American Deplorable: Why I Voted Trump

United States – In the Preamble to the United States Declaration of Independence, Jefferson gave us the purpose of government, “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights… That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.” The purpose of government is simply to secure the inalienable rights of the people – that is the pact we form with one another, that is the Constitution we form with one another.

When Benjamin Franklin was walking out of the Convention, he was famously asked, “Well, Doctor, what have we got—a Republic or a Monarchy?” His response is illuminating, “A Republic, if you can keep it.”

Populism, a philosophy which advocates for the common person overthrowing elites, is itself noble in the problems it seeks to address. Unfortunately, populism quickly degenerates into mob rule. Today many of our citizens vote for representatives who will implement a populist version of mob rule without regard to the Constitution or to the Republic. The ban on prayer in some schools can be seen as an example of such a transgression. Lawmakers fall to into the trap of thinking that they must balance the right to pray against some supposed right not to hear a prayer in a public setting, an imaginary non-existent right that does not exist because people abandon an expectation to privacy in most public settings.

The examples of these transgressions are countless. Government does not have any authority to define marriage, infringe on gun rights, limit free speech, to enact sodomy laws or sterilise certain people yet in all of these cases it does or has in the past. Government illegally transgresses on the inalienable rights of people on a regular basis because it is popular – it is populist. These transgressions are, or were at one point, the will of the mob. It was the zeitgeist – it was fashionable and trendy at a time. When the mob is religious, religiously dogmatic laws are enacted that suppress other religions or impose one religion above others. When the mob is secular, religious intolerance laws and attacks on all religions are enacted, because secularism is itself a quasi-religion. This populism is not the form of government that America was founded upon. That is not to say that populism as originally intended is not an important and powerful tool to keep oligarchs in check.

Jefferson warned us that, “A democracy is nothing more than mob rule, where 51 percent of the people may take away the rights of the other 49.” The Founders saw democracy as an imperfect solution to the need of selecting representatives who would administer the Republic. The intent was that these representatives would handle the “policy” decisions that were needed to tend to government while making sure that the Republic was adhering to its charter of securing the citizen’s rights. All elected leaders, public servants, and soldiers swear an oath to uphold the Constitution. The oath is to the Republic itself, not to the will of a majority mob. Diluting or destroying the Republic is not an “option” that elected leaders have. The dismantling of the Republic is never “on the table,” regardless of the voter turnout.

The pact that the I have with my fellow-citizens is that “I form Constitution with my fellow citizens to safeguard our rights.” That is the extent of the pact. The role of government is not to balance rights. The role of government isn’t even to define the contours of liberty – that task is charged to a jury on a case by case basis when a transgression is suspected to have occurred. Every power that government derives is directly drawn from that original Constitution to secure the people’s rights: the need to keep order; the need to provide for the common defence; the need for conveyance, traffic laws; and countless other laws. The mob majority or the mob minority have no business deciding where inalienable rights start or end. If a transgression on someone’s rights occurs, then on a case by case basis a local jury of peers decides the degree of the transgression and the punishment. That is the common-law system established for the Republic.

Jefferson rightfully understood that Rights come from God, the Creator. The Founders correctly identified Rights to be out of the reach of the state because if the state can manoeuvre into the role of granting Rights or into the equally dangerous role of balancing Rights then the government will invariably destroy the people’s Inalienable Rights. The examples of government transgressions on human rights are laid bare in history and in today’s countless governments of the world who carry the name “republic” in their title. Many of these so-called republics are just tyrannies, oligopolies, or mob rule governments. Sadly, Britain and so many European democracies are exactly mob rule states who today happen to benefit from an educated and moderate citizenry; however, the oppression by a mob, even an educated mob, is as dangerous and repugnant as the oppression of a tyrant. A mob is never fit to rule. That is why the Founders intelligently created a Republic, not a populist democracy.

Unfortunately, in the United States today, the Democratic party is attacking the First and Second Amendments with abandon. The Republicans are not faring much better. Republicans attack the Fourth Amendment in the name of safety, a false appeal – because the opposite of safety is not freedom.

Beyond the issue of Rights, there are too many foreign influences on American politics and on our elected officials. America strikes suboptimal trade deals. It’s far easier for a corporation to move their manufacturing to a country that does not have strong environmental laws or labour laws, while the people in Ohio, Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania see their livelihoods wither. The people of those states are left in poverty, unable to compete on the world stage. America can never reasonably compete with countries that use child labour; countries who pour raw sewage into their waterways; countries with no fossil fuel emissions limits; countries that devalue their currency to dump their products on American shores – all under the guise of free trade. Americans trying to sell cars in Germany or Japan are met with a Trump-Like wall’s worth of rules and obstructions. True free trade is an illusion.

In looking at the candidates, one stands out as unqualified to be President and Commander in Chief. What Hillary Clinton has done with Benghazi; with the Clinton Foundation; with the late-breaking revelations from the FBI that investigation into her e-mails continue; and with her dual positions (one for bankers and one for the public) is disqualifying and in some cases, criminal in my opinion.

Mrs Clinton set up a public e-mail server to keep her communications out of the eyes of the voters. Her dealings between the State Department and the Clinton Foundation held potential conflicts of interest that many suspect she did not want exposed to the citizenry. Why else would she have her servers bleached clean and the computer hard drives and phones destroyed with hammers? In taking the actions that she did, she exposed our national security to foreign powers and broke the many laws that deal with the handling of classified information. As proof, today the White House claims executive privilege in not releasing certain e-mails. 30,000 other e-mails were deleted. Still, not a day goes by when WikiLeaks, an international transparency group, does not release a trove of e-mails from Mrs Clinton’s files.

When America’s embassy mission came under attack in Benghazi, Mrs Clinton and Mr Obama simply did not pick up the phone. Mrs Clinton did not send help. She likely did not send help because it would have hurt Mr Obama’s reelection campaign and because of the nature of the work that the mission was engaged in Libya – work that could have been dealing with arms and Syria. Irrespective, Mr Obama and Mrs Clinton ignored the phone ringing at 3AM, a phone call from our brave men and women who were under attack. America had assets in the region, Aviano Italy is a short flight away. America had assets in Tripoli that were ready to respond. Mr Obama’s and Mrs Clinton’s lack of action that night disqualified them from serving as Commanders in Chief.

Mr Trump, on the other hand, has lived life as a rich bachelor: he is brash; he is arrogant; he can be petty; he is accustomed to getting his way in life on most matters. Men with money are that way. John F. Kennedy was that way. President Kennedy had numerous affairs and had an eye for beautiful women, something the media conveniently shielded the American people from seeing. Mr Trump’s initial negotiating positions on most business deals are absolute and border on the irrationally unacceptable, but that negotiating tactic allows him to emerge out of negotiations with favourable deals for himself and for his investors. To use two metaphors, Mr Trump does not telegraph his moves and he does not show his cards. Mr Trump takes the same tact in politics. A strong negotiator who does not show his cards is exactly the type of person America needs sitting across from Putin or from people who I feel have taken advantage of America.

Mr Trump is unquestionably 100% American. Categorically, America does not need someone like Mrs Clinton; someone who is engaged in personal and professional entanglements with foreign countries and international corporations. Beyond his nature, many of the things that Mr Trump is accused of saying he simply did not say. A cursory review of the transcripts of his words or a review of video tapes show that pundits regularly misrepresent Mr Trump’s statements. The mass media companies including CNN, ABC, CBS, NBC, MSNBC and to an extent even FOX have during the campaign either officially been anti-Trump, or they favour commentators who are anti-Trump – the result is the same anti-Trump bias from the major networks.

Sadly, Mr Trump has not been the only one to suffer under the unbalanced reporting of the major networks, magazines, and newspapers. Senators Bernie Sanders and Rand Paul also received very unbalanced treatment from major media providers. If anything, this election has laid bare that while the system might not be completely “Rigged” the deck is certainly “Stacked” against any non-establishment candidate.

I would like a candidate who would best protect The Republic, The Constitution, The Bill of Rights, and all our Inalienable Rights. Mr Trump is not perfect, but he is, in my view, the least dangerous to our Constitution and Bill of Rights. To be more specific, Hillary Clinton would immediately begin to erode both the First and Second Amendments via Supreme Court appointments and legislation. I would like a candidate who is not heavily indebted to lobbyist from establishment bankers or international corporations. Those same interested parties will attempt to lobby Mr Trump and he might become beholden to them at some point, but the process of influencing Mr Trump might allow the citizenry a degree of transparency obfuscated by today’s ingrained establishment. This rearrangement of power and influence might become visible to the citizenry, and, once revealed, the citizenry can continue to set things to right.

The United States needs an American, not a Globalist, as President. Globalism has given the world some great things, notably peace in the first world. Globalism has also created a more multi-cultural and tolerant world – which is a very good thing for long term peace and diplomacy. At the same time, globalism is moving too fast and most countries of the world are not yet ready for a borderless world. Laws have not caught up in all countries of the world to create a level playing field. Cultures have not all progressed to where they can all peacefully settle their differences. Maybe a social utopia where people live peacefully and where the environment is protected will one day exist, but the author views this as distant.

In a republic, elections are not meant to be a popularity contest, and they’re not meant to be a decision that imposes the views of one group on another group. Elections are about selecting the candidate who will best safeguard the Constitution and the Republic and whom will faithfully represent the American People’s Interests on the world stage. Trump claims he will “make America great again” but America is already a great country. Only in America do people enjoy freedoms of the kind that countless other people only dream about. Still, the slogan is appropriate and powerful. The slogan is appropriate because it speaks to the people of the United States who have been left behind in the last 50 years. A group of people that is rapidly growing.

However, Trump’s support base does not simply consist of the forgotten. I hold advanced political degrees, have travelled the world for business and pleasure, visiting over 100 countries. I am a decorated combat veteran. I have meticulously studied the Federalist Papers. I have studied Plato, Aristotle, Cicero, Hume, Hobbs, Montesquieu, Gibbon and many other notable thinkers. I do not, as many have been labelled, consider myself a low information voter. I am not what Hillary would term to exist in a basket of deplorable’s.

Most of the ills that society faces are a combination of both Republicans and Democrats disrespecting and abusing the Constitution. Those abuses will not be corrected until both the Republican and Democratic party start allowing more Libertarians and Classical Liberals like Rand Paul into leadership roles. Sadly, it seems that is going to take a lot of work and quite a bit of time. To leverage a terrible cast-system term for convenience only, the Middle Class is not as wealthy as it used to be. To those people, America is not as great as it used to be for their fathers. People yearn for that greatness again. In that respect, it is a very appropriate slogan and one that speaks well to the campaign of Mr Trump.

These are the reasons why I voted for Donald Trump.

Venezuela – If we compare South America to the Middle East, Africa, or South East Asia, the region seems idyllic. There have not been any major international conflicts in decades, and most civil struggles are contained to the sovereignty of its nations. Moreover, the area is populated with relatively stable governments, modest economic growth, free societies and active democracies.

Venezuela, however, is a major outlier in the region. Without ignoring the collapse of Dilma Roussef’s government in Brazil and the long-lasting presidencies of Rafael Correa and Evo Morales in Ecuador and Bolivia, it is fair to conclude that no other South American society is experiencing more oppression from its government than the people of Venezuela. No other country has deteriorated institutionally to the magnitude of the once-rich state; nor has another country seen its people be disenfranchised as rapidly and brusquely as Venezuela has. While the country is not yet considered a failed state, it is certainly approaching tyranny.

Given that I grew up in Cucuta, a Colombian city right on the border with Venezuela, I have observed the country´s vicissitudes for years. I have lived the deteriorating circumstances of a society praying for political implosion and felt the uncertainties of a state without the rule of law.  In less than a decade, Venezuela transformed from a prosperous country with growing industries, large and well-maintained highways, and bustling airports to the pariah state with empty supermarket shelves and energy rations that it is today. The so-called “XXI Century Socialism,” ideology promoted by former Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez stunted the country’s progress. Indeed, it has actively promoted its destruction.

Since Hugo Chavez’s death and the appointed transition to Nicolas Maduro, the sitting President, things have gotten worse. Even though the situation has been in decline for a while and corruption and organised crime have undermined the country´s institutions, the lack of a strong –  instead, preposterous – leader has created a power vacuum. Despite Maduro’s efforts to legitimise his disastrous policies, a discontented population and a rising opposition has led to more oppression and power centralization. Amidst the cruelty of the situation, international powers have ignored and “watched from the bench” as Maduro takes action against civilians and basic freedoms.

Five to seven years ago, the government shut down opposition channels and radio stations in a deliberate attempt to limit and control access to information. Not long ago, newspapers ran out of paper in a Maduro-led charade. Freedom of the press since Chavez’s years has become a far-reaching goal in Venezuela.

If the power and protection of opposition leaders measure the health of a democracy, Venezuela shows signs of severe democratic disease. Along with the lack of toilet paper, food, and basic medicine, news regarding the political prisoners’ situations has reached the international stage. Leopoldo Lopez, former mayor of Caracas, surprised the world with a letter quite similar to Nelson Mandela’s reflections with a flavour of Gandhi-ism. With genuine pain in every word, he described what he wants for his country and the limitations he currently faces to reach this utopian future. Along with Lopez, Antonio Ledesma, Maria Corina Machado, and others have taken up the flag of martyrs and have fought harshly against the establishment. Maduro has prohibited legal representation for political prisoners, as he categorises opposition activists as agitators and U.S-backed government destabilizers. Attempts from international leaders to defend the prisoners have been shot down by gross acts of unilateralism.

Besides the institutional debacle, economic pressures are vivid in Venezuela’s current state. Companies have been nationalised and expropriated, driving international investment away and destabilising markets. Major airlines, for example, have stopped flying to Caracas for the lack of foreign currency. Factories have closed and multinationals have left the country. Migration waves of educated Venezuelans are fleeing to countries like Panama, Colombia, and the United States. Inflation is reaching sky-high levels and unemployment rates are in the two-digits.

The concentration of power in executive hands has no precedent. A concentrated leadership has extended presidential power to the state’s legislative and judiciary branches. Despite the fact that the opposition won a majority in Congress in the last election, Maduro quickly constrained the congress’s power, once again changing the rules of the game, in an attempt to counteract a potential referendum that would put its presidency in risk. Rule of law is fading, reminiscent of other dictatorships in the region’s history. The boundaries between the executive, legislative, and judicial branches, built to reassure the balance of powers, are constantly violated and largely ignored.

With the steps to anarchy being accomplished one by one, what is expected for the future of Venezuela? The oil-driven economy is far from the powerful country it once was, and its people are craving for a radical shift away from a failed state-led socioeconomic plan.

AUSTRALIA – “The image you have just seen isn’t from Guantanamo bay or Abu Ghraib, but Australia in 2015. A boy, hooded, shackled, strapped to a chair and left alone. It is barbaric. This is juvenile justice in the Northern Territory, a system that punishes troubled children instead of rehabilitating them – where children as young as 10 are locked up and 13-year-olds are kept in solitary confinement. Most of the images secured by Four Corners in this investigation have never been seen publicly. They are shocking – but for the sake of these children who are desperate for the truth to be known, we cannot look away.”

These are the opening words of a savage indictment levelled at the Australia’s criminal justice system by Four Corners, Australia’s premier investigative journalism program. In a documentary almost certain to tear strips of Australia’s already battered human rights reputation, film footage of treatment described as cruel, torturous and barbaric was broadcasted across the country. Already many people are describing the revelations as one of the darkest chapters in Australia’s recent history.

Watch the full documentary here.

Almost immediately the country’s Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull called for a royal commission, the highest form of public enquiry available to the Australian government. “Like all Australians, I am deeply shocked and appalled by the images of mistreatment of children at the Don Dale Juvenile Detention Centre. My Government will establish a Royal Commission into the events at the Detention Centre jointly with the Northern Territory Government. We will get to the bottom of what happened here, how this came about and what lessons can be learned from it. We want to know why there were inquiries into this centre which did not turn up the evidence that has come to light.” Wrote the Prime Minister on his facebook page Tuesday morning.

What has outraged both the nation and foreign spectators is the age of the victims being mistreatment. In one particularly disturbing film, a 17-year-old boy is strapped to a mechanical restraint chair and a hood put over his head whilst he is left alone in a small cell for hours. This was not an isolated event. The child, who is the subject of much of the documentary, is seen in various other situations violently being stripped and held down only to be left alone in a crouched and fetal position and in obvious distress. He was at the time of these films as young as 13.

In another, prison guards giggle and mock a 13-year-old boy’s singular protest at being held in solitary confinement, with no natural light and no running water 23.5 hours a day for several weeks before subjecting him and 5 others to close range and confined tear gassing. “That will learn you” and “now he is shiting himself” are some of the utterances of prison guards as the (up to) 8-minute treatment is inflicted before they are shackled, dragged out and sprayed with fire hoses.

Former workers of the facilities have now come forward and claimed that they had lost their jobs for speaking out about the violence within the institutions. “They shut me up, they charged me under the public service act and went through the process and sacked me.” says one of the whistle-blowers in an article published in national media following the film’s release.

There have been broad reactions across the legal profession in Australia including calls for the now imminent enquiry to include other regions and states in Australia. The indigenous barrister Joshua Creamer said to the Australian National Broadcaster, “There is systemic failures across the system. And what you’re being told and what I’m hearing about what happens in Queensland is similar to things I’m hearing happening in other states, so why should we restrict this royal commission to Northern Territory only?”

The Australian government will now, over the coming days discuss the terms in which the enquiry will be performed.

“There are no terrorists in Bangladesh”

This was the line spun by Bangladeshi PM Shaikh Hasina until last night when finally we saw the planned, heavily armed assault that we’d all feared was on the horizon. At 10pm, during the late dinner as people broke their Ramadan fast with iftar, several men claiming allegiance to IS opened fire on Holey Bakery, beginning a siege that lasted for 12 hours.

Holey is a place close to the hearts of many of the privileged Gulshan set – where foreigners and locals alike go for the peace and quiet, and delicious food. In the midst of Dhaka’s often overwhelming jungle of concrete and humanity, it’s a quiet refuge – an open space with shady grass and cool patios overlooking the lake. Over the last two years since it opened, I’ve lost count of the times we’ve gratefully flopped onto the grass with friends and consumed huge piles of sausage rolls, baguettes and key lime tarts, drinking in the smell of baking sourdough. Whenever we had international visitors we would take them there, as proud of Dhaka’s ever-growing cosmopolitanism and entrepreneurship as we were of the beautiful green space. Birthday parties, work dinners: if it was special, it happened here. Holey was a sanctuary.

The people eating dinner last night were all enjoying the same Holey that we did for the two years that we lived in Dhaka, participating in this lovely little pocket of green and comfort at the end of Ramadan. But the attackers cut those people open, shot them down, demanded that they recite the Quran, held them captive overnight and refused to give the foreigners food or water. They tore through them and tore through the image of Dhaka’s peace.

It’s hard to know what the goal was – what icon they were attacking and why; what statement they wanted to make. It’s hard to know what to feel in the wake of this news. For those who don’t know the country well, you need to know that this is a huge shock. This kind of organised, mass violence is not a feature of the landscape: it’s not a world of fanatics, bombings and constant fear. The Bangladesh I know is a mostly peaceful place where millions of people live crammed shoulder to shoulder, many in terrible poverty, but nevertheless, manage to coexist with good humour, generosity, tolerance and unfailing optimism. This terror is new, it is horrifying; it is a seismic change in Dhaka’s world.

The number of people – young, disaffected, angry men – who are trying to prove themselves part of the global Islamic fundamentalist movement has been growing. Friends and colleagues have been worriedly speaking of the creeping fear that their secular, literary, scholarly culture is being infiltrated by hate and fanaticism, imported from the middle east. The government must bear some of the blame, for refusing to acknowledge the threat that has reared its head since the first shootings in August last year, for using the deaths of journalists, bloggers, aid workers, atheists, editors, Hindus and Christians over the last bloody 12 months to score political points against their opponents.

I don’t know the names of all the nine Italians, seven Japanese, three Bangladeshis and one Indian that died at Holey last night. We do know that two of them were young students. Another was Ishrat Akhond, an artist who was known and celebrated for her contribution to Dhaka’s cultural life. They all thought they were somewhere safe, in a city that valued and welcomed them. That safety has been shattered, and with it, the world those who live in Dhaka thought they knew.

From so far away, all I can offer is my love to those who have been affected, my love for the country, and my hope that Bangladesh can find resilience and strength of community in the face of this horror. I’ll leave you all with the words of a wise friend of mine, a publisher who has spoken out bravely against this religious violence and attempts to control the voices of Bangladeshis everywhere:

“During these paralysing moments, all we can do is hold hands and draw strength from one another. Otherwise, the next blows that are soon to follow will blow us away in all different directions. We have lost a lot but cannot afford to lose hope. Regardless.”

For Garbage, Strange Little Birds is their 6th studio album.  For some bands that have been around this long, it is easy t overlook them as ‘has been’s’ or ‘irrelevant in the music scene today’. Between the four members, they have a collective of 231 years of life experience, all of which arguably have been dedicated to writing and producing music. Strange Little Birds is worth your time.

Atmospheric strings open proceedings. Playing the flattened 3rd with piano accompaniment, 30 seconds in channelling Trent Reznor, a heavy industrial Nine Inch Nails takes over for the next minute. Then the magic happens, the strings and piano intersect and the industrial styling fuse together bringing these seemingly polar opposite genres into their own as though they were destined to be. Masons vocals are unmistakeable and morbid as one may come to expect. This leads to ‘Empty’ the first single released from the album. This essential pop formula has moved more than 17 million units for garbage over the past 20 plus years. There is a rocking dynamic bridge at around 2 minutes thirty – not much more to say.

Time for Blackout is the third track and from the outset, there is a familiar fuzz on the guitar, and again it follows the pattern of polished pop. Mason does hit some low range vocals through the verses which are contrasted nicely with the usual upper range through the chorus. Wait, at 3:50 you don’t see it coming, it’s the blackout breakout, it lasts about 40 seconds before re-joining the earlier riffs and breaking down to drums/vocals and the reintroduction of each instrument. Overall this track goes for 6 and half minutes, it’s easy enough to get lost in it the song. The time passes quick enough.

‘If I Lost You’, slows the tempo a little, introduces the classic MC808 with a pleasing blend of soft lead, air synth, some ripping bass and Masons melodies hovering above the groove. This fills out the album for over four minutes.  When ‘Night Drive Loneliness’ opens you would be mistaken for thinking it sounds like a mixed up version of Sweet Dreams. This promising intro lasting 40 seconds and doesn’t let you down. A thick synth bass with stabbing-leads kicks in before Mason graces us with her morbid vocals. There is layer-upon-layer as one would expect, with a new sound waiting behind each change. Sweet melodies with hard tech and a big chorus. There’s a key change with a minute left of this 5 and a half minute track.  We are reminded of the song-writing abilities of this outfit. This is Garbage, this is their bread and butter.

There is a deep sub-scar bass jacked straight from a piano introducing us to ‘Though Our Love is Doomed’. The vocal melodies are a fitting suit for the questioning theme of the lyrics, ‘why we kill the things we love the most’. The deep introspection that consumes a broken love with all the depressive symptoms are here, pleading for the love to go on even when it is doomed. The mellow-dynamics build to perfection for the crescendo beginning at 3:47, before finally breaking out around 4:30 from here it takes you to the end of the track and into ‘Magnetized’ –  its big, diverse, breaking through different beats and styles in different sections of the track as though following some diverse but linear non-clinical psychosis.

‘We never tell’ changes direction from the previous two, returning to the mass appeal pop formula, this could be the most unpleasing track on the album, best described as ‘filler’. You won’t miss much if you skip this. Following is ‘So We Can Stay Alive’, breathing life back into the LP, the usual bi-polar of the music is present and it confirms that this group, while not producing anything ground-breaking, remain relevant and still sounding fresh today 21 years past their first release. At 4:15 things get changed up a little. A key change, some layers of ‘space lead’ that sounds like cosmic background radiation keeps you hanging on to the end.

‘Teaching Little Fingers To Play’….  there’s not much here. The verse/chorus don’t work too well, like two negative magnets, they rather repel each other. The lyrics ‘all grown up no around too fix me now’ may appeal to the young person finding their way in the world. The final track ‘Amends’, has a sequential slow building overtime happening, by 2:00 minutes the layers and intensity build with a pause at 2:30 before the full force of this album’s closer is unleashed. Stay with this one, it takes the LP out in a fashion consistent with that of what would be expected of seasoned performers and songwriters.

While there is nothing new, the production makes full use of the technology available in 2016 without being overproduced like every track is made in some antiquated Fruity Loops mix. In whole, it sounds well put together, planned and intentional. Shirley’s vocals and lyrics fit every atmosphere across the album. If you haven’t listened to Garbage since their debut 1995 release, it’s time you did, start with Strange Little Birds.

72 / 100

Across the globe, many societies are arguably experiencing a higher standard of living than at any time in human civilisation. Thanks, in part to greater accessibility to clean water, reduction in infectious diseases and provision of health care. However, despite these advances, poverty still exists and while there are higher rates in developing nations, the developed nations are not immune. While there are a number of different frameworks in relation to the structure of the Welfare State, they all share a common characteristic – none in their current form are perpetually sustainable, even in the case of the Scandinavian models which are often regarded as the most successful.  

There is little question that the Welfare State is there to provide protection for the most vulnerable and disadvantaged in society. How this is provided is a complex mix of cash payments, services, taxation, industrial relations policies and wage setting. What we know is there is a percentage of people in any society that have, by no fault of their own, a level of dependence on the state, to assist in providing equality of opportunity, or just getting some people to the starting line. Even when doing so, there are then other policy mechanisms that impact on the ability of people to contribute as much as they can. Regardless, the need for services for people who have a disability, those experiencing intergenerational poverty, child protection, justice and ageing issues will be constant. Governments will need to demonstrate accountability measures to show that services are achieving their intended outcomes.

For service delivery agencies and non-government organisations (NGOs) in both international development and local service delivery sectors, there is a need to ensure they are both accountable and can demonstrate a return on investment for the funders whether that be government, multinationals exercising their ‘cooperate social reasonability’, or philanthropists. In the past two decades, there has been a growing focus on these metrics in relation to social outcomes. The achievement of social outcomes for the ‘wicked problems’ that present themselves in today’s societies is important from not only an accountability perspective and the target populations themselves but also to unlock private capital for these public problems. In 2010 the first Social Impact Bond (SIB) was implemented in the UK as a way to attract investment from the private sector and reduce long-term spending on the issue of recidivism. Since then they have

In 2010 the first Social Impact Bond (SIB) was implemented in the UK as a way to attract investment from the private sector and reduce long-term spending on the issue of recidivism. Since then, there has been a reverberation of excitement over the potential of this new way of confronting social challenges. Paul Madden of the Social Impact Investment Network South Australia shared his insights regarding the challenges and  practical application of SIBs,

“While SIBs have captured national and international attention as a means of attracting private capital to the pursuit of sought after social outcomes, they are only the tip of the iceberg. While they are difficult and expensive to establish, the learning about social measurement that will emanate from that learning will have wide application across a vast range of social investment mechanisms. Every enterprise, whether private or social, requires capital and cash flow to grow and social investment will increasingly become the means for achieving this whether through SIBs debt or equity contributions. The learning about social measurement will also help release funds through government for “payment by results” contracts, as governments will be more prepared to pay when results and savings can be quantified.”

Underpinning the design of a SIB is a rigorous methodology for measuring outcomes, savings for government and a return on investment for the corporate or philanthropist that provides the capital. They demonstrate a long-term commitment to invest significant monies to address specific problems that can plague the landscape of a society. This approach helps to address some of the service delivery issues including siloed approaches to delivering services; patchwork or pilot projects that might work but are defunded. Built in is developing a deeper understanding of the issues and co-design with the target population, to ensure the services will address the problem effectively; and there is the rigour in measurement allowing the interventions to be evaluated effectively. 

Often, the ‘wicked problems’ have many underlying drivers that contribute the unhealthy outcomes for the individual, community and society and these drivers are crucial for policy makers to better understand and address. To continue the redundant trajectory of accepting that conditions that impact negatively on the health and development of people is ok, will prevent progress. So too will short-term funding solutions or the ‘myth’ that evidence-based programs are the only answer, they are not. Funding models need to be adaptive and flexible to support the innovations society needs to address the deeply entrenched issues. Social Impact Bonds offer flexibility for innovation in service delivery which can be embedded in the design of the bond. They bring together multiple sectors including government, NGOs, academia and corporate and philanthropic sectors to collaborate and work toward a common agenda with shared measurement system with a long-term investment.

At the nucleus of SIB’s are the outcomes achieved for individuals, the saving for government and return on investment for the investor. There are many methods for measuring outcomes for individuals with the tool used always depending on the intended outcome. In the psychological sciences, disability sectors, early childhood and learning difficulties and, health sciences the validated tools on offer are almost endless. Finding the right ‘fit for purpose’ tool is the challenge. Here the ’how to’ measure the outcome being sought is crucial for all parties involved in the bond. It requires careful identification of the problem it is intended to address and identifying the appropriate population data set. Here the numbers and percentages are key. Regardless of what the bond might seek to address, a number of components require identification. That will include the number and percentage of people experiencing the issue at a population level, and the number of people the bond will aim to target. Also, what contribution will the service make at the population level of the target cohort and what is this target cohort currently costing the government to service including intangible costs.

Next, determining the cost of the problem for any government, followed by the saving’s and linking this to the outcomes for the individual at the population level is where the metrics and ‘brains’ behind the design of the bond become crucial. There exists a number of methodologies that can be utilised for a SIB. Two key methods include social accounting, auditing and social return on investment. The four capital model of social accounting and auditing (SAA) is a process that provides a value on social, environment, human and financial outcomes. These audits can then be represented on the balance sheet of an organisation providing an aggregate picture of assets and liabilities. While it is commonly used at an organisational level, the investment that is allocated to a SIB would benefit from such an approach. The other noteworthy methodology is the Social Return on Investment (SROI). The SROI methodology was first introduced by the Roberts Enterprise Development fund in the late 1990s. The years following its introduction have seen it become one of the most common methodologies for monetizing social outcomes. SROI is based on the principles of ‘accountancy and cost-benefit analysis.’

Both SAA and SROI are mixed methodology approaches to monetizing outcomes from social service activities and interventions. Each methodology presents an option for businesses to establish two balance sheets, one that shows the real assets and liabilities, and a second that incorporates the social, human and environmental assets and liabilities.  There would be no expectation in a future application of SIMM that funded organisations would be expected to develop two separate balance sheets, rather, the methodology would be applied specifically to each SIB or funded activity, using a SIMM. One limitation of all of these models includes the potential to exclude smaller organisations. Significant time, expertise and capital are required to be invested to develop processes for impact measurement and to be involved in the development of SIBs, thus creating monopolies  in the NGO sector.

Regardless of the methodology, or how governments allocate funds in any region, investors and service delivery agencies need to hold themselves to account, build in efficiencies and demonstrate the outcomes they are achieving and how individuals, the community and society as a whole are better off for their existence. Ultimately, it seems counter intuitive to use a financial product such as Social Impact Bond to address some of the inequalities that exist in society, as a result of market capitalism.