Send in the clowns

I could not have been more off, from my prediction on Portugal's Prime Minister's latest nation address.  What I had hoped or expected to be a speech with a realistic and relatively forward looking tone from the top, demonstrating some recognition for the enormous evolution a population has gone through in terms of streetwise economics in over a bit more than two turbelent years, turned out to be a fairly predictable shopping list of plausible measures intended to inevatably take effect in the very near future.  

In a way I felt sorry for Pedro Passos Coelho, as he reminded me of the periodic act I need to go through at home, trying to establish the family's grocery desires for the immediate following weeks, while proclaiming my uneducated view on a need for healthier habits, before I rush out the door to execute a shopping list, hesitating back and forth between substitute products in an attempt to satisfy everyone.

As a consequence the ingredientes the prime minister intends to introduce into the government kitchen over the near future are being met with more of the same reactive protest, although the temparature does appear to be rising.

Then the population is fed with a supposedly confidential "conselho de estado", summonable only by the president who has been making public references to religion and myths in assocation with a search for much needed economic progress.

Much less visible is the simultaneous hard and relatively succesful work of (political) teams roadshowing amongst priveleged potential foreign private and sovereing investment funds in long term Portuguese treasury bonds. 

What strikes me as poor is that fairly publicly available data and indicators on economic and structural reform projections and scenarios a government gathers, are left out of the nation's messages towards the general public at home.  Portuguese households and the many small business GDP drivers have demonstrated a fierce climb on the learning curve and shown to be ready to take an as close as possible worst case scenario on board in their decision making.

So when leading politicians end up being referred to as clowns, before seeking any prosecution they may want to remember that in any circus the entry of clowns is an essential role in order to distract the audience of some unforeseen incident in the arena.  The only difference with current politicians is that, none of us feel entertained and the attempted distraction is thus not working.

and the winning number is ....

This Friday at 20:00 (GMT+0) the Portuguese population will be confronted with yet another speech from its prime minister.  

This will not be just another speech. 

We have seen numerous ones, especially the last 2-3 years, wherein a political leader attempts to compensate the even larger number of less formal or less legitimate debates, commentaries or even outright protests that spread so easily in the true public domain.

This time it will be different and I am not referring to any sudden improvement in a prime minister's vocal ability or presentation skills and not even the form or choice of words that would generally be the only distinction between politicians that claim to be on opposite sides.

Of course (although I still miss the necessity) we will once again be introduced to the impredictable width of an international crises, the inherited weight of previous governors, the indisputable distance with Greece and the inevitable contract with creditors.  We will also hear the announcement of some measures, nothing we have not really heard or seen before, including some now politically popular growth stimulus speeches.

But with that out of the way, for the first time since quite a few years and too many speeches, we will finally hear, or at least be allowed to interpret, an actual timeline.  This is of the utmost essence.  Not just for any common citizen or business person but also for policitians themselves, democratically elected, inside our outside governments or political parties.

For the first time a population and the politicians it has brought forth will come to terms with the extent or price of underestimated wrongdoings in the past and the effects it has on generations. 

Remember how in the not too far past, we would often try any situation on the basis of a worst case scenario ?  Well, in tomorrow's speech it is likely we will probably be led to a best case scenario.

And the winning number will be ...25 ... nothing less than 25 years to arrive at a reasonable level playing field, alongside what currently are considered partner jurisdictions and supra-national entities.

With this time scale, it is fairly irrelevant whether one agrees with the underlying economic projections or not.  What is important is that the notion of the time associated to a present forward looking view, will allow or even force a change of speech and - more importantly - thought and eventually action, into some serious out of the box concepts and it is then that we are really setting a stage for sustainable progress.