I am not challenging Harry's opinion but just the common habit of always citing the very largest, most egregious abuse of something as an example, as in the Nigerian $60M disappearing aid, which has the obvious effect of always emphasizing the negative and not balancing the whole story with the positives which do happen. Ronald Reagan was very good at this, citing homilies about welfare mothers driving Cadillac's or playing the slot machines, things his "kitchen cabinet" had sent to him as clippings from Readers' Digest, a most useful propaganda publication in mass circulation with amusing and provocative information that no one challenges due to its longevity, like the Farmers Almanac. We will hear about promiscuous young women who callously have abortions, but not that the incidence of abortions in teens is down, news worth celebrating, or that rates have risen sharply among poor women, a sure indication that contraceptives are too expensive and not widely available, an example of fiscal inefficiency if I ever had one given neonatal care is quite expensive for hospitals and health plans but contraceptive prevention is relatively cheap. (see Associated Press report @ http://www.msnbc.com/news/818632.asp ). That some of these examples used in public debate didn't exactly exist the way the story was told was not important at the time, just as the urban myths we have come to expect during campaign seasons do their damage and then the rush moves onto the next day's focus. The press is not always willing to debunk and/or correct their own mistakes in print because to do so would be admitting they were duped. Karen
Harry wrote: My favorite example I have reported before - the $60 million given to Nigeria that unaccountably disappeared. No-one knows what happens to it. Nigeria is a modern African state, awash with oil. One wonders why any money at all was going in her direction - but we know $60 million didn't reach anyone who needed it.. Now, while economics is not complicated, politics is definitely so. Trouble is politics is so mixed up in what passes these days for economics that it's difficult to separate them. I would suggest, Keith, that when you view economics from a national or global perspective, you are actually talking politics.
