I keep going back and forth on this. On one hand, I dislike the idea as I think it may end up being corrupt, on the other hand your points are right on.
I personally prefer some idea of using an oil fund as seed money for grants and scholarships related to education and private sector … indoctrination for lack of a better word at the moment.
Or perhaps as someting to take a stake in privatized state sector firms and put into something like IRAs for every Iraqi, with a forced holding period. Something to help assert for all segements of society some ownership in the new order.
Vauge ideas these, but my essential worry is that a mad transition to a private economy could end up being as ugly and counter-productive as the Soviet transition.
Oddly enough it’s a kind of Social Welfare in reality, isn’t it? But unlike most Social Welfare programs in the Western World, it’s a self propagating and self funding form of Social Welfare.
Personally, I reckon it’s a great idea. Totally brilliant. And here’s why… yes it’s true that a given percentage would fall into “gee-I-don’t-have-to-work-now-mode” just as there is always a small percentage of people who end up alcoholics and/or homeless. But I reckon the majority of people would start making use of those funds and doing something positive with them. Especially if they were paid in US dollars. Less currency fluctuation involved. Also, it should be a fair percentage across the board. A set amount per citizen - no exceptions. Anyone over 16 years of age qualifies. In theory, this would really stimulate the middle class in terms of having dispensible cash flows. That cash would then start trickling through the Iraqi economy and a truckload of entrepreneurial opportunities would arise.
However, I should state that I"m a corporate database designer by trade - and chaps like Coll are far more economically savvy than myself.
My one suggestion however would be to make it all electronically EFTPOS based - and yeah, I know… almost zero infrastructure in place within Iraq to setup 20,000 EFTPOS terminals overnight - but the problem with cash is that it also opens up truckloads of blackmarket activity. If you implement an EFTPOS only form of commerce, no cash actually hits the the street, and transactions can be funnelled through legitimate systems to prevent corruption etc. Well, it’s auditable at any rate.
I’d be lobbying for an Iraq Commonwealth Bank - a bank owned by the people for the people - and every Iraqi citizen would be entitled to one ATM card which also acts as a VISA card for foreign transactions as well. This would allow Iraqi citizens to purchase products and services from outside of Iraq - but it would do so without turning their welfare stipends into liquid cash flow which can then turn into black market problems like drugs etc. And believe me, drugs will become a problem if the black market and mafia forces are given the opportunity to prosper.
Businesses which didn’t have EFTPOS facilities could at least get the Iraq Commonwealth Bank to perform the EFTPOS funds tranfer on their behalf.
I know… pie in the sky stuff… but we can dream can’t we?
(bolding mine) I guess I should feel relieved that they at least recognize the problem to the point where they can admit it. (Now if they can point this out to the administration without getting fired. . . .)
Only if drugs are outlawed. We’ve seen how well prohibition works here; why expect it to work any better there? The commercials would be great, though…
“Hey Achmed, I think I figured it out. I figured out how buying drugs supports terrorism.”
“Oh yeah? How’s that?”
“You remember that guy we used to buy reefer from?”
“Yeah…”
“He gives $10,000 checks to the families of suicide bombers.”
Well let me say that I am not in favor of a ‘welfare program’ so much as means to help Iraqis develop the tools and capacities to get their economy up and running and to ensure the economy does not seem like it is being taken over by foreigners.
BTW, there is no name “Achmed” OR Akhmed as I often see. The name is Ahmed, with the emphatic H, from the same root as Mohammed. And al-Hamdulliah.
It’s the usual problem with them caring more about what they don’t want to be the case than about what comes after removal of the one factor that irks them. Instead of dealing with overall situations of the country, they look at specific details and symptoms and are surprised that the whole doesn’t react the way they expected based on the one detail they looked at…
From the now obsolete Graham Translation of Clausewitz’ ‘On War’ (being the only English version I have at hand, but covering the meaning of the German reasonably well in this instance):
‘One and the same political object may produce totally different effects upon different people, or even upon the same people at different times; we can, therefore, only admit the political object as the measure, by considering it in its effects upon those masses which it is to move, and consequently the nature of those masses also comes into consideration. It is easy to see that thus the result may be very different according as these masses are animated with a spirit which will infuse vigour into the action or otherwise. It is quite possible for such a state of feeling to exist between two states that a very trifling political motive for war may produce an effect quite disproportionate, in fact, a perfect explosion.’
Now it might have helped if they had actually bothered to delve into the ‘nature of those masses’ a bit more instead of just postulating how they would react based on how they would react themselves were they in the same position…
If I may, this is a point I have been trying to hammer home in this thread throughout.
Regrettably much of the commentary, left and right, has been rather based on the above, what I call navel gazing.
It ain’t easy to get out of that. It’s psychologically difficult to try to get yourself into another culture’s skin – I think I do a good job personally but … well it ain’t perfect. Of course there is also the pluralism of views to make the mix harder.
In any case, I believe it is now time for me to open the new thread.