Macron May Have Just Emerged as the New Leader of the West

Given that Trump has retreated into fear and nationalism, Macron may emerge as the new leader of the West.

In April of 2016, Macron founded his En Marche party.

In April of 2017, Macron won the election that put him against Marine Le Pen in the May runoff election to become president of France.

In April of 2018, Macron addressed US Congress in the most articulate defense of post-WWII West since Trump was sworn in.

The guy just hit 40 in December.

To appreciate what a surprising character he is, consider this:
The American Macron is 37 and still 18 months away from starting her new political party before winning the 2020 presidential election.

Macron spent a fair bit of the speech articulating his beliefs which should have made most audiences say, "Yeah, well obviously" just 5 years ago but today smack of controversy because of what Trump has forced on us. Here are a couple of passages that deserve consideration.

I believe in democracy....To protect our democracies, we have to fight against the ever-growing virus of fake news, which exposes our people to irrational fear and imaginary risks. ...Without reason, without truth, there is no real democracy -- because democracy is about true choices and rational decisions. The corruption of information is an attempt to corrode the very spirit of our democracies.

I believe in concrete action. I believe the solutions are in our hands.I believe in the liberation of the individual, and in the freedom and responsibility of everyone to build their own lives and pursue happiness.
I believe in the power of intelligently-regulated market economies. We are experiencing the positive impact of our current economic globalization, with innovation, with job creation. We see, however, the abuses of globalized capitalism, and digital disruptions, which jeopardize the stability of our economies and democracies.I believe facing these challenges requires the opposite of massive deregulation and extreme nationalism.Commercial [Trade] war is not the proper answer to these evolutions. We need free and fair trade, for sure. A commercial war opposing allies is not consistent with our mission, with our history, with our current commitments to global security. At the end of the day, it would destroy jobs, increase prices, and the middle class will have to pay for it.I believe we can build the right answers to legitimate concerns regarding trade imbalances, excesses and overcapacities, by negotiating through the World Trade Organization and building cooperative solutions.We wrote these rules; we should follow them....
I believe in building a better future for our children, which requires offering them a planet that is still habitable in 25 years.

The full transcript is here:

http://www.elysee.fr/declarations/article/transcription-du-discours-du-president-de-la-republique-emmanuel-macron-devant-le-congres-des-etats-unis-d-amerique/ 

Clinton, Dubya, and Trump were all born within months of each other. It seems that we're past the expiration date on that "boomers as leader" model and I'm getting excited about the prospect of turning things over to the younger generation.

Vive la France!

Blagojevich's Free Market Solution to Political Appointments

Illinois's Democratic governor Rod Blagojevich was going to auction off Obama's Senate seat. He might wind up in jail but it is worth thinking about the positives in his attempt. There are at least two.

1. This might be one way to end the political dynasties that persist in our democracy, a free market solution to the current triumph of tradition over open competition.

2. This might be one way to raise money for the government. The French did this before the Revolution. For a certain fee, one could actually become, say, the Duke of French Onion Soup (okay, not quite that bad, but sort of). This was actually an odd form of bond sale because the new royalty, once they'd purchased their title, would then be paid an annual "royalty" into perpetuity, a return on their investment. Why couldn't Senate seats be sold in the same way, the electoral college giving way to eBay?

And it is doesn't seem right to be too hard on a guy named Blagojevich. With a name like that, he probably knew that his career was not going any further. Of course now, blagojevich could become a verb, as in, "he totally blagojeviched that opportunity."

Cure for a Recession - Sarkozy in America

Try this thought experiment involving French President Sarkozy. Imagine him here in the U.S. and how our 24 hour news stations, talk shows, and newspapers would cover his story.

Sarkozy had scarcely been sworn into office when he and his wife announced their divorce. Now, just months later, the press is reporting that he is soon to marry Carla Bruni.

Carla Bruni, a beautiful Italian model and pop singer, seems very comfortable posing nude before the camera. (Just do a Yahoo or Google image search to confirm this fact.) Imagine an American first lady who the nation has seen pose nude. (It's probably best not to imagine Barbara Bush.)

I'm not sure how the French talk radio shows and tabloids are dealing with this, but it makes me chuckle just to think about how much coverage there would be for Obama or Giuliani (Sarkozy was, after all, the conservative candidate) if they were to do something like this within the first months in office. It would likely get more coverage than the invasion of Iraq.

We're still a country more offended at men eager to use a penis than those eager to use a missile. (And Freud may have explained how the former gets us the latter.) We rate explicit sex X and explicit violence R. (Does this mean that parents would be more offended to walk in on their teenager in the middle of sex than in the middle of a stabbing? Wait. I promised myself I wouldn't wax serious about what, for me, is an amusing scenario - Sarkozy in America.) If Sarkozy were our president, fears of a recession would be easily abated - interest in his libido would help to fuel a resurgence in communications and media revenues that would make the Clinton - Lewinsky coverage look like a cat in the tree story.

And here she is - France's soon to be first lady. (Now we know that the guy in a window is to represent Sarkozy, and of course one more reason that she would never be an American first lady is simply this: she speaks Italian, French, and English. What's the quip? There is trilingual, bilingual, and American.)