Getting growth from finance

IN the essays contributed to this space over time I have repeatedly emphasized the importance of developing institutions to promote economic progress. Capital investment, human skill development and technological improvement are important determinants of growth. But institutions also play an important part by reducing what economists call “transaction costs”. Since transactions among individuals, among businesses, between individuals and businesses, between government departments and agencies on the one side and individuals and businesses on the other underpin all economic activity, their cost influencing efficiency and economic growth.

Transaction costs are very high when an economy has a poor institutional base. They are low when institutions work well. A sound institutional base is defined by the way organizations in both public and private sectors are structured and the transparency and predictability of the rules that govern their operations. For that to happen organizations must operate within a legal framework that is transparent and efficient. That Pakistan’s economy today is far less efficient than was the case in the 1960s — the golden era in the country’s economic history — is largely the consequence of the collapse of the institutional base in the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s.

The close relationship between institutional strength and economic performance affects all sectors of the economy. But it is in finance that this relationship is of vital importance. Financial institutions such as commercial and investment banks, insurance companies and brokerage houses, stock and money markets, various types of regulatory agencies are needed to intermediate between those who have money to save and those who need money to invest. In underdeveloped economies savers and investors have a direct relationship with each other which results in high transactions costs and, consequently, a low rate of economic growth. In more developed economies, intermediation is done by institutions. These become more specialized as economies develop and modernize.

Recent cross-country empirical research carried out at the World Bank has demonstrated that sound and efficient financial intermediation leads to higher economic growth by as much as an increment of two percentage points annually. If the World Bank’s estimate is correct and holds also for Pakistan — a country that has seen a steady deterioration in its institutional base over the last three decades — a well performing financial system can increase the country’s sustainable growth by as much as 30 to 50 per cent a year, from the present anaemic rate of 3.5 per cent to a reasonably respectable five to 5.5 per cent a year.

This increase in growth can occur even without an increase in the rate of investment. This is an important finding for a resource-strapped country such as Pakistan. An increase in growth without a sharp increase in investment offers a way out of the low level equilibrium in which the economy has remained trapped for several years.

A strategy that focuses on institutional development to produce growth should distinguish between the institutions that can work their magic almost immediately and those that will produce results over a longer period of time. Financial institutions belong to the first category; institutions needed to improve the quality of human resource belong to the second category. If the government that took office in November of last year wants to revive growth — as it must to ensure its own longevity — it should focus its attention on creating a strong institutional base in the sector of finance.

A great deal of impressive work was done by the Musharraf government to strengthen and modernize the financial structure. Before handing over power to the new generation of politicians in the waning days of 2002, President Musharraf suggested that he would expect — perhaps also demand — that the civilian authorities continue with the reform programmes initiated by his economic team. The president is right in insisting on continuity. By changing course each time they assumed power, the nine regimes that held power in Islamabad in the fourteen-year period between 1985 and 1998 created an environment of uncertainty. Markets do not operate well in such a situation, in particular when uncertainty surrounds the working of the financial sector.

It is important, therefore, to build on the foundations that were laid in the 1999-2002 period. Will the politicians who have assumed power continue with the policies adopted by the administration of General Pervez Musharraf and continue to strengthen the economy’s financial base? Or, conversely, will the new set of politicians succumb to the temptation that persuaded their predecessors to use financial institutions for their personal benefit? We will get to answer these questions over time. For the moment some general observations drawn from Pakistan’s history are in order.

For a student of finance, Pakistan offers a good case study of what are good and bad institutional practices in the realm of finance. Before making some suggestions on the approach the Jamali government may wish to adopt — a subject I will pick up later in this series of articles — it would be helpful to delve a bit into the country’s history. It offers a number of important insights. At different points in time, Pakistan’s policy-makers emphasized the development of different parts of the financial system. The first priority was given to the creation of commercial banks but not in the public sector — as was done by a number of other developing countries once they gained independence — but, instead, in the private sector.

Mohammed Ali Jinnah, Pakistan’s founding father, realized the importance of financial intermediation while he was campaigning for the creation of a separate homeland for the Muslims of India. He persuaded a group of wealthy businessmen to establish a commercial bank that could serve the Indian Muslim community. His initiative resulted in the creation of Habib Bank. The bank played an important role in mobilizing funds from the Muslim community to finance the All-India Muslim League’s campaign for the establishment of Pakistan. Habib Bank also played an important role in channelling relief funds to the people hurt by repeated communal riots and violence that preceded the departure of the British from India.

After Pakistan was born, Habib Bank, at the urging of Governor-General Jinnah, moved its headquarters to Karachi, Pakistan’s first capital. With that move Pakistan laid the foundations for erecting a financial system. For quite a while Habib Bank was Pakistan’s premier commercial bank.

When Jinnah became Pakistan’s first governor-general, he turned his government’s attention towards creating another base for the financial system — a supervisory and regulatory structure. In the summer of 1948, a few months before his death, he spoke at a function to inaugurate the State Bank of Pakistan, the country’s central bank. By the summer of 1948 Jinnah was sick with a debilitating disease. That he should take the time to inaugurate the central bank shows his understanding of the importance of a well functioning regulatory apparatus as the base on which to erect a modern financial system. Without proper regulation and supervision, financial institutions can be captured by their owners whether they are private entrepreneurs or government bureaucrats. This is something Pakistan was to learn in the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s. By that time the country had already paid a heavy price. However, I am jumping ahead of the story.

Pakistan continued with the development of its financial sector in the fifties by establishing a development bank in the public sector to act as a catalyst for financing modern industries. The creation of the Pakistan Industrial Development Corporation (PIDC) was an important event in the evolution of Pakistan’s financial sector. This was the first development finance corporation (DFC) to be set up in the country. Its purpose was clearly articulated and well understood by the first generation of managers appointed to develop the institution. The PIDC was mandated to move capital into the sectors of the economy that, because of associated risks, could not attract private savings. However, the state’s catalytic role was to be performed only for a limited period of time — for as long as the private sector was unwilling or too shy to commit its resources into the sectors about which it had little knowledge. Once some level of comfort was achieved, the private sector would be allowed to obtain the assets the public sector had created.

In other words, “privatization” was built into the design of the PIDC and the institution remained committed to it. A number of enterprises established by the Corporation were ultimately sold to the private sector. The PIDC, in fact, helped create the industrial houses that were to dominate Pakistan’s economy in the 1960s — the houses that were to become the victims of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto’s political wrath in the early 1970s. We will return to that part of the story later.

The PIDC’s initial success under the dynamic leadership of Ghulam Faruque, its chairman, laid the ground for the creation of other DFCs. The PICIC (Pakistan Industrial and Commercial Investment Corporation) and IDBP (the Industrial Development Bank of Pakistan) were created to channel funds from the public to the private sector. The PICIC was entrusted with the task of financing the establishment of enterprises that needed large amounts of capital. The IDBP was mandated to encourage the development of medium-sized enterprises. Both were provided funding by the World Bank.

At that time, the World Bank was keen to promote industrial development by using institutional conduits for its own resources. The PIDC had provided public sector resources for setting up industrial enterprises in the public sector. PICIC and IDB were established to provide public money to private entrepreneurs. By taking this route and encouraging developing countries to follow it, institutions such as the World Bank sought to short-cut the normal process. Ordinarily, private sectors’ need for finance was met by private institutions with the government’s role confined to ensuring that the money put at the disposal of commercial and investment banks were not misused by their owners and managers.

This model was abandoned by the World Bank in favour of creating DFCs on the assumption that the development of a financial system by the private sector would take too long for industrialization to take place. Development practitioners in international organizations were people in great hurry. They could not wait for privately led financial development before industrialization could begin. The DFCs offered a way out.

Entrusting development to DFCs without a robust regulatory framework offered tremendous opportunities for corruption and misuse of public funds. Pakistan was not the only country to go down that slippery path. A number of other countries in the developing world fared equally poorly. However, before Pakistan saw the corruption of its economy by the misuse of financial institutions, it went through the period of Ayub Khan — to date the golden period in our economic history. We will deal with that part of history in the article next week.

Potential for progress

IT WAS indeed gracious on the part of General Pervez Musharraf and Atal Behari Vajpayee to restrain their itching fingers from pressing the red button during the tense summer months of last year. But the two countries have only made a temporary truce and taken a brief respite, so that they can recharge themselves for a fresh bout of chest-thumping at each other.

But at least for now there is one more opportunity to discover new approaches to peace before we get caught up once again in a storm of mutual hostility and hatred raging through two of the world’s most irrational neighbours.

India continues to remain deeply involved in fostering Hindu chauvinism at home and an anti-Pakistan tirade abroad. It suits the US to keep India locally engaged, while it assumes greater control of the more remunerative regions of the Middle East Gulf and Central Asia. India seems to have walked into the trap. It is so consumed by the passions of antipathy and ambitions of hegemony that it has failed to focus on the issues that would have meant much more to it in the longer run — building peace in the region, developing friendly relations with neighbours, and working towards an alliance of South Asian countries.

Pakistan has the potential of becoming a perfectly normal, civilized and prosperous country. Why, then, does it continue to stay frozen in time? Why has it increasingly volunteered to hand over levers of power to a decadent clergy, tribal warlords and the state militia? Why has it developed such a lop-sided world view, and assumed the role of a self-appointed drum-beater of an illusionary Ummah?

It simply fails to see the recycled religious doctrines and the patronizing treatment that it receives from the so-called Ummah represented by some of the most backward and undemocratic dynasty-ruled kingdoms. It is ironic that Pakistan spends all its energies in trying to liberate others, while it has failed to liberate itself from the stranglehold of a triad of feudals, tribal chieftains and religious obscurantists — all in alliance with an interventionist army.

It has created a turf where everyone else can score runs except its own people. Its shots are now called by an unholy triangular league of mediaeval mullas, military men and intelligence agencies. The trio succeeded in creating circumstances that led to the destruction of Afghanistan. With little realization of today’s reality and no perception of tomorrow’s possibilities, it is now bent on repeating exactly the same scenario on this side of the Durand Line. Just as Mulla Omar and Osama bin Laden conveniently disappeared after pushing Afghanistan deep into trouble, their Pakistani counterparts and imitators too will perform a similar disappearing act when they have done their worst.

In the second incident of crossfiring within this week, Pakistani and US troops exchanged heavy fire in a tribal area on the Pakistan-Afghan border. A 500-pound bomb was dropped near a Pakistani border post. One does not need any great prescience to predict events in the days to come. With security forces that cannot safely escort a group of prisoners from one place to another, a police force that is itself deeply involved in criminal activities, and a judiciary that is too scared to punish terrorists, Pakistan treads on a very slippery slope.

Gen Musharraf, our home-grown Ataturk, has now opted for the cushy assignment of attending ceremonies and making speeches. The recycled politicians, many of whom have shady backgrounds, can only add to the nation’s travails. Two provinces are ruled by zealots whose past achievements include creating movements like those of the Taliban and Mulla Omar. The world they live in continues to revolve round issues like female dress, male beards, wine, music and doubting the credentials of everyone who does not subscribe to their brand of religion.

The time for unrealistic optimism and well-meaning good wishes seems to have finally come to an end. Pakistan needs to undertake a fair amount of re-engineering if it wishes to change the course of history for itself. Many of these initiatives must come from no one but the army itself. The military must voluntarily step aside from the mainstream, and go back to perform its original function of defending the country against external aggression. The majors and colonels of the intelligence agencies must stop being arbiters of supreme national interests. Our desire to own and rule Kashmir must be evaluated against the fact that we have no right to make the same mess in Kashmir that we have made in our own country. The best we can do is to leave Kashmir to the Kashmiris and refrain from allowing our homegrown militants to infiltrate into that troubled area. Countries that cannot govern themselves properly should not aspire to rule a wider territory.

As it is, the state’s writ does not run throughout Pakistan and certainly none in most of the NWFP and Balochistan at the moment. The state must insist on having one legal system throughout the country, and do away with all extra-constitutional law-giving bodies, jirgas and panchayats that operate all over the country. A “panchayat” in Punjab ordering the gang rape of Mukhtaran Mai, the Orakzai tribe invoking a law of its own to demolish the house of anyone taking a photograph, and a FATA MNA ordering the burning of television sets — these are just a few of the aberrations enjoying the same force as the law of the land.

It is also time for Pakistan to close its jihadi factories, and put an end to militancy of all kinds which are a threat to civil society. It is more in the interest of Pakistan and less in the interest of the US to make sure that the Afghan militants and terrorists on the run do not take refuge in the tribal belt of Pakistan.

Pakistan needs to separate religion from the functioning of the state. It needs to have the courage to stop paying lip service to its founding father and instead do what he asked us to do. Much against his wishes, we have reduced Pakistan to an obscurantist theocratic state in which ignorant mullas decide issues ranging from foreign policy to the sighting of the moon. The state and the mullas are a party to the hundreds of jail sentences awarded each year under the cover of the blasphemy or Hudood laws. All such laws must be expunged from the statute books if there is to be a tolerant, civil and rational society in Pakistan.

It is time for India and Pakistan to make peace, reduce their conventional armies, and work together to contain poverty and deprivations amongst their teeming millions. The path to progress and prosperity cannot be followed while the two major subcontinent neighbours remain mutually antagonistic.

No end to madness

IN all the years that I worked for PIA, too many in retrospect, my worst nightmare was that one of our big birds would drop from the skies. PIA’s safety record was a good one but no airline in the world could rule out the unexpected. I dealt with two major accidents, the one at Cairo and the other at Taif. The Cairo accident was the more mystifying and the cause of that accident remains unresolved.

Along with the late Mr. Rauf, the then DGCA and Captain Shaukat Khan, PIA’s Director of Flight Operations, I had gone to Cairo to put the final touches on the accident report and draft the press release. The Egyptian government was anxious that no blame was attached to its Air Traffic Control and PIA was just as anxious that it was cleared of any negligence. We spent two tough days going through the fine print of the press release.

It is interesting that we never considered that sabotage might have caused the crash. Back in 1965, the world was a relative sane place. Yet consider how the facts would stack up in the present-day paranoia. A year earlier, PIA had started its services to People’s Republic of China, in the teeth of fierce opposition of the United States. The Cairo flight had on board a Chinese delegation that was on its way to Tanzania. It was an inaugural flight, a major air link between Pakistan and the Middle East. Imagine how the present-day television networks, BBC, CNN, Fox News and other purveyors of truth would have feasted on the story.

I write this in the context of the crash of a commuter plane shortly after takeoff from Charlotte Douglas International Airport in North Carolina which killed all 21 people on board. The aircraft was a Beech 1900 turboprop operated by Air Midwest. I first learnt of the accident through CNN as part of its Breaking News, a highly dramatic switch-off, switch on that puts the fear of God in all the viewers, like a sort of ‘the end of the world is nigh’ announcement.

The airport director or an equivalent was being grilled by the media and representatives of the FBI were present. Three workers on the ground had apparently disappeared and we held our breath. Had the terrorists struck? The three workers were later accounted for and the Transportation Security Administration, which has taken charge of aviation security after 9/11 sounded an all-clear by stating that no security issue was involved. While there is always regret at a loss of lives, there was relief that there can still be an air accident for non-terrorism reasons. In the meanwhile, the British police have launched an urgent hunt for deadly racine after traces of the poison were found in a dinghy suburb, heightening fears of a chemical terror campaign across Europe. Some North Africans have been arrested. “What this demonstrates is that there is a threat from international terrorism,” said a spokesman for Prime Minister Tony Blair.

The world has indeed changed after 9/11. Now our lives are stalked with fear, a fear of the unknown that we vaguely describe as “terrorism.” Immediately after 9/11, Al Qaeda was seen as a tangible enemy whose mastermind was Osama Bin Laden. It was assumed that Al Qaeda was headquartered in Afghanistan and the United States and its coalition partners duly launched an invasion of Afghanistan, routed the Taliban and effected a regime change.

There were initial reports that Osama bin Laden had been killed, followed by reports that he may be still alive until there was a stalemate of a “we don’t know.” But by then, Saddam Hussain had entered the frame. Saddam Hussain remains public enemy number one but could easily be upstaged by Kim Jong Il of North Korea who adorned last week’s Time magazine cover with the taunting question: “Is he more dangerous than Saddam?”

Will we start yearning for the days and years of the Cold War? Then we knew who the enemy was and there was always James Bond to deal with it.

As if all this was not enough, Pakistan and India are raising their voices once again and the United States has described the tension between the two countries as more dangerous than the scariest period during the Cold War. And there is this cross-border barrage of statements. Two rich countries whose people are desperately poor on a course of mutual destruction. It probably will not happen for the defiance being shown is meant for domestic audiences but this is a crazy world and matters can spin out of control.

There seems to be no end to the madness. What is this impulse that is driving the world to its destruction? On how many fronts can a war be waged? No sooner has one enemy been identified then another one emerges. The United Nations Monitoring Group calls Al Qaeda an “insidious mass movement,” a chilling description. Equally chilling are the means being adopted to combat it, fighting fear with fear, leaving us all frightened, in each case, the remedy is worse than the disease, smart bombs in the hands of not so smart people the only prize a victory of the dying over the dead. No hope, no peace, just a seeming death-wish.

Helping the convicted

THIS year more inmates will be getting out of prison than ever before in this country — about 615,000, more than triple the typical annual number in the 1980s. Though no one warned the offenders, it is also less likely than before that they will be able to go home, or get a job, or do many of the things people with limited resources need to do to reintegrate into normal life.

Criminologists call it “invisible sentencing”. During the 1990s, dozens of federal and state laws were enacted prohibiting former prisoners from a range of activities. Federal law bars them from living in public housing. People convicted of drug offenses can never receive welfare or food stamps.

In many states they are barred from voting, or from working in dozens of jobs that provide many of the decent tickets to the middle class: plumbing, teaching, private security, haircutting. At the time these laws were passed, mostly as amendments to bills such as welfare reform, they seemed to be political winners: cost-free, advertised as deterrents to crime and provided as a public service. Public housing residents didn’t want drug dealers cycling back. Many of the restrictions were enacted with little dissent from either party.

But in retrospect, they don’t seem so wise. For one thing, they produce absurd human dilemmas. A man is released from prison and shows up at his mother’s door, the only place he can still call home. She now has to choose between making her son homeless and getting evicted.

At the time when society was concentrating on building prisons and locking people up, it was difficult to imagine what that policy would produce at the other end. Now we know: Something of an ex-con nation has developed, with about 5 million men who have served time in prison.

Lately there are signs of regret. Some states are reversing their decisions to deny convicted felons the right to vote. The American Bar Association just adopted guidelines calling for states to reveal post-prison consequences at plea-bargain and sentencing hearings, so everyone knows what to expect. — The Washington Post

Riding roughshod over law & morality: A New Year’s letter to my students-II

YES, my heart responds, and in responding hears the echo of Robert Kennedy, like his brother John Kennedy assassinated (like Gandhi, like King), who said in 1968, “Some men see things as they are and ask ‘Why?’ I dream things that never were and ask, ‘Why not?’” Why not live with less limitations on women, the poor, the different?

But if there are boundaries that should be permeable, lines whose transgression we should encourage and applaud, there are other boundaries that we need to acknowledge and maintain. Boundaries that should not be transgressed. Rules of human behaviour. When I was your age, I was impatient when asked to acknowledge this. I was impatient with the conservatism of those older than myself, and rightly so. Hadn’t previous generations given America slavery and then segregation, weren’t the ‘mature’ generals bringing both Americans and Vietnamese a devastating war on South-east Asia? Aren’t such atrocities done in the name of protecting boundaries of one sort or another? They are.

Still, I see today what I could not see so clearly when I was young. Some boundaries and rules protect us from ourselves, from the dark forces which, whether we like to admit it or not, are an uneasy part of human nature. Some of those rules define what is called ‘civilized behaviour’. As I acknowledged earlier, all too often what is deemed ‘civilized’ is merely a limitation on those who are different. We need to question, and often challenge, those rules and boundaries. Still, and this is part of what being a student is all about, some boundaries on human behaviour make life better for all people, and it must be our business, even as we question all things, to have the honesty to recognize that there can be boundaries that support and defend human existence, and to identify which they are.

One of the boundaries which I strongly believe protects us all is the one which acknowledges that a nation must not attack another nation. If we are attacked, we have a right to defend ourselves — which is why, at the moment, I think pacifism has its limits. But we — and I speak not just of Americans here, but of all nations — should not attack other nations.

Yet the newly enunciated Bush doctrine overthrows this principle that no nation should attack another unless it has itself been attacked first. It overthrows the civilized boundary that ensures that every nation has a right to live in peace. It ignores the ethical understanding that offensive first strikes are wrong, and likewise ignores the practical understanding that beginning a conflict is often an irrevocable step towards expanded war and massive destruction.

“Pre-emptive action” is the name of the new national security policy of the United States. It provides what Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld and Rice need: a justification for the president’s impending attack on Iraq. It introduces a whole new set of values into the post-modern world. For if we in the United States can declare that attacking first is justified, then other nations can as well. Russia can go into Georgia chasing Chechen rebels. China can go into Taiwan. Either Pakistan or India can cross the border to secure the entirety of the currently divided Kashmir for themselves. Egypt can go into Israel — or Israel into Egypt.

I fear that once the policy of pre-emptive action is put into practice, the world will be a lot more dangerous than now. It makes me profoundly sad to foresee you living in a world where war is more likely to break out, rather than less. Poet Robert Lowell wrote in 1965, at the beginning of the American war in Vietnam:

Pity the planet, all joy gone from this sweet volcanic cone; peace to our children when they fall in small war on the heels of small war — until the end of time.

He was prescient. In the last forty years our globe has had small war on the heels of small war, with huge casualties — casualties largely invisible to the rest of the world beyond the region where destruction rages. But if the United States attacks Iraq, current diplomatic and ethical boundaries, even if they operate poorly today, will henceforth be totally breached. Our globe can look forward to more wars, with even less to restrain nations from unleashing violence upon one another.

I do not mean to minimize the current situation in Iraq. President Saddam Hussein is a tyrant and a bully; worse, if he develops weapons of mass destruction he could well deploy them with less restraint than one has a right to expect from nations and their leaders. He presents a threat to his region, and to some extent, the world. In response the United Nations is taking that threat seriously. This is as it should be.

It is not the place of the United States to make war on Iraq. Unhappily, that war has already begun. In the name of ‘enforcing the no-fly zone’, the United States has been bombing Iraqi military targets. A recent newspaper story reported that “instead of hitting anti-aircraft and missile batteries, the usual targets in a decade of patrols, the American aviators and their British counterparts now more often strike [at] Iraqi command bunkers, communications stations and radar directing the attacks. Those costly, hard-to-repair facilities are essential to Iraq’s air defence.”

Meanwhile, a huge military build-up is taking place, of troops, aircraft carriers, ships, planes, material. Every indication points to a joint American and British attack shortly after the UN inspectors, led by Hans Blix, make their first report. No matter what that report says. No matter whether the UN authorizes an incursion in the name of world security, or not.

The central concern of education is to enable us to live a good and humane life. It is not enough to read books, take examinations, prepare for a career. You must constantly ask — and develop resources to make your questions rigorous — what is required of you: required by history, by your obligations to the people you live amongst, by the people with whom you share the globe.

So transfixed has our nation become by the spectre of terror that we do not sufficiently question, openly and publicly, what an American ‘pre-emptive action’ against Iraq will mean, and whether it is a good idea.

This is no time to remain silent, which is why I have written to you as 2003 commences. If the New Year is to bring peace and not war, you will have to step forward and tell your fellow citizens, and the nation what you think is right. The future is, quite literally, in your hands.

I know this is a large responsibility. But that is what democracy means. You have a role to play, an active role in shaping not just the future of our American society, but the world. History is watching, as are the nations beyond our borders.

Question this impending war. Is it necessary? Is it just? What might its consequences be? And when you have come up with tentative answers — and, as your teacher, I acknowledge that your answers might not be the same as mine — act on what you have learned.

With respect,

Huck

The writer teaches at the University of Vermont, US

Golf clubs and guns

ONE of the more intriguing questions so early in this new year is the social impact of the decision by historic arms maker Smith & Wesson to manufacture golf clubs. It may be a protective diversity deal, like cigarette makers adding a beer brewery. Business skeptics foresee a titanic $1.3-billion struggle over clubs in a market where finicky players wearing hats with no tops seem more impressed by product performance than brand names. Golf clubs and guns do have striking similarities.

Both are forged. Both can be weapons. Both involve dispatching a small projectile rapidly toward a target where it enters — or makes — a hole. And both items have at times been thrown into nearby lakes.

This simple business decision could completely change a sedate game that requires an appointment for a long walk on grass. Who gets the best start times — the first caller or someone known to use a snub-nosed sand wedge? Ponder the possibilities of golfers in shorts striding down gravel paths after a depressing bogey, packing Smith & Wessons. Will anyone argue about who tees up first?

Golf has tradition and decaying protocols that require, for instance, slower players inviting faster players from behind to play through. But who gets to play through — a .44-magnum three-wood or a titanium J-frame, .38-caliber iron?

A golf course arms race has pluses. Safety is one. Golf clubs are less likely than guns to go off during cleaning. Freed from the mannerly constraints of deferring to fellow players over, say, the farthest lie, reality TV golf could exploit the commercial and ratings potential of unpredictable confrontations at the eighth green.

Other questions remain: Should we require registration of Smith & Wesson clubs? Golf club locks? Will there be cheap Saturday morning specials? Will they add telescopic sights for par fives? —The Washington Post