Government
By Lim Sue Goan
Every country needs a government to operate but recent history shows that the government's role and functions have been gradually degraded to non-essential.
A government refers to a law enforcement and management body and it is essential for a country's operation. However, Belgium has set a world record for the longest wait for a government, without collapsing the country.
Today, the governments of European countries, the United States and Japan have messed up their economies and shown no ability to resolve the problems of rising international food prices, famine and global warming issues. Governments have now become incompetent clowns.
Populism, leadership qualities and human nature weaknesses have turned governments in democratic countries into lame ducks.
Democracy is about pleasing the people for votes as they need to gain enough seats to govern. Therefore, despite knowing the importance of a balanced budget, many governments in democratic countries still dare not to increase taxes. Instead, they continue issuing various benefits, subsidies and assistance. However, regardless whether they are in pecuniary or material form, they are still being funded by the Treasury, meaning that it might still cause a surge in national debt.
A government can still afford it during economic good time but once the economy turns bad, the government has to play the role of a firefighter to save the situation, including printing money and buying bonds, mainly because it is fear of economic recession, which would lead to rising unemployment, people's anger and the loss of power.
On the other hand, the government has to "take care" of major banks and enterprises, which are not afraid of making troubles because they know that the government will for sure save them as many people will be affected if they collapse. Eventually, the people's hard-earned money goes into the pockets of these fat cats while polarising the gap between the rich and the poor.
Nowadays, political leaders have no sense of responsibility. They are not ashamed of leaving debts to future generations as they care only about whether they can maintain power. And if they fail, they can just leave the debts to the next government.
Such a governance method has become a trend and it is how debts are accumulated in the US, Japan and European countries.
Another culprit causing the government increasingly impotent is "liberalism". Former Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan was one of the followers. He believed that human nature was good and thus, adopted relaxed policies while abolishing regulations. However, it turned out as a laissez-faire policy. As a result, fat cats had turned the financial market upside-down and a financial crisis was set off. The government could only try taking remedial actions.
Even worse, in the face of an economic crisis, these leaders reacted cowardly and indecisively. They were not courageous enough to take the responsibility and thus, people always thought of British politician Winston Churchill, especially during economic hard time.
In this case, the world economic crisis would only deteriorate and the poor would eventually being sacrificed.
