Will Najib please step down

I have not been blogging political things for a long long time, and when I come back to do it, it has to be this

WILL NAJIB PLEASE PLEASE STEP DOWN !!
or answer all those allegations.

Interview : the Dispute Settlement System

My Notes :

• Prof John H. Jackson is an influential scholar in the realm of international trade particularly in WTO's DSS
• WTO's DSS is the most powerful dispute settlement system at the international level (and the success of this power of DSS has attracted its usage to a point of it being a threat to its own success)
• Q : With Doha Round impasse, it is possible that what DSS is doing now amount to legislating through the judiciary ? (Note that the judicial powers of WTO are expressed thru its Dispute Settlement Body. From here) A : There's a risk, but it is not yet happening. 
• Q : Protectionism policy - 3% of world import are now affected - is it a threat, coz it may get the system clogged with cases, making people wonder if the system is indeed sustainable ? A: I don't think it is that dangerous a situation. There has been quite a remarkable hesitation to give too much protectionism. The success of the system can be attributed to the system's holding back too much protection.  On the other hand we could also be on the verge of something more mean. That, we have to watch out.  
• Read more on protectionism. Notes later.  

• Emergence of 21st century issues such as investment, climate change, environmental, internet commerce, these issues may be brought before the DSS - these cases are coming to DSS, competence of the system, providing business efficacy factors such as predictability, but may be hindered by failure to get decisions among members due to consensus rules
• environmental issues, financial regulations - these areas, interaction to trade area   
• He mentions WTO's legalistic approach. What does it mean ? Read here. 

• "The WTO has introduced a more legalistic approach to trade dispute settlement than its predecessor GATT. In GATT, because of the absence of paper machinery for dispute settlement, disputes look long to clear. This also mean, however, that GATT required more diplomacy than law to settle disputes. This at least ensured that all concerns were fully ventilated before a settlement could be reached. The price for ensuring justice was delay and often non-implementation of the agreements reached.

• "The WTO has changed  all that. It has introduced a remarkably efficient and predictable legal system of DS with a built-in mechanism for sanctions and procedures for cross-sectoral retaliation. This is regarded generally as one of the more positive aspects of the WTO system. Disputes can, in theory, be brought to WTO panels for (relatively) speedy dispensation of settlement."

• In other international fora, why can't they have a dss that is as effective as WTO's DSS ? In GATT panel  ruling the person, in the wrong can block the ruling, in the middle 80's the reverse consensus but remedied during the Uruguay Round they failure succeeded where - consensus vote - elaborate procedure of uneasiness of states began to change unilateral, the rate of compliance is remarkably high
• failure to arrive at decisions in commerce 
• trade disputes airline cases flow into politics 
• improving the DSS, how ?
• hormon-treated beef issue, US vs EU; read here
• Boeng vs Airbus saga, read here
• Banana issue, read here
• Q : Regional negotiations and bilateral undertakings, are they  a threat to the multilateral trading system ? They are all heading towards free trade. The subset of the world, they can tailor the already existing rules of WTO eg rules of decision making, ie WTO plus or WTO minus.   

What Will Happen After US Dollar Collapse

What the Economic Crisis Really Means - and what we can do about it

Network - (1976) "I'm as mad as hell" speech

Found it. It was a snippet from Network, produced in 1976. Isn't it rather spooky ?

Farm Subsidies For The Rich?

The Problem with Subsidies

WTO Agreement on Agriculture and Its Impact on Economics in South Asia

International Monetary System - New Economic Slavery

Stumbled upon this, and the intro proves quite interesting. It's 51 minutes long. Recommended on sleepless nights :-).

How do the WTO, World Bank and IMF work?

Susan George explains what the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Trade Organization (WTO) are and how they work. They operate in the interests of rich nations at the expense of the poor. She cautions against the current trend to privatise public services such as transport, health and water.

FER

From here

Definition of 'Floating Exchange Rate'

A country's exchange rate regime where its currency is set by the foreign-exchange market through supply and demand for that particular currency relative to other currencies. Thus, floating exchange rates change freely and are determined by trading in the forex market. This is in contrast to a "fixed exchange rate" regime

Investopedia explains 'Floating Exchange Rate'

In some instances, if a currency value moves in any one direction at a rapid and sustained rate, central banks intervene by buying and selling its own currency reserves (i.e. Federal Reserve in the U.S.) in the foreign-exchange market in order to stabilize the local currency. However, central banks are reluctant to intervene, unless absolutely necessary, in a floating regime.

termination of gold/dollar convertability

From here 

1971 Termination of Gold/Dollar Convertability

SUMMARY:

Richard Nixon's August 1971 decision to suspend the convertibility of dollars into gold was one of the most important chapters in modern economic history. Nixon's move, which was precipitated by rising U.S. balance of payments deficits, ended the system of fixed exchange rates that had been established at the Bretton Woods conference of 1944 and ushered in a regime of floating rates.

DESCRIPTION:

The 1974 Congressional Budget and Impoundment Act created a set of institutional changes designed to help Congress regain power over the budget process. The Act was inspired by Richard Nixon's refusal to disburse nearly $12 billion of congressionally-appropriated funds in 1973-74 through the executive power of impoundment, as well as more generalized fears about the budget deficit. Nixon claimed that the deficit was causing high inflation and that as a result he needed to curb government spending. To this effect, in the 1972 presidential election he called on Congress to grant the President authority to cut federal spending so as to keep the budget under control. Congress opposed Nixon's proposal and instead sought to reform Congress' budgetary role. In 1972 Congress created a Joint Study Committee on Budget Control which called for procedural reforms to enable Congress to examine the federal budget from an "overall point of view, together with a congressional system of deciding priorities." Following Nixon's impoundment Congress acted on these recommendations and in 1974 passed the Act over the President's veto.

Under the Bretton Woods agreement of 1944 the U.S. dollar was the only national currency directly backed by gold. Other currencies were valued against the dollar, which could be exchanged through the U.S. government's "gold window" for a fixed amount of gold. Over the course of the 1960s, however, this system came under strain. Spending on the Vietnam War and Great Society as well as the revival of Western Europe and Japan led to a decline in the U.S. balance of payments. This, in turn, placed significant pressure on the dollar: U.S. gold holdings could not keep pace with the expanded money supply required by domestic and international economic growth. Fearful that other governments would rush to convert their dollars into gold and thereby precipitate a run on the dollar, on August 15, 1971 Richard Nixon unilaterally suspended dollar-gold convertibility. This action, which Nixon presented as part of a plan to combat inflation, effectively ended the Bretton Woods monetary regime and brought about a system of floating exchange rates within a few years. The implications of the "Nixon shock" for domestic and international affairs were numerous. Since the dollar no longer had to be backed by gold, the end of the Bretton Woods fixed exchange rate system increased the freedom of the U.S. Federal Reserve to engage in counter-cyclical monetary policy. The advent of floating exchange rates in 1973, after efforts to revive the fixed exchange rate regime failed, also facilitated global capital flows.

FURTHER INFORMATION:

Michael D. Bordo and Barry Eichengreen, eds., A Retrospective on the Bretton Woods System: Lessons for International Monetary Reform (National Bureau of Economic Research and University of Chicago Press, 1993).

Barry Eichengreen, Globalizing Capital: A History of the International Monetary System(Princeton University Press, 1996).

Francis J. Gavin, Gold, Dollars, and Power: The Politics of International Monetary Relations, 1958-1971 (University of North Carolina Press, 2004).

Joanne S. Gowa, Closing the Gold Window: Domestic Politics and the End of Bretton Woods (Cornell University Press, 1993).

Harold James, International Monetary Cooperation since Bretton Woods (International Monetary Fund and Oxford University Press, 1996).

Millenium Development Goals Progress 2012

Goal 1: Eradicating Extreme Poverty & Hunger (MDG)

Millenium Development Goals - What are they?

A Simple Explanation of the Economic Crisis in the US

Doha Round of WTO

The World Trade Organisation