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Friday, February 26, 2010

Blogs of Note

I have recently discovered some excellent blogs worth noting :

  • Andrew Bacevich is an International Relations  professor at Boston University and is blogging for the World Affairs Journal {where I dream to be published someday}.Among other works Bocevich has authored The Limits of Power and more recently American Empire: The Realities and Consequences of US Diplomacy. His no-nonsense blog is titled Anti-Imperialist

Wednesday, February 24, 2010

All The World's Estranged- I


* Google Translate may be necessary for some of these links

ASIA
Transfer of troops from Okinawa,Japan to the US territory of Guam expected to increase the island's population by 50%

As unemployment and national debts are compunded worldwide, this author questions whether China should succum to pressure to increase the value of the yuan

AFRICA
For the first time in 36 years a  US ambassador to Libya arrived in 2008, but over a year later, Libyan trade official Mohamed Tahar Siala is calling out the US on dragging its feet to implement its side of the Trade and Investment Framework Agreement (TIFA), a trade agreement between the two countries

You might not be able to pick up a pound of Kenya blend coffee next time you visit your local gourmet coffee shop, as production of coffee in Kenya and Uganda decreases 

ANTARTICA
Japan plans to continue whaling in Antarctica despite the threat of legal action by Australia

The fossil of an extinct four-legged animal found in Antarctica 30 years ago continues to propel paleontology experts who claim that many species sought refuge in Antarctica to avoid extinction over 250 million years ago

NORTH AMERICA

New credit card laws supported by the Credit Card Accountability ,Responsibility and Disclosure Act of 2009 (CARD Act) go into effect on Monday March 1

The news media have been haphazardly tossing around statistics that are intended to boost our financial ego's but the truth is, statistics do not matter to us if we are not a part of it. Perhaps this is why stimulus initiatives are ineffective.

LATIN/SOUTH AMERICA
Colombia  is faced with disapproval from the Spanish principlaity of Asturias in regards to an Colombia-EU trade agreement. The Asturian Human Rights Commision plans to show evidence of human rights violations in Colombia.

Latin American and Caribbean countries are coming together to form a united front for the purpose of eradicating poverty ,reducing economic inequality and boosting economic development

EUROPE
British Prime Minister Gordon Brown is to apologize to abused victims of the Child Migrant Programme

Transparency in appointment of EU Commission ambassador to US called into question as protocol is ignored

Airline strikes must be fashionable in February, as French air traffic controllers strike within 48 hours of a srike by German airline Lufthansa's pilots

AUSTRALIA
 The 14th round of trade negotiations between Australia and China, its largest trading partner, resume as Australia insists on further investment in China

Migration of Muslims to Australia continues to be the target topic of hate groups.

Extra Extra,Read All About It! Global News Series coming to Nimo-ism

It has been obvious to me for quite awhile that my book review topics and other postings may not always be closely relevant to current events. {By the time I finish reading a book and reviewing it, the material may not be quite as 'hot off the presses}.While certain issues can almost always be considered current events, I have been wanting to incorporate current events,preferably in keeping with my blog's main topics; globalization, international relations, global economics/finance and international politics.

Enter: My new bi-weekly series titled " All The World's Estranged'. Eighty seconds is the amount of time it should take you to catch up on current events from around the world. The posts will be concise but will contain links for further information for those long Sundays for which spending hours catching up to the world simply seems appropriate. I will not designate specific days of the week for posting the series, although Tuesdays and Fridays seem best for keeping in the definition of the term 'current' :)

What will be different about this series from other news blogs and sites you ask? I aim to gather my information from a wide range of sources, from private and public, to independent sources in order to let you decide what is news and what isnt. In order to ensure comprehensive coverage, the news will be divided by continent- yes, even Antarctica!

Oh yes- the title. The title 'All The World's Estranged' is a play on words on the famous Shakespeare quote "all the world's a stage" from his play As You Like It. Jacques, a malcontent Lord  from the Exiled Court of Duke Senior in the Forest of Arden opines;
 Act II Scene VII

All the world's a stage
And all the men and women merely players
They have their exits and their entrances
And one man in his time plays many parts
His acts being seven ages

I do not concur with Thomas Friedman's view that the world is flat, nevertheless I find it a futile effort to deny that globalization has smoothed out some curves on the international relations landscape. The global interconnectivity of goods, services, ideologies and cultures has significantly contracted the conceptual distance between physically distant supply and demand marriages. As borders come down , the saying 'it's a small world' seems more relevant and simultaneouly, current events of one country are regurgiated by popular news media world wide, feeding into the idea that globalization = homogeneity.

All the world's a stage, indeed, but the monologue and dialogue of the players differ. Globalization brings the world to our fingertips, and the task at hand {pun intendend} is to determine the associations and correlations relayed by the information we have access to. In lieu of dealing with the seven stages of a man's life  pronounced byShakespeare's Jacques, I will attempt to provide snippets of associations in current events, from the seven grand theatres -Asia,Africa, Antarctica,Australia, Europe, North America and  South America.

Tuesday, February 23, 2010

Internet Freedoms in China - Part 2 of 3


Has the use of mass media in China and Singapore changed over time, or have new technologies simply been used to further traditional mass media enterprise?
PART 2
Dr. Chin-fu Hung of the National Cheng Kung University in Taiwan reminds us that the mass media has traditionally been used by authoritarian governments as tools of propaganda (20). China may not be specifically generating propaganda, but by disallowing any idea opposed to the ruling political party, a silent form of propaganda is maintained. Repressing the political ideas of those who do not absolutely agree with the Four Cardinal Principles creates a reinforcing cycle of ignorance. Pioneers, scholars and youth who may have novel ideas do not get to share them and simultaneously, those who may be interested in their ideas do not get access to them. The amount of academic, socio-cultural and political information in the country's circulation is stagnated as long as it represents the ancient views of the ruling party which has been in power for the recent history of China’s self-governance . While technological advance may continue in such an environment, it does not benefit from the creative participation of society.

Singapore's political propaganda comes in the form of its restrictive policies on electoral campaigning via the internet. Survey and poll data can no longer be published for campaign purposes as of 2001, as supported by the Minister for Information and the Arts, Lee Yock Suan. In a public speech to Parliament, Suan claimed that surveys and polls "gave the illusion of reflecting public opinion but were often based on small sample sizes, bad question design and improper sampling, which led to inaccurate and slanted results" (Gomez 137). Those in opposition saw this as an attempt to curb the success of their campaigns; however the more important issue is that without what few objective polls may have existed, the information provided by the Singapore Democratic Party (SDP) will likely be biased. Biased information purported to be objective public opinion is essentially masked propaganda and at any rate, an even cloudier illusion.

In addition to censorship of political and socio-cultural ideas, both China and Singapore use filtering systems to screen information incoming to their networks, before it ever reaches internet users. OpenNet Initiative is a non-partisan organization that studies internet filtering and surveillance practices in countries across the globe. According to their website OpenNet.net, China has allocated billions of dollars to building one of the largest and most advanced filtering systems in the world. The studies also reveal that the Chinese government focuses resources on restricting access to any content that potentially undermines the state's control or social stability, by enforcing strict supervision of domestic media, imposing liability on online content providers, and increasingly, a propaganda approach to online debate and discussion (OpenNet.net). James Gomez summons us to consider which one of these national priorities are threatened by the gay and lesbian community. In 2001, the Chinese government proposed the use of website-rating systems as an additional measure of over-reaching oversight. In Hong Kong, the most internet-liberal region of China, the government began rating websites representing the gay and lesbian community as "harmful media" and required that this rating be displayed on the websites by the owners. Filtering software for minors was also required to be installed by the owners, with imprisonment as a consequence of refusal (Gomez 135). These measures are inappropriately harsh, as they do not address the stated priorities of national and public security. In its effort to create and maintain social stability, the Chinese government is enforcing a cultural mandate that not only shelters its society without society members’ consideration but also oppresses a part of that society.

The Chinese government has no intention of performing all filtering tasks on its own. Website hosts are installing keyword filtering software under pressure, and Internet Service Providers (ISPs) as well as Internet Content Providers (ICPs) also filter “politically sensitive" websites (Chung 734). ISPs and ICPs gain access to the internet through inter-connecting networks created during the Golden Bridge Project. The networks are owned by the government, so the ISPs and ICPs are forced to cooperate with the government in order to stay in business. Along with internet café owners, they are entrusted to report anyone involved in the creation, replication, retrieval and transmission of information that falls under nine categories. These categories include material that spreads rumors, promote cults and feudal superstitions, and materials that insult or slander others (Hung 11-12). It seems that for every appropriate measure taken by the Chinese government, another politically inconsonant one is tacked onto the same regulation. Pairing insult with slander or terrorism with gambling in the same regulation or under the same priority is the equivalent of pork barreling measures used in democratic legislative bodies; all are efforts to mislead others into approving of something they otherwise might not.

The MDA in Singapore has significantly less conservative regulations on internet filtering. According to the OpenNet Initiative, filters are used mainly for pornographic websites, and in fact not all such websites are blocked, rather the most popular ones. This reveals that the MDA generally aims to make a statement about its disapproval of this material, but does not focus extensive technological resources on actually filtering every single website, as is the case with China. An alternative preferred by the SDP and the MDA is a combination of legal and political persuasion, both of which result in the intended objective of self-censorship. To see the influence of the pair, one can review the effect on all media providers, as shown by Reporters Sans Frontières (RSF) {Reporters Without Borders}. RSF is a Paris-based NGO promoting world press freedom, which discloses press freedom statistics worldwide in an annual online report. In 2009, Singapore’s press freedom is ranked 133thrd (up by 7) out of 175 countries, and China was ranked 168 (down by 9). The report supports that although Singapore’s filtering system for political, religious, and ethnic content is primarily low-tech, it is effective nonetheless.

Threats of lawsuits, fines, and criminal prosecution are enough incentive for Chinese and Singaporean internet users to censor themselves, but yet another measure is utilized. Licensing is used in both countries, at as many levels as bureaucracy will allow. The government of Singapore requires that ISPs, ICPs and any political or religious groups with websites to register with the MDA .They must obtain a license before operating a website and as licensees; ISPs and ICPs are bound by the MDA’s Internet Code of Practice. As recently as 2005, the Chinese authorities tightened its controlling grip by implementing the Computer Information Network and International Internet Security Protection and Administration Regulations, which require that all website operators register their sites with the local Public Security Bureau within thirty days of operation(Hung 14).


BIBLIOGRAPHY
Wang, Stephanie. "China | OpenNet Initiative." ONI Home Page | OpenNet Initiative. 15 June 2009. Web. 20 Oct. 2009. <http://opennet.net/research/profiles/china#footnote38_1j5nfzr>.
Chung, Jongpil. "Comparing Online Activities in China and South Kore." Asian Survey 8.5 (2008): 727-51. Ww.ucpressjournals.com. University of California. Web. 20 Oct. 2009. <http://ucpressjournals.com/journal.asp?j=as>.
Gomez, James. "Dumbing Down Democracy: Trends in Internet Regulation, Surveillance and Control in Asia." Pacific Journalism Review 10.2 (2004): 130-50. Auckland University of Technology. Web. 20 Oct. 2009. <http://www.pjreview.info/>.
Hassid, Jonathan. "Controlling the Chinese Media: An Uncertain Business." Asian Survey 48.3 (2008): 414-30. Web. 19 Oct. 2009. <http://proquest.umi.com.proxy.library.vcu.edu/pqdlink?index=3&did=1507544931&SrchMode=3&sid=1&Fmt=6&VInst=PROD&VType=PQD&RQT=309&VName=PQD&TS=1256691609&clientId=4305&aid=1>.
Kalathil, Shanthi. "Dot.com for Dictators." Foreign Policy 135 (2003): 42-49. Washingtonpost.Newsweek Interactive, LLC. Web. 19 Oct. 2009. <www.jstor.org>.
"The Media and Asia." Speech. World Affairs Council. Los Angeles. 19 Oct. 1998. Los Angeles World Affairs Council. Web. 19 Oct. 2009. <http://www.lawac.org/speech/pre%20sept%2004%20speeches/yew.html>.
"Media Development Authority - About Us." Media Development Authority - Home. Media Development Authority, 29 July 2009. Web. 19 Oct. 2009. <http://www.mda.gov.sg/wms.www/aboutus.aspx>.
"Press Freedom Index 2009." Reporters Sans Frontières. Reporters Sans Frontières. Web. 19 Oct. 2009. <http://www.rsf.org/en-classement1003-2009.html>.
"World Economic Forum - Global Information Technology Report." World Economic Forum - Home. Ed. World Economic Forum. 26 Mar. 2009. Web. 20 Oct. 2009. <http://www.weforum.org/en/initiatives/gcp/Global%20Information%20Technology%20Report/index.htm>.
Yang, Gubon. "The Coevolution of the Internet and Civil Society in China." Asian Survey 43.3 (2003): 405-22. 2 Dec. 2003. Web. 19 Oct. 2009. <http://caliber.ucpress.net/doi/pdf/10.1525/as.2003.43.3.405>.


Monday, February 22, 2010

Internet Freedoms in China - Part 1 of 3

Possible Reality or Distant Illusion?
The battle between search engine and multimedia giant Google and the People's Republic of China over the restriction of internet access is of enormous proportions. In terms of technology, the consequences are obvious, as Google would lose a potential client base of over 1 billion people while Chinese search engines would soar in popularity and profitability. The ramifications of the Google vs China battle on international relations are less obvious and unpredictable, given the recently building tension between the US and China. The tension can be attributed to many conflicts of interest, but no doubt has been aggravated by issues such as the hacking of Google servers traced to China and more recently,the meeting between President Obama and The Dalai Lama.

PART 1

The battle between search engine and multimedia giant Google and the People's Republic of China over the restriction of internet access is of enormous proportions. In terms of technology, the consequences are obvious, as Google would lose a potential client base of over 1 billion people while Chinese search engines would soar in popularity and profitability. The ramifications of the Google vs China battle on international relations are less obvious and unpredictable, given the recently building tension between the US and China. The tension can be attributed to many conflicts of interest, but no doubt has been aggravated by issues such as the hacking of Google servers traced to China and more recently,the meeting between President Obama and The Dalai Lama

The People's Republic of China and the Republic of Singapore are both authoritarian governments, although to widely varying degrees. China bases its core principles in Communism and sometimes socialism, while Singapore is a parliamentary democracy whose constitution is based on English common law and British Indian law. The authoritarian aspects of both governments are evident in their control over their citizens' freedom of expression. Specifically, both Singapore and China, despite the variance in the size of their populations, share similar positions in their policies toward internet use and access. One crucial determinant of the similar approaches used by both is the fact that they are relatively young nations, based on their independence from recent colonists. China only began political and economic reform in the 1980s after the death of Mao Zedong, and Singapore attained independence from Britain in 1963 and separation from Malaysia in 1965. 

China and Singapore needed to determine the fastest and most effective methods of industrializing and advancing to the economic heights of countries such as the US and Europe. These decisions would've been more simple and straightforward for a democracy; build telecommunications infrastructure, and open up access freely to all citizens and enterprises alike, in accordance with the democratic right to freedom of speech. For authoritative governments however, balancing the introduction of far-reaching technology such as the internet, with the desired level of control over the people has proved to be less simple. This paper will examine the approaches taken by both China and Singapore, in their attempt to strike a balance between technological industrialization and limitation of civil liberty in regard to internet access and use. The purpose of this paper is to understand why these countries have chosen their respective policies, and to make note of the consequences. 

China is a strictly authoritarian state, with a Communist Party backed by the Constitution, whose priorities include social order, public security and national security. Public opposition to the Communist People's Party (CPC) is disallowed, as well the expression of any other information that may be deemed subversive to the CPC (Hassid). The range of topics considered to be subversive is not exclusively defined, nonetheless scholar Jongpil Chung suggests as a guide, the Four Cardinal Principles. Introduced by Deng Xiaoping in 1978 as a response to the 'Democracy Wall" erected in Beijing, these principles represent key stances of the Communist Party Doctrine. The Four Cardinal Principles are socialism, the dictatorship of the proletariat, the leadership of the Communist Party, and Marxism-Leninism-Mao Zedong Thought (Chung 732). It is noteworthy that while the CPC sets social order as one of its goals, its method of achieving this is by repressing political expression, and using the Four Cardinal Principles as a shield. The internet poses a challenge to the repression of political discourse, due to its unsurpassed collective and disseminating capabilities in regards to information. The potential benefits of advancing industrial and commercial development through the internet outweighed the threats perceived by the Chinese government nevertheless, and construction of an information infrastructure was begun in the 1990s.
  
Singapore has a unicameral parliamentary system of government, whereby there is only one level of government- federal. The simplicity of the Singaporean government system is considerably distinct from the Chinese government, which has 3 levels of government, and a notoriously large bureaucracy. Further on, we will see how the structure of a government system has an effect on the level of control wielded by it. The Media Development Authority (MDA) of Singapore is charged with regulation of the media industry and its development of global communications (mda.gov.sg). The priorities of MDA internet policies appear to be ethnic and religious harmony, as well as socio-political stability and national security. Singapore's Internet Code of Practice mostly focuses on harmful material like pornography, and defines relatively succinct boundaries on socio-political expression. Section 4(2) g of the 

Singapore Internet Code of Conduct "prohibits material that ‘glorifies, incites or endorses ethnic, racial or religious hatred, strife or intolerance'" (Gomez 135). With its uniquely diverse population, it is evident that Singapore aims for egalitarian treatment of all races, but the most liberal of scholars might argue that those who do not share in this value, are being silenced. Optimistically however, Singapore's focus on ethnic and religious harmony eases the pressure on political censorship, at least in comparison to China. In the 1990’s, Singapore was on its way to becoming an Asian Tiger, and began to build its own information infrastructure.
 
China's approach to entering the information age was to embark on a series of projects known as the Golden Projects. They included the Golden Bridge Project, Golden Card Project and the Golden Gate Project. The main goals of the latter two were e-banking and e-trade, while the Golden Bridge Project was intended to create a public network that would link the state ministries with state-owned enterprises (SOEs) across China ( Chung 732). As early as 1991, Singapore launched a project known as IT2000 with the goal of converting the state it into "the vision of an 'Intelligent Island' where information technology is further and better applied to enhance the quality of life of the population" (Hung 9). Both countries are bringing their projects into fruition, with Singapore receiving a No. 4 ranking in global IT from the World Economic Forum ,and China leading the world with 298 million internet users. While the plans for commercial development are becoming realities for these governments, the freedom of expression has been held back from progression.

BIBLIOGRAPHY
Wang, Stephanie. "China | OpenNet Initiative." ONI Home Page | OpenNet Initiative. 15 June 2009. Web. 20 Oct. 2009. <http://opennet.net/research/profiles/china#footnote38_1j5nfzr>.
Chung, Jongpil. "Comparing Online Activities in China and South Kore." Asian Survey 8.5 (2008): 727-51. Ww.ucpressjournals.com. University of California. Web. 20 Oct. 2009. <http://ucpressjournals.com/journal.asp?j=as>.
Gomez, James. "Dumbing Down Democracy: Trends in Internet Regulation, Surveillance and Control in Asia." Pacific Journalism Review 10.2 (2004): 130-50. Auckland University of Technology. Web. 20 Oct. 2009. <http://www.pjreview.info/>.
Hassid, Jonathan. "Controlling the Chinese Media: An Uncertain Business." Asian Survey 48.3 (2008): 414-30. Web. 19 Oct. 2009. <http://proquest.umi.com.proxy.library.vcu.edu/pqdlink?index=3&did=1507544931&SrchMode=3&sid=1&Fmt=6&VInst=PROD&VType=PQD&RQT=309&VName=PQD&TS=1256691609&clientId=4305&aid=1>.
Kalathil, Shanthi. "Dot.com for Dictators." Foreign Policy 135 (2003): 42-49. Washingtonpost.Newsweek Interactive, LLC. Web. 19 Oct. 2009. <www.jstor.org>.
"The Media and Asia." Speech. World Affairs Council. Los Angeles. 19 Oct. 1998. Los Angeles World Affairs Council. Web. 19 Oct. 2009. <http://www.lawac.org/speech/pre%20sept%2004%20speeches/yew.html>.
"Media Development Authority - About Us." Media Development Authority - Home. Media Development Authority, 29 July 2009. Web. 19 Oct. 2009. <http://www.mda.gov.sg/wms.www/aboutus.aspx>.
"Press Freedom Index 2009." Reporters Sans Frontières. Reporters Sans Frontières. Web. 19 Oct. 2009. <http://www.rsf.org/en-classement1003-2009.html>.
"World Economic Forum - Global Information Technology Report." World Economic Forum - Home. Ed. World Economic Forum. 26 Mar. 2009. Web. 20 Oct. 2009. <http://www.weforum.org/en/initiatives/gcp/Global%20Information%20Technology%20Report/index.htm>.
Yang, Gubon. "The Coevolution of the Internet and Civil Society in China." Asian Survey 43.3 (2003): 405-22. 2 Dec. 2003. Web. 19 Oct. 2009. <http://caliber.ucpress.net/doi/pdf/10.1525/as.2003.43.3.405>.

Sunday, February 21, 2010

Need a Job?

Mint.com {my favorite site for personal finance}has compiled a list of top 10 cities expected to have the most promising job growth through the next two decades. I have to admit I'm disappointed that Virginia is not ranked in the top 10 growing job states, especially considering its repertoire for excellence in primary education and business development. Virginia is ranked the best state for business by Forbes and Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology was ranked the best High School in the US by U.S. News & World Report's rankings.

Budgeting – Mint.com


Ok so maybe the experts dont consider that to be relevant, but what about this cartoon from the BLS?


As chart shows, the Government ties with Trade & Transportation for the highest percentage of employment, which is positive because the government is the  least likely employer to hand out pink slips during economic recessions. 

The BLS website provides that Virginia is among the 12 states that had less than 2% change in unemployment over 2008{from 5%-6.9%) and is one of only 4 states in the East Coast with an employment-population ratio higher than 64%

Furthermore, according to yesvirginia.org ,Virginia enjoys these additional accolades:
  • More than 15,700 high-tech establishments operate in Virginia.

  • At least 60 firms with annual revenue over $500 million are headquartered in Virginia.

  • Virginia is headquarters to 32 Fortune 1000 firms.

  • More than 800 internationally-owned businesses from 45 countries are located in the Commonwealth.

  • Virginia ranks third among the 50 states as a recipient of federal R&D funds.
  • In terms of productivity, Virginia is number one amongst the states in the Southeastern Region.

  • Virginia ranks among the top 10 states best positioned for robust growth and innovation over the next decade, in terms of being knowledge-based, globalized, entrepreneurial, IT-driven, and innovation-based, according to the "2008 State New Economy Index” published by the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation and the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation.

  • Virginia exported $18.93 billion of merchandise in 2008.

Okay, I think I'm done campaigning for VA. Get packing.

PS. The BLS has a great compilation of comparison maps showing the change in unemployment rates from 1976 -2008.

Saturday, February 20, 2010

Nimo-ism buzz words of 2009

I just discovered this fun tool called Wordle that creates customizable tag clouds of the most reoccurring words in a given text. Quite apparently, I over-used the name 'Dalai Lama' in my last post- but how else could I refer to him?

Friday, February 19, 2010

You and What Army?


You know what they say- you should never provoke anyone who can answer that question with confidence. In the past few years, there has been a tug of war for public support between The People's Republic of China and a single man- the Dalai Lama. I doubt The Dalai Lama teases the Chinese Republic by proposing liberties then responding to discouragement by saying "you and what army?"...still - The Dalai Lama has been working overtime to keep civil liberties among the list of international conversation topics for governments and citizens alike.The civil liberties of the Tibetan people are a special focus for him, thus given the bitter history between Tibet and China, the end of the battle is but a thought. China's most visible stratagem has been the discouragement of meetings between the Dalai Lama and heads of governments across the globe.A few months back, the Dalai Lama claimed that he had a meeting arranged with President Obama for a future, albeit  uncertain date, and it appeared most doubted him, viewing it as an appeal than a confirmation. On Thursday Feb 18th,2010 The Dalai Lama met with President Obama at the white House, where he restated his hope for the recognized autonomy of Tibet with a succinct distinction from independence for Tibet.

The purpose of the meeting itself was not 'characterized' by the White House press secretary although a statement reveals that President Obama's "strong support for the preservation of Tibet's unique religious, cultural and linguistic identity, and the protection of human rights for Tibetans,".

President Obama did not respond in any manner  other than expected of the populist, politically correct,pacifier, while The Dalai Lama stood his ground on the Tibetan platform. I am curious as to why the president was happy to postpone his meeting with The Dalai Lama when he visited last fall in favor of meeting with Chinese president Hu Jintao, yet in the face of strained US-China relations, the president finds a blank spot on his calendar. I am inclined to believe that meeting with the Dalai Lama is an integral part of promoting and securing the reputation of President Obama as a genuine democratic concerned about the protection of democratic and civil liberties for all. A quick glimpse in a tv guide reveals upcoming specials by different networks , with the focus on evaluating President Obama's first year in office. After the first year, presidential approval and evaluation is often the media hot story, and the telling statistics may set the tone for the remainder of the term. The meeting was a strategically balanced move, to fortify the desired public opinion of the president , while providing a civil rights leader a platform for expression, despite lacking intent on the president's part to take definitive action. 

Appease the Tibetans and civil liberties activists a lot, and anger a the Chinese a little

According to CNN, Chinese officials have expressed to the US ambassador to China, their "strong dissastisfaction" in regards to the meeting. 

Nevertheless, for all intensive purposes, the status quo is maintained.

Thursday, February 18, 2010

Case of the Februarys


Its Tax Time- everyone's least favorite time of the year for a reason:

- Robert Hershey at the NYT discusses what you should consider when determining your tax strategies

- Just to make sure the recession has hit your financial ego hard enough, David Wessel of WSJ dares to bring up the subject of the tax returns of the top 400 taxpayers and Bloomberg News' 
and Bloomberg News' Ryan J. Donmoyer follows suit, teasing you with their Cap Gains and income statistics

- Filing your taxes may actually take second place to a dentist appointment as you rleast favorite chore if you qualify for the Make Work Pay tax credit 

- The new year is a great time to make fresh starts, so if you resolved to make better financial decisions, consider NYT's David Cay Johnston's two cents on effecting  some changes in your Roth IRA contributions and personal finance topics

- If attached to your hip, you find an iPhone, then consider Mint's suggestions on useful iphone apps for personal finance, including the MileBug which tracks your mileage for expense deductions. Use your handy iphone to search for other useful apps such as  the Federal Tax Calculator app

Wednesday, February 17, 2010

Joseph Stiglitz- The economist who cried wolf

American economist Joseph Stiglitz has warned us before, and he's doing it again. Listen.

Feb,12,2010
Joseph Stiglitz feels depressed. Having been a voice in the wilderness urging caution when financial capitalism was in a speculative frenzy, he wants the crisis to be the catalyst for radical thinking. But he fears it won't be: Greece is being forced to cut its deficit, the bankers are behaving as if nothing has changed since August 2007, and the political running in the United States is being made by the right-wing anti-state Tea Party.
"There was a moment of euphoria when we were all Keynesians," he said in an interview to mark the publication of his new book.* "Those ideas were working and every government stood behind them. It was not just Keynesian macro-economic policies, it was the need for regulation and the recognition that economics had failed."
Since those heady days of optimism a year ago, when unprecedented government action hauled the global economy back from the brink of a new Depression, Stiglitz says two things have happened to derail prospects of change. "Plans to re-regulate the financial markets have run into a political quagmire and there has been a resurgence of deficit fetishism."
He says he is surprised at how fast the forces in favour of the pre-2007 status quo have re-grouped. "The optimist in me is hopeful we won't need another crisis to finally motivate the political process," he said. "The pessimist in me says it may need to happen."

Pessimistic

Now 67, Stiglitz has been a critic of the Chicago School of free-market economics and its international cousin – the Washington consensus – throughout his career. His trenchant objections to the deflationary policies imposed on Asian countries by the International Monetary Fund in the late 1990s led to him being ousted as the World Bank's chief economist after lobbying from Bill Clinton's treasury secretary, Larry Summers. (Stiglitz's nemesis is now head of Barack Obama's National Economic Council.)Since then, he has written books on the defects in globalisation, the 1990s boom, the cost of the Iraq war and now on the Great Recession. Freefall attacks all his familiar betes noires: the IMF, the US treasury, the Federal Reserve, Wall Street, the mainstream economics profession and, of course, Summers.
Stiglitz is a "big supporter" of Obama's plans to stop Wall Street banks speculating with customers' money. Significantly, the initiative only happened when the president stopped listening to Summers, treasury secretary Tim Geithner and Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke, and turned to the veteran policy-maker Paul Volcker.
"I'm pretty pessimistic about the US. It will be a long time before unemploy­ment returns to normal." He believes the struggling housing market – 25% of households are in negative equity – may harm one of America's traditional strengths: the ability of workers to move from state to state in search of jobs. He says US banks are hiding their exposure to commercial real estate, which he fears will be the next problem.
He says the pick-up in growth across the global economy in the latter half of 2009 will not last. "The likelihood that growth will slow is close to 100%. The likelihood that it will drop below zero is uncertain. We don't know about the policy response, we don't know whether there will be a second stimulus package in the US, and we don't know how bad the balance sheets of the banks are."
For the past couple of weeks, Stiglitz has been advising the Greek government on how to respond to its severe financial crisis. He says the speculators are not basing their decisions on what they think but are gambling on what they think other people will think about Greece. "They are gambling on the degree of irrationality going forward."
Europe, he says, should show "social solidarity": the European Central Bank provides liquidity to solvent banks to help them through the bad times, and should treat Greece in the same fashion. "If the central bank is prepared to provide liquidity support for banks it should be able to provide it for countries."
He added: "Governments had to come in after the banks mismanaged what they were supposed to do. The financial markets are now criticising countries for picking up the pieces after the financial markets failed. They are demanding the wages of workers be cut but bonuses be allowed to continue. This is an absurd situation."
The crisis has exposed a fault line in the single currency. From the outset, critics said the test of the euro would be when the poorer countries came under pressure and lacked the ability both to devalue and to access financial support from the richer parts of the euro area. "That problem was swept under the rug but has now come to the fore."
Stiglitz has long been a supporter of a financial transaction tax, the brainchild of his fellow American Keynesian James Tobin. This week a coalition of groups launched a campaign for a "Robin Hood tax" that would levy a small charge on financial transactions and re-distribute the proceeds. "A transaction tax is designed to tackle high-frequency activity for which it is hard to find any societal benefit," Stiglitz said.
"The only questions about a financial transaction tax are: can it be effectively implemented and can it be circumven­ted? There is a growing consensus that it can be implemented, if not perfectly then effectively enough to make a difference." Speculators themselves supported the idea of the tax because they knew their activities were "socially counter-productive", he claimed.

Wrinkles

Stiglitz won his Nobel prize for his work on asymmetric information, the notion that markets do not work as perfectly as textbooks suggest. "It is almost impossible to reconcile the description of the economy provided by the mainstream profession and what has actually been going on. These are not minor wrinkles."They acted as if the bubble would go on forever, when real incomes were falling for most Americans."
He says attempts by Tony Blair and Gordon Brown to knock some of the rough edges off of Thatcherism "didn't go far enough" in correcting the Thatcher revolution. "In trying not to over-react they under-reacted."
George Osborne is precisely the sort of "deficit fetishist" Stiglitz has in his sights. Incredulous at the idea that the Conservatives would cut spending when the economy is barely out of recession, he thinks Osborne would take a different view in power. "He originally talked about big deficit cuts but seems to have backed off that in terms of timing. The reason they are doing that is that if they did it the recession would get much worse. If they get elected, they will move from rhetoric to reality."
In the years ahead, Stiglitz says the big story will be the challenge to the west from China and India. There was a time when emerging economies had no choice but to accept the free-market policies imposed by Washington. "The US treasury would be laughed out of town if it went to China or India today and told them they had to de-regulate.
"We can now see a day when the dominance of the west will end."

Further wise words can be found in Stiglitz' latest book Freefall: Free Markets and the Sinking of the Global Economy
 
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