HAVANA, Cuba (ACN) -- The Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America (ALBA) is an institution that goes beyond cooperation among its member countries as it includes monetary and financial integration, said Mexican economy expert.
Jaime Estay, with the Autonomous University of Puebla spoke about the topic on the third day of sessions of the 12th International Meeting on Globalization and Development Problems underway in Havana.
The academician said ALBA has found solutions to deal with the current world financial crisis generated by a global monetary disorder resulting from the weakness of the US dollar and by policies implemented by the International Monetary Fund (IMF).
Estay pointed out that Latin America is leading national and multilateral actions at regional level to mitigate the negative effects of the crisis on local economies.
The Mexican expert described as inadmissible that Group 20, constituted by industrialized and emerging nations, were entrusted with the responsibility of adopting the measures to overcome the world economic crisis.
G-20 undertook the roll without paying attention to the fact that the UN General Assembly, made up by 192 member countries, was summoned for a meeting to analyze the world situation deal and ended with plans of actions set up.
Estay said G-20 has not touched structural features of the global economy and mentioned as an example of such behavior the fact that the IMF has paradoxically grown stronger lately instead of having disappeared for being one of the leading originators of serious monetary and financial problems.
Likewise, attending Havana’s meeting, Manfred Brenefeld, with the University of Ottawa, Canada, warned that the crisis has driven the world to follow the path to social democracy or fascism in certain countries, politically speaking.
According to the Canadian expert, the most effective and plausible way would be social democracy, but as a prelude to new true socialism, which he said should be credible and possible for the peoples.
Our mission is to make that Socialism understandable, Brenefeld said.
With some 1,000 Cuban and foreign participants, the 12th Int’l Meeting on Globalization and Development Problems will run until next Friday, March 5 in Havana.
Thursday, March 4, 2010
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Showing posts with label G-20. Show all posts
Showing posts with label G-20. Show all posts
Thursday, March 4, 2010
Tuesday, September 29, 2009
G-20: One step behind
David Roberts:
So the Group of 20 is going to be the body "coordinating" the global economy from now on, the leaders of the world's most powerful developed and developing nations agreed Friday in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The decision to remove that responsibility from the G-8, the world's richest industrialized nations, and encompass Latin America's Brazil, Argentina and Mexico as well as other major emerging economies like China, India, South Africa, Indonesia and South Korea is a positive step forward. The BRIC countries in particular are playing an increasingly important role in the global economy and giving them more say in managing its affairs would be a welcome move indeed.
But is that what's really going to happen by including developing nations on this global "board of directors"? Not likely, because as we've seen time and time again, whether it's the G-20, the G-8, the G-7 or the G-whatever, such loose talking shops will never have the authority - given the different national interests involved - to make hard decisions on specific matters, let alone manage the global economy. And that's exactly what we saw once again in Pittsburgh - lots of fudging, on issues from bankers' bonuses to trade and budget imbalances. Talking shops are important, world leaders need to get together every now and again to discuss big issues, but the idea that, as British Prime Minister Gordon Brown put it, the G-20 is now going to become the "premier economic organization for dealing with economic management around the world," is, eh, pie in the sky.
Even if the leaders of 19 such diverse nations (the 20th member is the EU, which complicates matters even more) could agree on the specifics of managing the globe's finances, they would inevitably be one step behind the curve, as the economy moves faster than regulators, managers, directors, finance ministers, central bank chairpersons or even presidents.
All that's not to say that there are no lessons to be learned from discussing these issues at the highest level, but more questions than answers will likely be the result. How can world leaders prevent another financial meltdown like the one we saw last year? Why didn't the "experts" see it coming, or did they? Looking at Latin America, and comparing the region to say China and India, one lesson to be learned is the need to develop the region's domestic economies and depend less on exports, whether in the form of commodities or, like Mexico, manufactured goods sold largely in the US. The Chinese and the Indians saw their export markets collapse but are emerging from the slump relatively unscathed thanks to their stronger domestic markets.
But at the end of the day, unless individual nations are prepared to cede a degree of sovereignty to international organizations, the "solutions" (read "delayed reactions") will continue to come in at a national or at best regional level, just as we saw during the financial crisis when the US, Europe and others all adopted very different approaches. Economic stimulus packages, nationalizing the banks or bailing them out, stricter capital requirements, slashing interest rates to encourage lending (when loose lending was what started it all off), quantitative easing, protectionism (buy American, buy Brazilian etc), caps on bonuses - you name it, someone's tried it. If the G-8 couldn't agree what to do, what chance does the G-20 have?
bnamericas
So the Group of 20 is going to be the body "coordinating" the global economy from now on, the leaders of the world's most powerful developed and developing nations agreed Friday in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The decision to remove that responsibility from the G-8, the world's richest industrialized nations, and encompass Latin America's Brazil, Argentina and Mexico as well as other major emerging economies like China, India, South Africa, Indonesia and South Korea is a positive step forward. The BRIC countries in particular are playing an increasingly important role in the global economy and giving them more say in managing its affairs would be a welcome move indeed.
But is that what's really going to happen by including developing nations on this global "board of directors"? Not likely, because as we've seen time and time again, whether it's the G-20, the G-8, the G-7 or the G-whatever, such loose talking shops will never have the authority - given the different national interests involved - to make hard decisions on specific matters, let alone manage the global economy. And that's exactly what we saw once again in Pittsburgh - lots of fudging, on issues from bankers' bonuses to trade and budget imbalances. Talking shops are important, world leaders need to get together every now and again to discuss big issues, but the idea that, as British Prime Minister Gordon Brown put it, the G-20 is now going to become the "premier economic organization for dealing with economic management around the world," is, eh, pie in the sky. Even if the leaders of 19 such diverse nations (the 20th member is the EU, which complicates matters even more) could agree on the specifics of managing the globe's finances, they would inevitably be one step behind the curve, as the economy moves faster than regulators, managers, directors, finance ministers, central bank chairpersons or even presidents.
All that's not to say that there are no lessons to be learned from discussing these issues at the highest level, but more questions than answers will likely be the result. How can world leaders prevent another financial meltdown like the one we saw last year? Why didn't the "experts" see it coming, or did they? Looking at Latin America, and comparing the region to say China and India, one lesson to be learned is the need to develop the region's domestic economies and depend less on exports, whether in the form of commodities or, like Mexico, manufactured goods sold largely in the US. The Chinese and the Indians saw their export markets collapse but are emerging from the slump relatively unscathed thanks to their stronger domestic markets.
But at the end of the day, unless individual nations are prepared to cede a degree of sovereignty to international organizations, the "solutions" (read "delayed reactions") will continue to come in at a national or at best regional level, just as we saw during the financial crisis when the US, Europe and others all adopted very different approaches. Economic stimulus packages, nationalizing the banks or bailing them out, stricter capital requirements, slashing interest rates to encourage lending (when loose lending was what started it all off), quantitative easing, protectionism (buy American, buy Brazilian etc), caps on bonuses - you name it, someone's tried it. If the G-8 couldn't agree what to do, what chance does the G-20 have?
bnamericas
Monday, September 28, 2009
Pittsburgh and the Margarita Summit
Reflections of Fidel
(Taken from CubaDebate)
(Taken from CubaDebate)
THE Leaders’ Statement of the G-20 Summit in Pittsburgh on Friday, September 25, would appear to be unreal. Let us look at the principal points of its content:
"We meet in the midst of a critical transition from crisis to recovery to turn the page on an era of irresponsibility and to adopt a set of policies, regulations and reforms to meet the needs of the 21st century global economy."
"We pledge today to sustain our strong policy response until a durable recovery is secured."
"…we pledge to adopt the policies needed to lay the foundation for strong, sustained and balanced growth in the 21st century."
"We want growth without cycles of boom and bust and markets that foster responsibility not recklessness."
"…we act together to generate strong, sustainable and balanced global growth. We need a durable recovery that creates the good jobs our people need."
"We need to establish a pattern of growth across countries that is more sustainable and balanced, and reduce development imbalances."
"We pledge to avoid destabilizing booms and busts in asset and credit prices."
"…we will also make decisive progress on structural reforms that foster private demand and strengthen long-run growth potential."
"Where reckless behavior and a lack of responsibility led to crisis, we will not allow a return to banking as usual."
"We are committed to act together to raise capital standards, to implement strong international compensation standards aimed at ending practices that lead to excessive risk-taking…"
"We designated the G-20 to be the premier forum for our international economic cooperation."
"We are committed to a shift in International Monetary Fund (IMF) quota share to dynamic emerging markets and developing countries of at least 5%."
"Sustained economic development is essential in order to reduce poverty."
The G-20 is made up of the seven most industrialized and richest countries:
United States, Canada, Germany, Britain, France, Italy and Japan, plus Russia; the 11 principal emerging countries: China, India, South Korea, Indonesia, South Africa, Brazil, Argentina, Australia, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Mexico and the European Union, a number of which have excellent economic and political relations with us. Spain and Holland have participated as guests in the last three Summits.
The idea of capitalist development without crises is the grand illusion that the United States and its allies are trying to sell to the emerging economy countries participating in the G-20.
Almost the totality of the Third World countries that are not allies of the United States are observing how this nation prints paper money which circulates throughout the planet as convertible currency without gold backing, buys shares and companies, natural resources, goods and real estate assets and public debt bonds, protects its products, dispossesses nations of their finest brains and confers an extraterritorial nature on its laws. This is in addition to the overwhelming power of its arms and its monopoly of the fundamental means of information.
Consumer societies are incompatible with the conservation of natural and energy resources that the development and the preservation of our species require.
In a brief historical period and thanks to its Revolution, China ceased being a semicolonial and semifeudal country, grew at the rate of more than 10% over the past 20 years and has become the principal driving force of the world economy. Never has a huge multinational state achieved similar growth. It now possesses the highest reserves of convertible currency and is the largest creditor of the United States.
The difference is abysmal in relation to the most developed capitalist countries of the world: the United States and Japan. The debts of both nations, in their turn, accumulate the sum of $20 trillion.
The United States can no longer constitute a model of economic development.
Starting from the fact that in recent years the planet’s temperature has increased by 0.8 degrees Celsius, on the same day as the Pittsburgh Summit ended, the top U.S. news agency reported that "Earth's temperature is likely to jump nearly 3 degrees Celsius between now and the end of the century, even if every country cuts greenhouse gas emissions as proposed, according to a United Nations update."
"Scientists looked at emission plans from 192 nations and calculated what would happen to global warming. The projections take into account 80 percent pollution cuts from the U.S. and Europe by 2050, which are not sure things."
"Carbon dioxide, mostly from the burning of fossil fuels such as coal and oil, is the main cause of global warming, trapping the sun's energy in the atmosphere. The world's average temperature has already risen 1.4 degrees (0.8 degrees Celsius)," it reiterates. "Much of projected rise in temperature is because of developing nations, which aren't talking much about cutting their emissions, scientists said at a United Nations press conference Thursday."
"‘We are headed toward very serious changes in our planet,’ said Achim Steiner, head of the U.N.'s environment program."
"Even if the developed world cuts its emissions by 80 percent and the developing world cuts theirs in half by 2050…the world is still facing a 3-degree (1.7 degree Celsius) said Robert Corell, a prominent U.S. climate scientist who helped oversee the update."
"…still translates into a nearly 5 degree (2.7 degree Celsius) increase in world temperature by the end of the century. European leaders and the Obama White House have set a goal to limit warming to just a couple degrees."
What they have not explained is how they are going to reach that objective, nor the GDP contribution to invest in poor countries and compensate for the damage occasioned by the volume of contaminating gases that the most industrialized nations have discharged into the atmosphere. World public opinion must acquire a solid culture on climate change. Even if there isn’t the slightest error of calculation, humanity will be marching to the edge of the abyss.
When Obama was meeting in Pittsburgh with his G-20 guests to talk about the delights of Capua, the Summit of the Heads of State of UNASUR and the Organization of African Unity [African Union] was beginning on the Venezuelan Isla Margarita. More than 60 presidents, prime ministers and high-ranking representatives of South American and Africa met there. Also present were Lula, Cristina Fernández and President Jacob Zuma of South Africa, who had arrived from Pittsburgh to enjoy a warmer and more fraternal summit, during which the problems of the Third World were covered with much frankness. The president of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, Hugo Rafael Chávez, was brilliant and vibrant in that Summit. I had the agreeable possibility of listening to the voices of known and proven friends.
Cuba is grateful for the support and solidarity that emerged from that Summit, where nothing was left in oblivion.
Whatever happens, the peoples will become constantly more aware of their rights and their duties!
What a great battle will be waged in Copenhagen!
Fidel Castro Ruz
September 27, 2009
6.14 p.m.
Translated by Granma International
- Reflections oF Fidel
granma.cu
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