In his speech Thursday, President Obama is expected to express support for previously stalled trade pacts, even though government studies predict that they would increase the U.S. trade deficit and cost the United States more jobs.
The press, politicians, and pundits have apparently uncovered the driving force behind the current conflict over the debt ceiling: ideology. The New York Times suggests that Republican ideology has doomed any possibility of compromise, that ideology has trumped economics, and Reuters similarly asserts that ideology overshadows the debt talks. Yet no one has asked, let alone described, what precisely is the Republican Party’s anti-tax, small government ideology, an ideology that tumbles over into foreign policy and domestic alike.
Since it is the 200th anniversary of the British Luddite protests this month, that movement has been getting some attention. Some of it has raised the valid and interesting question of whether those demonstrators of old should really be described as anti-technology.
The nascent American sushi trend brings into relief aspects of Japan-US relations that are seldom articulated in the context of discourse about food – in particular the continued symbolic dominance of the US in Japanese eyes; and it also is emblematic of how Japan engages aspects of globalisation, in this case fetishising a mundane product that has become something new in its reimported form.
The current global downturn, the worst since the Great Depression 70 years ago, pounded the last nail into the coffin of globalization. Already beleaguered by evidence that showed global poverty and inequality increasing, even as most poor countries experienced little or no economic growth, globalization has been terminally discredited in the last two years. As the much-heralded process of financial and trade interdependence went into reverse, it became the transmission belt not of prosperity but of economic crisis and collapse.
In any middle school civics class you’ll learn that the system of checks and balances is a central tenet of the U.S. Constitution. Over the last 100 years, however, it appears the government has been operating under different assumptions, particularly where trade policy is concerned.
The recent swine flu scare provided the world with another example of the globalization of public health. The need for global institutions that can coordinate an international response to such emergencies has never been clearer. We also need to look more broadly at the weaknesses in the international public health system and how to solve them, as further epidemics are inevitable. While U.S. pork producers are hastening to get the word out — swine flu is not transmitted by eating pork! — food is also becoming increasingly globalized. And international food safety institutions aren’t currently up to the job of keeping the food supply safe.
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.
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.
Joseph Stiglitz was born in Indiana in 1943. He currently teaches at Columbia University, where he is chair of the university’s Committee on Global Thought. During Bill Clinton’s administration, he was a member of the Council of Economic Advisers then later its chairman from 1993-97. He then became chief economist and senior vice-president of the World Bank from 1997-2000.