Category: Uncategorized

This article by “The Economist” analyzes China’s growth patterns. As China has been hailed as one of the fastest growing and most powerful economies globally, the very recent slow is an interesting point of examination. This ties in with our class discussions of what constitutes development, and how the globalizing effects of inclusion in the global economy impacts country growth. Interestingly, the article names the closed off nature of China’s financial system as both an asset in resilience to the recent crisis, allowing China’s economic growth to soar above other countries, but now this same resilience is harming China’s ability to pay back debt. This also raises questions about the concept of continuous growth.

The article discusses how the very factors that were able to keep the country afloat during the 2008 financial crisis (namely debt and the usage of credit) is now slowing and reversing growth trends, as financial system is relatively closed. As interesting piece of the article:

“The single most important development has been its credit binge. Total debt (including government, household and corporate) has climbed to about 250% of GDP, up 100 percentage points since 2008. This debt allowed China to power its economy through the global financial crisis but also saddled it with a heavy repayment burden. Most worrying, much of the credit flowed to property developers. China’s inventory of unsold homes sits at a record high. The real-estate sector, which previously accounted for some 15% of economic growth, could face outright contraction. New property starts fell by nearly a fifth in the first two months of 2015, compared with the same period a year earlier. From this vantage point, the abruptness of China’s current slowdown looks more cyclical than structural. A period of overheated economic growth tends to be followed by a correction. Not all cycles are created equal, however. Working off a credit overhang can take years. Given that China’s financial system is mostly closed, it has little risk of an acute crisis, but the other side of the coin is that it might need even longer to clean up its bad debts.”

This clip, starting at 8:30, is a fairly in-depth look into how tobacco companies have used international trade law (including international patent laws and free trade agreements) to sue countries who attempt to change advertising of cigarette packages. From legal cases initiated by tobacco giant PMI in Australia, to Uruguay, to Togo, different states are having different successes in their legal attempts to fight off these lawsuits.

http://www.care.org/sites/default/files/documents/GBV-2012-7535.pdf

This article looks more at the impact of migration of female workers from Bangladesh. The difficulties and abuses they face are distinct from male workers (such as those the readings described). It particularly focuses on the ease to which migratory labor for domestic work is coerced into sex work for survival. The common public perception that many women migrate to India to voluntarily engage in the commercial sex industry hampers efforts to increase police, employer, and land lord sensitivity and understanding of the workers.

One term that came up repeatedly in the readings on the WTO’s approach to the environment was the Kuznet’s Curve, described in this video. You can see by this graph, supposedly once income reaches a high enough point, the amount of pollutants will decrease dramatically.

This is the argument behind the idea that economic growth will lead to environmental protection because (according to neo-liberal ideas) the use of natural resources will become more efficient and pollution will be taken care of as people will value cleaner environments more (and be able to invest in cleaner production).

However, producers often do not pay for the externatlities they produce. In addition, increased income and affluence usually means increased consumption. As more and more resources are being used to meet more and more demands. The increase in production for consumption will nearly always increase pollution.

So while some green technologies may be afforded with higher income (better infrastructure for manufacturing and buildings), an increase in affluence will probably increase pollution. Thus, the Kuzent’s curve is largely based on faulty reasoning. This is disturbing considering this is the reasoning of the WTO.

http://www.noticias.nl/bolivia-cuiab%C3%A1-pipeline-profile

This article, along with dozens if not hundreds of others, documents the plight of the Chiquitano people of Bolivia. They have lived in the Bolivian Amazon for thousands of years, but in the past decades have faced much of the land being opened up for oil exploration and extraction.

Despite Bolivian laws create a conundrum: one law says that Indigenous people have rights to their land, another law says that right does not include potential hydrocarbon resources.

As the Chiquitano organize to fight for their land, they face many divisive issues. Some communities have agreed to allow exploration at the price of increased development projects while others absolutely refuse to work with conservationist groups for fear they will lose control of their land. The discussion in Bolivia as a whole frames the Chiqutano as being selfish by refusing to allow oil exploration that would be taxed and used for public spending under the Morales administration.

Like groups in Peru, the Chiquitano have protested and organized. However, oil exploration and exploitation continues.

file:///C:/Users/Owner/Documents/After%20Crash/School/School%20Winter%202015/INTL%20445/Reserach%20Paper%20INTL%20445/Why%20the%20deal%20to%20pay%20Brazil%20$300%20million%20just%20to%20keep%20U.S.%20cotton%20subsidies%20is%20bad%20for%20the%20WTO,%20poor%20countries,%20and%20U.S.%20taxpayers%20-%20The%20Washington%20Post.html

This article shows how the WTO, supposedly meant to equalize and liberalize trade, is limited in its purpose by its own rules. The US has exported subsidized cotton for decades, but recently this has been in violation of several free trade treaties. Instead of dropping the subsidies, which would allow countries like Brazil and Mali to benefit from increases in their cotton export prices, the US uses a loop hole in WTO law. Any member state of the WTO can only be brought to the ICJ for violating WTO laws or a treaty by another county who has signed the same treaty and has membership to the ICJ. Because few countries want to go through this, only the countries who are adversely effected would ever attempt to take the US before the ICJ; namely Brazil and Mali. To avoid this, the US has settled with the government of Brazil, agreeing to pay $300 million rather than end its subsidies.

Chapter 9 of McMichael compares the approaches of the sustainability project to the industrial and non-industrial countries of the world and how the fundamental assumptions of growth in the development and globalization projects may continue.

This city in Scotland has a community program for urban agriculture to increase food security and economic stability. Community organized and focused on social unity and volunteerism, Todmorden has increased its tourism revenues.

Instead of focusing on economic growth in the industrial world, this looks at more sustainable agriculture and consumption. I think it is a nice counter point to the globalization of agriculture; the localization and a more cosmopolitan approach to food security.

http://thedailyshow.cc.com/videos/r4vd91/wealthstock—insurance-vice

This clip of the Daily Show seems like an unorthodox post for a class. However, there are several merits:

First, this clips show how the discourse of corporate importance and power is air tight in the world economic forum. The attendees are largely members of what we would call the transnational corporate class; the global elites. Not only does the coverage treat the attendees of the forum in a favorable light, but their own understanding of the 2008 crisis indicates how little they believe they were to blame. It is interesting to see that, only 7 years after the financial melt down, how quick many media outlets are to forgive the actions of those that cause the crisis.  If this is the forum to decide how climate change will be handled, then one would hope for a higher degree of media scrutiny.

I also believe, that, despite it’s crassness and the lack of scholarly merit, this clip has another benefit; it is humorous. Many of our class discussions are down right depressing. We’ve all felt this. I think one of the most important things to maintain in international studies it the capacity to laugh at how ridiculous some of these situations are. If it is a choice between laughing or crying, I believe we as students will maintain a greater emotional stamina to deal with the problems presented by global inequality if we can retain the a sense of humor instead of developing a sense of fatalism.

Last month was Global Divestment Day, so protestors from 350.org too to the Toronto Stock Exchange to protest the Tar Sands extraction. The 350.org people present themselves as environmental alternatives to the normative consumption view on fossil fuel investments. The protestors also added that multilateral institutions such as the IMF and World Bank have put forth condemnations against state subsidies of fossil fuels. So in the case of energy consumption, it seems that the nation-state is more of a “daddy”-state rather than a nanny-state or even managerial state.