Fog in the minds...

Interesting question: can you solve a problem that you do not really understand?

If you are teaching maths or physics the answer to a student who would ask this question is a simple no.

If you are involved in research, then it might become more complex to answer, as it is your core business to look for solutions to questions that you do not fully understand. Most of the time actually, your path to the solution will consist in trying to further your understanding and your implicit expectation is that the solution will then become obvious, i.e will be easily stemming from this new understanding.

I you are a doctor or an engineer or a practical person involved in day to day problem solving in relation to your business, you will use heuristics, rule of thumb practices that border on the fringe of understanding but are more based on habit, experience, some past demonstration of success, add a pinch of intuition and go for it. If the patient has a mild flue and not the avian flue, you will not loose him and you might even help him a bit cure himself through his natural immune system which is mostly out of his control. If he has cancer, though, and if you failed to diagnose it, i.e. to understand what his body was actually up against, then you might be prepared to loose him, to a better physician or to the undertaker.

Well, Sarkozy's one-man show on TV on the 5th of February belongs to the category of the guessing physician who trusts his luck. He clearly does not really have a clue of what this on-gong crisis is about. But he is not a professor or a scientist and that clearly does not bother him.

He certainly did not try to explain what the crisis was, for obvious reasons. But he found new answers that are interesting to observe.

The first one was about himself: "I am here to listen to your problems, my fellow citizens. I am listening, with compassion but mostly to bring you relief". I heard it as " I will give you palliative care". Especially since he did qualify the crisis as the worst in a century. He is here, he says, to be in charge, to provide guidance, to show the way, to be the boss, this is what we elected him for. Therefore, "trust me, I am in charge and the ship is under control."

It does not help me that he has an oversized ego. It certainly does not help me trust him.

His second answer was about scapegoats. When bad things happen, then someone is responsible for it and he should be punished. The law of retaliation. Good old biblical reflexes. very proper to face the complexity of the present world. Of course, the culprit are in the banks, and in the trading rooms. As many people would like to get back at these strange people who have been making millions in bonuses, even though they have clearly been lacking insight into how the world turns, how they themselves help it rotate or slow down, and do not seem to care - some measure of their moral sophistication, this may sound as a good idea. A nice populist proposal, that would be popular across a broad political spectrum.

Let us get the money back, mister president. Let's launch a witch hunt and look for anyone who has been in some way responsible for the mess. Don't stop with the derivative traders. The investigation of the cause tree might be entertaining and maybe even enlightening!

The only thing I can say in favor of the French President, is that he is in good company in the world of people who do not understand what's going on.

I visited some academic economists yesterday and they are convinced that the crisis will pass quickly and that the world will be restored to its previous state. Just a short hiccup in the fabric of time!