http://www.truthout.org/article/bushs-dollar-drop-maps-loss-us-clout-final-g-8-summit
Bush's Dollar Drop Maps Loss of US Clout at Final G-8 Summit
by: James G. Neuger
Bloomberg News: Thursday 03 July 2008
When President George W. Bush went to his first Group of Eight summit in
2001, a dominant issue was the dollar - the strong dollar, that is. The U.S.
currency was on a record-setting streak, and the free-marketeering president
wasn't going to stand in the way.
On the eve of Bush's last G-8 appearance, the dollar's gyrations are
again in the crossfire. This time, it is a weak currency, upended by
slumping growth, a housing recession and record gas prices, that is gnawing
away at the world economy.
The dollar's 41 percent drop against the euro during Bush's term writes
the economic epitaph of an administration that set out to restore American
preeminence. Instead, Bush heads to Japan for his final international
summit with diminished leverage as Russian and Chinese influence grows.
"Between the economic duress facing the United States and the global
community at large and the fact that the clock is running out on the Bush
administration, Bush does not hold a good hand," said Charles Kupchan, an
international-relations professor at Georgetown University in Washington. He
called the summit a "damage-limitation" exercise to show the world that
governments are trying to contain food and oil prices.
Global economic-confidence building crowds the agenda at the three-day
summit starting July 7 in Toyako, on the northern Japanese island of
Hokkaido, that was meant to tackle climate change, recommit the rich world
to development aid for Africa and strengthen nuclear non-proliferation
controls.
Growth Lags
Bush represents the worst-performing economy in the G-8 after Italy,
with growth of 0.5 percent this year set to lag behind 1.6 percent in the
U.K., 1.4 percent in the euro area, 1.4 percent in Japan and 1.3 percent in
Canada, according to International Monetary Fund forecasts.
Russia, brought into the G-8 by Bill Clinton in 1998, will eclipse the
rest of the club with growth of 6.8 percent this year, the IMF says.
Russia's oil and commodity wealth puts it at odds with the western goal of
cutting reliance on fossil fuels. China, seen expanding 9.3 percent, has
also frustrated the fight against global warming by locking up energy deals
in Africa to slake its economic thirst. China will be among eight non-G-8
members that take part on the summit's last day.
America's economic woes with $4-a-gallon gasoline prices will stiffen
Bush's opposition to European and Japanese calls for binding, quantifiable
targets for cutting greenhouse-gas emissions, blamed by scientists for
pushing up global temperatures.
Global Warming
Bush took a baby step at last year's G-8 by acknowledging the need to do
something about global warming, edging the U.S. away from the laissez-faire
approach that he championed after pulling the U.S. out of the Kyoto
climate-protection protocol in a move that met international condemnation in
2001.
With the countdown under way to the presidency of Barack Obama or John
McCain, the most the summit can do is set up a framework for
pollution-cutting agreements that replace Kyoto when it expires in 2012,
said Reginald Dale, a senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and
International Studies in Washington.
"Most of Bush's partners are looking to the next president," Dale said.
European leaders will "be trying to pin Bush further down on the nature of
commitments that the United States might undertake to reduce emissions in
the shorter term."
Europe's Bind
Europe is caught in a bind of its own. Soaring fuel prices and a chorus
of protests put pressure on leaders to offer relief instead of weaning
consumers away from fossil fuels. French President Nicolas Sarkozy, holder
of the 27-nation European Union's six-month presidency, is pressing for
fuel-tax cuts.
Oil prices continued climbing after pressure by European leaders
including Britain's Gordon Brown led Saudi Arabia, the world's biggest oil
exporter, to announce for July the third straight monthly increase in
production.
"There's no hope for new achievements or concrete results regarding
crude-oil prices or the shortage of food or global warming," said Koichi
Kato, a senior member of Japan's ruling Liberal Democratic Party.
Spiraling food and fuel costs are hitting poorer countries the hardest,
increasing the pressure on the G-8 to make good on a 2005 pledge to double
development aid to Africa to $50 billion annually by 2010 and to implement
last year's promise to invest $60 billion worldwide to combat deadly
diseases.
Price Surge
G-8 finance ministers last month identified surging commodities prices
as a bigger threat than the credit squeeze to the world economy. Prices for
19 commodities in the Reuters/Jefferies CRB Index rose 29 percent in the
first half, the most since 1973. Rice, corn and wheat futures have all
touched records this year.
Sagging faith in the dollar - it now makes up 63 percent of global
currency reserves, down from 71 percent when Bush took office - complicates
efforts to tame commodity prices because they are primarily denominated in
the U.S. currency.
America's dependence on imported capital to finance a $9.5 trillion
debt - up from $5.7 trillion when Bush took office - has driven down the
currency. The decline was accelerated by the subprime crisis that plunged
the U.S. into an economic tailspin.
"If Bush could get others at the G-8 summit to demand a stronger dollar
he'd have done a final good after a lot of negatives over the years," said
Uwe von Parpart, chief Asia strategist at Cantor Fitzgerald LP in Hong Kong.
"Dollar strengthening appears to be the only thing capable of containing or
pushing back oil prices."
Speaking at the White House yesterday, Bush tried to give the markets a
nudge: "We're strong dollar people in this administration and have always
been for the strong dollar."
***
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article20094.htm
The Irish People have spoken.
Lisbon Is Dead
By Mike Whitney
ICH: 14/06/08
14/06/08 "ICH" -- On Friday, Ireland delivered a knockout punch to European
elites and corporatists and shattered their plan for an EU Superstate. The
so-called Lisbon Treaty was nothing more than a repackaging of the European
Constitution that was defeated by French and Dutch voters in 2005. The
treaty was loaded with the typical "democratic" gobbledygook to conceal the
vicious neoliberal policies at its heart. If it had passed, the treaty would
have paved the way for greater privatization of public services, diminished
workers rights, less state control over trade policies and civil liberties,
and an aggressive plan to militarize Europe. Ireland's entire political and
corporate class stood foursquare behind the treaty, but the Irish people
shrugged off the fear-mongering and bogus promises of prosperity and voted
No. The referendum results showed 53.4% voted No, while 46.6% voted Yes.
Despite the massive public re! lations campaign; the vote wasn't even that
close.
A spokesperson for the No campaign put it like this:
'The Irish people have spoken. Contrary to the predictions of social and
political turmoil, we believe that hundreds of millions of people across
Europe will welcome the rejection of the Lisbon Treaty. This vote shows the
gulf that exists between the politicians and the elites of Europe, and the
opinions of the people. As in France and the Netherlands, the political
leaders and the establishment have done everything they could to push this
through - and they have failed. The proposals to further reduce democracy,
to militarize the EU and to let private business take over public services
have been rejected. Lisbon is dead. Along with the EU Constitution from
which it came, it should now be buried.' (Socialist Worker online)
News of the defeat has not been well received in England where the
government of Gordon Brown has already indicated that it will reject the
election results and "press ahead" in an effort to ratify the treaty.
Neither Brown nor his friends in Brussels are likely to be deterred by
anything as trivial as the will of the people. Labour MP and former Europe
Minister Denis MacShane summed it up like this:
"I personally think that a vote in a foreign country should not determine
the democratic decisions taken in the British Parliament."
MacShane's view is apparently shared by EC President Jose Manuel Barroso who
said that EU member states should continue ratifying the Lisbon treaty even
though more than half of Ireland's 43 constituencies rejected it outright.
So much for democracy.
The Irish have plenty to celebrate today. They've thrown a spanner in the
plans of the bankers and corporate mandarins who want to replace
representative government and national sovereignty with their own skewed
vision of capitalist Valhalla; a Euro Utopia where short-term profits always
take priority over the needs of people.
Bravo, Ireland.
***
Inside USA: The politics of rice
Friday, July 04, 2008
http://english.aljazeera.net/programmes/insideusa/2008/07/2008767111386154.html
Seventy-five per cent of the rice eaten in Haiti is shipped from the US
This week Inside USA travels to Haiti to look at how the stories of
politics, rice, and the United States are deeply interwoven.
Twenty years ago, Haiti produced enough rice to feed its population.
Importing rice from other countries like the US was unheard of.
Today, the country of less than 10 million people is the third largest
importer of US rice in the world - 75 per cent of the rice eaten in
Haiti is shipped in from the US.
Great for farmers in places like Arkansas and Missouri but devastating
for farmers in the Artibonite valley, which used to be Haiti's rice
bowl.
And now that Haiti is utterly dependent on imported food, the entire
country is vulnerable to the mood swings of the global market. So when
the price of rice doubled in the last year, the majority of Haitians,
who live in bitter poverty, got slammed.
In an election year, Americans are also facing skyrocketing food
prices, while Congress just passed a farm bill that includes almost a
billion dollars a year for rice farmers in the US.
On this week's Inside USA, we look at the politics of rice and the
policies forged in Washington, felt in Haiti.
Watch part one of this episode of Inside USA:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VRbPgqgmGbQ
Watch part two of this episode of Inside USA
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tnQSTlptUZ8
This episode of Inside USA aired from Friday, July 04, 2008
_______________________________________________
Rad-Green mailing list
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
To change your options or unsubscribe go to:
http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/rad-green
------------------------------------
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
LAAMN: Los Angeles Alternative Media Network
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Unsubscribe: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Subscribe: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Digest: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Help: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Post: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Archive1: <http://www.egroups.com/messages/laamn>
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Archive2: <http://www.mail-archive.com/[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Yahoo! Groups Links
<*> To visit your group on the web, go to:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/laamn/
<*> Your email settings:
Individual Email | Traditional
<*> To change settings online go to:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/laamn/join
(Yahoo! ID required)
<*> To change settings via email:
mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
<*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
<*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to:
http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
