How does the social sanctioning of Maduro’s financiers compare to that of Trump’s bad taste Joe/Mika tweet?

Sir, John Paul Rathbone in reference to the helicopter event in Venezuela writes: in “a plot twist barely worthy of a B-movie… whatever actually happened, one thing is clear: Mr Maduro, nearly half of whose cabinet members are generals, now has an excuse to repress more.” “Venezuela’s B-movie drama is moving from farce into tragedy” June 30.

Really, is that an excuse? Really, do you think anyone declaring: “If we cannot win with votes we will win with weapons” (which is what Maduro really said) need an excuse?

Sir, and let us be more precise. Venezuela moved from farce (if ever it was a farce) to tragedy a long time ago. Just ask the 2 million, out of 32, who had already have had to migrate to foreign lands, abandoning friends and family.

There is currently an incredible amount of social sanctioning of Donald Trump because of his “Psycho Joe” – “Crazy Mika” tweet. Rightly so, but Trump’s bad taste tweet represented no crime against humanity and, when compared to Venezuela’s Nicolas Maduro, he is clearly more of a Church Boy.

So, comparatively speaking there has been extraordinary little sanction of those who, incapable of resisting juicy margins, finance the Maduro government, like Goldman Sachs. For instance, how many have closed out their accounts at Goldman Sachs or how many have disinvited Lloyd Blankfein from a social event?

Sir, when an elite becomes incapable of sanctioning one of its own, reality will come back and bite it.

PS. Watching my inbox fill up with solicitations of donations in order to fight Trump, every time he puts his foot in the mouth, which should indicate these mess-ups are strong motivators, indicates some could have a deep love-hate relationship with him.

PS. Goldman Sachs, Lloyd Blankfein. Want to see how your client Maduro teargasses young Venezuelans in a closed truck?

@PerKurowski

If anyone in FT is living up to FT’s motto of “Without fear and without favour” that’s Lucy Kellaway

Sir, again, Lucy Kellaway is bravely shouldering her responsibility to socially sanction nonsense. That kind of sanction is extremely important, effective and much needed. Way to scarce nowadays. “Millennials ought to ignore career advice from BCG boss”, August 8.

How I wish she would help me out to socially sanction the bank regulators who came up with the loony concept of risk-weighing the capital requirements for banks, and, in order to keep the bank system safe, to assign a risk weight of 20% to what is AAA to AA rated and of 150%, 7.5 times larger,  to what is rated below BB-.

All as if the world of the ex ante perceived as highly speculative risky below BB-’s, pose greater dangers for our banks than what is ex ante perceived as prime and absolutely safe.

@PerKurowski ©

To hinder what‘s senseless and insensible to trend, we need strong globalized social sanctioning

Sir, Gillian Tett asks: “Can sensible ever ‘trend’?”, “The battle for political sense and sensibility”, November 15.

In these days of information overload, when no one has time to digest what they hear, read and see, and only have time to file it in black or white, or right or wrong cabinets, that is indeed an extremely important question.

Unfortunately, for the time being, it has to be answered with an “on its own, without assistance No!”

With respect to justice I have for long argued that more than fighting for justice, which places us on the route to something infinite, where we never really know where we find ourselves, it is much more effective to fight against the injustices, which are easier to define.

In the same vein, instead of trying for sense or sensibility to trend, let us at least start by making sure that what’s senseless and insensible cannot trend.

As a minimum it behooves the world to find credible instruments that can shame out some of the complete senseless and insensible falsehoods that, floating around on the web, causes real idiots to believe they have confirmed grounds to believe in their idiocies, and give them instruments to advance these, and so create legions of fools.

Is that easy, or even possible? That is an irrelevant question, it has to be tried.

Would that be censorship? No, much more like social sanctioning… on a global scale.

Liberty and security also requires consensus

Sir, although Willem Buiter might be fundamentally correct when he says “For the sake of liberty and security: legalise all drugs” August 8, he should also remember that for the sake of that same liberty and security he needs to frame his idea in such a way that it is acceptable for the majority. 

In this respect and making reference to Moisés Naim’s interesting book “Illicit: How Smugglers, Traffickers and Copycats are Hijacking the Global Economy”, (2005) and that reminded us of how much of the illegal world was interconnected, perhaps a more consensus reaching approach could be to identify the whole world market of illicit and legalize it at a rate of 5 per cent a year starting with the more digestible. 

Otherwise they way the world is going its illicit part is soon going to be wealthier and stronger than the licit… and that is more dangerous than hundred al-Qaeda put together. Also while discussing these issues let us never forget that strict social sanctioning is normally a far more efficient route to go than the strictest of the law enforcements.