Latest on Fri, 09:25 am
Distinctively Dutch
Christie’s, London, had another auction last week. This one dedicated to Dutch photographers. They were lucky that the financial and economical crises seemed not to have reached the super rich art collectors. Five thousand up to twenty thousands euro’s was not unusual. Most was paid for “the ice cream parlour” from the series “Rain” by Erwin Olaf ( over € 22.000). But Ruud van Empel (“World”), Desirée Dolron (“Xteriors”) and Celine van Balen (Muslim girls) were very much in demand also.
Why?
President Barack Obama
Barack Obama elected as President of United States. So indeed at the end of the day finally common sense won. Or like Colson said…intellectual won over some populism
Unlike Kerry in 2004 whom was unable to win those big states despite of a growing popular vote. Obama was able to win convincingly with 349 votes and beat McCain. For popular votes Obama secured 52% of the votes (it is still a scarry fact that there’s 47% US Voters believing that Palin is a good choice for VP USA hoh)
The Paradox of the Blessed Collapse
They had it coming.
A lot of us may have these kind of feelings. Like Jake Tapper wrote: “In 2007, Wall Street’s five biggest firms — Bear Stearns, Goldman Sachs, Lehman Brothers, Merrill Lynch, and Morgan Stanley — paid a record $39 billion in bonuses to themselves”. It’s self-evident that it tells everything about their performances. We could hear, see and read their justification. They did deserve their income. Worked hard for it. They created economical growth. Moreover they donated a lot of money to charity. And Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley are still standing now, aren’t they?
And you believed them?
“Asia is overcome by a tidal wave of common sense”
The quote is from Kishore Mahbubani, a learned and eminent Singapore citizen of Indian descent. He himself is making tidal waves in the media and universities by his books in which he castigates the West for arrogance, geo political incompetence and complacency, while at the same time he proclaims the ascent of Asian progress. While the US and Europe lack the capacity to understand the transformation the world is going through, Asia is marching to modernity with a huge, peace and stability loving middle class as result. In the process an ocean of new Asian brainpower – which always has been wasted- will become available and boost the developments.
As one might expect China is kind of a model to him. According to Mahbubani that country took two major beneficial decisions. One of them is that after the end of the cold war it didn’t copy the political system of the West (= liberal democracy), but only the economical one (free market economy). In that way it profited from the dynamics and vitality of the system, but could prevent the socio-political chaos the former USSR had and has to deal with. The other one is a geo strategic one: China offered a free trade agreement to the Asean and Asian countries and executed it. The outcome of that decision is that the Asian hemisphere as a whole benefits from a remarkable economic growth.
“I read the news today oh boy”
For John Lennon ( “A Day in the Life” ) the news was about a lucky man who made the grade, a guy who blew his mind out in a car and four thousand holes in Blackburn, Lancashire. But guess what was in the papers today? What were the headlines shouting? What do they think is the most urgent problem the world should know?
Yes indeed, you’re right:
The Guardian:”Republican convention thrown into chaos by hurricane Gustav”
The New York Times:”Republicans drop most Monday Convention action”
The Los Angelos Times: “Hurricane Gustav bears down on empty New Orleans”
Frankfurter Algemeine: “McCain: Wir müssen wie Amerikaner handeln’ (Mc Cain’s comment on Gustav: ‘We must act like Americans’)
Le Monde: “John McCain: investiture par temps d’ouragan” (John McCain: In Office by Hurricane)
You see? Everything is political. Even a tropical storm. In as long it is an American storm.
But to me it seems to be plain injustice if because of Gustav THIS political news of today would go relatively unnoticed by the world: “Indonesia seizes funds from Suharto family firm“. And on top of that: “Indonesia to examine more of Suharto’s son assets“
Because this is food for optimism.
A court in Guernsey did rule in favor of the Indonesian state to freeze some € 35 million on an account of the notorious Tommy Suharto. The government filed a new request on further disclosure of the assets of “Garnet Investment” , in it’s ongoing attempt to reclaim more embezzlement money from the Suharto family. This action came after last Friday the Bank Mandiri had been ordered to transfer approximately € 90 million from Timor Putra Nasional ( the not so very solid car company which has been sold to Vista Bella Pratama by Tommy Suharto) to a government account, minister Sri Mulyani Imdrawati said.
Scepsis always comes in handy, but the fact remains that corruption obviously is high on the Indonesian political agenda. Even if it turns out there is an opportunistic connection with next year’s elections – according to the polls SBY has to do his utmost to gain more popular support to have a chance to beat Megawati- I think this news is important ánd good news. A rare combination.
Update: Another successful example of anti graft policies: “The Corruption Court sentenced disgraced prosecutor Urip Tri Gunawan to 20 years in jail Thursday for taking a US$660,000 bribe to drop a major embezzlement case against fugitive tycoon Sjamsul Nursalim” (quoted from the Jakarta Post, 09/05/2008)