This is on two different levels. One: There is an attack going on in Mumbai, and the exact thing that the attackers want – full coverage, and even commentary that reminds one of a football match – was given to them. See what my good friend Kiran (an Indian who was in India during the… Read More »
Paul Krugman thinks that Mr Obama has the chance of ushering in a FDR-like New Deal for the United States, but he thinks that Obama should be less cautious about his economic policies. He says that the shortcomings of FDRs New Deal, on the short run, was due to the cautiousness of the economic policies… Read More »
… a socialist an insult? Why is the idea of redistribution such an anathema that an utterance of ‘spreading the wealth around’ is described as a gaffe, one to quickly run away from? Why does a country with so much income-disparity and rising inequality squirm at the idea of fairness? Why does Mr John McCain… Read More »
Some months ago Jeremy recommended The Wire to me, describing it as anthropological. I just finished watching the last episode of the last season, and being an anthropologist myself, I have to agree that this looks pretty much ethnographic. HBO is known for their good shows. Hell, the last piece of TV that I really… Read More »
Contrary to “popular knowledge”, a new book suggests that China took a turn for the worse in the 90s. You might want to read MIT’s Yasheng Huang‘s book Capitalism with Chinese Characteristics. Or, if you are really busy – like me – you might start with/settle for the review of the book by The Economist.… Read More »
Much has been made by the IMF of emerging markets (.pdf) in Africa. Dani Rodrik looks at what happens in the current period where rich countries, especially the US, are in a ‘slowdown’, and there is much anti-globalisation sentiments among Americans. Add to this a not-so-hospitable disposition towards exports from developing countries (actually, China is… Read More »
I just discovered the Project Syndicate site…. I am not yet done exploring it, but I think it promises to be interesting. The objectives, according to the home page, are: – bringing distinguished voices from across the world to local audiences everywhere; – strengthening the independence of printed media in transition and developing countries; –… Read More »
Emerging Economies and the WTO Ms. Mariarosaria Iorio of the International Gender and Trade Network (IGTN) thinks, among other things, that the fact that the insistence of emerging economies on keeping the Special Safeguard Mechanism (SSM) during the last Doha Round, an insistence that led to the breakdown of the round, shows that the world… Read More »
My good friend, Akinlabi, told me about 9ice when I went to see him in Ilorin some months ago. For some reasons (perhaps because I am some sort of snub?) I never really listened to it. I guess it is really because of the Gongo aso hype…. Anyway, I was in a friend’s car some… Read More »
I just read here that Nigeria is the “fastest growing generator” of sovereign wealth over the last five years, recording a growth of 291 percent. Nigeria outperformed other countries that had also made significant progress including Oman, which grew its sovereign wealth by 256 percent; Kazakhstan (162 percent); Angola (84 percent); Russia (74 percent), and… Read More »