Executed Filipino maid's sons get life for peddling drugs

Mar 11, 2011

LOS BAÑOS (LAGUNA): The three sons of Filipino maid Flor Contemplacion, who was executed in Singapore 16 years ago, were sentenced last week to life imprisonment for selling illegal drugs.

Judge Agripino Morga of San Pablo City in Laguna province said in a phone interview on Tuesday that the three were also fined 500,000 pesos (S$14,600) each in a decision he promulgated last week.

Those convicted were Sandrex, 37, and 30-year-old twins Joel and Jun-jun.

They are the children of Contemplacion, who was hanged in Singapore in 1995 for killing fellow Filipino maid Delia Maga and Mrs Maga's four-year-old Singaporean ward Nicholas Huang.

The brothers have until next Wednesday to appeal the court's decision, Mr Morga said.

The brothers were arrested in a sting operation carried out by the local city police and anti-drug agents at a village in San Pablo City in October 2005.

Contemplacion's husband, Efren, and his live-in partner, Violeta, remain in jail, also in San Pablo City, after they were arrested for drug pushing in 2008.

A 2005 police report said the Contemplacion siblings were arrested in the family's compound in San Pablo City after selling 3,000 pesos worth of shabu, the local reference to methamphetamine hydrochloride.

Several paraphernalia used in sniffing shabu were recovered from them, according to the police.

The three denied involvement in illegal drugs, police said.

The compound where they were arrested was acquired by the Contemplacion family with money given to them by government officials after their mother was executed.

PHILIPPINE DAILY INQUIRER/ASIA NEWS NETWORK

[So is the point of the story that violence and criminal inclinations run in the family? Or that without a mother the children has turned out to be drug pushers?]

No loss in quality of local TV content

Mar 10, 2011

Scrapping of radio, TV licence fees will not affect funding for PSB programmes
 
By Corrie Tan

TELEVISION viewers need not worry that local content will decline with the abolition of radio and TV licence fees.

[That's because over the years Mediacorp has steadily lowered the quality of local content until it has hit rock bottom and can only go further down if there's a dedicated 24 hr All Muammar Gaddafi, all-the-time channel.]

How deep does Opposition unity run?

Past elections show, avoiding three-way fights or fielding vast number of candidates is no surety for victory

Mar 10, 2011

by Loh Chee Kong

It is often tempting to distil abstract concepts and ideas into a single axiom.

Like how the absence of three-cornered fights in the coming General Election (GE) is the ultimate yardstick for Opposition unity - a notion that has been floated by political pundits and Opposition figures alike, both in private and in public.

True, protracted negotiations, with no resolution in sight over which parties should contest in most of the Single-Member Constituencies, hardly makes a strong case for unity.

But the measure of "Opposition unity" - a term thrown around too frivolously at times - is more than just friendly horsetrading and public statements espousing consensus rather than conflict.

It is also not necessarily about singing from the same hymn sheet or having identical ideas and style.

It is about coming out with and adopting a common strategy, regardless of personal rifts or disagreements - even if it involves multi-cornered fights.

A case in point: The 1991 GE, when the Opposition won an unprecedented four seats.

While no one can say with authority whether the Opposition's success was down to the "by-election strategy", it was the only time that the Opposition camp had a common game plan and, barring a few detractors, actively worked on it.

Then, Opposition leaders in the major parties - apart from Workers' Party chief J B Jeyaretnam, who did not support the strategy - dissuaded some prospective candidates from standing in the elections to ensure that fewer than half the seats were contested.

The thinking was that with the ruling party safely returned to power on Nomination Day, voters would be more bold to vote for Opposition candidates in their constituencies.

That year, a total of 45 Opposition or independent candidates vied for 40 out of the 81 seats up for grabs.

In the five three-cornered fights that ensued, one was among two opposition parties and the rest featured independent candidates (the PAP candidates, predictably, triumphed in all five cases).

In contrast, the most recent 2006 GE - which was historic on several counts - achieved the rarity of a straight fight between the PAP and an Opposition party in all the wards contested, with no independent candidates entering the fray. In all, 47 Opposition candidates took part in head-to-head contests with PAP candidates.

Only two - Potong Pasir MP Chiam See Tong and Hougang MP Low Thia Khiang - emerged victorious.

The 2006 GE was also the first time since 1988 that the PAP was not returned to power on Nomination Day - sounding the death knell for the by-election strategy, which was arguably adopted only once. (While the Opposition had also contested fewer than half the seats in the 1997 and 2001 GEs, on those two occasions, it was out of necessity rather than choice as it had limited number of candidates.)

This scenario is likely to repeat itself this time round.

Listening to Opposition figures who have been quoted in media reports so far, one can detect a certain "gungho-ness" for the coming elections. Reform Party chief Kenneth Jeyaretnam - echoing his late father's disdain for the "by-election strategy" - went as far as to describe it as a "loser's strategy" on Channel NewsAsia's Talking Point programme recently.

The Opposition is setting its sights high: It is purportedly fielding at least 77 candidates in the coming elections, a new record since the 1988 GE which featured 71 Opposition candidates (and only one won).

OTHER POSSIBLE STRATEGIES

Of course, numbers do not tell the whole story. At every GE, there are different issues and the mood of the electorate is never the same. And like others have pointed out, the "by-election strategy" - first conceived almost a quarter of a century ago - has perhaps outlived its use.

But the figures culled from past elections tell a simple fact: The GE is not a numbers game and fielding the most number of candidates does not always maximise the Opposition's chances. If the Opposition is hoping to make a splash in the coming GE, unity is a must - and it is more than just avoiding three-cornered fights.

[Unity is nothing. It is not about unity. It is about viable, credible alternatives. The opposition can be united in dumbness and that would sell no tickets and win no votes. The people want alternatives they can believe in. Looking at the current opposition MPs, what works are MPs that the voters can believe in. Low and Chiam work and engage the ground and connect with their voters on their concerns. Highfalutin ideas and concepts like democracy cut no ice with the voters. ]

A variation of the by-election strategy has been mooted in the Opposition camp: Fielding a "dream line-up" of the 12 strongest Opposition candidates in the SMCs and boycotting the GRCs. But that is an unlikely prospect.

Fielding as many candidates as it can, could very well be the Opposition's gameplan for the coming elections but at the moment, that seems to be driven more out of each party's own ambitions, rather than a co-ordinated attempt to lock down the PAP big guns on their home turf.

Attacking common national issues from different angles, carving out GRCs across the country and contesting them as multiple single-seats (particularly against PAP newbies) or forming regional blocs out of traditional Opposition strongholds - these possibilities and more are probably being mulled over by Opposition strategists.

But the Opposition will need to articulate its strategy soon, in one form or another, to set the agenda for the hustings. This is something it has found hard to do in recent elections.

[The agenda is also difficult because the PAP does not cleave to any specific ideology. So it is hard to pin them down to a position to attack. PAP is for meritocracy. Attacking meritocracy makes one seem pro-cronyism or pro-guanxi. PAP is for clean incorruptible government. You can't be against clean govt and the alternative of trying to find dirt on PAP MPs, while not impossible, is undermined by PAP's own swift response to any suspicion of corruption. PAP is pro-growth. Here, perhaps the hope is to paint the PAP as pursuing "growth at all costs" at the expense of the less able or less capable. There is some hope here, but it is not ideological opposites. The People's Action Party - how do you oppose them? The Elite Procrastination Party?]

And while having a game plan is a start, the devil is in the execution. It has always been difficult for the Opposition, with all its different personalities and ideologies, to come together. With such a large pool of potential candidates, the big question is whether it can be done.

Loh Chee Kong is the news editor at Today.

Should fruits of gambling do some good?

Mar 09, 2011

by Richard Hartung

In 2009, before the casinos opened, the Government Budget forecast betting revenues of S$1.86 billion. That amount was about 5.5 per cent of operating revenue of S$33.43 billion, a nice contribution from the gaming industry in a difficult economic environment.

Since then, the integrated resorts (IRs) have opened with a roar and the results have exceeded expectations. In the fourth quarter of last year, Marina Bay Sands earned S$391 million on S$717 million of revenue and Resorts World Sentosa earned S$389 million on S$775 million of revenue.

Simply extrapolate that for a full year - not even counting the ongoing expansion of the IRs or the potential for VIP junkets - and revenue would reach nearly S$6 billion while profits would be over S$3 billion per year. Brokerage firm CLSA told Today that it forecasts revenue at S$8.1 billion next year.

With revenue growing so fast, one might expect the gaming industry to contribute a lot more to the Budget now. Even with the casinos going almost full bore, however, the Government expects betting revenue to contribute just S$2.41 billion to operating revenue in FY2011. That amount is just barely up from S$2.29 billion in FY2010, and it is an increase of only about S$550 million from the 2009 budget.

Not all of that S$550 million increase in betting revenue comes from the IRs, either. With more gamblers making Toto or 4D bets in an improved economy and newer games like Scratchit! offering instant wins, taxes from traditional gambling will most likely move higher in FY2011 too.

That increase in the Budget comes even as the IRs are doing better than expected. Before the IRs opened, forecast revenue was reportedly S$10 million to S$15 million per day. Revenue of just S$6 billion would mean over S$16 million per day in revenue. And the daily take per table is reportedly double or triple almost anywhere else.

Singaporeans are visiting the casinos more than expected, too. In discussions on the IRs in Parliament in 2005, Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong said "our estimate is that with two IRs, gambling by Singaporeans in the IRs is unlikely to exceed S$1 billion a year". Inveterate Singapore gamblers may already have broken that barrier, though, since Dow Jones reported early on that over one third of the visitors at Marina Bay Sands' casino were from Singapore. While Singaporeans may not be the highest rollers, revenue from them could exceed S$1 billion already even if they only gamble about half as much as the tourists.

Admittedly, S$550 million more in the Budget is a lot of money. The surprise is that the increase is not higher and the question is what to do. The Government cannot raise the tax rate. In proposing the Casino Control Bill in 2006, then-Minister for Home Affairs Wong Kan Seng said that "casino tax rates will remain unchanged for 15 years". The Government cannot go back on its word and suddenly raise tax rates even if the situation has changed dramatically.

It is also true that the IRs are a business, not a charity. While the Tote Board mission is to "donate funds for activities that will make for a stronger nation and a better people", the IRs are private companies. It may be time, though, for the IRs themselves to look at whether they should do more in light of the changed circumstances.

Marina Bay Sands does say that it has "sponsored a wide range of charitable causes focused on youth and education". Resorts World Sentosa says it believes in "improving the lives of children".

In other countries, corporate social responsibility in the industry is gaining traction, going beyond social responsibility towards problem gamblers, to making the community a better place. Casinos and industry forums are discussing corporate social responsibility more. As macaubusiness.com said: "CSR can be a way to achieve a sustainable competitive advantage for Macau's six casino operators".

At a time when inflation is rising and families are trying to make ends meet, Budget initiatives to help are being discussed. Even if tax revenues from betting do not increase significantly, there could still be an opportunity for the IRs to take the lead in CSR and consider showing even more how they truly care about children, education and more here in Singapore.

Richard Hartung is a consultant who has lived in Singapore since 1992.

Deep fissures behind Opposition bravado

It has resolved to make history by contesting all 87 seats, but can the Opposition overcome its disarray?

Mar 07, 2011

by Eugene K B Tan

Many Singaporeans will welcome the Opposition's declaration and resolve to contest in all 87 seats in the coming General Election.

If it indeed comes to pass, this will be a milestone in our political development: It will be the first time in independent Singapore's history that all parliamentary seats will be contested.

One view is that by not having any People's Action Party (PAP) walkovers would enable the Opposition, collectively, to "lock down" the PAP big guns in their own constituencies. In previous elections, senior PAP leaders could move around at will on the campaign trail to help canvas valuable support for their less-established party colleagues seeking election.

For Singaporeans, the opportunity to vote should not be underestimated. Voting is easily the most significant expression of a citizen's political participation in his country's future. And this time round, much more could be at stake than the erosion of the PAP's dominance by a parliamentary seat or two.

The possibility of the PAP not securing a two-third majority of all seats, much less losing power completely in the coming GE, appears very unlikely. In the 2006 GE, the PAP secured 66.6 per cent of the total valid votes cast. Granted, of the 84 seats only 47 were contested, and of these 45 went to the PAP under the first-past-the-post system.

However, if we were to use the 66.6 per cent popular vote as a proxy for support for the ruling party, and if at this upcoming GE every seat is contested, then a 17-per-cent swing in votes away from the PAP could result in a chance that the ruling party might lose power. This seems far-fetched. But such a significant swing in voter preference has happened before. In the 1972 GE, the PAP won with 70.4 per cent of the votes, a sharp drop from its 86.7-per-cent share in 1968. Between the 1980 and 1984 GE, there was a 12.9-per-cent drop in popular support for the PAP.

[Extrapolating from a high 86.7% drop to 70.4% is unrealistic. High percentages of votes almost always mean electoral fraud. In this particular case, it was more of the people pulling together and getting behind the party they trust to get them out of poverty. The alternative was the Workers' Party. A 70% vote is still pretty high but reflected the more secure, less "crisis" phase and people started considering alternatives. Again, the 1980 to 1984 is a drop from a relative high of 77.7% to 64.8%. I would agree that approximately 60% - 66% of votes is probably the norm for PAP, if they are to maintain a dominance in Parliament - i.e. not more than 5 opposition.]

Should a similar "freak" election outcome such as that once feared by the Prime Minister then, Mr Lee Kuan Yew, come to pass, the Opposition could come to power, amid the harsh reality that it has no experience and expertise to govern Singapore. Not yet.

[That depends on PAP stalwarts and swing votes. If the PAP core voters (who votes PAP no matter what) is less than 50%, then it is possible that a swing against the PAP would cause it to fall out of power. However, from "recent" polls (from 1991 which was about the low point for the PAP - and about 20 years ago), the PAP has never polled less than 60%. Has the ground shifted since? One issue is whether the PAP is still delivering. The other, is whether the opposition can deliver instead. Or what does the opposition offer?]

Would citizens vote more conservatively, knowing a change in government was a possibility? In GEs past, the Opposition had hoped returning the PAP to power on Nomination Day would make voters more bold.

But the reality is that voter behaviour is unlikely to be swayed significantly by the prospect (or impossibility) of leadership change. Voters rarely factor in how others will vote; foremost in their consideration is what is in their own best interest. To be sure, the PAP will still remind voters to cast their ballot prudently, emphasising the importance of a strong mandate.

STALEMATE AND DISARRAY

Indeed, the promise of a full-fledged contest against the PAP belies the deep fissures within the Opposition, and the transient and episodic nature with which some of the parties take to affairs of the state.

How soon will it be before the Opposition parties can say, with all certainty, that they know where they are contesting, and without there being three-cornered fights?

The second pow-wow on Saturday evening - two weeks after the publication of the Electoral Boundaries Review Committee's report on Feb 24 - ended without the all-important agreement on who will contest where.

Throw in the wild-card factor of independent candidates and, with the GE imminent, the picture is not rosy for the Opposition.

At a time when the parties should be resolutely covering the ground in the areas they are contesting, they are still undecided as to who would carry the flag for the non-PAP camp in 11 out of 27 electoral wards.

Any seat with more than one Opposition contestant is a sure recipe for splitting the non-PAP vote bank and, subsequently, defeat. Yet, some parties seem to be holding out for as long as they can for the turf they are eyeing.

This stalemate does not inspire confidence. Notwithstanding the assertions that progress has been made, the horse-trading, bilateral deals and further bargaining all suggest the Opposition parties will probably not be fielding the best possible candidate or team in every SMC or GRC seat.

In part, the disarray reflects the fact that more parties are likely to contest this GE than in 2006. Quite a few parties are either very new or very small, or non-existent between elections. They lack resources to mount an effective campaign but they want to contest. The other part of the matter is, even as the electoral battle against the ruling party looms, egos, ambition and boardroom politics are getting in the way of any concerted strategy.

[Chiam is old and his wife does not enjoy his same popularity. It is a mistake for him to move out of Potong Pasir, but at this point, I think it is a mistake for him to even stand. He should bow out gracefully, but bowing out is probably not in his vocabulary. I predict that this election will be his last and he won't win. SPP will fade away. It is too personality-driven, it would seem.

SDP suffers from the lack of credibility of Chee. They are and have been a side show for the longest time.

RP as the NKOTB was promising, but the sec-gen's inability to work with anyone will be its Achilles heel. Frankly, I do not see any potential for this party so far. But maybe they are working the ground, and know how to pull in support. I don't see it. They seem to attract the elites and the metropolitans more than the heartlanders, so I really don't see how they will click with the voters.

NSP was and has always been a promising party that seem moderate and reasonable. But why do we want PAP-lite when we can have PAP?

Low can still hold onto his seat and Sylvia Lim might have a chance at a GRC, but I think she would have a better chance in an SMC. The problem is which SMC?

The two longest serving opposition shows you the kind of people that are electable - grassroots, people-oriented candidates. Elites and intellectuals offer nothing for the voters. PAP at least mix-and-match with cerebral types like Ng Eng Hen, Shanmugan mixed with grass-roots MPs like Ang Mong Seng, Teo Ho Pin, and Chan Soo Sen. These balances out the PAP slate.]

Certainly, raising the stakes for Opposition contestants is the fact that the next Parliament will have to up to nine Non-Constituency MP seats for the best-performing Opposition losers. So it is no surprise that of the 12 SMCs - seen as easier routes to the NCMP seats, with the ruling party less likely to field a ministerial heavyweight there - the parties have reached agreement on only Potong Pasir and Hougang, both now Opposition-held, and two other SMCs.

Things look better for the Opposition in the GRCs: Only three await resolution. However, the Opposition has not won in a GRC since the scheme was introduced in 1988.

[The increase in SMC should mean that opposition will have to decide, should someone like Sylvia Lim, who has some credentials as an NCMP, try to lead a team to try to take a GRC, or should she go for an SMC with a better chance of winning? The increase in SMC may well be a tactic to undercut the opposition's best people, and to minimise the risk to PAP's GRC. Certainly, if the PAP had a choice, they would rather have all the SMC won by opposition than even one GRC fall. That would mean losing one Minister-level candidate at least.]

Time is of the essence for the Opposition. We should not be surprised if Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong decides to dissolve Parliament when the current debate on the Committee of Supply estimates ends.

It remains to be seen if the Opposition can capitalise on the excitement surrounding the prospect of an 87-seat fight, and pose a serious challenge to the PAP's hegemony. Or will the reality of disunity bite?

The writer is assistant professor of law at the Singapore Management University School of Law.

Is Islam really the problem?

Once the world's centre of culture and commerce, the Middle East can start moving forward again

Mar 07, 2011

by Nicholas D Kristof

A wise visitor from outer space who dropped in on Earth a millennium ago might have assumed that the Americas would eventually be colonised not by primitive Europeans but by the more advanced Arab civilisation - and that as a result we Americans would all be speaking Arabic today.

Yet after about the year 1200, the Middle East took a long break: It stagnated economically and today it is marked by high levels of illiteracy and autocracy. So as the region erupts in protests seeking democracy, a basic question arises: What took so long? And a politically incorrect question: Could the reason for the Middle East's backwardness be Islam?

The sociologist Max Weber and other scholars have argued that Islam is inherently a poor foundation for capitalism and some have pointed in particular to Islamic qualms about paying interest on loans.

But that does not seem right. Other experts note that Islam in some ways is more pro-business than other major religions.

The Prophet Muhammad was a successful merchant and much more sympathetic to the wealthy than Jesus was. And the Middle East was a global centre of culture and commerce in, say, the 12th century: If Islam stifles business now, why didn't it then?

As for hostility toward interest on loans, similar teachings are found in Jewish and Christian texts and what the Quran bans is not interest as such but "riba", an extreme form of usury that could lead to enslavement for failing to pay debts. Until the late 18th century, Muslims were as likely to be money-lenders in the Middle East as Christians or Jews. And today paying interest is routine even in the most conservative Muslim countries.

Many Arabs have an alternative theory about the reason for the region's backwardness: Western colonialism. But that seems equally specious and has the sequencing wrong.

"For all its discontents, the Middle East's colonial period brought fundamental transformation, not stagnation; rising literacy and education, not spreading ignorance; and enrichment at unprecedented rates, not immiserisation," writes Professor Timur Kuran, a Duke University economic historian, in a meticulously researched new book, The Long Divergence: How Islamic Law Held Back the Middle East.

Prof Kuran's book offers the best explanation yet for why the Middle East has lagged.

After poring over ancient business records, Prof Kuran persuasively argues that what held the Middle East back was not Islam as such, or colonialism but rather various secondary Islamic legal practices that are no longer relevant today.

It is a sophisticated argument that a column cannot do justice to but, for example, one impediment was inheritance law. Western systems most commonly passed all property intact to the eldest son, thus preserving large estates.

In contrast, Islamic law stipulated a much fairer division of assets (including some to daughters) but this meant that large estates fragmented. One upshot was that private capital accumulation faltered and could not support major investments to usher in an industrial revolution.

Prof Kuran also focuses on the Islamic partnership, which tended to be the vehicle for businesses. Islamic partnerships dissolved whenever any member died and so they tended to include only a few partners - making it difficult to compete with European industrial and financial corporations backed by hundreds of shareholders.

The emergence of banks in Europe led long-term British interest rates to drop by two-thirds leading up to the Industrial Revolution. No such drop occurred in the Arab world until the colonial period.

These traditional impediments are no longer a problem in the 21st century. Muslim countries now have banks, corporations, and stock and bond markets and inheritance law now is not an obstacle to capital accumulation. So if Prof Kuran's diagnosis is correct, that should bode well for the region - and Turkey's boom in recent years underscores the potential for a renaissance.

Yet one challenge is psychological. Many Arabs blame outsiders for their backwardness and cope by rejecting modernity and the outside world. It is a disgrace that an area that once produced outstanding science and culture (giving us words like algebra) now is an educational underachiever, especially for girls.

The crisis in the Arab world provides a chance for a new start. I hope we will have some tough, honest conversations on all sides about what went wrong - as a starting point for a new and more hopeful trajectory.

The Muslim Brotherhood has often used the slogan, "Islam is the solution". And to the West, the unstated feeling upon looking across the bleak Middle East landscape has often been: "Islam is the problem".

Prof Kuran's research suggests that, at least looking forward, the more correct view is: Islam is not the problem and it is not the solution, it is simply a religion - meaning that the break is over, there are no excuses and it is time to move forward again. THE NEW YORK TIMES

Nicholas D Kristof is a two-time Pulitzer Prize winner.

Degrees of deception?

Mar 9, 2011
 
By Paul Krugman

IT IS a truth universally acknowledged that education is the key to economic success. Everyone knows that the jobs of the future will require ever higher levels of skill. That's why, in an appearance last Friday with former Florida governor Jeb Bush, US President Barack Obama declared that 'if we want more good news on the jobs front then we've got to make more investments in education'.

But what everyone knows is wrong.

The day after the Obama-Bush event, the New York Times published an article about the growing use of software to perform legal research. Computers, it turns out, can quickly analyse millions of documents, cheaply performing a task that used to require armies of lawyers and paralegals. In this case, then, technological progress is actually reducing the demand for highly educated workers.

And legal research isn't an isolated example. As the article points out, software has also been replacing engineers in such tasks as chip design. More broadly, the idea that modern technology eliminates only menial jobs, that well-educated workers are clear winners, may dominate popular discussion, but it's actually decades out of date.

The fact is that since 1990 or so the US job market has been characterised not by a general rise in the demand for skill, but by 'hollowing out': both high-wage and low-wage employment have grown rapidly, but medium-wage jobs - the kinds of jobs we count on to support a strong middle class - have lagged behind. And the hole in the middle has been getting wider: many of the high-wage occupations that grew rapidly in the 1990s have seen much slower growth recently, even as growth in low-wage employment has accelerated.

Why is this happening? The belief that education is becoming ever more important rests on the plausible-sounding notion that advances in technology increase job opportunities for those who work with information - loosely speaking, that computers help those who work with their minds, while hurting those who work with their hands.

Some years ago, however, the economists David Autor, Frank Levy and Richard Murnane argued that this was the wrong way to think about it. Computers, they pointed out, excel at routine tasks, 'cognitive and manual tasks that can be accomplished by following explicit rules'.

Therefore, any routine task - a category that includes many white-collar, non-manual jobs - is in the firing line. Conversely, jobs that can't be carried out by following explicit rules - a category that includes many kinds of manual labour, from truck drivers to janitors - will tend to grow even in the face of technological progress.

And here's the thing: Most of the manual labour still being done in the US economy seems to be of the kind that's hard to automate. Notably, with production workers in manufacturing down to about 6 per cent of US employment, there aren't many assembly-line jobs left to lose. Meanwhile, quite a lot of white-collar work currently carried out by well-educated, relatively well-paid workers may soon be computerised. Roombas are cute, but robot janitors are a long way off; computerised legal research and computer-aided medical diagnosis are already here.

And then there's globalisation. Once, only manufacturing workers needed to worry about competition from overseas, but the combination of computers and telecommunications has made it possible to provide many services at long range. And research by my Princeton University colleagues Alan Blinder and Alan Krueger suggests that high-wage jobs performed by highly educated workers are, if anything, more 'offshorable' than jobs done by low-paid, less-educated workers. If they're right, growing international trade in services will further hollow out the US job market.

So what does all this say about policy?

Yes, we need to fix American education. In particular, the inequalities Americans face at the starting line - bright children from poor families are less likely to finish college than much less able children of the affluent - aren't just an outrage; they represent a huge waste of the nation's human potential.

But there are things education can't do. In particular, the notion that putting more kids through college can restore the middle-class society America used to have is wishful thinking. It's no longer true that having a college degree guarantees that you'll get a good job, and it's becoming less true with each passing decade.

So if Americans want a society of broadly shared prosperity, education isn't the answer - they'll have to go about building that society directly. The US needs to restore the bargaining power that labour has lost over the last 30 years, so that ordinary workers as well as superstars have the power to bargain for good wages. The US needs to guarantee the essentials, above all health care, to every citizen.

What Americans can't do is get where they need to go just by giving workers college degrees, which may be no more than tickets to jobs that don't exist or don't pay middle-class wages.

NEW YORK TIMES