Patient strategies win each time
There’s a hell of a lot of fighting going on in the world. The big shots, forming little gangs, are having a go at one another, at each other’s countries, policies and ideologies, whatever.
If you’re not loud and immediate, then you’re not in the game, right? Wrong!
Who gave them the right to fight in the first place? Who do they represent?
They’re not fighting for the people in the street, the people that put them into power.
It’s bravado, ego. It’s a pissing contest. It’s all going to end up in a mess – a mess we ordinary people are going to have to tidy up.
The collateral damage, the ego fallout. To be fair, the populists were fed up with the political-corrects.
They wanted a bit of “us first”, a bit of patriotism.
Anything to help us out of the misery of the present.
When everyone’s worried, when the future looks bleak and uncertain, we close ranks, seek solace in the familiar, or the “good old days”.
Anything, anything but the reality of the present. We look after our own.
Give us a little loudmouthed nationalism for a change, they pleaded.
They got more than they bargained for.
All grand schemes in the name of looking after your own have virtue in the mix, but you must find points of intersection with the others, not conflict, not bullying, not bravado, and certainly not bragging.
No-one ever won a game of poker showing their hand before the betting was done.
Heading the charge, on the stage, is the US-China trade war (with all of its cousins – they’re not alone).
Europe, stuck between these two trade-warring titans, will not escape unscathed, and that’s even before the bolshie Boris Brexit no-deal standoff creates its own set of trade barriers.
We were meant to trade. Economies of scale dictate the lowest cost producers in the world.
Natural, technological, and human resources aren’t evenly allocated among different sovereigns and geographies – that’s why we trade.
Mess with that and the cost of a mobile phone goes up for everyone.
Tariffs are to stop cheating, not to stop trade. It’s not just trade wars. There’s so much more to fight about nowadays.
Fires in the Amazon rainforest. Tangible, measurable evidence that global warming is a threat. Plastic, plastic everywhere.
Entrenched, systemic poverty and economic disequilibrium in countries where fundamentals suggest that it should not be so.
Ageing populations, presenting insoluble economic equations.
Intergenerational conflict is becoming commonplace.
The founders of the firm are getting lip from the upstarts who think they know better (sometimes they do). That too is not going to end well.
The kids want to eat now, the food isn’t ready. How do we deal with all of this?
Old medicines aren’t going to work on these new diseases – the causes weren’t there before, and we haven’t yet cultured the cures.
We haven’t even taken the swabs.
Monetary doves won’t heal it, nor will the hawks.
Force won’t work, we surely all know that.
We need leadership. Profound, experienced, capable, honest, principled, pragmatic leadership.
We need warriors equipped for the unknown, not legacy specialists. We need character, not charisma. What we don’t need is imposition on the many, by the few.
There are no more ignorant masses to dominate. Everybody knows everything, every day.
The masses in the streets of Hong Kong are not going away. Suppressing them will only increase the pressure, raise the temperature (basic physics).
This too will not end well. Eventually, it’ll explode. People will die.
Beijing had better engage, not ignore, not instruct – or let it be, it’s working. It is simply not sustainable to tell people what to do, without reward, no matter the force of persuasion you may think you have on your side.
The consequence of shortterm populist leadership is that it has to produce instant gratification.
The trouble with that, in the current weak economic climate globally, not capable of serving up those easy wins, is that you have to keep on raising the stakes.
Double or quits eventually loses, even gamblers know that.
While the world indulges in economic and ideological warfare, nothing necessary gets done.
All maintenance is set aside because it shows no immediate return. Doing nothing also doesn’t help.
Considered, patient strategies will win the day – not least because the other side (and your own people) will realise that you’ve got better things to do than dash out onto the playground during break, and start a fight.