Webdiary - Founded and Inspired by Margo Kingston

""India everywhere" was the theme at this year's World Economic Forum. In the West, there is so much focus on China that India's achievements are often acknowledged only as an afterthought. As if to underscore the point that political stability must triumph in the long run, the Indians plastered Swiss buses with the banner: "India: The World's Fastest Growing Democracy."" Kenneth Rogoff

"Football is not only the world’s most popular sport, but also probably its most globalised profession. It is inconceivable that Brazilian, Cameroonian, or Japanese doctors, computer scientists, blue-collar workers, or bank tellers could move from one country to another as easily as Brazilian, Cameroonian, or Japanese football players do." Branko Milanovic

"Some may have tried to blow it off as a political beat up, but that would be a big mistake. This story just gets bigger each day as anyone closely following the Cole inquiry into bad business by sanction busting bribe-payers would know. It is the biggest scandal we've seen for many years." Craig Rowley and Richard Tonkin

"Macroeconomic policies, financial globalisation, and changes in labour market institutions have exacerbated inequality in recent decades, not only in income and wealth, but also in access to education, healthcare, social protection, as well as in political participation and influence. Even within countries experiencing rapid economic growth, an array of factors, exacerbated by tremendous demographic changes, has conspired to transmit inequality of knowledge, social responsibility, and life chances from one generation to the next." Jomo K.S.

"Institutions and governments, like people, make bold resolutions at the beginning of every year. But, for the millions who face the crushing burden of poverty, mere proclamations that help is on the way are not enough to create jobs or foster development. This year, the international community must move decisively from pledges to action in the effort to reduce poverty. What will this require?" Rodrigo de Rato,Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund.

"Long-term economic progress comes mainly from the invention and spread of improved technologies. The scientific revolution was made possible by the printing press, the industrial revolution by the steam engine, and India’s escape from famine by increased farm yields – the so-called “Green Revolution.” Today’s era of globalization emerged with the spread of computers and the Internet. Thus, when we seek solutions to some of the world’s toughest problems, they, too, are likely to be found, at least in part, in new technologies that can resolve old and seemingly intractable problems." Jeffrey D Sachs

"International counter-narcotics policy is currently driven by pressure for rapid and visible results. But eradication and alternative livelihood projects mainly affect the lowest end of the value-added chain, the farmers, with no real impact on those higher up, such as large landowners and local traffickers, not to mention the extremely powerful drug lords and the international cartels and mafias. Most landless farmers find it difficult to switch to different crops, being caught up as they are in the illegal opium-denominated market, which forces them to live at the mercy of the drug traffickers, who provide them with access to credit and market outlets." Emma Bonino

"I've just spent a few days down at Narrung, on the side of Lake Alexandrina near the Murray's Mouth. No telly, no net, no shops, no dogcatchers... just one of the world's most beautiful shorelines. One every few hours the soundscape is disturbed by a mechanical engine, but that's okay because it reminds you that the noise that you spend your city-life blotting out is not part of the nature you're now inhabiting." Richard Tonkin

"While a free society recognises limits to inequality, it also accepts that inequality exists, for it provides hope for many by showing what one might achieve with ability and luck – or perhaps even luck alone. Inequality adds color and variety to societies; it is one of the marks of lively, flexible, and innovative countries. It is thus not bad in itself, even if its excesses must be capped in the name of citizenship for all." Ralf Dahrendorf

"How easily the mighty can fall. One minute you are touted to head the International Atomic Energy Agency, the next you are about to become embroiled in an international bribery scandal!" Richard Tonkin

"In today’s world, only national governments are large enough to be able to do so with any assurance that the pension assets will actually be there when workers retire. I am enough of a social democrat to believe that if there is an economic service or benefit that citizens value extremely highly and that only the government can provide, then the government should provide it." J Bradford DeLong

"Acting Prime Minister Mark Vaile said this week the government would consider removing the “anti-evergreening” amendments to the legislation enabling the Free Trade Agreement with the US. These amendments were introduced to ease enormous public concern about the USFTA’s potential to undermine the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme (PBS)." Robyn Clothier

"Has the United States transcended the laws of economics? As the New Year begins, the US continues to race ahead of its rich-country counterparts. The gargantuan US trade deficit? No problem. In 2005, it widened further, and the dollar only strengthened. Low investment and a deteriorating primary education system? Not to worry. The super-flexible US economy keeps managing to produce more with less." Kenneth Rogoff

"The almighty American consumer had another banner year in 2005, helping sustain global economic growth, albeit at a slower pace than in 2004. As in recent years, he consumed at or above his income level, and the United States as a whole spent well beyond its means, borrowing from the rest of the world at a feverish pace in 2005 – more than $2 billion a day." Joseph E Stiglitz

"The international monetary and financial system has witnessed tremendous change over the recent decades. Rapid expansion in cross-border capital flows, continued financial innovation, and deepening financial markets pose increasing challenges not only for national policy makers, but also for international financial institutions. This has been particularly true of the IMF as it seeks to serve its global membership, and it has triggered a critically important discussion of the Fund’s strategic direction." Jürgen Stark

"Shiller was wrong. Unless the American stock market collapses before the end of January, the past decade will have seen it offer returns that are slightly higher than the historical averages – and much, much greater than zero. Those who invested and reinvested their money in America’s stock market over the past decade have nearly doubled it, even after taking account of inflation." J Bradford DeLong

"What has happened since the beginning of the Development Round at Doha in November 2001 has been a huge disappointment for me. As chief economist of the World Bank, I reviewed the Uruguay Round of 1994 and concluded that both its agenda and outcomes discriminated against developing countries. In March 1999, I went to the headquarters of the World Trade Organization in Geneva to call for a development round to redress these imbalances. For a moment, I thought my call had been heeded." Joseph E Stigliz

"If the late great Argentine economist Raul Prebisch were alive today, he no doubt would wonder whether the world had turned upside down. His hugely influential "dependency" theory argued that if poor countries relied too much on commodity exports, they would never achieve the industrial depth needed to sustain rapid growth. Instead, they would become mired in a cycle of declining global commodity prices and ever-dwindling income shares." Kenneth Rogoff

"As the riots in France fade, French politicians are agonizing about how to proceed. Forty years ago, after legal segregation of blacks and whites formally ended in America, the United States was confronted by similar problems. America's response shows, however, that integration cannot be viewed as a one-way street. In addition to imposing demands and constraints on minorities to join the mainstream, society must be willing to demand of itself that it make room for all its citizens.' Heleen Mees and Rick van der Ploeg

"When people talk of an "obesity epidemic" in Australia and throughout the Western world (and by god, they do, don't they, because, hey, why just have a mere garden variety increase in prevalence, when you can scream Edvard Munch-style about an epidemic?) they are desperate for someone to blame for all the fatsos, lard arses, tubbies, blubber boys, chubb-meisters and all the other ample, chunky, plump, podgy, portly, pudgy, roly-poly, rotund, stout, pleasingly plump and rather elephantine kids out there. So their knee-jerk response is to throw the cuffs on the usual suspect - Ronald McDonald. And come on, don't we all just feel in our bones that this clown is peddling high-fat high-sugar food to our kids? He's there, supersizing them against their better judgement till their belts burst open." Duncan Fine

"The World Bank's most recent estimate is that complete trade liberalization (including in manufactures and by developing nations themselves) would produce a net gain to the developing world of half a percentage point of their income. But that hasn't stopped the Bank doing its best to hide this meager impact behind impressive-sounding claims.The fact is that the world economy is more open today than it has ever been, and will remain so even if the Doha talks collapse." Dani Rodrik

"The theory my colleague put forward was regarding who is driving a large segment of the tax debate, and why. The theory went along these lines - that the tax proposals being put forward by Malcolm Turnbull MP were not only the by work of a single MP or small focus group interested in taxation reform, rather the reforms put forward, specifically the proposition to reduce the top tax rates to a 30% level, were driven by an agenda by the Liberal party itself." Stuart Lord

"Commentators at the positive end had already started writing their "why the world economy survived Katrina" pieces within a week or so of the disaster. The (economic) question is - will US consumer confidence (and market confidence generally) survive Rita? I leave for others the shorter term questions around whether the US authorities learned enough from the Katrina debacle to ensure that far more Americans personally survive Rita. As I write, Texans are evacuating. A second Cat. 4/5 storm in the Gulf within a few days is a very different thing for public sentiment to cope with than a single, not unprecedented event - two Cat 4 storms in a year last happened in 1915, when 275 died in Louisiana when Lake Pontchartrain broke its banks and 275 in Galveston, Texas a little later ... Even if, as we all hope, Rita passes or fades without the dramas and human suffering of Katrina, the fact that it existed at all is going to change how people feel, and potentially push them toward saving for a rainy day rather than spending. If so, the world economy may be in for a storm of its own." David Roffey

"I did not trust what I heard before T2 and did not get tricked into tying up money in what was talked up then. More tempted this time? Not on your life. With Telstra's track record and the turmoil turned up in the rush to T3 you'd have to question whether you'd tip a toe in the water, let alone make a plunge. I wonder what the Treasurer is thinking today. Terrible timing? Terrific timing? Time to try some other tack?" Craig Rowley

It's difficult when you live here in Adelaide to comprehend how much of a nexus to southern hemispheric activities our insignificant little city has become, and was possibly planned to be since the end of the Second World War. In 1947, in his novel following his theories of geosynchronous orbit and satellite-based communications, Arthur C. Clark presumed that Britain would be the supreme extraplanetary power because of her control of Woomera. According to U.S. Homeland Security Consultant Scott Bates, Adelaide was mooted as the centre of humanity's nuclear-winter survival outpost at the time of the Cuban Missile Crisis.

"To be critical of globalism does not require an anti-globalisation stance, despite what some would have us believe (including the Howard Government). They'll go on pointing out that it's 'just trade' (which is really just the frame they prefer because it makes any opponent appear 'protectionist'), they'll carp on about inevitability (debunked yet again in John Ralston Saul's The Collapse of Globalism), and they'll smirk and say that it's nothing new (and we may ask: So what? Does that make critique of it taboo?)." Craig Rowley

"A decade of irresponsible economic management - to help fuel the growth of the banks, big business and the real estate markets - eventually had to come to some end, whether a voluntary and controlled one or, as now seems inevitable, as the result of unavoidable system corrections. We are only in the early days of the 'adjustment we'll have to have', yet these are likely to be testing times for many households." Russell Darroch

Webdiarist  Richard Tonkin lives in Adelaide and has taken a close interest in the doings of Halliburton in Oz. This is his first piece for Webdiary. He writes: "I'm a 39 year old folkie with 25 album credits and a member of the family that has operated respected Adelaide live music venue "The Gov" for a decade. I've spent the last year attempting to publicise the quiet conversion of South Australia from the Festival State to The Defence State. A string of defence related letters has been published in the Adelaide Advertiser, and my research for No-War S.A. resulted in the Halliburton protest that was broadcast on the SBS Dateline feature 'Halliburton Down Under'."