tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35107494434228820162024-02-04T12:12:36.986-08:00Thoughtsjan joost teunissenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14018967221957534084noreply@blogger.comBlogger279125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3510749443422882016.post-44877096223882288992024-02-02T19:49:00.000-08:002024-02-03T01:37:50.846-08:00Alan Roberts (South Africa)<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="330" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/ONr76bHQDT0" width="397" youtube-src-id="ONr76bHQDT0"></iframe><span class="x193iq5w xeuugli x13faqbe x1vvkbs x1xmvt09 x1lliihq x1s928wv xhkezso x1gmr53x x1cpjm7i x1fgarty x1943h6x xudqn12 x3x7a5m x6prxxf xvq8zen xo1l8bm xzsf02u" dir="auto"> </span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span class="x193iq5w xeuugli x13faqbe x1vvkbs x1xmvt09 x1lliihq x1s928wv xhkezso x1gmr53x x1cpjm7i x1fgarty x1943h6x xudqn12 x3x7a5m x6prxxf xvq8zen xo1l8bm xzsf02u" dir="auto"> </span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span class="x193iq5w xeuugli x13faqbe x1vvkbs x1xmvt09 x1lliihq x1s928wv xhkezso x1gmr53x x1cpjm7i x1fgarty x1943h6x xudqn12 x3x7a5m x6prxxf xvq8zen xo1l8bm xzsf02u" dir="auto">I made a short film about my friend Alan Roberts (he died a few days ago), in which he says things about South Africa that apply to similar situations in other countries.</span> <br /></div><p></p>jan joost teunissenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14018967221957534084noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3510749443422882016.post-34032658376460448382023-11-29T23:31:00.000-08:002023-11-29T23:32:35.752-08:00 THE BIG ROUGH SEA - WORLD PORTS AND GLOBALIZATION (De grote wilde vaart - Wereldhavens en globalisering)<p> <a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh74FcTORmReZUL_AUQAY4ZCAn_POa00iofjRqndx_LXrDUpNKwZF8vluOcHuKz3755Pz2Ty0_RNQz7axAcD_tfnOtOq6F8ira3hgiSxBazOGU0Ep-6OJCqY3p8XGsTmfi4UmJmKa73hQ1Qfm5Nm_D8vdzWbZMHPlOnQcuOsYjzmlw1y7emazthCCC7u7Y/s640/jj%20en%20aafke%20-%20omslag%20Grote%20Wilde%20Vaart.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="384" data-original-width="640" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh74FcTORmReZUL_AUQAY4ZCAn_POa00iofjRqndx_LXrDUpNKwZF8vluOcHuKz3755Pz2Ty0_RNQz7axAcD_tfnOtOq6F8ira3hgiSxBazOGU0Ep-6OJCqY3p8XGsTmfi4UmJmKa73hQ1Qfm5Nm_D8vdzWbZMHPlOnQcuOsYjzmlw1y7emazthCCC7u7Y/w400-h240/jj%20en%20aafke%20-%20omslag%20Grote%20Wilde%20Vaart.jpg" width="400" /></a>THE BIG ROUGH SEA - WORLD PORTS AND GLOBALIZATION / PORTS MONDIAUX ET MONDIALISATION</p><p></p><div class="xdj266r x11i5rnm xat24cr x1mh8g0r x1vvkbs x126k92a"><div dir="auto" style="text-align: start;">De grote wilde vaart - Wereldhavens en globalisering</div><div dir="auto" style="text-align: start;"> </div></div><div class="x11i5rnm xat24cr x1mh8g0r x1vvkbs xtlvy1s x126k92a"><div dir="auto" style="text-align: start;">Text on the back of the book (published by WBOOKS) / Texte au dos du livre :</div><div dir="auto" style="text-align: start;"> </div></div><div class="x11i5rnm xat24cr x1mh8g0r x1vvkbs xtlvy1s x126k92a"><div dir="auto" style="text-align: start;"><span><a tabindex="-1"></a></span>Shipping, ports and trade are essential to humanity. Oceans, seas and rivers cover more than two-thirds of the Earth's surface. Since ancient times, people transported their goods across the water in rafts, canoes and sailboats. Now they sail across the oceans with container ships, bulk carriers and tankers. 90 percent of world trade moves from port to port by ship. Ports are the hubs of world society. </div><div dir="auto" style="text-align: start;"> </div></div><div class="x11i5rnm xat24cr x1mh8g0r x1vvkbs xtlvy1s x126k92a"><div dir="auto" style="text-align: start;">But ports and world trade are easily disrupted: a shipping accident in the Suez Canal, the corona pandemic, wars, climate change, geopolitical tensions. What happens in world ports? How did they originate? How have they developed? How did China's ports expand so dramatically? Can ports continue to grow indefinitely, or not? What are they doing about climate change and energy transition? What will the maritime world look like in the future?</div><div dir="auto" style="text-align: start;"> </div></div><div class="x11i5rnm xat24cr x1mh8g0r x1vvkbs xtlvy1s x126k92a"><div dir="auto" style="text-align: start;">These are questions that Aafke Steenhuis and Jan Joost Teunissen asked themselves. Over the past ten years they have traveled to crucial and colorful ports in the world, such as Shanghai, Singapore, Mumbai, Dubai, Alexandria, Cape Town, Rotterdam, Hamburg, Marseille, Genoa, Los Angeles, Santos. During that trip around the world they spoke with port experts, economists, writers and sociologists. The result is a book that is as loving as it is critical.</div><div dir="auto" style="text-align: start;"> </div></div><div class="x11i5rnm xat24cr x1mh8g0r x1vvkbs xtlvy1s x126k92a"><div dir="auto" style="text-align: start;">To order the book (in Dutch), click HERE - <span><a class="x1i10hfl xjbqb8w x6umtig x1b1mbwd xaqea5y xav7gou x9f619 x1ypdohk xt0psk2 xe8uvvx xdj266r x11i5rnm xat24cr x1mh8g0r xexx8yu x4uap5 x18d9i69 xkhd6sd x16tdsg8 x1hl2dhg xggy1nq x1a2a7pz xt0b8zv x1fey0fg" href="https://wbooks.com/winkel/geschiedenis/de-grote-wilde-vaart-wereldhavens-en-globalisering/?fbclid=IwAR3wv3sidil8CN3pFFYAWE-_GW04TcGSZtLSsSw9binr3qFlZMD8CN2aka0" rel="nofollow noreferrer" role="link" tabindex="0" target="_blank">https://wbooks.com/.../de-grote-wilde-vaart-wereldhavens.../</a></span></div></div><p></p>jan joost teunissenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14018967221957534084noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3510749443422882016.post-7078006790812467522022-11-02T07:34:00.004-07:002022-11-02T07:39:25.030-07:00Alexandria - Port and City (film by Jan Joost Teunissen)<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/06GdyoU3TWI" width="320" youtube-src-id="06GdyoU3TWI"></iframe></div><br /><p></p><p>Alexandria is the largest port in Egypt, handling around 60 percent of Egypt's
foreign trade. It was founded by Alexander the Great who built a city
that would become the most beautiful, richest and most intellectual city
in the Eastern Mediterranean. It had a famous lighthouse, a huge
library and a museum. </p><p>Today, Egypt is expanding the Port of Alexandria and other ports to
become a hub for global trade and logistics. </p><p>The film includes a lengthy tour of the port.
Alexandria is also the city where the famous poet Cafavis was born and
where he died. The film includes a visit to the Cavafis House. </p><p>Jan Joost Teunissen (author of this film) and Aafke Steenhuis are
writing <a href="https://www.degrotewildevaart.nl/eng/">a book about world ports and globalisation</a>. </p><p>Jan Joost is the <a href="https://www.blogger.com/profile/14018967221957534084">director of FONDAD</a>.</p>jan joost teunissenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14018967221957534084noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3510749443422882016.post-29729551649867325612022-03-25T06:56:00.009-07:002022-03-25T09:20:17.042-07:00“Why should we have listened better to Robert Triffin?”<p>
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</div></div></div></div></div><p><span class="markedContent" id="page123R_mcid1"><span dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="font-family: serif; font-size: 20px; left: 118.2px; top: 236.9px; transform: scaleX(0.964075);"></span></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgan73KE_2jMosX5i_VJ5fxnPWMY7IAvUH3L0bVAf8zm-ezggd-xnJPm2BbB4WfcE2dKJikoP_rmCe5Gtf3OuW9vzy_TUhnQlZ9T2rcb_3_J2zH8fnGZwpNRy31JolIiPcwTDarcttjgLuRTG-erf28ZD2uqaBN4_Lf_JJGC47-PvJPuj-nWUqjpFGd/s1600/triffin%20and%20teunissen.JPG" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1129" data-original-width="1600" height="283" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgan73KE_2jMosX5i_VJ5fxnPWMY7IAvUH3L0bVAf8zm-ezggd-xnJPm2BbB4WfcE2dKJikoP_rmCe5Gtf3OuW9vzy_TUhnQlZ9T2rcb_3_J2zH8fnGZwpNRy31JolIiPcwTDarcttjgLuRTG-erf28ZD2uqaBN4_Lf_JJGC47-PvJPuj-nWUqjpFGd/w400-h283/triffin%20and%20teunissen.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>Speech by Jan Joost Teunissen at conference,<span class="markedContent" id="page123R_mcid2"><span dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="font-family: serif; font-size: 20px; left: 482.09px; top: 236.9px;"> </span><span dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="font-family: serif; font-size: 20px; left: 486.9px; top: 236.9px; transform: scaleX(0.961211);">“The economic and financial crisis of 2008-09”</span></span><span class="markedContent" id="page123R_mcid3"><span dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="font-family: serif; font-size: 20px; left: 867.8px; top: 236.9px;">, </span><span dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="font-family: serif; font-size: 20px; left: 118.2px; top: 260px; transform: scaleX(0.977663);">Louvain-la-Neuve, 7-8 May 2009</span></span><span class="markedContent" id="page123R_mcid4"><span dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="font-family: serif; font-size: 20px; left: 118.2px; top: 306.2px; transform: scaleX(0.944694);"> </span></span><p></p><p><span class="markedContent" id="page123R_mcid4"><span dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="font-family: serif; font-size: 20px; left: 118.2px; top: 306.2px; transform: scaleX(0.944694);">There are various reasons why we should have listened better to Robert Triffin’s suggestions </span><span dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="font-family: serif; font-size: 20px; left: 118.2px; top: 329.2px; transform: scaleX(0.939322);">of how to fundamentally reform and improve the functioning of the international monetary </span><span dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="font-family: serif; font-size: 20px; left: 118.2px; top: 352.2px; transform: scaleX(0.947171);">system. He made those suggestions for the first time in 1957, in his</span><span dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="font-family: serif; font-size: 20px; left: 656.13px; top: 352.2px;"> </span><i><span dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="font-family: serif; font-size: 20px; left: 660.9px; top: 352.2px; transform: scaleX(0.950302);">Europe and the Money </span><span dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="font-family: serif; font-size: 20px; left: 118.2px; top: 375.2px; transform: scaleX(0.944865);">Muddle</span></i><span dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="font-family: serif; font-size: 20px; left: 179.396px; top: 375.2px; transform: scaleX(0.939643);">, and continued making them until a year before his death in 1993, when he withdrew </span><span dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="font-family: serif; font-size: 20px; left: 118.2px; top: 398.2px; transform: scaleX(0.950271);">from all public economic activities. I will discuss two major reasons, the first concerned with </span><span dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="font-family: serif; font-size: 20px; left: 118.2px; top: 421.3px; transform: scaleX(0.949463);">the world economic and political system, and the second with the role of economists.</span></span><span class="markedContent" id="page123R_mcid5"></span></p><p><b><span class="markedContent" id="page123R_mcid5"><span dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="font-family: serif; font-size: 20px; left: 118.2px; top: 467.8px; transform: scaleX(0.995255);">A more stable system plagued less by crises</span></span></b><span class="markedContent" id="page123R_mcid6"><br role="presentation" /><span dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="font-family: serif; font-size: 20px; left: 118.2px; top: 513.9px; transform: scaleX(0.947233);">The first and main reason why we should have listened better to Robert Triffin’s suggestions </span><span dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="font-family: serif; font-size: 20px; left: 118.2px; top: 536.9px; transform: scaleX(0.933537);">for reform and improvement of the international monetary system is that the world would </span><span dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="font-family: serif; font-size: 20px; left: 118.2px; top: 559.9px; transform: scaleX(0.946219);">have been more stable and would have been plagued less by crises. Those crises have proven </span><span dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="font-family: serif; font-size: 20px; left: 118.2px; top: 583px; transform: scaleX(0.94343);">to be very harmful for businesses and citizens.</span></span><span class="markedContent" id="page123R_mcid7"><br role="presentation" /><span dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="font-family: serif; font-size: 20px; left: 118.2px; top: 629.2px; transform: scaleX(0.943562);">In 1985, three years after the world debt crisis broke out in Latin America, and led to what </span><span dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="font-family: serif; font-size: 20px; left: 118.2px; top: 652.2px; transform: scaleX(0.963228);">Latin Americans have called ‘the lost decade’, Triffin once again advocated fundamental </span><span dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="font-family: serif; font-size: 20px; left: 118.2px; top: 675.2px; transform: scaleX(0.937368);">reform of the international monetary system, just like he had done energetically during the </span><span dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="font-family: serif; font-size: 20px; left: 118.2px; top: 698.2px; transform: scaleX(0.95019);">sixties and seventies. He did so in a report that he prepared for a US Congressional Summit </span><span dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="font-family: serif; font-size: 20px; left: 118.2px; top: 721.2px; transform: scaleX(0.9621);">on Exchange Rates and the Dollar. He said, and I quote, “We should resume negotiations for a</span></span><span class="markedContent" id="page123R_mcid8"> <span dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="font-family: serif; font-size: 20px; left: 118.2px; top: 744.2px; transform: scaleX(0.920387);">fundamental</span></span><span class="markedContent" id="page123R_mcid9"><span dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="font-family: serif; font-size: 20px; left: 218.2px; top: 744.2px;"> </span><span dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="font-family: serif; font-size: 20px; left: 223.2px; top: 744.2px; transform: scaleX(0.938089);">reform of the world monetary system - or non-system - that is anchored </span><span dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="font-family: serif; font-size: 20px; left: 118.2px; top: 767.3px; transform: scaleX(0.939737);">primarily on a</span></span><span class="markedContent" id="page123R_mcid10"><span dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="font-family: serif; font-size: 20px; left: 231.548px; top: 767.3px;"> </span><span dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="font-family: serif; font-size: 20px; left: 236.5px; top: 767.3px; transform: scaleX(0.917997);">national</span></span><span class="markedContent" id="page123R_mcid11"><span dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="font-family: serif; font-size: 20px; left: 300.9px; top: 767.3px; transform: scaleX(0.958306);">, paper reserve currency, that is, the dollar.”</span></span><span class="markedContent" id="page123R_mcid12"></span></p><p><span class="markedContent" id="page123R_mcid12"><span dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="font-family: serif; font-size: 20px; left: 118.2px; top: 813.5px; transform: scaleX(0.952645);">In the view of Triffin, a key element of such fundamental reform would be to anchor the </span><span dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="font-family: serif; font-size: 20px; left: 118.2px; top: 836.5px; transform: scaleX(0.941978);">system on a t</span></span><span class="markedContent" id="page123R_mcid13"><span dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="font-family: serif; font-size: 20px; left: 223.2px; top: 836.5px; transform: scaleX(0.920213);">ruly international reserve asset</span></span><span class="markedContent" id="page123R_mcid14"><span dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="font-family: serif; font-size: 20px; left: 468.406px; top: 836.5px;"> </span><span dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="font-family: serif; font-size: 20px; left: 473.06px; top: 836.5px; transform: scaleX(0.957295);">held with the IMF, and not on the dollar or any </span><span dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="font-family: serif; font-size: 20px; left: 118.2px; top: 859.5px; transform: scaleX(0.934242);">other national currency used as a reserve currency. Triffin mentioned three major arguments </span><span dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="font-family: serif; font-size: 20px; left: 118.2px; top: 882.6px; transform: scaleX(0.941666);">why fundamental reform of the system was needed.</span></span><span class="markedContent" id="page123R_mcid15"><br role="presentation" /><span dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="font-family: serif; font-size: 20px; left: 118.2px; top: 928.8px; transform: scaleX(0.951282);">First, and I quote his 1985 paper prepared for the US Congressional Summit, “because of its </span><span dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="font-family: serif; font-size: 20px; left: 118.2px; top: 951.8px; transform: scaleX(0.928884);">fantastic</span></span><span class="markedContent" id="page123R_mcid16"><span dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="font-family: serif; font-size: 20px; left: 186.024px; top: 951.8px;"> </span><span dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="font-family: serif; font-size: 20px; left: 190.9px; top: 951.8px; transform: scaleX(0.93253);">inflationary</span></span><span class="markedContent" id="page123R_mcid17"><span dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="font-family: serif; font-size: 20px; left: 284.324px; top: 951.8px;"> </span><span dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="font-family: serif; font-size: 20px; left: 289.2px; top: 951.8px; transform: scaleX(0.943794);">proclivities, leading to world reserve increases eight times as large over </span><span dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="font-family: serif; font-size: 20px; left: 118.2px; top: 974.9px; transform: scaleX(0.957684);">a brief span of fifteen years as over all previous years and centuries since Adam and Eve.”</span></span><span class="markedContent" id="page123R_mcid18"><br role="presentation" /><span dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="font-family: serif; font-size: 20px; left: 118.2px; top: 1021.2px; transform: scaleX(0.970164);">Second, “because of its</span></span><span class="markedContent" id="page123R_mcid19"><span dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="font-family: serif; font-size: 20px; left: 304.908px; top: 1021.2px;"> </span><span dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="font-family: serif; font-size: 20px; left: 309.8px; top: 1021.2px; transform: scaleX(0.927807);">skewed investment pattern of world reserves</span></span><span class="markedContent" id="page123R_mcid20"><span dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="font-family: serif; font-size: 20px; left: 666.9px; top: 1021.2px; transform: scaleX(0.938869);">, making the poorer and </span><span dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="font-family: serif; font-size: 20px; left: 118.2px; top: 1044.2px; transform: scaleX(0.937811);">less capitalized countries of the Third World the main reserve lenders, and the richer and </span><span dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="font-family: serif; font-size: 20px; left: 118.2px; top: 1067.2px; transform: scaleX(0.934493);">more capitalized industrial countries the main reserve borrowers of the system.” In another </span><span dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="font-family: serif; font-size: 20px; left: 118.2px; top: 1090.2px; transform: scaleX(0.940224);">paper Triffin said the same in stronger words. I quote from his September 1988 acceptance </span><span dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="font-family: serif; font-size: 20px; left: 118.2px; top: 1113.2px; transform: scaleX(0.952929);">speech of the Seidman Award, “the richest, most developed, and most heavily capitalized </span><span dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="font-family: serif; font-size: 20px; left: 118.2px; top: 1136.2px; transform: scaleX(0.936052);">country in the world should not import, but export, capital, in order to increase productive </span><span dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="font-family: serif; font-size: 20px; left: 118.2px; top: 1159.2px; transform: scaleX(0.944886);">investment in poorer, less developed, and less capitalized countries. I have long argued that </span><span dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="font-family: serif; font-size: 20px; left: 118.2px; top: 1182.3px; transform: scaleX(0.939278);">our international monetary system is at the root of this absurdity.”</span></span><span class="markedContent" id="page123R_mcid21"><br role="presentation" /><span dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="font-family: serif; font-size: 20px; left: 118.2px; top: 1228.5px; transform: scaleX(0.964072);">And third, “because of its</span></span><span class="markedContent" id="page123R_mcid22"><span dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="font-family: serif; font-size: 20px; left: 323.21px; top: 1228.5px;"> </span><span dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="font-family: serif; font-size: 20px; left: 328.212px; top: 1228.5px; transform: scaleX(0.918131);">crisis-prone propensities</span></span><span class="markedContent" id="page123R_mcid23"><span dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="font-family: serif; font-size: 20px; left: 524.34px; top: 1228.5px;"> </span><span dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="font-family: serif; font-size: 20px; left: 529.3px; top: 1228.5px; transform: scaleX(0.931555);">reflected in the amplitude of the present </span><span dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="font-family: serif; font-size: 20px; left: 118.2px; top: 1251.6px; transform: scaleX(0.951133);">world debt problem.”</span></span><span class="markedContent" id="page1R_mcid0"><span dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="font-family: serif; font-size: 20px; left: 118.2px; top: 121.6px; transform: scaleX(0.944549);"> </span></span></p><p><span class="markedContent" id="page1R_mcid0"><span dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="font-family: serif; font-size: 20px; left: 118.2px; top: 121.6px; transform: scaleX(0.944549);">I would say that over the past three decades we have been plagued by too many crises, first in</span></span><span class="markedContent" id="page1R_mcid0"><span dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="font-family: serif; font-size: 20px; left: 118.2px; top: 144.6px; transform: scaleX(0.96692);"> Latin America in the 1980s, then in Mexico, Russia, Brazil and East Asia in the 1990s, and,</span></span><span class="markedContent" id="page1R_mcid0"><span dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="font-family: serif; font-size: 20px; left: 118.2px; top: 167.6px; transform: scaleX(0.953674);"> finally, during the last two years, in the centre of the world capitalist system, the US and</span></span><span class="markedContent" id="page1R_mcid0"><span dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="font-family: serif; font-size: 20px; left: 118.2px; top: 190.6px; transform: scaleX(0.968727);"> Europe. Now</span><span dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="font-family: serif; font-size: 20px; left: 224.76px; top: 190.6px;"> </span><span dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="font-family: serif; font-size: 20px; left: 229.8px; top: 190.6px; transform: scaleX(0.887792);">we</span><span dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="font-family: serif; font-size: 20px; left: 252px; top: 190.6px; transform: scaleX(0.959825);">, in Europe and in North America, also feel the pain, earlier only</span><span dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="font-family: serif; font-size: 20px; left: 768.29px; top: 190.6px;"> </span><span dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="font-family: serif; font-size: 20px; left: 773px; top: 190.6px; transform: scaleX(0.888705);">they</span><span dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="font-family: serif; font-size: 20px; left: 806.3px; top: 190.6px; transform: scaleX(0.957115);">, the</span></span><span class="markedContent" id="page1R_mcid0"><span dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="font-family: serif; font-size: 20px; left: 118.2px; top: 213.6px; transform: scaleX(0.946882);"> people in the emerging economies and the developing countries, felt the pain. The crisis of the</span></span><span class="markedContent" id="page1R_mcid0"><span dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="font-family: serif; font-size: 20px; left: 118.2px; top: 236.6px; transform: scaleX(0.943512);">1980s was called a debt crisis, and the current crisis is called a credit crisis, but the impact of</span></span><span class="markedContent" id="page1R_mcid0"><span dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="font-family: serif; font-size: 20px; left: 118.2px; top: 259.6px; transform: scaleX(0.932792);"> both the debt and the credit crisis on citizens and businesses is the same: bankruptcies, </span></span><span class="markedContent" id="page1R_mcid0"><span dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="font-family: serif; font-size: 20px; left: 118.2px; top: 282.6px; transform: scaleX(0.940676);">unemployment, impoverishment and fear. And the root cause of this and the earlier crises are</span></span><span class="markedContent" id="page1R_mcid0"><span dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="font-family: serif; font-size: 20px; left: 118.2px; top: 305.6px; transform: scaleX(0.943429);"> also the same: a malfunctioning, insufficiently controlled and supervised, world monetary</span></span><span class="markedContent" id="page1R_mcid0"><span dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="font-family: serif; font-size: 20px; left: 118.2px; top: 328.6px; transform: scaleX(0.944938);"> system.</span></span><span class="markedContent" id="page1R_mcid1"></span><br role="presentation" /><span class="markedContent" id="page1R_mcid1"></span></p><p><span class="markedContent" id="page1R_mcid1"><span dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="font-family: serif; font-size: 20px; left: 118.2px; top: 374.9px; transform: scaleX(0.9584);">Let me say a bit more about the basic flaws of the global financial system, the way I see it, but </span><span dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="font-family: serif; font-size: 20px; left: 118.2px; top: 397.9px; transform: scaleX(0.958424);">inspired by Triffin. I think the basic flaw of the system is that it is a</span></span><span class="markedContent" id="page1R_mcid2"><span dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="font-family: serif; font-size: 20px; left: 658.24px; top: 397.9px;"> </span><span dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="font-family: serif; font-size: 20px; left: 663px; top: 397.9px; transform: scaleX(0.921921);">privatised</span></span><span class="markedContent" id="page1R_mcid3"><span dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="font-family: serif; font-size: 20px; left: 742.024px; top: 397.9px;"> </span><span dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="font-family: serif; font-size: 20px; left: 746.876px; top: 397.9px; transform: scaleX(0.964162);">system. It is a </span><span dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="font-family: serif; font-size: 20px; left: 118.2px; top: 420.9px; transform: scaleX(0.929935);">system that lacks the necessary control and steering by national and international authorities. </span><span dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="font-family: serif; font-size: 20px; left: 118.2px; top: 443.9px; transform: scaleX(0.95003);">It is a system that gives free play to commercial banks and other private financial agencies. </span><br role="presentation" /><span dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="font-family: serif; font-size: 20px; left: 118.2px; top: 466.9px; transform: scaleX(0.949814);">Until recently, most policymakers and economists believed, or said, that banks and financial </span><span dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="font-family: serif; font-size: 20px; left: 118.2px; top: 489.9px; transform: scaleX(0.947373);">agencies provided in the most efficient way the finance needed by the world. The reality has </span><span dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="font-family: serif; font-size: 20px; left: 118.2px; top: 513px; transform: scaleX(0.94471);">proved to be different.</span></span><span class="markedContent" id="page1R_mcid4"><br role="presentation" /><span dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="font-family: serif; font-size: 20px; left: 118.2px; top: 559.2px; transform: scaleX(0.94578);">This flaw of a privatised international financial system, in which national central banks but </span><span dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="font-family: serif; font-size: 20px; left: 118.2px; top: 582.2px; transform: scaleX(0.952171);">also the European Central Bank, the Bank for International Settlements and the IMF only play </span><span dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="font-family: serif; font-size: 20px; left: 118.2px; top: 605.2px; transform: scaleX(0.957181);">a marginal role, a role in the side-scene of global finance, in the coulisse, is directly linked to </span><span dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="font-family: serif; font-size: 20px; left: 118.2px; top: 628.2px; transform: scaleX(0.946068);">that other basic flaw, stressed time and again by Triffin: a system that is based on the dollar as </span><span dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="font-family: serif; font-size: 20px; left: 118.2px; top: 651.3px; transform: scaleX(0.932204);">key reserve currency instead of a truly international reserve asset.</span></span><span class="markedContent" id="page1R_mcid5"><br role="presentation" /><span dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="font-family: serif; font-size: 20px; left: 118.2px; top: 697.5px; transform: scaleX(0.943648);">During the sixties and the early seventies policymakers still believed (or were they already </span><span dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="font-family: serif; font-size: 20px; left: 118.2px; top: 720.5px; transform: scaleX(0.935459);">half-hearted believers?) in international regulation of international capital flows and an </span><span dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="font-family: serif; font-size: 20px; left: 118.2px; top: 743.5px; transform: scaleX(0.95738);">important role for the IMF. But that belief faded once the US abandoned the gold value of the </span><span dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="font-family: serif; font-size: 20px; left: 118.2px; top: 766.5px; transform: scaleX(0.941655);">dollar and once commercial banks began to recycle petrodollars, Eurodollars (that is, dollars </span><span dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="font-family: serif; font-size: 20px; left: 118.2px; top: 789.5px; transform: scaleX(0.952302);">held outside the United States), and other major currencies. As Triffin recalls in many of his </span><span dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="font-family: serif; font-size: 20px; left: 118.2px; top: 812.5px; transform: scaleX(0.936713);">papers and speeches, policymakers not only believed in international regulation but also </span><span dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="font-family: serif; font-size: 20px; left: 118.2px; top: 835.5px; transform: scaleX(0.951583);">negotiated a fundamental reform of the system in the so-called Committee of Twenty. When </span><span dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="font-family: serif; font-size: 20px; left: 118.2px; top: 858.5px; transform: scaleX(0.952513);">the Committee agreed in 1974 on a reform plan, the basic ideas of Triffin’s reform plan were </span><span dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="font-family: serif; font-size: 20px; left: 118.2px; top: 881.5px; transform: scaleX(0.952558);">included. However, the plan was never put into practice. Why not? Because the private banks </span><span dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="font-family: serif; font-size: 20px; left: 118.2px; top: 904.5px; transform: scaleX(0.942103);">were already providing the international liquidity, in the form of dollars, needed by businesses </span><span dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="font-family: serif; font-size: 20px; left: 118.2px; top: 927.5px; transform: scaleX(0.95072);">and countries, and because the NATO countries did not really want to get rid of the dollar as </span><span dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="font-family: serif; font-size: 20px; left: 118.2px; top: 950.5px; transform: scaleX(0.971224);">key currency (I will come back to this role of the NATO countries, as seen by Triffin). So the </span><span dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="font-family: serif; font-size: 20px; left: 118.2px; top: 973.6px; transform: scaleX(0.95161);">reform plan was shelved and the US dollar remained king of the system.</span></span><span class="markedContent" id="page1R_mcid6"><br role="presentation" /><span dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="font-family: serif; font-size: 20px; left: 118.2px; top: 1019.8px; transform: scaleX(0.942264);">This was very unfortunate and disappointing for Triffin and others who had advocated for </span><span dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="font-family: serif; font-size: 20px; left: 118.2px; top: 1042.8px; transform: scaleX(0.943628);">years a more stable and equitable, just, world financial system. They wanted a system that </span><span dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="font-family: serif; font-size: 20px; left: 118.2px; top: 1065.8px; transform: scaleX(0.943192);">would put an end to increasing global imbalances, put an end to recurring financial crises, and </span><span dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="font-family: serif; font-size: 20px; left: 118.2px; top: 1088.8px; transform: scaleX(0.94947);">put an end to the “exorbitant” privilege of the United States to finance its military </span><span dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="font-family: serif; font-size: 20px; left: 118.2px; top: 1111.9px; transform: scaleX(0.936592);">expenditures and wars with money provided by the rest of the world.</span></span><span class="markedContent" id="page1R_mcid7"><br role="presentation" /><span dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="font-family: serif; font-size: 20px; left: 118.2px; top: 1158.2px; transform: scaleX(0.950257);">This is the system, or non-system as Triffin called it, that we still have today and that should </span><span dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="font-family: serif; font-size: 20px; left: 118.2px; top: 1181.2px; transform: scaleX(0.944157);">have been reformed a long time ago, to prevent the crises that have made and still make suffer </span><span dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="font-family: serif; font-size: 20px; left: 118.2px; top: 1204.2px; transform: scaleX(0.95175);">so many people. Just to give you one figure, the International Labour Organisation has </span><span dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="font-family: serif; font-size: 20px; left: 118.2px; top: 1227.1px; transform: scaleX(0.952959);">calculated recently that in the course of this year, in Asia alone, 23 million people are </span><span dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="font-family: serif; font-size: 20px; left: 118.2px; top: 1250.2px; transform: scaleX(0.946028);">expected to lose their jobs because of the crisis.</span></span></p><p><span class="markedContent" id="page1R_mcid7"><span dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="font-family: serif; font-size: 20px; left: 118.2px; top: 1250.2px; transform: scaleX(0.946028);"><b><span class="markedContent" id="page3R_mcid1"><span dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="font-family: serif; font-size: 20px; left: 118.2px; top: 168.2px; transform: scaleX(0.991789);">The role of economists</span></span></b><span class="markedContent" id="page3R_mcid2"><br role="presentation" /><span dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="font-family: serif; font-size: 20px; left: 118.2px; top: 214.2px; transform: scaleX(0.941975);">This brings me to the second major reason - or set of reasons because the first reason I gave </span><span dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="font-family: serif; font-size: 20px; left: 118.2px; top: 237.2px; transform: scaleX(0.951398);">was in fact more than just one - why we should have listened better to Robert Triffin. This </span><span dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="font-family: serif; font-size: 20px; left: 118.2px; top: 260.2px; transform: scaleX(0.951513);">second set of reasons has to do with Triffin’s view on the role of economists, with the ethics </span><span dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="font-family: serif; font-size: 20px; left: 118.2px; top: 283.2px; transform: scaleX(0.941465);">of economics, with the human drive, the man-made rules and the political power behind </span><span dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="font-family: serif; font-size: 20px; left: 118.2px; top: 306.2px; transform: scaleX(0.969283);">economics. All in economics is the result of what people do, individually, and collectively.</span><br role="presentation" /><span dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="font-family: serif; font-size: 20px; left: 118.2px; top: 329.2px; transform: scaleX(0.932872);">There are no</span></span><span class="markedContent" id="page3R_mcid3"><span dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="font-family: serif; font-size: 20px; left: 219.37px; top: 329.2px;"> </span><span dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="font-family: serif; font-size: 20px; left: 224.2px; top: 329.2px; transform: scaleX(0.898077);">natural</span></span><span class="markedContent" id="page3R_mcid4"><span dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="font-family: serif; font-size: 20px; left: 279.776px; top: 329.2px;"> </span><span dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="font-family: serif; font-size: 20px; left: 284.7px; top: 329.2px; transform: scaleX(0.950897);">laws in economics as in the natural sciences, only</span></span><span class="markedContent" id="page3R_mcid5"><span dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="font-family: serif; font-size: 20px; left: 682.08px; top: 329.2px;"> </span><span dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="font-family: serif; font-size: 20px; left: 686.8px; top: 329.2px; transform: scaleX(0.910645);">human</span></span><span class="markedContent" id="page3R_mcid6"><span dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="font-family: serif; font-size: 20px; left: 741.12px; top: 329.2px;"> </span><span dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="font-family: serif; font-size: 20px; left: 746.1px; top: 329.2px; transform: scaleX(0.990515);">laws. If we </span><span dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="font-family: serif; font-size: 20px; left: 118.2px; top: 352.2px; transform: scaleX(0.947852);">want to change things in the economy, we have to change human actions, human thoughts, </span><span dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="font-family: serif; font-size: 20px; left: 118.2px; top: 375.2px; transform: scaleX(0.958656);">human behaviour. Economics is the result of human actions. As Triffin said to me when I </span><span dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="font-family: serif; font-size: 20px; left: 118.2px; top: 398.2px; transform: scaleX(0.948452);">interviewed him in the mid-1980s, “Just as Clemenceau once said that war is much too </span><span dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="font-family: serif; font-size: 20px; left: 118.2px; top: 421.2px; transform: scaleX(0.946389);">serious a thing to be left to the generals, I think the economy is far too serious a thing to be </span><span dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="font-family: serif; font-size: 20px; left: 118.2px; top: 444.3px; transform: scaleX(0.961139);">left to the economists.”</span></span><span class="markedContent" id="page3R_mcid7"><br role="presentation" /><span dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="font-family: serif; font-size: 20px; left: 118.2px; top: 490.5px; transform: scaleX(0.948916);">Triffin was moved by concern with people and was moved by concern with countries, not one </span><span dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="font-family: serif; font-size: 20px; left: 118.2px; top: 513.5px; transform: scaleX(0.952778);">country but all countries of the world. He considered himself a world citizen. Triffin was a </span><span dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="font-family: serif; font-size: 20px; left: 118.2px; top: 536.5px; transform: scaleX(0.958289);">“committed” economist, an economist committed to a “cause”. He was the kind of economist </span><span dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="font-family: serif; font-size: 20px; left: 118.2px; top: 559.6px; transform: scaleX(0.965668);">of whom we had too few and still have too few.</span></span><span class="markedContent" id="page3R_mcid8"><br role="presentation" /><span dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="font-family: serif; font-size: 20px; left: 118.2px; top: 605.9px; transform: scaleX(0.955461);">Triffin did not confine himself to ivory tower analysis or to conformist analysis. He rejected </span><span dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="font-family: serif; font-size: 20px; left: 118.2px; top: 628.9px; transform: scaleX(0.94951);">the conformism of many of his colleagues when they whitewashed policies instead of </span><span dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="font-family: serif; font-size: 20px; left: 118.2px; top: 652px; transform: scaleX(0.939151);">criticising them and showing the shortcomings and bad consequences of them.</span></span><span class="markedContent" id="page3R_mcid9"><br role="presentation" /><span dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="font-family: serif; font-size: 20px; left: 118.2px; top: 698.2px; transform: scaleX(0.953111);">Economists tend to look at only a small part, I would say a minor aspect, of human behaviour. </span><span dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="font-family: serif; font-size: 20px; left: 118.2px; top: 721.2px; transform: scaleX(0.943436);">Triffin did not think that economists should limit themselves to that minor aspect (“minor” is </span><span dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="font-family: serif; font-size: 20px; left: 118.2px; top: 744.2px; transform: scaleX(0.94433);">my wording) of human behaviour. He thought that economists should learn from other social </span><span dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="font-family: serif; font-size: 20px; left: 118.2px; top: 767.2px; transform: scaleX(0.958564);">sciences, from history, from philosophy, and be inspired by human concerns. As you may </span><span dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="font-family: serif; font-size: 20px; left: 118.2px; top: 790.2px; transform: scaleX(0.947561);">know, he originally would have liked to study literature and philosophy, but he realised those </span><span dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="font-family: serif; font-size: 20px; left: 118.2px; top: 813.3px; transform: scaleX(0.950342);">studies were for the elite, not for the son of a small farmer.</span></span><span class="markedContent" id="page3R_mcid10"><br role="presentation" /><span dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="font-family: serif; font-size: 20px; left: 118.2px; top: 859.5px; transform: scaleX(0.953144);">Triffin was not only an economist moved by human concerns, he was also a brilliant, </span><span dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="font-family: serif; font-size: 20px; left: 118.2px; top: 882.5px; transform: scaleX(0.939522);">visionary economist who was driven by intellectual curiosity and had written a prize-winning </span><span dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="font-family: serif; font-size: 20px; left: 118.2px; top: 905.5px; transform: scaleX(0.929821);">theoretical dissertation with Professor Schumpeter called</span><span dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="font-family: serif; font-size: 20px; left: 574.184px; top: 905.5px;"> </span><i><span dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="font-family: serif; font-size: 20px; left: 579.2px; top: 905.5px; transform: scaleX(0.947897);">Monopolistic Competition and </span><span dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="font-family: serif; font-size: 20px; left: 118.2px; top: 928.5px; transform: scaleX(0.959112);">General Equilibrium Theory</span></i><span dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="font-family: serif; font-size: 20px; left: 347.22px; top: 928.5px;"> </span><span dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="font-family: serif; font-size: 20px; left: 352.2px; top: 928.5px; transform: scaleX(0.942275);">(1940). After that, he continued making in-depth analyses of the </span><span dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="font-family: serif; font-size: 20px; left: 118.2px; top: 951.6px; transform: scaleX(0.956365);">dynamics in the world economy.</span></span><span class="markedContent" id="page3R_mcid11"><br role="presentation" /><span dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="font-family: serif; font-size: 20px; left: 118.2px; top: 997.8px; transform: scaleX(0.945135);">Triffin was very successful in predicting important economic events. Indeed, he predicted the </span><span dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="font-family: serif; font-size: 20px; left: 118.2px; top: 1020.8px; transform: scaleX(0.956464);">fall of the Bretton Woods system long before it really happened. He did so already in 1957, in </span><span dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="font-family: serif; font-size: 20px; left: 118.2px; top: 1043.8px; transform: scaleX(0.946657);">his book</span><span dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="font-family: serif; font-size: 20px; left: 186.596px; top: 1043.8px;"> </span><i><span dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="font-family: serif; font-size: 20px; left: 191.604px; top: 1043.8px; transform: scaleX(0.951543);">Europe and the Money Muddle</span></i><span dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="font-family: serif; font-size: 20px; left: 440.5px; top: 1043.8px; transform: scaleX(0.938529);">. It would take another 14 years before his prediction </span><span dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="font-family: serif; font-size: 20px; left: 118.2px; top: 1066.8px; transform: scaleX(0.951941);">became true, in August 1971, when the US announced that it would no longer exchange gold </span><span dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="font-family: serif; font-size: 20px; left: 118.2px; top: 1089.9px; transform: scaleX(0.944225);">for dollars. The dollar became a paper currency and flooded the world.</span></span><span class="markedContent" id="page3R_mcid12"><br role="presentation" /><span dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="font-family: serif; font-size: 20px; left: 118.2px; top: 1136.2px; transform: scaleX(0.941519);">But Triffin did not enjoy that his predictions became true; he regretted it. He would rather </span><span dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="font-family: serif; font-size: 20px; left: 118.2px; top: 1159.2px; transform: scaleX(0.93605);">have preferred that his efforts, and that of others, had resulted in a fundamental reform of the </span><span dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="font-family: serif; font-size: 20px; left: 118.2px; top: 1182.2px; transform: scaleX(0.947689);">Bretton Woods system before it collapsed. Triffin was one of the most energetic participants </span><span dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="font-family: serif; font-size: 20px; left: 118.2px; top: 1205.2px; transform: scaleX(0.955725);">to the so-called Bellagio Group meetings of academics and policymakers. They met regularly </span><span dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="font-family: serif; font-size: 20px; left: 118.2px; top: 1228.2px; transform: scaleX(0.940704);">throughout the sixties in a castle in Bellagio to discuss the problems of the international </span><span dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="font-family: serif; font-size: 20px; left: 118.2px; top: 1251.3px; transform: scaleX(0.945179);">monetary system, and develop ideas of how to improve and reform it.</span></span><span class="markedContent"><span class="markedContent"></span></span></span></span><span class="markedContent" id="page5R_mcid0"><span dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="font-family: serif; font-size: 20px; left: 118.2px; top: 121.6px; transform: scaleX(0.965461);"> </span></span></p><p><span class="markedContent" id="page5R_mcid0"><span dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="font-family: serif; font-size: 20px; left: 118.2px; top: 121.6px; transform: scaleX(0.965461);">When I met Triffin for the first time, in January 1985, here in Louvain-la-Neuve, I was</span></span><span class="markedContent" id="page5R_mcid0"><span dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="font-family: serif; font-size: 20px; left: 118.2px; top: 144.6px; transform: scaleX(0.953822);"> impressed by his efforts to influence the policymakers’ minds in those Bellagio Group</span></span><span class="markedContent" id="page5R_mcid0"><span dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="font-family: serif; font-size: 20px; left: 118.2px; top: 167.6px; transform: scaleX(0.940205);"> meetings and other meetings he had with them. I thought I should do something similar and I</span></span><span class="markedContent" id="page5R_mcid0"><span dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="font-family: serif; font-size: 20px; left: 118.2px; top: 190.6px; transform: scaleX(0.944198);"> discussed with him my plan to set up a forum to discuss the malfunctioning of the inter</span></span><span class="markedContent" id="page5R_mcid0"><span dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="font-family: serif; font-size: 20px; left: 118.2px; top: 213.6px; transform: scaleX(0.944161);">national monetary system and to develop ideas of how to improve it, particularly with a view</span></span><span class="markedContent" id="page5R_mcid0"><span dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="font-family: serif; font-size: 20px; left: 118.2px; top: 236.6px; transform: scaleX(0.947121);"> to the fate of developing countries. Triffin warmly supported my plan and made various</span></span><span class="markedContent" id="page5R_mcid0"><span dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="font-family: serif; font-size: 20px; left: 118.2px; top: 259.6px; transform: scaleX(0.938885);"> suggestions with regard to the topics that we might discuss and the people whom I might want</span></span><span class="markedContent" id="page5R_mcid0"><span dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="font-family: serif; font-size: 20px; left: 118.2px; top: 282.7px; transform: scaleX(0.986175);"> to involve.</span></span><span class="markedContent" id="page5R_mcid1"></span><br role="presentation" /><span class="markedContent" id="page5R_mcid1"></span></p><p><span class="markedContent" id="page5R_mcid1"><span dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="font-family: serif; font-size: 20px; left: 118.2px; top: 328.9px; transform: scaleX(0.963742);">To make a long story short, I succeeded in establishing the FONDAD forum in 1987 and over </span><span dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="font-family: serif; font-size: 20px; left: 118.2px; top: 351.9px; transform: scaleX(0.933194);">the past twenty years I was able to hold numerous international meetings in the spirit of the </span><span dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="font-family: serif; font-size: 20px; left: 118.2px; top: 374.9px; transform: scaleX(0.951092);">Bellagio Group. Prominent experts from academia, central banks, ministries of finance, the </span><span dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="font-family: serif; font-size: 20px; left: 118.2px; top: 397.9px; transform: scaleX(0.977255);">IMF, the BIS, UN agencies, the World Bank, commercial banks and ministries of foreign </span><span dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="font-family: serif; font-size: 20px; left: 118.2px; top: 420.9px; transform: scaleX(0.948496);">affairs, attended the meetings. At almost every meeting we discussed how the global financial </span><span dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="font-family: serif; font-size: 20px; left: 118.2px; top: 443.9px; transform: scaleX(0.950439);">system could be improved and how financial crises could be prevented. Unfortunately, little </span><span dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="font-family: serif; font-size: 20px; left: 118.2px; top: 466.9px; transform: scaleX(0.965716);">of all the good ideas was put into practice. Even though some members of the FONDAD </span><span dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="font-family: serif; font-size: 20px; left: 118.2px; top: 489.9px; transform: scaleX(0.951898);">group foresaw many years ago a credit (or debt) crisis in the United States - Bill White, the </span><span dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="font-family: serif; font-size: 20px; left: 118.2px; top: 513px; transform: scaleX(0.954352);">chief economist of the BIS was one of them - that crisis was not prevented.</span></span></p><p><span class="markedContent" id="page5R_mcid2"><br role="presentation" /><b><span dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="font-family: serif; font-size: 20px; left: 118.2px; top: 559.5px; transform: scaleX(1.03992);">Why did they not listen to Triffin (and FONDAD)?</span></b></span><span class="markedContent" id="page5R_mcid3"><br role="presentation" /><span dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="font-family: serif; font-size: 20px; left: 118.2px; top: 605.5px; transform: scaleX(0.923208);">The lack of success in improving and reforming the international monetary system is something </span><span dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="font-family: serif; font-size: 20px; left: 118.2px; top: 628.5px; transform: scaleX(0.938706);">Triffin had to live with. He felt his advice was right and his Plan for Reform of the international </span><span dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="font-family: serif; font-size: 20px; left: 118.2px; top: 651.5px; transform: scaleX(0.938839);">monetary system was right, but policymakers preferred to go on as usual: letting emerge </span><span dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="font-family: serif; font-size: 20px; left: 118.2px; top: 674.5px; transform: scaleX(0.944359);">financial crises and then trying to manage them. That is what we have seen time and again </span><span dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="font-family: serif; font-size: 20px; left: 118.2px; top: 697.5px; transform: scaleX(0.941893);">over the past thirty or forty years, and that is what we are seeing now, in the midst of a serious </span><span dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="font-family: serif; font-size: 20px; left: 118.2px; top: 720.6px; transform: scaleX(0.944173);">crisis that evokes memories of the depression of the 1930s - it’s crisis management again.</span></span><span class="markedContent" id="page5R_mcid4"><br role="presentation" /><span dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="font-family: serif; font-size: 20px; left: 118.2px; top: 766.9px; transform: scaleX(0.956439);">This sounds depressing, I say with a smile. First, we had Triffin who saw that his Reform Plan </span><span dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="font-family: serif; font-size: 20px; left: 118.2px; top: 789.9px; transform: scaleX(0.956633);">was shelved, and then we had the FONDAD group that did not get sufficient support for its </span><span dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="font-family: serif; font-size: 20px; left: 118.2px; top: 812.9px; transform: scaleX(0.938021);">ideas to improve the system and prevent crises.</span></span><span class="markedContent" id="page5R_mcid5"><br role="presentation" /><span dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="font-family: serif; font-size: 20px; left: 118.2px; top: 859.2px; transform: scaleX(0.958741);">Why did I say this with a smile? Because you would be depressed only if you had expected a </span><span dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="font-family: serif; font-size: 20px; left: 118.2px; top: 882.2px; transform: scaleX(0.949148);">different course of events. Sure, I had hoped that we would have been more successful in </span><span dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="font-family: serif; font-size: 20px; left: 118.2px; top: 905.2px; transform: scaleX(0.94657);">improving the system and preventing the crises, and so did Triffin. But I anticipated that it </span><span dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="font-family: serif; font-size: 20px; left: 118.2px; top: 928.2px; transform: scaleX(0.966186);">would be difficult, and so did Triffin. </span></span></p><p><span class="markedContent" id="page5R_mcid5"><span dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="font-family: serif; font-size: 20px; left: 118.2px; top: 928.2px; transform: scaleX(0.966186);">When Triffin grew older, he became a little bit </span><span dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="font-family: serif; font-size: 20px; left: 118.2px; top: 951.2px; transform: scaleX(0.945835);">disappointed that his colleagues in academia and policymaking circles did do so little, or </span><span dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="font-family: serif; font-size: 20px; left: 118.2px; top: 974.2px; transform: scaleX(0.944946);">nothing, to fundamentally improve the system and prevent crises. When I asked him in the </span><span dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="font-family: serif; font-size: 20px; left: 118.2px; top: 997.2px; transform: scaleX(0.955915);">mid-1980s if he knew and could explain why his Reform Plan, adopted by the Committee of</span><br role="presentation" /><span dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="font-family: serif; font-size: 20px; left: 118.2px; top: 1020.2px; transform: scaleX(0.947606);">Twenty in 1974, was shelved and why policymakers and academics did not push for reform in </span><span dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="font-family: serif; font-size: 20px; left: 118.2px; top: 1043.3px; transform: scaleX(0.94399);">the years thereafter, his answer was as follows:</span></span><span class="markedContent" id="page5R_mcid6"></span></p><p><span class="markedContent" id="page5R_mcid6"><span dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="font-family: serif; font-size: 20px; left: 118.2px; top: 1089.5px; transform: scaleX(1.03145);">First</span><span dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="font-family: serif; font-size: 20px; left: 159.39px; top: 1089.5px; transform: scaleX(0.941266);">, the maintenance of the dollar as the key currency of the system meant that the United </span><span dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="font-family: serif; font-size: 20px; left: 118.2px; top: 1112.5px; transform: scaleX(0.949458);">States could continue to spend as much as it wished on the military. Though Triffin opposed </span><span dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="font-family: serif; font-size: 20px; left: 118.2px; top: 1135.5px; transform: scaleX(0.951999);">the huge military expenditures by the US (and by other countries), he knew that the NATO </span><span dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="font-family: serif; font-size: 20px; left: 118.2px; top: 1158.5px; transform: scaleX(0.949509);">allies supported it, both politically and financially, by continuing their use of the dollar as the </span><span dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="font-family: serif; font-size: 20px; left: 118.2px; top: 1181.5px; transform: scaleX(0.95071);">main reserve currency and by continuing to invest in the United States. My own country, the </span><span dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="font-family: serif; font-size: 20px; left: 118.2px; top: 1204.5px; transform: scaleX(0.961187);">Netherlands, is a good example. Politically and militarily, it has always supported the US in </span><span dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="font-family: serif; font-size: 20px; left: 118.2px; top: 1227.5px; transform: scaleX(0.932188);">its military interventions and wars, even if these interventions and wars did not respect </span><span dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="font-family: serif; font-size: 20px; left: 118.2px; top: 1250.5px; transform: scaleX(0.9539);">international law. And the Netherlands has also been a huge investor in the US. During a</span></span><span class="markedContent" id="page7R_mcid0"><span dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="font-family: serif; font-size: 20px; left: 118.2px; top: 121.6px; transform: scaleX(0.959211);"> couple of years it was even the largest foreign investor in the United States. As Triffin said,</span></span><span class="markedContent" id="page7R_mcid0"><span dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="font-family: serif; font-size: 20px; left: 118.2px; top: 144.6px; transform: scaleX(0.95775);"> and I quote him, “Although this is never openly said, the Americans, and most Europeans,</span></span><span class="markedContent" id="page7R_mcid0"><span dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="font-family: serif; font-size: 20px; left: 118.2px; top: 167.6px; transform: scaleX(0.944316);"> too, saw the maintenance of the dollar as the reserve currency as a way of financing their joint</span></span><span class="markedContent" id="page7R_mcid0"><span dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="font-family: serif; font-size: 20px; left: 118.2px; top: 190.7px; transform: scaleX(0.974746);"> defence. And this is still true today, I think.”</span></span><span class="markedContent" id="page7R_mcid1"></span><br role="presentation" /><span class="markedContent" id="page7R_mcid1"></span></p><p><span class="markedContent" id="page7R_mcid1"><span dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="font-family: serif; font-size: 20px; left: 118.2px; top: 236.9px; transform: scaleX(0.995655);">Second</span><span dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="font-family: serif; font-size: 20px; left: 179.296px; top: 236.9px; transform: scaleX(0.953903);">, Triffin explained that routine and fear for change played a large role. Policymakers </span><span dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="font-family: serif; font-size: 20px; left: 118.2px; top: 259.9px; transform: scaleX(0.944673);">tend to stick to what they are used to, even if it brings crisis, because they are used to handling </span><span dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="font-family: serif; font-size: 20px; left: 118.2px; top: 282.9px; transform: scaleX(0.943745);">crisis, they feel they are masters in crisis management. I would add that so far they have been </span><span dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="font-family: serif; font-size: 20px; left: 118.2px; top: 305.9px; transform: scaleX(0.944883);">rather successful in crisis management, but, I would add immediately too, not always to the </span><span dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="font-family: serif; font-size: 20px; left: 118.2px; top: 328.9px; transform: scaleX(0.939532);">agreement and happiness of the citizens and governments of the countries affected. During the </span><span dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="font-family: serif; font-size: 20px; left: 118.2px; top: 351.9px; transform: scaleX(0.951834);">last big crisis before the current one, the Asia crisis of 1997-98, many Asians were so </span><span dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="font-family: serif; font-size: 20px; left: 118.2px; top: 374.9px; transform: scaleX(0.957349);">unhappy with the recipes of the IMF, the United States and other NATO countries that they </span><span dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="font-family: serif; font-size: 20px; left: 118.2px; top: 397.9px; transform: scaleX(0.931442);">took steps towards Asian monetary cooperation and built huge international reserves to be </span><span dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="font-family: serif; font-size: 20px; left: 118.2px; top: 420.9px; transform: scaleX(0.943669);">better prepared for the next crisis. Are routine and fear for change still blocking a push for </span><span dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="font-family: serif; font-size: 20px; left: 118.2px; top: 444px; transform: scaleX(0.990456);">reform? Yes, I think so.</span></span><span class="markedContent" id="page7R_mcid2"></span></p><p><span class="markedContent" id="page7R_mcid2"><span dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="font-family: serif; font-size: 20px; left: 118.2px; top: 490.2px; transform: scaleX(1.05285);">Third</span><span dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="font-family: serif; font-size: 20px; left: 168.2px; top: 490.2px; transform: scaleX(0.955582);">, Triffin explained that the US just wanted to maintain its “exorbitant privilege” to be </span><span dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="font-family: serif; font-size: 20px; left: 118.2px; top: 513.2px; transform: scaleX(0.939913);">able to borrow as much as it wanted from other countries, including the developing countries, </span><span dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="font-family: serif; font-size: 20px; left: 118.2px; top: 536.2px; transform: scaleX(0.954956);">so that the US could easily settle its</span></span><span class="markedContent" id="page7R_mcid3"><span dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="font-family: serif; font-size: 20px; left: 403.318px; top: 536.2px;"> </span><span dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="font-family: serif; font-size: 20px; left: 408.1px; top: 536.2px; transform: scaleX(0.930339);">trade deficit</span></span><span class="markedContent" id="page7R_mcid4"><span dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="font-family: serif; font-size: 20px; left: 504.204px; top: 536.2px;"> </span><span dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="font-family: serif; font-size: 20px; left: 509.1px; top: 536.2px; transform: scaleX(0.921988);">and its</span></span><span class="markedContent" id="page7R_mcid5"><span dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="font-family: serif; font-size: 20px; left: 561.976px; top: 536.2px;"> </span><span dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="font-family: serif; font-size: 20px; left: 566.9px; top: 536.2px; transform: scaleX(0.935275);">budgetary deficit</span></span><span class="markedContent" id="page7R_mcid6"><span dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="font-family: serif; font-size: 20px; left: 703px; top: 536.2px; transform: scaleX(0.969259);">. Unfortunately, this </span><span dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="font-family: serif; font-size: 20px; left: 118.2px; top: 559.2px; transform: scaleX(0.948978);">was already a reality in the 1980s and it still is the reality today. In his 1985 report for the US </span><span dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="font-family: serif; font-size: 20px; left: 118.2px; top: 582.2px; transform: scaleX(0.968986);">Congressional Summit on Exchange Rates and the Dollar Triffin wrote, “...the United States </span><span dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="font-family: serif; font-size: 20px; left: 118.2px; top: 605.2px; transform: scaleX(0.959692);">is no longer playing its traditional role as a ‘world banker’. Only a decreasing fraction of large </span><span dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="font-family: serif; font-size: 20px; left: 118.2px; top: 628.2px; transform: scaleX(0.9497);">and continuing inflows of foreign capital to the exchange market is now recycled abroad: 13 </span><span dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="font-family: serif; font-size: 20px; left: 118.2px; top: 651.2px; transform: scaleX(0.935504);">percent in 1984 as against 110 percent at the peak in 1981. This is in part the result of the </span><span dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="font-family: serif; font-size: 20px; left: 118.2px; top: 674.2px; transform: scaleX(0.93695);">world debt crisis that had to sanction, sooner or later, the international lending spree. It is also </span><span dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="font-family: serif; font-size: 20px; left: 118.2px; top: 697.2px; transform: scaleX(0.953348);">the result, however, of the way in which the domestic recovery of the United States was </span><span dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="font-family: serif; font-size: 20px; left: 118.2px; top: 720.2px; transform: scaleX(0.938836);">promoted by a domestic borrowing spree, and particularly by budgetary deficits hovering </span><span dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="font-family: serif; font-size: 20px; left: 118.2px; top: 743.2px; transform: scaleX(0.952674);">around $200 billion per year, and of which about half was financed last year by capital flows</span><br role="presentation" /><span dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="font-family: serif; font-size: 20px; left: 118.2px; top: 766.3px; transform: scaleX(0.957482);">from the rest of the world.”</span></span><span class="markedContent" id="page7R_mcid7"></span></p><p><span class="markedContent" id="page7R_mcid7"><span dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="font-family: serif; font-size: 20px; left: 118.2px; top: 812.5px; transform: scaleX(0.963095);">These figures given by Triffin in 1985 were staggering. But do you know the expected US </span><span dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="font-family: serif; font-size: 20px; left: 118.2px; top: 835.5px; transform: scaleX(0.981396);">budget deficit of this year? $1.8 trillion, or 13.1 percent of US GDP. Again, a lot of foreign </span><span dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="font-family: serif; font-size: 20px; left: 118.2px; top: 858.5px; transform: scaleX(0.961546);">capital will flow to the United States.</span><br role="presentation" /></span></p><p><span class="markedContent" id="page7R_mcid7"><span dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="font-family: serif; font-size: 20px; left: 118.2px; top: 904.5px; transform: scaleX(0.951963);">In the report that Triffin prepared in 1985 for the US Congressional Summit on Exchange </span><span dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="font-family: serif; font-size: 20px; left: 118.2px; top: 927.5px; transform: scaleX(0.951036);">Rates and the Dollar he raised the question of how the flow of foreign capital to the United </span><span dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="font-family: serif; font-size: 20px; left: 118.2px; top: 950.5px; transform: scaleX(0.961167);">States could be reduced. More than half of the growth of foreign capital inflows, Triffin said, </span><span dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="font-family: serif; font-size: 20px; left: 118.2px; top: 973.5px; transform: scaleX(0.950009);">was the result of central banks buying US Treasury bills and commercial banks increasing </span><span dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="font-family: serif; font-size: 20px; left: 118.2px; top: 996.5px; transform: scaleX(0.960571);">their claims on US banks. Why did central and commercial banks lend so much to the US?</span><br role="presentation" /><span dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="font-family: serif; font-size: 20px; left: 118.2px; top: 1019.5px; transform: scaleX(0.950299);">“This is primarily due to the role of the dollar as the main ‘parallel’ world currency (as the </span><span dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="font-family: serif; font-size: 20px; left: 118.2px; top: 1042.5px; transform: scaleX(0.94546);">key currency of the system),” said Triffin, “used in international contracts and settlements and </span><span dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="font-family: serif; font-size: 20px; left: 118.2px; top: 1065.6px; transform: scaleX(0.957395);">accumulated in official reserves and private working balances.” Today this still is the case.</span></span><span class="markedContent" id="page7R_mcid8"><br role="presentation" /><span dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="font-family: serif; font-size: 20px; left: 118.2px; top: 1111.8px; transform: scaleX(0.962257);">Obviously, the best way to end this unhealthy lending to the US, argued Triffin, would be to </span><span dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="font-family: serif; font-size: 20px; left: 118.2px; top: 1134.8px; transform: scaleX(0.940593);">reform the international monetary system and, as he said in his report to the US Congressional </span><span dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="font-family: serif; font-size: 20px; left: 118.2px; top: 1157.8px; transform: scaleX(0.950467);">Summit, “switch from the dollar to reserve deposits in the IMF as the main component of </span><span dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="font-family: serif; font-size: 20px; left: 118.2px; top: 1180.8px; transform: scaleX(0.936836);">international reserves, and even for stabilization interventions in the exchange market. This </span><span dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="font-family: serif; font-size: 20px; left: 118.2px; top: 1203.8px; transform: scaleX(0.938509);">would require, of course, that reserve deposits with the Fund be made accessible at least to </span><span dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="font-family: serif; font-size: 20px; left: 118.2px; top: 1226.9px; transform: scaleX(0.95158);">commercial banks, if not to other private holders.”</span></span></p><p><span class="markedContent" id="page7R_mcid8"><span dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="font-family: serif; font-size: 20px; left: 118.2px; top: 1226.9px; transform: scaleX(0.95158);"><span class="markedContent" id="page9R_mcid0"><span dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="font-family: serif; font-size: 20px; left: 118.2px; top: 121.6px; transform: scaleX(0.951897);">Triffin then added, “You will not be surprised to hear that I would strongly advocate the </span><span dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="font-family: serif; font-size: 20px; left: 118.2px; top: 144.6px; transform: scaleX(0.933502);">resumption of negotiations aiming at such a fundamental reform of the international monetary </span><span dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="font-family: serif; font-size: 20px; left: 118.2px; top: 167.6px; transform: scaleX(0.960558);">system.” And, once again, he explained what the main obstacle to such reform was. “The </span><span dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="font-family: serif; font-size: 20px; left: 118.2px; top: 190.6px; transform: scaleX(0.940111);">main obstacle to a worldwide agreement continues to be the reluctance of the United States to </span><span dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="font-family: serif; font-size: 20px; left: 118.2px; top: 213.6px; transform: scaleX(0.937553);">abandon its traditional privilege to finance both its international deficits and a growing </span><span dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="font-family: serif; font-size: 20px; left: 118.2px; top: 236.7px; transform: scaleX(0.959228);">fraction of its budgetary deficits with its own IOUs (that is, dollars).”</span></span><span class="markedContent" id="page9R_mcid1"><br role="presentation" /><span dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="font-family: serif; font-size: 20px; left: 118.2px; top: 282.9px; transform: scaleX(0.957873);">However, Triffin predicted, and I quote him, “In the absence of US agreement, other countries </span><span dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="font-family: serif; font-size: 20px; left: 118.2px; top: 305.9px; transform: scaleX(0.947297);">are likely, sooner or later, to take the initiative in this respect [he meant, switching from the </span><span dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="font-family: serif; font-size: 20px; left: 118.2px; top: 328.9px; transform: scaleX(0.929534);">dollar to a truly international reserve currency], in order to reduce their overdependence on </span><span dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="font-family: serif; font-size: 20px; left: 118.2px; top: 352px; transform: scaleX(0.957197);">the vagaries of the fluctuating, inconvertible, paper dollar.”</span></span><span class="markedContent" id="page9R_mcid2"><span dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="font-family: serif; font-size: 20px; left: 118.2px; top: 398.2px; transform: scaleX(0.950628);"> <br /></span></span></span></span></p><p><span class="markedContent" id="page7R_mcid8"><span dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="font-family: serif; font-size: 20px; left: 118.2px; top: 1226.9px; transform: scaleX(0.95158);"><span class="markedContent" id="page9R_mcid2"><span dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="font-family: serif; font-size: 20px; left: 118.2px; top: 398.2px; transform: scaleX(0.950628);">24 years later, in 2009, those “other countries” have emerged. Ten days before the meeting of </span><span dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="font-family: serif; font-size: 20px; left: 118.2px; top: 421.2px; transform: scaleX(0.951079);">the Group of Twenty on April 2nd, China said that the time was ripe for fundamental reform </span><span dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="font-family: serif; font-size: 20px; left: 118.2px; top: 444.2px; transform: scaleX(0.936324);">of the international monetary system and so did Russia, and they got support from countries </span><span dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="font-family: serif; font-size: 20px; left: 118.2px; top: 467.3px; transform: scaleX(0.964243);">such as Malaysia, Brazil and Indonesia.</span></span><span class="markedContent" id="page9R_mcid3"><br role="presentation" /><span dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="font-family: serif; font-size: 20px; left: 118.2px; top: 513.5px; transform: scaleX(0.956296);">It was the head of the Chinese central bank, Mr. Zhou, who called in a paper for the creation </span><span dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="font-family: serif; font-size: 20px; left: 118.2px; top: 536.5px; transform: scaleX(0.949307);">of a new international reserve currency to replace the dollar. In his paper, Mr. Zhou referred </span><span dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="font-family: serif; font-size: 20px; left: 118.2px; top: 559.5px; transform: scaleX(0.947993);">to Triffin and said, “The desirable goal of reforming the international monetary system is to </span><span dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="font-family: serif; font-size: 20px; left: 118.2px; top: 582.5px; transform: scaleX(0.931581);">create an international reserve currency that is disconnected from individual nations and is </span><span dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="font-family: serif; font-size: 20px; left: 118.2px; top: 605.5px; transform: scaleX(0.941009);">able to remain stable in the long run, thus removing the inherent deficiencies caused by using </span><span dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="font-family: serif; font-size: 20px; left: 118.2px; top: 628.6px; transform: scaleX(0.939762);">credit-based national currencies.”</span></span></span></span></p><p><span class="markedContent" id="page7R_mcid8"><span dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="font-family: serif; font-size: 20px; left: 118.2px; top: 1226.9px; transform: scaleX(0.95158);"><span class="markedContent" id="page9R_mcid4"><span dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="font-family: serif; font-size: 20px; left: 118.2px; top: 674.9px; transform: scaleX(0.961163);">Three years earlier, Fan Gang (a member of the Monetary Policy Committee of the Chinese </span><span dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="font-family: serif; font-size: 20px; left: 118.2px; top: 697.9px; transform: scaleX(0.955643);">central bank) had made a similar plea in his contribution to a <a href="http://www.fondad.org/uploaded/GlobalImbalances/Fondad-Global-Imbalances-Chap05.pdf">FONDAD conference and</a></span></span><a href="http://www.fondad.org/uploaded/GlobalImbalances/Fondad-Global-Imbalances-Chap05.pdf"><span class="markedContent" id="page9R_mcid5"><span dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="font-family: serif; font-size: 20px; left: 819.132px; top: 697.9px;"> </span><span dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="font-family: serif; font-size: 20px; left: 824.1px; top: 697.9px; transform: scaleX(0.9375);">book </span></span><span class="markedContent" id="page9R_mcid6"><span dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="font-family: serif; font-size: 20px; left: 118.2px; top: 720.9px; transform: scaleX(0.950423);">on global imbalances</span></span></a><span class="markedContent" id="page9R_mcid7"><span dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="font-family: serif; font-size: 20px; left: 288.1px; top: 720.9px; transform: scaleX(0.968329);">. He said, “The US dollar is no longer a stable anchor in the global </span><span dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="font-family: serif; font-size: 20px; left: 118.2px; top: 744px; transform: scaleX(0.960215);">financial system, nor is it likely to become one: thus, it is time to look for alternatives.”</span></span><span class="markedContent" id="page9R_mcid8"><br role="presentation" /><span dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="font-family: serif; font-size: 20px; left: 118.2px; top: 790.2px; transform: scaleX(0.949939);">As China is one of the major economies and one of the largest holders of dollar reserves, the </span><span dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="font-family: serif; font-size: 20px; left: 118.2px; top: 813.2px; transform: scaleX(0.976341);">news spread quickly. “China Urges New Money Reserve to Replace Dollar,” was the heading </span><span dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="font-family: serif; font-size: 20px; left: 118.2px; top: 836.2px; transform: scaleX(0.974405);">of The New York Times (23 March). “China calls for the reign of the dollar to end,” said the </span><span dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="font-family: serif; font-size: 20px; left: 118.2px; top: 859.2px; transform: scaleX(0.968317);">British Telegraph. “Russia recently made a similar proposal,” added The New York Times.</span><br role="presentation" /><span dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="font-family: serif; font-size: 20px; left: 118.2px; top: 882.2px; transform: scaleX(0.979603);">“Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand Support Call for Global Currency,” said the US news agency </span><span dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="font-family: serif; font-size: 20px; left: 118.2px; top: 905.2px; transform: scaleX(0.983556);">Bloomberg. “Stiglitz’s U.N. Panel Urges to Replace the Dollar - The commission led by </span><span dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="font-family: serif; font-size: 20px; left: 118.2px; top: 928.2px; transform: scaleX(0.964149);">Nobel economist Joseph Stiglitz recommends a new global currency,” said Business Week.</span><br role="presentation" /><span dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="font-family: serif; font-size: 20px; left: 118.2px; top: 951.2px; transform: scaleX(0.962296);">“A reserve currency system based on an IMF unit instead of the U.S. dollar could be phased </span><span dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="font-family: serif; font-size: 20px; left: 118.2px; top: 974.2px; transform: scaleX(0.958955);">in within a year, Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz said,” was the news brought </span><span dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="font-family: serif; font-size: 20px; left: 118.2px; top: 997.2px; transform: scaleX(0.973876);">by Reuters. And so it went on for a couple of weeks. Triffin’s name and Triffin’s idea of </span><span dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="font-family: serif; font-size: 20px; left: 118.2px; top: 1020.3px; transform: scaleX(0.940194);">fundamental reform was suddenly back in the news.</span></span></span></span></p><p><span class="markedContent" id="page7R_mcid8"><span dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="font-family: serif; font-size: 20px; left: 118.2px; top: 1226.9px; transform: scaleX(0.95158);"><span class="markedContent" id="page9R_mcid9"><span dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="font-family: serif; font-size: 20px; left: 118.2px; top: 1066.8px; transform: scaleX(1.01116);">Will an up-to-date Triffin Plan be adopted and implemented anytime soon?</span></span><span class="markedContent" id="page9R_mcid10"><br role="presentation" /><span dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="font-family: serif; font-size: 20px; left: 118.2px; top: 1112.8px; transform: scaleX(0.952061);">Are there chances that the policymakers of the NATO countries and of other countries will </span><span dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="font-family: serif; font-size: 20px; left: 118.2px; top: 1135.8px; transform: scaleX(0.960178);">finally listen to the advice of Robert Triffin? Will the world finally adopt and implement a </span><span dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="font-family: serif; font-size: 20px; left: 118.2px; top: 1158.8px; transform: scaleX(0.937248);">fundamental reform of the international monetary system in an updated version of the Triffin </span><span dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="font-family: serif; font-size: 20px; left: 118.2px; top: 1181.8px; transform: scaleX(0.930848);">Plan or any other plan that departs from the same basic idea that we need a truly international </span><span dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="font-family: serif; font-size: 20px; left: 118.2px; top: 1204.9px; transform: scaleX(0.945766);">global reserve asset as key currency of the system?</span></span><span class="markedContent"><span class="markedContent"><span dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="font-family: serif; font-size: 20px; left: 864.2px; top: 1323.3px;"></span></span></span></span></span><br role="presentation" /><span class="markedContent" id="page12R_mcid0"></span></p><p><span class="markedContent" id="page12R_mcid0"><span dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="font-family: serif; font-size: 20px; left: 118.2px; top: 121.6px; transform: scaleX(0.940093);">The reactions to the Chinese and Russian proposals seem to indicate that the process of </span><span dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="font-family: serif; font-size: 20px; left: 118.2px; top: 144.6px; transform: scaleX(0.963027);">reform will be slow. US policymakers, Japanese policymakers and a few European policy-</span><span dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="font-family: serif; font-size: 20px; left: 118.2px; top: 167.6px; transform: scaleX(0.945918);">makers immediately reacted to the news about the need for “a new global currency” by saying </span><span dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="font-family: serif; font-size: 20px; left: 118.2px; top: 190.6px; transform: scaleX(0.938211);">that a fundamental reform that implied replacing the dollar was neither necessary, nor likely </span><span dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="font-family: serif; font-size: 20px; left: 118.2px; top: 213.6px; transform: scaleX(0.951701);">in the near future. A number of academics and columnists said the same. But the UN </span><span dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="font-family: serif; font-size: 20px; left: 118.2px; top: 236.6px; transform: scaleX(0.941586);">Commission headed by Stiglitz advocated fundamental reform of the international monetary </span><span dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="font-family: serif; font-size: 20px; left: 118.2px; top: 259.6px; transform: scaleX(0.961024);">system, and so did the Italian minister of economy, Giulio Tremonti, recently, according to </span><span dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="font-family: serif; font-size: 20px; left: 118.2px; top: 282.7px; transform: scaleX(0.956073);">news agency Reuters (30 April). </span></span></p><p><span class="markedContent" id="page12R_mcid0"><span dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="font-family: serif; font-size: 20px; left: 118.2px; top: 282.7px; transform: scaleX(0.956073);">So, is reform about to take place?</span></span><span class="markedContent" id="page12R_mcid1"></span></p><p><span class="markedContent" id="page12R_mcid1"><span dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="font-family: serif; font-size: 20px; left: 118.2px; top: 328.9px; transform: scaleX(0.941345);">I don’t think so. The power groups and interest groups opposing fundamental reform of the </span><span dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="font-family: serif; font-size: 20px; left: 118.2px; top: 351.9px; transform: scaleX(0.931147);">international monetary system are still strong. The routine of the bureaucrats and bosses in </span><span dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="font-family: serif; font-size: 20px; left: 118.2px; top: 374.9px; transform: scaleX(0.950096);">both official and private institutions is likely to prevent action. The policymakers of the </span><span dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="font-family: serif; font-size: 20px; left: 118.2px; top: 397.9px; transform: scaleX(0.960273);">NATO countries - with the exception of Italy ? - do not seem to be eager starting a process of </span><span dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="font-family: serif; font-size: 20px; left: 118.2px; top: 420.9px; transform: scaleX(0.940471);">negotiating a new monetary system that replaces the dollar as key currency of the system. The </span><span dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="font-family: serif; font-size: 20px; left: 118.2px; top: 444px; transform: scaleX(0.934757);">Europeans rather prefer to maintain the dollar and improve financial regulation.</span></span><span class="markedContent" id="page12R_mcid2"><br role="presentation" /></span></p><p><span class="markedContent" id="page12R_mcid2"><span dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="font-family: serif; font-size: 20px; left: 118.2px; top: 490.3px; transform: scaleX(0.953928);">Does the old dream of Robert Triffin remain a dream, a utopia?</span></span><span class="markedContent" id="page12R_mcid3"><br role="presentation" /></span></p><p><span class="markedContent" id="page12R_mcid3"><span dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="font-family: serif; font-size: 20px; left: 118.2px; top: 536.5px; transform: scaleX(0.951394);">My hope is that Triffin’s dream will become true. The problems of the current system (its </span><span dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="font-family: serif; font-size: 20px; left: 118.2px; top: 559.5px; transform: scaleX(0.940561);">instability, its proneness to crisis, its unfair treatment of developing countries) are too big to </span><span dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="font-family: serif; font-size: 20px; left: 118.2px; top: 582.5px; transform: scaleX(0.942253);">let them drag on. We should not wait with reform until the next crisis emerges because the </span><span dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="font-family: serif; font-size: 20px; left: 118.2px; top: 605.5px; transform: scaleX(0.953683);">costs are too high. It would also be proof of low intellectual quality of our policymakers, and </span><span dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="font-family: serif; font-size: 20px; left: 118.2px; top: 628.5px; transform: scaleX(0.951391);">of low intellectual quality of the academics working with them, if they would let drag on the </span><span dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="font-family: serif; font-size: 20px; left: 118.2px; top: 651.6px; transform: scaleX(0.956735);">system as it is. Why should they not change it?</span></span><span class="markedContent" id="page12R_mcid4"></span></p><p><span class="markedContent" id="page12R_mcid4"><span dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="font-family: serif; font-size: 20px; left: 118.2px; top: 697.9px; transform: scaleX(0.959228);">I’d like to end my talk with an encouraging quote from Triffin. When I interviewed him in </span><span dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="font-family: serif; font-size: 20px; left: 118.2px; top: 720.9px; transform: scaleX(0.953116);">1985 for the Dutch and Belgian magazine Intermediair, I asked him if he was never accused </span><span dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="font-family: serif; font-size: 20px; left: 118.2px; top: 743.9px; transform: scaleX(0.947516);">of being naïve by still believing in the possibility of reforming the international monetary </span><span dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="font-family: serif; font-size: 20px; left: 118.2px; top: 767px; transform: scaleX(0.991821);">system. </span></span></p><p><span class="markedContent" id="page12R_mcid4"><span dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="font-family: serif; font-size: 20px; left: 118.2px; top: 767px; transform: scaleX(0.991821);">“Yes,” he answered frankly.</span></span><span class="markedContent" id="page12R_mcid5"><br role="presentation" /><span dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="font-family: serif; font-size: 20px; left: 118.2px; top: 813.3px; transform: scaleX(0.950493);">- And what is your reaction to this reproach? I asked.</span></span><span class="markedContent" id="page12R_mcid6"><br role="presentation" /><span dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="font-family: serif; font-size: 20px; left: 118.2px; top: 859.5px; transform: scaleX(0.966221);">“Well, I give the answer Ben Gurion once gave: to be realistic today you need a great deal of </span><span dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="font-family: serif; font-size: 20px; left: 118.2px; top: 882.5px; transform: scaleX(0.950043);">utopia. Running away from the most obvious solutions is not realism. It’s crisis management, </span><span dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="font-family: serif; font-size: 20px; left: 118.2px; top: 905.6px; transform: scaleX(0.946285);">condemning you to more and more crisis management.”</span></span><span class="markedContent" id="page12R_mcid7"><br role="presentation" /><span dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="font-family: serif; font-size: 15px; left: 118.2px; top: 950.749px; transform: scaleX(0.964614);"> </span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span class="markedContent" id="page12R_mcid7"><span dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="font-family: serif; left: 118.2px; top: 950.749px; transform: scaleX(0.964614);">Jan Joost Teunissen is the founder and director of the Forum on Debt and Development (FONDAD).</span></span></span></p><div id="outerContainer"><div id="mainContainer"><div id="viewerContainer" tabindex="0"><br />
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jan joost teunissenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14018967221957534084noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3510749443422882016.post-89126950764547130532022-03-17T05:07:00.001-07:002022-03-17T05:12:57.041-07:00China and Russia will speed up Reform of the International Monetary System<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEj99i43wIT8NvIEvV_eFDGRrvhIPa1fTbX4q6aqG1UJ4f6Mnty7en9AnR1oZ-tja34ovKh0p8C13UKD611-p-q9FMNvzBiDTowu5c_YTw66Ee60mx_Ti8jh0_UU_r-2iHmM4tg9iRsC_jk8bYZsMFbputSi9Ctff4waIPxsIsgJf5es6z0zfoQV_oi5=s929" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="523" data-original-width="929" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEj99i43wIT8NvIEvV_eFDGRrvhIPa1fTbX4q6aqG1UJ4f6Mnty7en9AnR1oZ-tja34ovKh0p8C13UKD611-p-q9FMNvzBiDTowu5c_YTw66Ee60mx_Ti8jh0_UU_r-2iHmM4tg9iRsC_jk8bYZsMFbputSi9Ctff4waIPxsIsgJf5es6z0zfoQV_oi5=w400-h225" width="400" /></a></div>Dear readers,<br />
<br />
An effect not anticipated by NATO policy makers is that China
and Russia will speed up Reform of the International Monetary System, argues Michael
Hudson: <br />
<br />
<p></p><header class="td-post-title">
<h1 class="entry-title">Michael Hudson – The American Empire
self-destructs</h1>
<div class="td-module-meta-info"> <span class="td-post-date"><time class="entry-date updated td-module-date" datetime="2022-03-10T02:53:37+00:00">10/03/2022</time></span>
</div>
</header>
<p><b>But nobody thought that it would happen this fast.</b></p>
<p><i><span class="entry-meta-date updated">March 7, 2022</span></i></p>
<p>Empires often follow the course of a Greek tragedy, bringing
about precisely the fate that they sought to avoid. That
certainly is the case with the American Empire as it
dismantles itself in not-so-slow motion.</p>
<p>The basic assumption of economic and diplomatic forecasting
is that every country will act in its own self-interest. Such
reasoning is of no help in today’s world. Observers across the
political spectrum are using phrases like “shooting themselves
in their own foot” to describe U.S. diplomatic confrontation
with Russia and allies alike.</p>
<p>For more than a generation the most prominent U.S. diplomats
have warned about what they thought would represent the
ultimate external threat: an alliance of Russia and China
dominating Eurasia. America’s economic sanctions and military
confrontation has driven them together, and is driving other
countries into their emerging Eurasian orbit.</p>
<p>American economic and financial power was expected to avert
this fate. During the half-century since the United States
went off gold in 1971, the world’s central banks have operated
on the Dollar Standard, holding their international monetary
reserves in the form of U.S. Treasury securities, U.S. bank
deposits and U.S. stocks and bonds. The resulting
Treasury-bill Standard has enabled America to finance its
foreign military spending and investment takeover of other
countries simply by creating dollar IOUs. U.S.
balance-of-payments deficits end up in the central banks of
payments-surplus countries as their reserves, while Global
South debtors need dollars to pay their bondholders and
conduct their foreign trade.</p>
<p>This monetary privilege – dollar seignorage – has enabled
U.S. diplomacy to impose neoliberal policies on the rest of
the world, without having to use much military force of its
own except to grab Near Eastern oil.</p>
<p>The recent escalation U.S. sanctions blocking Europe, Asia
and other countries from trade and investment with Russia,
Iran and China has imposed enormous opportunity costs – the
cost of lost opportunities – on U.S. allies. And the recent
confiscation of the gold and foreign reserves of Venezuela,
Afghanistan and now Russia, along the targeted grabbing of
bank accounts of wealthy foreigners (hoping to win their
hearts and minds, along with recovery of their sequestered
accounts), has ended the idea that dollar holdings or those in
its sterling and euro NATO satellites are a safe investment
haven when world economic conditions become shaky.</p>
<p>So I am somewhat chagrined as I watch the speed at which this
U.S.-centered financialized system has de-dollarized over the
span of just a year or two. The basic theme of my <a href="https://michael-hudson.com/2021/10/3rd-edition-super-imperialism/" rel="noopener" target="_blank">Super
Imperialism</a> has been how, for the past fifty years, the
U.S. Treasury-bill standard has channeled foreign savings to
U.S. financial markets and banks, giving Dollar Diplomacy a
free ride. I thought that de-dollarization would be led by
China and Russia moving to take control of their economies to
avoid the kind of financial polarization that is imposing
austerity on the United States. But U.S. officials are forcing
them to overcome whatever hesitancy they had to de-dollarize.
(...) <br />
</p>
TO READ FURTHER - <a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://www.defenddemocracy.press/michael-hudson-the-american-empire-self-destructs/">http://www.defenddemocracy.press/michael-hudson-the-american-empire-self-destructs/</a>jan joost teunissenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14018967221957534084noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3510749443422882016.post-9791032276696737632022-01-01T03:12:00.005-08:002022-01-27T02:50:43.371-08:00I cried over the death of Robert Triffin<p><b></b></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><b><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgbggT9rhanD6n16fgxZ58oYRdsRmgkP87SMrHln0QNGWGC6D0xDp-KVp2hXr0T8EaND0ZtFzgdjHYm8O7N9dQjNbB37wDv5jMcp36b3NbuQWnddHQGJNfnHRkgY0b4ZRs27gdPH29iKrSA1gplVN47gIahQSYt3OFcJt2cpl67thnxbDGE5uV13YEI=s1436" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="953" data-original-width="1436" height="265" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgbggT9rhanD6n16fgxZ58oYRdsRmgkP87SMrHln0QNGWGC6D0xDp-KVp2hXr0T8EaND0ZtFzgdjHYm8O7N9dQjNbB37wDv5jMcp36b3NbuQWnddHQGJNfnHRkgY0b4ZRs27gdPH29iKrSA1gplVN47gIahQSYt3OFcJt2cpl67thnxbDGE5uV13YEI=w400-h265" width="400" /></a></b></div><b>Robert Triffin</b> is the only economist in my work circle for whom I cried, with real tears that broke from my eyes and rolled down my cheeks, first in the street Noordeinde in The Hague, where a friend was telling me on that sunny day in Spring of 1993, casually, that Triffin had died, and soon thereafter in the director's room of FONDAD at Noordeinde.<br />When I got home to Amsterdam, that same night I wondered why I had been crying. The answer I gave to myself was that Robert Triffin and I were united in our desire to improve the world - focusing on the role of money, of finance, in the world.<br />But I think there were still other, perhaps more important, reasons why I was crying...<br />And there is another economist in my work circle that I cried for, with real tears, on 21 September 1976: <a href="http://zambrone.blogspot.com/2018/09/orlando-letelier.html"><b>Orlando Letelier</b></a>. <br /><p></p>jan joost teunissenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14018967221957534084noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3510749443422882016.post-59624082325009790732021-12-30T21:01:00.005-08:002021-12-30T21:19:55.097-08:00Why should we have listened better to Robert Triffin?<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhHT_H9f9EvatvBK_5I16viLiJhp-RfUe2zmvixsNAXmqfXn9DhUROIkAuGUtAjQMPRaUe428ipW978lrjL6PH_frts2_SHQ1zSFUUVxuLurTqfYAEvmxBrsPnHvUMnCwetVf4RvWx5Gf2UupFjUXSgIEiQu291zFKiH9gGwpcUKZroPGncdZ9QmSlZ=s1600" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1129" data-original-width="1600" height="283" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhHT_H9f9EvatvBK_5I16viLiJhp-RfUe2zmvixsNAXmqfXn9DhUROIkAuGUtAjQMPRaUe428ipW978lrjL6PH_frts2_SHQ1zSFUUVxuLurTqfYAEvmxBrsPnHvUMnCwetVf4RvWx5Gf2UupFjUXSgIEiQu291zFKiH9gGwpcUKZroPGncdZ9QmSlZ=w400-h283" width="400" /></a></div>I wrote the following to my friends of the Fondad Group: <p></p><p>Dear friends, <br />
<br />
I would like to add this speech to my previous message:</p><p><span class="markedContent" id="page123R_mcid0" style="font-size: x-large;"><span dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="font-family: serif; left: 118.2px; top: 125.4px; transform: scaleX(1.05919);">“Why
should we have listened better to</span><br role="presentation" />
<span dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="font-family: serif; left: 118.2px; top: 171.52px; transform: scaleX(1.09176);">Robert Triffin?”</span></span><span class="markedContent" id="page123R_mcid1"><br role="presentation" />
<span dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="font-family: serif; font-size: 20px; left: 118.2px; top: 236.9px; transform: scaleX(1.00402);">Speech by Jan Joost Teunissen at
conference,</span></span><span class="markedContent" id="page123R_mcid2"><span dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="font-family: serif; font-size: 20px; left: 482.09px; top: 236.9px;"> </span><span dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="font-family: serif; font-size: 20px; left: 486.9px; top: 236.9px; transform: scaleX(1.00006);">“The economic
and financial crisis of 2008-09”</span></span><span class="markedContent" id="page123R_mcid3"><span dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="font-family: serif; font-size: 20px; left: 867.8px; top: 236.9px;">, </span><span dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="font-family: serif; font-size: 20px; left: 118.2px; top: 260px; transform: scaleX(1.00012);">Louvain-la-Neuve, 7-8 May 2009</span></span><span class="markedContent" id="page123R_mcid4"><br />
<br role="presentation" />
<span dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="font-family: serif; font-size: medium; left: 118.2px; top: 306.2px; transform: scaleX(1.00291);">There are various reasons why we
should have listened better to Robert Triffin’s suggestions </span><span dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="font-family: serif; font-size: medium; left: 118.2px; top: 329.2px; transform: scaleX(1.00048);">of how to fundamentally reform and
improve the functioning of the international monetary </span><span dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="font-family: serif; font-size: medium; left: 118.2px; top: 352.2px; transform: scaleX(1.00043);">system. He made those suggestions
for the first time in 1957, in his</span><span dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="font-family: serif; font-size: medium; left: 656.13px; top: 352.2px;"> </span><i><span dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="font-family: serif; font-size: medium; left: 660.9px; top: 352.2px; transform: scaleX(1.00057);">Europe
and the Money </span><span dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="font-family: serif; font-size: medium; left: 118.2px; top: 375.2px; transform: scaleX(0.983338);">Muddle</span></i><span dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="font-family: serif; font-size: medium; left: 179.396px; top: 375.2px; transform: scaleX(1.00006);">, and
continued making them until a year before his death in 1993,
when he withdrew </span><span dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="font-family: serif; font-size: medium; left: 118.2px; top: 398.2px; transform: scaleX(1.00061);">from all public economic
activities. I will discuss two major reasons, the first
concerned with </span><span dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="font-family: serif; font-size: medium; left: 118.2px; top: 421.3px; transform: scaleX(1.00002);">the world economic and political
system, and the second with the role of economists.</span></span><span class="markedContent" id="page123R_mcid5" style="font-size: medium;"><br role="presentation" />
<span dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="font-family: serif; left: 118.2px; top: 467.8px; transform: scaleX(1.0479);"><br />
<b>A more stable system plagued less by crises</b></span></span><span class="markedContent" id="page123R_mcid6" style="font-size: medium;"><br role="presentation" />
<span dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="font-family: serif; left: 118.2px; top: 513.9px; transform: scaleX(1.00311);">The first and main reason why we
should have listened better to Robert Triffin’s suggestions </span><span dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="font-family: serif; left: 118.2px; top: 536.9px; transform: scaleX(1.00023);">for reform and improvement of the
international monetary system is that the world would </span><span dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="font-family: serif; left: 118.2px; top: 559.9px; transform: scaleX(1.00029);">have been more stable and would
have been plagued less by crises. Those crises have proven </span><span dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="font-family: serif; left: 118.2px; top: 583px; transform: scaleX(1.00047);">to be very harmful for businesses
and citizens.</span></span><span class="markedContent" id="page123R_mcid7" style="font-size: medium;"><br role="presentation" />
<span dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="font-family: serif; left: 118.2px; top: 629.2px; transform: scaleX(0.999948);">In 1985, three years after the
world debt crisis broke out in Latin America, and led to what </span><span dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="font-family: serif; left: 118.2px; top: 652.2px; transform: scaleX(1.00148);">Latin Americans have called ‘the
lost decade’, Triffin once again advocated fundamental </span><span dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="font-family: serif; left: 118.2px; top: 675.2px; transform: scaleX(1.00055);">reform of the international
monetary system, just like he had done energetically during the </span><span dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="font-family: serif; left: 118.2px; top: 698.2px; transform: scaleX(0.999937);">sixties and seventies. He did so
in a report that he prepared for a US Congressional Summit </span><span dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="font-family: serif; left: 118.2px; top: 721.2px; transform: scaleX(1.00361);">on Exchange Rates and the Dollar.
He said, and I quote, “We should resume negotiations for a</span></span><span class="markedContent" id="page123R_mcid8" style="font-size: medium;"> <span dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="font-family: serif; left: 118.2px; top: 744.2px; transform: scaleX(1.00033);">fundamental</span></span><span class="markedContent" id="page123R_mcid9" style="font-size: medium;"><span dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="font-family: serif; left: 218.2px; top: 744.2px;"> </span><span dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="font-family: serif; left: 223.2px; top: 744.2px; transform: scaleX(1.00007);">reform
of the world monetary system - or non-system - that is anchored </span><span dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="font-family: serif; left: 118.2px; top: 767.3px; transform: scaleX(1.00042);">primarily on a</span></span><span class="markedContent" id="page123R_mcid10" style="font-size: medium;"><span dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="font-family: serif; left: 231.548px; top: 767.3px;"> </span><span dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="font-family: serif; left: 236.5px; top: 767.3px; transform: scaleX(1.00089);">national</span></span><span class="markedContent" id="page123R_mcid11" style="font-size: medium;"><span dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="font-family: serif; left: 300.9px; top: 767.3px; transform: scaleX(1.0075);">,
paper reserve currency, that is, the dollar.”</span></span><span class="markedContent" id="page123R_mcid12" style="font-size: medium;"><br role="presentation" />
<span dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="font-family: serif; left: 118.2px; top: 813.5px; transform: scaleX(1.00163);">In the view of Triffin, a key
element of such fundamental reform would be to anchor the </span><span dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="font-family: serif; left: 118.2px; top: 836.5px; transform: scaleX(0.999702);">system on a t</span></span><span class="markedContent" id="page123R_mcid13" style="font-size: medium;"><span dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="font-family: serif; left: 223.2px; top: 836.5px; transform: scaleX(1.00111);">ruly
international reserve asset</span></span><span class="markedContent" id="page123R_mcid14" style="font-size: medium;"><span dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="font-family: serif; left: 468.406px; top: 836.5px;"> </span><span dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="font-family: serif; left: 473.06px; top: 836.5px; transform: scaleX(1.00553);">held
with the IMF, and not on the dollar or any </span><span dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="font-family: serif; left: 118.2px; top: 859.5px; transform: scaleX(1.00373);">other national currency used as a
reserve currency. Triffin mentioned three major arguments </span><span dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="font-family: serif; left: 118.2px; top: 882.6px; transform: scaleX(0.999998);">why fundamental reform of the
system was needed.</span></span><span class="markedContent" id="page123R_mcid15" style="font-size: medium;"><br role="presentation" />
<span dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="font-family: serif; left: 118.2px; top: 928.8px; transform: scaleX(1.00003);">First, and I quote his 1985 paper
prepared for the US Congressional Summit, “because of its </span><span dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="font-family: serif; left: 118.2px; top: 951.8px; transform: scaleX(1.00109);">fantastic</span></span><span class="markedContent" id="page123R_mcid16" style="font-size: medium;"><span dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="font-family: serif; left: 186.024px; top: 951.8px;"> </span><span dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="font-family: serif; left: 190.9px; top: 951.8px; transform: scaleX(1.00133);">inflationary</span></span><span class="markedContent" id="page123R_mcid17" style="font-size: medium;"><span dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="font-family: serif; left: 284.324px; top: 951.8px;"> </span><span dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="font-family: serif; left: 289.2px; top: 951.8px; transform: scaleX(1.00141);">proclivities,
leading to world reserve increases eight times as large over </span><span dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="font-family: serif; left: 118.2px; top: 974.9px; transform: scaleX(1.00025);">a brief span of fifteen years as
over all previous years and centuries since Adam and Eve.”</span></span><span class="markedContent" id="page123R_mcid18" style="font-size: medium;"><br role="presentation" />
<span dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="font-family: serif; left: 118.2px; top: 1021.2px; transform: scaleX(1.0004);">Second, “because of its</span></span><span class="markedContent" id="page123R_mcid19" style="font-size: medium;"><span dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="font-family: serif; left: 304.908px; top: 1021.2px;"> </span><span dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="font-family: serif; left: 309.8px; top: 1021.2px; transform: scaleX(1.00024);">skewed
investment pattern of world reserves</span></span><span class="markedContent" id="page123R_mcid20" style="font-size: medium;"><span dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="font-family: serif; left: 666.9px; top: 1021.2px; transform: scaleX(1.00096);">,
making the poorer and </span><span dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="font-family: serif; left: 118.2px; top: 1044.2px; transform: scaleX(1.00229);">less capitalized countries of the
Third World the main reserve lenders, and the richer and </span><span dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="font-family: serif; left: 118.2px; top: 1067.2px; transform: scaleX(1.00017);">more capitalized industrial
countries the main reserve borrowers of the system.” In another </span><span dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="font-family: serif; left: 118.2px; top: 1090.2px; transform: scaleX(1.00178);">paper Triffin said the same in
stronger words. I quote from his September 1988 acceptance </span><span dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="font-family: serif; left: 118.2px; top: 1113.2px; transform: scaleX(1.00246);">speech of the Seidman Award, “the
richest, most developed, and most heavily capitalized </span><span dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="font-family: serif; left: 118.2px; top: 1136.2px; transform: scaleX(0.999993);">country in the world should not
import, but export, capital, in order to increase productive </span><span dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="font-family: serif; left: 118.2px; top: 1159.2px; transform: scaleX(1.00179);">investment in poorer, less
developed, and less capitalized countries. I have long argued
that </span><span dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="font-family: serif; left: 118.2px; top: 1182.3px; transform: scaleX(1.00308);">our international monetary system
is at the root of this absurdity.”</span></span><span class="markedContent" id="page123R_mcid21" style="font-size: medium;"><br role="presentation" />
<span dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="font-family: serif; left: 118.2px; top: 1228.5px; transform: scaleX(1.00021);">And third, “because of its</span></span><span class="markedContent" id="page123R_mcid22" style="font-size: medium;"><span dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="font-family: serif; left: 323.21px; top: 1228.5px;"> </span><span dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="font-family: serif; left: 328.212px; top: 1228.5px; transform: scaleX(1.00023);">crisis-prone
propensities</span></span><span class="markedContent" id="page123R_mcid23" style="font-size: medium;"><span dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="font-family: serif; left: 524.34px; top: 1228.5px;"> </span><span dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="font-family: serif; left: 529.3px; top: 1228.5px; transform: scaleX(1.00062);">reflected in the
amplitude of the present </span><span dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="font-family: serif; left: 118.2px; top: 1251.6px; transform: scaleX(0.999992);">world debt problem.” ...<br />
<br />
TO READ FURTHER, see the attached.</span></span> <br /></p>jan joost teunissenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14018967221957534084noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3510749443422882016.post-33892543949620529502021-12-26T04:34:00.008-08:002022-01-27T02:52:50.951-08:00Trichet was wrong about a "new, dramatic global crisis". What Are the Lessons and the Questions?<p><span style="font-size: medium;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgS-lZ3RGuvI3VXmifnUwFpPlZl8OCiLi06qFV489cRYzC2d5QNIgURevHxMP3rI22L9Avd2nUMsZlUEMNgw_kY3tCADOUL8KcbpLzppvV0yqibQzP-UiQvszceJxphDECidlUl-XzOoHagn6hsvACKh4FaeCPM1kvoxM4gf-92Qjvm-q0qDIppgsrK=s2304" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2304" data-original-width="2088" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgS-lZ3RGuvI3VXmifnUwFpPlZl8OCiLi06qFV489cRYzC2d5QNIgURevHxMP3rI22L9Avd2nUMsZlUEMNgw_kY3tCADOUL8KcbpLzppvV0yqibQzP-UiQvszceJxphDECidlUl-XzOoHagn6hsvACKh4FaeCPM1kvoxM4gf-92Qjvm-q0qDIppgsrK=w181-h200" width="181" /></a></span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">Four years ago I published a post on this blog saying that former ECB president Jean-Claude Trichet was warning about the
danger of "a new, more serious crisis than the one we have been facing
over the last ten years." Since it has turned out that he was wrong, what lessons can we draw, what questions can we raise, and what answers can we give?</span><br /><p></p><p>"<span id="result_box" lang="en"><span title="Au niveau
mondial, si l'on considère le niveau de l'endettement total en
proportion du PIB consolidé de la planète comme un bon
indicateur de vulnérabilité – ce que je pense –, nous sommes
plus vulnérables à une crise financière mondiale aujourd'hui qu">At
the global level, considering the level of total indebtedness as
a proportion of the world's consolidated GDP as a good indicator
of vulnerability, we are more vulnerable to a
global financial crisis today than </span><span title="'en
2008.">in 2008," said Trichet four years ago in <a href="https://www.letemps.ch/economie/2017/11/08/jeanclaude-trichet-sommes-plus-vulnerables-une-crise-financiere-mondiale?utm_source=Newsletters&utm_campaign=103ed62456-RSS_EMAIL_CAMPAIGN&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_56c41a402e-103ed62456-109511609">an interview with the Swiss journal Le Temps</a>.</span></span><br />
<br />
<span id="result_box" lang="en"><span title="'en
2008.">At the time, November 2017, I sent the interview with Trichet to a Fondad Group of forty international experts on the global financial system (<b>FG40</b>) asking them for a </span></span><span id="result_box" lang="en"><span title="'en
2008.">more in-depth analysis of the problem than given by Trichet, and
their <u>view on how to improve the global financial system and prevent the emergence of a new, dramatic global crisis</u>.
<br clear="none" /> </span></span><br />
</p><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhH5f2w68ZZKq2sAJmmBvNcH2l9YNYtfftSySCXeWnFBW54Cn06KG8lVton2D5vJEOG4vMgRlz_lKQV9D-Zu9OLgp8GwYu5Vm3eTSdfEEU4W03BmsOqpp0XtwoGMeQ6hICM2aofVh8NGeU/s1600/Aliber%252C+Robert.jpg" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="314" data-original-width="211" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhH5f2w68ZZKq2sAJmmBvNcH2l9YNYtfftSySCXeWnFBW54Cn06KG8lVton2D5vJEOG4vMgRlz_lKQV9D-Zu9OLgp8GwYu5Vm3eTSdfEEU4W03BmsOqpp0XtwoGMeQ6hICM2aofVh8NGeU/s200/Aliber%252C+Robert.jpg" width="134" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Robert Aliber</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span id="result_box" lang="en"><span title="'en
2008."><a href="https://www.chicagobooth.edu/faculty/emeriti/robert-aliber"><b>Robert Aliber</b></a>, famous expert and author of the classical </span></span><span id="result_box" lang="en"><span title="'en
2008."><span id="result_box" lang="es"><span title="Robert Aliber was the first one to react, in a sarcastic or ironic way: "How many memoirs are there on the continent [Europe] of central bankers who were in power at the time of the crisis...""> <a href="https://www.amazon.com/New-International-Money-Game/dp/0226013979"><i>The New International Money Game</i></a></span></span>, was the first one to react, in a sarcastic way: </span></span><span id="result_box" lang="en"><span title="'en
2008.">"How many memoirs are there on the continent [Europe] of
central bankers who were in power at the time of the crisis [in
2007-2008]..." </span></span><br />
<br />
<span id="result_box" lang="en"><span title="'en
2008."><a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/christian-ghymers-00538567/"><b>Christian Ghymers</b></a> commented a few hours later: "As you know, w</span></span>e share Trichet's view and see also the next big(gest) crisis around the
corner - and this time without rooms for manœuvre - except if the SDR
could be effectively mobilized and transformed rapidly along the
lines we try to push with Triffin Foundation
(RTI) and our publications and interventions, in particular at the G20
Ministerial last year (see my PowerPoints attached) and in other joined
short publications."
<br />
<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEggiJRBxLHnI4jmFQv9bIxqOkbhj_TzC6rQ8pApWXY-vYCymQu-T4xFXmy1c7tvB3Zp8krnCvLXG3MBDd8KgH-jxq1jNQSJ-gbjPoc-yPHXBTILwgk3Dgi1KfxY9fqULZH_qfyFbLxo6u4/s1600/ghymers%252C+christian.jpg" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="150" data-original-width="131" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEggiJRBxLHnI4jmFQv9bIxqOkbhj_TzC6rQ8pApWXY-vYCymQu-T4xFXmy1c7tvB3Zp8krnCvLXG3MBDd8KgH-jxq1jNQSJ-gbjPoc-yPHXBTILwgk3Dgi1KfxY9fqULZH_qfyFbLxo6u4/s200/ghymers%252C+christian.jpg" width="174" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Christian Ghymers</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span id="result_box" lang="en"><span title="'en
2008.">Christian Ghymers and I are both on the Board of the
Triffin Foundation (RTI). We got to know each other in the 1980s when
Christian worked with Robert Triffin and I, because of my research into
the root causes of the global debt problem, went to visit Triffin in
Louvain-la-Neuve and had long conversations with him in 1984 - see </span></span><span id="result_box" lang="en"><span title="'en
2008."><a href="http://www.fondad.org/uploaded/The%20International%20Monetary%20Crunch%20Crisis%20or%20Scandal/International-Monetary-Crunch.pdf">"The International Monetary Crunch: Crisis or Scandal?"</a>, Alternatives, July 1987. </span></span><br />
<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj__hzm3KSAaSTKGpVDSjbFijrJAc_UR_vubjpMK8m6QSsVo4eu0PgQmesqvpq2ptoTlhvBQz6tKoEtQZH2cebpwgOgQ9Kaim5cwpKkj9jmNnKLCMJXDvtSRa-MebjUVzYGK5-0hZOTOcI/s1600/Sheng%252C+Andrew.jpg" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="259" data-original-width="336" height="153" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj__hzm3KSAaSTKGpVDSjbFijrJAc_UR_vubjpMK8m6QSsVo4eu0PgQmesqvpq2ptoTlhvBQz6tKoEtQZH2cebpwgOgQ9Kaim5cwpKkj9jmNnKLCMJXDvtSRa-MebjUVzYGK5-0hZOTOcI/s200/Sheng%252C+Andrew.jpg" width="200" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Andrew Sheng</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table><p>
<span id="result_box" lang="en"><span title="'en
2008."><a href="http://www.andrewsheng.net/"><b>Andrew Sheng</b></a>, former </span></span><span id="result_box" lang="en"><span title="'en
2008.">central banker (he was Deputy Chief Executive, Hong Kong Monetary Authority) and author of, among other books, </span></span><span id="result_box" lang="en"><span title="'en
2008."><span id="result_box" lang="es"><span title="see "The International Monetary Crunch: Crisis or Scandal?", Alternatives, July 1987."><span id="result_box" lang="es"><span title="Andrew Sheng was the third of the Fondad Group of 40 experts to react."><a href="http://www.asiaglobalinstitute.hku.hk/en/bringing-shadow-banking-light-opportunity-financial-reform-china/"><i>Shadow Banking in China</i></a></span></span></span></span>, was the third of the Fondad Group of 40 experts to react immediately. He said, "</span></span>Congratulations,
Christian, for spelling out the pros and cons of moving to the SDR
system. The issue has always been political, with the incumbent
resisting any ideas for change unless there is crisis." <br />
<span id="result_box" lang="en"><span title="'en
2008."><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-size: medium;"><b>Lessons and Questions</b></span></p><span style="font-size: medium;">Four years have passed since Jean-Claude Trichet sent his alarming prediction to the world. As it turned out, he was wrong: there was no "dramatic new world crisis" coming. (Or is such a crisis still imminent, and will it come sooner than we hope and think?)<br /><br />The following (provocative) questions emerge to me:<br /><br />1. Should we no longer take (too) seriously the dramatic warnings of thinkers predicting global financial catastrophe?<br /><br />2. Is the global financial system more resilient than its critics (including me) want us to believe?<br /><br />3. Is a reform of the global financial system (including advocated by me) not necessary anymore?<br /><br />4. So is there no need for endless debates about how to improve the global financial system?<br /><br />5. Can we be confident that the international financial authorities will take the necessary steps to properly manage the next global financial crisis? (Manage, yes, prevent, no.)<br /><br />6. Discussions about replacing the US dollar with the SDR (as promoted by RTI on whose board I serve) are of marginal importance?<br /><br />7. Should we instead focus on existing and possibly new procedures to best manage an impending global financial crisis?<br /><br />8. Should we not waste our precious time in endless and pointless discussions about things that could go wrong, but rather focus on what is going well and what could go better?<br /><br />9. Should we be pragmatic, phlegmatic and level-headed, rather than idealistic, nervous and high-flying?<br /><br />10. Should we look to the future more from the bright side of the street?!<br /><br />I'm going to ask my friends from the Fondad Group of 40 experts what they think about these questions and what answers they have.</span>jan joost teunissenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14018967221957534084noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3510749443422882016.post-32883374024122104292021-03-15T07:08:00.001-07:002021-03-15T07:08:29.621-07:00Putting markets at the service of general interest<p>From the 1980s until 2008, when I drove from my office in The Hague to my house on the dike in Amsterdam Noord, I always listened to French radio -- to get rid of a long day of reading and communicating mainly in English. I tended to arrive home fully rebalanced.<br />I still need to rebalance after or during a long day of work at my home when I have read a lot of texts in English. I do so by reading French texts and thoughts. I find French thinkers often refreshing and better in analysing society than many of the anglosaxons.<br />I highly recommend the subsequent interview with French economist David Cayla, published by <a href="https://www.lefigaro.fr/vox/monde/populisme-et-liberalisme-deux-faces-d-une-meme-piece-20210112">Le Figaro/Vox</a>.</p><article class="fig-main" data-fgtcs-crosslinks="Contextuel" data-layout-left-col=""><h1 class="fig-headline fig-pagination__hidden">Populisme et néolibéralisme, deux faces d’une même pièce?</h1>
<p class="fig-standfirst">FIGAROVOX/GRAND ENTRETIEN - Pour l’économiste
David Cayla, les politiques néo-libérales menées depuis plusieurs
décennies ont fragilisé les classes moyennes, suscitant en retour la
montée des populismes. Mais les effets de la crise sanitaire sont déjà
en train de rebattre les cartes.</p>
<div class="fig-wrapper fig-zone-main fig-content-metas-info">
<span class="fig-content-metas__authors">Par <a class="fig-content-metas__author" href="https://plus.lefigaro.fr/page/uid/2540921" rel="author">Alexandre Devecchio</a></span>
<div class="fig-content-metas__pub"><span class="fig-content-metas__pub-date fig-content-metas__pub-date--hide-small">Publié <time datetime="2021-01-12T12:12:17+01:00">
le 12/01/2021 à 12:12</time>,</span><span class="fig-content-metas__pub-maj-date"> Mis à jour <time datetime="2021-01-12T12:57:16+01:00">le 12/01/2021 à 12:57</time></span></div>
</div>
<figure class="fig-media fig-media--type-photo"><div class="fig-lazy fig-lazy--16-9 fig-lazy--transparent"><img alt="" class="fig-media-photo fig-lazy--complete" /></div><figcaption class="fig-media__legend"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg93gXgRX-Ts5ktY9ZUm1RYEbpjargTRa5dO_zVIh9QM9JVuFIL0gcaWqDrxC3u8UuHgBddqI5WJHp-0W3XkgeZ-UeNfJCLvOQtSCrbS3feDWvrd6MetOGKcKdQBhLDNHw9HTzaH3qSJUw/s613/David+Cayla.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="344" data-original-width="613" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg93gXgRX-Ts5ktY9ZUm1RYEbpjargTRa5dO_zVIh9QM9JVuFIL0gcaWqDrxC3u8UuHgBddqI5WJHp-0W3XkgeZ-UeNfJCLvOQtSCrbS3feDWvrd6MetOGKcKdQBhLDNHw9HTzaH3qSJUw/w400-h225/David+Cayla.JPG" width="400" /></a></div><br /> </figcaption><figcaption class="fig-media__legend">David Cayla.<span class="fig-media__credits"> Crédit photo: Manon Decremps</span></figcaption></figure>
<div class="fig-body" data-component="fig-content-body">
<p class="fig-paragraph"><em>David Cayla est économiste, maître de conférences à l’université d’Angers. Il est l’auteur, avec Coralie Delaume, de </em>La Fin de l’Union européenne<em> (Michalon, 2017), et a également écrit </em>L’économie du réel<em> (De Boeck supérieur, 2018). Il a récemment publié </em><a data-gtm-custom-action="crossclick" data-gtm-custom-categorie="navigation" data-gtm-custom-label="Contextuel" data-gtm-event="customEventSPE" href="https://www.deboecksuperieur.com/ouvrage/9782807328846-populisme-et-neoliberalisme">Populisme et néolibéralisme: Il est urgent de tout repenser</a><em>(éditions De Boeck).</em></p>
<div class="fig-newsletter-box fig-container">
</div>
<div class="fig-free">
<hr />
</div>
<p class="fig-paragraph"><b>FIGAROVOX. - Beaucoup ont vu
dans la crise de Covid et ses conséquences le début de la fin de l’ère
«néolibérale» . Vous expliquez que c’est peut-être tout le contraire qui
est en train de se produire ; Pourquoi?</b></p>
<p class="fig-paragraph"><b>David CAYLA. -</b> J’entends
par «néolibéralisme» la doctrine qui veut mettre l’État au service
d’une économie fondée sur des marchés en concurrence. Cela ne signifie
pas nécessairement le retrait de l’État de l’économie, mais plutôt la
mise en œuvre d’une politique au service des marchés via des
interventions structurelles: réformes du marché du travail, mise en
concurrence des services publics, subventions aux entreprises et aux
ménages pour aider à produire et à consommer. Les dépenses publiques
basculent de la production de biens non marchands à un soutien de plus
en plus appuyé à l’économie marchande.</p>
<p class="fig-body-link"><svg class="fig-body-link__svg fig-body-link__svg--arrow" height="16" viewbox="0 0 24 24" width="24" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg"><use href="https://www.lefigaro.fr/vox/monde/populisme-et-liberalisme-deux-faces-d-une-meme-piece-20210112#fig-svg__arrow"></use></svg><span class="fig-body-link__prefix">À lire aussi :</span><a class="fig-body-link__link fig-premium-mark" data-fig-domain="LEFIGARO" data-fig-type="Article" data-gtm-custom-action="crossclick" data-gtm-custom-categorie="navigation" data-gtm-custom-label="Contextuel" data-gtm-event="customEventSPE" href="https://www.lefigaro.fr/vox/economie/le-covid-va-accelerer-la-baisse-des-naissances-dans-le-monde-20210110"><b>Pourquoi le Covid va accélérer la baisse des naissances dans le monde</b></a></p>
<p class="fig-paragraph">Je pense que nous sommes
effectivement en train de sortir de l’ère néolibérale, mais pas à cause
de la crise du Covid-19. Une fois passée la sidération du premier
confinement durant laquelle tout le monde s’enthousiasmait sur le «<em>monde d’après</em>»
qui serait nécessairement plus sûr, plus solidaire et plus écologique,
on voit qu’à présent, avec l’épuisement qu’a entrainé un an de crise
sanitaire, la plupart des gens espèrent surtout un retour à la normal le
plus rapidement possible.</p>
<p class="fig-paragraph">Car en dépit de la hausse de la
pauvreté et des difficultés économiques qui touchent de nombreux
secteurs d’activité, je ne suis pas certain que la priorité du
gouvernement sera de se risquer dans la mise en œuvre de politiques
nouvelles. Les Français risquent de sortir de cette crise plus pauvres
et plus désabusés qu’il ne l’étaient en y entrant, avec pour beaucoup un
sentiment d’injustice du fait des mesures prises pour combattre la
pandémie et qui ont souvent été jugées arbitraires.</p>
<mark class="fig-xrg">
Le sentiment de déclassement que les Français éprouvent envers leur pays s’est renforcé
</mark>
<p class="fig-paragraph">Beaucoup estiment aussi que
l’État français ne s’est pas montré à la hauteur des enjeux, que le
gouvernement a menti sur les masques et a fait preuve d’un excès de
confiance, voire d’arrogance, dans sa gestion sanitaire. Enfin, la
campagne vaccinale s’est déroulée dans des conditions chaotiques, en
suivant une stratégie qui a dû être revue en urgence au bout de quelques
jours. Tout cela donne l’impression que nos dirigeants ne se sont pas
comportés de manière responsable. Le sentiment de déclassement que les
Français éprouvent envers leur pays s’est renforcé. Nous avons
collectivement perdu confiance en nos dirigeants, en notre système de
santé, en notre industrie.</p>
<p class="fig-paragraph">Dans ces conditions, je ne vois
pas comment on pourrait engager un profond programme de réformes et de
rupture avec le système néolibéral. Le plus probable est, qu’au
contraire, le gouvernement se replie sur son projet initial
d’accompagnement des réformes néolibérales dans un contexte d’urgence et
de défiance populaire vis-à-vis de son action.</p>
<p class="fig-paragraph"><b>Les plans de sauvetage et de relance de l’économie ne sont pour vous qu’une réponse conjoncturelle et non structurelle?</b></p>
<p class="fig-paragraph">La gestion économique de la
crise a consisté, en France comme dans d’autres pays, à indemniser les
entreprises et les salariés contraints d’arrêter leur activité. Aux
aides directes versées (chômage partiel, subventions…) se sont ajoutés
les prêts garantis par l’État (PGE) et des aides sectorielles. Résultat
de cette politique, une hausse d’au moins 20 points de PIB de la dette
publique est attendue pour 2020, soit environ 300 milliards d’euros.</p>
<p class="fig-paragraph">Cette soudaine prodigalité a pu
paraître surprenante lorsqu’on sait à quel point les gouvernements de
ces dernières années n’avaient cessé de mettre en garde contre toute
hausse des dépenses publiques en agitant la dette comme épouvantail.
Souvenons-nous qu’il y a à peine un an Bruno Le Maire expliquait qu’il
fallait absolument vendre ADP afin de trouver les 10 milliards d’euros
nécessaires pour financer un fonds de soutien à l’innovation. Au bout du
compte il s’avère qu’il était parfaitement possible de trouver
plusieurs centaines de milliards en quelques semaines!</p>
<p class="fig-body-link"><svg class="fig-body-link__svg fig-body-link__svg--arrow" height="16" viewbox="0 0 24 24" width="24" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg"><use href="https://www.lefigaro.fr/vox/monde/populisme-et-liberalisme-deux-faces-d-une-meme-piece-20210112#fig-svg__arrow"></use></svg><span class="fig-body-link__prefix">À lire aussi :</span><a class="fig-body-link__link fig-premium-mark" data-fig-domain="LEFIGARO" data-fig-type="Article" data-gtm-custom-action="crossclick" data-gtm-custom-categorie="navigation" data-gtm-custom-label="Contextuel" data-gtm-event="customEventSPE" href="https://www.lefigaro.fr/vox/economie/l-editorial-du-figaro-immuniser-l-economie-20210108"><b>L’éditorial du Figaro: «Immuniser l’économie»</b></a></p>
<p class="fig-paragraph">Il est clair que le
gouvernement démontre ainsi l’inanité du discours qu’il tenait à
l’époque. Si le financement de l’innovation était vraiment son objectif,
il n’avait pas besoin de vendre ADP. C’est d’ailleurs ce que nous
disions avec Coralie Delaume dans vos colonnes. En effet, cela fait
plusieurs années que les conditions de financement de la dette publique
sont très favorables, puisque les taux à dix ans sont négatifs.</p>
<p class="fig-paragraph">Il n’y avait donc à l’époque,
comme aujourd’hui, aucune raison de ne pas financer des investissements
rentables par l’emprunt. Or, soutenir les entreprises en difficulté et
éviter leurs faillites en chaine est très rentable. Il serait au
contraire dramatique que le capital productif, les collectifs de
travail, les entreprises… disparaissent du fait d’une crise ponctuelle,
car c’est toute l’économie française qui serait alors en danger.</p>
<mark class="fig-xrg">
Où sont les grands projets gouvernementaux pour recréer une
production nationale de matériel médical ou de produits
pharmaceutiques ?
</mark>
<p class="fig-paragraph">Le gouvernement a été contraint
par la crise de revoir ses positions. Cependant, je n’y vois pas un
véritable changement de doctrine. Bruno Le Maire continue d’affirmer que
la dette Covid devra être cantonnée et remboursée intégralement, ce qui
est complètement fou. Il faudrait pour cela dégager un excédent
budgétaire pendant des années. Même avec une croissance économique
retrouvée (ce qui est loin d’être garanti) il faudrait des hausses
d’impôts ou une baisse drastique des dépenses publiques. Or, toutes les
dépenses publiques contribuent directement ou indirectement à soutenir
les revenus des ménages (retraites, salaires des fonctionnaires,
commandes aux entreprises…).</p>
<p class="fig-paragraph">Rembourser la dette publique,
c’est donc promettre de l’austérité et de la perte de pouvoir d’achat
aux Français durant des années. Le plus probable est que cette dette ne
soit jamais remboursée. On réempruntera les mêmes sommes lorsque les
titres arriveront à échéance… ce qui ne posera aucun problème étant
donné la faiblesse des taux d’emprunt.</p>
<p class="fig-body-link"><svg class="fig-body-link__svg fig-body-link__svg--arrow" height="16" viewbox="0 0 24 24" width="24" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg"><use href="https://www.lefigaro.fr/vox/monde/populisme-et-liberalisme-deux-faces-d-une-meme-piece-20210112#fig-svg__arrow"></use></svg><span class="fig-body-link__prefix">À lire aussi :</span><a class="fig-body-link__link" data-fig-domain="LEFIGARO" data-fig-type="Article" data-gtm-custom-action="crossclick" data-gtm-custom-categorie="navigation" data-gtm-custom-label="Contextuel" data-gtm-event="customEventSPE" href="https://www.lefigaro.fr/vox/economie/sebastien-laye-pourquoi-la-france-risque-de-sortir-de-la-crise-plus-tard-que-les-autres-20210108"><b>Sébastien Laye: Pourquoi la France risque de sortir de la crise plus tard que les autres</b></a></p>
<p class="fig-paragraph">Au-delà de la question
budgétaire, je suis frappé par l’absence presque totale de mesures
industrielles et productives. Le gouvernement s’inquiète à juste titre
de la difficulté que connait la jeunesse à trouver des stages et des
emplois. Mais lui-même ne prévoit aucun plan de recrutement pour ces
jeunes alors que les besoins dans la santé, l’éducation, la sécurité…
sont gigantesques! Le même problème se pose en matière industrielle.</p>
<p class="fig-paragraph">Où sont les grands projets
gouvernementaux pour recréer une production nationale de matériel
médical ou de produits pharmaceutiques? Nous manquons aujourd’hui de
nombreux médicaments, notamment contre le cancer, dont la production a
été délocalisée. Ces sujets ne devraient-ils pas être prioritaires?</p>
<mark class="fig-xrg">
On continue de croire en la perfection des marchés et en leurs mécanismes allocatifs
</mark>
<p class="fig-paragraph">En réalité, la gestion de la
crise sanitaire est restée celle du monde d’avant. On préfère déverser
des dizaines de milliards sous forme d’aides ou de subvention en soutien
à l’activité marchande plutôt que d’organiser concrètement la
production.</p>
<p class="fig-paragraph">On continue de croire en la
perfection des marchés et en leurs mécanismes allocatifs. Même
l’organisation de la stratégie vaccinale a été confiée à des cabinets
privés qui ont coûté très cher sans avoir fait preuve d’une réelle
efficacité.</p>
<p class="fig-paragraph"><b>La crise va-t-elle accroître
les dérèglements actuels: notamment la dépendance des pays occidentaux à
l’égard de la Chine ou encore la toute-puissance des GAFA?</b></p>
<p class="fig-paragraph">Comme l’État se désengage de
toute activité productive et que l’Union européenne interdit de mener de
véritables politiques industrielles au nom de la libre concurrence, on
ne parvient pas à reconstruire les filières industrielles dévastées par
la mondialisation. Lorsqu’il a fallu acheter des masques par centaines
de millions on aurait pu susciter la création d’usines sur le
territoire. Mais on a estimé qu’il était moins coûteux de
s’approvisionner au Vietnam ou en Chine en raison du coût du travail et
des normes plus strictes qui existent chez nous. De plus, si nous
parvenons à produire les tissus localement, certains composants comme
les élastiques sont importées faute de capacité productive nationale.</p>
<p class="fig-paragraph">La crise a démontré la
vulnérabilité d’un système économique fondé sur une organisation
mondiale de la production et mu par l’objectif du moindre coût. Chaque
pièce d’un produit, même simple, est importé d’un pays différent. Le
problème est que lorsqu’un seul composant manque en raison d’une
désorganisation de la chaine logistique c’est toute la production qui se
retrouve à l’arrêt. Ainsi, lors du premier confinement, il était devenu
difficile de trouver de la farine, non pas à cause du manque de farine
(nous produisons l’essentiel de la farine que nous consommons), mais à
cause d’un manque d’emballages qui sont pour la plupart importés.</p>
<p class="fig-body-link"><svg class="fig-body-link__svg fig-body-link__svg--arrow" height="16" viewbox="0 0 24 24" width="24" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg"><use href="https://www.lefigaro.fr/vox/monde/populisme-et-liberalisme-deux-faces-d-une-meme-piece-20210112#fig-svg__arrow"></use></svg><span class="fig-body-link__prefix">À lire aussi :</span><a class="fig-body-link__link" data-fig-domain="LEFIGARO" data-fig-type="Article" data-gtm-custom-action="crossclick" data-gtm-custom-categorie="navigation" data-gtm-custom-label="Contextuel" data-gtm-event="customEventSPE" href="https://www.lefigaro.fr/vox/economie/bitcoin-contre-euro-numerique-une-nouvelle-guerre-des-monnaies-se-profile-20210107"><b> Bitcoin contre euro numérique: «Une nouvelle guerre des monnaies se profile»</b></a></p>
<p class="fig-paragraph">On peut faire le même constat
pour les plateformes numériques qui sont au cœur de la puissance des
GAFAM. Pourquoi l’Union européenne n’est-elle jamais parvenue à susciter
l’émergence d’une de ces plateformes? Essentiellement parce qu’elle n’a
jamais voulu investir et développer une stratégie d’indépendance
européenne en matière de logiciel ou d’outil numérique. En conséquence
de quoi nous sommes devenus dépendant de services conçus et produits sur
d’autres continents.</p>
<p class="fig-paragraph">Certains se réjouissent de la
décision de Twitter de suspendre le compte de Donald Trump. Mais que se
passerait-il si Google ou Microsoft suspendaient l’usage de ses services
à l’ensemble des citoyens européens? Comment ferions-nous cours en
distanciel dans les universités si nous n’avions pas Zoom, Teams ou
Google Meet? Pourquoi ne sommes-nous pas capable de développer la
moindre alternative européenne à ces services? Le refus de prendre
sérieusement en considération notre indépendance numérique, industrielle
et même alimentaire et l’une des grandes failles de la construction
européenne actuelle.</p>
<p class="fig-paragraph"><b>Les mesures de confinements vont-elles déboucher sur une crise financière et sur un chaos économique et social?</b></p>
<p class="fig-paragraph">C’est toute la question. Les
mesures de soutien à l’économie étaient indispensables, mais elles ont
eu des effets imprévus. Depuis le mois de mars, le nombre de faillites
en France a été pratiquement divisé par deux par rapport aux années
précédentes. Ainsi, beaucoup d’entreprises non rentables, qui auraient
dû faire faillite en temps normal ont pu prolonger leur survie grâce aux
aides qu’elles ont reçues. J’estime que cela correspond à un tiers des
faillites annuelles, soit environ 17 000 entreprises.</p>
<p class="fig-paragraph">À ce chiffre, il faut
évidemment ajouter toutes les entreprises qui n’auraient pas fait
faillite en temps normal mais qui ont été directement touchées par les
mesures de restriction et qui survivent actuellement du seul fait des
aides et des prêts qui leur ont été accordées. Difficile d’en estimer le
nombre exact mais elles seront nombreuses dans les secteurs de la
restauration, de l’hôtellerie, du voyage, du tourisme, de la culture… À
ces entreprises directement touchées, il faudra ajouter les fournisseurs
et les sous-traitants de ces secteurs, les bailleurs, les créanciers…
Enfin il faudra compter toutes les entreprises qui subiront la baisse de
consommation des personnes privés d’emploi ou de revenu.</p>
<mark class="fig-xrg">
Lorsque la pandémie sera maitrisée, il y aura sans aucun doute un boom de la consommation et un fort effet de reprise
</mark>
<p class="fig-paragraph">Finalement, tous les secteurs
de l’économie seront touchés. La croissance, qui ne manquera pas de
rebondir en 2021 ne sera pas suffisante pour compenser les immenses
pertes de 2020. Le système économique est une chaine de dépendances
réciproques. Les pertes seront d’autant plus fortes qu’elles toucheront
le monde entier. Lorsque la pandémie sera maitrisée, il y aura sans
aucun doute un boom de la consommation et un fort effet de reprise.</p>
<p class="fig-paragraph">Puis, il sera temps de faire
les comptes. Les mesures de soutien vont s’arrêter. Et c’est à ce moment
que les faillites vont apparaître et que les cadavres vont sortir des
placards. Aucun secteur ne sera épargné, d’autant que les entreprises
étaient déjà très endettées fin 2019 et qu’aucune n’a pu anticiper un
tel évènement. Les banques subiront des pertes importantes, et l’État
aussi du fait du non remboursement des PGE. Bref, vous l’aurez compris,
je ne suis pas très optimiste pour le second semestre de 2021.</p>
<p class="fig-paragraph"><b>La crise ne peut-elle pas engager une remise en cause idéologique et politique?</b></p>
<p class="fig-paragraph">Tout dépend de l’ampleur de la
crise. Les gouvernements ont répondu à la crise de 2008 en socialisant
les pertes et en renflouant les systèmes bancaires qui s’étaient
effondrés. Cela a entrainé la hausse de l’endettement public. Cet
endettement a été rendu soutenable grâce aux politiques de soutien des
banques centrales qui ont racheté les titres publics et ont fait en
sorte que les taux d’emprunt des États restent au plancher.</p>
<p class="fig-paragraph">Depuis cette époque, nous
vivons une situation anormale. Le coût du capital n’est plus décidé de
manière autonome par les marchés financiers mais de manière conjointe
avec les banques centrales. Autrement dit, le système financier est sous
contrôle d’autorités administratives qui sont condamnées à soutenir
financièrement les États pour éviter les défauts souverains et
l’effondrement des systèmes bancaires.</p>
<p class="fig-body-link"><svg class="fig-body-link__svg fig-body-link__svg--arrow" height="16" viewbox="0 0 24 24" width="24" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg"><use href="https://www.lefigaro.fr/vox/monde/populisme-et-liberalisme-deux-faces-d-une-meme-piece-20210112#fig-svg__arrow"></use></svg><span class="fig-body-link__prefix">À lire aussi :</span><a class="fig-body-link__link fig-premium-mark" data-fig-domain="LEFIGARO" data-fig-type="Article" data-gtm-custom-action="crossclick" data-gtm-custom-categorie="navigation" data-gtm-custom-label="Contextuel" data-gtm-event="customEventSPE" href="https://www.lefigaro.fr/vox/economie/ce-que-nous-coutera-le-quoi-qu-il-en-coute-20201224"><b> Ce que nous coûtera le «Quoi qu’il en coûte»</b></a></p>
<p class="fig-paragraph">Le problème est qu’on se dirige
sans doute vers une nouvelle crise de l’endettement privé vu la
situation actuelle des entreprises. Les États pourront-il à nouveau
sauver l’économie comme ils l’ont fait en 2008? C’est possible. Après
tout, dans un système financier administré, les lois de l’offre et de la
demande n’existent plus. Les banques centrales pourront continuer
d’acheter les titres publics sans aucune limite pour éviter le chaos.
Mais du coup, cette situation anormale deviendra une nouvelle norme à
laquelle il faudra s’habituer pour un moment.</p>
<p class="fig-paragraph">Or, du point de vue idéologique
néolibérale, tout cela pose évidemment question. Les banques centrales
ne sont pas censées jouer un tel rôle économique. Elles ont été pensées
pour n’être que des institutions techniques, indépendantes du pouvoir
politique, chargées de surveiller le système bancaire et de garantir la
stabilité de la monnaie. Si elles ont aujourd’hui acquis un rôle
politique et si elles interviennent massivement dans les marchés
financiers du fait des évènements, ce rôle n’a jamais été théorisé et
apparaît incompatible avec les principes du néolibéralisme. Il faudra
bien, un jour ou l’autre, admettre formellement l’échec du
néolibéralisme en tant que projet.</p>
<p class="fig-paragraph"><b>Pour remettre en cause le
«néolibéralisme», encore faut-il s’accorder sur une définition précise?
De quoi s’agit-il précisément? Est-il synonyme d’ultralibéralisme?
S’agit-il au contraire d’un mélange de libéralisme et d’Étatisme?</b></p>
<p class="fig-paragraph">Le néolibéralisme n’est pas une
théorie économique. C’est une doctrine de l’action de l’État dans
l’économie. Cette doctrine nait dans les années 30 en réaction aux
politiques de laissez-faire qui avaient échoué à préserver la stabilité
économique et sociale. Les montées du fascisme et du communisme ont
contraint les libéraux à faire leur aggiornamento. Friedrich Hayek
évoque dans La Route de la servitude, son bestseller de 1944, le «<em>laissez-faire dogmatique</em>»
des conservateurs auquel il s’oppose. Ni lui ni Milton Friedman ne sont
pour l’effacement de l’État. Ils considèrent au contraire que ce
dernier doit jouer un rôle de stabilisateur des marchés.</p>
<p class="fig-paragraph">On trouve la même idée chez les
ordolibéraux allemands de l’école de Fribourg qui affirment
l’artificialité des marchés et la nécessité de les soutenir
publiquement. Toutes les écoles néolibérales sont persuadés que le <em>laissez-faire</em>
conduit à la catastrophe. L’État doit non seulement garantir les
contrats et la propriété, mais aussi l’ordre social, la stabilité
monétaire et la concurrence.</p>
<mark class="fig-xrg">
À force d’interventionnisme, les États auraient déréglé les « lois » de l’économie, affirmaient-ils
</mark>
<p class="fig-paragraph">S’il n’est pas ultralibéral, le
néolibéralisme n’est pas non plus un Étatisme. L’État doit se cantonner
à jouer un rôle d’arbitre de superviseur des marchés. Il ne doit en
aucun cas intervenir de manière discrétionnaire dans les marchés ou
organiser lui-même la production. Les prix doivent émaner exclusivement
des marchés en concurrence.</p>
<p class="fig-paragraph"><b>Le populisme serait, selon vous, la conséquence du néolibéralisme… En quoi populisme et néolibéralisme sont-ils liés?</b></p>
<p class="fig-paragraph">L’ordre néolibéral que nous
connaissons aujourd’hui s’est construit progressivement. Les politiques
néolibérales n’ont véritablement commencées que dans les années 1970,
comme réponses aux crises liées au choc pétrolier, à la fin du système
de Bretton Woods et au retour d’une inflation forte. Les néolibéraux
semblaient proposer une solution à tous ces problèmes. À force
d’interventionnisme, les États auraient déréglé les «lois» de
l’économie, affirmaient-ils.</p>
<p class="fig-paragraph">L’inflation étaient selon eux
la conséquence de politiques monétaires laxistes sous contrôle de la
puissance publique, d’une concurrence insuffisante, d’économies aux
marchés trop étroits et isolés. Il fallait s’ouvrir au libre-échange,
renforcer la concurrence, libéraliser les marchés et les prix, rendre la
banque centrale indépendante et, plus globalement, limiter les
interventions de l’État dans l’économie.</p>
<p class="fig-body-link"><svg class="fig-body-link__svg fig-body-link__svg--arrow" height="16" viewbox="0 0 24 24" width="24" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg"><use href="https://www.lefigaro.fr/vox/monde/populisme-et-liberalisme-deux-faces-d-une-meme-piece-20210112#fig-svg__arrow"></use></svg><span class="fig-body-link__prefix">À lire aussi :</span><a class="fig-body-link__link" data-fig-domain="LEFIGARO" data-fig-type="Article" data-gtm-custom-action="crossclick" data-gtm-custom-categorie="navigation" data-gtm-custom-label="Contextuel" data-gtm-event="customEventSPE" href="https://www.lefigaro.fr/vox/economie/plan-de-relance-la-france-fait-trop-peu-par-rapport-a-l-ampleur-de-la-crise-qui-s-annonce-20201221"><b>Plan de relance: «La France fait trop peu par rapport à l’ampleur de la crise qui s’annonce»</b></a></p>
<p class="fig-paragraph">Ma thèse est que ce projet, une
fois achevé, a profondément affaibli le pouvoir régulateur de l’État.
L’ouverture des frontières économiques a renforcé la concurrence et
poussé les gouvernements a pratiquer des politiques d’attractivité en
baissant le coût du travail et la fiscalité du capital et des
entreprises, ce qui a renforcé les inégalités et affaibli la croissance.
Dans les pays développé, les classes populaires ont été
particulièrement touchées par la désindustrialisation.</p>
<p class="fig-paragraph">Tout cela a nourri une défiance
entre les peuples et les gouvernants qui s’est étendue aux
institutions. Le néolibéralisme a organisé l’impuissance de l’État. Mais
si les représentants élus du peuple sont impuissants à améliorer les
conditions économiques et sociales de la majorité des gens parce qu’ils
sont pris dans la spirale de l’attractivité, alors comment peut-on leur
faire confiance? C’est cette défiance qui nourrit les forces populistes
dans tous les pays dont les dirigeants ont opté pour un régime
néolibéral en négligeant leurs devoirs démocratiques.</p>
<p class="fig-paragraph"><b>Mais peut-on résumer le
trumpisme à un populisme? Ce concept n’est-il pas galvaudé en étant
utilisé pour disqualifier par avance des politiques alternatives?</b></p>
<p class="fig-paragraph">À mon sens, le populisme ne
caractérise pas un contenu programmatique mais une manière de concevoir
le monde. C’est pour cette raison qu’il peut y avoir toute sorte de
populismes. Un populisme de gauche qui entend changer les institutions,
qui peut même avoir des aspirations révolutionnaires, et un populisme de
droite qui tend au contraire à être ultra-conservateur ou identitaire.</p>
<p class="fig-paragraph">On a vu, dans les soutiens de
Donald Trump qui ont envahi le Capitole, toutes sortes de mouvements
politiques dont d’authentiques fascistes, des suprémacistes blancs, des
néopaganistes… Mais le fait qu’il y ait des mouvements très structurés
du point de vue idéologique qui soutiennent Donald Trump ne signifie pas
que le trumpisme soit lui-même une idéologie.</p>
<mark class="fig-xrg">
Trump s’est construit en étant contre. Contre les dirigeants du
parti républicain lors de la primaire de 2016, puis contre la majorité
des médias, puis contre les institutions internationales
</mark>
<p class="fig-paragraph">Alors comment caractériser le
trumpisme? J’y vois deux éléments fondamentaux. Premièrement, une
révolte contre l’ordre établi, contre l’establishment. Trump s’est
construit en étant contre. Contre les dirigeants du parti républicain
lors de la primaire de 2016, puis contre la majorité des médias, puis
contre les institutions internationales et de nombreux accords
internationaux signés par les États-Unis. Cette posture politique qu’il a
construit pendant sa campagne et qu’il a gardé durant tout son mandat,
jusqu’à remettre en cause ses propres autorités sanitaires et l’OMS au
cours de la pandémie de Covid-19, explique le fort soutien qu’il garde
chez nombre de ses électeurs de 2016.</p>
<p class="fig-paragraph">Le second élément du trumpisme,
c’est le volontarisme politique. Car il faut bien avouer que Trump fait
ce qu’il dit. Il a réellement traduit ses discours en actes, que ce
soit dans le domaine économique ou international. Ce volontarisme rompt
avec le défaitisme de ses prédécesseurs. Il est apparu comme un
président engagé au service de ses idées, obstiné, qui n’abandonne
jamais.</p>
<p class="fig-body-link"><svg class="fig-body-link__svg fig-body-link__svg--arrow" height="16" viewbox="0 0 24 24" width="24" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg"><use href="https://www.lefigaro.fr/vox/monde/populisme-et-liberalisme-deux-faces-d-une-meme-piece-20210112#fig-svg__arrow"></use></svg><span class="fig-body-link__prefix">À lire aussi :</span><a class="fig-body-link__link" data-fig-domain="LEFIGARO" data-fig-type="Article" data-gtm-custom-action="crossclick" data-gtm-custom-categorie="navigation" data-gtm-custom-label="Contextuel" data-gtm-event="customEventSPE" href="https://www.lefigaro.fr/vox/economie/depenses-sociales-le-paradoxe-de-la-france-est-d-etre-a-la-fois-trop-liberale-et-trop-etatiste-20201216"><b>Dépenses sociales: «Le paradoxe de la France est d’être à la fois trop libérale et trop étatiste»</b></a></p>
<p class="fig-paragraph">Ces deux éléments, la lutte
contre l’ordre établi et le volontarisme politique constituent un
renversement des valeurs néolibérales. Trump n’est donc pas un
néolibéral reaganien. Il incarne en réalité le bruit et la fureur d’une
partie de l’opinion qui a perdu toute confiance dans le système
démocratique américain.</p>
<p class="fig-paragraph">C’est en ce sens qu’il est
populiste. Parce ce qu’il est, mais aussi en raison des gens qu’il
représente et de la manière qu’il a de les satisfaire. N’oublions pas
qu’ils ont été plus de 74 millions a lui accorder leur suffrage en 2020
en dépit de sa gestion catastrophique de la pandémie de Covid-19.</p>
<p class="fig-paragraph"><b>Vous expliquez que l’Europe
centrale est devenu depuis 2010 le laboratoire d’un populisme qui est
parvenu à accéder au pouvoir et à s’y maintenir… Pourquoi le populisme
ne serait-il pas, plus qu’une opposition stérile, une vraie réponse?</b></p>
<p class="fig-paragraph">Il est clair qu’une fois
parvenu au pouvoir, le dirigeant populiste ne peut plus se cantonner à
incarner une opposition stérile. Il lui faut gouverner, et il doit
gouverner «contre» pour maintenir sa posture d’opposant et rassembler
ses soutiens. En Hongrie, l’adversaire désigné est le mondialisme et
l’Union européenne. Mais gouverner nécessite aussi d’élaborer un «pour» à
mettre en face du «contre». Ainsi, Viktor Orbán a théorisé, dans un
célèbre discours de 2014, le concept «<em>d’État illibéral</em>» pour
caractériser son projet politique. L’illibéralisme consiste à affirmer
la prévalence du principe démocratique au détriment des institutions
libérales.</p>
<p class="fig-paragraph">Dans son livre,<em> Le peuple contre la démocratie</em>,
paru en français en 2018, le professeur de science politique Yascha
Mounk explique que le populisme constituerait une réaction à
l’impuissance des démocraties libérales à répondre aux attentes
populaire. Cette impuissance est vécue comme la conséquence du système
libéral qui empêche le pouvoir de s’exercer pleinement en raison des
contraintes de l’état de droit et de la séparation des pouvoirs.</p>
<mark class="fig-xrg">
Mounk estime que la politique contemporaine est marquée par une
dissociation entre deux valeurs autrefois indissociables, celle du
libéralisme et celle de la démocratie
</mark>
<p class="fig-paragraph">L’État illibéral que promeut
Orbán serait donc un État marqué par une démocratie autoritaire qui
s’imposerait au détriment des principes libéraux. On retrouve ici la
seconde caractéristique du trumpisme, le volontarisme politique. Mais ce
volontarisme pourrait aller, selon Mounk, jusqu’à contredire certains
droits fondamentaux caractéristiques du régime libéral: l’état de droit,
l’indépendance de la justice, la liberté de la presse, le respect des
minorités…</p>
<p class="fig-paragraph">Mounk estime que la politique
contemporaine est marquée par une dissociation entre deux valeurs
autrefois indissociables, celle du libéralisme et celle de la
démocratie. Dans les pays d’Europe de l’ouest, nous serions confrontés à
une forme de libéralisme sans démocratie (Mounk prend l’exemple de la
Grèce et de la défaite de Tsipras en 2015), tandis qu’en Europe centrale
le régime politique tendrait vers une démocratie sans libéralisme.</p>
<p class="fig-body-link"><svg class="fig-body-link__svg fig-body-link__svg--arrow" height="16" viewbox="0 0 24 24" width="24" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg"><use href="https://www.lefigaro.fr/vox/monde/populisme-et-liberalisme-deux-faces-d-une-meme-piece-20210112#fig-svg__arrow"></use></svg><span class="fig-body-link__prefix">À lire aussi :</span><a class="fig-body-link__link fig-premium-mark" data-fig-domain="LEFIGARO" data-fig-type="Article" data-gtm-custom-action="crossclick" data-gtm-custom-categorie="navigation" data-gtm-custom-label="Contextuel" data-gtm-event="customEventSPE" href="https://www.lefigaro.fr/vox/economie/charles-jaigu-la-defaite-francaise-par-l-economie-20201216"><b>Charles Jaigu: «La défaite française par l’économie»</b></a></p>
<p class="fig-paragraph">Alors, certes, on peut dire que
ce qui se passe en Europe centrale correspond à une forme de
«solution». Cependant, je ne puis personnellement me satisfaire d’une
réponse qui, au nom de la démocratie, en viendrait à renoncer à l’état
de droit et à certaines de nos libertés fondamentales. Je crois
d’ailleurs que Mounk se trompe de diagnostic.</p>
<p class="fig-paragraph">Ce ne sont pas les institutions
libérales et la séparation des pouvoirs qui entrainent
l’affaiblissement démocratique et suscite des mouvements populistes.
C’est le «TINA» de Thatcher, cette doctrine néolibérale qui déclare
«there is no alternative» et impose à ses concitoyens une politique
économique qui dévaste les conditions d’existence de la classe moyenne.</p>
<p class="fig-paragraph">Ma solution consisterait à
réconcilier le libéralisme émancipateur avec une démocratie
volontariste. Cela doit passer par une rupture non pas avec l’état de
droit, mais avec la gouvernance néolibérale, le libre-échange, le
démantèlement de l’État social et la mise en concurrence de tous contre
tous. Le retour à une véritable démocratie libérale nécessitera de se
dégager des institutions actuelles de l’Union européenne, imprégnées de
néolibéralisme, pour inventer une façon nouvelle de gouverner
collectivement les marchés et les mettre au service de l’intérêt
général.</p>
</div>
</article>jan joost teunissenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14018967221957534084noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3510749443422882016.post-88649120539004213002021-03-09T10:25:00.001-08:002021-03-15T07:10:45.624-07:00Countries with highest income per capita<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiyHZbcafmL7xds-3B7uEnWekJHDlXGgiGASlSqudLvfpL25xTwbE2FV2GNJCs0bi0qAR_eurtjqqT0CryA9KWFdz7zUuFbG7gRnii5PO-b89_uG8v_X5cjXKIJwODQW4mA0xLqX2GlQtQ/s870/gwv+-+income+per+capita.JPG" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="870" data-original-width="864" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiyHZbcafmL7xds-3B7uEnWekJHDlXGgiGASlSqudLvfpL25xTwbE2FV2GNJCs0bi0qAR_eurtjqqT0CryA9KWFdz7zUuFbG7gRnii5PO-b89_uG8v_X5cjXKIJwODQW4mA0xLqX2GlQtQ/w398-h400/gwv+-+income+per+capita.JPG" width="398" /></a></div><br />I was amazed when I saw <a href="https://www.worldometers.info/gdp/gdp-per-capita/">the list</a> of countries with the highest income per capita (in purchasing power parity, PPP). Above all, I was amazed by the position of Germany (19th) and the positions of Canada (24th), Finland (25th), the UK (26th), France (27th), Japan (28th), Italy (30), and Israel (35th).<br /><br />No, you don't see them in the first picture of the 17 highest per capita income countries. In that list are, to my surprise, Singapore at 4th position, Ireland at 6th, Hong Kong at 12th, and the US, Iceland, the Netherlands and Denmark at positions 13 to 16.<br /><br />Germany and the others are in the picture of countries ranking from position 18 to 35.<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjn5LzaH9OzUL2AfHxH5lSYcrx5nD8zckguxv0exrIyCuYjwQC9ZyNUDp1HV7V7bwt_-GEESTPYePUS-KCGL79qyxRiE2h5AOBEh3US6KfBPdCPu7LD5PIIrzaG5Fhw_s4Ha3uN72VmSOo/s870/gwv+-+income+per+capita-2.JPG" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="870" data-original-width="863" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjn5LzaH9OzUL2AfHxH5lSYcrx5nD8zckguxv0exrIyCuYjwQC9ZyNUDp1HV7V7bwt_-GEESTPYePUS-KCGL79qyxRiE2h5AOBEh3US6KfBPdCPu7LD5PIIrzaG5Fhw_s4Ha3uN72VmSOo/w396-h400/gwv+-+income+per+capita-2.JPG" width="396" /></a></div><p><br />And what countries are at the bottom of the list? Burundi at place 184, Central African Republic at 185. There are five countries that do not have GDP (PPP) per capita figures including Andorra and Cuba. </p><p>Obviously, income per capita is one thing and income distribution another.<br /></p><p></p>jan joost teunissenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14018967221957534084noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3510749443422882016.post-88420614078296754992021-03-02T01:38:00.004-08:002021-03-02T01:38:43.088-08:00Robert Triffin: "Most economists are demagogues"<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEisfkwDYmwOAUgxVLBpSHL68-c62gQRoUZtDLG1iludd-HmrxeC6sMmmAiDO62YY6kyq23eLgpaLgy-DMEihHPAQY1aaDRghydqjGwpJsm5mTopuslE4e3fnXT7zyUczKHGYtj3NokqGh4/s720/jj+G25+-+in+Paris_ADB_EARTH_IDDRI-53.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="480" data-original-width="720" height="266" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEisfkwDYmwOAUgxVLBpSHL68-c62gQRoUZtDLG1iludd-HmrxeC6sMmmAiDO62YY6kyq23eLgpaLgy-DMEihHPAQY1aaDRghydqjGwpJsm5mTopuslE4e3fnXT7zyUczKHGYtj3NokqGh4/w400-h266/jj+G25+-+in+Paris_ADB_EARTH_IDDRI-53.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>I have a niece in Wien (Vienna) who is an economist. She put a nice article on her facebook page about the need to clean up your house when it is crowded with stuff that you have hoarded and do not need. I read the article, which prompted me to give this comment: <br /><br />"I have started throwing things away - if they could not switch ownership - about 14 years ago including books of which the antiquair (antiquarian?) opposite to my office in The Hague said he could have sold them a few years before but not anymore now - they included books I had inherited from opa Blink. So that was a good start. <br /><br />How did I follow up? By realising that not all valuable stuff would fit into my room - the room you have been in when we looked at old family photos. <br /><br />What progress have I made? Quite substantial, but not yet enough. How to speeden up before I die? By being rigourous and trying to shift ownership of my stuff... <br /><br />Maybe the last thing is what the rich should do to reduce unequalIty, or the divide between rich and poor. Yes, indeed, more should be done to breach the divide, but this may be a good start. <br /><br />How to do that? Well, it's not so difficult, progressive tax is one obvious instrument. There are more instruments. <br /><br />During many years I was surprised the main criterion for success of economic policy was not the well-being of the citizens... but something economists considered important. But then a famous economist, Robert Triffin, told me what I knew already: economists tend to be conformists and many of them, including Triffin's friends, helped to wash white what was dirty." <br /><br />I just added to my comment:<br /> <br />"To end my comment, let us, economists, do a sane washing by advising governments to make society healthy instead of continuing the white-washing and claiming success for neoliberal policies. <br /><br />And let us change the training of economists. And let us be more honest with ourselves as social scientists. <br /><br />Economics is just one of the social sciences, like psychology and cultural anthropology. Would any psychologist or cultural anthropologist dare to prescribe how citizens should behave? Or would he or she dare to dream that one day that would happen? And would they then still consider themselves "scientists"? <br /><br />And would they be happy that people behaved the way they wanted?"<br /><br />- The picture was taken at a conference in Paris where I held a speech saying more or less the same but with more words and references - <a href="https://fondad.blogspot.com/2011/10/better-global-financial-governance-need.html">Better Global Financial Governance – The Need for Reforming the System and Abandoning Free Market Ideology</a> <br /><br />- You can read Triffin's remarks here: Robert Triffin: <a href="https://fondad.blogspot.com/2016/02/robert-triffin-most-economists-are.html">"Most economists are demagogues"</a><p></p><p>and here: <a href="https://fondad.blogspot.com/2015/04/robert-triffin-most-central-bankers-and.html">Robert Triffin: "Most central bankers and economists are demagogues"</a> </p>jan joost teunissenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14018967221957534084noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3510749443422882016.post-8899574945779271572020-12-02T22:40:00.003-08:002020-12-02T22:42:54.332-08:00 The most challenging book we've ever written<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhgHcn0nWSUrsJfkzm0POHdOtnQRX20dr1sTNig8RYTO1sTApKl6356JiWUGNQPOCY2GPjR6qW2NUntfXHhhG9ba1nchyl74KHeCuaDMFvr8ollMWgodgs9JA_S_R-WW3xIY5kTSAGaelM/s796/jj+en+aafke+-+website+GWV.JPG" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="595" data-original-width="796" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhgHcn0nWSUrsJfkzm0POHdOtnQRX20dr1sTNig8RYTO1sTApKl6356JiWUGNQPOCY2GPjR6qW2NUntfXHhhG9ba1nchyl74KHeCuaDMFvr8ollMWgodgs9JA_S_R-WW3xIY5kTSAGaelM/s320/jj+en+aafke+-+website+GWV.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>Aafke Steenhuis and I are concen-trating on finishing a book, <i>The Big Rough Sea - World Ports and Globalization</i>, due out in 2022. It will be a year of intensive work to get it done the way we want. It is the most comprehensive and challenging book we have ever written or edited (I have edited many books on the world economy, see <a href="http://www.fondad.org/catalog/all.html">FONDAD books</a> - http://www.fondad.org/catalog/all.html).<p></p><p>We started the book in 2013, slowly, when we visited Latin America's largest port, Santos (Brazil), and Valparaíso (Chile). In the following years, we conveniently visited ports in Asia (Shanghai, Hong Kong, Singapore, Mumbai, Dubai), North America (Los Angeles and Long Beach) and Europe (Hamburg, Rotterdam, Barcelona, Marseille, Genoa, Piraeus ). We have yet to go to Cape Town and Alexandria in Africa, and hope we can also visit Murmansk and Sydney - all in 2021. </p><p>For the book, we have made a website: <a href="https://www.degrotewildevaart.nl/eng/">The Big Rough Sea - World Ports and Globalization</a>.<br /><br />Here is the pitch we wrote for our publisher in Rotterdam: <br /><br /></p><div class="o9v6fnle cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql ii04i59q">
<div dir="auto" style="text-align: start;"><b>The
Big Rough Sea - World Ports and
Globalization (2022)</b></div><div dir="auto" style="text-align: start;"><b> </b></div>
</div>
<div dir="auto" style="text-align: start;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi8RKTyPIvcgo8WQY0vYU9URISJ6Ld2SMNmWA4nYj7NARfDSq8TueiVLyI9Tzvj2MnUfl3PJ14iARsqvqoRciWFISzVqQmWdSF5FGG61sdmzVnbimcNGkTGRVaZy-32pI3p2DXy-2JMP7E/s1040/hamburg+-+scan_2010-2.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="910" data-original-width="1040" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi8RKTyPIvcgo8WQY0vYU9URISJ6Ld2SMNmWA4nYj7NARfDSq8TueiVLyI9Tzvj2MnUfl3PJ14iARsqvqoRciWFISzVqQmWdSF5FGG61sdmzVnbimcNGkTGRVaZy-32pI3p2DXy-2JMP7E/s320/hamburg+-+scan_2010-2.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
“We live in an age deeply influenced by
maritime enterprise, but our percep-tions of
its importance have shifted almost 180
degrees in only two or three generations.
Today we see pleasure where our forebears
saw peril, and we can savor the fruits of
maritime commerce without being remotely
aware of its existence, even when we live in
cities that originally grew rich from sea
trade,” says the American maritime writer
Lincoln Paine, who is one of the many
persons Aafke Steenhuis and Jan Joost
Teunissen have interviewed for their book.<br />
<br />
Thousands of years ago, international trade
was conducted by land and sea from the
ancient cultural regions of Egypt,
Mesopotamia, China and India. In the course
of time other peoples, such as the Greeks,
the Romans, the Arabs, the Vikings took part
in this early globalization. From the Middle
Ages, international trade became entangled
with powerful European city-states, sailing
ships with cannons, the establishment of
trading posts and the conquest of colonies,
slave trade, industrialization and
exploitation, steam shipping and diesel oil
shipping. After the introduction of
containers, around 1960, cargo ships became
bigger and bigger, transport costs lower,
with the result that production and labor
moved to low-wage countries. Asian countries
developed rapidly. The seven largest world
ports are now in China. Rotterdam was the
largest port in the world from 1962 until
2005.</div><div dir="auto" style="text-align: start;"> </div><div dir="auto" style="text-align: start;">The globalization of the last decades has
created a global consumer society that is in
the process of bringing about dramatic
climate change and extinction of the
species. Desperate efforts are now being
made to turn the tide by making ports and
ships cleaner and switch from fossil to
green energy. This means that ports have
become the pivot in the search for a better,
cleaner world, because ninety percent of
world trade is carried out by ship. </div><div dir="auto" style="text-align: start;"> </div><div dir="auto" style="text-align: start;">How can the runaway global economy become
sustainable? How can wild capitalism be
tamed? </div><div dir="auto" style="text-align: start;"> </div><div dir="auto" style="text-align: start;">Ports used to be the distributors of
products, techniques, cultures, religions,
as well as infectious diseases. They still
supply oil, coal, grains, machines, cars,
chemicals, smartphones and many other
manufacturing and consumer goods. What is
the history of these ports? How is and was
life in these port cities? How do the people
who work there view, for example, the rise
of China and other Asian countries, climate
change, the future of ports? </div><div dir="auto" style="text-align: start;"> </div><div dir="auto" style="text-align: start;">With those questions in mind, Aafke
Steenhuis and Jan Joost Teunissen traveled
to port cities in Asia, North and South
America, Africa, the Middle East and Europe.
They visited fascinating and colorful ports
such as Shanghai, Hong Kong, Singapore,
Mumbai, Dubai, Piraeus, Genoa, Marseille,
Rotterdam, Hamburg, Alexandria, Cape Town,
Santos and Los Angeles. In <i>The Big Rough
Sea - World Ports and Globalization</i>
they map out the history and future of world
ports and world shipping.</div>jan joost teunissenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14018967221957534084noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3510749443422882016.post-29200460891321794372020-11-24T06:58:00.003-08:002020-11-24T10:09:30.380-08:00Hamburg - European Hub for China's New Silk Road<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgh0vnDZN_VfIiYxgGzsxR8U7UsXsSg8DVTXDptFMfAY5_frMmGMaa_7AxiOmZu6xFOsmRRg5OrzPvoQN_b8MIwv97OVF-_3NYO4C2hpcgeB7gdRDZbURcu_ElJfyyp_Huv4Ry44AQuPBM/s1464/hamburg+-+silk+road+by+train.JPG" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="823" data-original-width="1464" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgh0vnDZN_VfIiYxgGzsxR8U7UsXsSg8DVTXDptFMfAY5_frMmGMaa_7AxiOmZu6xFOsmRRg5OrzPvoQN_b8MIwv97OVF-_3NYO4C2hpcgeB7gdRDZbURcu_ElJfyyp_Huv4Ry44AQuPBM/w400-h225/hamburg+-+silk+road+by+train.JPG" width="400" /></a></div><p>My wife Aafke Steenhuis and I recently visited the Port of Hamburg, for a book we are writing about world ports and globalization. If you want to know what the book is about, you can take a look at the website we created for the book: <a href="https://www.degrotewildevaart.nl/eng/">THE BIG, ROUGH SEA - World ports and globalization</a>.<br /><br />The port of Hamburg is one of the largest industrial areas in Europe. The port is located in the city itself, along the river Elbe, more than 100 km from the sea. In order for large, deep-lying container ships to arrive in Hamburg, the river must be constantly dredged.<br /><br />The Port of Hamburg also wanted a deepening, 18 years ago. It created a long struggle with environmental groups and fruit growers south of the river. In 2020, the Port of Hamburg finally won the battle.<br /><br />Perhaps the main reason the port won is its economic importance. It creates about 156,000 jobs and the port is Hamburg's biggest taxpayer.<br /> <br />Hamburg is the third largest port in Europe, after Rotterdam and Antwerp. One of the differences between Hamburg and the other two ports is that almost 50% of all cargo goes by rail to the hinterland.<br /><br />China is by far the largest trading partner of the Port of Hamburg. Hamburg sees itself as the European hub for China's New Silk Road. Hamburg is an important rail hub for transport to and from China.<br /><br />A few years ago, Greenpeace protested in the port of Hamburg against the arrival of a ship carrying coal from Russia. A banner said, "Global climate action means we must stop burning coal." <br /><br />The port of Hamburg still imports coal, as do the ports of Amsterdam and Rotterdam. In 2016, 40% of electricity in Germany was generated from coal. Today, a third of the electricity in Germany still comes from coal. The use of coal is expected to end in 2038.<br /><br />Hamburg has beaches along the Elbe, not for swimming but for sun-bathing and playing. It also has many nice terraces, with good coffee.<br /><br />I made a short film about our visit to Hamburg which includes images of the Elbe river, tug and ferry boats, a long freight train coming from a container terminal, and the arrival of a COSCO container ship. <span class="VIiyi" lang="en"><span class="JLqJ4b" data-language-for-alternatives="en" data-language-to-translate-into="es" data-phrase-index="0"><span>I play the guitar music that accompanies it.</span></span></span></p><p><span class="VIiyi" lang="en"><span class="JLqJ4b" data-language-for-alternatives="en" data-language-to-translate-into="es" data-phrase-index="0"><span>PS: The picture above comes from the <a href="https://hhla.de/en/magazine/the-new-silk-tracks">online magazine of HHLA</a>. </span></span></span> </p><p></p>jan joost teunissenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14018967221957534084noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3510749443422882016.post-52625136530289716602020-07-22T05:38:00.003-07:002020-07-22T05:38:43.492-07:00Singapore<iframe allow="accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="246" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/zvfpGLWALRw" width="415"></iframe> <br />
<br />
A visit to a small city-state that is the second largest port in the world.jan joost teunissenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14018967221957534084noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3510749443422882016.post-3755049885157293802020-01-20T23:03:00.000-08:002020-01-29T07:02:32.236-08:00The Lessons of Hong Kong<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhi_cMBHwXmAsPi1NaeC9sFd1ldyEDKndyT5CzYB8VXe7IV6mv5SoGopYYX5BYNSeV6UzlkCOFpEnLC1TXaB6JGM-or5KH3s-XdCO0LDLscbQ9QZ_c8Wi4f7HWtXdHhbpMETxy67AcYh3Q/s1600/HK+-+Dont+cry.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="495" data-original-width="805" height="245" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhi_cMBHwXmAsPi1NaeC9sFd1ldyEDKndyT5CzYB8VXe7IV6mv5SoGopYYX5BYNSeV6UzlkCOFpEnLC1TXaB6JGM-or5KH3s-XdCO0LDLscbQ9QZ_c8Wi4f7HWtXdHhbpMETxy67AcYh3Q/s400/HK+-+Dont+cry.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
Writing a book about port cities and being busy with two cities my wife and I have visited recently, Singapore and Hong Kong, I think about the international, global perspective that is much needed in matters such as political struggle (locally, nationally and internationally), human rights, labour conditions, wages, social security, food, education, income distribution, pensions, production, consumption, trade, transport, clean air/ground/water, the role of armies, economic growth, and, finally, although my list is longer: democracy.<br />
<br />
I'd like to say a few words about democracy, inspired by an article I just read in the South China Morning Post of 19 Dec 2019, <a href="https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/politics/article/3042666/dont-cry-hong-kong-say-sorry-and-fix-our-problems">"Don't cry for Hong Kong. Say sorry and fix our problems"</a>, written by Bernard Yeung. Reflecting on the conflict between HK Government and HK citizens, Yeung advocates reconciliation and cooperation. He argues that a government has to balance the interests of all classes, including those of the future generation. "If that balance is lost," he says, "the state can be captured by tycoons or populists. The former leads to disparity and helplessness of the underprivileged. The latter leads to the mutual dependence of opportunistic politicians and special interest groups seeking instant policy impacts leading to costly, inconsistent policies."<br />
<br />
Bernard Yeung also advocates "responsible and respectful communication" between the HK Government and its protesting citizens, a plea I support - in part because I have seen in Chile, where I lived during the last year of the Allende Government in 1973, how the lack of responsible and respectful communication, contributed to creating a climate that led to civic-military dictatorship and brutal repression during 17 years. <br />
<br />
When I read the article by Yeung, I thought one could apply his plea for balancing interests and respectful communication also to western democracies in the Americas, Europe and elsewhere. The United States, Brasil, the United Kingdom (Britain) are sad examples. France, the Netherlands and Italy (and other European countries) have prominent populists too. <br />
<br />
I just finished a short film I made about Hong Kong, which includes a civil protest action and images of the famous Star Ferry. You can see it by clicking on the link below.<br />
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<img alt="Videothumbnail: Hong Kong Port" class="style-scope ytcp-img-with-fallback" id="img-with-fallback" src="imap://janjoost%40fastmail%2Ecom@imap.fastmail.com:993/fetch%3EUID%3E/Sent%3E346?part=1.2.2" /> </div>
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Hong Kong Port<br />
<a class="style-scope ytcp-video-share-dialog" href="https://youtu.be/JOvYQi3rJbA" id="watch-url" target="_blank">https://youtu.be/JOvYQi3rJbA</a>jan joost teunissenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14018967221957534084noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3510749443422882016.post-80928551762234542112019-12-29T22:28:00.000-08:002019-12-29T22:58:41.920-08:00Financial Markets Fighting Climate Change?<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEguLiZUuPXWHCrTC3Aw9_5qrr3E7A8c7MsAIzprqoqOGkcvyoSUiWJD4gPOxEr0Sv_lPOzKyiq51AUuOg9A98ZtCZhIV90jjuXsJ94hyphenhyphenFT_yDgSjIfrvGdcz7_DyAfFG9e6_pr8UIhr_Rw/s1600/financial+markets.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="390" data-original-width="693" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEguLiZUuPXWHCrTC3Aw9_5qrr3E7A8c7MsAIzprqoqOGkcvyoSUiWJD4gPOxEr0Sv_lPOzKyiq51AUuOg9A98ZtCZhIV90jjuXsJ94hyphenhyphenFT_yDgSjIfrvGdcz7_DyAfFG9e6_pr8UIhr_Rw/s400/financial+markets.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<span style="font-size: large;">An interesting article in the Swiss newspaper Le Temps about financial markets fighting climate change.</span><br />
<h2>
<span style="font-size: large;">Fossils: the B side of the economy ... for how long?</span></h2>
<br />
<b><i>Fossil fuels have fueled the economic and industrial development of modern societies. The fight against climate change will lead the market to ban them ... faster than the States</i></b><br />
<br />
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://www.letemps.ch/economie/fossiles-face-b-leconomie-combien-temps?utm_source=Newsletters&utm_campaign=ecac912b0c-newsletter_eco&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_56c41a402e-ecac912b0c-109511609">https://www.letemps.ch/economie/fossiles-face-b-leconomie-combien-temps?utm_source=Newsletters&utm_campaign=ecac912b0c-newsletter_eco&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_56c41a402e-ecac912b0c-109511609</a><b><i>
</i></b><br />
<h2>
<span style="font-size: large;">Fossiles: la face B de l’économie… pour combien de temps?</span>
</h2>
<div class="lead">
<a href="https://www.letemps.ch/theme/climat"><b>Climat</b></a>
<a href="https://www.letemps.ch/theme/energie">
<b>Energie</b></a>
</div>
Frédéric Potelle*<br />
Publié dimanche 29 décembre 2019<br />
<div class="lead">
<b><i>Les énergies fossiles ont
alimenté le développement économique et industriel des sociétés
modernes. La lutte contre le changement climatique conduira le marché à
les bannir… plus vite que les Etats
</i></b></div>
La Conférence des Nations unies sur les changements climatiques 25
(COP25) s’est soldée à la mi-décembre par un nouvel échec alors que le
consensus scientifique indique désormais, via le Groupe d’experts
intergouvernemental sur l’évolution du climat (GIEC), que la probabilité
du lien entre activité humaine et dérèglement climatique est de 100%.
La gouvernance mondiale par les COP est trop lente à agir pour enrayer
le scénario du «business as usual», qui conduira à une augmentation de
la température moyenne d’au moins 3 à 4°C à la fin de ce siècle par
rapport à l’époque préindustrielle. L’Accord de Paris vise un maximum de
2°C, au-delà duquel les conséquences seront incontrôlables et
irréversibles, et suppose que les émissions de gaz carbonique (CO2)
baissent de deux tiers à l’horizon 2050 et tendent vers zéro en
2070-2080.<br />
<b>Lire aussi:</b> <a href="https://www.letemps.ch/economie/bulle-carbone-investir-ressources-inexploitables">La bulle carbone ou comment investir dans des ressources inexploitables</a><br />
Alors,
qui pour accélérer le mouvement? La finance jouera un rôle clé pour
réduire la consommation d’énergie fossile de manière volontaire pour la
première fois de l’histoire. Mark Carney, gouverneur de la Banque
d’Angleterre qui pilotera la politique Climat des Nations unies dès fin
janvier, est explicite: «les entreprises qui ignorent la crise
climatique feront faillite». Aux Etats-Unis, la valeur en bourse des
producteurs de charbon a déjà fortement chuté. En Europe, Enel vient de
déprécier intégralement ses centrales à charbon, pour 10 milliards
d’euros, et la Banque centrale européenne demande aux banques d’évaluer
le risque climatique de leurs portefeuilles. La mise en bourse à
l’international du géant Aramco a été annulée et la performance
boursière du secteur Energie (en pratique pétrole et gaz) aura été à la
traîne toute l’année, malgré un rebond des bourses de 25%, un retour à
la confiance sur le cycle économique et des quotas de production
Organisation des pays exportateurs de pétrole-Russie prolongés. Quel
investisseur prendra aujourd’hui le risque de valoriser des titres
pétroliers comme si leurs flux financiers devaient être perpétuels,
alors que le flux physique ne le sera pas?<br />
<h3>
Le dernier danseur à rester sur la piste</h3>
L’équation
est simple: les émissions de CO2 doivent baisser. Elles résultent de la
combustion des énergies fossiles. Donc le recours aux énergies fossiles
doit baisser. Et l’investisseur qui résiste à cette idée s’apparentera
au dernier danseur à rester sur la piste… du <i>Titanic</i>. Le
rendement que lui procuraient ses actions pétrolières se trouvera dans
les Utilities, qui ont pris le virage de l’énergie décarbonée (et que
les pétroliers, qui en ont encore la surface financière, seraient bien
inspirés d’acquérir), ou dans les Climate Bonds. La croissance que lui
procuraient les mineurs de charbon ou les services pétroliers se
trouvera dans les entreprises œuvrant à la transition énergétique. En
accélérant la ré-allocation du capital dans ce sens, la finance
continuera non seulement à remplir son rôle de recherche d’un rendement
ajusté du risque optimal mais retrouvera aussi du sens.<br />
* Directeur de la Recherche, Bordier & Ciejan joost teunissenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14018967221957534084noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3510749443422882016.post-933181506543030862019-12-05T22:56:00.000-08:002019-12-06T01:44:17.861-08:00"China sees Europe as a waning, decadent region"<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEifoyAyBWGCeiMVxefsNhNvyVfI1fDEjzoww0jIx9vqtsI2fmsyy-KCvADiJw10z_Er8GT3LTG02PIPr1fmSg3lJszUQjAcpiuuxiVyosKsjMNMvacq2TdQQkW-HqF11sw01_RyleBPzJA/s1600/Kian+4+Nov+2019-1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="580" data-original-width="644" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEifoyAyBWGCeiMVxefsNhNvyVfI1fDEjzoww0jIx9vqtsI2fmsyy-KCvADiJw10z_Er8GT3LTG02PIPr1fmSg3lJszUQjAcpiuuxiVyosKsjMNMvacq2TdQQkW-HqF11sw01_RyleBPzJA/s200/Kian+4+Nov+2019-1.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>
<span class="tlid-translation translation" lang="en">Last night a friend of mine, a flamenco guitarist, said he was worried about the future of the world. He thinks that the dramatic extinction of the species and climate change will not be stopped. He is also concerned that China will first conquer the world economically and then politically and promote authoritarian and repressive regimes in Europe.</span><br />
<br />
<span class="tlid-translation translation" lang="en">I said that I kept my optimism that we can do something instead of waiting for the worst to come, and that I had to stay optimistic because I have children and grandchildren who I love living in a beautiful world.</span><br />
<br />
<span class="tlid-translation translation" lang="en">The next morning I received a long letter from a friend who lives in India and who I asked what he thought of my article about China and Europe that I published on this blog </span>(<a href="https://fondad.blogspot.com/2019/11/europe-should-see-china-as-ally.html">Europe should see China as an ally</a>).<br />
<br />
My Indian friend said: "I liked your piece on Europe and China. It exuded all your ingrained
friendliness, optimism about human and country relationships,
presumption that all countries operated on sound, sensible lines and
principles and saw value in cooperating rather than confronting one
another in addressing the core, key issues of the day and the future --
especially the transformation of the world's economy and business model
toward a greener future."<br />
<br />
And then my friend explained, in a detailed way, why he did not share my optimism about China. One of the things he said was:<br />
<br />
"China sees Europe as a waning, decadent region that is gorged on material consumption beyond its needs but with
the capacity and desire to serve China's interests for eventual
hegemonic power. It does not see Europe as a competitor but as a
collaborator on China's terms. It sees European society as flatulent and
unconcerned about anything other than maximizing its own immediate
well-being and pleasure. The welfare state that Europe has created, and
which has evolved considerably over that last fifty years, is not
something China admires or wishes to emulate or propagate because it
considers such a 'something-for-nothing' approach to welfare to be
demeaning to the human spirit, creating permanent dependencies which
must be avoided."<br />
<br />
<span class="tlid-translation translation" lang="en">I am very happy with the long letter from my Indian friend and wonder what I will answer him.</span>jan joost teunissenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14018967221957534084noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3510749443422882016.post-62421518764524133522019-11-09T12:21:00.008-08:002022-04-22T05:14:01.675-07:00Europe should see China as an ally<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg5g81jhrsycL5cvxbsGusAzcoCxSq-ZiJ3XA2gyu2Im-9URigdfhyphenhyphen9pAbiTdg1MmFNy3qRl-W9xWNaCWNLPLAxg89uJ4OruZDot5Oy-RidlLYAjgz00kYHGgzDrLQS6Nqu3peyzsfk48o/s1600/cosco1.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="900" data-original-width="1600" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg5g81jhrsycL5cvxbsGusAzcoCxSq-ZiJ3XA2gyu2Im-9URigdfhyphenhyphen9pAbiTdg1MmFNy3qRl-W9xWNaCWNLPLAxg89uJ4OruZDot5Oy-RidlLYAjgz00kYHGgzDrLQS6Nqu3peyzsfk48o/s400/cosco1.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">China's COSCO co-owns two terminals at Port of Genoa</span>.</td></tr>
</tbody></table><p>
<br />Europe should no longer see China as a threat and instead see it as an ally.<br />
<br />
There are economic reasons for considering China as an ally. Europe must work closely with China on sustainable, inclusive, social and green economic policies and on addressing international economic issues such as global warming, extinction of the species and the need for reform of the global financial system*). This benefits Europe, China and the rest of the world.<br />
<br />
There are environmental reasons for considering China as an ally. In the fight against climate change, China is at the forefront of some clean air policies, investigating opportunities to improve green technologies and make them cheaper, while striving for international cooperation rather than competition. China is the world’s largest investor in renewable energy. China has signed the Paris Climate Agreement, while the United States has not done so and has now even officially declared it will not sign it.<br />
<br />
There are political-military reasons for considering China as an ally. Europe should stop China bashing and presenting the country as a threat to global security, as is popular with Western media and politicians today. Europe needs to develop a fresh, unbiased view of China's role in international security. China’s main concern on international relations is its own national security, similar to Europe’s.<br />
<br />
Instead of saving NATO from its "brain death" (words of President Macron), Europe should look at China without prejudice, fear and arrogance. It should distance itself from American arrogance and hegemonic pretension. Seeing China as a potential ally will provide a sensible European perspective on world security. At the same time, such thinking can help improve relations with Russia, another major player in global security.<br />
<br />There are also mass psychological reasons for considering China as an ally. It will help enormously in overcoming the racial and political rejection of China. The framing of China as a threat in recent years has been successful in brainwashing the minds of many intellectuals and politicians. </p><p>
What about the authoritarian, repressive and dictatorial characteristics and tendencies in China? Should we in Europe not clearly reject the way in which China deals with its minority of Uyghurs? Should we not reject China's assumed or real secret espionage through Huawei? Should we not reject Chinese exploitation of minerals and other resources in poor countries? Should we not reject China's hidden or not so hidden intervention in Hong Kong's policies?<br />
<br />
Yes, I am concerned about such dictatorial, repressive or authoritarian issues. But then I expect equal concern about authoritarian, repressive and dictatorial issues in Europe, even though they may be less visible, less dramatic and can be criticised publicly. European democracies are more repressive and authoritarian than they claim to be. An example of this is how European technocrats in economic and central bank ministries dictate economic policies to the detriment of large sections of the population, thus undermining democracy - see the case of Greece. <br />
<br />I think or hope that China is interested in good relations with Europe. A lot is being written about China's expansion in Europe, buying ports and making other foreign investments in European countries like Greece, Italy and Spain. It is presented as if the Chinese are taking over key infrastructure in Europe, thus silently preparing invasion -- the Huns of the east invading civilised Europe. But history has it differently: it were the civilised or not so civilised Portuguese, Dutch and British who invaded South and East Asia and occupied or subjugated (parts of) big countries like India and China. Holland even stuck to its colony Indonesia after the Second World War until the United States convinced the Dutch to give it up. China's interest in Europe is not to invade or occupy it. Its interest is to develop economic ties with Europe.<br />
<br />
China and Europe play an important role in the cooperation of the multipolar world, particularly when the US is becoming an insecure superpower behaving irrational or irresponsibly in many areas due to bad domestic politics and lingering Cold War mentality.<br />
<br />
Together China and Europe could balance the US so as to avoid the collapse of an already fragile world system under threat by global warming, extinction of the species**), and war. If history has taught one dire lesson to the Europeans it is that every effort should be made to maintain peace and a just social order. The issue of how European countries could be better governed by involving its inhabitants in policy making rather than leaving it to technocrats and powerful business (see my post <a href="http://fondad.blogspot.com/2016/12/is-europe-run-jointly-by-its-tecnocrats.html"><b>Is Europe run jointly by its technocrats and CEOs?</b>)</a>, and the faltering criticism of European democracies and institutions, are pressing issues that Europeans have to solve to become real democracies.<br />
<br />
*) In March 2009, there was a plea by China's central banker Zhou Xiaochuan to create a new
global reserve currency replacing the dollar. Jan Joost Teunissen reminded in his 2009 speech <b><a href="http://fondad.blogspot.com/2022/03/why-should-we-have-listened-better-to.html">"Why should we have listened better to Robert Triffin?"</a></b> in Louvain-la-Neuve that
three years earlier Fan Gang, member of the Monetary Policy Committee of
China's central bank and member of the Fondad Network, made a similar
plea in his contribution to the Fondad conference and book <b><a href="http://www.fondad.org/publications/developing.html">Global Imbalances and the US Debt Problem: Should Developing Countries Support the US Dollar?</a></b> <br />
<br />
**) A recent <b><a href="https://www.ipbes.net/global-assessment-report-biodiversity-ecosystem-services">UN panel report on biodiversity</a></b> says that humanity
faces a biodiversity crisis just as profound as the climate crisis."Biodiversity," the panel declared, "is declining faster than at any time in human history." "What is needed, is a change to the definition of what a
good quality of life entails—decoupling the idea of a good and
meaningful life from ever-increasing material consumption." <br />
</p>jan joost teunissenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14018967221957534084noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3510749443422882016.post-49147017237622515802019-11-08T13:32:00.000-08:002020-01-21T00:20:29.047-08:00Johannes Witteveen: "Music goes much deeper"<div class="_5pbx userContent _3576" data-ft="{"tn":"K"}" data-testid="post_message" id="js_3ak">
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span dir="ltr"><span class="_3l3x">I still regret the death of
<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johan_Witteveen">Johannes Witteveen</a> in the spring of this year. He was an advisor and
friend of FONDAD and helped me enormously (I am the director of FONDAD). Below I reproduce part of an interview I had with him. </span></span></span></div>
<div class="date-header">
<br /></div>
<div class="date-header">
<span style="font-size: small;">Thursday, April 30, 2015</span></div>
<a href="https://www.blogger.com/null" name="5537046354873503166"></a>
<br />
<h3 class="post-title entry-title" itemprop="name">
<a href="https://fondad.blogspot.com/2015/04/johannes-witteveen-music-goes-much.html">Johannes Witteveen: "Music goes much deeper"</a>
</h3>
<div class="post-header">
</div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh61TDVKrE6zCThh4ScSGnhyK9yk6shEFEUa5biw4vT3nYjTpAlNb_VgEz0hR7r4UoGcYAQxxiMRwb7dmBNWlEr7r12t9Lh40KkXQsC7-Pac4JJcgQCacrnUmLXubxjNROH84X2TYFp_5w/s1600/Witteveen%252C+Johannes.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="403" data-original-width="403" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh61TDVKrE6zCThh4ScSGnhyK9yk6shEFEUa5biw4vT3nYjTpAlNb_VgEz0hR7r4UoGcYAQxxiMRwb7dmBNWlEr7r12t9Lh40KkXQsC7-Pac4JJcgQCacrnUmLXubxjNROH84X2TYFp_5w/s400/Witteveen%252C+Johannes.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Johannes Witteveen, former managing director of the IMF</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
Johannes Witteveen and I had a long and interesting conversation about
"the" global economy, the "crisis", and the need for a change in
thinking and policies... And, then, towards the end of our meeting at
his house in Wassenaar, we suddenly were speaking about the making of
music. Here is a transcript of that part of our conversation:<br />
<br />
<span class="" id="result_box" lang="en"><span title="- Toen ik een jaar of tien was spande ik elastiekjes over een schoenendoos.">- When I was ten years old I stretched rubber bands on an old shoebox. </span><span title="(Witteveen lacht) Ik vond die trilling mooi.
">(Witteveen laughs) I liked the vibration.</span><span title="Ja, ja, leuk ja.
"> </span></span><br />
<br />
<span class="" id="result_box" lang="en"><span title="Ja, ja, leuk ja.
">Yes, yes, that's nice.</span><span title="- En toen ik ouder was heb ik van karton een gitaartje gebouwd waar ik Stille nacht, heilige nacht op kon spelen."> </span></span><br />
<br />
<span class="" id="result_box" lang="en"><span title="- En toen ik ouder was heb ik van karton een gitaartje gebouwd waar ik Stille nacht, heilige nacht op kon spelen.">-
And when I was a bit older, I made a guitar of cardboard on which I
could play a Christmas song ("Silent night, holy night..."). </span><span title="En toen ik 13, 14 was heb ik een gitaar gekocht en sinds die tijd speel ik gitaar.
">And when I was 13, I bought a guitar and since that time I play guitar.</span><span title="Mooi.
"> </span></span><br />
<br />
<span class="" id="result_box" lang="en"><span title="Mooi.
">Beautiful.</span><span title="- Het mooiste van het gitaarspelen is om uit een toon iets te laten voortkomen."> </span></span><br />
<br />
<span class="" id="result_box" lang="en"><span title="- Het mooiste van het gitaarspelen is om uit een toon iets te laten voortkomen.">- The best part of playing guitar is to let emerge something from one tone. </span><span title="Vaak voel ik mezelf meer als een soort medium…
">Often I feel myself more as a kind of medium than a creator...</span><span title="Jaja… Dat er improviserend iets door je heengaat."> </span></span><br />
<br />
<span class="" id="result_box" lang="en"><span title="Jaja… Dat er improviserend iets door je heengaat.">Yeah ... By improvising something happens to you. </span><span title="Dat is heel mooi, dat speelt in het soefisme een grote rol.">That is very nice, and plays a large role in Sufism. </span><span title="Meditatieve muziek.">Meditative music. </span><span title="Tamboera wordt daar bij gebruikt, een Indiaas instrument waar mijn vrouw veel op heeft gespeeld, om tot meditatie te komen.">The tambura is used for that, that's an Indian instrument my wife has played many times, to come to meditation. </span><span title="Door klank, steeds maar weer diezelfde toon te laten klinken en (zacht) daar zong ze dan een beetje bij.
">Through the sound of one tone, over and over again, and then she softly sang a bit.</span><span title="- Als jongetje klom ik al vroeg in hoge bomen en dan voelde ik de wind om m'n oren suizen…
"> </span></span><br />
<br />
<span class="" id="result_box" lang="en"><span title="- Als jongetje klom ik al vroeg in hoge bomen en dan voelde ik de wind om m'n oren suizen…
">- As a boy I climbed in tall trees, and then I felt the wind blowing around my ears ...</span><span title="(lachend) Jaja."> </span></span><br />
<br />
<span class="" id="result_box" lang="en"><span title="(lachend) Jaja.">(Laughing) Yeah. </span><span title="Dat is iets anders dan alleen het denken.">That is different from thinking. </span><span title="Het is iets diepers.
">It goes much deeper.</span></span></div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
<span class="_1whp _4vn2" data-hover="tooltip" id="js_cj7"></span>jan joost teunissenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14018967221957534084noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3510749443422882016.post-85420312320467600632019-11-07T21:04:00.000-08:002019-11-07T21:15:14.171-08:00Debt Relief for Argentina?<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjGNC2leaUJAyuGg5LGYRPFGXmO_jLkeZ_LP7Cu9KM-yhzIVvTEK0jPMJXBB6quYDfnnmmqVMm87LPHLMOIRJip-84qPiDPU-YZFZ4wAi6V4FkgDEJ8hqFH9ARVwN252q_EEy3xlpiXVy8/s1600/Argentina+-+IMF.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="768" data-original-width="1024" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjGNC2leaUJAyuGg5LGYRPFGXmO_jLkeZ_LP7Cu9KM-yhzIVvTEK0jPMJXBB6quYDfnnmmqVMm87LPHLMOIRJip-84qPiDPU-YZFZ4wAi6V4FkgDEJ8hqFH9ARVwN252q_EEy3xlpiXVy8/s400/Argentina+-+IMF.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<a href="https://www.imf.org/en/News/Articles/2019/11/07/tr110719-transcript-of-imf-press-briefing?cid=em-COM-456-39693">From Transcript of IMF Press Briefing, November 7, 2019, by IMF Director Gerry Rice</a> <br />
<br />
QUESTIONER: I have a question about Argentina. I was wondering if you're
planning any mission there, or is there any meetings scheduled here in
Washington, D.C. And could you give us a sense of where we are with the
Argentina issue?
<br />
MR. RICE: Sure. Thank you. So where are we on Argentina? The Managing
Director, Kristalina Georgieva, congratulated President Elect Fernández on
his election, and reiterated the Fund's readiness to engage with Mr.
Fernández and his administration to help Argentina address the important
challenges facing the economy there, and to pave the way for inclusive and
sustainable growth.
<br />
So, there was that message from the Managing Director, as the first thing I
would say. The second thing is that we stand ready with President-Elect
Fernández and his team at their convenience during the transition period. I
don’t have any dates for missions planned at this stage. Again, it will
depend on the discussions going forward. And again, we stand ready to
engage, that's kind of where we are.
<br />
QUESTIONER: Thanks, Gerry. Just a quick follow up on that. Has Argentina
given you any indication or have they made a formal request for
modification of the program? Is that sort of what you're waiting for to
begin this engagement?
<br />
MR. RICE: You know, we're just ready to engage. We're ready to discuss at
any time, again, at the convenience at the new administration in Argentina.
And, you know, that's not contingent on any, you know, prior conditions.
We're just ready to engage whenever is convenient for them to do so.
<br />
QUESTIONER: Yes, thanks Gerry. To follow up on these questions, there's
going to be an event in Miami where Alejandro Werner is going to be one of
the speakers and also Mr. Nielsen which is a member of Alberto Fernández's
team. Wanted to know if there was any meeting scheduled between the two of
them in Miami.
<br />
MR. RICE: Well, I have the same understanding that you do that Alejandro
Werner and Mr. Nielsen are both participating in this conference organized
by the University of Miami tomorrow. I'm not aware of any planned meeting
but they're both going to be there and often on these occasions, there are
meetings on the sidelines of these events. So again, no planned meeting but
we'll see what happens tomorrow.
<br />
QUESTIONER: There's a lot of debate about Argentina's upcoming negotiations
with both the IMF and the bond holders. I wanted to ask if you have, the
IMF's staff has any position regarding of which negotiations should come
first. If Argentina's new government should negotiate first with the bond
holders or with the IMF and do the bond holder negotiation under the IMF
program.
<br />
MR. RICE: So, again we stand ready to engage straight away and regardless
as I said earlier. On the issue of potential debt negotiations and
discussions, I mean, a couple of things. Alejandro Werner talked about this
during the recent Annual Meetings. But, you know, as is the case with all
countries, so not just Argentina but all countries, the decision to
restructure debt is entirely the purview of the member country and in
consultation with their legal and financial advisors.
<br />
Our role, the IMF's role, is to assess whether debt is sustainable with a
high probability in line with our exceptional access policy. So, in order
to conduct our debt sustainability, we need the analysis, we need the
information on the authority's policy plans as well as take a look at the
macroeconomic outlook consistent with those plans. So, I mean, trying to
answer your question, we are not in a position to make that assessment
right now because the discussions with the new administration have not yet
taken place. But again, you know, the role, the responsibility for the debt
restructuring lies with the member country and our role is to assess the
debt sustainability. Just very clear responsibilities there.
<br />
QUESTIONER: One more on Argentina. The new government, the elected
government in Argentina said that in a conversation with President Trump,
President Trump said that he has instructed the IMF to work with Argentina.
Can you specify what does he mean by that and has there been any
conversation between MD Georgieva and President Trump regarding this?
<br />
MR. RICE: So, just on your last part I'm not aware of any discussion
between the President and Kristalina Georgieva. But, you know, what I would
say is that we work with all our member countries and I would really just
point to the statement that Kristalina Georgieva made which I referred to
at the beginning of the press conference that we stand ready to work with
President-Elect Fernández and his administration. And, you know, to help
Argentina overcome the challenges and get back on the path of sustainable
and inclusive growth. That commitment from the Fund to Argentina has been
there and that commitment to Argentina continues to be there today.
<br />
QUESTIONER: Last night, Georgieva referred to Argentina, she said she was
willing to discuss with Argentina (inaudible) commitment as soon as the IMF
could foresee what kind of policies would the new government apply in
Argentina. Do you have by now does the IMF have by now a certain idea about
what kind of policies, economic policies would the new government display
in order to start a conversation?
<br />
MR. RICE: Well, you know, I wouldn’t want to again, preempt any discussions
that might take place with the new administration and, of course, first to
hear their thoughts on the policy path. But perhaps, you know, just to note
that during his election night speech and subsequent public pronouncements,
President Elect Fernández stated that he is looking to lift Argentina's
economy out of the current crisis and pave the way for more solid and
inclusive growth. And we fully share those objectives is what I would say
on that.
<br />
And again, our commitment to help Argentina get onto this better path of
sustainable and inclusive growth and we are ready to engage on that as
convenient with the new administration.
<br />
QUESTIONER: Mr. Fernandez has also talked about restructuring, reprofiling
the debt without any removal of the debt, any (speaking Spanish) in Spanish
terms. (Speaking Spanish).
<br />
And in Argentina, some people have said that the IMF would not recommend
that kind of approach in restructuring of the debt. What is, is it true the
IMF thinks that there should be a removal of debt in Argentinian
negotiations with private creators?
<br />
MR. RICE: Yeah, you know, again I wouldn't want to preempt any discussions
that might take place on that or other issues. I think those of you who
follow the IMF know that from, you know, discussions in other countries,
the capacity of the IMF itself to restructure its debt is constrained by
its legal and policy frameworks. I'm talking about the IMF debt. So that’s
clear and that's true, not again, not just in the case of Argentina, that’s
just the case for all member countries.
<br />
And responding to the previous question, I tried to delineate the different
responsibilities of, the government has the role, the -- in the decision to
restructure debt and we have the role of assessing whether the debt is
sustainable.
<br />
And again, I think all of this has to wait for the engagement to take place
between the Fund and the new administration and we will be carrying forward
the discussions after that.
<br />
QUESTIONER: The, there was an interview by Alberto Fernández --
<br />
MR. RICE: I'm sorry, say again, Jeff. Could you speak into the mic?
<br />
QUESTIONER: There was an interview on television last night with Alberto
Fernández and he said that the IMF prohibits debt haircuts and hopes the
IMF will help Argentina pay down its debt.
<br />
So the IMF -- does the IMF prohibit debt haircuts and would it help
Argentina pay its debt and I'm just asking in a little bit of a different
question. Thanks.
<br />
MR. RICE: Yeah. Again, Jeff, you know, I think that’s pretty much along the
lines of the previous question. I wouldn't want to get ahead of any
discussions that might take place and I have explained the IMF position on
its debt, on our debt, and that’s just a long-standing policy for the IMF.
<br />
But the discussions on any potential haircut, debt restructuring, that’s
really for the government to carry forward and more broadly we remain
committed to helping Argentina in any way we can and we stand ready to
engage as soon as it's convenient for the new administration.<br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<b><span style="font-size: large;">Recommended reading:</span></b><br />
<br />
<h2 class="pane-title">
<span style="font-size: large;"><a href="http://www.fondad.org/product_books/pdf_download/9/Fondad-Argentina-BookComplete.pdf">The crisis that was not prevented: lessons for Argentina, the IMF, and globalisation</a></span></h2>
<a class="download-link btn" href="http://www.fondad.org/publications/argentina/contents.htm">Open full report</a><br />
<div class="field-headline">
What caused Argentina's financial crisis?</div>
<div class="field-description">
This book provides an overview of the current thinking about the
Argentine crisis and reveals the limitations of the so-called
"Washington Consensus". The book results from the international research
project Global Financial Governance Initiative, which brings together
Northern and Southern perspectives on key international financial
issues. The book examines lessons to be learned, and present ideas on
how future crises in emerging and developing economies might be
prevented.<br />
Chapters include:<br />
<ul>
<li>introduction, by Jan Joost Teunissen and Age Akkerman</li>
<li>Argentina: a case of globalisation gone too far or not far enough?, by Dani Rodrik</li>
<li>the mistaken assumptions of the IMF, by José Antonio Ocampo</li>
<li>growth, instability and the crisis of convertibility in Argentina, by José María Fanelli</li>
<li>the regional fallout of Argentina's crisis, by Ricardo Ffrench-Davis and Rogério Studart</li>
<li>the puzzle of Argentina's debt problem: virtual dollar creation?, by Bernardo Lischinsky</li>
<li>the Argentine drama: a view from the IMF board, by J. Onno de Beaufort Wijnholds</li>
<li>some lessons from the Argentine crisis: a Fund staff view, by Mark Allen</li>
</ul>
</div>
jan joost teunissenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14018967221957534084noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3510749443422882016.post-50599556216826484392019-10-07T12:50:00.001-07:002019-10-08T18:30:25.799-07:00Are we producing less greenhouse gas?<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg1JnyXYHkG4GUj3UY-5VZfIvSfsoM60cSNa7Y5QMHXJkZe6VoX0E7Sa5uXpc8IHWE02fLCBdZgQ_HJ9WwUb_CzEbnYyW1xNsmqHX5rUcGjPMbYPFzQbwlizqXPyulkyj22ps_OvokdzLE/s1600/energy+transition-1.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="569" data-original-width="799" height="282" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg1JnyXYHkG4GUj3UY-5VZfIvSfsoM60cSNa7Y5QMHXJkZe6VoX0E7Sa5uXpc8IHWE02fLCBdZgQ_HJ9WwUb_CzEbnYyW1xNsmqHX5rUcGjPMbYPFzQbwlizqXPyulkyj22ps_OvokdzLE/s400/energy+transition-1.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
Lately, in all ports Aafke Steenhuis and I have visited for our book on world ports, efforts are made to reduce the emission of carbon dioxide. An oil company like Shell (Dutch-British) already knew in the 1980s that oil consumption would lead to climate change and... to actions by climate activists. So it's better late than never.<br />
<br />
Over the last couple of years, the buzzword in ports and other economic activities is "energy transition", from fossil to non-fossil, or from diesel to electric. That is clearly the case in the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach in California, a state reknown for its clean air policies. Also, in the ports of Singapore and Hong Kong where Aafke and I just were for our book on world ports, energy transition is high on the agenda. <br />
However, the use of fossil energy has not been reduced over the last decades and is not likely to be reduced substantially - see, for example, the article below that I put a year ago on one of my blogs and now publish again, and see the charts that I copied from the article <a href="https://ourworldindata.org/co2-and-other-greenhouse-gas-emissions">"CO₂ and Greenhouse Gas Emissions"</a>, by Hannah Ritchie and Max Roser. There are more interesting charts in that article.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh8g-MuA6SkscCE5W6bAmCJVQUPc8-_buGNFgjKx2iORjQFQnvhojEjogAoI8TT64X3h_z3YGs3evPSKDCNpHhCMoxezRMB6dTqF-WM2KE245H7A8Iosqs2klaUE5L2u2CFcMIyxLSb7F0/s1600/energy+transition-2.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="569" data-original-width="796" height="285" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh8g-MuA6SkscCE5W6bAmCJVQUPc8-_buGNFgjKx2iORjQFQnvhojEjogAoI8TT64X3h_z3YGs3evPSKDCNpHhCMoxezRMB6dTqF-WM2KE245H7A8Iosqs2klaUE5L2u2CFcMIyxLSb7F0/s400/energy+transition-2.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
When I was in Los Angeles in December last year, I read an article in the Los Angeles Times saying that one-third of Germany's electricity is produced by power plants that run on coal. Amsterdam is the fourth largest port of Europe (after Rotterdam, Antwerpen and Hamburg) and the second largest coal port of Europe. Sometimes, when I walk along the shore of the IJ next to my house, I see ships passing by loaded with coal, on their way to the Amsterdam-Rijnkanaal, and to Germany. <br />
One of the reasons power plants in Germany still use coal is that the German government decided to close nuclear power plants.<br />
<br />
Recently I checked the percentage of coal in German electricity production and found in a Wikipedia article that in 2016, around 40% of the electricity in Germany was generated from coal. So it may have been reduced lately to one-third of total, as Los Angeles Times stated, and it may have been reduced further last year.<br />
<br />
In the article below you can read that <span class="tlid-translation translation" lang="en"><span title="">coal is not only used in Germany to produce electricity. "More worrying still," says the article, "a</span><span class="" title="">fter a few years of decline, coal regains market share (38.1% of the global energy mix, according to BP's 2018 report on global energy) and regained its position from twenty years ago."</span></span> <br />
<br />
There is always reason for hope, even though the figures sometimes point to the opposite. However, they then point to the need for more 'energetic' action.<br />
<br />
Here is the article that I published a year ago in one of my blogs:<br />
<br />
<h2 class="date-header">
<span style="font-size: small;">Monday, November 05, 2018</span></h2>
<a href="https://www.blogger.com/null" name="6898432718462176521"></a>
<br />
<h3 class="post-title">
No enterraremos el petróleo
</h3>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhav06YcOBaLN27iKYX3g1Ejw3V8FlJtb1f8mCgah10zFmX_08jMLepOdOsjemx4kmFKRHAdW9Oo9MjkRTIS2h1HbIGL6q3z_slPIKV1U8q8LLRvj_rkb95_1TcRxZcIReAnDdoyRFdv-wA/s1600/europe+oil+and+gas+pipelines.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1056" data-original-width="1140" height="370" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhav06YcOBaLN27iKYX3g1Ejw3V8FlJtb1f8mCgah10zFmX_08jMLepOdOsjemx4kmFKRHAdW9Oo9MjkRTIS2h1HbIGL6q3z_slPIKV1U8q8LLRvj_rkb95_1TcRxZcIReAnDdoyRFdv-wA/s400/europe+oil+and+gas+pipelines.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">Oil and gas pipelines in Europe</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
Copio abajo un artículo interesante del periódico suizo "Le Temps" sobre
la transición energética, que es un tema importante en el libro que
Aafke y yo estamos escribiendo sobre puertos en el mundo. Dentro de poco
iremos a Los Angeles, donde "climate change and energy transition" is a
key issue, o sea un asunto clave. <br />
<h1>
<span style="font-size: medium;"><a href="https://www.letemps.ch/economie/nenterrerons-petrole?utm_source=Newsletters&utm_campaign=d3ea728b27-RSS_EMAIL_CAMPAIGN&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_56c41a402e-d3ea728b27-109511609">Nous n’enterrerons pas le pétrole</a></span>
</h1>
<div class="lead">
<a class="article-author" href="https://www.letemps.ch/auteur/402137" rel="author">Adrià Budry Carbó</a><br />
Publié lundi 5 novembre 2018</div>
<div class="lead">
Or noir,
charbon, gaz naturel: il n’y a jamais eu autant d’énergies fossiles sur
le marché. La transition énergétique ne viendra pas du marché… ni des
sanctions contre l’Iran</div>
Le Club de Rome avait tout faux. Au début
des années 1970, en plein choc pétrolier, un groupe d’académiciens
annonce la fin de l’or noir. Les Trente Glorieuses sont derrière et la
société s’interroge alors sur les limites de la croissance. Il ne
resterait alors plus que trente-cinq ans de consommation de pétrole.<br />
Nous
sommes en 2018. Une tribu d’irréductibles analystes continue
périodiquement de nous resservir la théorie du haut de la courbe. Un
«pic pétrolier» serait sur le point d’être atteint, suivi d’un
irrémédiable déclin du carburant de la globalisation amenant directement
l’humanité dans l’ère de l’après-pétrole.<br />
<h3>
La consommation pétrolière? +105%</h3>
Mais
les faits sont têtus. Le monde consomme 97,4 millions de barils de brut
par jour. C’est 105% de plus qu’en 1973. Qu’importe les sanctions
iraniennes, le chaos libyen, le sabotage des pipelines nigérians.
L’avènement des voitures électriques, les parcs solaires ou éoliens et
autres engagements énergétiques non contraignants n’y changeront rien
non plus. L’économie mondiale a plus que jamais soif d’énergies
fossiles.<br />
Si les cours n’ont pas pris l’ascenseur, malgré la politique
volontariste de l’OPEP et la perspective des sanctions contre l’Iran,
c’est notamment parce que le pétrole de schiste a pris la tangente. Les
Etats-Unis produisent 11,346 millions de barils par jour, et
l’exploration n’est plus taboue en Grande-Bretagne.<br />
<b>Lire aussi</b> <a href="https://www.letemps.ch/economie/marche-ne-croit-plus-aux-sanctions-contre-liran">Le marché ne croit plus aux sanctions contre l’Iran</a><br />
Certes,
les découvertes d’hydrocarbures conventionnels sont à leur plus bas
niveau depuis les années 1950. A la suite de l’effondrement des cours en
2014, les compagnies pétrolières ont taillé dans leurs dépenses
d’exploration et de production. Il n’y a pourtant jamais eu autant
d’hydrocarbures sur le marché; et notre génération ne peut plus
prétendre enterrer le pétrole.<br />
<h3>
Le charbon en guet-apens</h3>
Plus
préoccupant encore. Après quelques années de déclin, le charbon regagne
des parts de marché (38,1% du mix énergétique mondial, selon le <a href="https://www.bp.com/content/dam/bp/en/corporate/pdf/energy-economics/energy-outlook/bp-energy-outlook-2018.pdf" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">rapport</a>
2018 du pétrolier BP sur l’énergie mondiale) et a retrouvé sa place
d’il y a vingt ans. Glencore s’est d’ailleurs lancé, devant ses
investisseurs, dans une défense passionnée de la durabilité
(commerciale) de cette ressource. Le trader zougois, qui a investi près
de 3 milliards de dollars dans des mines australiennes, parie que la
croissance explosive en Asie contrebalancera le fléchissement de la
demande dans les économies mûres.<br />
<b>Lire aussi</b> <a href="https://www.letemps.ch/economie/traders-suisses-surfent-rebond-charbon">Les traders suisses surfent sur le rebond du charbon</a><br />
Même
en Europe, où l’on croyait cette industrie reléguée au XXe siècle, on
continue à brûler du dioxyde de carbone pour produire de l’électricité.
Jusqu’au non-sens. «Les jours de beau temps et lorsqu’il y a un peu de
vent, les prix peuvent descendre en dessous de zéro. On vous paie pour
consommer», déplorait l’hiver dernier le directeur d’une maison de
négoce.<br />
<h3>
La transition ne se décrète pas</h3>
En Suisse, où les barrages tournent au ralenti et la production éolienne reste confidentielle, Romande Energie <a href="https://www.romande-energie.ch/entreprises/electricite/marquage-electricite-entreprises" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">admet</a>
une part d’électricité provenant «d’agents énergétiques non
vérifiables» de 16%. Pas terrible pour effectuer un bilan écologique.
Sur le papier, la Confédération a pourtant décidé de tourner le dos aux
énergies fossiles. Fini la hausse des importations d’énergies fossiles!
On veut tirer la prise des centrales nucléaires. Et on veut les
remplacer par le solaire et le biogaz, sauf que ces deux énergies ne
représentent pour l’heure que 0,63% de la <a href="http://www.bfe.admin.ch/themen/00526/00541/00543/index.html?lang=fr&dossier_id=00772" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">consommation finale</a>, selon l’Office fédéral de l’énergie.<br />
La
Stratégie énergétique 2050 tourne le dos au gaz naturel, alors que la
Suisse s’apprête à jouer un rôle central ces prochaines années.<br />
<b>Lire aussi</b> <a href="https://www.letemps.ch/economie/alpes-plus-grand-gazoduc-suisse">Sous les Alpes, le plus grand gazoduc de Suisse</a><br />
Depuis
octobre, elle est capable d’inverser les flux gaziers, qui allaient
traditionnellement du nord de l’Europe (Norvège, Pays-Bas ou Allemagne)
vers le sud. Un <i>reverse flow</i> qui anticipe l’après-nucléaire
allemand, l’arrivée du gaz de la mer Caspienne par le pipeline
transadriatique en 2020 et, à plus long terme, l’exploitation de
nouveaux gisements en mer Méditerranée orientale (Chypre, Israël,
Egypte).<br />
Le Club de Rome n’avait pas pu l’anticiper: l’évolution
technologique du secteur énergétique permet de creuser toujours plus
profond, de tirer des conduits toujours plus loin ou même de se passer
d’une partie de ces tuyaux. Transporté par bateaux méthaniers, le gaz
naturel liquéfié (LNG, dans le jargon) permet d’interconnecter les
marchés américains, européens et asiatiques, qui fonctionnaient
auparavant en vase clos.<br />
A l’ère de l’abondance énergétique, la
dynamique de la transition énergétique requerra davantage de volonté
politique que la signature d’accords non contraignants. Surtout si on ne
peut plus compter sur la rareté pour forcer la transition. Le Club de
Rome se hasarderait-il aujourd’hui à annoncer la fin du pétrole pour
2050? jan joost teunissenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14018967221957534084noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3510749443422882016.post-29646986965833030702019-07-14T22:30:00.003-07:002019-07-15T00:01:24.471-07:00Visiting the Port of Los Angeles - A Video<iframe allow="accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="264" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/1vBa_tZiKgM" width="451"></iframe><br />
<br />
I was with my wife in Los Angeles where I made this film about our visit to the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach. We are writing a book about world ports, maritime history, globalization and global warming.<br />
<br />
Previous short films I made about ports include:<br />
<br />
<iframe allow="accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="264" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/O3BKCxkYUEc" width="415"></iframe><br />
<br />
<iframe allow="accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="264" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/fB7K6QKFkeI" width="415"></iframe> jan joost teunissenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14018967221957534084noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3510749443422882016.post-64340502901173204412019-03-14T03:05:00.000-07:002019-03-14T03:28:13.359-07:00Greeks losing their house, their hope and their life<br />
<header class="td-post-title">
<div class="entry-title">
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: large;">Shocking news from Greece:</span> </span> </span></div>
<h1 class="entry-title">
<a href="http://www.defenddemocracy.press/greece-death-by-hunging/?utm_source=Delphi+Initiative+Newsletter&utm_campaign=d89b128b2d-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2019_03_14_06_49&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_cca18be42a-d89b128b2d-173779497"><span style="font-size: large;">Greece: Death by hanging</span></a></h1>
<div class="td-module-meta-info">
<span class="td-post-date"><time class="entry-date updated td-module-date" datetime="2019-03-13T21:10:54+00:00">13/03/2019</time></span> </div>
</header>
Α 56 year-old man has been found hanged in the yard of his home, at Isthmia, Korinthia, Greece.<br />
The previous day the 56 year-old man had been notified officially that he is going to lose his house.<br />
The man let a note in which he asked from his relatives to forgive him and explaining the reasons he was pushed to suicide.<br />
The Finance Ministers of the Eurozone, under the leadership of the
German government, the European Commission and the IMF, acting like a
kind of Mafia operatives of the Bankers, are exercising now a maximum of
pressure to the SYRIZA governement in order to alleviate any protection
of houses from Banks demands.<br />
<i>DDP</i><br />
<br />
<br />
<header class="td-post-title">
<h1 class="entry-title">
<a href="http://www.defenddemocracy.press/the-criminals-of-eurogroup-they-want-greeks-out-of-their-homes/?utm_source=Delphi+Initiative+Newsletter&utm_campaign=d89b128b2d-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2019_03_14_06_49&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_cca18be42a-d89b128b2d-173779497"><span style="font-size: large;">The criminals of Eurogroup: They want Greeks out of their homes!!!</span></a></h1>
<div class="td-module-meta-info">
<span class="td-post-date"><time class="entry-date updated td-module-date" datetime="2019-03-13T20:55:15+00:00">13/03/2019</time></span> </div>
</header>
<br />
<h4>
Eurogroup delays €1 bn disbursement to Greece</h4>
<i>By <span class="item-author">ELENI VARVITSIOTIS</span></i><br />
<i>11.03.2019</i><br />
<div class="freetext">
The finance ministers of the 19-member Eurozone have decided to postpone disbursing 1 billion euros ($1.12 billion) to Greece.<br />
The reason for postponing the payment is that Greece has not yet
changed the provisions of a law protecting debtors’ main housing
property from creditors to the EU’s satisfaction.<br />
The disbursement will now be discussed at the next Eurogroup meeting,
on April 5, provided Greece has made the necessary changes.<br />
Pierre Moscovici, European Commissioner for Economic and Financial
Affairs, had indicated earlier Monday, that he expects an agreement with
Greece on the issue in the coming days.<br />
Valdis Dombrovskis, the Commission Vice-Chairman for the Euro and
Social Dialogue, and Portuguese Finance Minister Mario Centeno, the
Eurogroup President, echoed Moscovici’s views.</div>
Read more at <a href="http://www.ekathimerini.com/238475/article/ekathimerini/business/eurogroup-delays-1-bn-disbursement-to-greece" rel="noopener" target="_blank">http://www.ekathimerini.com/238475/article/ekathimerini/business/eurogroup-delays-1-bn-disbursement-to-greece</a><br />
<br />
<h1 class="css-4a8l5 e1h9rw200" id="link-10e2ef81" itemprop="headline">
<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/03/world/europe/greece-economy-mental-health.html"><span style="font-size: large;"><span class="balancedHeadline" style="display: inline-block; max-width: 531.926px;">Greece, 10 Years Into Economic Crisis, Counts the Cost to Mental Health</span></span></a></h1>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhnbyYIqw4kRwKta_GVmys_GFAqixSmKNSYv7ELKnjFQb_GGqf9cUhyphenhyphenLbY5ewacBE8r_elQeyrU4sbxtXpduTVNdoXNPSP5bAdS1jwOzQTJNkxH9-b84M6jJaIWuzI2JtbbzyucNYhyCdE/s1600/greece+-+suicide.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1067" data-original-width="1600" height="266" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhnbyYIqw4kRwKta_GVmys_GFAqixSmKNSYv7ELKnjFQb_GGqf9cUhyphenhyphenLbY5ewacBE8r_elQeyrU4sbxtXpduTVNdoXNPSP5bAdS1jwOzQTJNkxH9-b84M6jJaIWuzI2JtbbzyucNYhyCdE/s400/greece+-+suicide.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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<span class="css-8i9d0s e13ogyst0">Health
workers during a general strike in Athens in 2017. Annual state
spending on mental health was halved in 2012, and it has been trimmed
further each year since then.</span><span class="css-vuqh7u e1z0qqy90" itemprop="copyrightHolder"><span class="css-1ly73wi e1tej78p0">Credit</span><span>Aris Messinis/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images</span></span></div>
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<span class="css-vuqh7u e1z0qqy90" itemprop="copyrightHolder"><span> </span></span></div>
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<span class="css-vuqh7u e1z0qqy90" itemprop="copyrightHolder"><span>The New York Times - Feb. 3, 2019</span></span></div>
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ATHENS —
Greece’s decade-long economic crisis has taken a heavy toll: Hundreds of
thousands of jobs were lost, incomes were slashed and taxes were
raised. Hopes for the future were dashed.</div>
<div class="css-1ygdjhk evys1bk0">
For
Anna, 68, the crisis had particularly devastating consequences. Her
husband, a retired bus driver, killed himself in a park two years ago at
age 66 after a series of pension cuts deepened his despair.</div>
<div class="css-1ygdjhk evys1bk0">
“He
kept saying, ‘I’ve worked so many years. What will I have to show for
it? How are we going to live?’” said Anna, who asked that her full name
not be published to protect her family’s privacy. After two years of
therapy, she now volunteers to help others struggling with mental health
issues.</div>
<div class="css-1ygdjhk evys1bk0">
Depression and suicide rates
rose alarmingly during the Greek debt crisis, health experts and
studies say, as the country’s creditors imposed strict austerity
measures that cut wages, increased taxes and undermined the ability of
health services to respond to a crisis within a crisis.</div>
<div class="css-1ygdjhk evys1bk0">
“Mental health has deteriorated
significantly in Greece, with depression being particularly widespread,
as a result of the economic crisis,” Dunja Mijatovic, the Council of
Europe’s commissioner for human rights, said in <a class="css-1g7m0tk" href="https://rm.coe.int/report-on-the-visit-to-greece-from-25-to-29-june-2018-by-dunja-mijatov/16808ea5bd" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank" title="">a November report</a>.
That has led to overcrowding at psychiatric hospitals and clinics and a
40 percent increase in suicides from 2010 to 2015, the report said.</div>
<div class="css-1ygdjhk evys1bk0">
For
those fighting the problems on the ground, the trend does not seem to
be abating. The mental health organization Klimaka reported a 30 percent
rise in calls to its suicide hotline last year, and a comparable rise
in visits to its day center.</div>
<div class="css-1ygdjhk evys1bk0">
“The financial crisis has increased
people’s vulnerability to suicide,” said Kyriakos Katsadoros, Klimaka’s
director. “Some even ask about euthanasia.”</div>
<div class="css-1ygdjhk evys1bk0">
<a class="css-1g7m0tk" href="http://www.who.int/gho/mental_health/suicide_rates_crude/en/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank" title="">Suicide rates in Greece remain relatively low</a>
for Europe, with five suicides per 100,000 people compared with a
regionwide average of 15.4, according to World Health Organization data
for 2016, the most recent available. The rate of increase is high,
however. It spiked from 3.3 per 100,000 to 5 <a class="css-1g7m0tk" href="http://apps.who.int/gho/data/node.main.MHSUICIDE" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank" title="">between 2010 to 2016</a>.</div>
The highest annual increase came in 2015, the year <a class="css-1g7m0tk" href="https://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/13/business/international/greece-general-strike.html?module=inline" title="">strikes and social upheaval reached a climax</a> as Greece’s leftist-led government wrangled with the country’s international creditors over the terms of a third bailout.</div>
<div class="css-53u6y8">
<div class="css-53u6y8">
<div class="css-1ygdjhk evys1bk0">
The suicide rate
then dropped in 2016 and 2017, police figures show, only to rise again
in the first 10 months of 2018, according to police figures that also
show that suicides among those ages 22 and under more than doubled.</div>
<div class="css-1ygdjhk evys1bk0">
Many
suicides in Greece go unreported because of the Orthodox Church’s
reluctance to provide burial services to those who take their own lives,
although the church’s stance is changing, nongovernmental organizations
say.</div>
<div class="css-1ygdjhk evys1bk0">
The Greek Health Ministry set
up a committee of mental health experts in November to prepare awareness
campaigns, as well as plans to train general practitioners to better
detect depression and other mental health issues. In the meantime, the
health system’s struggles to address the problem are evident.</div>
<div class="css-1ygdjhk evys1bk0">
At
Evangelismos, one of the capital’s largest state hospitals, dozens of
patients were being treated in the corridors of the psychiatric ward
during a visit in April, “an unacceptable situation,” the Council of
Europe’s anti-torture committee said in <a class="css-1g7m0tk" href="https://rm.coe.int/16808afaf6" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank" title="">a report published in June</a>.</div>
<div class="css-1ygdjhk evys1bk0">
In
the summer, the hospital’s workers’ union complained to a prosecutor
that the clinic was accommodating twice the maximum capacity, with
foldout beds set up in corridors and in doctors’ offices.</div>
<div class="css-1ygdjhk evys1bk0">
“It’s
like a stable,” said Dr. Ilias Sioras, president of the union, adding
that people in all states — “catatonic and psychotic” — were being
treated in the same space.</div>
<div class="css-1ygdjhk evys1bk0">
Dromokaiteio
Psychiatric Hospital in Athens is also overcrowded, with admissions up
12.3 percent in 2017 and staff members regularly staging strikes
denouncing the conditions. And at Dafni, the Attica Psychiatric
Hospital, which takes only very serious cases, “the impact of the
economic crisis is reflected in the admissions,” said the director,
Spiridoula Kalantzi, citing a 9.6 percent increase in 2017.</div>
</div>
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<i></i>jan joost teunissenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14018967221957534084noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3510749443422882016.post-81848212880485675252019-02-15T21:03:00.000-08:002019-02-16T03:04:24.838-08:00Andrew Sheng: "The free market is a destructive myth. Down with the free market"<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi4Eam96y_iJjzd-DPYq_E0HoIIefi5su_FazPdrUjyErvytFJt1J8BHOhIPw7D0Q01d6RvxX0KbWrZmfrV3N6XSY9vb7Pbuw3Wzbgix3XhqczsjjfmoRzJTlTJnL58-3bs4WK69ZW77X4/s1600/ShengAndrew.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="347" data-original-width="521" height="266" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi4Eam96y_iJjzd-DPYq_E0HoIIefi5su_FazPdrUjyErvytFJt1J8BHOhIPw7D0Q01d6RvxX0KbWrZmfrV3N6XSY9vb7Pbuw3Wzbgix3XhqczsjjfmoRzJTlTJnL58-3bs4WK69ZW77X4/s400/ShengAndrew.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Andrew Sheng</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="font-size: large;">I got to know Andrew Sheng at an international conference my organisation, FONDAD, had organised in Kuala Lumpur in 2007. I was impressed by his sharp mind, his eloquence and his charm. Andrew appeared in this blog right at the start (see, for example, <a href="https://fondad.blogspot.com/2008/04/explaining-crisis-3_12.html">Explaining the crisis (3)</a>), when I explored with part of the FONDAD Network how the global financial crisis of 2007-08 had come about and what we could do to prevent a new global financial crisis. </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: large;">Global crisis prevention had been one of the reasons for me to found FONDAD in 1986 and had become the main focus in FONDAD's activities since 1999 when a group of organisations decided to form an international programme on Global Financial Governance. Together with José Antonio Ocampo, then head of the UN Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean, I chaired, as director of FONDAD, the group on Crisis Prevention. </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">I have maintained contact with Andrew Sheng and I have continued to like his writings. Below I copy one of his latest columns, published by <a href="https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/united-states/article/2184626/free-market-destructive-myth-down-free-market">South China Morning Post on 2 February 2019</a>. </span><br />
<br />
<div class="panel-pane pane-node-title pane-first pos-0">
<div class="pane-content">
<h1 class="title" id="page-title" itemprop="name headline">
<span style="font-size: large;"><a href="https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/united-states/article/2184626/free-market-destructive-myth-down-free-market">The free market is a destructive myth. Down with the free market</a></span></h1>
</div>
</div>
<div class="panel-pane pane-entity-field pane-node-field-subheading pos-1">
<div class="pane-content">
<div class="field field-name-field-subheading field-type-text-long field-label-hidden">
<div class="field-items">
<div class="field-item even">
<ul>
<li><b>Andrew
Sheng says the free market is a bad idea that probably belongs in the
rubbish bin of history. A system where human beings and mother nature
have been reduced to cogs and commodities has brought only misery, and
climate change</b> </li>
</ul>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
<span class="field field-name-field-authors field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-hidden"></span><br />
<div class="scmp-v2-author-image author-image">
<a href="https://www.scmp.com/author/andrew-sheng"><img alt="Andrew Sheng" class="lazyload-processed loaded" data-ignore="true" data-original="https://cdn2.i-scmp.com/sites/default/files/styles/70x70/public/andrew_sheng.jpg?itok=tlB6GOqr" height="70" src="https://cdn2.i-scmp.com/sites/default/files/styles/70x70/public/andrew_sheng.jpg?itok=tlB6GOqr" title="Andrew Sheng" width="70" /></a></div>
<div class="scmp-v2-author-name">
<a href="https://www.scmp.com/author/andrew-sheng">Andrew Sheng</a></div>
2 February 2019<br />
<br />
In a time of the <a href="https://www.scmp.com/news/world/europe/article/2184525/uk-says-it-may-have-delay-brexit-pass-necessary-laws" shape="rect" target="_self">messy Brexit divorce</a> and <a href="https://www.scmp.com/video/china/2184446/latest-us-china-trade-talks-overshadowed-huawei-national-security" shape="rect" target="_self">acrimonious US-China trade relations</a>,
there is angst over whether the world is entering a period of disorder.
This month will witness whether these relationships can be saved. But
it is already clear that Brexit will happen, deal or <a href="https://www.scmp.com/news/world/europe/article/2183069/watch-british-pm-theresa-may-turns-brexit-plan-b" shape="rect" target="_self">no deal</a>,
and that even if the United States-China tariff negotiations succeed in
furthering detente, the damage to the bilateral relationship will take a
long time to repair.<br />
<br />
<div class="v2-processed">
The current issue of <i>Foreign Affairs</i>
magazine asks: “Who will run the world?” The US-sponsored liberal
global order is in crisis, which means that “the future is up for
grabs”, it notes.</div>
<div class="v2-processed">
The hard reality is that stability is no longer
the dictate of a single hegemony, but the outcome of a geopolitical game
of thrones, which is itself shaped and disrupted by technology, human
migration, climate change, and competing ideologies amid worsening
social inequality.</div>
<div class="v2-processed">
If you believe in astrology, even the blood moons and eclipses are signalling a change in the world order.</div>
<div class="v2-processed">
The person who predicted the demise of the
self-regulating market order was Hungarian historian, sociologist and
economist Karl Polanyi (1886-1964). His book, <i>The Great Transformation</i>, came out in 1944, the same year as <i>The Road to Serfdom</i>, by Austrian economist Friedrich A. Hayek (1899-1992).</div>
<div class="v2-processed">
Hayek founded the Mont Pelerin Society in 1947,
which had great success in pushing for neoliberalism around the world on
the premise of free markets, free trade, free capital flows, rule of
law, primacy of individual freedoms and electoral democracy. Hayek was
the intellectual father of the current order.</div>
Even though the socialist experiment in economics failed with the <a href="https://www.scmp.com/news/world/article/1874821/east-german-bureaucrat-whose-blunder-brought-down-berlin-wall-dies-86" shape="rect" target="_self">collapse of the Berlin Wall</a> in 1989, the neoliberal order has been shaky since the <a href="https://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/article/1311915/2008-financial-crisis-led-surge-suicides-international-study-finds" shape="rect" target="_self">global financial crisis</a> of 2008, and is beginning to crumble amid lost growth, widening inequality and populist sentiment against globalisation.<br />
<div class="v2-processed">
Polanyi presciently points out that “the idea of
a self-adjusting market implied a stark utopia. Such an institution
could not exist for any length of time without annihilating the human
and natural substance of society; it would have physically destroyed man
and transformed his surroundings into a wilderness”.</div>
<div class="v2-processed">
In short: “To allow the market
mechanism to be the sole director of the fate of human beings and their
natural environment … would result in the demolition of society.”</div>
<div class="v2-processed">
Polanyi’s thesis rests on four crucial insights.
First, the economy is embedded in society, which is itself embedded in
nature. But to claim the market is self-regulating dehumanises society:
when the market is a mechanical system, human beings and mother nature
are reduced to cogs and wheels.</div>
<div class="v2-processed">
And today, the populist revolt against the cruelties of the market and the revenge of nature (that is, <a href="https://www.scmp.com/news/china/society/article/2164262/how-climate-change-could-cause-more-mega-storms-super-typhoon" shape="rect" target="_self">climate change</a>)
suggest the human and natural worlds have had it with the free market,
an idea that should be dumped in the rubbish bin of history.</div>
<div class="v2-processed">
Second, Polanyi argues that the commodification
of land, labour and capital is fictitious: land is a natural resource,
not something to be traded and valued. (It is ironic that land is a
commodity, but that gross domestic product calculations do not measure
the costs of ecological destruction and pollution.)</div>
Human labour cannot be bought and sold as if people are slaves. Money is
“merely a token of purchasing power which … comes into being through
the mechanism of banking or state finance”.
(And what is the true value of money, when central banks can engineer <a href="https://www.scmp.com/news/china/economy/article/2012930/china-talks-down-negative-interest-rates-ahead-g20-summit" shape="rect" target="_self">negative interest rates</a>?)<br />
<br />
Third, Polanyi says: “The social history of our time is the result of a
double movement: the one is the principle of economic liberalism, aiming
at the establishment of a self-regulating market; the other is the
principle of social protection, aiming at the conservation of man and
nature as productive organisation.” In other words, one movement
generates the other.<br />
<div class="v2-processed">
Fourth, the gold standard was a key invention
that anchored the idea of a self-regulating market. Gold imposed a “hard
budget constraint”, forcing people and states to live within their
means.</div>
<div class="v2-processed">
But it was precisely the pain of deflation,
unemployment and social distress – caused by the misguided return to the
gold standard – that created the conditions for the rise of fascism in
the 1930s.</div>
<div class="v2-processed">
Modern central banking, on the other hand, is a
“soft budget constraint”: when the market tries to impose pain on
individuals, firms and states living beyond their means, central banks
are asked to print more money.</div>
<div class="v2-processed">
The fact that the markets are up because the US
Federal Reserve has promised to slow the rate-hiking cycle is evidence
that people still believe in the <a href="https://www.scmp.com/business/global-economy/article/1833338/forget-normalised-us-rates-greenspan-put-here-stay" shape="rect" target="_self">“Greenspan put”</a>. Every time the market wobbles, central banks are either lowering interest rates or increasing liquidity.</div>
<div class="v2-processed">
Free markets cannot exist in practice as long as
central banks are around, injecting trillions into global markets and
holding more than their fair share of sovereign debt, equity and even
non-performing assets in the name of monetary and financial stability.
Central bankers are no longer independent if they perceive their job as
maintaining the stability of stock market indices.</div>
We cannot talk of a new global order without a
hard look at the world as a total, in human, political, financial,
social and ecological terms. Economics can no longer be allowed to run
riot, independent of politics, sociology and ecology. It just does not
add up.
<br />
<div class="v2-processed">
Polanyi was correct about a great
transformation, which continues in the 21st century. But what we are
facing now is a great destruction.</div>
<b>Andrew Sheng writes on global issues from an Asian perspective</b>jan joost teunissenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14018967221957534084noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3510749443422882016.post-81679722810419263662019-01-09T03:07:00.002-08:002019-01-09T03:48:41.821-08:00Europe lacks democracy - Women protest in France<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhmeDD_Bj0Bi0FjxzOLOa7swP0GDEyA4JwbdE6lXKkJSo-l_X7IuIFDBTytZt1XtZQgAz5oaAEhBahhSYKglkIPl-qLxtoJY15NZ3Jyts5z8AsiyKenNJeMwMERlsBhvtzxpZqRQJqbVgk/s1600/gilets+jaunes+-+femmes.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="444" data-original-width="788" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhmeDD_Bj0Bi0FjxzOLOa7swP0GDEyA4JwbdE6lXKkJSo-l_X7IuIFDBTytZt1XtZQgAz5oaAEhBahhSYKglkIPl-qLxtoJY15NZ3Jyts5z8AsiyKenNJeMwMERlsBhvtzxpZqRQJqbVgk/s400/gilets+jaunes+-+femmes.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<span style="font-size: large;">A key problem of Europe is its lack of democracy. Sure, we have elections, but that's not democracy. Elections can be a means to prevent that the same party or the same coalition of parties rules all the time. But when parties have become (1) rather similar in their political views and ways of operating, and (2) are representing above all the interests of priviliged persons and groups, representative democracy does not deliver what it should deliver: decision-making power of the people.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: large;">What I like in the article below (published by <a href="https://madmimi.com/p/b1119d?pact=20746870-149108249-7127580656-b2abe459b24f6b63ed9f0dcee0f487838ebd8726">Politika</a> and translated from Spanish) is that <a href="https://wsimag.com/es/authors/631-luis-casado">Luis Casado</a> points to this fundamental flaw in representative democracy in France, in Europe, and elsewhere. The other thing I like in his article is the way he describes the protest of women yellow vests in the eight mass demonstration (Act VIII) of the <i>gilets jaunes</i> in France. </span><br />
<br />
<br />
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<b><span style="font-family: "helvetica" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt;">Act VIII. The yellow vests don’t give up. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">We’ll not move back a millimeter</i> is
their motto. They are refractory to empty speeches, to void promises and to
smoke screens. Now, the women decided to go out on the street. Alone. Because
it is not only necessary to feed the children, to earn the daily pot, to manage
the home, to keep occupied the roundabouts ... but also show that theirs is the
Quiet Force. The violent ones are in the government. Luis Casado tells it ...
and it will not be the last episode ...</span></b></div>
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<a href="https://madmimi.com/p/b1119d?pact=20746870-149108249-7127580656-b2abe459b24f6b63ed9f0dcee0f487838ebd8726"><b><span style="font-family: "helvetica" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 24.0pt;">What do the yellow vests want?</span></b></a></div>
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<span lang="FR" style="font-family: "helvetica" , "sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: FR;">Luis Casado</span></div>
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<span lang="FR" style="font-family: "helvetica" , "sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: FR;">"Seditious, factional, agitators, violent,
'casseurs' (destroyers) ..."</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica" , "sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">This is how Benjamin Grivaux, minister and spokesman
of the government of Emmanuel Macron, refers to the yellow vests. A chorus of journalistic
cockatoos repeat in the media: "Seditious, factional, agitators, violent,
'casseurs' ... Then, when the yellow vests denounce the infamous, manipulative
and to-the-orders-of-power-eared journalism, the journalists lament as
unstained vestals : "Yellow vests attack press freedom" ...</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica" , "sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">However, one of the most obvious characteristics of
the yellow vest, together with its determination, its capacity for sacrifice,
its generosity and its humanism, is its will to act peacefully. As if to prove
it, today, Sunday, the eve of Epiphany, the women in yellow vests went out to
the street. Facing a cohort of police armed to the teeth for the urban
guerrilla, they shout in unison: "Kiss me!" "Kiss me!" (A
bisous! A bisous!).</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica" , "sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">The armed messengers of peace and order don't react
and turn to their commander: "What do we do, boss?"</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica" , "sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Yesterday, Saturday, Act VIII of the movement that
shakes France to its foundations, the number of protesters doubled in relation
to the previous Saturday, denying the government and the media claim –against
all evidence– that the movement loses strength.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica" , "sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">The yellow vests are a revolutionary, exemplary and
historical movement. They go out to the street, they socially meet again and
they remake society ... The poor person usually becomes tiny, lowers his voice
and his neck, he lives as if apologizing for being there, blamed for his
poverty by the winners, the experts, the ones who know, the wealthy and his
servants. The yellow vest understood that he’s the people, and he remembered
what he was taught in the public, secular and free school: "The French
Revolution eliminated forever the social inequalities before the Law, and made
the people the only sovereign". The yellow vest is the people, ergo ...
it's sovereign.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica" , "sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Faced with the crisis of the regime, two paths emerge:
some, the democrats, demand to expand, extend citizen rights, practice direct
democracy. The citizen initiative referendum (RIC) translates the will of the
people to decide whatever concerns them. Others, the authoritarians, bet on the
providential man / woman who, imposing another order, his, restores to France
the order and tranquility that is the delight of big money.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica" , "sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">In this bifurcation, in this alternative, arises
again, as in September 1789, the difference between left and right: the left
fights against privileges, opposes them, declares them inadmissible. The right
protects privileges, lives thanks to them, and justifies them by being of
'divine origin' or the prize of accumulated wealth by stripping the people.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica" , "sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">The installed political crust mourns the end of
representative democracy. The yellow vests respond that the rules of
representation must be defined by those represented. Not for the representatives.
It is the people who must set the limits of the representation, the mission of
the representative, and establish the control mechanisms that allow the
representative to be revoked if he does not obey the mandate received from
those who elected him.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica" , "sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Representative democracy? Yes, but as in the Athens of
Pericles: brief mandate, non-renewable, revocable, controlled and without
privileges.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica" , "sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">The mass of servant journalists don’t understand.
That's why they keep asking the yellow vests: "But ... what are your
demands?"</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica" , "sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Emmanuel Macron proposed "a great national
debate". And he hastened to set the limits of the debate. "We can’t
undo what we have already done," he declared, Jupiterian. Before
insinuating the topics that in his opinion can be discussed.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica" , "sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">The yellow vests, remembering once again the French
Revolution, retort: "It is not the representative who sets the limits of
the sovereignty of the represented. Why should our sovereignty be limited? With
what legitimacy can someone limit the rights of citizens, who are, precisely,
the source of legitimacy? "</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica" , "sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">"There are very technical issues", dares to
argue some political scientist, a kind of sports commentator supplied with too
many balls. The answer is immediate: "In politics there are no 'experts':
we are all equal and we have all the right to a vote."</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica" , "sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">The deep thinking goes further: choosing is not
voting. To elect means to designate a "deputy” who’s the one who votes
everything in our name, regardless of our opinion. By electing him, we abdicate
our own sovereignty for 4, 5 or 6 years.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica" , "sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">The Constitution, which should protect the citizen,
their freedoms and their rights, is actually a political prison that keeps us
tied up. There is no article in the Constitution that openly denies the sovereignty
of the people (excepted for the Chilean Constitution). But the Constitution
states that the laws are voted by Parliament, not by citizens. The
representatives, deputies and senators, vote laws that suit them and their
bosses.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica" , "sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">That fact, verified not only in France but throughout
the world, is what leads the yellow vests to claim their right to control and
to revoke the elected deputies. Because the deputies, the representatives,
institute their own power, stripping the people of their sovereignty.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica" , "sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Étienne Chouard, a militant who thinks and makes you think,
maintains that it is not a matter of going to the 6th Republic, but to the
first democracy ... Until now the power of the oligarchy has prevailed, a
privileged social sector that imposed suffrage as the best tool to preserve its
power. For 25 centuries we have known that the tool of democracy is not the suffrage
but the random draw*): Montesquieu, Rousseau and other great thinkers said it,
before this great truth was conveniently hidden.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica" , "sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Étienne Chouard believes that this is not a democracy
because, if one examines reality, the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">demos</i>
does not have the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">kratos</i>.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica" , "sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">In democracy, no financial power should own the media.
In a democracy, the currency can’t be the private tool of big capital in the
hands of a privatized Central Bank. Just as there is political sovereignty,
there must be monetary sovereignty.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica" , "sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">The citizen revolution of the yellow vests is not only
alive, but also rests on a deep reflection about the type of society we should
build.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica" , "sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">What is no obstacle for the remote-controlled
journalist to ask once again: "But ... what are your demands?"</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica" , "sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">The answer is simple. The yellow vests, that is to say
the people, want to recover the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">kratos</i>...</span></div>
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<span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">*********</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica" , "sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">*) "</span><span style="font-family: "helvetica" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt;">Democracy’s not
the vote but the random draw"</span><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "calibri" , "sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">Donald
Kagan, History teacher Yale University, wrote in his Pericles’s biography
(Pericles of Athens and the Birth of Democracy, 1991) :</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "calibri" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">“In the years 450 bC, under the leadership of
Pericles, the Athens Assembly voted a few Laws that made of their Constitution
the most democratic tool of all times. That Constitution gave a direct and
unquestionable power to the citizen’s constituency and to the popular Courts,
whose decisions were adopted by simple majority. Most magistrates were designed
by random draw, excepted for a few number of carefully selected people
(specialist ones) that were designated by vote. All positions lasted for a
short period of time, and every deputy was under a careful and rigorous public
control.”</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "calibri" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><iframe allow="accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="264" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/bx3x-DOGS8M" width="415"></iframe> </span>jan joost teunissenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14018967221957534084noreply@blogger.com0