The Agonist - Globalization

The Wheels Are Coming Off

Sun, 29 Jun 2008 12:35:13 -0700

Many have been predicting that the world economy, coupled to the US economy, is about to take a dive. Indications are that the moment of truth has arrived.

The Fed has been sailing between Scylla and Charybdis for some time. Now the rock is meeting the hard place as the Fed finds that if it lowers rates any more, the dollar will tank and energy prices will spike further, but if it raises rates, it will push the teetering financial system over the edge and tank the economy. The word is out: the Fed is now in a double-bind.

Flat-earther blind to oil facts by Henry C. K. Liu

Fri, 27 Jun 2008 10:47:47 -0700

Asia Times Online - Neo-classical economics views higher prices of consumables as inflation, but asset appreciation is viewed as growth, not inflation. Since oil is both an asset and a consumable commodity, neo-classical economics faces a dilemma in oil economics. The size of oil reserves is exponentially greater than the annual flow of oil to the market.

What is even more fundamental is that as the flow of oil to the market decreases, the price of oil goes up, enlarging proven reserves by definition. Thus while a rise in the market price of oil adds to inflation, the corresponding rise of the asset value and size of oil reserves create a wealth effect that more than neutralizes the inflationary impact of market oil prices. The world should not care about an few added percentage points in inflation if the world's assets would appreciate 100% as a result, except that when oil is not owned equally among the world's population, a conflict emerges between consumers and producers, making oil a domestic political and geopolitical problem.

India, China ships compete in Indian Ocean

Sun, 08 Jun 2008 06:19:21 -0700

Gavin Rabinowitz | Sri Lanka | June 8

AP - An impoverished place still recovering from the devastation of the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami, Hambantota has a desolate air, a sense of nowhereness, punctuated by the realization that looking south over the expanse of ocean, the next landfall is Antarctica.

But just over the horizon runs one of the world's great trade arteries, the shipping lanes where thousands of vessels carry oil from the Middle East and raw materials to Asia, returning with television sets, toys and sneakers for European consumers.

These tankers provide 80 percent of China's oil and 65 percent of India's -- fuel desperately needed for the two countries' rapidly growing economies. Japan, too, is almost totally dependent on energy supplies shipped through the Indian Ocean.

Multitude I: Social Production and Biopower

Sun, 08 Jun 2008 04:01:50 -0700

(An ongoing review of Multitude, by Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri.)

In the contemporary period of transition, the global interregnum, we can see emerging a new topography of exploitation and economic hierarchies the lines of which run above and below national boundaries. We are living in a system of global apartheid. We should be clear, however, that apartheid is not simply a system of exclusion, as if subordinated populations were simply cut off, worthless, and disposable. In the global Empire today, as it was before in South Africa, apartheid is a productive system of hierarchical inclusion that perpetuates the wealth of the few through the labor and poverty of the many. The global political body is in this way also an economic body defined by the global divisions of labor and power.

pp. 166-67

Before I get started explaining anything else about this book, there are two concepts that are critical to understand: Biopower and biopolitics. Both terms were originally coined by Michel Focault, though Hardt and Negri have their own interpretations of them that appear to be slightly different and a little narrowed for their own purposes.

Actually, before giving definitions of these two terms something else must be explained: The nature of social life. Every day, every moment, in every action we take, we build our collective social structure. Systems of kinship, friendship, production, and so on are all recreated every single day by every single one of us. We all agree to wake up every morning and generally carry on the reality of yesterday.

Inflation rates

Sat, 07 Jun 2008 09:42:07 -0700

June 6 – Bloomberg (Cherian Thomas): “India’s inflation jumped to 8.24%, the fastest since August 2004, adding pressure on the central bank to raise interest rates.”

June 5 – Bloomberg (Aloysius Unditu and Clarissa Batino): “Indonesia and the Philippines raised interest rates as surging food and energy prices prompt policy makers across Asia to tackle inflation even as growth slows. Bank Indonesia increased borrowing costs for the second straight month today, raising the rate used as an indication for bill sales to 8.5% from 8.25%.”

June 3 – The Wall Street Journal (Reuben Carder, Farida Husna, and Supunnabul Suwannakij): “Record fuel prices drove inflation higher in Indonesia and Thailand in May, with Indonesia’s year-to-year inflation rate hitting double digits for the first time in nearly two years… The rise in Thailand’s consumer-price index notched a 10-year high.”

Last Week's Best Top Press Commentary

Tue, 03 Jun 2008 02:56:17 -0700

The Atlantic Community think tank recommends a daily selection of five commentaries from leading international newspapers, which are written by decision-makers, academic experts, and journalists.

Here are the best articles from last week:

Shashi Tharoor, former UN
under-secretary general, is concerned about the growing popularity of
John McCain's League of Democracies among US voters of both parties.
Such a league would suffer from the same inaction problems as the UN.
Besides, Chinese and Russian cooperation is needed in our "post-American world"

Joschka Fischer, Germany's former foreign minister, believes that a
military confrontation with Iran looms in the Middle East: "We must
assume he [President Bush] and Israel plan to solve one problem before
the end of his term in a completely different manner: Iran's nuclear
program will be handled militarily, not diplomatically."

The Final Monetization

Tue, 03 Jun 2008 02:01:02 -0700

Debt is control only when it is collectible. If the debtor has the legal or other means to resist "repayment", debt is meaningless.

I've been thinking of this editorial opening for quite some time. I wanted it to reflect on my stance and pursuit to help Humanity at my own level. Bad economics being a great source of divide, I suddenly recalled the story of two pals of mine, in their late 40s, who might be heading for a divorce as I type this. Three years ago, their goal was to pay back these (damn) credit cards and they fully succeeded. They are not financially secure according to the mainstream standards: they live from paycheck to paycheck, even though being practically debt-free, and have a 401k (which could evaporate at any moment in a stock market crash). However for now is not bad at all considering that 80% of Americans have debts up to their eyeballs -- the U.S Treasury included.

Globalizers, Neocons, or...?

Mon, 19 May 2008 05:10:13 -0700

Tomgram: Mark Engler, How to Rule the World After Bush
posted May 18, 2008 5:33 pm

A mere eight months to go until George W. Bush and Dick Cheney leave office -- though, given the cast of characters, it could seem like a lifetime. Still, it's a reasonable moment to begin to look back over the last years -- and also toward the post-Bush era. What a crater we'll have to climb out of by then!

My last post, "Kiss American Security Goodbye," was meant to mark the beginning of what will, over the coming months, be a number of Bush legacy pieces at Tomdispatch. So consider that series officially inaugurated by Foreign Policy in Focus analyst Mark Engler, who has just authored a new book that couldn't be more relevant to our looming moment of transition: How to Rule the World: The Coming Battle Over the Global Economy.

The question Engler is curious to have answered is this: If Bush-style "imperial globalization" is rejected in January, what will American ruling elites try to turn to -- Clinton-style economic globalization? Certainly, as Engler points out, many in the business and financial communities are now rallying to the Democrats. After all, while John Edwards received the headlines this week for throwing his support behind Barack Obama, that presidential candidate also got the nod from three former Securities and Exchange Commission chairmen -- William Donaldson, David Ruder, and Clinton appointee Arthur Levitt Jr. The campaign promptly "released a joint statement by the former SEC chiefs, as well as former Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker, that praised Obama's 'positive leadership and judgment' on economic issues."

The United States, however, is a very different creature than it was in the confident years when these men rode high. Now, the world is looking at things much differently. Let Engler explain... Tom

Globalizers, Neocons, or...?
The World After Bush
By Mark Engler

Picture January 20, 2009, the day George W. Bush has to vacate the Oval Office.

A Short Introduction to "Multitude"

Sat, 17 May 2008 00:48:54 -0700

I recently picked up a copy of “Multitude: War and Democracy in the Age of Empire” by Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri. I’m only through part one right now, but there are some pretty interesting insights in it I’d like to share here. I’m not fully convinced of the authors’ point of view yet, but it is certainly a different way of looking at the current state of affairs around the globe.

Hart and Negri assert that the globe is, at this moment, subject to Empire. This Empire is not characterized by the old imperialist ambitions of nation states but rather by a “network power” that includes nation states, corporations, supranational institutions, and others. It is a system of influence and patronage that sustains itself, with no single power being dominant (though some are much more powerful than others).

The network power we claim is “imperial” not “imperialist.” Not all the powers in Empire’s network, of course, are equal… but despite inequalities they must cooperate to create and maintain the current global order, with all of its internal divisions and hierarchies.

Wars and influence peddling around the world should not be looked upon as a rehash of the “Great Game” or as a quest for greater sovereignty by individual nation-states. Instead, all this is just the struggle for relative dominance of various actors within the overarching hierarchies of Empire.

There are innumerable armed conflicts waged across the globe today, some brief and limited to a specific place, others long lasting and expansive. These conflicts might be best conceived as instances not of war but rather civil war… This civil war should be understood now not within the national space, since that is no longer the effective unit of sovereignty, but across the global terrain… From this perspective all of the world’s current armed conflicts, hot and cold… should be considered imperial civil wars, even when states are involved. This does not mean that any of these conflicts mobilizes all of Empire… but rather that they exist within, are conditioned by, and in turn affect the global imperial system… [Combatants] are struggling rather for relative dominance within the hierarchies at the highest and lowest levels of the global system.

An oil-addicted ex-superpower by Michael T. Klare

Fri, 09 May 2008 09:15:51 -0700

Asia Times Online - May 10, 2008 Nineteen years ago, the fall of the Berlin Wall effectively eliminated the Soviet Union as the world's other superpower. Yes, the USSR as a political entity stumbled on for another two years, but it was clearly an ex-superpower from the moment it lost control over its satellites in Eastern Europe.

Less than a month ago, the United States similarly lost its claim to superpower status when a barrel of crude oil roared past US$110 on the international market, gasoline prices crossed the $3.50 threshold at American pumps, and diesel fuel topped $4. As was true of the USSR following the dismantling of the Berlin Wall, the US will no doubt continue to stumble on like the superpower it once was; but as the nation's economy continues to be eviscerated to pay for its daily oil fix, it, too, will be seen by increasing numbers of savvy observers as an ex-superpower-in-the-making.

Enough Bushism among Indians

Sun, 04 May 2008 13:55:41 -0700

The US president George Bush has attracted a lot of flak here in India for his statement the other day that India's middle class is responsible for rising food prices. See Bush now blames Indian middle class for rising food prices.

There are many Bushisms that are outrageous and this one too at first sight seems to be the same. But except for the fact that only India and only middle class has been targetted and that only food prices are being shown concern about I agree with the underlying thrust. Many of my posts in my blog (http://natant.blogspot.com) have talked about the mindless and excessive consumerism but I recognise the fact that it is a global phenonmenon.

Southeast Asian rice cartel plan "going nowhere"

Sat, 03 May 2008 02:24:53 -0700

Darren Schuettler | Bangkok | May 2

Reuters - A proposed "OPEC-style" rice cartel in Southeast Asia will go nowhere due to the inability of governments to cooperate with each other and control output from their farmers, analysts and traders said on Friday.

Thai Prime Minister Samak Sundaravej, a TV chef whose main contact with rice is cooking it, has revived the long-dormant idea of a price-setting body involving producers Thailand, Vietnam, Myanmar, Laos and Cambodia.

The proposal, which threatens to add to global food supply fears amid record high rice prices, failed to gain traction seven years ago when it was first floated by Bangkok -- and most see little chance it will fare better this time around.

"I don't think it would work. All they can do is agree on a price, but they can't control the supply like oil," said Graham Catterwell, an economic analyst with 30 years of experience in Thailand and the region. "It's going nowhere."

more at the link

Abandoning the USS Titanic

Sat, 03 May 2008 02:16:19 -0700

Chan Akya | May 2

Asia Times - As the world comes to grips with declining United States power both in political and economic terms, it almost seems surreal that global media appear so keen to paper over the cracks. With even the corrupt and unctuous Gulf dictators rebelling against the US dollar, this is the beginning of the end.

Yes, I know that the Titanic was not registered as a United States ship. The title though refers to the startling comparisons that can be made to the ill-fated vessel after it hit the iceberg in 1912, and the US today after it has hit the twin icebergs of the idiotic George W Bush presidency and the subprime mess in the economy. I am not suggesting that the two were linked, only that an ineffectual government frequently makes a cyclical problem much worse by its own actions.

US Federal Reserve head Ben Bernanke has taken on the role of the second in command whose job it is to scream "full steam ahead", even as it becomes wildly apparent that it is a structural problem in the economy, not a mere cyclical downturn.

more at the link

Microfinance and the Global Food Crisis

Sat, 03 May 2008 02:02:13 -0700

David Apgar | May 1

The Globalist - Microfinance institutions around the world — the tiny banks that make micro-loans to the developing world’s working poor — face a significant challenge in even the best current global economic scenario.

A political tide threatens them that could reverse much of the progress against poverty they have made over the past decade.

The reason is that the twin crises of world food price inflation and the U.S. sub-prime mortgage meltdown may be joined at the hip. And as a result, the developing world’s working poor could well channel their anger toward some of the new links with global capital markets that seemed so beneficial to them until now.

much more

Russia: Where Migration Means Trafficking

Sat, 26 Apr 2008 08:15:53 -0700

Kester Kenn Klomegah | Moscow | April 26

IPS - New efforts have been launched to curb human trafficking across Russia and the ex-Soviet republics. The Moscow office of the International Organisation of Migration is implementing a programme 'Prevention of Human Trafficking' jointly financed by the European Commission, the U.S. State Department and the Swiss government, adapting features of counter-trafficking legislation in the European Union to bridge gaps in Russian law.

According to United Nations estimates, 20 million migrants pass through the region every year. "Russia serves as a main transit country from Asia to the European Union, and it (Russia) has a significant amount of internal trafficking from smaller towns and villages to regional city centres, both for labour and sexual exploitation," said Lauren McCarthy of the University of Wisconsin. Many people look to leave poorer countries like Moldova, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan. The wish to migrate is then exploited by traffickers.

Trafficking for forced labour (other than forced prostitution) is the main form of trafficking in the region, in particular central Asia. Law enforcement responses, however, tend to focus on sex trafficking which often involves young women trafficked to western Europe, the Middle East and Russia.