In Defence of Merdeka (Independence)

Martin Khor

Independence has been achieved, yet has to be constantly defended, continuously renewed and expanded as the process of de-colonisation is on-going and new threats arise.

This week marks the beginning of our 58th year of Independence [in Malaysia]. Much has been done to entrench sovereignty and independence on our land. But much more needs to be done.

Colonialism did a comprehensive uprooting of traditional systems and replanted them with new ways, methods and systems to produce a chaotic and confusing amalgam of people, social patterns and economic modes. We are still shaking off the vestiges of that colonialism, whose shadows still fall large. We are still in the process of building independent policies, structures and systems. This is so in post-colonial developing countries in general. As the leaders of the Group of 77 and China stated in their summit held in Bolivia recently, the process of de-colonisation is incomplete and on-going, even decades af­ter the winning of Independence.

That is a good reminder. In particular, the structures and levers of the global economy are still under the domination of the rich developed countries. The former colonial masters may have let go of formal control of the colonies but they made sure to set up a system in which they could continue to control the important components of world finance, trade and economy.

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Rigged Rules: A Rogue Corporation in the World Bank's Rogue Tribunal

Robin Broad and John Cavanagh

On September 15, in a tribunal that few know exists, the fate of millions of people and hundreds of millions of dollars will be debated and decided in the next six months.

The tribunal is the World Bank Group’s International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID). It sits in downtown Washington, D.C., behind security guards at the World Bank. At issue is the future of El Salvador, some 2,000 miles away, where a global mining company—Pacific Rim, now owned by Australian/Canadian corporation OceanaGold—wants to mine gold in ways that could well poison the river system serving over half the Salvadoran population.

The crime alleged by the mining company is that the government of El Salvador has not approved a mining license for it. But the real crime is that a foreign corporation is trying to stifle democracy in a country where a small landed oligarchy and U.S. intervention stifled it for so long.

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Rigged Rules: A Rogue Corporation in the World Bank’s Rogue Tribunal

Robin Broad and John Cavanagh

On September 15, in a tribunal that few know exists, the fate of millions of people and hundreds of millions of dollars will be debated and decided in the next six months.

The tribunal is the World Bank Group’s International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID). It sits in downtown Washington, D.C., behind security guards at the World Bank. At issue is the future of El Salvador, some 2,000 miles away, where a global mining company—Pacific Rim, now owned by Australian/Canadian corporation OceanaGold—wants to mine gold in ways that could well poison the river system serving over half the Salvadoran population.

The crime alleged by the mining company is that the government of El Salvador has not approved a mining license for it. But the real crime is that a foreign corporation is trying to stifle democracy in a country where a small landed oligarchy and U.S. intervention stifled it for so long.

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How Well has Brazil Done During the Workers' Party Administration?

Matias Vernengo

First, let me be absolutely clear. I do in general favor the current administration in Brazil, as much as other left of center governments in South America. But I do understand some of the critiques from the left (not the right wing conservatives that are against social spending and more redistribution of income). A good example of the limits to the current experience in the region are provided by the Brazilian case.

Recently a post (in Portuguese; full disclosure one of the authors is a friend) went viral in Brazil. It showed how much Brazil has grown during Lula/Dilma, from the Workers’ Party (PT, in Portuguese) compared to the rest of the world, and advanced economies, and the same exercise done for the Fernando Henrique Cardoso (FHC), from the Brazilian Social Democratic Party (PSDB in Portuguese) period.

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How Well has Brazil Done During the Workers’ Party Administration?

Matias Vernengo

First, let me be absolutely clear. I do in general favor the current administration in Brazil, as much as other left of center governments in South America. But I do understand some of the critiques from the left (not the right wing conservatives that are against social spending and more redistribution of income). A good example of the limits to the current experience in the region are provided by the Brazilian case.

Recently a post (in Portuguese; full disclosure one of the authors is a friend) went viral in Brazil. It showed how much Brazil has grown during Lula/Dilma, from the Workers’ Party (PT, in Portuguese) compared to the rest of the world, and advanced economies, and the same exercise done for the Fernando Henrique Cardoso (FHC), from the Brazilian Social Democratic Party (PSDB in Portuguese) period.

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Huarong's Shadow Bank Bailout: This Changes Everything

Sara Hsu

Two days ago, we learned that the Chinese government was behind the bailout earlier this year of a trust product—a type of financial product that the central government has heretofore emphatically distanced itself from. Huarong Asset Management, using a 3 billion RMB loan from the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China (ICBC), the trust product seller, was the mystery lender behind the January bailout of the Credit Equals Gold trust product, the Financial Times reported on August 31. ICBC and Huarong Asset Management are both state-owned entities.

This is a notable event that changes the way that analysts look at shadow banking financial products. Up until this point, there appeared to be a firewall between the traditional banking system and the shadow banking sector. The China Banking Regulatory Commission (CBRC) has sternly warned the financial sector that it would not bail out non-traditional loans or other assets. In keeping with this approach, many flagging financial products were indeed not bailed out by the central government, including trust products like those sold by Jilin Trust and CITIC Trust and, more recently, mutual fund products including those sold by Shanghai Goldstate Brilliance Asset Management and Mirae Asset Huachen Fund Management Co. The central government aimed to limit its implicit backing of the financial sector.

Now, however, as a result of the Huarong fund injection, we know that the implicit guarantee in practice runs deep, especially when financial products are sold via state-owned banks.

Read the rest of this entry »

Huarong’s Shadow Bank Bailout: This Changes Everything

Sara Hsu

Two days ago, we learned that the Chinese government was behind the bailout earlier this year of a trust product—a type of financial product that the central government has heretofore emphatically distanced itself from. Huarong Asset Management, using a 3 billion RMB loan from the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China (ICBC), the trust product seller, was the mystery lender behind the January bailout of the Credit Equals Gold trust product, the Financial Times reported on August 31. ICBC and Huarong Asset Management are both state-owned entities.

This is a notable event that changes the way that analysts look at shadow banking financial products. Up until this point, there appeared to be a firewall between the traditional banking system and the shadow banking sector. The China Banking Regulatory Commission (CBRC) has sternly warned the financial sector that it would not bail out non-traditional loans or other assets. In keeping with this approach, many flagging financial products were indeed not bailed out by the central government, including trust products like those sold by Jilin Trust and CITIC Trust and, more recently, mutual fund products including those sold by Shanghai Goldstate Brilliance Asset Management and Mirae Asset Huachen Fund Management Co. The central government aimed to limit its implicit backing of the financial sector.

Now, however, as a result of the Huarong fund injection, we know that the implicit guarantee in practice runs deep, especially when financial products are sold via state-owned banks.

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The Logic of Neoliberal Anti-Populism

C.P. Chandrasekhar

Advocates of neoliberalism not only dress themselves as market fundamentalists but also present themselves as anti-populist. They don’t dither when it comes to condemning any sign of the government using tax revenues to provide transfers or subsidies to the poor or undertake expenditures that are expressly meant to favour the poor, in the form of livelihood protection, poverty alleviation or free and universal provision of basic health and educational facilities. The justification for this is two-fold: that expenditure to support growth must be favoured over spending to directly improve welfare; and, that fiscal prudence must be privileged over all else when deciding the use of the exchequer’s resources. So if spending has to be tailored to correspond to revenues, expenditure on “populist” measures must be limited or abjured.

There is a twist in the arithmetic underlying such reasoning. It assumes that the difference between tax and non-tax revenues, on the one hand, and total expenditures, on the other, can be reduced only by reducing expenditures and not by increasing revenues. That is obviously not true. Comparisons of the share of GDP appropriated as taxes by the Centre alone or by the Centre and states in India with the corresponding figures in similarly placed or even poorer economies points to the substantial untapped revenue potential in the country. While this has been occasionally recognised in the budget speeches of Indian finance ministers, few are willing to impose significantly higher taxes on those with much-higher-than-average incomes or those appropriating a disproportionate share of the surpluses over necessary consumption in the system.

The unwillingness or “inability” of the State to tax the rich reveals that it is not a neutral agency standing above all classes. It is partisan and represents the interests of a few.

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