Who did you vote for?

Someone asked me who I would vote for as President of the USA among the current republican and democrat candidate. I replied that as foreigner I have no need to torture myself trying to choose, and so I would not answer it. Nonetheless that got me thinking on that indeed your record as a voter should be made public because, as is, it is too easy for the voter to distance himself from his responsibility of a poor choice.

Coming as I do from a country like Venezuela and where the votes were made public and people were fired from their jobs just because they opposed Hugo Chávez, obviously your vote needs to be classified material, for a period, but, sooner or later, you should have to face your grandchild question "Grandpa, did you really vote this way? What were you thinking of?

PS. Just in case, I never ever voted for Chávez, and that is obviously why I dare to make this suggestion.

You should not give debt relief to "odious" debt

A letter to the Financial Times

Sir Alan Beattie in “Vultures unlikely allies in anti-graft cause” July 18 quotes Stephen Rand of the Jubilee Debt Campaign saying “Debt relief should never be used as a weapon of economic coercion by creditors” as implying that debt relief should be awarded even when governments are still corrupt.What is this? As a citizen of a country with a government that I consider quite corrupt, I do not like anyone giving it loans, debt relief or anything whatsoever. Frankly, before corruption is ended most of any debt relief given would just end up allowing these countries and governments addicted to debt, to hit the bars again.If the concept of odious debt is applicable in the sense that some debts should not have to be repaid if contracted in an illegitimate way, castigating the creditor, then the same concept should clearly also apply to the granting of any debt relief, punishing the debtor.