Hemingway and the Olympics (The Old man and the Sea)

For the past week I've been watching the London Olympics where exceptional athletes push their bodies and will to do remarkable things.

I discovered that I can divide the athletes that i root for into two types, the type that belongs to that "Superhuman" category of people, the demigods I call them, the likes of Fedrer, Kobe Bryant and Phelps, those who probably had never known the feeling of being in second place. It’s thrilling to watch someone who is so unlike the rest of us performing.

The second type is different. "My type", the all-too-human athletes whose every achievement is a battle. Nothing is easy. Watching them is a nerve wrecking tour. Something is always going wrong. Their struggles remind us of our struggles. And their wins are the wins that inspire us to imagine what we could be at our best.

Recently I received a blow to a personal project that I've been working on for almost two years. I succumbed myself into thinking about the futile effort and the long hours that went in vain and all the money I spent pursuing the nothingness.

I picked myself up and headed to the ever-growing pile of unread books that I have accumulated in the past 2 years and picked Hemingway's "The old man and the Sea".

The Story is of Santiago  the old fisherman whose been failing to catch a single fish for 84 consecutive days but still optimistically declares to his young apprentice that he did not break his record of 87 days yet.

The old man catches a massive marlin that  for 3 days he battles successfully to catch but only to later have his prize devoured by a school of sharks leaving him with little more than a skeleton.

Like our second type of athletes Santiago's tale is not a tale of failure, it is a tale of success in the midst of failure, of pure courage, and Santiago's refusal to give in to the challenges the world throws at him. Just note that when Santiago's grip is weakening and he can't feel his pain anymore he reminds himself that "I have never seen or heard of such a fish. But I must kill him. I am glad we do not try to kill the stars".

Santiago and the Olympics made quite an impression on me, that if you persist on pursuing something, even if others think you are unlucky as well as incapable to achieving it, at the end of the day you will achieve that very goal. It was not in vain what you did even if you end up with a skeleton of a fish.

Hemingway's favorite theme of "the highest virtue and courage lies in doing something purely for something's sake instead of for its other rewards." brought me back some sense. Even if one fails to achieve something at the end, the very process that one has ever tried and 

persisted till the last minute alone is enough to justify one's effort.

Happy 113'Th birthday Ernst Hemingway

Hashem Fouad

Cairo, 04 Aug, 2012

The rise of the Euro

Spain's Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy announced an increase in the country's general sales tax from 18% to 21%, as well as spending reductions that include cutting employment benefits after six months. 

The cuts the Spanish government imposed is seeking to curb the country's debt crisis.

While the European Commission welcomed the move, saying it was an "important step" toward Spain meeting its deficit target for the year, Spain's anti-austerity protesters rushed to the streets of Madrid and demonstrated against the move, witnesses and emergency workers reported that more than 
70 people were injured in the clashes as Spanish police used rubber bullets and batons to disperse the protesters.


Following last year’s Greek protesters, is it finally over for the European union? Will the Euro zone break up over protests against austerity plans? 
The following take differs and is Optimistic to the future of the currency and the union. 

The Euro will rise again and the EU will muddle through the sovereign debt crisis and here is why:

Not only that the EU policy makers will introduce additional measures to resolve the crisis and to construct a vision of a viable future fiscal, financial and political structure.
It will be because, After all, it is what Europeans want – at least what the younger generation want,
The young European generation believe in the Consumer Culture Theory, a theory that states that consumption is considered as social and cultural phenomena - as opposed to psychological or purely economic phenomena. 
Young Europeans borrow today to buy what they can only afford later, they are head over heels buried in unpaid loans, yet economists argue that their borrowing increases consumption, increasing aggregate demand and GDP.
This is true and it explains why is the combined GDP of the Eurozone safely makes the old continent the biggest economy in the world. 
Even at the current debt levels the European economy is not weak at all, nobody is debt free, the united states owes china over 4.5 $ trillion yet the financial world is not talking about the US dollar collapsing any time soon.


So why is the Euro taking all the heat? The EU has a major problem, while it has a common central bank it has is no centralized treasury, indeed, the ECB takes care of the monetary policy but when it comes to the more important fiscal interventions the task is left to sovereigns and local authorities.
Admittedly having a centralized treasury is not that easy, first you’ll need to fire your politicians and hire – or elect -  others who are more EU biased  to handle the formation of the austerity plans needed, and since fiscal policy goes hand in hand with political plans (Greece & Spain’s last riots stands witness) and there will always be the cost of losing the elections, hiring and not electing is more likely to bring in the new policy makers.


That means that the “appointed” policy makers will most likely not share the national anthem of their employers and will do what’s necessary to enforce the fiscal policy needed.

Is this a Threat to Sovereignty? It doesn’t seem to be bothering young Europeans , 53% of Eastern Europeans under the age of 30 completely agree to almost every reform measure suggested by the EU and these countries don’t even have gigantic debt levels like their western neighbors, 
Nearly all Eurozone members - 13 of 17 countries - have debt levels exceeding the convergence criteria maximum of 60%. Among this group are the large economies — Germany (81.9%), France (89.4%), Italy (121.4%), and Spain (70.2%). 

That is worthy of attention, after all it appears that young Europeans will support the EU policy makers over their own politicians.
Accordingly it is better to leave aside the  support levels for the Euros and start knowing this: the reforms are coming and everybody in Brussels knows this already!


Yes, the German average Joe complaints that his hard earned euro is taxed to fund some Greek debt he wouldn't care less about, and Greece is considered one of the smaller economies in the Euro zone whose primary export is olives, but the country has gone on a borrowing spree and their current government debt to gross domestic product ratio stands at 160%. In absolute terms, it works out to around $500 billion and so much of their debt is on the books of European banks including – yes you guessed it –Germany.

Europe was united before, it was under the reign of the Roman emperor, historian Edward Gibbon argued that of the reasons that led to the fall of the empire was introducing a new religion  that created a belief that a better life existed after death, citizens lost faith in the civic order that united them, stopped fighting for what the empire stands for. Today it couldn't be more different, now it is that you can have the better life 
now and not tomorrow,  and that is something young Europeans will fight for.

Hashem Fouad.
July 2012