links for 2008-08-21

• The nationalist internationalist threat - Free exchange
• Globalization: Where to from here? - Rogue Economist Rants
• Poland Risks Serious Confrontation with Russia - Spiegel
• Paying Students to Learn Program Gets Mixed Grades - Zubin Jelveh
• Testing Paulson's Resolve? - Alpha.Sources blog
• Doha: The Last Mile - Bhagwati and Panagariya
• The good news about growing current account volatility - Vox EU

Comments

[hari]

Samuelson's piece (WP) on China - The nationalist internationalist threat.

China mainland started reforming/opening its domestic market some thirty years ago. It has now reached a critical mass which seems to endanger not only US hegemon - as Baghwati calims - but also rst of OECD block.

Globalization has in fact transformed international trade as well as international division of labour (as known among trade specialists).

It's false and timid of Samuelson to argue that international trade is not in China's national interest, long term, because mainland China will not be able to transform its sectoral developments without recourse to international competition -> it knows it best!

Moreover, Yuan has already appreciated and will surely move up with time as it find its own equilibrium, I suggest, because it's not in China's national interest to provoke protectionist sentiments inside OECD markets. It needs those markets to expand domestically and close the rural/urban divide - with the migration of population lager than US - to absorb into the labour market force.

China's GDP growth gambit is something not seen in recent development history. India is just a cycle or two behind learning from China's experience. Poverty eradication is the fundamental objective of their domestic development. And should they succeed what a great impact will it have on rest of the development world.

Samuelson shld instead be grateful that emerging markets are trying to solve their domestic competitive paradigm shift without foreign aid - but with the benefit of trade.

[hari]

The rogue economist is of course ranting about Globalization, as if it was a new phenomenon.

[hari]

Spiegel - On Poland's confrontation with Russia.

Germans are better at understanding what ticks their neighbours - who changed their minds so abruptly after Russian confrontation in Georgia - agreed to anti-missile base with US.

Rememeber the agreement allocates a vacant Polish military base to US/Pentagon to not only install the anti-missile batteries but also to man them with US soldiers who will now occupy the base inside Poland. It is a bilateral lease agreement. And surely, for all sobre observers, it is directed at Russia (not non-nuclear Iran!).

[robertdfeinman]

Hari:
What do you think the motivation of the US is in pushing so hard to install non-functional anti-missile systems?

The original "star wars" system was just military pork spending and has served its purpose well with untold billions having been transferred to contractors over the decades.

Russia knows that this new system isn't a "threat", so what is the game that is being played? Even a few troops stationed on former Russian client's territories doesn't mean a thing. What would have been different if the US had had a small base in Georgia? Would their presence have deterred a Russian invasion? I don't think so.

I've been puzzled by the game being played between Russia and the US since the fall of the USSR and have yet to figure it out. What countries say and what they do are two different things. What the US and Russia have been saying about military tactics makes no sense and is, obviously, for domestic consumption. So what does what they are doing really indicate?

[anne]

The problem for Russia has been and is simple, America has been intent on extending NATO or projecting our military power to Russian borders. Using the provocation of Georgia invading Ossetia is another instance of the strategy. Ossetia and Abkhazia have always been autonomous territories and never part of Georgia as such. The territories are on the Russian border, and filled with Russian citizens and monitored by Russian peace-keeping soldiers who have indeed been peace-keepers.

Georgia with no provocation chose to ferociously bombard Ossetia, then invade and occupy the territory and Russia responded to the immediate denunciation in Cold War terms by Secretary Rice, followed by Cheney and Bush and Gates. America then proceeded to use the Georgian excuse as a reason to immediately gain Polish government agreement to plant American missiles and American soldiers in Poland, though polls had long shown Poles did not favor any such program.

[anne]

Also, America has had a military presence in Georgia, wished to add Georgia to NATO, and is using the current excuse as a reason to further add to a military presence in Georgia along with extending NATO membership as agreement can be gained. Russia is being continually portrayed in the press as a Cold War threat or worse, effectively enough that the international press have been regularly drawing on the fiercest of American cold warriors as analysts.

Where is the Democratic opposition, might be wondered? The answer is that Barack Obama has been echoing Secretary Rice and condemning Russia almost from the beginning. So, we have a Cold War agreement in America from Republicans and Democrats to the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times.

The New York Times now tells us that war must be waged to victory in Afghanistan just to teach Russia the proper lesson of how fierce we are.

[anne]

As for the game, Obama, even Obama, found trade relations between Venezuela and China a problem for America. Suppose China were to sign an agreement with Venezuela to plant missiles and troops there (solely to prevent an attack by Iran, of course, but who knows). Venezuela is not on our border, but imagine our response to Chinese-Venezuelan military activities complete with missiles and Chinese soldiers who know how to use them.

[anne]

Hari:

"Remember the agreement allocates a vacant Polish military base to US/Pentagon to not only install the anti-missile batteries but also to man them with US soldiers who will now occupy the base inside Poland. It is a bilateral lease agreement. And surely, for all sober observers, it is directed at Russia (not non-nuclear Iran!)."

Remember, Georgia was an excuse the Polish government needed to act against what had long been firm Polish public opinion against American missiles. America is everywhere possible acting as a military imperialist, and shockingly American public opinion and overwhelmingly the press are supportive.

Be pleased, America, in saving Georgia we have finally saved Poland. Who knows the country we can similarly save next. Understand now why I found Obama's militant march through the Middle East and Europe so distressing.

[anne]

http://angryarab.blogspot.com/2008/08/south-ossetian-family-of-12-year-old.html

August 21, 2008

"The South Ossetian family of a 12 year old American girl have renewed their attack on the U.S. TV network which stopped them from telling their story of Georgian aggression on air. The live interview, which has whipped up a storm over media bias, saw the girl and her aunt describe how Russian soldiers saved them from Georgian attack – only to be bizarrely cut off after just two minutes." *

* http://www.russiatoday.com/news/news/29136

-- As'ad Abukhalil

[hari]

RDF - You're demanding to know what's inside the mind of GWB.

BTW, Bush came to WH with an agenda to undo his father's diplomatic coziness with China and Russia, in particular. He saw it in terms of ideological polarity reflecting deep seated antipathy to former communist states and whatnot.

So even if he suggests (with disbelief) that the base in Poland will be directed at (non-nuclear) Iran - and other rouge states - what he is saying, in fact, is that inspite of customary international law and its ramifications, America has legitimate right to do what he thinks is Right!

Russian history is full of such *monolithic cadavres* - they can literally feel and understand more than they say in public - ie. there is no sanctuary for Russian homeland, if it can't defend its sovereignty.

Now, Liberman arrives in Tiblisi and tells the press (along with Saak) that US shld provide modern anti-missiles and anti-tank weapons to protect the national sovereignty of Georgia....and so forth.

[Imagine Liberman is selected VP by McCain!]

If I were a Russian (I read/can't speak anymore Russian), I'd be shocked at what Rice did in Poland. Because it manifestly indicates to Russian masses what they've always been taught/told since the days of Bolshevik Revolution. There is not only hatred but (may be) something more against Russian civilization and its particular historical achievements....

Where does BO fit into all these monolithic policy being drawn in cement by GWB/Rice months before his term expires?
Will he subscribe to it or refute its genesis, in current context of how the Georgian/OS crisis developed?

I don't know. The EU will not sit idle and allow its peaceful coexistence policy towards former Soviet Union undone by an incumpup in WH. EU regional interest and priorities towards Russia are diametrically opposite to
GWB/Rice and their historical - but limited - perspective.
I can predit that even Kissinger would not subcribe to what Rice did right now in Poland - to demarcate the strategic policy framework towards emerging Russia - instead of cooperation.

[anne]

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/21/opinion/21thu1.html?ref=opinion&pagewanted=print

August 21, 2008

Afghanistan on Fire

NATO also needs to step up its military effort. With Russia threatening to redraw the post-Soviet map of Europe, this is not time for NATO to forfeit its military credibility by losing a war. Europe does not have a lot of available ground troops either. But it needs to send its best ones to Afghanistan and let them fight....

[So, Cold war insanity anew.]

[anne]

"NATO also needs to step up its military effort. With Russia threatening to redraw the post-Soviet map of Europe, this is not time for NATO to forfeit its military credibility by losing a war. Europe does not have a lot of available ground troops either. But it needs to send its best ones to Afghanistan and let them fight...."

Cold war insanity then insists that we counter Russia by destroying Afghanistan. Send your kiddies, the best kiddies, to Afghanistan, and "let them fight." This we must understand is American liberalism; I do not even wish to know at what American conservatism is writing.

[anne]

The ultimate rationale then for war in Afghanistan, from American liberalism, becomes countering Russia. Any wonder then why there was no press complaint when Obama marched through Europe preaching war in Afghanistan, and Obama did not even have the (shudder) Russian excuse for war then?

Leading the Cold Warrior analysts now that Russia gives the excuse so that we fully understand, are liberals such as Richard Holbrooke. We know where conservatives are. Any wonder why I find the coming President trapped completely in already failed foreign policy?

[anne]

Here from Juan Cole is the reference to the interview in which a 12-year-old Ossetian girl is not allowed by the American press to tell how she was saved from "Georgian aggression" by Russian soldiers:

http://www.juancole.com/2008/08/fox-news-12-year-old-girl-tells-truth.html .

[hari]

It all reflects a generation of US-Centric view of the world.
In EU, post-1989 and German Unity, we can't become prisoners of past but find ways and means to move forward with a view to integrating Russia into European cooperative ventures including energy and climate control.

Of course, when I speak of Russia - I'm speaking about *White* Russia - not its non-Russian territories. 30% or so of Ukraine (Eastern) population is Russian; Grobachev, Brezchnev and Kruschev were all Ukarainians - like Stalin was Georgian. So, one has to understand the underlying cultural polarity in Russia; although its current leadership is more or less originating from Petrograd - a city that was built by a French architect to reflect European cultural affinities - unlike landlocked Moscow.

[Anomalous Cowherd]

So. I run a business. I win by hiring illegal aliens. It gives me cost advantages over my rivals. Only suckers play by the rules. I buy from cheap, overseas manufacturers. If I build it myself, I have to pay taxes and deal with unions. If I buy Chinese, the communists don't charge a tax and if they have union problems, the People's Liberation Army police will just bash a few heads. Problem solved. I get cheap labor and capital inputs and can buy off politicians here in America with the profits. Sure they'll mumble some rhetoric but Obama and McCain are solid behind my globalist reality. Your ideals of re-training and unemployment vouchers and more housing subsidies are not going to get Joe Middleclass Working American back in the game. Go ahead, raise my taxes 5%. Just means I eat ribeyes instead of fillets. And when you're tired of your Ivy League tea party, come work for me.

The American Empire is just hanging around waiting 'til the barbarians get confident enough to storm the gates. When they do, no one will care.

[Julio]

Thanks, Anne for the reference. Another paragraph:

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/21/opinion/21thu1.html?ref=opinion&pagewanted=print

August 21, 2008

Afghanistan on Fire

Afghanistan’s president, Hamid Karzai, must rein in his government’s rampant corruption that has all but driven his people into the hands of the Taliban and criminal warlords.

There is a profound and I think deliberate misunderstanding here, that lays the foundation for the bellicose tone of the article. Who are these people they are talking about?

"Criminal warlords": "criminal" means they violate laws.
Whose laws?
Yes, some are mafiosi who took over a region. But others are traditional leaders of the local population, representative of their way of organizing their politics over generations.

"Taliban": who exactly do they mean? There is an armed insurgency, growing over the last few years. They may or may not be the same people we deposed six years ago. They obviously have considerable popular support, so they too represent the aspirations of some people.

And who, finally, are these "people" who are "driven into" the hands of the warlords and the Taliban? The vast unwashed masses who (as we are all expected to know) would never ally themselves with such scum if they had a choice?

[anne]

We are writing of a country with a lifespan of 43.1 and falling when last recorded for 2005, in November 2007.

There no longer even seems to be a sense of who the people or peoples called "Taliban" may be. Are they several peoples, ethnically or socially or politically? Are they representing or following the governing Taliban of 2000? Are they Afghans or Pakistanis, and if so native or immigrant. Why and whom are they fighting?

[anne]

Julio:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/21/opinion/21thu1.html?ref=opinion&pagewanted=print

August 21, 2008

Afghanistan on Fire

Afghanistan’s president, Hamid Karzai, must rein in his government’s rampant corruption that has all but driven his people into the hands of the Taliban and criminal warlords.

There is a profound and I think deliberate misunderstanding here, that lays the foundation for the bellicose tone of the article. Who are these people they are talking about?

[A critical consideration.]

[anne]

"There is a profound and I think deliberate misunderstanding here, that lays the foundation for the bellicose tone of the article. Who are these people they are talking about?"

Excuse a failure to use quotation marks for Julio's important comment, since I thought the indenting would be automatic but Julio use trick indenting.

[anne]

http://www.commonwealthfund.org/publications/publications_show.htm?doc_id=700868

August 20, 2008

Seeing Red: The Growing Burden of Medical Bills and Debt Faced by U.S. Families
By Michelle M. Doty, Sara R. Collins, Sheila D. Rustgi, and Jennifer L. Kriss

Overview

Analysis of the 2007 Commonwealth Fund Biennial Health Insurance Survey * finds the proportion of working-age Americans who struggled to pay medical bills and accumulated medical debt climbed from 34 percent to 41 percent, or 72 million people, between 2005 and 2007. In addition, 7 million adults age 65 and older had these problems, bringing the total to 79 million adults with medical debt or bill problems. All income groups reported an increase. Families with low or moderate incomes were particularly hard hit, as were adults who had gaps in health coverage or those underinsured. Because of medical bills or accumulated medical debt, an estimated 28 million adults reported they used up all their savings, 21 million incurred large credit card debt, and another 21 million were unable to pay for basic necessities. Sixty-one percent of those with medical debt or bill problems were insured at the time care was provided.

* http://www.commonwealthfund.org/publications/publications_show.htm?doc_id=700872

[anne]

http://www.commonwealthfund.org/publications/publications_show.htm?doc_id=700872

August 20, 2008

Losing Ground: How the Loss of Adequate Health Insurance Is Burdening Working Families
By Sara R. Collins, Jennifer L. Kriss, Michelle M. Doty, and Sheila D. Rustgi

Overview

The economic downturn is forcing working families across the United States to make tough financial choices, often involving sacrificing needed health care and health insurance. Using data from four years of the Commonwealth Fund Biennial Health Insurance Survey, this report examines the status of health insurance for U.S. adults under age 65 and the implications for family finances and access to health care. Insurance coverage deteriorated over the past six years, with declines in coverage most severe for moderate-income families. As result, more families are experiencing medical bill problems or cost-related delays in getting needed care. In 2007, nearly two-thirds of U.S. adults, or an estimated 116 million people, struggled to pay medical bills, went without needed care because of cost, were uninsured for a time, or were underinsured (i.e., were insured but not adequately protected from high medical expenses).

[anne]

"In 2007, nearly two-thirds of U.S. adults, or an estimated 116 million people, struggled to pay medical bills, went without needed care because of cost, were uninsured for a time, or were underinsured (i.e., were insured but not adequately protected from high medical expenses)."

Good grief. I really do not understand what any such remotely reasonable estimate of the degree of the problem might mean.

[anne]

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/22/world/europe/22policy.html?hp=&pagewanted=print

August 22, 2008

Michael McFaul, a Stanford University professor and the chief Russia adviser for Senator Barack Obama, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, said, “The potential is big because at the end of the day, they are the hegemon in that region and we are not and that’s a fact.” Mr. McFaul said Russia appeared intent on trying to “disrupt the international order” and had the capacity to succeed.

[What is wrong with these folks?]

[anne]

Barack Obama was obviously told from the beginning that Russia was intent on trying to "disrupt the international order" and responded accordingly and mistakingly. Whatever personal inclinations of foreign affairs Obama once had, the evidence of policy pronouncements reflecting a team of advisers has been increasingly problematic. Obama here has simply been echoing Secretary Rice and setting a Cold War frame of thinking. So much for an opposition.

Distressing.

[anne]

Where Hari insists that European policy leaders and analysts will resist finding a Cold War rationale come startlingly and severely to life in a reasoned and reasonable Russian response to an unprovoked attack by Georgia on Ossetia on Russia's border, America left and right want a fight.

Suddenly Obama's chief Russian adviser, another Stanford professor following a Stanford professor Rice knows that Russia is intent on disrupting the international order. How though, whatever could the thinking mean? What is the order Russia is intent on disrupting, and why would I listen to such an adviser for more than a moment unless I understood precisely?

[anne]

What strikes me as especially ironic is that as Obama folks echo Secretary Rice, they strengthen John McCain. I prefer however not to think in terms of campaign gaming as such. What is important is that Obama had the opportunity to take a position nuanced in a similar way to that of Mikhail Gorbachev, * but as with Afghanistan or Pakistan or Iran or even Venezuela, Bolivia and Ecuador there is mere stridency, militancy.

* http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/20/opinion/20gorbachev.html?ref=opinion&pagewanted=print