Austerity to reduce spending and decrease the need for imports, and liberalization reforms to reduce real wages and promote internal devaluation have been going on for a while in the European periphery to promote rebalancing, that is, to reduce the current account deficits and allow for continuous servicing of the debt.
Is Growth Still Possible?
Paul Krugman has recently pointed out a very pessimistic, but very provocative paper by Robert Gordon, about the possibilities of long run growth. Gordon suggests that the “rapid progress made over the past 250 years could well turn out to be a unique episode in human history.” In his view, long-term stagnation is a very possible outcome. He asserts that the reasons for this are the effects of technical progress on investment.
If we want food to remain cheap we need to stop putting it in our cars
Yes the global community is facing a food crisis but biofuel production rather the rising demand for meat-based protein is to blame, and the solutions are relatively straightforward.
Coverage of the US drought and the run-up in corn, soybean, and wheat prices has been extensive and welcome. It has also been prone to the repetition of falsehoods and the perpetuation of myths about the causes of the food crisis – and the solutions. A recent Guardian article, “The era of cheap food may be over,” is a case in point. Specifically, it perpetuates the myth that the main driver of food price increases is demand for meat in fast-growing developing countries. This effectively downplays the full impact of biofuels and ignores two problems underlying price volatility: financial speculation and the lack of publicly held food reserves.
Why the Global Economic Crisis is Here to Stay
In his article published on 5 August 2012, “Three myths that sustain the economic crisis.” Larry Elliott, Economics Editor of the British newspaper The Guardian, suggests that there are three myths that are prolonging the current world economic crisis:
- The Anglo-Saxon myth that big finance is “a force for good,” rather than “rent-seeking and corrupt.”
- The German myth that “you can solve a problem of demand deficiency with belt tightening and export growth”.
- The “old model” myth that there was not much wrong with the global economy in 2007, before the advent of the financial crisis that initiated the Great Recession, even though “the old model was financially flawed as it operated with high levels of debt, socially flawed in that the spoils of growth were captured by a small elite, and environmentally flawed in that all that mattered was ever-higher levels of growth.”
Feeding Capitalists: A Debate About Drought, Speculation, and the Food Crisis
Triple Crisis blogger Timothy Wise converses about rising food prices, agricultural speculation, the dark side of biofuels, and more. His comments are based on his co-authored report, “Resolving the Food Crisis,” which was written up in a recent post.
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.
Financialized Agriculture: The New Realm of Social Activism
In August, two European banks announced that they would be scaling back investment in agricultural commodities. Germany’s Commerzbank and Austria’s Volksbanken both removed agricultural products from their index fund products. Several months earlier, similar moves were made by three other German banks, including Deutsche Bank.
Financialized Agriculture: The New Realm of Social Activism
In August, two European banks announced that they would be scaling back investment in agricultural commodities. Germany’s Commerzbank and Austria’s Volksbanken both removed agricultural products from their index fund products. Several months earlier, similar moves were made by three other German banks, including Deutsche Bank.
Real News Network Video: Tunisia to Reject Odious Debt
Tunisia leading the fight against ‘odious debts’
Tunisia in the headlines… again
Tunisia has featured perennially in the headlines in economic development reports as one of the African leading economies in terms of economic performance and political stability over the past decades. It has consecutively ranked among the most competitive and diversified economies in the continent.1 It enjoyed moderate but steady growth (averaging 4.5% over the last ten years), which is a major achievement in a continent where growth is highly volatile. Poverty rates are low, education levels high, infrastructure and services are plentiful and of good quality. To most external observers, there was also substantial agreement that Tunisia enjoyed political stability under the last two regimes (under Habib Burguiba and Zine El-Abidine Ben Ali).