TripleCrisis

Pulling Away the Curtain: The U.S. Government’s Role in Technology Development

Fred Block, Guest Blogger

The Obama Administration and the House Republicans are engaged in an intense battle over spending that will likely lead to a shutdown of the federal government. The immediate issue is funding the government for the remainder of the 2011 Fiscal Year that runs through September 30^th. If the two sides don’t reach an agreement, current funding runs out on March 18^th. But as soon as that issue is resolved, an even more momentous conflict will begin over spending levels for Fiscal Year 2012. The Administration has made clear that in both cases, it wants to protect certain types of spending from Republican cuts, especially funds for infrastructure and innovation.

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The end of the 'Washington consensus' for Latin America

Triple Crisis blogger Kevin Gallagher published the following opinion article in the Guardian on why China’s new model of development for Latin America is eclipsing the U.S. reign in the region based on trade deals.

The end of the ‘Washington consensus’

Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos sent shockwaves through Washington when he told the Financial Times that his nation is holding negotiations with China to build a multibillion dollar “dry canal” that would compete with the Panama Canal. After all, Santos said, China is “the new motor of the world economy”.

This deal is charged with politics. Colombia is trying to get the US to pass a long-stalled trade deal. And let us not forget that the original canal was to be the result of an agreement between the US and Colombia. When the Colombians didn’t like the deal the US had on offer and threatened to squelch it, Washington supported Panamanian separatist movements and got itself a new country to build a canal with.

But that’s all water under the isthmus. Or so we thought.

Whether or not this deal goes through, it highlights the stark contrast between China’s foreign economic ventures and those of the United States.

Read the full article at the Guardian.

The end of the ‘Washington consensus’ for Latin America

The end of the ‘Washington consensus’

But that’s all water under the isthmus. Or so we thought.

Whether or not this deal goes through, it highlights the stark contrast between China’s foreign economic ventures and those of the United States.

Read the full article at the Guardian.

Financial Fraud: Citigroup not in a class by itself

Jeff Madrick

And now for a word about class. The Republican right wing has long been charging liberal commentators with fomenting class warfare. It is an otherworldly charge. Wages for typical Americans have been outright bad for a generation, while a top sliver has made the fortunes of a century. Even the Hamilton Group, the centrist think tank housed in the Brookings Institution and put together by Robert Rubin, just published a paper about how wages for males have fallen since 1969. But real Americans, we are told, don’t complain about the wealth of a few at the top.

In fact, the class warfare has been carried on by those at the top, aided by politicians, regulators, unthinking media, and not a few economists with simple half-truth theories about the universal stabilizing value of speculation, the rationality of stock prices and therefore stock options to reward CEOs, and the enormous dangers of wage increases that might contribute even to mild inflation.

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Picking on the Little Guy – The attack on public sector unions

Janine Berg

In the second half of the 1990s, I worked as an economist for the City of New York. This was during the dot-com boom when everyday there was an article in the New York Times about the newest IPO multi-millionaire and the high tabs spent on dinner and drinks at Le Cirque. I made $36,000. My union had negotiated a five-year collective bargaining contract when the City was still recovering from the crash in the real estate market of the late 1980s, and as a result, our collective agreement specified a two-year pay freeze, followed by one, two and 4.5 percent pay increases in the subsequent years. What this meant was that public sector workers were having real pay cuts during one of the greatest economic booms in the city’s history. My pay was low by Manhattan standards and our holiday party was pot-luck, but my work was interesting, the benefits were good and I had the satisfaction of knowing that my job was safe and not subject to the whims of a boss.

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Keynesianism and the Crisis

Lance Taylor, Guest Blogger

The only way to understand the Great Crisis and how to deal with it is through the economics of John Maynard Keynes and his closest followers. For the details see my new book, Maynard’s Revenge: The Collapse of Free Market Macroeconomics (Harvard University Press). Three ideas emphasized by Keynes 75 years ago are crucial for understanding the contemporary situation.

The first is that economic actors operate under fundamental uncertainty — at times they cannot predict or even imagine the nature of future developments. In the mid-2000s Federal Reserve Governor Ben Bernanke extolled a “Great Moderation” in macroeconomics. He did not, and probably could not, think about the tsunami that was about to strike. Rather, he accepted widespread market conventions that all was well. Keynes thought that such conventions might persist for a time, but then could rapidly break down.

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We Invite Your Comments

Just over one year ago, we created the Triple Crisis Blog as a forum for international analysis of the triple crises facing the world’s people, in finance, environment, and development. We now have a loyal and growing readership, and we would like to hear from more of you. We welcome and appreciate your comments on blog posts. Our writers read them and respond to as many as they can. Some posts generate a lively discussion (see Alejandro Nadal’s recent post), some get little comment.

So we would like your feedback, and you can do it right here as a comment or by sending an email to triplecrisisblog@gmail.com:

Are there ways we could make it easier for you to comment?

Do you have other suggestions for improving the Triple Crisis Blog?

Thank you. We appreciate your readership and your feedback.

Climate Change Negotiations: A Collection of Post-Cancún Analyses

Miquel Muñoz

It has been twelve weeks since the conclusion of the UN Climate Change Conference in Cancún. There were mixed feelings on the Cancún outcome. While many felt that, in substantive terms, not much was achieved, the agreement was also perceived as process-saving, especially when compared with the Copenhagen debacle a year earlier, and thus the closing session in Cancún met with thunderous applause.

Official climate change negotiations will resume in Bangkok, Thailand in early April. There, work will continue for the working groups on Long-term Cooperative Action (AWG-LCA 14) and on Further Commitments for Annex I Parties under the Kyoto Protocol (AWG-KP 16). The agenda includes, among others, issues such as a global goal for emission reductions and global peaking, adaptation, MRV for developed and developing countries, the registry, forests financing, technology, capacity building and market/non-market mechanisms. The Bangkok meeting will be the first in preparation for the next UN Climate Change Conference (COP 17), to take place in Durban, South Africa, November 28 –December 9, 2011. As such, no particular outcome is expected, other than progress towards an eventual deal in Durban (or beyond).

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Little progress in WTO’s Doha talks

Triple Crisis blogger Martin Khor published the following opinion article for the Third World Network on the extreme demands being made on developing countries in the WTO Doha talks, which are set to close this year.

Few really wanted it started, and now no one knows how to end it. In between there’s been almost a decade of roller-coaster of the Doha negotiations at the World Trade Organisation.

Many political leaders have now proclaimed that the “Doha Round” must really be completed this year. Otherwise it may have to be abandoned altogether, some have predicted.

But there is not a lot of chance the deal will be done now. Although the main proposals on the table are already so imbalanced against the developing countries, the developed countries want even more from them.

Read the full article at the Third World Network.

Climate Change and the Water Crisis in the U.S. Southwest

Frank Ackerman

Where and how will climate change first affect large numbers of American voters? Answering that question may be crucial to the global efforts to protect the earth’s climate. The tsunami of stupidity and science denial that has washed over Washington won’t be held back by earnest calculations of long-run risks, or by the potential inundation of remote island nations, or by the news that polar bears and other iconic species are endangered.

While climate change may seem remote, the water crisis in the Southwest is all too immediate. Recent years of drought have reached critical levels, threatening to curtail agriculture and even the normal patterns of urban life throughout the region. Even if today’s climate remained unchanged, water use in Arizona, California, Nevada, New Mexico and Utah would more than double over the next century, just from population and income growth.

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