North Korea has shut down its largest wholesale market because of its apparent concern that big markets spread capitalist influence, a South Korean monitoring group said yesterday.
Authorities closed the Pyongsong market on the outskirts of the capital of Pyongyang in mid-June and set up two smaller markets in nearby districts, the Seoul-based Network for North Korean Democracy and Human Rights said in a newsletter.
"The move is believed to be an attempt by the totalitarian regime to control an excessive spread of markets while still allowing hungry people to seek food on their own at small markets," said Kim Yoon-tae, secretary-general of the group.
Kim said Pyongsong was the North's biggest wholesale market with some 30,000-40,000 stalls.
The group regularly issues a newsletter on developments inside the North, citing information collected from sources it does not identify inside the country.North Korea is one of the world's most closed nations, keeping tight control over its 24 million people without tolerating dissent or independent media.
South Korea's Unification Ministry,which handles Seoul's relations with the North, said it could not confirm the report.
Street markets have been allowed to spring up in communist North Korea in recent years as a way for hungry people to seek food and other necessities at a time when the central government is unable to adequately feed them.
But the regime has grown wary of capitalist influence resulting from the spread of markets where imported goods,including even DVDs of South Korean films and television soap operas, are sold, according to analysts, defectors and news reports.
The two Koreas technically remain at war since their 1950-53 conflict ended in a truce, not a peace treaty, and possession of goods from enemy nations such as the US and South Korea is tightly controlled.
South Korea's mass-circulation Chosun Ilbo newspaper reported in January that North Korean leader Kim Jong Il had ordered a crackdown on street markets, and that all manufactured goods and imported items must be sold at state-run shops.
But analysts and North Korea watchers say the North can't close all markets because its central rationing system is not working."North Korea is in a dilemma," said Kim of the Network for North Korean Democracy and Human Rights."It does not want markets, but can't get rid of them either."
Koh Yu-hwan, an expert on North Korea at Seoul's Dongguk University,also said that the North "sees negative effects of markets, but cannot close them all because it could leave the hungry without any means to seek food or other goods."
North Korea has relied on outside food handouts since the mid-1990s, when the economy collapsed due to natural disasters and mismanagement as aid from the former Soviet Union dried up after its collapse.
Tuesday, September 22, 2009
Government to monitor construction materials
The government will closely monitor the prices of construction materials,which are expected to rise due to increasing demand from accelerated statebacked infrastructure and investment programmes.
The stagnant construction industry is expected to receive a much needed shot in the arm in the final quarter from the government's second round of economic stimulus measures.
The 1.45-trillion-baht package, named "Thailand: Investing from Strength to Strength", would drive demand in the last three months of the year, said Commerce Minister Porntiva Nakasai.
Increased demand would cause the price of raw materials to also rise.
Domestic prices of building materials have started to pick up over the last two months,but the increase is yet to pass the ceiling recommended by the Internal Trade Department, according to the ministry's Porntiva: Aiming to latest survey.avoid price hikes.Mixed cement prices as of yesterday had increased to 140 to 145 baht for a 50-kilogramme pack compared with 135 to 142 baht in August. But prices of Portland cement dropped by 5 baht to 145 to 155 baht per pack in the same period.
Nine-millimetre steel bar rose by 2 baht to 109 baht per bar since August,while 100 metres of domestic electric wire increased by 22 baht to 621 baht due to surging global copper prices.
The ITD-recommended cap for mixed cement is 150 baht per 50kg pack, with the prices of Portland cement set at 160 baht, and 9mm steel bar at 136.75 baht.
Construction materials is one of 202 products on the ITD's priority watch list. Officials check the prices of those items twice a week to prevent unwarranted price increases.
Mrs Porntiva said the ministry was due to meet construction material manufacturers and distributors next week to discuss price trends and ask them to maintain the prices until the year-end.
Prices may have to be revised up if raw material costs have increased, she said.
The stagnant construction industry is expected to receive a much needed shot in the arm in the final quarter from the government's second round of economic stimulus measures.
The 1.45-trillion-baht package, named "Thailand: Investing from Strength to Strength", would drive demand in the last three months of the year, said Commerce Minister Porntiva Nakasai.
Increased demand would cause the price of raw materials to also rise.
Domestic prices of building materials have started to pick up over the last two months,but the increase is yet to pass the ceiling recommended by the Internal Trade Department, according to the ministry's Porntiva: Aiming to latest survey.avoid price hikes.Mixed cement prices as of yesterday had increased to 140 to 145 baht for a 50-kilogramme pack compared with 135 to 142 baht in August. But prices of Portland cement dropped by 5 baht to 145 to 155 baht per pack in the same period.
Nine-millimetre steel bar rose by 2 baht to 109 baht per bar since August,while 100 metres of domestic electric wire increased by 22 baht to 621 baht due to surging global copper prices.
The ITD-recommended cap for mixed cement is 150 baht per 50kg pack, with the prices of Portland cement set at 160 baht, and 9mm steel bar at 136.75 baht.
Construction materials is one of 202 products on the ITD's priority watch list. Officials check the prices of those items twice a week to prevent unwarranted price increases.
Mrs Porntiva said the ministry was due to meet construction material manufacturers and distributors next week to discuss price trends and ask them to maintain the prices until the year-end.
Prices may have to be revised up if raw material costs have increased, she said.
IN PURSUIT OF HAPPY ECONOMICS
What is your idea of economics? What good is this branch of social science for the ordinary, non-business people?For many, economics evokes the notion of opportunity, employment and financial security. For others, it's a discipline that suggests Darwinian competition, greed,and simply the egotistical pursuit of self-interests at all costs.
But to Helena Norberg-Hodge, director of the International Society for Ecology and Culture (Isec), economics can bring happiness, and without having to produce a huge sum of monetary profit, or the stresses and strains that are typical of a large-scale economy.
Norberg-Hodge received the 1986 Right Livelihood Award,aka the alternative Nobel Prize, for her dedication in promoting more peaceful, just and sustainable communities worldwide.
It all started from a small project the Swedish woman runs in Ladakh, initially a backwater region in northern India. Norberg-Hodge launched the Ladakh Project in 1978 in a bid to reverse the damaging trends of mass tourism and consumerism through promoting development based on Ladakhi cultural values. The innovative programme soon grew into Isec, where Norberg-Hodge and her colleagues had been initiating campaigns around the world to encourage ways of living that are more de-centralised and land-based.
A globetrotting and extremely busy Norberg-Hodge recently visited Thailand and delivered lectures in Bangkok and Khon Kaen on the theme of "Economics of Happiness".Norberg-Hodge took some time off from her hectic schedule to talk with 'Outlook'.
Could you please tell us what exactly this 'Economics of Happiness' is? It now seems the economics has been a tool for making money and a tool for making disasters,considering the recession we are now facing ...
Well, the 'Economics of Happiness' is essentially an economics of strengthening the local economy. It's a systemic shift away from the current direction of economy,which is going more and more global. At the fundamental level, what I'm arguing is that as economic policies support the globalising path, they support a bigger and bigger distance between production and consumption. And with this distance, structurally, it means pushing business to become bigger and bigger and bigger.with nature. And those therapies are successful. Even prisoners, juvenile delinquents or violent men can be changed if you help them to connect to people with similar situations and to really share and help them to [re]connect with nature.
With the scale of business and the distance, we are getting enormous problems both environmentally, socially and psychologically.
Again, structurally, this globalising path is leading to monoculture. These large businesses inevitably have to impose monoculture; it's not possible to adapt to diversity.It's directly linked to using media and advertisement to foster a human monoculture where children worldwide are made to feel inferior to the standards that are fundamentally Western. But it's also anti-Western, in the sense that there is this image of perfection that the young children feel they cannot live up to. By establishing an unrealistic role model - a global consumer identity this is responsible for massive increases in self-rejection,and even self-hatred.
By subsiding global trade and global businesses, a government is simultaneously subsidising a path that's encouraging businesses to use more fossil fuel and technology and fewer people. So the next result is job insecurity, and very, very intense competitions for scarce jobs. This combination of creating an unrealistic role model, the role model of consumer identity, and at the same time, the job scarcity, the unemployment and the competition is increasing worldwide friction and unhappiness.
What I'm suggesting is that we must shift away from these bigger and more global business activities, and toward supporting local businesses worldwide that spend less fossil, and adapted to the natural-biological-cultural diversity and identities. We need to bring the economy closer to home worldwide. Localising as an economics of happiness at the fundamental level is about reducing the competition for jobs, by establishing cultural and community role models that are realistic. This might sound utopian, or unrealistic, but the fact is that the unrealistic is to go further and further as we have done up until now.
Related to the economics of happiness is an economics of survival. Because subsidising more and more global trade, it literally leads to the import and export of the same products - water, milk, chicken, pigs, live animals. The US imports just as much as it exports. The UK exports as much butter and milk as it imports. This is utter madness on a planet dying from global warming. Oil is scarce and polluting. We want to minimise the use of oil, obviously.So ending a trade in identical products is the most logical and commonsensical way, which is not depriving anybody.But the profits of the giants would decrease, whereas the profits of millions of local businesses would increase. And this is the way of reducing the gap between the rich and the poor while reducing global warming.
The alternative, localisation movement seems to look good, but having witnessed the past economic recession,after the crisis is over, we tend to go back through the same process again and again. Humankind seems to hardly change, why?
I'd argue that it isn't humankind that is deciding what kind of economy that they need. It's a very small number of increasingly powerful people. If you look at who is actively promoting the deregulation of trade and finance,it's maybe point zero one of the human population ...maybe even less than that. I'd estimate that about 10,000 people worldwide. Most people wouldn't even understand the mechanisms. They think it's free trade that allows freedom. I think the main reason that this is happening is ignorance from the top and ignorance from the bottom.
But shall we be able to counter the trend in time,considering the urgency of the situation?
I think we do have enough time right now. I feel too many people in the environmental movement would say,'Oh it's all going to break down,[so] we don't need to worry about the system'. I believe if more people would focus on education for action, awareness, what I call 'economic literacy'. Spread the awareness. If we can't write for the newspaper, then we can write for newsletters.If we can't speak on television, then let's speak on radio programmes. Let's encourage everybody with the idea that there is a solution.
I believe that in theory, in two or three years, there could be enough of a movement to change policies. But I think this economic literacy needs to be understood from a global point of view. We need to have a lot more information shared between the North and the South. I believe in the localisation in the small states.
It seems, though, that the level of the 'immune system'of people in the South has already been drastically eroded ...
I believe in the so-called 'less developed countries' that the structures are much stronger for localisation. The structure of this crucial identity with one another, with the land, with animals, with the sense of belonging to a place,a language, a history and a group - that identity is still here. The sense of identity is what localisation can rebuild.
More importantly, or just as importantly, you have skills, both social and practical skills that we have lost.More people here know how to grow foods, know how to build houses out of natural, local materials. In the West,these skills and the communities are much more destroyed.However, in the West, there is more awareness of the problems with the global consumer culture. Here, people are still not experiencing it as much. Even when they see Bangkok - it's polluted, crowded, they believe if they just get more education, more Western schooling, learn English,get more development, then they will be like this paradise - the paradise of America or Europe. So lack of awareness here is the big problem of this dominant model of progress/development. So this is where I believe a deep dialogue between the North and the South is needed.
How have you seen yourself change over the years since you first set foot in Ladakh in the mid-'70s?
My views of everything [have] changed. I have studied psychology and I thought that cultural differences were not so significant. I thought it had more to do with hereditary [factors]. But what I experienced in Ladakh, a pre-industrial,pre-developed culture, I realised there were huge differences between that and all the industrialised countries that were very similar.
With industrial development, the most important thing that developed was the breakdown of identity through[out]communities, to realise the differences between old and young, male and female, and this role model for the children and sense of belonging.
I believe that community is essential for mental health.It's essential for learning how to be loving and tolerant.And breaking that down is like breaking down the sense of interdependence, which is the teaching of all spiritual traditions. I'd say it is a spiritual and psychological need that is just as important as breathing air is for your lungs.To feel spiritually and psychologically connected, it's something that modernity has destroyed, and that creates self-hatred, self-rejection, which leads to intolerance,violence, unhappiness. That may be the most important thing I have learned from Ladakh.
Having understood that, I also see in the West therapies that are fundamentally about rebuilding communities and the sense of interdependence and spiritual connection with nature. And those therapies are successful. Even prisoners, juvenile delinquents or violent men can be changed if you help them to connect to people with similar situations and to really share and help them to [re]connect with nature.
But how do you feel when you go back to Ladakh and see that it, too,changes year after year to be ... er,just like any other place on Earth?
There have been times when it becomes very depressing and upsetting.The worst was in 1989 when Buddhists and Muslims were killing each other.And year after year, the change has been quite difficult. But each year, with the breakdown of communities and ecological conditions, there were more and more Ladakhis who became interested in looking for alternatives,in assisting our work, particularly in the last 10 or so years. This interest has been going on at the same time as the destruction. So that has given me the strength and the hope to continue.
It seems young children nowadays have been groomed to think that they have to be No.1, and the interdependence has been thus cut off ...
Yes, absolutely. Even explicitly. In Ladakh they have now been taught:'You've got to be more ambitious; you've got to literally be more greedy; you've got to look up to [be] number one'.These are the terrible values that are being taught in the schools. In many journals, they'll talk about community identity as tribalism, and they identify tribalism with friction, with warfare.And the picture is painted that in the past, all of these diverse war-like tribes were fighting each other, and that modernity and homogenising has created peace. Well, let's look at how peaceful America is - look at the teenagers who go to school and kill each other, look at the violent crimes.You don't have group violence in the same way, but you have a complete breakdown. A lot of violence.
When you centralise power and you push people into the big cities, and they have to have a job for survival,then the people in power will give jobs to people of their own kind. If they're Buddhists, then they give the jobs to Buddhists. And if they're Muslims, then to Muslims. And this leads to ethnic friction and violence.
Centralisation is part of globalisation.Decentralisation is what can allow more people to have jobs, and to have interdependence with different groups.
I think another very major point is that by destroying communities and then creating job scarcity, these are crimes against humanity. However many people we are, there is more work to be done. Unemployment is a modern product of this economy. It never existed for thousands of years in any society.The artificial constriction of job opportunities is a crime against humanity that must be written about,explaining how and why it could happen.With more people, we need more care,because we have more work. First of all, every plant, every fish, every thing that lives right now is threatened, so we need more people caring for everything that's living. With global warming, we have drought and floods.
We need to protect everything against floods, fire and drought. So that means more people caring for every bit of water,and every little tree, so there's more work than ever. However many people we are, we need proportionate teachers,nurses, doctors ... there is no limit of work. But through this globalising path we are artificially constricting, and we're partly doing it through taxes and subsidies. So we must expose them.
And there's also this artificial scarcity of time ...
The scarcity of time is directly linked to the scarcity of jobs. Because we support businesses when they use technology and fossil fuel, they benefit from scientific research, subsidies and tax breaks. And the more fossil fuel they use, the less they pay. It's more the small businesses that use very little that will be punished because they pay more. This is crazy.
At the same time, if you employ a person, you pay heavy taxes. This should be shifted toward reducing the taxes on employment and increasing the taxes on technology and fossil fuel. The technology is part of speeding everything up. So the few people who have the jobs now in computers, you have to answer with more posts. Whereas when it was by post, in a day, you might have to answer how many letters. And now with emails, you have to answer much more.
It's because we've chosen subsidising technology and subsidising speed, which is linked to unemployment.
What project is your organisation working on right now?
We are working on a film called,"Economics of Happiness", which should be ready in about two months.I've worked on it for more than four years, and I've tried to get people from every continent -Africa, South America, North America, Europe, China,India, Thailand - to basically spell out that the globalisation of consumer culture is creating too much unhappiness in the world, and that localising would solve most of these problems. Localising needs to be pursued with an international and collaborative mindset. It's not about isolation. It's not about no travel, no trade. We actually need more deep,deep dialogue between the North and the South. And we need it now more than ever before.
But to Helena Norberg-Hodge, director of the International Society for Ecology and Culture (Isec), economics can bring happiness, and without having to produce a huge sum of monetary profit, or the stresses and strains that are typical of a large-scale economy.
Norberg-Hodge received the 1986 Right Livelihood Award,aka the alternative Nobel Prize, for her dedication in promoting more peaceful, just and sustainable communities worldwide.
It all started from a small project the Swedish woman runs in Ladakh, initially a backwater region in northern India. Norberg-Hodge launched the Ladakh Project in 1978 in a bid to reverse the damaging trends of mass tourism and consumerism through promoting development based on Ladakhi cultural values. The innovative programme soon grew into Isec, where Norberg-Hodge and her colleagues had been initiating campaigns around the world to encourage ways of living that are more de-centralised and land-based.
A globetrotting and extremely busy Norberg-Hodge recently visited Thailand and delivered lectures in Bangkok and Khon Kaen on the theme of "Economics of Happiness".Norberg-Hodge took some time off from her hectic schedule to talk with 'Outlook'.
Could you please tell us what exactly this 'Economics of Happiness' is? It now seems the economics has been a tool for making money and a tool for making disasters,considering the recession we are now facing ...
Well, the 'Economics of Happiness' is essentially an economics of strengthening the local economy. It's a systemic shift away from the current direction of economy,which is going more and more global. At the fundamental level, what I'm arguing is that as economic policies support the globalising path, they support a bigger and bigger distance between production and consumption. And with this distance, structurally, it means pushing business to become bigger and bigger and bigger.with nature. And those therapies are successful. Even prisoners, juvenile delinquents or violent men can be changed if you help them to connect to people with similar situations and to really share and help them to [re]connect with nature.
With the scale of business and the distance, we are getting enormous problems both environmentally, socially and psychologically.
Again, structurally, this globalising path is leading to monoculture. These large businesses inevitably have to impose monoculture; it's not possible to adapt to diversity.It's directly linked to using media and advertisement to foster a human monoculture where children worldwide are made to feel inferior to the standards that are fundamentally Western. But it's also anti-Western, in the sense that there is this image of perfection that the young children feel they cannot live up to. By establishing an unrealistic role model - a global consumer identity this is responsible for massive increases in self-rejection,and even self-hatred.
By subsiding global trade and global businesses, a government is simultaneously subsidising a path that's encouraging businesses to use more fossil fuel and technology and fewer people. So the next result is job insecurity, and very, very intense competitions for scarce jobs. This combination of creating an unrealistic role model, the role model of consumer identity, and at the same time, the job scarcity, the unemployment and the competition is increasing worldwide friction and unhappiness.
What I'm suggesting is that we must shift away from these bigger and more global business activities, and toward supporting local businesses worldwide that spend less fossil, and adapted to the natural-biological-cultural diversity and identities. We need to bring the economy closer to home worldwide. Localising as an economics of happiness at the fundamental level is about reducing the competition for jobs, by establishing cultural and community role models that are realistic. This might sound utopian, or unrealistic, but the fact is that the unrealistic is to go further and further as we have done up until now.
Related to the economics of happiness is an economics of survival. Because subsidising more and more global trade, it literally leads to the import and export of the same products - water, milk, chicken, pigs, live animals. The US imports just as much as it exports. The UK exports as much butter and milk as it imports. This is utter madness on a planet dying from global warming. Oil is scarce and polluting. We want to minimise the use of oil, obviously.So ending a trade in identical products is the most logical and commonsensical way, which is not depriving anybody.But the profits of the giants would decrease, whereas the profits of millions of local businesses would increase. And this is the way of reducing the gap between the rich and the poor while reducing global warming.
The alternative, localisation movement seems to look good, but having witnessed the past economic recession,after the crisis is over, we tend to go back through the same process again and again. Humankind seems to hardly change, why?
I'd argue that it isn't humankind that is deciding what kind of economy that they need. It's a very small number of increasingly powerful people. If you look at who is actively promoting the deregulation of trade and finance,it's maybe point zero one of the human population ...maybe even less than that. I'd estimate that about 10,000 people worldwide. Most people wouldn't even understand the mechanisms. They think it's free trade that allows freedom. I think the main reason that this is happening is ignorance from the top and ignorance from the bottom.
But shall we be able to counter the trend in time,considering the urgency of the situation?
I think we do have enough time right now. I feel too many people in the environmental movement would say,'Oh it's all going to break down,[so] we don't need to worry about the system'. I believe if more people would focus on education for action, awareness, what I call 'economic literacy'. Spread the awareness. If we can't write for the newspaper, then we can write for newsletters.If we can't speak on television, then let's speak on radio programmes. Let's encourage everybody with the idea that there is a solution.
I believe that in theory, in two or three years, there could be enough of a movement to change policies. But I think this economic literacy needs to be understood from a global point of view. We need to have a lot more information shared between the North and the South. I believe in the localisation in the small states.
It seems, though, that the level of the 'immune system'of people in the South has already been drastically eroded ...
I believe in the so-called 'less developed countries' that the structures are much stronger for localisation. The structure of this crucial identity with one another, with the land, with animals, with the sense of belonging to a place,a language, a history and a group - that identity is still here. The sense of identity is what localisation can rebuild.
More importantly, or just as importantly, you have skills, both social and practical skills that we have lost.More people here know how to grow foods, know how to build houses out of natural, local materials. In the West,these skills and the communities are much more destroyed.However, in the West, there is more awareness of the problems with the global consumer culture. Here, people are still not experiencing it as much. Even when they see Bangkok - it's polluted, crowded, they believe if they just get more education, more Western schooling, learn English,get more development, then they will be like this paradise - the paradise of America or Europe. So lack of awareness here is the big problem of this dominant model of progress/development. So this is where I believe a deep dialogue between the North and the South is needed.
How have you seen yourself change over the years since you first set foot in Ladakh in the mid-'70s?
My views of everything [have] changed. I have studied psychology and I thought that cultural differences were not so significant. I thought it had more to do with hereditary [factors]. But what I experienced in Ladakh, a pre-industrial,pre-developed culture, I realised there were huge differences between that and all the industrialised countries that were very similar.
With industrial development, the most important thing that developed was the breakdown of identity through[out]communities, to realise the differences between old and young, male and female, and this role model for the children and sense of belonging.
I believe that community is essential for mental health.It's essential for learning how to be loving and tolerant.And breaking that down is like breaking down the sense of interdependence, which is the teaching of all spiritual traditions. I'd say it is a spiritual and psychological need that is just as important as breathing air is for your lungs.To feel spiritually and psychologically connected, it's something that modernity has destroyed, and that creates self-hatred, self-rejection, which leads to intolerance,violence, unhappiness. That may be the most important thing I have learned from Ladakh.
Having understood that, I also see in the West therapies that are fundamentally about rebuilding communities and the sense of interdependence and spiritual connection with nature. And those therapies are successful. Even prisoners, juvenile delinquents or violent men can be changed if you help them to connect to people with similar situations and to really share and help them to [re]connect with nature.
But how do you feel when you go back to Ladakh and see that it, too,changes year after year to be ... er,just like any other place on Earth?
There have been times when it becomes very depressing and upsetting.The worst was in 1989 when Buddhists and Muslims were killing each other.And year after year, the change has been quite difficult. But each year, with the breakdown of communities and ecological conditions, there were more and more Ladakhis who became interested in looking for alternatives,in assisting our work, particularly in the last 10 or so years. This interest has been going on at the same time as the destruction. So that has given me the strength and the hope to continue.
It seems young children nowadays have been groomed to think that they have to be No.1, and the interdependence has been thus cut off ...
Yes, absolutely. Even explicitly. In Ladakh they have now been taught:'You've got to be more ambitious; you've got to literally be more greedy; you've got to look up to [be] number one'.These are the terrible values that are being taught in the schools. In many journals, they'll talk about community identity as tribalism, and they identify tribalism with friction, with warfare.And the picture is painted that in the past, all of these diverse war-like tribes were fighting each other, and that modernity and homogenising has created peace. Well, let's look at how peaceful America is - look at the teenagers who go to school and kill each other, look at the violent crimes.You don't have group violence in the same way, but you have a complete breakdown. A lot of violence.
When you centralise power and you push people into the big cities, and they have to have a job for survival,then the people in power will give jobs to people of their own kind. If they're Buddhists, then they give the jobs to Buddhists. And if they're Muslims, then to Muslims. And this leads to ethnic friction and violence.
Centralisation is part of globalisation.Decentralisation is what can allow more people to have jobs, and to have interdependence with different groups.
I think another very major point is that by destroying communities and then creating job scarcity, these are crimes against humanity. However many people we are, there is more work to be done. Unemployment is a modern product of this economy. It never existed for thousands of years in any society.The artificial constriction of job opportunities is a crime against humanity that must be written about,explaining how and why it could happen.With more people, we need more care,because we have more work. First of all, every plant, every fish, every thing that lives right now is threatened, so we need more people caring for everything that's living. With global warming, we have drought and floods.
We need to protect everything against floods, fire and drought. So that means more people caring for every bit of water,and every little tree, so there's more work than ever. However many people we are, we need proportionate teachers,nurses, doctors ... there is no limit of work. But through this globalising path we are artificially constricting, and we're partly doing it through taxes and subsidies. So we must expose them.
And there's also this artificial scarcity of time ...
The scarcity of time is directly linked to the scarcity of jobs. Because we support businesses when they use technology and fossil fuel, they benefit from scientific research, subsidies and tax breaks. And the more fossil fuel they use, the less they pay. It's more the small businesses that use very little that will be punished because they pay more. This is crazy.
At the same time, if you employ a person, you pay heavy taxes. This should be shifted toward reducing the taxes on employment and increasing the taxes on technology and fossil fuel. The technology is part of speeding everything up. So the few people who have the jobs now in computers, you have to answer with more posts. Whereas when it was by post, in a day, you might have to answer how many letters. And now with emails, you have to answer much more.
It's because we've chosen subsidising technology and subsidising speed, which is linked to unemployment.
What project is your organisation working on right now?
We are working on a film called,"Economics of Happiness", which should be ready in about two months.I've worked on it for more than four years, and I've tried to get people from every continent -Africa, South America, North America, Europe, China,India, Thailand - to basically spell out that the globalisation of consumer culture is creating too much unhappiness in the world, and that localising would solve most of these problems. Localising needs to be pursued with an international and collaborative mindset. It's not about isolation. It's not about no travel, no trade. We actually need more deep,deep dialogue between the North and the South. And we need it now more than ever before.
Sunday, September 20, 2009
CHINA'S ECONOMY IS BACK, WHILE THE US STILL FLAILS
Only eight months ago, thousands of Chinese workers rioted outside factories closed by the global economic downturn. Now many of those plants have been reopened and are hiring again. Some executives are even struggling to find enough temporary staff to meet Christmas orders.
The image of laid-off Chinese workers returning to jobs is in sharp contrast to the US, where even as the economy shows signs of improvement, the unemployment rate continues to march toward double digits.
The Chinese government says unemployment is falling, and even the hardest-hit factories - those depending on exports to the US and Europe - are starting to rehire workers. No one is talking about a jobless recovery.
Even the property market is picking up.For instance, in the industrial town of Wuxi,145km from Shanghai, prospective investors queued on one recent Saturday to buy apartments in the still-unfinished Rose Avenue complex. Many of them slept outside the sales office all night.
"The whole country's economy is back on track," said Shi Yingyi, a 34-year-old housewife who joined the throng."I feel more confident now."
The confidence stems from China's threepronged effort - a combination of stimulus,liberal bank lending and broad government support for exports.
The Chinese central bank said the country's economy surged at an annual-equivalent rate of 14.9% in the second quarter. The US economy shrank at an annual rate of 1% in the same period.
"So often China and the US are mixed together as being in the same situation, and that is totally wrong," said Xu Xiaonian, an economist in Beijing with the China Europe International Business School.
That does not mean the two nations are not connected, of course. China's rebound in growth may slow if the US economy does not pick up. China needs the US to buy its goods, and the US needs China to continue to buy its debt.
This mutual dependence makes it harder for either country to let the current dispute over Chinese tyres and US chicken and car parts to grow into a trade war.
China has been able to disburse its stimulus much faster, turning it into new railways and roads.
China's Finance Ministry announced in late June that half the US$173 billion in central government spending had already been allocated to specific projects.
The White House said in early July that a quarter of the spending authority and tax cuts in its $789 billion stimulus package had been allocated or used.
But even more of an impetus to China's recovery, economists say, are two other government efforts that are paying big dividends - looser bank lending and government support for exports.
The state-controlled banking system in China - which breezed through the global financial crisis with minimal losses as US financial institutions reeled - unleashed $1.2 trillion in extra lending to Chinese consumers and businesses in the first seven months of this year.
That money is financing everything from a boom in car sales, up 82% in August from
a year earlier, to frenzied factory building.
Beijing also has given huge tax breaks and other assistance to exporters. They include placing broad restrictions on imports and intervening heavily in currency markets to hold down the value of the currency to keep Chinese exports competitive, even in a weakened global economy.
Indeed, subsidies abound at all levels of government. The Wuxi municipal government just offered up to 100,000 yuan (4.95 million baht) to each local business that increases exports in the last three months of this year.
Still, while China's recovery seems well under way, not all the laid-off throughout China have been hired back.
"Some plants reduced worker numbers by 20% to 30%, now they hire back 10%,"said Stanley Lau, deputy chairman of the Federation of Hong Kong Industries, which represents export-oriented factories employing 10 million Chinese workers.
Even so, US trade data shows that imports from China only eroded 14.2% in the first seven months of this year while imports from the rest of the world plunged 32.6%. China's trade surplus, already the world's largest,was $108 billion for the first seven months of this year.
"We definitely see an upswing in sales orders in the second half of this year when compared to the first half," said Gu Fung,the sales manager at the Wuxi Baolai Batteries Company.
China's well-capitalised banking system allowed for rapid investment.
Chinese banks came into the crisis with enormous excess reserves, the result of three years of tight regulatory limits on lending to prevent the economy from overheating. When those limits were removed, and authorities urged bank executives to lend, the total value of loans outstanding shot up more in the first seven months of this year than in the previous 24 months.
By contrast, total loans and leases outstanding at financial institutions insured by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation actually fell $249 billion, or 3.2%, in the first half of this year.
Though Washington has used taxpayer money to bail out US banks, it does not have Beijing's power to force banks to lend that money to businesses and consumers.
As much as a third of the extra bank lending in China appears to have gone into real estate and stock market speculation. But the bulk has gone into investments by companies and local governments, with tangible results.
China's currency and trade policies, though highly effective, would be hard for the US to emulate.
For instance, government intervention in currency markets has prevented the yuan from moving appreciably against the dollar in more than 14 months, and has pushed the yuan down by 18% against the euro since March.
Government agencies have been told not to buy imported goods with money from economic stimulus programmes unless no domestic alternative is available.
Washington has imposed a less restrictive rule, misleadingly known as "Buy American",that says building materials for the stimulus programme must be bought from any of the 39 countries that have agreed to free trade in government procurement - which China has not.
The image of laid-off Chinese workers returning to jobs is in sharp contrast to the US, where even as the economy shows signs of improvement, the unemployment rate continues to march toward double digits.
The Chinese government says unemployment is falling, and even the hardest-hit factories - those depending on exports to the US and Europe - are starting to rehire workers. No one is talking about a jobless recovery.
Even the property market is picking up.For instance, in the industrial town of Wuxi,145km from Shanghai, prospective investors queued on one recent Saturday to buy apartments in the still-unfinished Rose Avenue complex. Many of them slept outside the sales office all night.
"The whole country's economy is back on track," said Shi Yingyi, a 34-year-old housewife who joined the throng."I feel more confident now."
The confidence stems from China's threepronged effort - a combination of stimulus,liberal bank lending and broad government support for exports.
The Chinese central bank said the country's economy surged at an annual-equivalent rate of 14.9% in the second quarter. The US economy shrank at an annual rate of 1% in the same period.
"So often China and the US are mixed together as being in the same situation, and that is totally wrong," said Xu Xiaonian, an economist in Beijing with the China Europe International Business School.
That does not mean the two nations are not connected, of course. China's rebound in growth may slow if the US economy does not pick up. China needs the US to buy its goods, and the US needs China to continue to buy its debt.
This mutual dependence makes it harder for either country to let the current dispute over Chinese tyres and US chicken and car parts to grow into a trade war.
China has been able to disburse its stimulus much faster, turning it into new railways and roads.
China's Finance Ministry announced in late June that half the US$173 billion in central government spending had already been allocated to specific projects.
The White House said in early July that a quarter of the spending authority and tax cuts in its $789 billion stimulus package had been allocated or used.
But even more of an impetus to China's recovery, economists say, are two other government efforts that are paying big dividends - looser bank lending and government support for exports.
The state-controlled banking system in China - which breezed through the global financial crisis with minimal losses as US financial institutions reeled - unleashed $1.2 trillion in extra lending to Chinese consumers and businesses in the first seven months of this year.
That money is financing everything from a boom in car sales, up 82% in August from
a year earlier, to frenzied factory building.
Beijing also has given huge tax breaks and other assistance to exporters. They include placing broad restrictions on imports and intervening heavily in currency markets to hold down the value of the currency to keep Chinese exports competitive, even in a weakened global economy.
Indeed, subsidies abound at all levels of government. The Wuxi municipal government just offered up to 100,000 yuan (4.95 million baht) to each local business that increases exports in the last three months of this year.
Still, while China's recovery seems well under way, not all the laid-off throughout China have been hired back.
"Some plants reduced worker numbers by 20% to 30%, now they hire back 10%,"said Stanley Lau, deputy chairman of the Federation of Hong Kong Industries, which represents export-oriented factories employing 10 million Chinese workers.
Even so, US trade data shows that imports from China only eroded 14.2% in the first seven months of this year while imports from the rest of the world plunged 32.6%. China's trade surplus, already the world's largest,was $108 billion for the first seven months of this year.
"We definitely see an upswing in sales orders in the second half of this year when compared to the first half," said Gu Fung,the sales manager at the Wuxi Baolai Batteries Company.
China's well-capitalised banking system allowed for rapid investment.
Chinese banks came into the crisis with enormous excess reserves, the result of three years of tight regulatory limits on lending to prevent the economy from overheating. When those limits were removed, and authorities urged bank executives to lend, the total value of loans outstanding shot up more in the first seven months of this year than in the previous 24 months.
By contrast, total loans and leases outstanding at financial institutions insured by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation actually fell $249 billion, or 3.2%, in the first half of this year.
Though Washington has used taxpayer money to bail out US banks, it does not have Beijing's power to force banks to lend that money to businesses and consumers.
As much as a third of the extra bank lending in China appears to have gone into real estate and stock market speculation. But the bulk has gone into investments by companies and local governments, with tangible results.
China's currency and trade policies, though highly effective, would be hard for the US to emulate.
For instance, government intervention in currency markets has prevented the yuan from moving appreciably against the dollar in more than 14 months, and has pushed the yuan down by 18% against the euro since March.
Government agencies have been told not to buy imported goods with money from economic stimulus programmes unless no domestic alternative is available.
Washington has imposed a less restrictive rule, misleadingly known as "Buy American",that says building materials for the stimulus programme must be bought from any of the 39 countries that have agreed to free trade in government procurement - which China has not.
EMERGING ECONOMIES SEEK CLOUT ON WORLD STAGE
EMERGING POWERS including China, India and Brazil are leading the way out of global recession and they expect the wealthy world to take notice.
As leaders from the Group of 20 (G-20) bloc of leading economies began a two-day summit on Thursday in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvanis, thes countries will be hoping to capitalise on their greater economic clout.
The G-20's own prominence-taking a bigger role in the last year than the Group of Eight (G-8) industrial nations-remains a sign of that new swagger. It will be the third time since November that G-20 leaders have met to consider how to reshape the world financial order.
China and Brazil have said they will push for a greater voice in international financial bodies. Both want the G-20 to make moves toward increasing the voting rights of developing nations to 50 per cent in the International Monetayr Fund (IMF) and the World Bank.
"Developing countries can be vital parts of a global economy with multiple poles of growth," World Bank President Robert Zoellick said this week.
There is some reason to gloat. The big developing economies are growing stronger as welathier nations struggle to recover from their deepest recession in decades. China's economy could grow at 8 per cent this year and India's more than 6 per cent.
Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lala da Silva stressed this week that his country has overcome the financial crisis. Finance Minister Guido Montega noted that Brazil will have the smallest deficit of any country inthe G-20.
"There is no turning back. The road in open for us to be one of the most important countries in teh woeld," Mantega said.
That doesn't mean the emerging powers have not suffered. Chinese exports tumbled as US consumers stopped spending, and China's economy was in part propped up by a massive domestic stimulus package.
Mantega said Brazil suffered a loss equivalent to 2.5 per cent of its gross domestic product as a result of the crisis.
Zhang Xiaojing, an economist with the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, said that China deserves more input onthe world stage, but he cautioned against pushing too hard. "Though our exonomic weight has dramatically increased in recent years, China is not yet a global economic locomotive and leader," Zhang told the official China Daily newspaper. "Our high dependence on foreign trade has shown our economic fragility."
China was ritht, he said, to call for more input for emerging economies: "The global financial architecture should represent the changing economic geography."
The emerging countries are bringing a whole host of their own concerns to the G-20, as well as to a summit of leaders at the United Nations earlier in the week.
Indian officials said they will be pushing industrial nations to indulge in protectionism or approve far-reaching reforms of financial regulations that could adversely impact the developing world. Many poor countries have suffered from plunging private investment in the last year.
"We are concerned that in the guise of improving regulations, they should not be putting in place rules that end up discriminating against developing nations," India's Planning Commission deputy chairman Montek Singh Ahluwalia said this week.
Ahuwalia, who will be assisting Prime Minister Mannohan Singh at the Pittsburgh summit, said there was a realisation now that the worst was over in the global economy. The issue now was how fast the contagion of the global meltdown could be overturned.
India is expected to make a serious pitch at Pittsburgh for an early and successful conclusion of the Doha round of trade talks, which it feels would greatly help in quickening blobal economic recovery.
Beijing will bring similar trade concerns, especially after the United States imposed a tariff on tyre imports just one week before the G-20 summit.
China's Vice Foreign Minister He Yafei warned on Tuesday that the US tariffs would damage the mutually beneficial trade relationship between the two economic powerhouses.
"The [tariffs] will certainly impact trade between China and the US because we have a huge trade volume," He said. The tyre tariffs were "clear examples of protectionism".
He said that nations participating in the G-20 summit in Pittsburgh should not promise to erect new protectionist trade measures.
As leaders from the Group of 20 (G-20) bloc of leading economies began a two-day summit on Thursday in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvanis, thes countries will be hoping to capitalise on their greater economic clout.
The G-20's own prominence-taking a bigger role in the last year than the Group of Eight (G-8) industrial nations-remains a sign of that new swagger. It will be the third time since November that G-20 leaders have met to consider how to reshape the world financial order.
China and Brazil have said they will push for a greater voice in international financial bodies. Both want the G-20 to make moves toward increasing the voting rights of developing nations to 50 per cent in the International Monetayr Fund (IMF) and the World Bank.
"Developing countries can be vital parts of a global economy with multiple poles of growth," World Bank President Robert Zoellick said this week.
There is some reason to gloat. The big developing economies are growing stronger as welathier nations struggle to recover from their deepest recession in decades. China's economy could grow at 8 per cent this year and India's more than 6 per cent.
Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lala da Silva stressed this week that his country has overcome the financial crisis. Finance Minister Guido Montega noted that Brazil will have the smallest deficit of any country inthe G-20.
"There is no turning back. The road in open for us to be one of the most important countries in teh woeld," Mantega said.
That doesn't mean the emerging powers have not suffered. Chinese exports tumbled as US consumers stopped spending, and China's economy was in part propped up by a massive domestic stimulus package.
Mantega said Brazil suffered a loss equivalent to 2.5 per cent of its gross domestic product as a result of the crisis.
Zhang Xiaojing, an economist with the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, said that China deserves more input onthe world stage, but he cautioned against pushing too hard. "Though our exonomic weight has dramatically increased in recent years, China is not yet a global economic locomotive and leader," Zhang told the official China Daily newspaper. "Our high dependence on foreign trade has shown our economic fragility."
China was ritht, he said, to call for more input for emerging economies: "The global financial architecture should represent the changing economic geography."
The emerging countries are bringing a whole host of their own concerns to the G-20, as well as to a summit of leaders at the United Nations earlier in the week.
Indian officials said they will be pushing industrial nations to indulge in protectionism or approve far-reaching reforms of financial regulations that could adversely impact the developing world. Many poor countries have suffered from plunging private investment in the last year.
"We are concerned that in the guise of improving regulations, they should not be putting in place rules that end up discriminating against developing nations," India's Planning Commission deputy chairman Montek Singh Ahluwalia said this week.
Ahuwalia, who will be assisting Prime Minister Mannohan Singh at the Pittsburgh summit, said there was a realisation now that the worst was over in the global economy. The issue now was how fast the contagion of the global meltdown could be overturned.
India is expected to make a serious pitch at Pittsburgh for an early and successful conclusion of the Doha round of trade talks, which it feels would greatly help in quickening blobal economic recovery.
Beijing will bring similar trade concerns, especially after the United States imposed a tariff on tyre imports just one week before the G-20 summit.
China's Vice Foreign Minister He Yafei warned on Tuesday that the US tariffs would damage the mutually beneficial trade relationship between the two economic powerhouses.
"The [tariffs] will certainly impact trade between China and the US because we have a huge trade volume," He said. The tyre tariffs were "clear examples of protectionism".
He said that nations participating in the G-20 summit in Pittsburgh should not promise to erect new protectionist trade measures.
CHAVEZ PUMPS $5 BN TO UNFREEZE ECONOMY
Venezuela's government is injecting US$ 5 billion (Bt169 billion) into its domestic market, and will increase the supply of dollars at the official exchange rate, President Hugo Chavez said yesterday.
The steps are being taken as part of a package of 40 economic measures seeking to bolster the country's economy.
"About 40 decisions on the economic fron will be announced to the world in the coming hours," Chavez told reporters at the presidential palace in Miraflores.
Without detailing all the measures, he announced that the government had decided to "speed up the delivery of foreign currency" at the official exchang rate of 2.15 bolivars to the dollar.
He also said liquidity would be injected into domestic market.
"I have signed approval for the injection of 10 billion bolivars, $5 billion, liquidity is very high. It is a country with a strong economy," he said.
Venezuela has since 2003 had strict exchange controls and Chavez acknowledged that the government body that deals with the administrationof foreign currencey has slowed delivery of dollars at the official rate " a little bit, because of the global crisis".
That has forced many importers to change dollars at black market rates that are significantly higher than the government official rate.
Chavez said his government had "sought in recent weeks to reduce the gap between the official dollar rate and the black market rate."
The government is also fighting to lower the inflation rate, which was at an accumulated rate of 15.6 per cent in August, but Chavez said had been significantly reduced from the 30.9-per-cent rate at the end of last year. Venezuela's GDP contracted by 2.4 per cent in the second quarter after 22 consecutive quarters of growth.
The second package of measures will be implemented "on October 1 and will seek to produce a reactivation of the economy in the final quarter", Chavez said.
In March, Chavez announced a series of budget cuts and a raise in the country's VAT, but ruled out devaluing the bolivar, or raising the price of petrol (gasoline), which is the lowes inthe world and has not been adjusted in 10 years.
Separately Chavez said the government would expropriate coffee companies that are not functioning "in the state's interest".
"Either they get in step with what the Constitution stes out, with a socialist initiative, or we will expropriate them, no problem," Chavez warned. "If they give me excuses, I will expropriate them and we will turn them into property of society in workers' hands."
The president stressed the constitutiion "does not deny anyone's right to private property, it just says that it must be subordinate to the interest of the State... One of the things that is banned here by law are monopolies."
The steps are being taken as part of a package of 40 economic measures seeking to bolster the country's economy.
"About 40 decisions on the economic fron will be announced to the world in the coming hours," Chavez told reporters at the presidential palace in Miraflores.
Without detailing all the measures, he announced that the government had decided to "speed up the delivery of foreign currency" at the official exchang rate of 2.15 bolivars to the dollar.
He also said liquidity would be injected into domestic market.
"I have signed approval for the injection of 10 billion bolivars, $5 billion, liquidity is very high. It is a country with a strong economy," he said.
Venezuela has since 2003 had strict exchange controls and Chavez acknowledged that the government body that deals with the administrationof foreign currencey has slowed delivery of dollars at the official rate " a little bit, because of the global crisis".
That has forced many importers to change dollars at black market rates that are significantly higher than the government official rate.
Chavez said his government had "sought in recent weeks to reduce the gap between the official dollar rate and the black market rate."
The government is also fighting to lower the inflation rate, which was at an accumulated rate of 15.6 per cent in August, but Chavez said had been significantly reduced from the 30.9-per-cent rate at the end of last year. Venezuela's GDP contracted by 2.4 per cent in the second quarter after 22 consecutive quarters of growth.
The second package of measures will be implemented "on October 1 and will seek to produce a reactivation of the economy in the final quarter", Chavez said.
In March, Chavez announced a series of budget cuts and a raise in the country's VAT, but ruled out devaluing the bolivar, or raising the price of petrol (gasoline), which is the lowes inthe world and has not been adjusted in 10 years.
Separately Chavez said the government would expropriate coffee companies that are not functioning "in the state's interest".
"Either they get in step with what the Constitution stes out, with a socialist initiative, or we will expropriate them, no problem," Chavez warned. "If they give me excuses, I will expropriate them and we will turn them into property of society in workers' hands."
The president stressed the constitutiion "does not deny anyone's right to private property, it just says that it must be subordinate to the interest of the State... One of the things that is banned here by law are monopolies."
US RECOVERY WILL BE WEAK, SAYS BUFFETT
Bilionaire investor Warren Buffett says the economy appears to have levelled fof at the bottom of the recession over the summer, but Berkshire Hathaway's CEO stillis not seeing much improvement.
Buffett talked about the economy during an interview with CNBC recently. "I think the odds are very much against getting significantly worse. It's sort of plateaued at the-at the bottom right now," Buffett said. He said things could get worse if there were some new catastrophe like a terrorist attacks.
The Oracle of Omahas' comments followed Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke's statement that the worst recession since the 1930s is "very likely over". Buffeett was among the first in March 2008 to say the economy was in a recession.
Buffett said at that point the economy had entered a recession in common sense terms even if it had not met the technical definition economists use of two consecutive quarters of negative growth in the gross domestic product.
Buffett keeps a close eye on the economy through all the reports he sees from Berkshire's retail, real estate brokerages, manufacturing and utility businesses.
Buffet said he cannot predict exactly when the economy will recover party because he expects there will still be additional problems in the commercial real estate market, but he believes the economy has passed the critical point.
"I've never been able to tell whether it's going to be a week or a month or-six months. But we are on the mend," he said.
Buffett's Berkshire owns more than 60 subsidiaries including insurance, clothing, furniture, jewerlly and candy companies, restaurants, natural gas and corporate jet firms.
Buffett talked about the economy during an interview with CNBC recently. "I think the odds are very much against getting significantly worse. It's sort of plateaued at the-at the bottom right now," Buffett said. He said things could get worse if there were some new catastrophe like a terrorist attacks.
The Oracle of Omahas' comments followed Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke's statement that the worst recession since the 1930s is "very likely over". Buffeett was among the first in March 2008 to say the economy was in a recession.
Buffett said at that point the economy had entered a recession in common sense terms even if it had not met the technical definition economists use of two consecutive quarters of negative growth in the gross domestic product.
Buffett keeps a close eye on the economy through all the reports he sees from Berkshire's retail, real estate brokerages, manufacturing and utility businesses.
Buffet said he cannot predict exactly when the economy will recover party because he expects there will still be additional problems in the commercial real estate market, but he believes the economy has passed the critical point.
"I've never been able to tell whether it's going to be a week or a month or-six months. But we are on the mend," he said.
Buffett's Berkshire owns more than 60 subsidiaries including insurance, clothing, furniture, jewerlly and candy companies, restaurants, natural gas and corporate jet firms.
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