Latin America’s China Challenge

Kevin P. Gallagher

China Petrochemical Corporation bought Occidental Petroleum’s Argentina operations, capping close to $15 US billion of Chinese foreign investment in Latin America for 2010.  In addition to this new source of foreign investment, China has become a new export market for Latin America.  Well over $50 billion of Latin American products, chiefly iron and copper ores, soya, and crude oil, will reach China this year as well.

China’s unprecedented and impressive growth has been a great boon to Latin America in the short-term.  It is up to Latin American nations to translate these short-term gains into longer-run economic development.

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The Case for Controlling Capital Outflows

Stephany Griffith-Jones

Emerging countries, and even some low-income ones, are being flooded by short-term capital flows which they do not need; much of this money originates via the carry trade from the second wave of US quantitative easing (QE2). The intent of the US Federal Reserve is to expand the supply of credit in the US, so as to support the recovery and to lower long-term interest rates in the US.

So the impact of the carry trade is negative both for the US (as it undermines the aims of QE2) and for developing countries, which see their exchange rates become overvalued and their asset prices increase excessively.

The response of developing countries has been varied, but increasingly many of them are beginning to impose capital controls, both of the traditional kind, but also more innovative ones, that is those which deal with the new ways in which capital enters developing countries, in particular via derivatives. Indeed, many of these derivatives were initially invented to avoid precisely regulations on capital inflows or other types of financial activity.

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From Washington Consensus to Brussels Consensus

Diana Tussie

In my August entry I noted a trend to decentralizing global finance moving away from the High Command in the form of new forms of financial cooperation amongst countries of the global South, especially spreading in South America and Asia.

But Stephany Griffith Jones´s November entry prior to the meeting of the G20 in Seoul has made me rethink. She notes with concern the worrying trend toward the consolidation of a paradigm of fiscal retrenchment in Europe. She is naturally right (as usual) in drawing attention to pervasive fiscal retrenchment in deficit countries and even surplus countries.  While Germany eschews expansionary policies, Greece, Portugal, Spain and Ireland have been pressed by financial markets and the European Commission mainly under German influence into draconian fiscal adjustment.

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US should exercise green power

Kevin P. Gallagher

Kevin Gallagher published the following opinion article in the Guardian on the Obama administration’s decision to file a WTO suit against China for its “trade distorting” green technology policies. He argues that the US should instead focus on making its own domestic investments in green energy.

US should exercise green power

To kick off 2011, the Obama administration has had the audacity to file suit at the World Trade Organisation (WTO) against China’s policies to build green technologies.

This action is deeply flawed. The US should not try to beat China down, but should pursue its own green jobs policy and reform the WTO, so the rules allow countries to combat climate change.

The United States and China are the world’s largest emitters of the greenhouse gases. Together and separately, each nation should be doing all it can to develop clean technologies to mitigate and adapt to climate change.

That is not how the Obama administration has seen it. Repeatedly, at United Nations climate negotiations, the US has said that it will do little to combat climate change unless China does. Moreover, the US has stated it will not provide any financial assistance to China to help reduce emissions. With no US support, China was left to its own devices.

Read the full article at the Guardian.

US should exercise green power

Kevin P. Gallagher

Kevin Gallagher published the following opinion article in the Guardian on the Obama administration’s decision to file a WTO suit against China for its “trade distorting” green technology policies. He argues that the US should instead focus on making its own domestic investments in green energy.

US should exercise green power

To kick off 2011, the Obama administration has had the audacity to file suit at the World Trade Organisation (WTO) against China’s policies to build green technologies.

This action is deeply flawed. The US should not try to beat China down, but should pursue its own green jobs policy and reform the WTO, so the rules allow countries to combat climate change.

The United States and China are the world’s largest emitters of the greenhouse gases. Together and separately, each nation should be doing all it can to develop clean technologies to mitigate and adapt to climate change.

That is not how the Obama administration has seen it. Repeatedly, at United Nations climate negotiations, the US has said that it will do little to combat climate change unless China does. Moreover, the US has stated it will not provide any financial assistance to China to help reduce emissions. With no US support, China was left to its own devices.

Read the full article at the Guardian.

Business and Human Rights: Searching for transformation

Lyuba Zarsky

I don’t regularly co-mingle with international human rights lawyers but I do regularly investigate the local sustainability impacts of foreign investment, including in the ethically and environmentally challenged extractives industry. Thus it was that in early December, I found myself at a conference in The Hague organized by the World Legal Forum. Tagged “Business and Community in Dialogue: Connecting Corporate Responsibility and Global Governance,” the conference aimed to promote the emerging UN Framework for business and human rights. The main draw was Harvard Professor John Ruggie, the UN Secretary-General’s Special Representative for Business and Human Rights and the primary mover and shaker in articulating and now operationalizing the Framework.

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Economists Demand Ethics Code for U.S. Economists

As Triple Crisis blogger Gerald Epstein pointed out in two recent blog posts (here and here), the economics profession has no official standards or ethical code to regulate potential conflicts of interest between economists’ roles as experts and their frequent roles as consultants and agents of private firms. As the American Economics Association (AEA) convenes today for its annual conference, Epstein and coauthor Jessica Carrick-Hagenbarth have spearheaded an effort to remedy this issue with a sign-on letter to the AEA, which has garnered the support of close to 300 economists and drawn the attention of the national media.

Read the economists’ letter to the American Economic Association.
Read the coverage in the New York Times and Bloomberg.

Lost Finances: The fight against secrecy jurisdictions

Gerhard Schick

This post from Gerhard Schick will be his last, as he will no longer be a regular blogger. Triple Crisis thanks him for his insightful and timely contributions.

Estimates of the total amount of untaxed resources held offshore by individuals range from $7.4 trillion (the 2010 Global Wealth Report of the Boston Consulting Group) to $11.5 trillion  (Tax Justice Network (TJN)). By definition, it is impossible to identify the exact figure, but these are highly instructive estimates. Taking TJN’s number as a basis, approximately $250 billion in taxes are illegally evaded on an annual basis.  If these resources had been collected from 2000 to 2015, they could have almost entirely financed the attainment of the Millennium Development Goals.

Tax evasion has an even more direct impact on developing countries since they are entitled to the majority of unpaid taxes. James Henry, former Chief Economist at McKinsey & Co, estimates that about $6.2 trillion of the total amount held offshore by individuals represents developing country wealth.  He calculates that failure to tax this wealth deprives developing countries of an amount estimated between $64 billion to $124 billion in annual tax receipts.

The above estimates are based on the offshore wealth of individuals.  By including money moved offshore by private companies, the scale of losses would easily exceed the roughly $103 billion that developing countries receive annually in overseas aid.

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Inclusion-Enhancing Public Investment in Infrastructure

Roberto Sansón Mizrahi, re-posted from Opinion Sur, a Triple Crisis partner. We will periodically cross-post items of interest.

Public investment in infrastructure is often considered a “growth engine”. Indeed, the development of roads, energy, communications, potable water, irrigation, sewer and storm drains, ports, dwelling solutions, among other types of infrastructure, drives social and economic growth. What is not always spelled out is the type of growth such engine serves.

This is so because the destination of public investment in infrastructure, as well as the form in which it is executed, have a huge impact on the nature of national and local development. It should cause no surprise, then, that certain public investments in infrastructure successfully advance social and economic inclusion, while others do not.

Read the full article at Opinion Sur.

Foreign Aid: Famished for Credibility

Jens F. Laurson and George A. Pieler, re-posted from the World Policy Institute’s World Policy Blog, a Triple Crisis partner. We will periodically cross-post items of interest.

There’s been a good deal of blowback against Wikileaks, but who didn’t enjoy the juicier parts of the disclosures?

Among them is the revelation that the US used foreign aid to essentially buy votes for last year’s Copenhagen summit on climate change.  It’s a useful tale that reminds us why everyone should drop their illusions about foreign aid.

Many sincere aid advocates perceive it solely as a means of alleviating poverty and preventing starvation. But that’s not quite so.  Aid is first and foremost an instrument of national policy, and often serves as a convenient cover for the hypocritical policies of many aid-giving nations.

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