The past month: in absentia

I’ve been working solidly on the dissertation for the past month or so, and as regular readers will have noticed, posts have been few. I had planned on properly writing up all the interesting things that have been going on but instead, I’m going to go down the easier/lazier link-dump path of giving a quick overview – it’s just too much info to get through any other way.

The head of the FSA seems to have come out in favour of a Tobin Tax – cue lots of debate. Interesting stuff – From Davos to Seattle has broadly favoured Tobin’s idea, but it’s good to see some proper discussion about it (both pro- and anti-) in contemporary circumstances.

Timothy Adams and Arrigo Sadun reckon a ‘global economic council should oversee all’. Again, this blog is more or less in favour of a stronger global economimc architecture. The devil’s in the detail and it would be good to have a little more of that.

Arvind Subramanian thinks that ‘India should push for a radical reorientation of the World Bank, so that it undertakes less traditional lending to governments and focuses more on financing global public goods, especially relating to R&D in climate change, tropical agriculture, and diseases.’

Owen Barder takes the time to remind us just how big Africa is. (Africa is really big.) Check it out:

What else? Oh, yeah: Doha’s going nowhere. Or is it? Hmm. Pesky regional and bilateral agreements are part of the problem (true). ICTSD reports on ‘parallel and alternative paths’, which make me nervous, instictually. I tend to feel that the more complex the system, the more scope for abuse. One rule, one law. Too simplistic? Maybe. India wants services. (India wants a lot of things.) Also, perhaps it’s time to deliver on duty-free, quota-free market access for the world’s poorest countries. But, then, when wasn’t it time to do that? There’s a reason it hasn’t happened so far. It’s ok, like Gramsci, I’m a pessimist of the intellect, but an optimist of the will.

In other WTO news, the Boeing-Airbus dispute has been ruled upon. Rumour is they found for the US, which figures. But the ruling’s over a thousand pages, so I think I’ll leave it to others to get stuck into the detail.

This has been a lazy post and for that I apologise. Better writing forthcoming, hopefully.

June service notice

I will be guest blogging at Global Dashboard throughout June.

The return of the bancor? Chinese ascendancy and the global monetary system

I have an editorial at e-International Relations entitled The return of the bancor? Chinese ascendancy and the global monetary system.

Established in Nov 2007 by students from Oxford, Leicester and LSE, e-International Relations (e-IR) is an independent, student-run website for people who are interested in international politics.

One more G20 postscript: the death of Ian Tomlinson

Essential viewing: a video hosted by The Guardian, showing the police assault of Ian Tomlinson shortly before he died.

The footage can be viewed here.

A G20 roundup

The London Summit

Alex Evans at Global Dashboard is reporting on the current state of negotiations at the summit and all-round good egg Adam Groves interviews Mr Billy Bragg in the City of London. While just about every respectable politician in the world is sounding off about the importance of avoiding protectionism (with their fingers crossed), a contrarian Noreena Hertz in The Times calls for protectionism. Though, on that note, prospects for Doha are predictably bleak.

The crisis and the developing world

Jeremy Seabrook thinks Gandhi had the right idea (he really didn’t).The FT has a nice supplement on the the financial crisis in Africa and the UK is boosting foreign aid (a bit).

Global governance

There’s some big academic thinking from Saskia Sassen at oD about a world economy powered by finance. Stiglitz et al. at the UN are arguing for the G20 to be replaced by a Global Economic Council, while the Sec-Gen is afraid of total meltdown. On the subject of disaster, we should apparently be expecting a ‘”perfect storm” of food energy and water shortages’ sometime before 2030. More broadly, Timothy Garton Ash highlights the G2 (US and China) in the light of the EU’s failure to work cohesively. The New Statesman, on similar lines, believes that ‘no-one rules the world’ and CEPR welcomes us to a truly multi-polar state of affairs.

Shift happens

So, I realise there are other things happening right now, but being as it’s a little early to be effectively talking about the G20 action, I thought I’d post this video. Keep things in perspective.

What the world needs from the London Summit

I have an op-ed at the International Affairs Forum entitled ‘What the world needs from the London Summit: moving beyond half-measures’.

The International Affairs Forum is run by the Center for International Relations, a nonprofit, tax exempt (501(c)3) organization based in the Washington, D.C. area unaffiliated with any group or ideology. It is devoted to the independent exchange of international affairs, intelligence and economics views and information.

The Financial Times – 2020

Check out what the FT might be looking like in 2020, according to… well, hard to say actually, but they follow in the tradition of The Yes Men.

See the full pdf edition for more.

On NGOs and big ideas

Further to my critique of the WDM (and by extension, NGOs in general) last week, I’d like to highlight the ongoing dispute (if that’s not too strong a word) between Alex Evans at Global Dashboard and the Put People First coalition. Evans calls on NGOs to ‘raise their game’:

they fall into the trap of failing to endorse the big ideas while failing to put forward alternatives of their own – as if confirm their belief, as [George] Monbiot suggests, that “slogans are a substitute for policies”…

they still have powerful resources; and their positioning gives them a platform to engage with the right issues.

But this will only work if their policy positions stop being so lowest common denominator – and start asking the biggest questions, tackling the most political global issues head-on, and above all taking some risks. Come on, NGOs: get your act together.  We need you.

Of course, NGOs aren’t political parties and they shouldn’t be expected to act like it. Nonetheless, there is a real hunger for these organisations to be offering something more substantial than they already are, even (or perhaps especially) if that means demanding more commitment from their core supporters.

My reading list – the G20, financial crisis and more

I’m obscenely busy at the moment, so the best I can do is what all lazy bloggers do: post a list of what I’ve been reading (or trying to find the time to read) lately.

• Bretton Woods Non-Commission – CGD
• The better part of valour – Economist
• A summit for stimulus – Times
• Free trade is the gateway to recovery – Times
• A message from Africa – Guardian
• Why saving the world economy should be affordable – FT
• The market is destructive. That’s its point – Times
• Trade Barriers Could Threaten Global Economy – Washington Post
• Protectionism on Rise in 17 of the G20 – World Bank Report – WSJ
• BRICs Show New Influence at G20 Finance Ministers Meeting – ICTSD
• US, EU, Quizzed on Farm Subsidies, Other Trade Measures – ICTSD
• Global crisis ‘to strike by 2030′ – BBC
• Political will for IMF reform is lacking – FT
• Guadeloupe: Obscure Key to World Crisis – Immanuel Wallerstein
• BRIC Countries’ Joint Communique – Global Policy Forum
• A Liberal Translation – New York Times
• The Big Takeover – Rolling Stone
• G20 Finance Ministers’ and Central Bank Governors’ Communiqué – via BBC

Yergin and Stanislaw’s Commanding Heights

This is just a quick post to highlight a resource that I found very useful when preparing for my studies. Commanding Heights: The Battle for the World Economy is a documentary (and a before that, a book) by Daniel Yergin and Joseph Stanislaw. It comes from a strictly liberal, even neoliberal, Americocentric and globalist point of view and whilst I’d have liked to have seen more coverage of alternative thought, Commanding Heights is nonetheless an excellent introduction to political economy over the last century. Best of all, the entire series is available online from PBS. The website also includes a wide range of additional resources. If you want to understand the background to current debates over globalisation and the ideological perspectives that shape the ongoing response to the global financial crisis, this series is a very accessible way to do so.

G20 ‘wishlist’ toy

For those of us following the lead-up to the G20 summit on 2 April (sadly, my workload means I probably won’t be going to any of the peripheral events after all), the FT has a rather exciting ‘interactive’ gadget which outlines the interests and conflicting preferences among the Group’s members that will largely determine the outcome of the summit. Incidentally, discussing the meeting with colleagues today, I was interested to note that—like me—everyone was profoundly agnostic as to whether the summit will result in anything very substantive, or any radical change. That’s not to say we’re doubting it, but rather that we really have no idea at all…

Why aid is to blame…

I’d just like to link to Aida Edemariam’s interview with Dambisa Moyo, discussing Moyo’s belief that development aid to Africa is actually counterproductive and must be stopped. Key quote:

More than $1 trillion has been sent to Africa over the last 50 years. And what has it all achieved? She wants to know. “Between 1970 and 1998, when aid flows to Africa were at their peak, poverty in Africa rose from 11% to a staggering 66%” – roughly 600 million of Africa’s billion people are now trapped in poverty. She would admit that aid has done some good on a local level, however her conclusion is uncompromising: “Aid has been, and continues to be, an unmitigated political, economic and humanitarian disaster for most parts of the developing world” – and Africa in particular, which is “shearing off. The rest of the world is going one direction, on one growth trajectory, and Africa is going completely in the opposite direction. And yet we sit around and discuss sending another $50bn dollars of aid? I mean, come on.”

Davos roundup

I’m currently mired in an attempt to reconcile postcolonialism and (neo)Gramscianism, so there will be no in-depth post-game analysis of the WEF, I’m afraid.

Here are a few links though:

• Davos finds no answers to crisis
• Lack of inspiration unites Davos delegates
• Acrimony dashes Doha hopes
• Brown: World Bank, IMF ‘out of date
• Elvis Has Left the Mountain

Photo by World Economic Forum, via Flickr (Creative Commons).

Davos: a primer by links

The World Economic Forum begins tomorrow.  I think this is a pretty good summary of what you need to know…

The FT has a preview here, while Nouriel Roubini sets the scene. There are some interesting non-attendees this year. On the other hand, the BBC has a ‘beginners’ guide’ for hypothetical new invitees, including such useful tips as ’some people swap their mountain boots for fancy shoes at the entrance, but most people don’t bother with carrying the extra luggage.’ (Barack Obama won’t be among the neophytes, as he is apparently somewhat busy at the moment.)

In terms of social media, excluding anything I mentioned in my WEF preview, the BBC has a dedicated Davos Twitter feed. Once it all gets rolling, check out the WEF’s own webcasts.

Altman on ‘The Great Crash’ of 2008

See Roger C. Altman’s article in the latest edition of Foreign Affairs. The premise is this:

The financial and economic crash of 2008, the worst in over 75 years, is a major geopolitical setback for the United States and Europe. Over the medium term, Washington and European governments will have neither the resources nor the economic credibility to play the role in global affairs that they otherwise would have played. These weaknesses will eventually be repaired, but in the interim, they will accelerate trends that are shifting the world’s center of gravity away from the United States.

The global financial crisis at the institutional level: an update via links

The Economist and the ICTSD note that despite G-20 promises, Russia and India are increasing industrial tariffs.

A Reuters report is sceptical of the seriousness with which Bretton Woods reform is being taken. DFID’s view is fairly predictable, not least because the Minister was addressing the CBI. The BBC’s Robert Peston has an extended piece on what he’s calling the ‘New Capitalism’.

E.F. Schumacher, according to a former Wall Street CEO

A former managing director of JPMorgan and ex-hegde fund CEO is not the kind of person that I’d naturally expect to be advocating the thinking of Fritz Schumacher. Yet that’s exactly what John Fullerton is doing at the rather excellent Share The World’s Resources. An extract:

Today we face two problems in our economic system.  The first is a cyclical credit driven contraction, which leaves the entire middle class vulnerable and the poor distressed and increasingly desperate.  The second problem is more profound.  So far, we are mostly focused on its symptoms, such as the increased awareness of climate change risk, water shortages, the collapse of whole fisheries, rising raw material prices led by oil, and now food scarcities as well.

However, these are only symptoms of the conflict between our growth driven economic system and the finite limits of the biosphere that are coming into clear focus.

We are at risk of being distracted by the current cyclical stresses in the financial system, which overshadow the more critical scale challenges we face.  Unfortunately, many of the remedies for the first problem will inevitably be in conflict with the difficult choices we face in addressing the second. When stimulating growth is the solution to cyclical downturns, yet this growth of our resource intensive global economy presses against known physical limits of the biosphere, a contradiction arises we cannot ignore.

Obama and trade

I had promised a pre-election post about Obama vs McCain on free trade. That never happened I’m sorry to say, but here are a couple of viewpoints on how President-Elect Obama’s trade policy seems to be shaping up.

• Becerra’s a bad choice for trade post (LA Times)
• Goolsbee Tries Selling the Pro-Trade Obama (IPE Zone)

The Rise of the Frugalista

I have an article at CounterCurrents entitled ‘The Rise of the Frugalista’.

www.countercurrents.org is an alternative news site. “We bring out what the mainstream media fails to tell you, or hides from you. These are the things that really matter. The things which may determine the fate of planet earth! The future of our children! In a word, the survival of the species!”