August » 2012 » TripleCrisis

The Republicans’ Medicaid Cruelty

“The essential American soul,” claimed D.H. Lawrence, “is hard, isolate, stoic, and a killer.” While the rejection by five state governments of the Affordable Care Act’s Medicaid expansion may not precisely illustrate Lawrence’s heated observation, it does suggest a contemporary vein of cruelty in America that is deeply disturbing.

A new study published in The New England Journal of Medicine shows that providing greater medical insurance coverage for the poor has saved lives. Moreover, the ACA’s expansion of Medicaid requires little state money, since the federal government will pick up more than 90 percent of the costs over time, and 100 percent of the costs for the first few years. Yet Texas, Florida, Louisiana, South Carolina, and Mississippi—which together account for more than a sixth of the overall US population—have already rejected the plan, and as many as twenty other states, including New Jersey, Missouri, Iowa, Nebraska, and Nevada, have indicated they may follow suit.

Read the rest of this entry »

When battered people took on the pesticide industry

Sunita Narain

Today, I want to tell you a true story of extraordinary courage. The past week, I was in Kasaragod, a district in Kerala, splendid in beauty and with abundant natural resources, but destroyed by the toxic chemical, endosulfan. The pesticide was aerially sprayed over cashew plantations, for some 20 years, in complete disregard of the fact that there is no demarcation between plantations and human habitation in this area. It is also a high rainfall region and so, the sprayed pesticide leached into the ground and flowed downstream. The poison contaminated water, food and ultimately harmed human beings.

This story is known. But the personal battles that make up the story of this poisoned land and its diseased people are not known. More importantly, it is not asked where this story ends?

Read the rest of this entry »

Credit to Small Enterprises: The silent crisis

Jayati Ghosh

A new BIS working paper by Cecchetti and Kharroubi makes a point that is becoming more widely known, especially after the continuing financial crises experienced globally since 2008. This is that the level of financial development is good only up to a point, after which it becomes a drag on growth. In fact, the authors argue that when the focus is on advanced economies, a fast-growing financial sector is actually detrimental to aggregate productivity growth. This is explained by the authors on the grounds that, because the financial sector competes with the rest of the economy for scarce resources, financial booms are not, in general, growth-enhancing.

The recent experience of the United States and now particularly Europe, certainly confirms this – and even established doyens of the world of private finance are now more willing to concede this. But one critical aspect of the failure of financial intermediation is still inadequately recognised and discussed: the inability of the currently constituted private financial system to deliver funds to small and medium enterprises (SMEs), which still account for the bulk of employment not just in developing countries but also in advanced economies.

Read the rest of this entry »

Three Reasons the Euro Zone Deal Won't Work

Mark Blyth and Stephen Kinsella, guest blogger

The latest Euro crisis summit was different from the 19 others that preceded it in one very important respect: The PR department of the EU played this one very well. Rather than hopes being raised only to be dashed, this time they were dashed before the summit only to be raised after it ended.

And yet hopes are now slowly deflating once again, even as the Eurogroup works out the final details.

Read the rest of this entry »

Three Reasons the Euro Zone Deal Won’t Work

Mark Blyth and Stephen Kinsella, guest blogger

And yet hopes are now slowly deflating once again, even as the Eurogroup works out the final details.

Read the rest of this entry »

Extreme weather events on the rise

Martin Khor

It was lucky the Olympics opening ceremony was not washed out by rain, because heavy rain, floods, heatwaves and droughts are among extreme weather events on the rise this year.

Last Friday night’s opening ceremony of the Olympic Games in London was widely acclaimed for its spectacular display. But besides the brilliant design and smooth implementation, another factor played an important role, and that is luck.

Read the rest of this entry »

Can carbon farming make the carbon tax more politically palatable?

Edward B. Barbier

In mid-July, I participated as a keynote speaker at University of Sydney’s 2012 Research Symposium on Soil Security.

A major topic at the Symposium was carbon farming, which is a payment scheme that allows farmers and land managers to earn credits by storing carbon or reducing greenhouse gas emissions on the land. These credits can then be sold to pay for the various carbon storing activities.

Read the rest of this entry »

The End of the Spanish Model

Cornel Ban

Until recently Spain has been a quiet country known for a successful economic and political transition. In 1977, the entire political spectrum, from the hard right to the communists, signed a compact that sealed the terms of the country’s political and economic liberalization. This was followed by a massive transformation of Franco’s economic legacy during the 1980s and 1990s. During this period, the developmentalist industrialization drive that marked Spain’s postwar period made room for an economic model that aimed to increase competitiveness. It did so by targeting the consolidation and internationalization of the country’s financial, energy and construction sectors. As a result, in the eyes of many, Spain emerged as a European “tiger” economy.

A major weakness haunted Spain’s success, though: permanent double-digit unemployment levels. After a short respite given by German banks inflating Spain’s enormous construction bubble, the specter of unemployment would soon come to question the very bases of the post-Franco settlement.

Read the rest of this entry »