During the past
several months, I spent nearly 30 hours in meetings of a private sector
committee tasked with advising the Obama administration on a particular
set of international economic policies.
My seat at the table was one of many signs of the new opportunities
for advocates of progressive change in Washington. At the same time, my
experience was an up-close-and-personal look at how hard corporate
lobbyists are fighting to make sure nothing changes.
As El
Salvador transitions from decades of conservative rule to the
administration of leftist President Mauricio Funes, the country faces
an international showdown triggered by a restrictive free-trade
agreement between the United States and Central America. Canada's
Pacific Rim Mining Corporation is suing the government for its refusal
to allow it to mine gold in El Salvador's rural north. If Pacific Rim
succeeds in securing the $100 million settlement it seeks, that would
set a troubling precedent.
One outcome of the G-20 meeting (as I wrote yesterday)
was an agreement to earmark as much as $1 trillion for developing
countries, where the economic crisis is having a life-threatening
impact. This figure is in line with what the United Nations estimates is needed to "buffer the blows of the global downturn on the most vulnerable."
"This is the day that the world
came together, to fight back against the global recession. Not with
words but a plan for global recovery and for reform and with a clear
timetable," said Gordon Brown at the end of the G20 summit last week.
The G20 countries have come to agreement
on a number of important steps to foster a recovery from the recession.
However, since we always knew that they would come to "agreement", the
substance of the deal is not entirely clear at this point.
The
Group of 20 (G20) is making a big show of getting together to come to
grips with the global economic crisis. But here's the problem with the
upcoming summit in London on April 2: It's all show. What the show
masks is a very deep worry and fear among the global elite that it
really doesn't know the direction in which the world economy is heading
and the measures needed to stabilize it.
Today I want to highlight an example of remarkably good and important journalism, namely, a story in the Washington Post
by Karin Brulliard that opens the door, a crack at least, on the
effects of the worldwide economic crisis on the most vulnerable: people
who live in Africa and other "least developed" countries.
The story is called: "Zambia's Copperbelt Reels from Global Crisis."
The G20
summit meeting in London on 2 April will have a lot on its plate and
will certainly fall short of expectations. There is a world recession -
the worst in more than 60 years - and the immediate problem of how to
get out of it through fiscal and monetary stimulus, as well as possible
coordinated action to fix the global financial system. Then there is
regulatory reform.
The security clampdown will be the same. The press will gather in
droves. The spin doctors will be in full flow, claiming victory for
their respective governments. But in every other way the meeting that
Gordon Brown will host on April 2 will be different from the last
gathering of world leaders hosted by a British prime minister - Tony
Blair's 2005 Gleneagles summit.
Is there any trade crazier than the liquid biofuel business? Apart from
a handful of cars and vans running on used chip fat, it exists only
because of government rules and subsidies. So what social benefits do
these buy?
Biofuels
are supposed to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. They do the opposite.
Almost all of them produce more greenhouse gases than petrol (gasoline)
or diesel, for two reasons:
