newswars--2019-04-10--Does Economic Stability Contribute to Growth

Does Economic Stability Contribute to Growth?

During the period 1920 to 1960, we can observe that the annual growth rate of production was more volatile than between the period 1961 to February 2019.  During the first period the maximum growth rate stood at 62% and the minimum growth rate at minus 33.7%. Between 1961 to present, the maximum growth rate stood at 13.4% and the minimum growth rate at minus 15.3%, (see chart). One is tempted to conclude from this that this raises the likelihood that fiscal and monetary policies are currently more successful than in the past in stabilizing the economy.  For most economic experts the role of central authorities is to make the so-called economy as stable as possible. What do they mean by economic stability?  Economic stability refers to an absence of excessive fluctuations in the overall economy. An economy with constant output growth and low and stable price inflation is likely to be regarded as stable. An economy with frequent boom-bust cycles and variable price inflation would be considered as unstable.  According to popular thinking, stable economic environments in terms of stable price inflation and stable output growth acts as a buffer against various shocks. This makes it much easier for businesses to plan. In this way of thinking in particular, price level stability is the key for so-called economic stability.  For instance, let us say that a relative strengthening in people’s demand for potatoes versus tomatoes took place. This relative strengthening is going to be depicted by the relative increase in the prices of potatoes versus tomatoes.  Now to be successful, businesses must pay attention to consumers’ wishes as manifested by changes in the relative prices of goods and services. Failing to abide by consumers’ wishes will lead to the wrong production mix of goods and services and will lead to losses.  Hence, in our case, by paying attention to relative changes in prices, businesses are likely to increase the production of potatoes versus tomatoes.  On this way of thinking, if the price level is not stable then the visibility of the relative price changes becomes blurred and consequently, businesses cannot ascertain the relative changes in the demand for goods and services and make correct production decisions.  This leads to a misallocation of resources and to the weakening of economic fundamentals. Unstable changes in the price level obscure changes in the relative prices of goods and services. Consequently, businesses will find it difficult to recognize a change in relative prices when the price level is unstable.  Based on this way of thinking it is not surprising that the mandate of the central bank is to pursue policies that will bring price stability i.e. a stable price level.  By means of various quantitative methods, the Fed’s economists have established that at present policy makers must aim at keeping price inflation at 2%. Any significant deviation from this figure constitutes deviation from the growth path of price stability.  Observe that Fed policy makers are telling us that they have to stabilize the price level in order to allow the efficient functioning of the market economy.  Obviously, this is a contradiction in terms since any attempt to manipulate the so-called price level implies interference with markets and hence leads to false signals as conveyed by changes in relative prices.  By means of setting targets to interest rates and by means of monetary pumping it is not possible to strengthen economic fundamentals, but on the contrary, it only makes things much worse. Here is why.  Let us say that the so-called price level is starting to exhibit a visible decline in terms of growth momentum. To prevent this decline the Fed starts to aggressively push money into the banking system. Because of this policy the price level stabilizes after a time lag. Should we regard this as a successful monetary policy action? The answer is categorically no.  Given that monetary pumping sets in motion the diversion of wealth from wealth generating activities to non-wealth generating activities obviously this leads to the weakening of the wealth generation process and to economic impoverishment.  Note that the economic impoverishment has taken place despite price level stability. Also, note that in order to achieve price stability the Fed had to allow an increase in the growth momentum of the money supply.  The fluctuations in the growth momentum of money supply is matter here. It is this, that set in motion the menace of the boom bust cycle regardless of whether the price level is stable or not.  While increases in money supply are likely to be revealed in general price increases, this need not always be the case. Prices are determined by real and monetary factors. If the real factors are pulling things in an opposite direction to monetary factors, then it is possible that no visible change in prices might take place.  In other words, while money growth is buoyant prices might display moderate increases.  Clearly, if we were to pay attention to the so-called price level and disregard increases in the money supply, we would reach misleading conclusions regarding the state of the economy.  On this, Rothbard wrote, in America’s Great Depression:  At the root of price stabilization policies is the view that money is neutral. Changes in money only have an effect on the price level while having no effect whatsoever on the real economy. In this way of thinking changes in the relative prices of goods and services are established without the aid of money. For instance, if one apple exchanges for two potatoes then the price of an apple is two potatoes, or the price of one potato is half an apple. Now, if one apple exchanges for one dollar then it follows that the price of a potato is $0.5. Note that the introduction of money does not alter the fact that the relative price of potatoes versus apples is 2:1 (two-to-one). Thus, a seller of an apple will get one dollar for it, which in turn will enable him to purchase two potatoes.  In this way of thinking, an increase in the quantity of money leads to a proportionate fall in its purchasing power i.e. a rise in the price level. While a fall in the quantity of money results in a proportionate increase in the purchasing power of money i.e. a fall in the price level. All that, according to this way of thinking, does not alter the fact that one apple is exchanged for two potatoes, all other things being equal.  Let us assume that the amount of money has doubled and as a result, the purchasing power of money has halved, or the price level has doubled. This means that now one apple can be exchanged for $2 while one potato for $1. Note that despite the doubling in prices a seller of an apple with the obtained $2 can still purchase two potatoes.  We have here a total separation between changes in the relative prices of goods (how many apples exchanged per potatoes) and the changes in the price level. Therefore, it would appear that the only problem with inflation is that it obscures the visibility in the movements of the relative prices of goods thereby causing a misallocation of resources. Other than that, inflation is harmless. Why this way of thinking is problematic?  When new money is injected there are always first recipients who benefit from this injection. With more money at their disposal, the first recipients can now acquire a greater amount of goods while the prices of these goods are still unchanged. As money starts to move around the prices of goods begin to rise. Consequently, the late receivers benefit to a lesser extent from the initial monetary injections or may even find that most prices have risen so much that they can now afford fewer goods.  Increases in money supply lead to a redistribution of real wealth from later recipients, or non-recipients of money to the earlier recipients. Obviously, this shift in real wealth alters individuals’ demands for goods and services and in turn alters the relative prices of goods and services. Changes in money supply sets in motion new dynamics that give rise to changes in demands for goods and to changes in their relative prices. Hence, changes in money supply cannot be neutral as far as relative prices of goods are concerned.  The whole idea of the general purchasing power of money and hence the price level cannot, be even established conceptually.  When $1 is exchanged for one loaf of bread, we can say that the purchasing power of $1 is one loaf of bread. If $1 is exchanged for two tomatoes then this also means that the purchasing power of $1 is two tomatoes. The information regarding the specific purchasing power of money does not however allow the establishment of the total purchasing power of money. It is not possible to ascertain the total purchasing power of money because we cannot add up 2 tomatoes to 1 loaf of bread. We can only establish the purchasing power of money with respect to a particular good in a transaction at a given point in time and at a given place.  Now, the Fed’s monetary policy, which aims at stabilizing the price level, by implication, affects the growth rate of money supply. Since changes in money supply are not neutral, this means that central bank policy amounts to tampering with relative prices, which leads to the disruption of the efficient allocation of resources. As a result, a policy of stabilizing prices leads to over-production of some goods and under-production of some other goods. This is, however, not what the stabilizers are telling us. For they believe that the greatest merit of stabilizing changes in the price level is that it allows free and transparent fluctuations in the relative prices, which in turn leads to the efficient allocation of scarce resources.  True economic stability is not about keeping price fluctuations stable but rather keeping price fluctuations free from interference. Only in an environment free of government and central bank’s tampering with the economy can free fluctuations in relative prices take place. This in turn is going to allow businesses to abide by the wishes of consumers (i.e. will permit an efficient allocation of scarce resources). Fluctuations in prices are going to mirror changes in the relative supply-demand conditions.  For most economists, the key to healthy economic fundamentals is price stability. A stable price level, it is held, leads to the efficient use of the economy’s scarce resources and hence results in better economic fundamentals. It is not surprising that the mandate of the Federal Reserve is to pursue policies that will generate price stability. However, by means of monetary policies, the Fed’s objective of stabilizing the price level actually undermines economic fundamentals. The fact that the annual growth rate of US industrial production was less volatile during 1961 to 2019 versus 1920 to 1960 is not something to be proud about. It reflects relatively more suppressed side effects of the central bank and the government tampering with the economy.  It would appear that the ever-growing interference of government and the central bank with the working of the markets is moving the US economy towards the growth path of persistent economic impoverishment and drastically lower living standards as time goes by.     Here’s why politicians were no match for Candice Owens because she’s more authentic.


newswars--2019-08-12--GDP Growth Isnt the Same Thing as Economic Growth

GDP Growth Isn’t the Same Thing as Economic Growth

To gain insight into the state of an economy, most financial experts and commentators rely on a statistic called the Gross Domestic Product (GDP).  The GDP framework looks at the value of final goods and services produced during a particular time interval, usually a quarter or a year.  This statistic is constructed in accordance with the view that what drives an economy is not the production of wealth but rather its consumption. What matters here is the demand for final goods and services. Since consumer outlays are the largest part of the overall demand, it is commonly held that consumer demand is the key driver of economic growth.  All that matters in this view is the demand for goods, which in turn will give rise almost immediately to their supply. Because the supply of goods is taken for granted, this framework ignores the whole issue of the various stages of production that precede the emergence of the final good.  However, in order to manufacture a car, there is a need for coal to be employed in the production of steel, which in turn will be employed to manufacture an array of tools. These in turn are used to produce other tools and machinery and so on, until we reach the final stage of the production of a car. The harmonious interaction of the various stages of production results in the final product.  Within the GDP framework, the aspect of funding economic activity never emerges. In this framework goods emerge because of people’s desires. In the real world, it is not enough to have demand for goods – one must have the means to accommodate people’s desires. The means are various final goods that are required to sustain various individuals in the various stages of production.  The key source for the means of sustenance is individuals’ real savings. For instance, John the baker produces ten loaves of bread and consumes two loaves of bread. The unconsumed eight loaves of bread constitutes real savings. John the baker could exchange the saved eight loaves of bread for the services of a technician in order to improve his oven i.e. the improvement of his infrastructure. With the help of an improved infrastructure, John could lift the production of bread – increase the economic growth. Note that the eight saved loaves of bread sustain the life and wellbeing of the technician while he is working to enhance the oven.  Observe that real savings is the determining factor as far as future economic growth is concerned. If a strengthening in economic growth requires a particular infrastructure while there is not enough real savings to make such an infrastructure –the desired strengthening in the economic growth is not going to emerge.  The GDP framework is hostile to savings given that in this framework more savings weakens consumption and weakens the so-called Keynesian multiplier. The GDP framework gives the impression that it is not the activities of individuals that produce goods and services, but something else outside these activities called the “economy.” However, at no stage does the so-called “economy” have a life of its own independent of individuals. The so-called economy is a metaphor—it does not exist.  By aggregating the values of final goods and services together, government statisticians concretize the fiction of an economy by means of the GDP statistic. However the GDP framework cannot tell us whether final goods and services that were produced during a particular period of time are a reflection of real wealth expansion, or a reflection of capital consumption.  For instance, if a government embarks on the construction of a pyramid, which adds nothing to the well-being of individuals, the GDP framework will regard this as a factor that contributes to economic growth. In reality, however, the building of the pyramid will divert real savings from wealth-generating activities, thereby stifling the production of wealth.  There are serious problems regarding the calculation of real gross domestic product (GDP). To calculate a total, several things must be added together. To add things together, they must have some unit in common. However, it is not possible to add refrigerators to cars and shirts to obtain the total of final goods. Since the total real output cannot be defined in a meaningful way, obviously it cannot be quantified. To overcome this problem, economists employ total monetary expenditure on goods, which they divide by an average price of those goods. There is, however, a serious problem with this.  Suppose two transactions were conducted. In the first transaction, one TV set is exchanged for $1,000. In the second transaction, one shirt is exchanged for $40. The price or the rate of exchange in the first transaction is $1000/1TV set. The price in the second transaction is $40/1shirt. In order to calculate the average price, we must add these two ratios and divide them by 2. However, $1000/1TV set cannot be added to $40/1shirt, implying that it is not possible to establish an average price. On this Rothbard wrote in Man, Economy, and State:  The employment of various sophisticated methods to calculate the average price level cannot bypass the essential issue that it is not possible to establish an average price of various goods and services. Accordingly, various price indices that government statisticians compute are simply arbitrary numbers. If price deflators are meaningless so is the real GDP statistic.  Even government statisticians admit that the whole thing is not real. According to J. Steven Landefeld and Robert P. Parker from the Bureau of Economic Analysis,  Now, since it is not possible to quantitatively establish the status of the total of real goods and services, obviously various data like real GDP that government statisticians generate should not be taken too seriously.  The whole idea of GDP gives the impression that there is such a thing as the national output. In a market economy, however, wealth is produced by individuals and belongs to them independently.  Goods and services are not produced in totality and supervised by one supreme leader. This in turn means that the entire concept of GDP is devoid of any basis in reality as far as the market economy is concerned. It is an empty concept. According to Mises in Human Action the whole idea that one can establish the value of the national output, or what is called the gross domestic product (GDP) is somewhat far-fetched:  So what are we to make out of the periodical pronouncements that the economy, as depicted by real GDP, grew by a particular percentage? All we can say is that this percentage has nothing to do with real economic growth and that it most likely mirrors the pace of monetary pumping. Since GDP is expressed in dollar terms, it is obvious that its fluctuations will be driven by the fluctuations in the amount of dollars pumped into the economy. From this, we can also infer that a strong real GDP growth rate most likely depicts a weakening in the process of real wealth formation.  Once it is realized that so called real economic growth, as depicted by real GDP, mirrors fluctuations in the money supply growth rate it becomes clear that an economic boom has nothing to do with real economic expansion.  On the contrary, such a boom is about real economic contraction since it undermines the pool of real wealth – the heart of real economic growth. (Note that boom is generated by the increase in the money supply growth rate, which gives rise to various bubble activities that undermine the process of wealth generation).  It is no wonder that in the GDP framework, the central bank can cause real economic growth, and most economists who slavishly follow this framework believe that this is so. Much so-called economic research produces “scientific support” for popular views that, by means of monetary pumping, the central bank can grow the economy. It is overlooked by all these studies that no other conclusion can be reached once it is realized that GDP is a close relative of the money stock.  One is tempted to ask, why it is necessary to know the growth of the so-called “economy”. What purpose can this type of information serve? In a free unhampered economy, this type of information would be of little use to entrepreneurs. The only indicator that any entrepreneur would rely upon is profit and loss. How can information that the so-called “economy” grew by 4 percent in a particular period help an entrepreneur generate profit?  What an entrepreneur requires is not general but rather specific information regarding the demand for his specific product, or products. The entrepreneur himself has to establish his own network of information concerning a particular venture.  Things are quite different, however, when the government and the central bank tamper with businesses. Under these conditions, no businessman can ignore the GDP statistic since the government and the central bank react to this statistic by means of fiscal and monetary policies.  The entire army of economists is busy guessing whether the central bank will lower, or raise, interest rates.  By means of the GDP framework, government and central bank officials generate the impression that they can navigate the economy. According to this myth, the “economy” is expected to follow a growth path outlined by omniscient officials. Thus, whenever the growth rate slips to below the outlined growth path, officials are expected to give the “economy” a suitable push. Conversely, whenever the “economy” is growing too fast, the officials are expected to step in to cool off the “economy’s” growth rate.  If the effect of these policies were confined only to the GDP statistic then the whole exercise would be harmless. However, these policies tamper with activities of wealth producers and thereby undermine people’s well-being.  Likewise, by means of monetary pumping and interest rate manipulation, the Federal Reserve doesn’t help generate more prosperity, but rather sets in motion “stronger GDP” and the consequent menace of the boom-bust cycle—i.e., economic impoverishment.


newswars--2019-08-22--Real Savings Are the Key for Economic Growth

As long as the pool of real wealth is expanding, easy monetary policy will appear to “work,” and  loose monetary policy is likely to be incorrectly held as generating economic growth.  Once, however, the pool becomes stagnant or starts declining, the “music stops” and no amount of central bank monetary pumping is going to “work.”  On the contrary, the more aggressive the central bank’s stance in attempting to revive the economy, the worse things are likely to get. The reason is this: easy monetary policy strengthens the exchange of nothing for something thereby weakening the process of real wealth generation — the heart of economic growth. Real wealth building can only occur as a result of expanding production and saving.  However, as long as the pool of real wealth is expanding, loose monetary policy can boost the overall demand. This however, is likely to weaken over time the process of real wealth generation and is likely to result in the lowering of individuals’ living standards. This is because loose monetary policy diverts wealth away from the most productive activities. Bubbles result and true economic growth slows.  Once the pool of real wealth begins to decline it will not be possible to strengthen the overall demand and any attempt to boost the demand by means of easy monetary policies is going to make things much worse. Examples that come to mind in this regard are Zimbabwe and Venezuela.  One could argue that, irrespective of the reasons for the emergence of idle resources, the role of authorities and in particular the central bank is to pursue policies that will make it possible for a greater use of these resources. In truth, however, employment of idle resources requires an expansion in the pool of real wealth to engage those resources. This requires an increase in real savings.  For instance, John the baker who produces 10 loaves of bread uses 2 loaves for his personal consumption the other 8 loaves are his real savings. He can now exchange these 8 saved loaves for the services of a technician in order to improve his oven, i.e., to enhance his infrastructure. With the better infrastructure, John the baker will be able to produce more bread, i.e., an increase in his economic growth is going to emerge.  With a greater production of bread, all other things being equal, John could now save more and could afford to expand further his infrastructure. Thus if his production has increased to 20 loaves of bread from 10 loaves and his consumption is still 2 loaves, John now saves 18 loaves of bread versus the 8 loaves saved previously. This in turn enables him to expand further his infrastructure and this leads to the employment of more resources including some idle resources. Without the increase in real wealth and in turn in real savings, there will not be sufficient means to facilitate the employment of idle resources.  A loose monetary policy that is aimed at boosting demand will not do the trick, for an increase in the demand cannot replace real savings that are required to recruit such resources. Note that the central bank does not have real savings to support the formation of real wealth. (Individuals in the various stages of production require bread and various goods to maintain their life and wellbeing not pieces of paper we label as money.)  Some commentators are of the view that through loose monetary policies on the part of the central bank the economy can take off on its own, just as adding a little water to a pump (i.e., priming the pump, enables water to be pumped out of a well).  This metaphor is misleading since, as we have seen, without the expansion in real savings no expansion in economic activity can take place. Again, pushing more money and, with it, credit unbacked by real wealth, cannot replace the non-existent capital goods that are required for the expansion of wealth that in turn could absorb the unemployed labor and capital.  Hence, more of the same cannot make things better — on the contrary, it is going to result in the strengthening of the economic impoverishment. It is not possible to generate something out of nothing as various popular ideas led us to believe.  The key for a sustained economic growth is not by boosting demand for goods but by strengthening the process of real wealth generation. The key for this is the increase in real savings. The increase in real savings provides the support for various individuals in the various stages of production. Without this support no expansion in the infrastructure and hence the increase in the production of final goods required to support individuals life and wellbeing can take place.    Google whistleblower Zach Vorhies joins The Alex Jones Show to expose the Big Tech methods being used to meddle in elections and brainwash the public.


newsweek--2019-01-22--Xi Jinping China Facing Political Struggle Amid Donald Trumps Trade War and Sluggish Economic Grow

Xi Jinping: China Facing Political Struggle Amid Donald Trump's Trade War and Sluggish Economic Growth

Chinese President Xi Jinping has told Communist Party officials to be wary of threats to the regime’s political and ideological security as Beijing responds to new and concerning economic data.  Speaking at a study session for top party leaders on Monday, Xi—effectively made president for life in 2018—also said the party must guard against the influence of the internet on young people to ensure the survival of “socialism with Chinese characteristics,” the state-backed Xinhua news agency reported.  Read More: China grants Ivanka Trump five trademarks as White House continues trade negotiations with Beijing  His appearance at the event coincided with the release of worrying economic data for China, which showed its 2018 economic growth was the weakest in almost 30 years. Performance was driven down by sluggish domestic spending and investment, while the economy was forced to grapple with a raft of new tariffs from President Donald Trump’s trade war.  The Communist Party has enforced one-party rule in China since 1949. Leaders have largely been able to offset any demands for greater personal and political freedom by using the country’s impressive economic performance, which has enabled the world’s most populous nation to create its second-strongest economy.  But slowing economic growth could undermine this balance. Increasing unemployment and falling living standards present a threat to the country’s social cohesion, and thus the ruling party, The Guardian suggested.  Xi said the party’s focus should be on young people and the ideological battles taking place online. “Now the main front of the ideological struggle is on the internet, and the main audience of the internet is young people,” he said. “Many domestic and foreign forces are trying to develop supporters of their values and even to cultivate opponents of the government,” the president warned.  The president also announced a raft of new measures that will help stabilize the country’s economy. Xi said party officials would be “highly vigilant” against “black swans”—unpredictable negative economic events—and “grey rhinoceroses”—known risks ignored until it's too late to avoid them.  According to Reuters, Xi said the government would help small businesses with financing issues and support companies if required to protect jobs. He also indicated that China would work to safeguard its interests and workers overseas amid what he called a “turbulent international situation.”  But companies with a lot of debt, which Xi called “zombie firms,” would be dissolved and their workers resettled. The government will also take steps to stabilize the country’s real estate market and ensure a thorough evaluation of financial markets before enacting any policies that may impact them.  Xi warned that technological advances also pose a threat to the party and society. He vowed to introduce new legislation regarding artificial intelligence, gene editing, autonomous vehicles and drones to properly manage the impact of such fields.  Li Datong, a former journalist and critic of Xi, told The Guardian, “There is no political security. There is only regime security.” He suggested regime officials “see the risks of rebellion. As the economy becomes worse, people from all walks of the society can become opponents.”  China’s public security minister, Zhao Kezhi, said last week authorities must be on the lookout for any “color revolutions”—i.e. mass political pro-democracy movements. He said police must “stress the prevention and resistance of color revolutions and firmly fight to protect China’s political security.”


newyorker--2019-02-04--The False Choice Between Economic Growth and Combating Climate Change

In 1974, the economist William Nordhaus described the transition from a “cowboy economy” to a “spaceship economy.” In the former, he wrote, “we could afford to use our resources profligately,” and “the environment could be used as a sink without becoming fouled.” But, in the spaceship economy, “great attention must be paid to the sources of life and to the dumps where our refuse is piled.” He added, “Things which have traditionally been treated as free goods—air, water, quiet, natural beauty—must now be treated with the same care as other scarce goods.” Toward the end of his landmark paper, “Resources as a Constraint on Growth,” Nordhaus discussed the possible adverse effects of energy consumption, most notably the “greenhouse effect.” From a “rough calculation,” he found that the atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide would increase by more than forty per cent in the next sixty years. “Although this is below the fateful doubling of CO2 concentration,” he wrote—scientists had already predicted that such a doubling could cause the polar ice caps to melt catastrophically—“it may well be too close for comfort.” He was prescient. We are now dangerously on track to hit his estimate, four hundred and eighty-seven parts per million, by 2030.  In the United States, after three years of decline, carbon-dioxide emissions increased by an estimated 3.4 per cent in 2018, according to a report released earlier this month by the Rhodium Group, a private climate-research firm. The authors blame two main factors: a particularly cold winter and fast economic growth. In the past two decades, the only greater annual gain in emissions was in 2010, when the economy was rebounding from the Great Recession. Historically, emissions have aligned with the ebb and flow of the economy. In 2018, economic growth was driven by a higher demand for energy, trucking and air travel, and industrial activity. Companies were manufacturing more stuff, including steel, cement, and chemicals. The carbon intensity of the power sector, meanwhile, did not decline fast enough to offset all those demand increases. As has been common since Nordhaus’s 1974 paper, the report seems to pit controlling climate change against a growing global economy.  The picture could have been much different. Nordhaus went on to publish a series of foundational studies on the economics of climate change. In 1992, he created an integrated economic and scientific model that could be used to determine the most efficient ways to cut greenhouse-gas emissions. His work—and that of many other economists who followed his lead—showed that a low tax on carbon, set to rise slowly over time, could be enough to keep emissions at reasonable levels, saving us from climate change at little, if any, cost. A “spaceship economy” could thrive if governments made sure that companies paid an appropriate price for the environmental damage they caused—what would come to be called the social cost of carbon. Companies that were most easily able to reduce their level of pollution would be incentivized to make the greatest reductions, and to invest in cheaper and better pollution-reduction systems.The dirtiest activities would be the most costly. The tax would promote innovations in new forms of power generation and, eventually, a widespread adoption of clean-energy technologies. The way to break the chain was to reimagine how we fuel the global economy. “It’s absolutely the case that emissions and growth can be decoupled,” Marshall Burke, an assistant professor in Stanford University’s Department of Earth System Science, told me. He pointed to research plotting how thirty-five countries, including the United States, did, in fact, experience economic growth in the past fifteen years while reducing their emissions—and not solely due to recessions. But the decline was not nearly enough. “The technology is available to have faster economic growth while reducing over-all emissions,” Trevor Houser, the head of Rhodium Group’s energy and climate team, and one of the authors of the report, told me. But the switch to nuclear and renewables needs to happen more rapidly. “It takes policy. It won’t happen through markets alone,” Houser said.  In October, Nordhaus and another economist, Paul Romer, won the Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences for, respectively, “integrating climate change” and “technological innovations” into “long-run macroeconomic analysis.” The timing of the announcement from Sweden was painfully ironic. Hours earlier, the United Nations had released its dire report warning that, if climate change’s worst impacts were to be avoided, the nations of the world had about a decade to revolutionize the energy economy. “The policies are lagging very, very far—miles, miles, miles behind the science and what needs to be done,” Nordhaus said after receiving the prize. “It’s hard to be optimistic . . . We’re actually going backward in the United States, with the disastrous policies of the Trump Administration.” The Obama Administration had, in its final years, partially incorporated concepts that Nordhaus had helped to develop, such as putting a price on the economic harm that results from every additional ton of carbon dioxide emitted into the atmosphere. The price was set at forty-five dollars a ton, and used in both regulatory cost-benefit analyses, which undergirded new fuel-efficiency standards, and the Clean Power Plan, which would have propelled a faster retirement of coal-powered electric plants and a broader transition to renewables. Just as such policies were “beginning to bear fruit,” Houser said, “that whole framework was dismantled.” Under Trump, the social cost of a ton of carbon is as little as one dollar.  As emissions keep growing, and climate change advances, there is less and less time to make the necessary cuts. “The pace we needed to decline was already much larger than what was happening,” Houser told me. “Now we have to go even faster to meet our Paris Agreement target by 2025”—on average, a 2.6-per-cent reduction in annual energy-related carbon-dioxide emissions in the next seven years. “That is considerably faster than at any point in history,” he said. And it will need to go even faster if declines in other greenhouse gases, including methane and hydrofluorocarbons—which endure in the atmosphere for much shorter amounts of time than carbon dioxide but are much more potent—do not keep pace.  A modest carbon tax of the sort Nordhaus proposed decades ago—one that was then palatable to conservatives—will therefore no longer bring us anywhere near the Paris Agreement targets. But it’s one of many weapons in the arsenal that policymakers need to employ. “The real challenge is finding ways to reduce emissions and maintain economic growth on the timeline demanded by the nature of climate change,” Kenneth Gillingham, an associate professor of economics at Yale University, told me. But, as much as the costs of climate mitigation will undoubtedly increase, the question is whether the benefits of mitigation exceed those costs. “It’s a straw man—and terrible economics—to just point out the costs while ignoring the benefits,” Burke said. He and two co-authors published a paper in Nature last May that shows that the economic benefits of mitigation are going to be much larger than previously believed. Cooler temperatures would help maintain and grow productivity, and reducing carbon emissions means reducing air pollution—specifically particulate matter, or soot—which brings immediate health benefits. They found that keeping global warming to one and a half degrees Celsius (which is nearly impossible at this point), as opposed to two degrees Celsius, would potentially save more than twenty trillion dollars around the world by the end of the century, and significantly reduce global inequality. Beyond two degrees, they wrote, “we find considerably greater reductions in global economic output.” If nations met their commitments under the Paris Agreement, the world would still see the average global temperature rise by two and a half to three degrees Celsius, which, according to Burke’s paper, would result in a fifteen-to-twenty-five-per-cent reduction in per capita output by 2100. “To just complain about the costs of this transition and ignore the benefits, as is common in the discussion from this Administration,” Burke said, “is some pretty poor cost-benefit analysis from an Administration that prides itself on economic savvy.”  As a small but growing coalition of congressional Democrats, led by Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, have outlined as part of their Green New Deal, transforming the energy sector—and, really, the entire economy, in a just and more equitable way—will require some sort of carbon tax (preferably a “fee and dividend” approach, which distributes tax revenues as rebates directly to citizens), and also new regulations and huge investments. “We can decarbonize the electric sector at a fairly low cost,” Gillingham told me. “That’s where some of the cheapest emissions reductions are to be found.” Extensive government subsidies could hasten the spread of renewables—specifically, solar, wind, and batteries—and offset any rise in emissions elsewhere. As Gillingham said, “We might want to be careful about fighting climate change by preventing people from staying warm in the winter. If a winter is really cold enough, emissions increases are to be expected.” Still, there are ways to reduce the use of fossil fuels in heating; utilities, for instance, can create incentive programs so that homeowners have a motivation to replace their boilers with electric heat pumps.  Houser told me that total emissions are expected to remain flat in 2019. Economists and other market observers predict that over-all economic growth will be slower, and the full impact of recent cuts to coal-plant capacity (2018 was a near-record year) has not yet been recorded. Still, in the absence of major policy changes—which is mostly dependent on a new President who makes climate policy a top and urgent priority—there is almost no chance that the U.S. will achieve the average emissions cuts necessary to meet the Paris targets by 2025. Houser told me that our only hope would be extremely favorable market and technological conditions. “If, over the next couple of years, no more nuclear power plants retired”—more than a dozen are scheduled to retire in the next seven years—“wind, solar, and battery prices fall far faster than the currently most optimistic projections estimate, it is possible that we could come pretty close to meeting the Paris Agreement targets,” he said. States, cities, and private organizations would also have to pick up a tremendous amount of slack from Washington. Even warmer winters would help. “Everything would really have to light up in the right direction,” Houser said. “It’s also, of course, possible that, if there was a massive global recession, we’d see a significant decline, too. But that’s not the reason we want emissions to decline.”


newyorkpost--2019-02-24--Trump pitches economic growth for North Korea before meeting with Kim

In a series of tweets before his meeting with Kim Jong Un, President Trump suggested North Korea would be willing to ditch its nuclear weapons because of the economic benefits that would come with the move.  “Chairman Kim realizes, perhaps better than anyone else, that without nuclear weapons, his country could fast become one of the great economic powers anywhere in the World. Because of its location and people (and him), it has more potential for rapid growth than any other nation!” Trump posted on Twitter on Sunday.  He is meeting with Kim in Vietnam on Tuesday and Wednesday, a follow up to their first summit last summer in Singapore.  Trump credited Chinese President Xi Jinping with helping keep lines of communications open with Kim because it’s in his best interest.  “The last thing China wants are large scale nuclear weapons right next door. Sanctions placed on the border by China and Russia have been very helpful,” Trump wrote. “Great relationship with Chairman Kim!”  The president also raised the possibility that he and Kim would be able reach a landmark deal.  “Very productive talks yesterday with China on Trade. Will continue today!,” he wrote, highlighting the talks his administration is having with Chinese officials on trade.  “I will be leaving for Hanoi, Vietnam, early tomorrow for a Summit with Kim Jong Un of North Korea, where we both expect a continuation of the progress made at first Summit in Singapore. Denuclearization?,” Trump concluded.  Meanwhile, state media in North Korea accused Democrats and the US intelligence community of trying to derail the talks.  “The Democratic Party of the U.S. and other opponents to the negotiations move overtly and covertly to disrupt them as supported by skepticism backed by all sorts of groundless stories and misinformation even at such a crucial moment as now,” state news agency KCNA said in an editorial, according to Reuters.  Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats, testifying before a congressional panel last month, said Kim’s regime won’t give up its nuclear arsenal.  “We currently assess that North Korea will seek to retain its WMD capabilities, and is unlikely to completely give up its nuclear weapons and production capabilities,” Coats said. “Our assessment is bolstered by our observations of some activity that is inconsistent with full denuclearization.”  Coats said Kim sees the nukes as necessary for “regime survival.”


theseattletimes--2019-12-24--Lebanese help each other as economic crisis crushes lives

BEIRUT (AP) — Panic set in on a WhatsApp group used to organize Lebanese protests when one member said he intended to kill himself because he can’t provide for his kids.  The desperate call came on the heels of the suicide of a father of two that had stunned the public and raised alarm over how dire Lebanon’s economic conditions have become.  So Mohamed Shkeir, one of dozens of members in the group, sprang into action. The 23-year-old architect student along with friends launched a campaign appealing for donations — for the man and for others suffering. They posted an ad on social media and, to show transparency, created a spreadsheet to track the money.  As Lebanon’s protest movement enters its third month, the economic pinch is hurting everyone. Layoffs are increasing, salary cuts are the norm, banks are capping withdrawals and prices are quickly rising. The euphoria that marked the first days of the protests is being replaced with gloom.  With the entrenched political class failing to chart a way out, Lebanese are resorting to what they’ve done in previous wars and crises: they rely on each other, not the state.  “We got to a situation where people are not able to buy food for their kids or pay their rent,” Shkeir said.  The despondent friend “said he had no money and what is the revolution doing about it and asked why the politicians are not paying attention,” Shkeir said. They were able to convince him not to kill himself, though he refused to take any donations. Shkeir and his group continued their campaign, giving money, food, clothes and supplies to 58 families so far this month, including one family reduced to using candles because they can’t afford electricity.  Over recent years as Lebanon’s economy worsened, people turned to familiar ways to cope, like mosque and church charities or helping each other, forgiving debts or handing out food. Those means have already been getting stretched thin.  The protests — and the 24-hour news cycle focused on them — have brought a surge of help by rallying public attention to the suffering. Campaigns to collect food, winter clothes and helplines for people in economic and emotional distress are popping up everywhere, intensified by the Christmas spirit.  Stores have offered discounts and set up boxes for donations of clothes or money. Ads on TV urged Lebanese to pack bags of donations instead of suitcases for travel. Another urged Lebanese in the diaspora coming home to visit to bring “medicines, clothes and goodies” to give, because “Lebanon needs help.”  Some restaurants have offered to deliver free food, and bakeries put out bread for anyone who needs. A yoga studio organized classes to fundraise for the needy. WhatsApp groups and Instagram pages shared addresses of local small businesses for shoppers to use for Christmas gifts. “We are all in this together,” said one tagline. A group of web developers created an app, Khayyak or Your Brother, to coordinate between those who want to help and those in need. “Don’t lose hope, you are not alone,” the advertisement for the app said.  The efforts are in part driven by the famed entrepreneurial spirit that helped Lebanese get through numerous previous crises, including a 15-year civil war and several wars with Israel that wrecked the infrastructure and economy.  But the protests have also created a unique experience — “something for everybody,” whether they support or oppose the revolt, said Mia Atwi, a clinical psychologist.  “People feel more that they are all suffering the same thing, the rich and the poor … a common kind of loss,” she said.  Atwi is co-founder of Lebanon’s Embrace, a mental health organization operating the national suicide prevention helpline. The helpline now receives 100 calls a week, up from up to 10 before reports of suicides or attempted suicides first erupted three weeks ago.  Atwi attributed the jump to the spike of media and public attention to the issue of suicide, something she said has saved lives. Calls even come from rural areas, not just Beirut as they did in the past. Still, the government hasn’t given her organization a toll-free number, despite paying $25,000 a year for the four-digit helpline.  Many campaigns have sprung out of the protest movement. Weekly clothes donations and distributions were set up in the downtown Beirut squares at the epicenter of the demonstrations and near the Central Bank, which protesters accuse of corruption and fueling the economic crisis.  “We only have each other” proclaims the campaign’s hashtag, a snub of the political class and the state.  Rim Majid, a 21-year old student, quit university in Beirut to participate in “everything revolution.” After hearing of news of the man’s suicide in early December, she set up a griddle at a downtown protest site to make free manousheh, a traditional Lebanese flatbread. Next to the griddle is a donation box with the man’s name. Someone donated enough wheat for a week of baking.  “The suffering existed before, but now we are going through a crisis, one that will only get worse,” she said.  The help isn’t only monetary. During a discussion one evening at a protest tent, a concerned woman asked: “What are the revolutionaries going to do when those who pay mortgages for their homes are unable to?” A young participant suggested the protesters could physically block the bank and the police from evicting people.  For Shkeir, the charity spirit reflects the principles of the protests — the rejection of an entire political elite seen as corrupt and of Lebanon’s sectarian power-sharing system.  Shkeir said his group’s donation campaign makes sure to transcend sectarian and political divisions and offers an alternative to the patronage that politicians use to cement their power. The campaign has members from Christian, Sunni and Shiite areas. At least three donors came to them instead of established charities because, he said, they wanted to avoid donating along sectarian or political lines.  Shkeir had once planned to migrate like many others driven out by Lebanon’s economic problems. The protests convinced him he has no other place to be but home, he said.  In the last two months, he said, he met people from across different classes and sects he never imagined talking to.  “Our relations are built on humanity and national unity,” he said. “Our friendships are built on helping people.”


thetorontostar--2019-08-24--Lebanese president says Beirut will overcome economic crisis

BEIRUT - Lebanon’s president said Saturday his country will emerge from its difficult economic conditions by making decisions that boost production, and a top politician said politicians will be called for a meeting “to discuss the challenges.”  Michel Aoun’s comments came a day after Fitch Ratings downgraded Lebanon’s long-term foreign currency issuer default rating to CCC from B-.  Also on Friday, Standard & Poor’s Global Ratings affirmed its long- and short-term foreign and local currency sovereign credit ratings for Beirut at B-/B, saying the country’s outlook remains negative.  The international rating agency’s downgrade is another blow to the small Arab country’s struggling economy, which suffers one of the world’s highest debt ratios, high unemployment and little growth. Lebanon’s economy has been suffering from the war in neighbouring Syria that saw more than a million refugees flee to Lebanon putting pressure on the country’s crumbling infrastructure.  Aoun said in remarks at his summer residencethat Lebanon’s economic crisis has accumulated for several years, not just the last few. Aoun took office in 2016. His comments were released by his office.  Later in the day, leading politician Walid Jumblatt, a Druze leader, told reporters after meeting with Aoun that the “the president will call all officials in the country for a meeting so that we take our responsibilities in facing these challenges.”  Jumblatt said Aoun is taking the matter very seriously and “sees this rating as a danger.” Jumblatt added that “as officials we should take some measure that are unpopular because if we don’t take these measures we might have worse ratings.”  The new ratings came after Moody’s downgraded Lebanon’s issuer ratings to Caa1 from B3 while changing the outlook to stable from negative in January.  Get more of the Star in your inbox Never miss the latest news from the Star. Sign up for our newsletters to get today's top stories, your favourite columnists and lots more in your inbox Sign Up Now


usnews--2019-11-09--UK Conservatives Warn of Economic Crisis Under Labour, Citing Disputed Dossier

LONDON (Reuters) - British finance minister Sajid Javid said on Sunday the opposition Labour Party's "reckless" spending plans would trigger an economic crisis within months if it won the Dec. 12 election, citing a contested dossier published by his Conservative Party.  Labour strongly dismissed the report, which said it would increase spending by 1.2 trillion pounds ($1.5 trillion) over the next five years, calling it fake news.  The future path of Britain's economy, the world's fifth largest, has been at the center of the election campaign in recent days, with both parties pledging higher spending, but arguing over the scale of investment needed and how to pay for it.  "These are eye-watering levels of spending - 1.2 trillion (pounds) - it will be absolutely reckless and will leave this country with an economic crisis within months," Javid told the BBC on Sunday.  The Conservatives, led by Prime Minister Boris Johnson and currently ahead in opinion polls, said the figure was based on Labour's manifesto for the 2017 election and estimates of more recent policy pledges.  But Javid refused to put a price tag on his own party's plan for government, saying it would fully account for new spending when the party manifesto is published. Labour has also pledged to explain how it would pay for its program for government.  "This ludicrous piece of Tory fake news is an incompetent mish-mash of debunked estimates and bad maths cooked up because they know Labour’s plans for real change are popular," said Labour's would-be finance minister, John McDonnell.  Costs for other policies were based on an immediate start, whereas Labour has said they would be phased in over several years.  Johnson, whose minority government has had to rely on support from political allies, called the early election in an attempt to break a parliamentary impasse over Brexit.  "Labour will tax the rich to pay for things everyone needs and deserves, like decent housing, healthcare and support for our children," McDonnell said.  In a separate interview for the Sunday's Independent he said the party's manifesto would be "the most radical ever" and include a pilot program for a universal basic income.  Separate polls for the Mail on Sunday and Observer newspapers both put the Conservatives on 41% support and Labour on 29%, while a Sunday Times poll put the Conservatives on 39% and Labour on 26%.  "The number one thing they point to is this paralysis in decision making, and that is coming from what was a very dysfunctional parliament," Javid said when asked about the Moody's report.  Britain's public debt currently stands at around 1.8 trillion pounds, more than 80% of economic output - though below equivalent amounts in the United States, Japan and France.


windowoneurasiablog--2019-03-13--Economic Crisis Talk of War Making Russias Demographic Situation Worse Nikolayev Says

Economic Crisis, Talk of War Making Russia’s Demographic Situation Worse, Nikolayev Says

Staunton, March 12 – The demographic numbers for Russia in January 2019 are in, Igor Nikolayev says, and they show that the country’s “demographic pit is becoming a chasm,” the result in the first instance of the economic crisis and the Kremlin’s talk of war and one that is hitting ethnic Russians harder than anyone else, Igor Nikolayev says.  Russian officials seek to blame this as a echo of the 1990s when low birthrates meant that fewer future mothers were born, but that is a trend that was knowable in advance and should have given pause to the upbeat claims of several years ago. Now, however, Nikolayev says, it is clear that the chief culprits are the economic crisis and the talk of war.  On the one hand, with falling incomes, people are less willing to take on the additional responsibilities that having children impose and those in other countries do not see the same opportunities in Russia that they saw earlier and thus are not coming in the first place or going home or elsewhere instead or remaining.  And on the other, all the talk about Russia being “a besieged fortress” and war being a very real possibility hardly creates the kind of conditions in which potential parents are going to think about having children. Even if they want them, they seem likely to put off having babies until the situation clarifies itself.  Last year, according to Rosstat, “the size of the population of the country fell by 93,500. Such an absolute decline had not happened in Russia since 2008 when the population fell 10,300.” Not only were there fewer births and more deaths, some the result of the aging population, but immigration was insufficient to cover the decline in Russia itself.  Figures provided by the central ZAGS register for January 2019 are even worse: “the number of children born in January 2019 fell by 10.4 percent compared to January 2018.” The natural decline of the population for one month alone increased from 30,308 in January 2018 to 44,307 in January this year, Nikolayev says.  What all this means, the economist continues, is that the demographic situation in 2019 will “significantly worsen.” Another indication of that is this: “In January 2018, there were 49,500 marriages; but in January 2019, there were only 31,185, a decline of 36.4 percent. “ Of course, children are born out of wedlock as well, “but all the same …”  The government talks about the aid it is giving to parents, but this is insufficient, Nikolayev argues. Unless the economic situation improves and unless the government stops talking about war and about Russia being at risk of being destroyed, Russians are not going to have more children. They are going to have ever fewer – and the population will fall.


unian--2019-02-18--Ukraine needs US10 bln in investment annually to accelerate economic growth Finance Minister

# Ukraine needs US$10 bln in investment annually to accelerate economic growth – Finance Minister  16:40, 18 February 2019  [ Economy ](https://economics.unian.info/)  __355  Effective privatization of state property and a better business climate are required to attract such investment, Markarova said.  ## UNIAN Web subscription  Get a complete information picture of the day by [subscribing](http://subscribe.unian.info/subscribe/) to UNIAN’s news feeds.  For more information, please call:  +38 (044) 354-28-06  n.tkachenko@pluses.com.ua  If you see a spelling error on our site, select it and press Ctrl+Enter


bbc--2019-05-03--Venezuela crisis The political battle and the people caught in the middle

Venezuela crisis: The political battle and the people caught in the middle

Violence has once again broken out on the streets of Venezuela. But just what has happened to the country, politically and economically, to cause such anger and division?  The sun hadn't yet risen but Venezuelans were wide awake. A little before 6am on Tuesday, Juan Guaidó went live via social media from outside La Carlota military base in Caracas to call the country to action.   "The moment is now," said the opposition leader, flanked by members of the security forces. "The first of May begins now," referring to a large anti-government demonstration planned for the following day.  It was a risky move but in the end neither one thing nor the other: the uprising didn't unseat Mr Maduro or necessarily weaken his grip on power - and whatever Mr Guaidó hoped the day would bring clearly didn't come to pass, either.  Yet it was another sign that President Maduro can still expect moments of resistance and conflict from an opposition determined to see the back of him. But beyond this fight, there is a population exhausted and angry at a collapsing economy and a lack of basic services.  Amid the political brinksmanship, I was reminded of that collective exhaustion at the status quo, specifically of a few precious hours, a few weeks before the latest crisis, when running water returned to a handful of homes in La Vega.  As the news spread around the sprawling shantytown in western Caracas, residents made their way down from distant corners to the fortunate few brick shacks - plastic bottles and buckets in hand - to fill up before it was shut off again.  One neighbour, Ramelia Silva, struggling to carry her load as she corralled her grandchildren up the steep hillsides, showed me water which was yellowish and smelled foul.  "It's not fit for human consumption," Ramelia acknowledged. "We should only use it for washing and in the bathroom." However, in the middle of a water crisis, she said that just wasn't realistic.  "How long will it go on?" she asked angrily. "We can't keep living like this."  Community leader Jairo Perez says he's tried to warn of an impending public health crisis but many families are too desperate to listen. La Vega has been without a dependable water supply for over a year, he says, and the recent electricity blackouts have made matters worse.  "I have warned the government, I've sent reports to NGOs that we work with and I keep repeating: an epidemic is on its way. We're on the verge of a secondary public health epidemic because this water should not be consumed.  A couple of days later, and weeks before the recent uprising, I put Ramelia's basic point to Guaidó during a moment between parliamentary sessions at the National Assembly: how long before anything changes in Venezuela?  "I hope very soon," was his reply, denying the opposition had either miscalculated or squandered its momentum.  Beyond his enigmatic remark, though, there was little sign of the dramatic twist to come. At that point, the idea of him commanding rebel troops in clashes with their loyalist counterparts seemed unlikely. But Venezuela, especially at present, specialises in the unexpected.  After declaring himself president in January, Guaidó was immediately recognised by the United States and more than 50 other nations.  Washington extended its sanctions from the Maduro inner circle to the all-important energy industry. By early March, people in Guaidó's team spoke confidently of being close to victory, of having passed the halfway point in a three- or four-month process to reach the presidential palace, Miraflores.  "He'll be gone any day now," was their prevailing sentiment.  By mid-April, those same advisors had radically revised that view. They spoke instead in more conservative terms of "something" happening "before the end of the year".  It's still not clear if this latest uprising was the sum total of that "something" or if there is more to come. Given the story so far, most Venezuelans expect further drama ahead.  In essence, Guaidó has two options to taking power: via the streets or the military.  Or some kind of simultaneous combination of the two, the elusive "civic-military pact" which Maduro's predecessor and mentor, Hugo Chávez, so prided himself on.  Beyond street protests the other main actor in the Venezuelan conflict is the military.  This week wasn't the first time Guaidó made a direct plea to the Venezuelan military to switch sides.  At the height of the tension in late February, with a convoy of humanitarian aid poised at the border with Colombia, a few hundred soldiers did jump ship in a number of much-publicised defections.  Yet the vast majority of rank-and-file troops stayed loyal, as did the top brass. That happened again on this latest occasion and both times, it has undoubtedly been a disappointment to the opposition.  Furthermore, if recent Venezuelan history has taught anything, it's that the military holds the key to Miraflores. Without them, taking power is virtually impossible.  So, if things reach a breaking point in Venezuela, always a difficult thing to measure, where would the military's ultimate loyalty lie? With Maduro personally, with the "Bolivarian Revolution" begun by Hugo Chávez or with the people calling for change?  "With Benjamin Franklin," quips economist and opposition deputy, Angel Alvarado, referring to the US president whose face appears on the $100 bill.  "The army doesn't have any ideology. There are some soldiers whose heart is to the left or the right, of course. But I think on the whole the army just wants to maximise their profits."  In Venezuela, the military has been given control of many key sectors of the economy.  "Food production, mining, the oil sector, agriculture, anywhere there is money and rents to be made, you will find the military," claims Alvarado. Maintaining that monopoly is paramount to them, he argues.  "The problem is not hyperinflation and it's not the humanitarian emergency," argues Alvarado. "It's the collapse of the economy which started in 2007."  He accuses Hugo Chávez of having indebted the country by billions of dollars which was only covered by a high oil price.  Once that price began to drop in 2009, and a policy of nationalisation and expropriation damaged crucial sectors like agriculture, the dependence on oil-exports worsened. Today, with far fewer dollars available for imports, the economic situation is unsustainable.  "I think we are in a tipping point right now," he says, and that after the electricity outage, oil production has dropped to around 500,000 barrels per day.  With nowhere to export Venezuela's oil, Alvarado adds: "I think Maduro is out of money."  At a bar popular with Maduro loyalists in the town of Charallave, employees and union representatives of the state-owned cement company are sat at plastic tables drinking cold beer after work. The bar is one of the few with lights on, running off a generator during one of the town's scheduled power cuts.  The workers don't hold President Maduro responsible for the chaos, sticking to the party-line about sabotage of the electrical grid and coordinated attacks by Washington and Juan Guaidó.  "We're being punished because we're not a servile government to US interests," said one member of the group. "If a change comes it must be for better, not for worse. Not to allow the opposition to take everything we've built over the years," echoed another, amid clapping and shouts of "Viva Maduro!".  Political loyalties aside, they're right to identify the clear international dimension to the situation in Venezuela.  Washington has repeatedly said that "all options are on the table" when it comes to Venezuela, including the military one. Barring the most radical, few welcome the idea of foreign troops on Venezuelan soil.  The US is putting the squeeze on three main socialist allies: Venezuela, Nicaragua and Cuba. "The Troika of Tyranny" as National Security Advisor, John Bolton, has dubbed them.  President Donald Trump has accused Cuba of placing troops into Venezuela, something robustly denied by Havana. Whatever happens next, Venezuela and Cuba know to expect nothing but hostility while Mr Trump is in the White House.  In April, Venezuela's foreign minister, Jorge Arreaza, called a news conference after a trip to several nations sympathetic to the Maduro government, including Turkey and Syria, where he heard from Bashar al-Assad about his experience of "resistance".  And, in a very deliberate message to Washington, Mr Arreaza underlined that Venezuela "will continue military-technical cooperation with Russia".  With Russia vocally backing President Maduro at every turn, Venezuela is being drawn into a battle between the superpowers, a proxy conflict more reminiscent of the 1980's than 2019.  Before leaving La Vega, community leader Jairo Perez, took me to a vantage point high above the shantytown, pointing out each of the smaller neighbourhoods below by name.  He knows this poor district of Caracas intimately. It's where he grew up, where his family is and, as far as he's concerned, where he'll die.  Yet even long-standing residents like Jairo have never seen it like this. The shortages and dire needs of his community remind him of images he's only seen on television about post-conflict nations.  "We're like a country at war but there's no war," he reflects.  Not, at least, a conventional one.


bbc--2019-11-12--Bolivia crisis: Conflict fills political vacuum after Morales

"Yes to democracy, no to dictatorship," chanted Evo Morales' opponents as they stood for another day at the barricades blocking the roads of the country's capital.  Mr Morales may no longer be in power but people here still want to preserve Bolivia's democracy.  They want an interim leader - and that's expected on Tuesday - as well as fresh elections.  But most of all, people here seem tired. They want change.  "He only supported people who live in the country, not us," says Elsa Andrade, dressed in a full traditional skirt known as a pollera and a brown bowler hat. She has a red, green and yellow Bolivian flag draped over her shoulders.  "What's he done for us? Nothing. It's all promises, promises."  Further up the road, a group of people wearing hard hats and their faces covered are manning a barricade that leads up to Mr Morales' home and office, known as the "Great Palace of the People". The glass-fronted block with indigenous symbols was seen by many as a garish - and expensive - vanity project. It towers over the smaller, older buildings of central La Paz. • Why protesters are on the streets worldwide • Bolivia: What you need to know  Demonstrator Marco says they're stopping government officials from accessing the building. Every protester has their face covered on this barricade. They say their cause isn't a violent one - they are here to protect shops and people. But they don't want to reveal their identity to government loyalists.  Marco says Mr Morales had his chance and threw it away. The country's first indigenous leader may have given a voice to millions of Bolivians, but he lost his support with what many felt was an increasingly undemocratic way of ruling. The last straw being accusations of electoral fraud.  "Evo Morales could have left through the front door if he had respected what people were saying," says Marco. "But unfortunately he tried to remain in power and that made people not want him anymore."  Up in El Alto, a city that sits high above La Paz in the Andes, life felt like it had stopped.  The cable car that connects the two cities was paralysed, its cabins bobbing in the air in silence. And a normally bustling market place was deserted, stalls shut for fear of looting. Dania was one of the only shopkeepers willing to take a risk. She needs the money, she says. A supporter of Evo Morales, she says his resignation was nothing short of a coup.  "You have to look at what he's done," she says. "He's put Bolivia on the map. But some people don't value that. Unfortunately, we Bolivians have been very ungrateful."  Crossing the market, Lucy Choque makes her way to work through the burning rubber tyres that were set alight overnight. She just wants the whole thing to be over.  "We are all afraid, it doesn't matter which side we are on - one party or another," she says. "We're afraid of what's going to happen. I don't agree with the opposition's moves because it's causing instability. Everyone is calling for conflict."  With Mr Morales now headed towards Mexico, the chapter of the longest-standing president currently in Latin America is now closed. But the next chapter in Bolivia's political history is very unclear.


bbc--2019-11-12--Bolivia crisis: Evo Morales accepts political asylum in Mexico

Evo Morales has accepted an offer of political asylum in Mexico a day after resigning as president of Bolivia amid election fraud protests.  In a tweet, he said it hurt to be leaving Bolivia but he would return with more "strength and energy".  Meanwhile, Bolivia's military commander ordered troops to back up police who have clashed with Morales supporters.  Some 20 people were reported injured in the clashes. Mr Morales earlier urged his supporters to resist the "dark powers" that had forced him to step down.  He also tweeted a photo of what he described as "my first night after leaving the presidency forced out by the coup [organised by opposition leader Carlos] Mesa and [opposition activist Luis Fernando] Camacho with the help of the police".  The deputy head of the Senate, Jeanine Áñez, has said she will take over as interim president until new elections are held. • Why protesters are on the streets worldwide  Mr Morales, a former coca farmer, was first elected in 2006.  He has won plaudits for fighting poverty and improving Bolivia's economy but drew controversy by defying constitutional term limits to run for a fourth term in October's election, which is alleged to have been rife with irregularities.  Up in El Alto, a city that sits high above La Paz in the Andes, life felt like it had stopped.  The cable car that connects the two cities was paralysed, its cabins bobbing in the air in silence. And a normally bustling market place was deserted, stalls shut for fear of looting.  Dania was one of the only shopkeepers willing to take a risk. She needs the money, she says. A supporter of Evo Morales, she says his resignation was nothing short of a coup.  Crossing the market, Lucy Choque makes her way to work through the burning rubber tyres that were set alight overnight. She just wants the whole thing to be over.  What did Mexico say?  Mr Ebrard announced the decision to grant Mr Morales asylum at a press conference. Mexico has a left-leaning government and has supported Mr Morales.  Mr Ebrard earlier described events in Bolivia as a "coup", citing the military's involvement in Mr Morales' resignation.  Pressure had been growing on Mr Morales since his narrow victory in last month's presidential election.  On Sunday, events moved swiftly. First, the Organization of American States, a regional body, announced its audit of the election had found "clear manipulation" and called for the result to be annulled.  In response, Mr Morales agreed to hold fresh elections. But his main rival, Carlos Mesa - who came second in the vote - said Mr Morales should not stand in any new vote.  What really seemed to tip the balance was the intervention of the chief of the armed forces, Gen Williams Kaliman, who urged Mr Morales to step down in the interests of peace and stability.  Announcing his resignation, Mr Morales said he had taken the decision in order to stop fellow socialist leaders from being "harassed, persecuted and threatened". He also called his removal a "coup".  Reports say Mr Morales made the announcement of his resignation from El Chapare, a coca-growing rural area of Cochabamba and a bastion of support for him and his Mas party.  What has the reaction been?  Opponents of Mr Morales have been celebrating across Bolivia, setting off fireworks and waving national flags, while his supporters clashed with police in the cities of La Paz and El Alto, according to local media reports.  Argentines and Bolivians also took to the streets of Buenos Aires on Monday to protest against his resignation.  US President Donald Trump on Monday described the resignation as "a significant moment for democracy in the Western Hemisphere".  The Russian foreign ministry said a "wave of violence unleashed by the opposition" had not allowed the "presidential mandate of Evo Morales to be completed".  The Cuban president, Miguel Díaz Canel, tweeted that what happened was "a violent and cowardly coup d'etat against democracy in Bolivia by the right".  Socialist-led countries Nicaragua and Venezuela also expressed solidarity with Mr Morales.  Spain expressed its concern over the role of Bolivia's army, saying that "this intervention takes us back to moments in the past history of Latin America".  What happens now?  Ms Áñez's announcement that she would take over temporarily came after Vice-President Álvaro García, Senate leader Adriana Salvatierra and House of Deputies' leader Victor Borda had all resigned, leaving her next in line.  "I assume this challenge with the only objective to call new elections," she said. "This is simply a transitional phase."  The legislative assembly is expected to meet later on Tuesday to decide whether to confirm her as interim president.  With Mr Morales's party in control of both the Senate and the House of Deputies it is not clear if she will get the necessary backing from legislators.  Under Bolivia's constitution, whoever takes over as interim president has 90 days to call fresh elections.


bbcuk--2019-03-11--Brexit Vote for improved deal or face political crisis

Brexit: Vote for 'improved deal' or face 'political crisis'

The Cabinet Office minister says the prime minister has secured "legally binding" changes to her Brexit deal.  In a statement, David Lidington told the House of Commons: "There will be a fundamental choice: To vote for the improved deal or to plunge this country into a political crisis."  Shadow Brexit secretary Keir Starmer has questioned whether any changes have been made to the withdrawal agreement.


cnbc--2019-03-01--US adds 6 to Venezuela sanctions list amid political crisis

The U.S. is adding six high-ranking Venezuelan security officials on its international sanctions list as it steps up pressure on the government of President Nicolas Maduro.  The six include officials with the National Guard and police blamed for their roles in blocking humanitarian aid convoys into Venezuela. They were announced by the Treasury Department on Friday.  The sanctions freeze any assets the people may have under U.S. jurisdiction and prevent anyone in the U.S. from conducting financial transactions with them.  It's part of a campaign to pressure Maduro to step down and turn over power to opposition leader Juan Guaido.  The U.S. recognized Guaido as interim president last month. Maduro was re-elected last year in an election widely viewed as illegitimate, but the security services have remained loyal.


crikey--2019-05-29--Political polling is having an existential crisis

Pollsters now face a serious challenge in restoring their credibility, and there is no indication this can be accomplished with existing methods.  In the wake of its most unambiguous failure at a federal election since at least 1980, Australia's polling industry is licking its wounds.  The Nine/Fairfax papers announced last week that the Ipsos poll series will be put on ice. Those pollsters who do return to the field shortly will face catcalls -- whether they persist in recording a Labor lead we now know doesn't exist, or only now start detecting a Coalition lead that eluded them through the entirety of the past parliamentary term.


dailyheraldchicago--2019-05-30--Mideast peace plan hopes dim amid Israeli political crisis

JERUSALEM -- President Donald Trump's son-in-law and senior adviser Jared Kushner met with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Thursday to push the Trump administration's long-awaited plan for Mideast peace, just as Israel was thrust into the political tumult of an unprecedented second election in the same year.  Kushner and U.S. special envoy Jason Greenblatt stopped in Israel as part of a Middle East tour to rally support for the administration's upcoming economic conference in Bahrain, which the White House bills as the first portion of its peace plan.  The U.S. is hoping to draw Arab states with deep pockets to participate in the workshop, which envisions large-scale infrastructure work and investment in the Palestinian territories.  In brief joint remarks, Kushner touted American-Israeli cooperation, saying, "The security of Israel is something that is critical to the relationship between America and Israel and also very important to the president, and we appreciate all of your efforts to strengthen the relationship. ... It's never been stronger."  But public attention was dominated by Israel's political crisis.  Netanyahu attempted to play down concerns that the Israeli parliament's dramatic dissolution would further postpone the U.S. peace plan rollout. "You know, we had a little event last night," he said. "That's not going to stop us."  At the White House, President Trump, a close ally of Netanyahu, weighed in expressing dismay at the prime minister's failure to form a governing coalition. Calling Netanyahu a "great guy," Trump said he feels "very badly" that the country has to face another election because there is "enough turmoil" in the region.  Israel's reopened election season presents another stumbling block for Trump's Mideast peace process, which the Palestinians, citing the administration's pro-Israel bias, have rejected out of hand.  The Trump administration had hinged the plan's unveiling on Netanyahu's victory in elections last month. Now, it seems the proposal will have to wait for the outcome of another tumultuous election cycle, after which Trump's own race for re-election will be kicking into gear.  Meanwhile, Netanyahu is facing indictment on a series of corruption charges, with his first hearing set for October. His legal troubles throw his long rule into question, along with the feasibility of a future peace plan.  Traveling this week to Jordan and Morocco, Kushner and Greenblatt strove to drum up support for the economic conference in Bahrain, scheduled for June 25-26. Neither state has announced plans for participation.  After more than two years of work, Kushner's team still has not unveiled its political vision. But glimpses of the plan hint it will focus heavily on so-called economic peace while sidelining or ignoring the longstanding Palestinian goal of independence. The two-state solution continues to enjoy the broad support of the international community.  Meeting with the U.S. presidential advisers, Jordan's King Abdullah II stood by his country's commitment to the two-state solution, exposing a rift with the administration and raising doubts about how Trump's team will win over skeptical Arab states.  Dennis Ross, the veteran Middle East negotiator, says the plan's outlook has dimmed, considering the "many unknowns" that may indefinitely defer its rollout. Specifically, if Netanyahu pivots even farther to the right on the campaign trial, appealing to voters by promising to annex West Bank settlements again, "the political climate will only get more difficult ... it will make it harder for Arab leaders to accept anything."  But, he said, Trump has attached particular importance to this peace agreement, and is eager for an accomplishment. If the administration manages to ditch the stigmatized tagline of "economic peace," and sells the Bahrain workshop as a step toward "economic stabilization" with the help of wealthy Gulf states, the constant deferral of the plan's thornier political portion, such as the status of contested Jerusalem and the fate of Palestinian refugees, could work in its favor.  "It might be difficult for the Palestinians to reject reconstruction and development projects given the financial crises destabilizing the West Bank and Gaza right now," said Ross. At this early point, the cash-strapped Palestinian leadership "would be saying no only to the improvement of the terrible economic conditions in Gaza and the West Bank ... that could be helped without their having to give anything up politically."  Still, the Palestinians say they will not attend the Bahrain meeting, rejecting the parameters of the conference and the role of the U.S. as mediator. Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and his autonomy government in the West Bank cut off ties with the White House after Trump recognized contested Jerusalem as Israel's capital in December 2017.  Israel captured east Jerusalem in 1967 and annexed it to its capital. Though Trump said his declaration did not determine the city's final borders, the Palestinians saw the move as unfairly favoring Israel. U.S. cuts in aid, and the closure of the Palestinian diplomatic office in Washington, further deepened their suspicions.


dailyheraldchicago--2019-07-05--Both sides in Sudan political crisis hail power-sharing deal

KHARTOUM, Sudan -- Leaders of Sudan's pro-democracy movement, which drove longtime dictator Omar al-Bashir from power in April, have welcomed a power-sharing agreement with the ruling military council as a victory for their "revolution."  The Sudanese Professionals' Association, which has spearheaded protests calling for civilian rule, released a statement Friday saying that both parties had agreed to form a joint sovereign council to lead the country's transition.  It said the council will include five civilians representing the protest movement and five military members. An eleventh seat will go to a civilian chosen by both parties.  Of the agreement, the statement said: "Today, our revolution has won and our victory shines."  The emerging deal could break weeks of political impasse since the military crackdown on protesters left over a hundred killed last month.


dailymail--2019-05-03--US troops should stay out of Venezuelas violent chaotic political crisis says military expert

US troops should stay out of Venezuela's 'violent, chaotic political crisis', says military expert

US troops should stay out of Venezuela's 'violent, chaotic political crisis' as armed intervention would fail, a military expert has claimed.  Retired Lieutenant Colonel Daniel Davis said he fears President Trump is threatening to get involved in the embattled South American country.  Violence again took hold when thousands marched in protest of President Nicolas Maduro on Tuesday and Wednesday as security forces fired tear gas on them.  But Caracas was reportedly in 'relative calm' as of Thursday.  Mr Davis, a veteran, who served in the US Army for 21 years, wrote for Fox News: 'The last thing America should do is involve itself – especially militarily – in Venezuela's violent, chaotic political crisis and humanitarian disaster.  'Yet disturbing early signs from Washington indicate that's exactly what the Trump administration is threatening to do.'  Mr Davis, who is a defense fellow and military expert at Defense Priorities, noted that more than 50 countries recognized Mr Guaido as interim president but warned of Mr Maduro's military and economic backing from Russia and Cuba.  He claimed the US would fare no better than it had been in previous interventions including, Iran in 1953, South Vietnam and Cuba in 1963, Afghanistan in 2001, Iraq in 2003 and Iran in 2011.  The former soldier said there was a pattern emerging throughout these conflicts.  In recent days, at least four people died during protests following calls by opposition leader Juan Guaido for a military uprising.  Two people were shot in La Victoria and two were hit by gunfire in the capital city of Caracas.  Another 230 people have been reported injured and 205 were detained during the clashes - and Mr Guaido's call for an uprising to oust Mr Maduro has gone unheeded.  Secretary of State Mike Pompeo tweeted after the uprising on Tuesday that the US 'fully supports' Mr Guaido's actions.  Mr Davis said he did not know if this meant Mr Pompeo would support Mr Guaido militarily, but warned: 'Sending American troops into Venezuela would put us in dangerous territory.  'And if we take non-military actions against the Maduro regime we may be setting many Venezuelans up for tragedy.'  'Under no circumstances should President Trump listen to his more hawkish advisers and give any serious consideration to sending US military personnel to fight for one side in a Venezuelan civil war.  'It is a losing proposition with virtually no chance of a positive outcome, either for Guaidó's supporters or for the American people.'  On Twitter today, he added: 'If we want to help Venezuela, we must resist urge to use force; the US military does not exist to support one foreign country's politician over another - and if we did, we'd end up killing some of the Venezuelan people we seek to help; - it's a lose-lose proposition.'  Mr Maduro called on Thursday for the armed forces to oppose 'any coup plotter' after the failed military uprising by forces supporting opposition leader Juan Guaido.  'Yes, we are in combat, keep morale high in this fight to disarm any coup plotter,' Maduro said at a televised event with the military high command in which he appeared surrounded by soldiers.  The military must be prepared to combat 'traitors', he added, while accusing the opposition of seeking to provoke bloodshed in Caracas as part of Guaido's bid to take power.  Maduro's defiant words came as Venezuela's top court ordered the arrest of opposition figure Leopoldo Lopez today.  He sought refuge in the Spanish embassy since claiming to have been freed from house arrest two days ago by rebel military personnel.  Lopez, who was imprisoned in 2014 and transferred to house arrest three years later, made a sensational public appearance alongside opposition leader Guaido on Tuesday as the National Assembly president tried to incite a military uprising against Mr Maduro.  Later that day Lopez sought refuge in the Chilean embassy with his wife and daughter before moving to the Spanish embassy.  The Supreme Court accused Lopez, 48, of 'flagrantly' violating the terms of his house arrest.  Lopez was sentenced to 14 years in prison in 2014 after he was accused of having incited violent protests against Maduro, which left 43 people dead.  Initially, two people were reported to have been killed in the uprising - including a 27-year-old woman named locally as Jurubith Rausseo Garcia, who was shot in the head in Caracas on Wednesday - and more than 100 have been injured.  Yoifre Hernandez, 14, was hit by gunfire during Wednesday's clashes in Caracas, while 16-year-old Yosner Graterol suffered a gunshot wound during unrest in the northern town of La Victoria on Tuesday, lawmakers and family members said.  Jurubith Rausseo, 27, died on Wednesday after being hit by a 'bullet in the head,' the non-governmental Venezuelan Observatory of Social Conflict said on Twitter, condemning her 'murder'.  Another person was killed in the northern Aragua state on Tuesday.  Mr Guaido had promised a 'military uprising' against Mr Maduro starting on Tuesday, claiming he had lost the support of the armed forces, but it largely failed to materialise and instead descended into two days of street clashes.  Should Mr Guaido's plot fail it will mean embarrassment for the US and its allies which had heavily backed him, and mark a victory for Russia and China which have been supporting Mr Maduro.