Sri Padmanabhaswany temple, in Thiruvananthapuram (formerly Trivandrum), the treasures of which--recently inventoried by court order--make it perhaps the richest temple in the world (c. $19-23 billion exclusive of items' antique value), is at the heart of Jake Halpern's article, "The Secret of the Temple," (abstract) in the April 30, 2012 issue of The New Yorker.
(Photo by NanYang Tours.)
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Romesh Ratnesar summarizes David Rothkopf's new book, Power, Inc.: companies more than governments now rule the world. This is not without varying degrees of benefit among nation states and individuals. Certainly corporations adapt more adeptly and quickly than do governments to changing circumstances. Corporations are vital. But, the situation described in Power, Inc. is not without negative consequences, too, that various nations are addressing differently. (Photo: Kristine Church and the Engelbrekt statue, Main Square, Falun, Sweden, original home of Stora Kopparberg ("Great Copper Mountain," now Stora Enso, post-merger, and based in Finland.))
From the review:
Rothkopf’s lament is not that multinationals like Stora [arguably the oldest continuously operating corporation in the world] have grown so strong, but that the world’s governments have failed to keep pace. The most eye-popping sections of Power, Inc. detail how decolonization, globalization, and financial deregulation have subverted the prerogatives states have traditionally reserved for themselves—like controlling their own currencies, regulating companies operating inside their borders, and providing a basic safety net for their citizens. Rothkopf asserts that as many as 160 of the 192 United Nations member countries are little more than “semi-states,” a “faded version of what a state used to be or was supposed to be.” Meanwhile, the world’s richest country, the U.S., has allowed deep-pocketed, well-connected “supercitizens” to distort the political process in ways that undermine the public interest.
What can be done? Rothkopf argues that the financial crisis has precipitated a “reckoning” that is causing much of the world to abandon America’s laissez-faire approach to economic policy. He identifies various “competing capitalisms” that are “growing faster,” “competing more tenaciously,” and “combating inequality more effectively” than the U.S.; all of these alternatives also call for a more robust government role in the economy. Still, whether the successor to the American model comes from China or Sweden or Singapore, it’s difficult to see the balance of power tilting away from global corporations any time soon. Rothkopf asks former U.S. Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin whether, in the wake of the 2008 meltdown, large financial institutions should have been broken up. “Don’t you see?” Rubin replies. “Too big to fail isn’t a problem with the system. It is the system.”
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When Krugman of the economic (and social) American left and The Economist of the economic British and European right are agreeing...it's wise to pay attention.
They're agreeing on characteristics of both the European economic crisis and to an extent what actions should be taken by various nations, including the US, to best deal with respective national economic problems.
What they agree on are mostly facts--realities; yet, realities shockingly seldom heard in the US especially among commentators on the political right, both partisan Republicans and self-described libertarians.
(Image: cartoon of Adam Smith, Karl Marx, Friedrich Hayek, and John Keynes. Heaven forbid that even if they weren't all equallycorrect and incorrect, each thinker might each have been at least somewhatcorrect--and incorrect! Heaven forbid one of them mightn't have been 100% correct and the other three 100% wrong!)
Both Krugman and The Economist have recently pointed out that the European crisis is rooted as much or more in monetary policy than in fiscal irresponsibility evidenced by bloated welfare programs.
In terms of welfare programs' role, Krugman notes in "What Ails Europe?" that:
[I]n 1991, when Sweden was suffering from a banking crisis brought on by deregulation (sound familiar?), the Cato Institute published a triumphant report on how this proved the failure of the whole welfare state model.... Sweden, which still has a very generous welfare state, is currently a star performer, with economic growth faster than that of any other wealthy nation.
So, welfare programs' generosity aren't hurting Sweden. But note that Sweden is not a Eurozone country, either. Perhaps it's the Eurozone itself that's the problem. (Wait for it. The Economist ends up saying as much!)
But, Krugman looks at Eurozone nations, too, not just Sweden:
Look at the 15 European nations currently using the euro (leaving Malta and Cyprus aside), and rank them by the percentage of G.D.P. they spent on social programs before the crisis. Do the troubled GIPSI nations (Greece, Ireland, Portugal, Spain, Italy) stand out for having unusually large welfare states? No, they don’t; only Italy was in the top five, and even so its welfare state was smaller than Germany’s.
The Economist in "A Very Short History of the Crisis" noted much the same recently:
Before the crisis the governments of both Ireland and Spain ran budget surpluses. Both meticulously kept within the limits for deficits and debts set down by the stability and growth pact—unlike Germany, which flouted the rules for four years from 2003 (and avoided punishment). Nor did Italy lurch into extravagance. (Emphasis mine.)
Krugman's summary of the European crisis is as follows, with The Economist's below that. Both note that large welfare bills are at least in part a result of the crisis.
Krugman:
By introducing a single currency without the institutions needed to make that currency work, Europe effectively reinvented the defects of the gold standard — defects that played a major role in causing and perpetuating the Great Depression.
More specifically, the creation of the euro fostered a false sense of security among private investors, unleashing huge, unsustainable flows of capital into nations all around Europe’s periphery. As a consequence of these inflows, costs and prices rose, manufacturing became uncompetitive, and nations that had roughly balanced trade in 1999 began running large trade deficits instead. Then the music stopped.
If the peripheral nations still had their own currencies, they could and would use devaluation to quickly restore competitiveness. But they don’t, which means that they are in for a long period of mass unemployment and slow, grinding deflation. Their debt crises are mainly a byproduct of this sad prospect, because depressed economies lead to budget deficits and deflation magnifies the burden of debt
The Economist:
Debt in [the GIPSI nations] has become a burden not because of government profligacy but because each enjoyed a decade of low interest rates and was then hit by the financial crisis. Easy credit fuelled debt in households and the financial sector. The European Central Bank oversaw a binge of cross-border lending. In the crisis unemployment and hardship have deepened, increasing the bill for welfare. Some countries, such as Ireland and Spain, have needed to find money to prop up their banks. These new expenses fell on the state just when tax receipts collapsed—catastrophically in countries that had seen a property boom
Krugman and The Economisteven share some degree of opposition to austerity as a way of addressing economies worsened by the 2088-2009 Great Recession, though Krugman is much more opposed. Also, he sees debt as a short-term necessary evil to be outweighed by the benefits of stimulus (i.e., government spending and tax relief) if the stimulus is sufficiently large, while The Economist is more fearful of debt and deficits.
Krugman's lack of alarm may be evidenced by statements like this:
[C]ountries that aren’t on the euro seem able to run large deficits and carry large debts without facing any crises. Britain and the United States can borrow long-term at interest rates of around 2 percent; Japan, which is far more deeply in debt than any country in Europe, Greece included, pays only 1 percent.
True, but a $15.5 trillion US debt? With interest it's more than $56.6 trillion! That's an astronomically staggering sum. Granted, the US GDP is $15.0 trillion, but can the US's GDP be expected to increase substantially anytime soon as a means of lowering the debt? Republicans say, yes, if taxes and regulations are cut. Output will increase and jobs and consumer spending will follow. Democrats say, yes, especially if government stimulus helps fuel new industries, increases the infrastructure the economy needs, and places money short-term in people's pockets--even the unemployed--so consumer demand doesn't devastatingly fall. To which Republicans have numerous counterpoints, to which Democrats have counter-counterpoints, etc.
It's an endless discussion, really.
An now to another point: it's an endless discussion that also is not going very well. I find the discussion to be most helpful when it's least ideological and partisan. But, that's dispiritingly rare these days.
I recently had the priviledge of joining Peter H. Schuck at a dinner at a friend's home. He's the author of Meditations of a Militant Moderate: Cool Views on Hot Topics. While the book focuses mostly on debates thriving in the first few years of this century, there's a basic principle at work in his analyses--articulated in various places in the book--that's relevant even more now than when the book was published, and it's a principle that I keep finding myself coming back to: the once not-so-shocking principle that many issues are complex, that there's inherent value in trying to understand others' perspectives, and that it's exceedingly rare that one side of in a debate is 100% right while all the other sides are 100% wrong.
This position seems to be one that fewer and fewer Americans hold--it particular, it's exactly the position not-held by commentators on Fox News and CNBC on one hand and MSNBC on the other.* Heaven forbid, some problems' solutions can't be summarized by a bumpersticker slogan. That goes for economics, too. When someone shouts (and it's increasingly frequently shouted) that you can't spend your way out of debt, it increasingly frequently strikes me as an overly narrow simplification of all things to be considered. I feel exactly the same way when someone else shouts that you also can't cut your way to growth. It's been refreshing in the past year when I've heard non-shouting types on TV say that cutting too much government spending too fast is dangerous and in the same breath say that debt is a serious problem. Guess what? These might not be mutually exclusive realities! (Gasp!) But the last word seems usually given on TV to someone insisting that one or the other economic viewpoint is totally wrong. I'm then inclined to remember that as strong as religious fundamentalism is, there's such a thing as epistemological fundamentalism, too: it's called being ideological, and it results in the politization of problem-solving, and it can make problems even harder to sort out.
See also:Keynes v. Hayek, a BBC Business news feature.
*This is the secondary reason why I mostly get my news from The PBS NewsHour and the BBC--the main reasons being the measured tone of the NewsHour and the BBC and the refusal of each to dumb-down content.
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To some, British Prime Minister David Cameron’s decision to demur from the new euro rescue plan has made the U.K. irrelevant on the world scene. Yet by moving away from the euro zone, Cameron did something more than reaffirm Britain’s opposition to a German-led Europe: He asserted Britain’s greater, historically grounded legacy as the center of the Anglophone world.
.....
The British are “cousins” to Americans, Canadians, Australians and New Zealanders in ways the French, Germans and Italians are not.
.....
Any close look at British interests and personal ties reflect the enduring nature of its tribal essence. London’s status as the world’s financial center — the critical reason for Cameron’s break with the E.U. — lies not primarily with Europe, but with its scattered former colonies. Britain is the world’s fourth largest investor and the top investor in the United States, which in turn serves as the U.K.’s biggest export market. The U.K. also plays an outsized role in South Africa, Singapore and India, where it is by far the largest European investor.In this sense, the Anglosphere — including places like India — constitutes a kind of transnational family. Usually ignored or scoffed at by globe-trotting pundits and politicians who define the world by geographic proximity, these global linkages are more important than ever.
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It's the brazenness of the Taliban that is unexpected - within 20 minutes they are throwing grenades from hidden positions just a few metres from the patrol and firing others from low-slung launchers. The grenades dance towards the landing zone as a medevac helicopter lands to pick up the casualty.
The contact lasts the best part of an hour and it is not until the helicopters overhead finally open up with their missiles that the insurgent guns lie quiet.
In the silence, all you can hear is the metallic click-clack of weapons being reloaded and the song of the swallows that flit through the air.
And it's like that every single day.
via www.bbc.co.uk
A gripping and grim telling of the situation with US and UK troops in Helmand. "Britain's 2nd Battalion, The Mercian Regiment is currently moving into the area, taking over from US marines of the 3rd Battalion, 4th Regiment."
The weekly Saturday meetings with the handful of prematurely old men with deep facial lines and hawkish features who attend are little more than convivial sit-downs with the fathers of the local Taliban. They know it, the marines know it, and the Afghans laugh among themselves, talking in circles as they often do when sitting down with foreign soldiers.
"Why is my son in jail?" asks Mohammed Sarif. Tall and with a large, round face adorned with a white beard, his eyes glisten with emotion.
"Because your son is a bad man," states the CO. "We caught him with explosives on his hand, and we have seen him laying bombs in the ground."
"My son has not done these things."
"Yes, he has, and we have seen him do it."
"Then I will kill him myself."
"He will be brought to justice."
"Give us tanks and guns and we will fight for justice in our area."
"That's good, we are recruiting for local police. Get 15 men and we will give them all the training they require."
"We cannot join the police."
"Why not?"
"The Taliban would kill us."
Impasse.
"Money is not an issue," says Captain Terrell afterwards.
"We've got plenty of money we can bring to the area but since nobody cares about projects here there's little point in spending money because it won't improve the situation.
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KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — NATO and Afghan forces have killed a former Guantanamo detainee who returned to Afghanistan to become a key al-Qaida ally, international officials said Saturday.
The militant's death was a reminder of the risks of trying to end a controversial detention system without letting loose people who will launch attacks on Americans.
Saber Lal Melma, who was released from Guantanamo in 2007, had been organizing attacks in eastern Kunar province and funding insurgent operations, NATO spokesman Capt. Justin Brockhoff said.
A NATO statement described Melma as a "key affiliate of the al-Qaida network" who was in contact with senior al-Qaida members in both Afghanistan and Pakistan.
Another former detainee who joined the al-Qaida franchise in Yemen was killed in a recent U.S. airstrike there.
Troops surrounded Melma's house in Jalalabad city on Friday night and shot him dead when he emerged from the building holding an AK-47 assault rifle
via news.yahoo.com
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(Yes--basketball was created by a Canadian, James Nismith. And, yes, it's true, Henry Woodward sold the share of his Canadian patent for a light bulb to Thomas Edison in 1885. Thomas Edison invented a carbon filament, then a bamboo one lasting 1200 hours. He did not invent the electric light bulb per se, but the practical use of one. Actually, Humphry Davy, an English chemist, invented the first electric light by connecting from a battery two wires with a charcoal strip between their ends--the carbon glowed: the first arc lamp.)
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The story, "NY marriage vote emboldens Paris gay pride march," is the sort of strained reporting and sometimes underwhelming writing that I find the AP too often tolerates. The journalist writes, "Marchers, dressed in drag, brassieres or striped sailor outfits, paraded...." Not "Marchers, some dressed in...." All marchers are indicated, as if there are three authorized outfits to choose from.
What is more, the piece gives the reader inaccurate sense of the parade--or more precisely, it offers mere slices--the sartorial (prurient?)--actually of the reality as if it is highly representative of or even the entirety of the reality. This is abject intellectual dishonesty on the part of the journalist. Consider: just what is the newsworthiness of these 95 characters in such limited page space: "naked except for a glittery black jock strap, feathered high-heel boots and sequin-studded mask," especially when such outlandish customs at pride parades are the exception in reality but the (inaccurate) norm in the minds of most people in the world. (The "man bites dog" angle to such coverage would be that--gee, most parade participants are nondescriptly dressed!)
Also, awkward and recklessly connotative terms like "macho-dominated" cry out for definition, and in this instance, the use of the term also probably oversimplifies the situation in Russia, though, to be fair, journalists don't have the luxury of a high word-count allowance, and oversimplification is hard to avoid. But finally, the story is at heart a story about the rest of Europe, or more precisely, the rest of Europe beyond France, which is not suggested by the headline at all.
Nonetheless, the story does accomplish its main objective, to give a brief but not insubstantial view of awareness among progressives globally of New York State's new law.
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David Hart, from Poppleton in York, was 23 when he was killed by a bomb in Helmand Province last year.
He left a letter telling 32 of his friends he wanted them to spend £100,000 of his life insurance on the holiday.
He also left part of the money to several charities.
Newsbeat has been speaking to two of his friends, James Barrett and Craig Theaker, who'll both be taking the trip.
via www.bbc.co.uk
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Many European countries — along with China, Japan and South Korea — have pushed commercial development of carbon-reducing technologies with a robust policy mix of direct government investment, tax breaks, loans, regulation and laws that cap or tax emissions. Incentives have fostered rapid entrepreneurial growth in new industries like solar and wind power, as well as in traditional fields like home building and food processing, with a focus on energy efficiency.
But with Congress deeply divided over whether climate change is real or if the country should use less fossil fuel, efforts in the United States have paled in comparison. That slow start is ceding job growth and profits to companies overseas that now profitably export their goods and expertise to the United States.
A recent report by the Pew Charitable Trusts found that while the clean technology sector was booming in Europe, Asia and Latin America, its competitive position was “at risk” in the United States because of “uncertainties surrounding key policies and incentives.”
“This is a $5 trillion business and if we fail to be serious players in the new energy economy, the costs will be staggering to this country,” said Hal Harvey, a Stanford engineer who was an adviser to both the Clinton and the first Bush administration and is now chief executive of the San Francisco-based energy and environment nonprofit organization Climate Works. Although the 2009 stimulus bill provided a burst of funding — $45 billion — that has now tapered off, he said, “We’ve let energy policy succumb to partisan politics.”
The aggressive entry of Britain into the field over the last few years shows the power of government inducements to redesign a nation’s energy economy away from traditional fuel. The country’s Green Deal, as it is called, is currently being spearheaded by the Conservative-led coalition government.
via www.nytimes.com
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