The Walmart Strikes

Barry Eidlin, Guest Blogger

For the past two decades, retail giant Walmart has served as a model for corporate America to emulate. Now, by forcing unions to break out of old habits, its workers might be showing the way forward for labor.

Walmart stores and critical parts of its distribution chain have been hit by a series of strikes in recent weeks. These strikes are remarkable for three reasons. First, the workers involved have no union protection. While their strikes are technically legal, they are taking huge risks by walking out. Second, many are not technically employed by Walmart. Rather, they work for a variety of sub-contractors that Walmart can replace at will. Third, despite items one and two, these workers are winning, and the strikes seem to be spreading.

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How to Boost the Credibility of the International Monetary Fund

Robert H. Wade and Jakob Vestergaard, Guest Bloggers

The International Monetary Fund staff and delegates gathered in Tokyo for the Annual Meetings of the Fund and the World Bank have the Eurozone crisis as their biggest headache. But they also have to decide how to proceed with another equally obstinate issue that is even more important for the future of the Fund: the organization’s governance model. In April 2012 Brazil, China, India, Russia and South Africa (BRICS) agreed to commit another $75 bn of extra resources for the Fund, via a channel which did not increase their share of the votes. But in return they made it clear that they want substantial changes in Fund governance, including a larger share of votes on the executive board.

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The G20 has served its purpose and should be replaced with a Global Economic Council on a firmer constitutional foundation

Robert Wade and Jakob Vestergaard, Guest Bloggers

In 1999, in the wake of the East Asian financial crisis, the US Treasury and the German finance ministry chose another 12 states to join the existing G7 as a new G20 of “systemically important” countries to forge agreements on global economic and financial issues. Otherwise, the G7 states calculated, they would be like the captain of a ship who stands at the wheel moving it from side to side, knowing that the wheel was not connected to the rudder. Of the newcomers, 11 were developing countries.   So the formation of the G20 represented a significant expansion of country representation at the top table of global economic governance.

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Future of the Euro: The Elephants in the Room

Robert Wade, Guest Blogger

In all the debate about the future of the euro two big, obvious points are often overlooked. I was reminded of them reading Financial Times columnist John Plender, “Only the weakest will triumph in euro battle”,  September 8th 2012. He said, rightly, “We forget the mutual nature of the creditor-debtor relationship at our peril.” But he went on to obscure this mutuality by focussing only on the transfers from Germany/North  to southern Europe to keep the euro going.

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Poor Representation in the World Bank

Shelley Marshall and Sanjay Pinto, guest bloggers

On Friday, August 10, 2012, in a move that can be seen at least in part as an attempt to counterbalance the selection of an American, Jim Yong Kim, as head of the Word Bank, Jin-Yong Cai, a Chinese national, was announced as the CEO and Executive Vice President of the International Finance Corporation, the Bank’s private lending arm. Two strong developing country contenders—Jose Antonio Ocampo of Colombia, and Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala of Nigeria—had been in the running for the Bank’s top leadership post, and President Obama had earlier mentioned former Brazilian President “Lula” as a strong potential candidate. Many were critical, then, when the US monopoly over the position was maintained.

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How not to manage capital flows: the IMF guide for developing countries

Daniela Gabor, guest blogger

In 2010, the development community sighed in collective relief as the IMF reconsidered its long-standing rejection of capital controls. Development agendas, it was hoped, would hence be pursued without the well-known disruptions caused by large and volatile capital inflows. And since foreign crises now come through capital rather than trade flows, developing countries could draw on the IMF’s expertise to avoid global financial volatility and contain sudden-stops.

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Spotlight G-20: Grain Reserves and the Food Price Crisis

Sophia Murphy, guest blogger

With the U.S. government announcement last week that this year’s corn crop is expected to be much smaller due to an extended drought, agricultural commodity markets are yet again headed for high and unstable prices this summer. Is the world better prepared for the shortfall then it was in 2007? Certainly, the United States is not. To cite agricultural journalist Alan Guebert:

Indeed, according to CCC (Commodity Credit Corporation), there is not one teaspoon of sugar, one pound of peanuts, one slice of butter, one wheel of cheese, one bushel of wheat or even one chickpea in USDA’s pantry. CCC has nothing—nada, zip, goose egg—to release into the marketplace to slow or moderate what’s certain to be fast-climbing food prices in the coming months.

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Spotlight G-20: Grain Reserves and the Food Price Crisis

Sophia Murphy, guest blogger

With the U.S. government announcement last week that this year’s corn crop is expected to be much smaller due to an extended drought, agricultural commodity markets are yet again headed for high and unstable prices this summer. Is the world better prepared for the shortfall then it was in 2007? Certainly, the United States is not. To cite agricultural journalist Alan Guebert:

Indeed, according to CCC (Commodity Credit Corporation), there is not one teaspoon of sugar, one pound of peanuts, one slice of butter, one wheel of cheese, one bushel of wheat or even one chickpea in USDA’s pantry. CCC has nothing—nada, zip, goose egg—to release into the marketplace to slow or moderate what’s certain to be fast-climbing food prices in the coming months.

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Spotlight G-20 & Rio+20: Challenges of sustainable development: beyond the G20 and Rio +20 Summits

Alejandro Chanona, guest blogger

The 1992 Rio Declaration identifies the “right to development” as the synthesis of existing human rights, such as the right to a proper life, to higher levels of health, education, housing, job and food. However, there is a big gap between states’ discourse in support of sustainable development and the well-being of the individual and the actions and commitments needed to achieve them.

The fundamental problem is that, since 1992, there was an attempt to implement an ideal model of development (sustainable development) without changing the dominant economic paradigm. Quite to the contrary: that paradigm became more deeply entrenched. The redefinition of global development since the 1987 Brundtland Report and the 1992 Earth Summit, which is the context for the Millennium Goals, coincided with the most speculative handling of the economy and its securitization, creating a contradiction that persists until today.

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Spotlight G-20 & Rio+20: Challenges of sustainable development: beyond the G20 and Rio +20 Summits

Alejandro Chanona, guest blogger

The 1992 Rio Declaration identifies the “right to development” as the synthesis of existing human rights, such as the right to a proper life, to higher levels of health, education, housing, job and food. However, there is a big gap between states’ discourse in support of sustainable development and the well-being of the individual and the actions and commitments needed to achieve them.

The fundamental problem is that, since 1992, there was an attempt to implement an ideal model of development (sustainable development) without changing the dominant economic paradigm. Quite to the contrary: that paradigm became more deeply entrenched. The redefinition of global development since the 1987 Brundtland Report and the 1992 Earth Summit, which is the context for the Millennium Goals, coincided with the most speculative handling of the economy and its securitization, creating a contradiction that persists until today.

Read the rest of this entry »