Stationary Bandit

Trouble for Democratic South Africa?

Thabo Mbeki resigned awhile back because of corruption.  Now a new study from Harvard School of Public Health argues that Mbeki is responsible for more thaan 330,000 deaths because of his decision to make antiretroviral (ARV) treatments illegal.  This is more evidence that the Mbeki government has undermined the legitimacy of the relatively new democratic government (let us not forget about Mbeki's position regarding Mugabe).  Crime and corruption remains high, the prevalence of HIV/AIDS is nearly the highest in the world and a number of reforms remain to be done. 

The upcoming election will represent a major moment in South African history.  If Mbeki's party loses, will they give up power and try to regain power the next election?  Or will they ignore the election results and establish a one-party state?  The latter seems unlikely but the transition to a stable democracy requires the transition of power between rival parties.  South Africa has not yet accomplished this.

The Congressional School of Economic Thought

`A healthy automobile manufacturing sector is essential to the restoration of financial market stability, the overall health of our economy, and the livelihood of the automobile sector's workforce,'' Pelosi and Reid said in their letter.

Financial market stability depends on a healthy auto industry?  The health of the economy depends on the auto industry?  I would like to see the empirical support for these claims.  At least their argument that the livelihood of auto workers depends on the auto industry make sense.  One out of there ain't bad.

Mandate for Change?

Interpreting the meaning of election results is difficult.  Voters weigh multiples issues that do not aggregate well.  Sometimes they vote for a candidate because they prefer her policies and sometimes they vote for a candidate because they dislike the other candidate.  Best I can tell, the only consistently valid interpretation is that candidate X received more votes than candidate Y.  Nothing more, nothing less.

 

Obama received more votes than McCain.  But does this imply a mandate for change as suggested here? I do not know but I doubt it.  Consider the following. Assume there are approximately 220 million voting age adults in the US.  Obama received approximately 62 million votes.  Therefore, only 28% of the electorate voted for Obama.  72% of the electorate did not support Obama.  Furthermore, how many people voted for Obama because they associated McCain with Bush? That is, how many people were indifferent to Obama but wanted to punish Republicans.  Any number greater than 0 reduces support for Obama’s proposed change.  Of course, some people who support Obama did not vote because they expected Obama to win so they allocated their time to something else.  But is this 32% of the citizenry so as to push his support to 50%?  I doubt it.