like venture capitalism, which often promote instability and short-term 3-5 year time horizons.

As someone at work within a worker cooperative and the growing local, regional, and national federations of worker cooperatives in the US: The model of cooperatives for small business is a powerful business development tool.

For those unaware, reference:

US Federation of Worker Cooperatives (

And a biennial conference happening in Pittsburgh, PA July 31 - August 2, 2009: Eastern Conference for Workplace Democracy. (

Democracy is on the rise in our workplaces, as well as our government!

This is an interesting model. The 2 tier model blends the best of capitalism and socialism. Of course for co-operative models to be accepted near homogeneity is required. Diversity inherently works against co-op because the drivers of people motivation are no longer homogenous.

It is a good option also for employees. One that are happy with normal pay and more security and the other that are with higher salaries and lower likelihood of retention. The devil of course is in the detail. Economic downturn's like the one we are in will be a true test.

Latest blog posts - All times are GMT
The World Cup: Vorsprung durch Technik
Game theory 1 hrs 56 mins ago
The Economist explains: The meaning of Manhattanhenge
The Economist explains July 13th, 23:50
Alibaba's IPO: Shocked, shocked!
Schumpeter July 13th, 18:10
World Cup predictions: Scoring ourselves
Graphic detail July 12th, 19:03

Products and events

Brazil has kicked off the world's greatest football tournament and to celebrate, The Economist has created a free download featuring special content on this year's competition. Download it for free now.

The Economist Radio is an on-demand social listening platform that allows you to listen, share and recommend The Economist audio content

Our app identifies and explores the issues that will shape the year ahead

Visit The Economist e-store and you’ll find a range of carefully selected products for business and pleasure, Economist books and diaries, and much more


text:
New Jersey's race for governor

The target

Jon Corzine, the Democratic incumbent, looks vulnerable

See article

Readers' comments

Reader comments are listed below. Comments are currently closed and new comments are no longer being accepted.

I've lived in NJ for 5 years and I have to say I'd be shocked if Corzine is able to defeat Christie. People hate him. The only people that are going to vote for him are the really hardcore democrats, some unions and other groups that would vote for any democrat. Unfortunately for him, that's not enough to win the election. I think he's completely lost almost everyone outside his base.

Also, I don't think this should be viewed as a referendum on Obama. If there was a governors election held in NJ on the same night Obama won, Corzine would have lost. This has been brewing here for a long time. Despite that, I think the national media will see it as an Obama loss and that could put some real juice back into the Republicans.

Just John

Fish Wrap, you are so singularly and without even a flinch in the bag for liberals of every dimension. Searching hard to wrangle a positive slant on Corzine is simply tragicly comical pandering.

Fish Wrap, put your objectivity hat on when you report, at least there you have not to slant the story.

Aaron Friedman

As a New Jersey resident and life-long intellectual Democrat and liberal (I don't know if life-long means much as I am only twenty years old) who has followed New Jersey politics intensely, I believe Jon Corzine has been and will be the best governor for New Jersey. Corzine has fiscally prudent plans that New Jersey needs, though few have liked. He proposed a toll increase that was harshly rebuked by state legislators and citizens. What was not stressed was that more than 60% of all tolls paid in NJ are by out-of-staters from PA, NY, and CT. He knows how to run a business and that is how NJ needs to be run. Christie on the other hand has not released detailed plans about actions he would take as governor. That is a major problem. Voting for Christie would be like voting for change without knowing what the change is. And even Christie does not know what that change would be.

Paul Marks

Governor Corzine's history with Goldman Sachs (with its endless billions of Dollars in corporate welfare from the government - such as the nine billion from the AIG bailout last year, and the "Cap and Trade" scam this year) is going to hurt him - however unfairly (as he was not run Goldmans's during this period).

Also the arrests in New Jersey are going to hurt Corzine - however much the establishment media spin it, the voters know that almost all the corrupt people involved are Democrats.

However, what will really hurt Governor Corzine is his record of tax-and-spend - voters are sick of this.

Latest blog posts - All times are GMT
The World Cup: Vorsprung durch Technik
Game theory 1 hrs 56 mins ago
The Economist explains: The meaning of Manhattanhenge
The Economist explains July 13th, 23:50
Alibaba's IPO: Shocked, shocked!
Schumpeter July 13th, 18:10
World Cup predictions: Scoring ourselves
Graphic detail July 12th, 19:03

Products and events

Brazil has kicked off the world's greatest football tournament and to celebrate, The Economist has created a free download featuring special content on this year's competition. Download it for free now.

The Economist Radio is an on-demand social listening platform that allows you to listen, share and recommend The Economist audio content

Our app identifies and explores the issues that will shape the year ahead

Visit The Economist e-store and you’ll find a range of carefully selected products for business and pleasure, Economist books and diaries, and much more


text:
Illustration by S. Kambayashi

SOME signals should not be ignored. When the yield on 30-year Treasury bonds fell below that of two-year notes in 2005-06, a few commentators said it was a sign of an impending recession. Nonsense, riposted the bulls. The shift was due to a distortion in the bond market because Asian central banks preferred to buy short-dated debt.

The pessimists were right. Focusing on the yield curve (the relationship between short- and long-term interest rates) has historically been quite a good economic indicator. Logically investors should demand a higher yield on longer-dated bonds, to compensate them for tying up their money for longer. Periods when the yield curve is inverted (short rates are above long ones) are less common. Usually they occur when a central bank is raising short rates to slow the economy and head off inflation, which is why they are an early warning of recession.

So what are we to make of the current curve? According to Steven Zausner of CreditSights, a research firm, the curve is as steep as it has been at any time over the past 20 years. In other words, long-dated bonds offer a lot more income than short ones. History would suggest that this heralds a strong recovery. The curve was last this steep in the early 1990s, before a long boom, and in 2003, as the economy recovered from the dotcom bust.

It is no mystery why rates are so low at the short end. Central banks are deliberately holding base rates low to stimulate the economy. On a few recent occasions Treasury bills have offered negative rates—investors pay the government to hold their money. This policy ripples through the market. The yield on two-year bonds is, in essence, a forecast of the likely level of short-term rates over the next two years, and the Federal Reserve has made it clear it intends to keep rates low for an “extended period”.

Higher rates at the long end of the curve can be seen either as indigestion in the face of all the current and planned issuance, or a sign of worries about the potential for inflation. The latter argument is undermined by the gap between conventional and index-linked bond yields, which indicates that investors are expecting average inflation of 2% over the next ten years.

However, it is unlikely that most investors actually believe inflation will be so modest. Instead the forecast is a compromise between those who think America will repeat the deflationary experience of Japan (where ten-year bond yields are still 1.2% despite huge government debts) and those who think the record gold price is signalling a return to 1970s-type inflation.

A steep yield curve is also a device used by central banks to improve the profitability of banks, allowing them to borrow short and lend long (a similar tactic helped American banks recover from the savings-and-loan crisis in the early 1990s). It is another version of the “carry trade”, in which investors borrow in low-yielding currencies and buy higher-yielding ones.

Other investors, especially those who need income, may be tempted to follow suit. But does this version of the carry trade actually work? The longest-dated data comes from the Equity Gilt Study from Barclays Capital, which has figures dating back to 1900 for British returns.

The first step is to take yields on gilts (government bonds) and treasury bills (the closest instrument to cash) in each year and rank them in descending order of the gap. You then calculate the subsequent ten-year real return from investing in gilts (allowing for gross income reinvested). The results are interesting. If you divide the 20th century into quartiles, the period when the initial yield gap was highest (ie, bonds yielded more than cash) saw a subsequent ten-year real return from gilts of just 0.3%.

The clear winner was the fourth quartile, the period when yields were most inverted. Subsequent ten-year real returns averaged 3.5%. The reason for this outperformance is that this subset of data included the likes of 1927, just before the Depression, and 1989-1991, which preceded another deflationary period.

So experience suggests that the carry trade, as applied to government bonds, is not a particularly appealing strategy. Further evidence comes from Andrew Smithers of Smithers & Co, a consultancy. He points out that the historical difference between the returns on cash and government bonds is very low, but cash is a lot less volatile and thus a better hedge against the equity market. Indeed, the last time Treasury bonds yielded 3.2% (as the ten-year issue now does) was back in 1957. Fixed-income investors suffered real losses for much of the next 30 years.


text:
There is a ghost in the machine

REMEMBER Yukos, Russia's biggest oil firm, which was bankrupted by improbable tax claims and then dismembered in bogus auctions? The Russian government would rather that you did not. Although it has expunged Yukos from official registers, the firm's ghost is haunting the Kremlin and its state oil company, Rosneft, which swallowed Yukos's assets. In the past few weeks this ghost has been particularly active, making appearances in several European and American courts, demanding retribution and winning injunctions against Rosneft. Earlier this month an English court froze Rosneft's local assets in a case brought by Yukos Capital, an offshore affiliate of Yukos. A week later a similar freezing order was imposed by a court in Ireland.

This is part of an effort by Yukos's former managers to enforce an earlier Dutch court ruling that Rosneft should repay a loan of nearly $400m (plus interest and penalties), which it had acquired together with Yukos's main production assets. The loan dates to 2004, when the Russian authorities simultaneously piled up billions of dollars worth of tax claims on Yukos and froze its assets and bank accounts, making it impossible for the oil company to make any tax payments.

To shore up Yuganskneftegaz, its main production unit, Yukos arranged for a loan from one of its offshore affiliates, Yukos Capital. However, the government soon seized Yuganskneftegaz and auctioned it off to a front company called BaikalFinanceGroup, which had been registered two weeks earlier at the address of a vodka bar in the provincial Russian town of Tver. A few days later Yuganskneftegaz ended up in Rosneft's hands. But Rosneft refused to repay Yukos Capital.

Remarkably, a commercial arbitration court in Moscow ruled in Yukos's favour, telling Rosneft to repay the loan. This decision was soon overturned but it gave Yukos Capital a chance to take its case to a Dutch court which also ordered Rosneft to pay up. When Rosneft refused, Yukos Capital asked the courts in Britain, Ireland and the state of New York to oblige it.

On March 17th the court in New York said that unless Rosneft had assets in the state, the case was outside its jurisdiction. (Yukos Capital was given 60 days to find such assets). But in England and in Ireland the freezing orders remain in place, at least for now. In a statement, Rosneft said the British court order was groundless and it was taking all necessary measures to protect its interests.

The injunctions, which stop Rosneft from making payments from its local accounts, have put its oil traders and its creditors into a spin. They put Rosneft into technical default on loans from foreign banks which are secured by sale contracts between Rosneft and its customers. As Russia's largest oil company, it is certainly good for the money: the disputed sum represents just 10% of last year's profit. But it is the first time that Rosneft has been materially affected by its controversial acquisition of Yukos's assets.

The timing is particularly important given a $98 billion claim made in the European Court of Human Rights against Russia by Yukos before its destruction. Despite Russia's protests that Yukos no longer exists, the court accepted the case; a judgment is pending. In its defence, Russia argued that “the integrity, professionalism and independence” of Russian courts has not been challenged. But the European Court, which regularly overturns Russian legal judgments, may have a different view. If it finds in Yukos's favour, the shareholders could seek enforcement in any court in Europe.

Mikhail Khodorkovsky, Yukos's former owner, already serving an eight-year sentence for tax evasion, is now on trial for stealing oil as well. According to a recent poll, 41% of Russians believe that the government is putting pressure on the courts to secure a guilty verdict, whereas only 20% think otherwise.

The Kremlin has tried to portray Mr Khodorkovsky as a blood-soaked gangster and Yukos's destruction as a noble act on behalf of Russia's defrauded taxpayers. In a recent phone-in session open to the public, Vladimir Putin, Russia's prime minister, in effect accused Mr Khodorkovsky of murder, diverted responsibility for Yukos's bankruptcy to foreign banks and took pride in returning to the Russian people the money he says was stolen from them.

But few Russians seem to subscribe to that version of events. According to the same poll, only 7% of respondents believe that the destruction of Yukos has benefited the people, whereas 63% believe it was orchestrated in the interests of a small group of bureaucrats and businessmen with close ties to the Kremlin. The thought that some foreign courts might share that view must truly haunt Russia's rulers.


text:
SHOULD the Turks and Kurds live together? The answer from many of Turkey's restive Kurds has long been no. A vicious separatist campaign launched by rebels of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) has been raging since 1984. In recent months the PKK has stepped up its attacks, killing dozens of Turkish soldiers in and beyond the predominantly Kurdish south-east. Most recently, on July 20th, a Kurdish raid near the town of Cukurca killed six Turkish troops and injured at least 15.

But now a growing number of Turks are questioning the merits of cohabiting with the country's estimated 14m Kurds. Never mind that Istanbul is the world's largest Kurdish city, or that few of the provinces claimed by the Kurds are ethnically homogenous. In television debates and across the blogosphere support for the idea that the Kurds should go their own way is growing. Onur Sahin, who heads the Chamber of Agriculture in the Black Sea province of Ordu, says his fellow producers no longer want seasonal migrant Kurds to harvest their hazelnut crops.

Meanwhile, the military campaign against the PKK is intensifying. The mildly Islamist Justice and Development (AK) party, which has governed Turkey since 2002, plans to deploy a new professional army along the border with Iraq, where the PKK has havens. Some fear a return to the excesses of the 1990s, when over 3,000 Kurdish villages were forcibly evacuated and thousands of Kurds were imprisoned, murdered or disappeared.

Over the border, Turkish air raids on the PKK's mountain bases in northern Iraq are increasing. America is helping by providing intelligence and broadening the air corridor used by Turkish fighter jets. Yet the Americans are worried by Turkey's increasingly strident calls for the Iraqi Kurds to hand over some 200 rebels, including their own leaders. The last thing the Americans want to see, as they pull out of Iraq, is a war between Turkey and Iraqi Kurds.

All of this is a far cry from last year when AK heralded its so-called Kurdish “opening”. It made peace with the Iraqi Kurds and opened a consulate in Erbil, their capital. At home, a set of political and cultural reforms was meant to coax the PKK into laying down its arms, in the wake of a unilateral PKK ceasefire that was declared in April but that never took full effect. But the opening ground to a halt following the return last October of 34 PKK fighters to Turkey from Iraq. More were meant to follow. But the group prompted a public outcry by touring the south-east in guerrilla outfits, declaring victory. In response the government stepped up its arrests of members of the pro-Kurdish Peace and Democracy Party (BDP), accusing them of PKK membership. Half of the returnees have been put on trial for refusing to repent; ten are in prison. Last month the PKK hit back by calling off its truce.

Some voices plead for a return to peace. A group of Turkish intellectuals has petitioned the government to change a controversial article of the constitution that deems all Turkish citizens to be Turks. One AK mayor has suggested that Turkish men take Kurdish women as second wives. Others say that AK must talk to the PKK's imprisoned leader, Abdullah Ocalan. Despite 11 years of solitary confinement in an island prison off Istanbul, Mr Ocalan retains the loyalty of his fighters and the affection of millions of Kurds.

In fact, secret talks with Mr Ocalan, supposedly conducted by security and intelligence operatives, have reportedly been going on for some time. Murat Karayilan, the PKK's commander in northern Iraq, says his group wants to talk to politicians, not spooks, and this week proposed a bilateral ceasefire. But as next July's parliamentary elections draw nearer, Turkey's prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, is unlikely to risk nationalist ire by openly talking to a group deemed by Turkey and its Western allies to be terrorists. On the other hand, as Mr Erdogan knows, abandoning reform in favour of war will only strengthen the hand of his opponents within the army. He is, as an old Turkish saying goes, holding a stick with shit at both ends.


text:
IN THE early 1950s a sociologist called Geoffrey Gorer set out to solve the mystery of England's “character”. To be precise, how had the English gone from being a thoroughly lawless bunch—famed for truculence and cruelty—to one of the most orderly societies in history? Just over a century before, he noted, the police entered some bits of Westminster only in squads of six or more “for fear of being cut to pieces”. Popular pastimes included public floggings, dog-fighting and hunting bullocks to death through east London streets. As late as 1914, well-dressed adults risked jeering mockery from ill-clad “rude boys”, and well-dressed children risked assault. Yet by 1951, when Gorer surveyed more than 10,000 men and women, he could describe an England famous worldwide for disciplined queuing, where “you hardly ever see a fight in a bar” and “football crowds are as orderly as church meetings”. In a book, “Exploring English Character”, Gorer decided that two keys unlocked the mystery: the mid-19th-century creation of a police force of citizen-constables, and the curbing of aggression by “guilt”.

Six decades later, moral guilt is not greatly cherished in Britain, a secular, individualist place. But worrying about “character” could not be more fashionable. Gorer's research, and his descriptions of a “tough love” style of parenting, are approvingly cited in “The Foundation Years”, a new report on child poverty commissioned by Conservative David Cameron's coalition government from Frank Field, a Labour MP and former welfare minister. Mr Field thinks the previous government's laudable ambitions to curb child poverty were side-tracked by an obsession with redistribution, and using welfare to pull families mechanically over a centrally-determined poverty line. Money, says Mr Field, matters less than a secure, loving home and good parenting. He favours things like reading to children, teaching them to count and setting clear boundaries for behaviour. Similar arguments lurk in “Building Character”, a 2009 think-tank report which—after surveying mountains of data—declared that the gulf between the respective life chances of a poor child and a rich child all but vanishes when both are raised by “confident and able” parents, offering “tough love” (that phrase again). In January 2010 Mr Cameron hailed the findings of “Building Character” as among the most important “in a generation”; the report's author now works for the Liberal Democrat deputy prime minister, Nick Clegg.

Britain has good reasons to seek a fresh debate on poverty and social mobility. Since 1999 the state has redistributed £134 billion ($212 billion, at today's exchange rate) to poorer families through tax credits, and spent huge sums on “Sure Start” centres for the under-fives, Mr Field says. Yet social mobility has stagnated.

Alas, the fresh debate that has broken out is the wrong one: a sterile squabble about whether material inequality does more harm to children than bad parenting. From the left, voices angrily accuse Mr Field of supplying the coalition with an ideological rationale for slashing financial aid to the poor. With both anger and startling precision, a sociology professor wrote to the Guardian, a leftish newspaper, citing historical findings that bad habits and human failings explain only 15% of why someone is poor, and their material circumstances the remainder.

Meanwhile, voices on the right have gleefully hailed Mr Field for allegedly saying that “too-soft” parents are the sole root of Britain's social ills (actually, he and the government think some income redistribution is necessary, with targeted help for vulnerable parents). Weighing in on a related debate about child benefits for the better-off, Howard Flight, a Tory politician, announced that it was “not very sensible” to discourage the middle classes from “breeding” while encouraging those on benefits.

The squabble is a waste of breath. Material poverty and character both matter. What is more, they are often linked. Bad choices can worsen poverty; and it is harder to make good choices when life is grim. A more useful debate about character would involve pondering this. How far can the judgmental analyses of the past be applied in modern Britain?

Gorer found little belief in the “innate goodness of children”: 1950s parenting could be summed up by the motto “See what Johnny is doing and tell him to stop it.” He found advocates for caning and thrashing, but most English parents favoured deprivation of toys, treats or liberty. A Bedfordshire mother reported that her son was “easy”: a day locked in his bedroom with bread and water was enough to curb naughtiness.

Disgrace under pressure

In 2010 Mr Field charges that: “We are the first generation in human history that has not compelled fathers to support their children, usually by living with the mother.” This often harms children's interests, he says, and that sounds plausible. But—as a glance at history reveals—something benign (stable family structures) was underpinned by something harsh (social stigma attached to illegitimacy). Gorer found marriage a bedrock of society. Except among the very poorest, most were opposed to sex outside wedlock. But this was not to obey some universal moral code (even in 1950s England, about 40% of adults rarely or never went to church). More practical concerns dominated. Women who strayed risked the “worry and disgrace” of a baby, wrote a teenage girl, while “the man just has his fun.”

In most British communities (and more for good than ill) disgrace is a greatly weakened force these days. Mr Cameron's supporters talk of “libertarian paternalism”, or nudging people to make better choices. Perhaps that will work, though the “tough love” of the past involved sharp prods, not nudges. As each new government discovers, the English are a stroppy lot, and hard to help. It's not their fault: it is in their character.


text:
SHARPE JAMES is an inimitable figure. The former mayor for two decades of Newark, New Jersey won his 2002 re-election campaign by calling his opponent a "faggot white boy", suggesting he was Jewish and also that he taking money from the Ku Klux Klan. That all of these could not possibly be true, and that his opponent, Cory Booker, was a black, straight, non-Jewish man didn't matter. Mr James had that kind of power. Newark is that kind of place. He won handily. (Mr Booker became mayor in 2006, when Mr James declined to run again.)

Now, Mr James might have met his match: the feds. According to the New York Times, an investigation

culminated on Thursday in a 33-count indictment that included claims that he defrauded the city in ways both extravagant and venal: $1,440 for a trip to a beachfront resort in the Dominican Republic, where Mr. James claimed he wanted to assess the tropical gardens to see if they could be replicated at the Newark train station.

This should be an interesting trial.


text:
How is Iraq's National Symphony doing?
(Wall Street Journal): "We've moved forward a lot," says Karim Wasfi, director and chief conductor. "I'm now able to struggle with artistic quality—getting the music right—rather than logistics or mere survival"

Of course he considered himself a "Nietzschean"
(Slate): How Nietzsche gets misunderstood by Jared Loughner types

the "last bastion of individuality"—ie, art—is "crumbling, invaded by art as a group activity"

Today's quote:

“Even though O assumed it wouldn't happen, he wished The Barracuda, as he liked to think of her, would join the Republican race. O knew they wouldn't be that lucky, but he had let himself imagine such a contest. He had watched her speak to a rally of her faithful. There she was, thick hair piled up high, chin out, defiant, taunting, flaunting that whole lusty librarian thing, sweet and savory, mother and predator, alluring and dangerous.”

~ An excerpt from "O: A Presidential Novel", an anonymously written novel about the Barack Obama White House (GalleyCat)


text:
The killing of Trayvon Martin

Because he was black?

A shooting becomes an excuse for political point-scoring

See article

Readers' comments

Reader comments are listed below. Comments are currently closed and new comments are no longer being accepted.

Interesting law. It puts the burden of justice squarely on the shoulders of a dead person, and seems to encourage people to not leave a living witness around.

J-West in reply to Robulous

We have strict gun control in Canada. A man's home was being attacked by three young hoodlums. They set his house on fire so he would have to come out so they could beat him up. He loaded his gun and fired some shots in the air from his burning porch. That scared off the yoots. He then put out the fire and called the cops.
Since then he has nearly gone bankrupt fighting several charges laid by police ... the only one that is still sticking is improper storage of a gun. The cops think that if his gun was stored properly, he would never have had time to get it, load it and use it before his house was too far gone to save.
The three yoots who lit the fire and taunted the man were not charged.
That is the opposite of what you have in Florida. Which scenario would you prefer?

Even if Trayvon did throw a first punch at Zimmerman when the latter approached him (wearing no identifying uniform), was Trayvon not STANDING HIS GROUND - unluckily, however, without a gun?

We will never hear Trayvon's side of the story. The issue is not race, it's about the lack of sane discourse & regulation of the gun industry in the U.S. Every effort to rationalize gun laws are reduced to an hysterical cry of "THEY WILL TAKE ALL OF OUR GUNS AWAY!!!!"

Wonder how the founding fathers would have worded the 2nd amendment if they had a crystal ball showing them rapid-fire machine guns, sawed-off shotguns, nuclear bombs, etc. I bet it would have turned out differently.

Mad Hatter

“stand your ground” law, which exempts those with reason to believe their lives are in jeopardy from any legal obligation to attempt to retreat before resorting to deadly force.

Does that mean, if I get into an argument with a “fact resistant” Republican, I can shoot him since my life will be in jeopardy if he gets elected?

dewatobay in reply to J-West

Seriously! POTUS only commented/answered a direct question given him at a press conference. You and this article fail to point to that little fact. Blame the reporter who asked the question.

The_Prof in reply to Mad Hatter

No probably not, but you can follow him home, threaten him and if he turns to defend himself, shoot him and claim self defense.

I think someone is going to make a fair bit of money selling low slung holsters and teaching quick draw lessons in Florida very soon.

EhaZSRa3MZ in reply to J-West

Or could it be possibly due to the fact that an unarmed boy, while walking home from the neighborhood store, was followed, then shot and killed, while the shooter has not been arrested or charged whatsoever?

The media, yes "The Economist" included, are the ones taken advantage of the race issue. POTUS only commented because a reporter at a press conference asked him a direct question regarding the Martin shooting. Now why would a member of the media do that?

And yes this entire circus is because Trayvon was black and the shooter was ... other race whatever that might actually be.

The racists in the white house and the mainstream media are working hard to vilify white people over this .... conservative white people specifically. However, Zimmerman was a registered democrat. Bummer eh?

Looks like the Obama/Jackson/Sharpton team are going to get the race war they are hoping for.

J-West in reply to Robulous

I should also add that in Canada, if you are a registered gun owner the police have a right to enter your home with no notice to inspect your firearms (and anything else they happen to see).

If you happen to be caught with a loaded handgun for any reason anywhere anytime, there is a mandatory three years jail term for you.

It is very difficult to get a handgun legally in Canada. You cannot move it anywhere without a permit to do so .... every time. Forget a carry permit ... that just doesn't happen.

However, in Toronto there are black drug gangs shooting each other regularly .. mostly Jamaicans .... There drug gangs in other major Canadian cities that are also regularly shooting each other.

The cops and the drug dealers all have guns, the law abiding citizen does not have the privilege.

Self defense is a no no in Canada. If you defend yourself, you will be charged. You will be bankrupted by the court costs even if you are innocent. That happens regularly in Canada.

A chinese shop owner in Toronto was being robbed daily by a particular person.... he would grab and run. One day the owner and an employee caught the man stealing so they grabbed him and locked him in a room until police arrived. Here is what happened. The shop owner and his employee were charged with unlawful confinement and the the thief was let go. The two men are going bankrupt fighting the charges.

That is the opposite of what you have in Florida. Which scenario do you prefer?

I am not making this stuff up. When you surrender your right to bear arms and the right to "stand your ground' become a victim a pawn a slave in your own country.

It is always better to be a free self-reliant person with some rights than to be a hapless and helpless ward of the state. It is good if your government fears the population rather than the reverse.

I am living the no gun dream and it's scary. What say you?

Discojm in reply to J-West

I'd rather have that scenerio than the one that's playing out in Florida. The man in Canada may have lost some money, but at least he didn't lose his life or his parents a son. As screwed up as that story sounds, needless gun violence is way more prevalent than some isolated incident you just described. A man in TX was shot in the back, and his killer got away with it because of a similiar law here in TX.

TS2912 in reply to Mad Hatter

Odds are 99 to 1 that the 'fact resistant' Republican would riddle you with one his many assault rifles (from his survival bunker) while you would be trying to load your BB gun.

What this guy lacks in terms of reasoning is more than made up by paranoia and viciousness (as Mr Zimmerman amply demonstrated).

The_Prof in reply to J-West

I say there is a significant difference between believing in the castle doctrine (which I do) and extending the castle doctrine to the wider world. A person should be able to defend themselves in their home (where an intruder is unambiguously up to something untoward) or if attacked directly. That does not mean that a person should be able to claim self defense in situations where there should be no perceived threat.

Example: an unarmed dead man and I are in the parking garage. The police show up and I say he threatened to carjack me. They say he is unarmed and I am standing next to my car. The burden of proof that I acted in self defense should be on me, not that I didn't on the dead man. That is what I say.

wakarusa in reply to jferdy5

please ... the Economist does not need to inform its readers about right-wing nut jobs ... Sharpton and the Black Panthers are already familiar to readers.
do you work for all those publications or are you doing their advertising for them?
the Economist could write a 5,000 word exposé (they won't) and you would still nit-pick it. Save it for your facebook feed and spare us.

Article incomplete without:

(a) Noting Florida's appalling history of first legislating unequal racial laws, then once that became unpopular, applying law unequally based on race

(b) Mentioning the right-wing non-profit, ALEC, that facilitated writing & passage of a number of racially suspect laws, including the "stand-your-ground" law, in force in Florida and other states.

A. Andros

That Mr. Zimmerman killed the young man is a fact. That he committed a crime is not - at least, not yet. If there is evidence of a criminal act then a grand jury must indict and then a petit jury must determine the degree of guilt -- if any. In other words, this is a matter for the law and not politicians or editors, much as they would like to hog the limelight.

This young man's bones have been picked for ideological benefit by both liberal and conservative groups but primarily by those on the Left. A great issue is made of the young man being black. The only legitimate issue is whether there is evidence of criminal intent -- and we do not yet know that.

the Justice Department, thoroughly politicized, has jumped the gun by investigating a possible civil rights violation and "bias" attack. Given the ambiguity that surrounds this case what business do they have doing such a thing? How can they procede toward possible prosecution when the facts of what happened have not been adjudicated -- in fact not yet even established?

As for the congressman who wore a hooded jesey onto the floor of the House, or tried to do so, he was disrespectful of the orderly process of justice. This was naked grandstanding.

Perhaps the poor child might have looked like Mr. Obama's son. But, Mr. Obama may also have made it impossible to impanel a jury, should it come to that. What citizen is not going to be influenced by a remark made on national TV by the President of the United States?

This whole tragic business has been turned into a carnival by politicians and demagogues who are attracted to blood in the water -- in this case, a young black man's blood.

Even the la-de-da NYT has intoned ominously that more investigation is needed. And, maybe it is -- but do we really need some pompous editor with a sketchy grasp of (hightly disputed) facts trying the case in his editorial columns.

You are innocent until proven guilty. That includes white people as well as black.

Latest blog posts - All times are GMT
The World Cup: Vorsprung durch Technik
Game theory 2 hrs 41 mins ago
The Economist explains: The meaning of Manhattanhenge
The Economist explains July 13th, 23:50
Alibaba's IPO: Shocked, shocked!
Schumpeter July 13th, 18:10
World Cup predictions: Scoring ourselves
Graphic detail July 12th, 19:03

Products and events

Brazil has kicked off the world's greatest football tournament and to celebrate, The Economist has created a free download featuring special content on this year's competition. Download it for free now.

The Economist Radio is an on-demand social listening platform that allows you to listen, share and recommend The Economist audio content

Our app identifies and explores the issues that will shape the year ahead

Visit The Economist e-store and you’ll find a range of carefully selected products for business and pleasure, Economist books and diaries, and much more


text:
A widow and her son bemusedAP

RETURNING to Morocco after 35 years in exile, the Ben Barkas looked bemused by the fuss. They pushed through the crowds of former political prisoners who were preparing a hero's welcome at the airport gates, insisting that their return was just a family affair. No one was convinced.

For decades, Mehdi Ben Barka's children have been struggling to uncover the truth behind their father's disappearance. He was kidnapped in broad daylight outside a famous Paris restaurant, Brasserie Lipp, on October 29th 1965. A French judicial inquiry ruled that he had been taken to a villa outside Paris, and apparently tortured to death. The court condemned General Mohammed Oufkir, who at the time was King Hassan's interior minister, and indicated that French intelligence and Israel's Mossad were involved. It has taken a new king, Mohammed, to bring the Ben Barka family home.

At one time, Ben Barka taught King Hassan mathematics. But he turned into something of a North African Che Guevara, touting a Nasserist “Arab revolution” against Morocco's “reactionary” monarch. During those years, Morocco was beset by riots, and King Hassan ruled as a despot, suspending parliament, arresting Ben Barka's supporters in parliament and kidnapping dissidents.

The country has come a long way since then. Ben Barka's right-hand man, Abderrahmane Youssoufi, is now Morocco's prime minister, and his party leads the government. At the official reception for the Ben Barkas at Rabat airport, two of the king's representatives stood alongside two stalwarts from Ben Barka's party, both now cabinet ministers. Three decades on from Ben Barka's abduction, palace and politicians presented a gentle picture of harmony.

But the family had only to step from the sanctum of the VIP lounge for the image to crack. Human-rights activists brandished banners protesting that the torturers of the past roam free, and demanding that the state hand over the bodies of the disappeared, including Ben Barka's. The feared long-time interior minister, Driss Basri, has been sacked. But doubts over the depth of the change are mounting: there are again reports of jobless protesters being suppressed violently.

King Mohammed has won over many of his father's opponents. But he has done so without ceding any of his father's powers. He rules, often without consulting his ministers. When he sacked Mr Basri, the prime minister was in Paris. Decisions taken by a minister one day are overruled by the palace the next. And like his father before him, the 37-year-old king is appointing a new troupe of loyalists, more often than not his classmates, to senior posts in the ministries.

The irony is that, at least for now, the king's high-handedness is just as well. He is making many of the right changes, if not necessarily in the right way. By contrast, his ministers look an ineffectual and dusty lot, lacking the spirit to adapt to the times. With the meddlesome Mr Basri departed, this should have been their finest hour. But it is not. If Morocco is ever to become a democracy, it will probably have to be by royal decree.


text:
AT ITS simplest, privatisation is about replacing politicised bureaucrats with meritocratic investors. With the right incentives, firms as diverse as the Dutch post office, Spain's airline and British Telecom have discovered a new vitality. Few countries stood to benefit more from such a transformation than Italy, where large firms have been as prone to state meddling and inefficiency as small ones have been to world-beating excellence. Yet at the two largest firms on the Milan stock exchange, and a third that will join them at the top when it is floated later this month, the bad old habits live on.

The worst offender is Telecom Italia, a former state telecoms firm in which the Italian treasury still has a 4% stake. The firm caused uproar at the end of September by revealing plans that would diddle minority shareholders.

In May this year Telecom Italia was bought by Olivetti, a firm one-sixth of its size. The takeover, through a subsidiary called Tecnost, looked cheeky even then. But Roberto Colaninno, Olivetti's chief executive, who has headed Telecom Italia since winning the battle, has come up with a scheme that looks downright insulting. Taking control of Telecom Italia in a euro16 billion ($17 billion) deal meant plunging Tecnost deep into debt. Mr Colaninno plans to haul it out again by giving Tecnost the stake that Telecom Italia owns in Telecom Italia Mobile (TIM), a highly profitable mobile-phone business. In exchange, Telecom Italia's minority shareholders will be compensated in the debased currency of Tecnost's overvalued shares.

It makes sense for Mr Colaninno to bring TIM's cash flow and dividend stream to where he needs them, but the current scheme was not what was promised when Olivetti pounced on Telecom Italia. “The holders of the 48% of the firm that did not accept Olivetti's offer in May did not want Tecnost shares then, and they do not want them now,” complains an analyst at a Milanese securities house.

As if the abuse of minority shareholders and the scheming of company managers were not enough to conjure up memories of the bad old days, the Italian government has now waded in. The government welcomed Mr Colaninno's bid earlier this year, but has now flirted with using its controlling “golden share” to block the Tecnost transfer. Telecom Italia said it would stick to its plans, and Mr Colaninno has been explaining himself to investors in Milan and London.

However, the heat of opposition may yet persuade the firm to change tack. This week Mr Colaninno offered the unconvincing palliative of a committee to protect minority shareholders' interests. He then said he would consider increasing the number of Tecnost shares that Telecom Italia's shareholders will receive.

Telecom Italia's problems stem largely from battles in the boardroom. After it was privatised, a dispiriting 18 months full of argument and dithering left the firm vulnerable to Olivetti's takeover. Hence the alarm now over boardroom disputes at ENI, a partly privatised energy and chemicals conglomerate. The day after Mr Colaninno's bombshell, Renato Ruggiero, chairman of ENI, resigned in a huff. Mr Ruggiero, who had been in the job only four months, has had an impressive career, with spells as Italy's trade minister and as its ambassador to the European Union, as well as four years as director-general of the World Trade Organisation. Yet rather than being given real power to guide ENI's international strategy, as he thought he had been promised, Mr Ruggiero found that he was expected to be nothing more than a figurehead, while the chief executive decided the course of things.

The boardroom rumpus comes at a difficult time for ENI. The oil industry is in the grip of international consolidation and ENI earlier this year missed the opportunity to combine with Elf Aquitaine, a French oil firm that has just merged with its compatriot, TotalFina. Even before its boardroom arguments, ENI looked an unattractive partner. A decade ago an ENI chairman remarked that privatisation was a way to raise cash without losing control. The government, which owns 36.9% of the firm, seems barely to have changed its view, asserting recently that it intends to keep a controlling stake.

With two such recent reminders of how privatisation can disappoint, the timing of Enel's flotation is looking especially bad. In theory, the state electricity corporation should appeal to investors. A new board appointed in June 1996 has shaken up the firm. Staff have been cut from 93,600 at the end of 1996 to 81,100 at the end of June this year. Debt has fallen by half, to 17.7 trillion lire ($9.7 billion). Profits have surged to 2.4 trillion lire on 19.5 trillion lire of sales in the first half of this year, against 1.3 trillion lire on sales of 36.8 trillion lire in 1996. Enel seems well-placed for the opening of Italy's electricity market, which started in February.

Yet doubts remain. As though the ENI experience has taught it nothing, the government intends to keep an impregnable stake in Enel. The government will be left with 85% of the firm, and minority shareholders will wonder what timetable it has for selling further tranches. The more cautious among them will also be asking whether the treasury has plans to milk Enel for more special dividends such as the 4.4 trillion lire it extracted at the beginning of September.

Shareholders in Enel also have cause to fear the firm's wilful and well-connected boss. France Tato was recruited from the private sector, and deserves credit for having made many changes. But he is an empire-builder. Enel diversified into telecommunications two years ago. This summer it bought a large stake in a television company and agreed to give the treasury 3.1 trillion lire as an advance payment for three water businesses. Perhaps Mr Tato was exercising independence. Or maybe this summer's diversification appeals to the parts of Italy's government that want more state involvement in the utilities. Either way, minority shareholders will find little to comfort them.

Italy's record on privatisation is patchy. In the 1980s a backroom deal ensured that a large tranche of Mediobanca, an investment bank, ended up in the hands of a few friendly firms, such as Pirelli and Generali, preserving its unparalleled influence over Italian business and finance. Having managed Telecom Italia's privatisation two years ago, it was no surprise that Mediobanca was behind Olivetti's takeover bid, despite the obvious conflict of interest. It is also behind the current assault on Telecom Italia's minority shareholders.

Through a series of nested stakes, Mediobanca has the largest interest in Edison, Italy's leading private-sector electricity firm. Some analysts suspect that it will soon try to organise Olivetti's merger with Montedison, which owns 61.4 % of Edison. Even so, few in Italy seem to find it strange that Mediobanca is managing Enel's share offering. Worse still, few in Italian politics think it strange that the government wants to keep a strong influence in industries that range from banking to telecommunications and energy.


text:
IN JAPAN, parliamentarians from minority parties who want to delay crucial votes “ox-walk”, or move with infinite slowness to the ballot boxes; in Britain, they try to “talk out” bills or bury them at the committee stage. Few delaying devices, however, have proved quite so irritating to governing parties as the senatorial filibuster.

America's upper chamber grants each member considerable freedom to block laws, and senators have not always used this wisely. In 1935, Huey Long of Louisiana delayed the renewal of Franklin Roosevelt's National Recovery Administration by reciting, among many other things, his recipe for fried oysters and a life of Frederick the Great. For years, southern senators repeatedly filibustered civil-rights bills, with a law getting through in 1957 only after Strom Thurmond of South Carolina had spoken against it for more than 24 hours consecutively. More recently, the mere threat of filibusters has been enough to derail trade bills, arms-control treaties and various presidential appointments.

The only sure way to stop a filibuster is a vote of “cloture”, suspending debate, which requires the support of 60 of the Senate's 100 members. This explains the frustration of George Bush's Republicans, who control 55 seats in the Senate, and who are furious that Democrat threats of filibusters have managed to block around 20 of the president's conservative judicial nominees. The Republicans are threatening to unleash the “nuclear” option, exploiting a technicality to force a vote forbidding the filibustering of judicial nominations. This vote would require a simple 51-49 majority.

The Republicans' determination over judicial appointments will only have been increased by the judiciary's failure (at least in social conservatives' eyes) to do more to save the life of Terri Schiavo (see article). The likelihood that one or more Supreme Court justices will soon need replacing adds another incentive. More generally, the American right's declared aim is to replace retiring “activist liberal” judges, such as those who sanction gay marriage, with those who interpret the constitution in a less cavalier way. Given Mr Bush's success at the polls, surely he has a right to put that change into practice?

This explains why the nuclear option is such a great temptation for Mr Bush's generals in the Senate. Nevertheless it is one they should resist, principally because it would be a piece of congressional vandalism, but also because it almost certainly does not make sense politically.

On the face of it, removing filibusters for judicial nominations may seem a small tweak. America's constitution is full of other checks and balances, and the founders did not specifically require a super-majority for judicial nominations as they did for ratifying international treaties or impeaching presidents. It is left for Congress to decide. Most parliaments have “guillotine systems” for making sure laws can get passed. Why not get rid of a minor obstruction and speed things up, especially if the change applies only to judges?

Sauce for the goose

This sounds logical, but it is actually the wrong way round. The role of Congress is not to speed up laws and appointments but to test them and, yes, often to delay them. The Senate's peculiar powers and clubby rules may be irritating, but they guarantee its independence from the executive—a separation of powers that conservatives have normally held dear. So changing the rules on judges would be worth the risk only if it were a matter of small consequence; if the Democrats were being outrageously obstructive; or if there were a huge gain to be had in terms of efficiency. None of these things is true.

The Republicans' own fury about those liberal judges merely underlines how important the judiciary is in the culture wars (abortion, gay marriage and the like) that divide America so bitterly. Imagine the fury from the right if Bill Clinton had been able to “railroad through” more activist judges on a simple majority vote. Second, the Democrats' obstructionism is hardly unprecedented: they are rejecting Mr Bush's judges at roughly the same rate that the Republicans turned back Mr Clinton's choices. And, finally, the nuclear option's efficiency gains would be minimal or perhaps even negative. Democratic senators would retaliate against any nuclear attack by using all the other delaying tactics open to them to close down the upper chamber. And in the long term, would conservative advocates of smaller government really want to see, say, President Hillary Clinton with greater powers?

As one conservative commentator, George Will, has pointed out, Mr Bush might well get most of the judges he wants by calling the Democrats' bluff. Force a vote on each nominee, and then dare his foes, some of whom face tough elections in conservative states next year, to talk them out as Thurmond tried (and failed) to do in 1957. Mr Bush might well either get his judges or use the Democrats' intransigence as ammunition to push the Republicans up to 60 seats next year. A gamble, perhaps; but much less risky for both Mr Bush and America than playing around with the long-established powers of Congress.