A magic wand

The lure of a magic wand is too hard to resist, so is the lure of a time machine. This lure is mainly due to the fact that there are imperfections in our lives that we want to change. If magic wasn't that "miraculous", we would never have had the harry potter series for one.

I imagine the speech where the head of a nation has to address to his public and complain at his ineptitude to fix a broken political system is a pity. There might be veracity to his words and a great deal of gusto to accept the inaccuracies and inefficiencies that have crept into the system. I have seen this happen on two fronts, the indian prime ministers speech and the us presidents speech.

If the head of a nation complains to his republic at his ineptitude to handle a situation with an iron fist, especially when it affects the nation at large. In indias case, just make the law stricter - corruption is punishable by the death penalty, whether it is one rupee or a trillion rupees, make the person who reports it a hero and offer an award. If we can eradicate polio and small pox, corruption should not be that tough to handle. In the us's case, bite the lip and raise taxes, take away tax cuts and stop subsidizing crazy things, stop all the wars until the economy is fixed, stop all foreign aid, tighten the tax rates on the very high income groups. The airline safety instructions clearly says, please put the oxygen mask on first before helping others, should this not apply to a nations economy, fix your economy first before doling out help and tax breaks.

As with any major change there will be dissonance, everyone facing losses and heartache will shout, but eventually they will reconcile and go with it. If you do not have the backbone to make changes for the benefit of a country, step down so at least the looters can enjoy and have their fill; running a nation is a team sport and sometimes you can't play both gerrard and lampard.