Opinion Shaking the faith

Mind you,people at international conferences love to criticise America,poke fun at America and complain about America. It is the only global sport more popular than soccer. But this was always done knowing that America could always be counted upon to lead. But this year is different. This year,Asians and Europeans,in particular,pull you aside and ask you some version of: “Tell me,what’s going on in your country?”

We’re making people nervous. Banks,multinationals and hedge funds often hire foreign policy experts to do “political risk analysis” before they invest in places like,say,Kazakhstan or Argentina. They may soon have to add the US.

You can understand why foreigners are uneasy. They look at America and see a president elected by a solid majority,coming into office riding a wave of optimism,controlling both the House and the Senate. Yet,a year later,he can’t win passage of his top legislative priority: health care.

“Our two-party political system is broken just when everything needs major repair,not minor repair,” said K.R. Sridhar,the founder of Bloom Energy,a fuel cell company in Silicon Valley,who is attending the forum. “I am talking about health care,infrastructure,education,energy. We are the ones who need a Marshall Plan now.”

Indeed,speaking of phrases I’ve never heard here before,another goes like this: “Is the ‘Beijing Consensus’ replacing the ‘Washington Consensus?’” As The International Herald Tribune reported this week,developing countries everywhere are looking “for a recipe for faster growth and greater stability than that offered by the now tattered ‘Washington Consensus’ of open markets,floating currencies and free elections.” And as they do,“there is growing talk about a ‘Beijing Consensus.’” — a “Confucian-Communist-Capitalist” hybrid under a one-party state,with a lot of government guidance,strictly-controlled capital markets and an authoritarian decision-making process capable of making tough choices and long-term investments,without having to heed daily public polls.

The reason the Washington Consensus is ailing is not because of its principles promoting economic openness and trade,many of which China is practicing better than we. It is failing more because of,well,Washington.

It was hard to read Obama’s eloquent State of the Union address and not feel torn between his vision for the coming years and the awareness that the forces of inertia and special interests blocking him,not to mention the whole Republican Party,make the chances of his implementing that vision highly unlikely.

If there were just six or eight Republican senators ready to meet Obama somewhere in the middle on deficit reduction,energy,health care and banking reform,I believe that in the wake of the Massachusetts wake-up call the president would indeed meet them to forge not just incremental compromises,but substantial ones on these key issues. But so far,the Republicans are having a good year politically by just being the Party of No.

It is a shame because we are scrounging around for a few billion more dollars of stimulus to help our unemployed and small businesses — when the biggest stimulus of all is ending our political paralysis and the pall of uncertainty it is casting over everything from the cost of my health care to the cost of my energy to the way our biggest banks can do business.

If the two parties could get together and remove the clouds of uncertainty over those issues,remove the growing sense that our country is politically paralysed,you would not need another dime of stimulus money. Investment and lending would take off on their own. If,however,the two parties continue with their duel-to-the-death paralysis,no amount of stimulus will give us the sustained growth and employment we need.