Ideas from Abroad

In the business world, if your competitor comes up with any improvement in his operation-be it a better product, a more expeditious manufacturing technique, etc.-you had better match it quickly if you hope to stay in the running.  And the same holds true in the competition between states to attract business activity and investment.  Legislators habitually look over their shoulders to see what’s working elsewhere in the country that might benefit their own state.  One would assume, then, that such responsiveness would be exercised all the more diligently in Washington, D.C. where the prosperity of the entire country depends on how well our government is positioned to compete in the international marketplace.  Presumably, we can no more afford to ignore efficacious measures instituted elsewhere than businesses or states can ignore their competitors’ advances, but, alas, that is precisely what our government does to our great detriment.

Several reasons could be given for our leaders’ insularity- preoccupation with hectoring at the expense of listening, overiding political considerations, chauvinism, indifference, and/or plain inertia-but lack of exposure to foreign climes is not one of them.  In 2009, congressmen and their staffs spent some $15 million flying to every corner of the earth for, I am sure, any number of worthwhile reasons with the exception, unfortunately, of learning from others how to do a better job.  Perhaps our dedicated public servants, prior to taking their richly deserved naps in flight, don eye masks and then neglect to remove them upon landing.  If this is indeed the case, I am confident taxpayers would not begrudge the comparatively modest cost of adding additional staff members delegated to remove the masks when appropriate.

Whatever the reason for their stubborn adherence to the “not invented here syndrome,” our leadership may someday come to recognize that the world can be thought of as a huge laboratory in which governments of every stripe are constantly initiating measures designed for one purpose or another.  Governments being governments, it’s a safe guess that the large majority of these measures fail to perform satisfactorily once exposed to the real world, but, by the same token, some are bound to succeed.  Indeed, it would be hard to find one country in the world that is not doing something well that could be usefully emulated here.  (Not so North Korea, you say?  Wrong!  Think how our presidential nominating conventions would be enlivened were the delegates to bring colorful placards bearing portraits of their champions and, at key moments, manipulate them utilizing North Korea’s magnificent choreography.)

In short, our political leaders would spend their time more productively if they cherry picked from among the world’s cornucopia of governmental programs that had already demonstrated their ability to survive in the Darwinian,  trial-and-error testing of realpolitik instead of exposing us to untested notions of their own invention.

As a public service, then, let me list a few examples of foreign governance that would, I believe, contribute substantially to our well being were they introduced here:

a) Canadians avoid the kind of crisis we faced in 2008-09 by a number of common sense policies: their lending criteria are more conservative, mortgages are held by the banks that issue them rather than being syndicated, mortgage interest is not deductible, and home owners cannot simply walk away from their mortgage obligations with impunity.

b) If a Japanese resident is salaried, earns less than 20 million yen a year on his job (about $232,000) and has no additional outside income, he need not file an annual income tax return-his tax obligations having been met by the automatic deductions made by his employer.  (Japans relatively high tax rates are another matter)  Another Japanese common-sense custom, no tipping.   (According to the National Taxpayers Union, the cost for US individuals to comply with our tax code is $103 billion a year)

c) Admission into the elite South Korean Universities is determined strictly by merit based largely on each student’s performance on standardized tests given once a year.  The test is regarded so seriously that air flights are prohibited in the vicinity of the test sites to eliminate any possible distraction to the test takers.

d) Major universities in the Scandinavian countries are tuition free-i.e., government supported.

e) The Swiss fast rail system (160 mph) is affordable, clean, modern, and meticulously on time.  Chinese fast rail achieves speeds of 220mph.

f) The Israelis plan to make electric cars more affordable by eliminating the cost of expensive batteries from the cars’ sales price.  Instead, the buyers of these cars will rent batteries from a chain of nationwide service centers.  When drivers find their batteries need recharging, they will simply pull into one of the centers, wait while their old battery is replaced in about the same time they would have had to spend filling their gasoline tanks, and drive off.  Plans are to have thousands of demonstration vehicles on the road by the end of 2011 and a third of all Israeli cars by 2015.

g) In many countries, unemployment among the youth is several percentage points higher than it is in the general population.  Germany has evolved a system that ameliorates this discrepancy and, at the same time, substantially contributes to the success of its industrialized economy.  Young Germans at the age of fifteen or so can elect to choose vocational careers by joining companies as apprentices.  Enrolled in such programs, they are given both practical on-the-job training and schooling in the book-learning necessary for them to advance in their chosen trade.

h) In 2001 Portugal decriminalized the use and possession of heroin, cocaine, marijuana, LSD, and other illicit street drugs.  Instead the government focused on treatment and prevention-treating addiction largely as a medical problem rather than a criminal behavior.  Under the 2001 law, addicts are sent to treatment centers as opposed to prisons.  A study performed five years later showed positive results:  about 25 percent fewer deaths from drug overdose, an 80 percent reduction in new HIV cases, and a much smaller jail population.

i) In Denmark, as in many other countries, they recognize that the single most important factor in the education of school children is the ability of their teachers.  They have, therefore, set stringent standards for the profession.  Those seeking a job in upper secondary school education, for example, must hold a master’s degree in both a major and minor subject and, in addition, take a two-year supplemental course in which they reinforce their specialties, study educational theory, and gain actual classroom experience.  Finally, those hoping to teach specialized subjects must have worked for at least two-years in the field.

This abbreviated, highly personalized, and hopefully nonpartisan list obviously represents but a small fraction of the good ideas out there.  Therefore, I cordially invite readers to extend it by adding comments to this posting.  For consistency, please confine your comments to governmental issues, name the subject country, and be as specific as possible.  Thanks.