Really, much as I would like to see a marked and rapid improvement in the democratic climate in Iraq, forgive me if I can’t help considering most of the discussion about the possibilitiesof this occuring in the near future a bit like a contemporary revamp of ‘innocents abroad’. At the end of the day all these endless ‘corruption indexes’ that you see published from time to time in the press do actually mean something. Having lived in a society that was relatively less corrupt (the UK) and one that is relatively more (Spain), I do get to note some important differences. One of these relates to the social standing of politicians.
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Monthly Archives: November 2003
The Games We Choose To Play.
Brad DeLong today quotes from a piece from the Wall Street Journal (the rest being locked in pay per view) about yesterday’s WTO decision to uphold its earlier finding that US steel duties of up to 30%, imposed last year to protect US steel producers restructuring, are illegal because the US never proved that their industry had in fact been harmed by cheap steel imports and also because of a number of other, more legalistic, reasons.
Consequently, Pascal Lamy, EU trade commissioner, announced that the EU would impose up to $2.2 billion in sanctions should Washington not withdraw the tariffs within 35 days. One can certainly discuss the benefit of such retaliatory measures in general. But their specific nature is far more interesting, in my opinion. Especially given that the 2004 US electoral map was the main driving force behind the White House’s decision to impose the tariffs in the first place.
“To increase political pressure, many of the products targeted are produced in swing states that would be crucial to Mr. Bush’s re-election campaign next year. The White House is facing heavy political pressure in the dispute, especially from steel-producing states like Pennsylvania, West Virginia and Ohio, where campaigners want the tariffs kept in place. Representatives of industries that would be targeted by the EU’s sanctions, as well as big steel users in the U.S., have argued against the tariffs…” (from the WSJ ).
French farmers and American steelmakers – different continents, same problem? Or is there something particular about the global external effects of the US Electoral College?
Where Has He Been?
File this one under People Who Ought to Know Better. Odder than the fact of the argument is the frequency with which I see it.
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Mark Steyn is on crack
Well, unless someone else can come up with an explanation for this article, that’s about the only explanation I can think of. I’m not sure, though, whether it’s the argument that Europeans should breed more to stop a situation where ‘Europe will either be very old or very Muslim’ or his suggestion that ‘France and perhaps other Continental countries now exist in a quasi-Cold War with America’ that’s the most insane. Probably the second one, though.
(thanks to Harry for the link – as he puts it ‘I don’t see much difference between this sort of analysis and the kind of garbage we hear from the likes of Le Pen, Haider, Bossi and their counterparts in the UK‘)
Like You, Like Me: Like Me, Like You
I don’t know why I hadn’t seen it before, but it was only while talking with a colleague this afternoon, and being asked what I thought about the unwillingness of the candidate countries to reform that it came to me: with all this coming and going on the Pact, what kind of message is being sent to the new members? Obviously if you give the impression that agreements are not to be complied with, you can get reactions you aren’t expecting, and that you don’t like. The Financial Times article you can find below, begins to give an idea of the size of the looming problem, whilst this one informs us that Standard and Poor’s has just downgraded the Polish currency rating because of concerns about deficits and rapidly growing government debt.
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Privatisation and Market Imperfection
Today I’m posting a link to my Singapore friend and colleague, Eddie Lee. The story behind this link is a strange one – almost surreal – and more or less directly related to my ‘friendster’ post last Saturday. I met Eddie back in February while I was Googling the net looking for some material to blog. I was looking for something on the Italian economy, and I found a link to an article in Singapore’s Straits Times, which, apart from touching on Italy, seemed also to talk about my favourite topic – ageing – to boot. Now I have the unfortunate habit of scan-reading a lot of material quickly, and as I scanned I found an argument I really liked. I’m going to post this I thought to myself.
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The price of monolingualism
A few months ago on my other blog, I made a point about how the costs of multilingualism have to be set against the costs of monolingualism. It seems certain quarters of the CIA and the American Republican party agree with me, according to today’s New York Times.
C.I.A. Needs to Learn Arabic, House Committee Leader Says
Those wacky Belgians
A threat to peace?
I was thinking about writing a piece on the reports of a European Commission poll of 7,500 Europeans that says Israel is ‘the greatest threat to world peace’ but British blogger Harry Hatchet has said pretty much what I would have done, and probably much more clearly.
Innocent Israeli civilians have been murdered in discos, bars and restaurants. Schoolkids on buses have been blown up in horrific suicide murders. And yet sympathy for Israel, outside of the US, appears to be at an all-time low.
Why? The easy and convenient answer is that Europe is a continent seething with anti-semites. While there are worrying signs, that is simply not true.
Could it not be the case that the Israelis are simply losing a propaganda war?
It is surely not a hard case to present that the blame for the violence in the Middle East should not put exclusively at the door of Israel. Ordinary Israelis have been victims of the most appalling acts of terrorism.
But that image of the little Palestinian boy being shielded by his father against a wall, the images of bulldozers, of a wall being built, of refugee camps, innocent civilians dying in Israeli raids are all beamed into our homes as well.
When those actions are criticised, the defence we increasingly hear is that criticism of Israel is equal to anti-semitism. That might make those who are criticised feel more justified in their actions but have Sharon’s supporters given up on the idea of winning hearts and minds or even basic politics or PR? Is their only strategy now one of playing to the gallery of the most hawkish anti-Europeans in the Bush administration?
This is all presuming the Israeli hardliners and their friends actually care about winning hearts and minds in Europe and aren’t simply engaged in a political effort to push the EU out of any peace process and leave the US, always less willing to criticise Israel, as the sole partner in any settlement.
As they say, read the whole thing.
The Minister for Weblogs
So the Dutch Finance Minister – Gerrit Zalm – has a weblog. Not understanding too much Dutch it’s hard to make a very thorough assesment, although it does look rather austere. However, unlike Howard Dean and Wes Clark, it does appear that he is posting himself. But it is not for the fact that he has a weblog that Finance Minister Zalm is making headlines at the moment. Rather it is for some of his statements on the French government and the stability pact. According to Frans he announced last week “that he gave up trying to get the European Commission to act against France’s repeated breaching of the rules”. Now Frans understandably is scratching his head trying to determine what this might mean.
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