Anna B Posted January 17, 2012 Share Posted January 17, 2012 Cometh the hour, cometh the man.... In other words, in a crisis, a genuine leader will emerge who can deal with said crisis. Well we certainly have the crisis, but the leader has so far failed to arise. The people we have in charge are pygmies floundering around, and that includes European leaders. Who do you think able enough and who would you trust to get us out of the mess we're in? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Anna B Posted January 17, 2012 Author Share Posted January 17, 2012 ...Ooops, I meant women as well of course. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Halibut Posted January 17, 2012 Share Posted January 17, 2012 I'm not sure it's fair to describe Angela Merkel as a floundering pygmy. Looks like she's doing a pretty good job to me. If we're talking about leadership at home, I'm more inclined to agree with you. Cameron is mostly very unimpressive. He always looks to me like a man playing a part, rather than being the genuine article. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NorthernStar Posted January 17, 2012 Share Posted January 17, 2012 I'm not sure it's fair to describe Angela Merkel as a floundering pygmy. Looks like she's doing a pretty good job to me. If we're talking about leadership at home, I'm more inclined to agree with you. Cameron is mostly very unimpressive. He always looks to me like a man playing a part, rather than being the genuine article. So you could say Angela Merkel is more of a fat fairy that a floundering pygmy in your opinion? I'm more with Anna B on this one though, with there being more than one nation the world needs more than one leader with a coherent solution - a tall order I think. Perhaps an international revolution is required to shake out the illusive solution, the only thing clearly standing out from this fiasco is that what we have just isn't good enough. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cavegirl Posted January 18, 2012 Share Posted January 18, 2012 I'd propose Wu Renbao as the type of leader we could do with right now. In 1961 Renbao took a small agricultural village in China and over the past 40 years he's transformed it into a city that's so successful it's been floated on the stock market. Every stake holder in Huaxi receives a free house, a free car, free healthcare, a top notch education and there are plenty of well tended parks, cinemas, theatres, museums and cafes that provide a vibrant and well-used social space. It's run in a similar way to our own successful business- John Lewis. Each person buys a stake in the town and they receive share of a 5th of the overall profits brought in by the town annually. No stakeholder in Huaxi earns less than 100,000 euros per year. However, there is a price. Everybody in Huaxi has to work 7 days per week and must apply for any holiday days they take. This is what makes them competetive and what brings in plenty of investment. I still don't know myself, whether this is too heavy a price to pay. For every plus side I guess there's a downside. City life is vibrant, but the people essentially live to work. The stakeholders are well provided for but they import migrant labour that is not well paid, which is creating inequality in the city. Also, in just 40 years Huaxi has had to make the transition from agricultural economy to manufacturing economy to tourist/ service economy and it's not clear whether its service economy will provide as much investment in the future. Still Huaxi is an interesting example of how with one persons vision and lots of peoples hard work great things can be acheived. More about the social experiment here: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/oct/06/huaxi-village-tower-china http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/huaxi-the-socialist-village-where-everyone-is-wealthy-6290583.html?google_editors_picks=true Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MrSmith Posted January 18, 2012 Share Posted January 18, 2012 I'd propose Wu Renbao as the type of leader we could do with right now. In 1961 Renbao took a small agricultural village in China and over the past 40 years he's transformed it into a city that's so successful it's been floated on the stock market. Every stake holder in Huaxi receives a free house, a free car, free healthcare, a top notch education and there are plenty of well tended parks, cinemas, theatres, museums and cafes that provide a vibrant and well-used social space. It's run in a similar way to our own successful business- John Lewis. Each person buys a stake in the town and they receive share of a 5th of the overall profits brought in by the town annually. No stakeholder in Huaxi earns less than 100,000 euros per year. However, there is a price. Everybody in Huaxi has to work 7 days per week and must apply for any holiday days they take. This is what makes them competetive and what brings in plenty of investment. I still don't know myself, whether this is too heavy a price to pay. For every plus side I guess there's a downside. City life is vibrant, but the people essentially live to work. The stakeholders are well provided for but they import migrant labour that is not well paid, which is creating inequality in the city. Also, in just 40 years Huaxi has had to make the transition from agricultural economy to manufacturing economy to tourist/ service economy and it's not clear whether its service economy will provide as much investment in the future. Still Huaxi is an interesting example of how with one persons vision and lots of peoples hard work great things can be acheived. More about the social experiment here: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/oct/06/huaxi-village-tower-china http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/huaxi-the-socialist-village-where-everyone-is-wealthy-6290583.html?google_editors_picks=true No thanks. Working every day isn’t very appealing. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Archived
This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.