Kicking the can

The article from The Guardian that I read this morning about kicking the can sounded amusing. As a child I suppose, kicking the can down the neighborhood streets would have been a fun past time for many children, but now, used by journalists to mean something else in the context of putting off politically difficult decisions that have great impact on the global economy to the future takes on a much more serious tone.

I would rather the journalists use another, much more acceptable analogy for this. How about punting the political football? The way difficult decisions are being put off like 'fiscal cliff' and 'debt ceiling' till the eleventh hour, the amount of tension that it gives to the markets & the media frenzy that it drives, makes a football game a better analogy.

One other thing the same article mentions is that the media has an influence on how the politicians who have to make such decisions, some of them being unpopular ones, actually delay making them. Quoting from Uncle Ben in Spiderman's first movie: 'With great powers come great responsibilities'. Lets just hope that news media organizations use their great influence on public opinion in a responsible manner.

Poh Seng