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POPSSTOCK FUTURES RALLY OPEC tells IMF that without quick end to financial market crisis, bearish sentiment in oil market is likely to continue. • Saefong reports on taking refuge in gold
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POPSUkraine Market Crashes With all the stocks markets around the world taking a hit, it does seem like Babel is falling, or course that could just be GW's babble.
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POPSBash the Bailout: Government is Not the Answer
......banking crisis, they make things worse. This is a long paper, but see p. 4 in particular. 10. One of the oldest forms of government intervention in the financial markets has been deposit insurance. Yet globally it destabilizes capitalism, impedes innovation and makes a bad regulatory regime worse. British economist Andrew Lilico explains how. 11. Harvard economist Jeffrey Miron puts it bluntly: “The fact that government bears such a huge responsibility for the current mess means any response should eliminate the conditions that created this situation in the first place.” 12. Government has been becoming more intrusive when it comes to lending over the years. John Berlau looks at how they want to fingerprint anyone originating a home loan. The bailout bill is now law, but it does little or nothing to solve the problems government created. As long as they persist, the financial markets will be at serious risk. In the end, we may need to bailout the bailout.
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POPSEx-Finance Ministers Offer U.S. Economic Advice Will the U.S. be open to advice from anyone else? We Americans have always prided ourselves on being at the 'giving' end of advice. To now realize that other countries think we are in need of it might be a little difficult to swallow. Judging by the way Bush and company have allowed this country to be run to a near stand still due to the wholesale plundering by corporate America, I think the time is right for a little friendly budgetary advice. Whether we are still too proud to take it is another matter.
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POPSChavez To Discuss Joint Banking Venture During Moscow Visit The socialist leader, an outspoken critic of Washington and opponent of neoliberalism, has focused his foreign policy on bolstering ties with countries outside the U.S. sphere of influence since coming to power nine years ago. Chavez said last week he expected to meet Russian President Dmitry Medvedev and discuss a number of industrial and technological projects as part of a visit aimed at boosting bilateral relations. PetroCaribe is a regional energy security alliance between Caribbean countries and Venezuela established in 2005. The alliance enables its 17 member countries to purchase Venezuelan oil under a flexible credit payment system.
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POPSUK Recession is Months Away Not surprising news. But a chance to reflect on the past 18 months. First, there was denial of an economic slowdown. Then the idea of recession was laughed at. Now the discussion is of whether the recession will be a big one or a little one. Interesting contemporary case study of how the rhetoric of denial runs parallel to the realities.
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POPSPut A Stop To Cut-Rate Gas: International Monetary Fund Governments that try to create a false economy for oil are not revealing the truth to their people. About half of humanity, from India to Chile, now benefits from cut-rate petroleum prices. In 2008, these countries will account for all the growth in world oil demand, or an additional one million barrels a day, according to Deutsche Bank. Their consumption will be the highest in eight years. In China, oil demand is estimated to rise 5 to 10 percent this year, but the government has resisted calls to end price controls. A few other countries – Chile and South Korea – are now moving toward subsidies to appease political pressures. In Congress, bills to combat global warming would raise costs for oil users, even possibly adding a dollar to gasoline prices. But proposals by lawmakers to relieve those costs with subsidies to consumers would only defeat the purpose of reducing oil demand.
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POPSProposal For A New IMF Role: SWF Manager This column argues that an appropriate new role for the IMF would be to manage a significant part of the new surplus countries’ sovereign wealth funds. Nothing if not an imaginative idea.
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POPSGovernment on a diet
Most governments have reduced their top tax rates and spending-to-GDP ratios over the last decade or so, according to data published by the OECD, IMF and World Bank. But slimmer governments have done so at a faster pace, and to significantly lower levels. Their highest tax rate on personal income fell to a group average of 30% in 2006 from 36% in 1996. Top corporate rates were lowered to an average of 22% from 30%. Their average ratio of total government outlays to GDP fell to 31.6% in 2007, from an average peak level during the previous two decades of 40.4% Investment growth jumped to an average annual rate of 5.9% in 2000-2005, from 3.8% over the previous decade. Exports have risen by 6.3% annually since 2000. The net result was a surge in economic growth. The IMF reports that GDP soared in the slimmer-government group at a 5.4% average annual rate from 1999-2008 (including its forecast for the current year), up from a 4.6% rate over the previous decade. Over that same period,
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POPSBeef and Fast Food Industries Resource Usage In Less Developed Countries the problem of land use is even more acute. Whilst the majority of food produce tends to be grown on small, subsistence farms, the bulk of the best agricultural land is used for the growing of cash crops. Partly a legacy of colonial policies, partly a result of the debt problem and IMF and World Bank solutions to this problem, we find that people in the LDCs, particularly the rural poor, are going hungry whilst the bulk of these countries' agricultural output is exported to Europe and the USA. — Ross Copeland, The Politics of Hunger, University of Kassel, September 2000
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POPSThe basics about debt The world's poorest countries pay over $100 million every day to the rich world. The UK has cancelled many debts, and been active in calling for further cancellation for the poorest – but it still holds billions in debts from other poor countries.
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POPSWorld's New Crisis: Soaring Food Prices "Frankly speaking, that G8 meeting is in June and we cannot wait," Mr Zoellick said, after meeting the IMF and the World Bank's Development Committee. "We estimate that a doubling of food prices over the last three years could potentially push 100 million people in low-income countries deeper into poverty." The World Bank has warned that food prices will remain elevated this year and will probably stay above 2004 levels until 2015. "We estimate that the effect of this food crisis on poverty reduction worldwide is in the order of seven lost years," Mr Zoellick said. He said that almost half of $500 million that the World Food Program recently requested in additional pledges for food aid had been committed, but the May 1 deadline for raising the money would not be met. The parliamentary secretary for international development assistance, Bob McMullan, said yesterday Australia was one of the largest donors through the World Food Program, giving $61.7 million last year.
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POPSUS, Abu Dhabi, Singapore Agree Sovereign Wealth Fund The agreements governing sovereign wealth funds were released by the Treasury after Paulson met Singapore's finance minister Tharman Shanmugaratnam, government of Abu Dhabi executive council member Hamad Al Hurr Al Suwaidi and other officials at the Treasury. The International Monetary Fund and Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development were seeking standards for sovereign wealth funds, whose value is expected to swell to 10 trillion dollars in five years.
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