1 America on the wrong side of history (Joseph
Stiglitz in The Guardian) The Third International Conference on Financing for
Development recently convened in Ethiopia’s capital, Addis Ababa. The tasks
that these countries are undertaking – investing in infrastructure (roads,
electricity, ports, and much else), building cities that will one day be home
to billions, and moving toward a green economy – are truly enormous.
At the same time, there
is no shortage of money waiting to be put to productive use. Just a few years
ago, Ben Bernanke, then the chairman of the US Federal Reserve Board, talked
about a global savings glut. And yet investment projects with high social returns
were being starved of funds. That remains true today. The problem, then as now,
is that the world’s financial markets, meant to intermediate efficiently
between savings and investment opportunities, instead misallocate capital and
create risk.
Much has changed in the
13 years since the first International Conference on Financing for Development
was held in Monterrey, Mexico, in 2002. Back then, the G7 dominated global
economic policymaking; today, China is the world’s largest economy (in
purchasing-power-parity terms), with savings around 50% larger than that of the
US. In 2002, western financial institutions were thought to be wizards at
managing risk and allocating capital; today, we see that they are wizards at
market manipulation and other deceptive practices.
Today, developing
countries and emerging markets say to the US and others: if you will not live
up to your promises, at least get out of the way and let us create an
international architecture for a global economy that works for the poor, too. When
China proposed the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank to help recycle some of
the surfeit of global savings to where financing is badly needed, the US sought
to torpedo the effort. President Barack Obama’s administration suffered a
stinging (and highly embarrassing) defeat.
The US is also blocking
the world’s path towards an international rule of law for debt and finance. The
vast majority of countries have called for the creation of a framework for
sovereign-debt restructuring. The US remains the major obstacle.
Developing countries
and emerging markets, led by India, argued that the proper forum for discussing
global tax issues was an already established group within the United Nations,
the Committee of Experts on International Cooperation in Tax Matters, whose status
and funding needed to be elevated. The US strongly opposed: it wanted to keep
things the same as in the past, with global governance by and for the advanced
countries.
New geopolitical
realities demand new forms of global governance, with a greater voice for
developing and emerging countries. The US prevailed in Addis, but it also
showed itself to be on the wrong side of history.
2 Russia bulldozes
cheese mountain (BBC) Russia has bulldozed a pile of Western-produced cheese
and tonnes of other foodstuffs imported in violation of sanctions. The country
has also steamrollered fruit and burnt a huge pile of bacon.
The actions come a year
after Russia banned some Western food products in retaliation to EU and US
sanctions applied after Moscow annexed Crimea. The destruction has caused an
outcry from anti-poverty campaigners who say it should have been given to the
poor.
One steamroller took an
hour to crush nine tonnes of cheese. Another consignment was due to be burnt.
Boxes of bacon have been incinerated. Peaches and tomatoes were also due to be
crushed by tractors.
Religious leaders
expressed outrage. One called the actions "insane, stupid and vile". Russia
has suffered notorious famines in its recent history which saw millions starve.
More than 285,000 people have backed an online petition calling on President
Putin to give the food away. Food price inflation is running at around 20%.
The EU is providing aid
for European exporters of dairy produce, fruit and vegetables to ease the
impact of the Russian ban on those goods. The EU Commission said last week the
"safety net" for Europe's dairy sector would remain in place until
March 2016 and for fruit and vegetable growers until July 2016.
There have been daily
road blockades by French farmers - and on Thursday similar protests erupted in
Belgium. They want higher prices for their produce, saying they are struggling
to stay in business.
3 Crazy-rich tech
moguls (LA Times/San Francisco Chronicle) Forbes has released its World’s
Richest in Tech, a list of the top 100 wealthiest individuals in the industry,
with Silicon Valley leaders making up half of the top 10.
Not surprisingly,
Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates, the richest person in the world, was No. 1 with
a $79.6 billion net worth. He was followed by Oracle founder Larry Ellison with
$50 billion and Amazon’s Jeff Bezos with $47.8 billion.
Rounding out the top
10: Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg, Google’s Larry Page and Sergey Brin, Alibaba’s
Jack Ma, Microsoft’s Steve Ballmer, Apple and Disney’s Laurene Powell Jobs and
family, and Michael Dell.
Forbes noted that the
top 100 are younger than the average billionaire and most likely to be American
and living in California. Fifty-one of the people on the list are Americans and
33 are Asian. Just eight are Europeans and only seven are women.
Altogether, the world’s
100 richest tech billionaires are worth $842.9 billion. The average age is 53 —
which Forbes said is a decade younger than the average age of all billionaires
— and 15 of the top 100 are under 40.
The youngest member of
the list is Snapchat co-founder and CEO Evan Spiegel, who is 25 and worth an
estimated $2.1 billion. The oldest is Intel co-founder Gordon Moore, who is 86
and worth an estimated $6 billion. “Nearly all of the 100 are self-made
billionaires: 94 made their own luck, three inherited their fortunes and three
have inherited fortunes but have been actively expanding them,” Forbes said.
No comments:
Post a Comment