SF-Financial Archives - Page 2 of 5 - Foreign Policy In Focus

Financial Crisis Hits Overseas Workers

by Carmela Cruz, John Feffer | Dec 16, 2008

When the clock strikes noon, mothers waiting for their children at Camp Crame Elementary School turn their necks and shift their feet, standing patiently in a courtyard shielded by a high tin roof from an extraordinarily bright sky. Within seconds, kids dart out of their classrooms and playfully crisscross the courtyard toward their mothers. These women not only live in the same Quezon City neighborhood — built around the Philippine National Police’s headquarters after which the school was named — but also share the common experience of having their husbands, siblings, or parents working abroad to support families left behind.

Green Paper Gold

by Jeremy Brecher, Tim Costello, John Feffer, Brendan Smith | Dec 9, 2008

There’s growing support for fighting global economic stagnation and global warming simultaneously with a “green New Deal” nationally and globally. Investing to cut greenhouse gasses can create “green jobs” and provide fiscal stimulus while it is protecting the planet. But how is it going to be paid for?

Charting a Progressive International Financial Agenda

by Daniel D. Bradlow, Emily Schwartz Greco | Dec 8, 2008

The international financial crisis has shaken the self-confidence of the managers of the international financial system. Their frantic efforts to prop up the global financial system and stimulate national economies are noteworthy, not only for the magnitude of the funds they are throwing at the problem but also for demonstrating they don’t seem to fully understand the system that they created. Their confusion is producing the best opportunity in 60 years to create a more socially and environmentally responsible international financial order.

Drawing the Future From the Past

by Channapha Khamvongsa | Dec 6, 2008

Since the end to the U.S. wars in Southeast Asia, many other wars have been waged, in other parts of the world, in new terrain, villages, and communities. Yet, the wars in Southeast Asia lingers.

Assessing the G-20 Declaration

by Emily Schwartz Greco, Robert Weissman | Dec 1, 2008

The G-20’s “Summit on Financial Markets and the World Economy,” held in Washington on November 15, gave world powers a chance to coordinate their responses to the burgeoning international financial crisis and accompanying ills in real economies around the globe but produced a long, vague, and telling declaration, devoid of meaningful commitments to change business as usual.

The Chinese Economy

by Samuel A. Bleicher, John Feffer | Nov 28, 2008

A recent New York Times editorial gives China broad advice on the economic and financial crises, most of it wrong. Headlined “As Goes China, so Goes…” (an allusion to the old U.S. presidential election bromide, “As goes Maine, so goes the Nation), the editorial distills the essence of the macroeconomists’ conventional wisdom about the proper future direction of the Chinese economy: reduce exports, expand imports, and create a modern consumer economy. The Times implies that China’s government budget surplus, high individual savings rate, and endless consumer and social welfare needs make the task easy, if only Chinese policymakers would catch on. In fact, this transformation would be far more disruptive. Moreover, neither China nor the world can survive the creation of a clone of the 20th-century U.S. economy in the coming era of high-cost energy and low-carbon footprints.

The Impending Development Aid Crisis

by Eveline Herfkens, Emily Schwartz Greco | Nov 26, 2008

Even as more money is found to rescue yet another banking giant, additional resources are scarce for the developing world. Yet without strong action by world leaders at the Financing for Development conference in Doha, Qatar, which begins on November 29, this subject will likely be another victim of the financial crisis, with grave repercussions for global poverty and the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals.

International Financial Reform and Africa: What is to be Done?

by Daniel D. Bradlow, Emily Schwartz Greco | Nov 20, 2008

Africa, the poorest and least robust part of the global economy, could be the region most severely affected by the financial crisis that began in the rich countries and is now metastasizing into a global economic crisis. Its export earnings are being hit by the recent decline in commodity prices (some prices have dropped by more than 50% since July). Its access to international finance, never exactly robust, is receding: economists estimate that private financial flows to developing countries will be 30-50% lower next year and it’s not yet clear if aid and other official flows will fill the gap. In addition, the World Bank expects remittances from emigrants, which represent about 2% of GDP for all sub-Saharan African countries to decline, and that will directly impact millions of individual households. Growth rates in 2009 will be lower than 2008 rates, and inflation rates will be higher. These developments will set back African efforts to meet the Millennium Development goals and lead to an increased number of extremely poor people in Africa. And already 320 million out of a total population of about 500 million live on less than $1 per day.

Swear Off ‘Market Fundamentalism’

by Robin Broad, John Cavanagh | Nov 14, 2008

The outgoing president appears unable to give up his belief in the “market fundamentalism” that has dominated the U.S. policy agenda for the past 30 years. With strong U.S. backing, institutions such as the World Bank, International Monetary Fund and the World Trade Organization have pushed governments to lift regulations on trade, finance and investment and sell off state enterprises throughout most of the developing world.

Bailout for the World’s Poorest People

by Emily Schwartz Greco, Salil Shetty | Nov 13, 2008

Just a few weeks after releasing its official forecast for the next year, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) adjusted its growth estimates downwards, predicting that poorer countries will see big losses in GDP over the next two years as a result of the global financial meltdown. Independent assessments estimate that developing countries’ losses between now and 2010 will be in excess of $300 billion.