Learn from history but do no repeat it.

Dear Colleagues

My age group ... I am 69 ... think of much of quoted economic history as current affairs. While we may not have deep academic knowledge of many of the events of the past many years ... say 60 ... we have some understanding of both the context, the policy and the result. 

I am from the UK ... Cambridge educated in engineering and economics ... did "articles" with a London firm of Chartered Accountants ... Cooper Brothers, that was affilitated with the international firm of Coopers and Lybrand, now part of the accountancy conglomerate PriceWaterhouseCoopers. 

As a student I did two "summers" in Canada and the United States ... and saw what was possible with bold leadership, enterprise, innovation and hard work. I learned that there were several key words in the American language ... opportunity, enterprise, freedom, productivity and management. 

43 years ago I crossed the Atlantic to escape the burden of the European welfare state, socialism and lack of enterprise and lost ethusiasm ... and was not disappointed at all in what the United States was able to offer me in exchange for hard work. 

But over the past 40 years there has been a slow but sure decline ... more government ... less hard work ... declining productivity ... catastophic education ... catastrophic health sector ... etc. 

My work was very successful as a corporate accountant, analyst / manager in the corporate sector and I produced good results for my employer. Later I did consulting to the World Bank, the UN and many international assignments ... but had little impact because most of the institutional structures were functionally compromised. But I like to think I learned something from these experiences. 

In the present situation I am prepared to argue we are a lot better placed today (Feb 27th 2009) than a year ago. A year ago all of the issues were already in place ... but mostly unrecognized and without any thought to the problems. Now many of the problems are recognized ... there are some questions about how huge they are ... but they are very much on the radar and being worried about. 

And there is a new President who seems to have a very open mind for well argued solutions. The Presdient seems to appreciate that the most valuable asset of the country is the human asset ... people, and that this is a very valuable real asset people are working.

Government is not the answer, people working is the answer ... and as Lord Keynes would say, there are times when only the Government can get people back to work. But Keynes would also say that sustained success is achievable only when the jobs are doing what the country needs ... are investments to improve productivity. This country ... this government has to invest in its public services ... its health sector ... its education sector ... but it also needs to do its spending in ways that are responsible and productive.

It is encouraging that President Obama talks about transparency and accountability ... but so far there is no established mechanism for this to be done independently by an organization that is responsible to people and not inside the political structures. This is a missing element. 

But GREAT ... there is vision ... and it is facing forward to a hopeful future.