Droit au logement opposable - point de vue de l’opposition lunaire

Les affreux ultra-libéraux ont de nouveau frappé.

Jean Dubois, de Transtaaftl, qu’on n’avait pas lu depuis on bon bout de temps, nous a sorti un nouveau post décappant. Cette fois-ci sur le “droit au logement opposable”. Je me demande comment il a fait pour ne pas se faire censurer. Il dit qu’une solution concrète à la crise du logement en France passe par plus de marché. Et non pas moins. Le droit opposable au logement ne peut que se transformer en machinerie juridico-administrative inefficace. Mais une telle thèse, c’est de l’anathème dans la conjoncture actuelle !

Récemment un article du Financial Times a mis les choses en perspective. La notion de droit au logement opposable vient en fait d’Outre-manche. Non pas d’Angleterre, où le problème du logement n’est pas excessivement grave, mais “d’Outre-mur-d’Hadrien”: l’Ecosse. De plus, le même article nous dit:

“The Insee statistics agency puts the number of French homeless at 86,500. This suggests the issue is being exaggerated in a country of 60m, compared with the 40,000 homeless recorded among Scotland’s 5m residents.”

(dois-je traduire? La loi Toubon me punira-t-elle ?)

Nous dirigerions-nous vers un modèle Ecossais qui a franchement l’air de bien marcher?

Can Dani Rodrik “Make Globalization Work for Development”? - Not so sure

Both Ben Muse and Fredrik Erixon drew my attention to an article published yesterday by te New York Times on the famous trade economist Dani Rodrik.

Author of a book that has had a lot of impact, Has Globalization Gone Too Far? and academic who made the convincing case that trade openness goes with big government - contrary to what your average globophobe would think - Dani Rodrik tends to displease liberals and socialists alike. Rodrik has a “flexible approach to trade. He has built a reputation among mainstream economists and policy makers for favoring eclectic solutions that mix government and the private sector in pragmatic ways”, so the NYT. Quoting Rodrik, the newpaper writes: “The movement across borders of goods, services, capital and production, he said, is “open enough as it is.” He would concentrate instead on building public awareness that social insurance and free trade are “two sides of the same coin,” a concept entrenched in Europe but not in the United States.”

More than a year ago I attended a public lecture held by Rodrik at the London School of Economics - the presentation is still online - on the topic of “Making Globalization Work for Development”. Rodrik is a brilliant and charismatic speaker, with a flurry of convincing arguments supported by graphs and facts, on many topics. During that lecture, he proposed “10 reforms that would make the world more conducive to development”. These are:

Ukraine preparing for the global world - updated quite a lot

This info was released by the leading local broker Concorde Capital. Ukraine’s WTO accession and financial sector reform:

Concorde Capital, Ukraine
Monday, January 29, 2007

At the World Economic Forum, in Davos Switzerland last week, Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovich said that his government would solve the final three legal issues preventing Ukraine from joining the WTO in 1Q07. According to Yanukovich, before Ukraine can complete ascension into the WTO, the country needs to reach agreements with the United States concerning meat imports and grain exports and sign a bi-lateral trade agreement with Kyrgyzstan. Yanukovich also highlighted his government’s interest in developing capital markets in Ukraine as a means to boost foreign investment (…)

Nick Piazza: Ukraine seems well on its way to getting WTO membership wrapped up this summer. Ukraine has already signed a bi-lateral deal with the US, and now needs only to agree on a timeframe for the implementation of these new meat and grain quotas (…)

My source, is, again, www.businessneweurope.eu

Ukraine is a very interesting case of a country seeking its place in the world. Two years ago it overthrew a closed, Russia-oriented, corrupt and cleptocratic regime in a widely acclaimed Orange Revolution that brought current President Yanukovich to power. It blew in a Western-oriented, democratic, economically liberalising fresh wind into the country, raising hopes for EU accession, liberation from the clutches of Russian hegemony, more room for Ukrainian-speaking pride (the country is roughly divided into a Russian-speaking and heavy-industry dominated East and a Ukrainian-speaking West, more agriculture-oriented) and prosperity through integration into the world economy. Well, all is not so simple, the “politics business” has set in that disillusions everybody, the structural problems of the country continue running deep.

With love (and sweetness) from Russia

Saddened by stalled and complicated WTO negotiations? Tired of middle classes making a scapegoat out of globalisation because their income has not risen , mostly for independent reasons? Overdosed by posh WEFs and thoughtful about crumbling WSFs? Getting depressed by the winter weather? Disillusioned by the Venezuelas and Thailands and Russias going down the authoritarian path and Chinas announcing they’re going to control the internet even more? Disgusted by commodity stories and Chinas supporting dirty regimes in Africa? Worn out from witnessing the same old Russian dramas and oil-and gas nightmares? Can’t hear anything more about Iraq and the Middle East?

Then let’s have some (bitter-)sweet globalisation stories, for a change. With love, from the most unexpected corner: Russia.

According to businessneweurope (bne) (info reserved for subscribers):

“The world’s largest chewing gum manufacturer Wrigley will purchase 80% in Russia’s number-seven chocolatecompany Korkunov, Wrigley announced last week.

Wrigley is to pay $300m for the stake with the deal expected to close in spring 2007 following regulatory approval. The American giant, which entered the Russian market in 1991, built a chewing gum factory near St Petersburg in 1999 and currently holds about 70% of the local chewing gum market, will receive $55m in cash tax incentives. (…)

Russians are notorious chocolate eaters, favouring darker chocolate than the milk chocolate prevalent in Western Europe, and according to analysts they scoffed some $3.5bn worth of the stuff in 2006, up 15% on the previous year.”

Further:

“Belgian Chocolate goes Russian”, so the same bne today:

“Tashir Group, a Russian real estate and retail group that comprises over 100 companies, has purchased the
exclusive franchise rights for the Belgian chocolatier Daskalides, the group announced last week.

Tashir will introduce the Daskalides brand to the Russian market and plans to open some 30 chocolate
boutiques, capturing at least 30% of the premium chocolate market within three years. Tashir analysts
estimate that each boutique will generate sales of between RUR300,000 ($11,290) and RUR1m ($37,630) per month.”

Chocolate - the best antidepressant!

Alterglobalism out of steam

The current World Economic Forum (WEF)annual meeting in Davos receives due coverage in the mainstream press in Europe (checked the press not specially dedicated to economics or business or finance, such as The Guardian, Le Monde, Sueddeutsche Zeitung). But this year there is not a single word on the World Social Forum (WSF), conceived with the express aim to counter the rich-globalists-sitting-in-a-posh-Swiss-resort and sharing-the-spoils-of-the-unequal-riches-created-by corporate-globalisation.

The World Social Forum held in Brazil in Porto Alegre in 2003 made many headlines and was visited by many prominent politicians, in a time created by the buzz related to President Lula’s fresh election. (Lula went also to Davos in 2003 and is probably there too this year). Prominent people, politicians in profiling drives and leading activists made a point of showing up there, preferably followed by television cameras and headline-hunting journalists. This year, the WSF, held in Nairobi, Kenya, went absolutely unnoticed. French leftwing paper Libération - crisis-ridden and saved by the capital injection of a member of the Rothshild family, oh how very socialist - commissioned a bunch of adpets to blog about it, wrote a dossier on the topic Africa raising its voice, that is probably about it . Other openly leftwing European papers do not seem to show much interest. The Independent in the UK and the “Taz” in Germany have nothing on the Nairobi event on their websites!

I went to visit the WSF’s homepage. A long programme with your usual topics ranging from”‘IMF: Shrink It or Sink It Campaign. An Introduction” to “Gender and disability,to what extent Disabled men and women are included” (sic). as for the Libération blog - it has nothing to tell. It reveals, though, how the movement seems to be out of steam - the local Kenyans are indifferent, participation prices are said to be to high, and prominent people are missing. Among the usual suspects missing, José Bové (apologies for using Wikipedia here…), the French star alterglobalist, anti-GMO activist and hero of a small-peasant movement with international ramifications. The blog has one interesting post, entitled: “Mais au fond, vous proposez quoi?” (literally: “But, in the end, what are you proposing?”). Good question.

You might ask the same for Davos. Yet apparently Angela Merkel - leading the EU presidency for the next six months and this year’s G8 has come up with some proposals, some of them windy on the revival of the EU constitution, one very concrete, an EU-US free trade zone - whether one likes them or not is not the question: at least they are proposals.

Global (and WTO) governance - stakes at Davos

The international business and high-level political community is currently meeting in the Swiss mountains at Davos for the World Economic Forum’s annual gathering - for never-ending talks, networking and parties.

The Financial Times is of course covering the event with particular interest. Two interesting contributions from Martin Wolf and Alan Beattie.

Martin Wolf on “The dilemma of global governance”:

Two interesting quotes:

“The world’s economy is global; its politics are national. This, in a nutshell, is the dilemma of global governance.”

There is a consensus that innovation and renewal are badly needed in current global governance:

“Yet the failure lies far more with national politics than with international institutions. It is governments and their publics that resist taking on new commitments on trade, greenhouse gas emissions or exchange-rate policies.”

Alan Beattie says on the WTO and the current ailing Doha Round talks (see previous post): Troubled talks threaten WTO’s credibility.

Picking up on Pascal Lamy’s comment on the WTO structure as “medieval” while he was EU Trade Commissioner, Beattie’s article on giving more power to the new economic and political heavyweights goes thus:

“(…) as all international institutions struggle to cope with the global shift of economic heft towards Asia, this medieval structure may in fact help it modernise. Allowing the emergence of giant economies automatically to be reflected in de facto power around the negotiating table may be easier than having to revise formal voting weights.”

and:

“The informal “green room” process, for example, which seeks consensus privately among a few countries before involving the wider membership, was much criticised when it was dominated by the US, EU and Japan. Instead of abolishing it, Mr Supachai and Mr Lamy have legitimised it by widening the range of countries invited to include representatives.”

Also: Trade blogger Ben Muse also has a few things to say on the likelihood of the Doha talks - to be revived at Davos - leading to a final accord….

Doha Round - Just Do It

The Doha round - the WTO trade liberalisation cycle started in 2001 under the motto of “development”, and which collapsed last summer due to a deadlock in agricultural negotiations - is still not about to be sent to the “crematorium”, to use the term forged by India’s trade negotiator Kamal Nath.

If you haven’t had time to read the papers on the many noises and new movements on the screens of the encephalograms observing the comatose Doha patient, please read the latest edition of the Bridges Weekly newsletter from the Geneva-based think tank ICTSD for a comprehensive synthesis of what seems to be going on at the moment. Fundamentally, it is about de-blocking the negotiations on agriculture. To any person with some common sense it would seem abnormal that a sector that only represents 8,4% of world trade (see 2006 WTO world trade statistics) shall bloc the advancement of other sectors that matter much more in global economic terms; and this to the benefit of a few spoilt farmers in rich countries! So, if international trade-diplomacy relations were soured last July - to fit into the climatic vocabulary of this blog - ICTSD speaks of “improved atmospherics”.

This week’s newsletter drew my attention to

Russia - Who will be Mr Putin’s successor?

This post might stray away a bit from my usual “economic globalisation” angle. However, as it is a side-effect of my current work for a global media institution on a new Russian project for international portfolio investors, I consider this post to broadly enter into the realm of this blog. It can also be seen as an example of how, despite economic globalisation, which Russia has embraced, and to contradict globalisation’s usual critics, national politics follow their course uninhibited…

I never dreamt of becoming an analyst for an investment bank. However, if you have a position which includes observing Russian politics it must be sometimes very exciting. I received a piece written by an anonymous analyst from the presitigious Russian investment bank Aton Capital. If I may, this guy (or, less likely, lady) is obviously having a lot of fun. My source is a subscriber’s newsletter from the new online and paper magazine www.businessneweurope.eu. A very amusing (or scary) piece that summarises a lot in the current situation in Russia. The international community fears a lot of chaos in the run-up to the succession to Mr Putin… Speculation is mounting, some even think there might be early elections… But I’ll let you appreciate:

RUSSIAN PRESIDENTIAL ELECTIONS: HOW TO RECOGNIZE THE SUCCESSOR?
Aton, Russia - Wednesday, January 17, 2007

The pre-election marathon is about to start in Russia

Back to basics - a few reflections on Heckscher-Ohlin

I used to have a very colourful blog where I mixed a lot of personal stuff with my preoccupations with the global economic world under a funny nom de plume, Ignatius. I “graduated” from this type of blogging, fortunately. However, I recently ran through the posts published there and fell upon one entitled somewhat pompously “is the heckscher-ohlin trade model still relevant in a global world? a critique of The Economist’s recent “Survey of the world economy”. It is on the fundamental economic model of international trade such as discussed by The Economist in its September 2006 Survey of the World Economy. The post was not meant to be a very technical discussion. I rather wanted it to be an explanation “for friends and family” of what the issues are. I will reproduce this post here, for your appreciation and hopefully some feedback and input. The underlying question is: what happens to the Heckscher-Ohlin model when the international economy starts showing signs of working like a single integrated one? I have no answer, but many questions. This is shown in that particular post, which I copied for you below:

Latest global foreign direct investment figures released

$ 1.2 trillion - that’s the level reached by foreign direct investment flows in 2006, according to Geneva-based UNCTAD, the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development. That is up 34% compared to 2005, but is not the $1.4 scored in 2000. In its recent release of figures that will be analysed in its next World Investment Report, UNCTAD says:

“FDI flows to developed countries in 2006 rose by 48%, well over the levels of the previous two years, and reached US$800 billion (…). The United States recovered its position as the largest single host country for FDI in the world, overtaking the United Kingdom, the top FDI recipient in 2005. The European Union (EU) as a whole continued to be the largest host region, accounting for 45% of total FDI inflows in 2006.”

Also to be noted:

The most spectacular growth of FDI was in South-Eastern Europe and the CIS: a 56% surge overall, with Kazakhstan, Russia and Ukraine showing the most spectacular growth. China remains the main developing-country recepient of global FDI flows. FDI declined in Latin America (-4.5%).

That is all very good news overall.

Quick thoughts:

• The usual patterns remain - cross-border investment is and remains a rich-country story. China comes only very low down the ladder of global volumes of FDI. A lot of unfounded fears in rich countries, then.
• Recent FDI flows are very much a commodity story, with high prices triggering investment. Oil is the major story, of course. Kazakhstan with its spectacular reserves and projects witnessed a 94% surge in FDI in 2006. FDI in Russia surged too due to oil, though non-oil FDI recently soared. Given Russia’s uncertain political environment in the run-up to the 2008 elections and given recent conflicts between the government and foreign investors regarding the Sakhalin oil extraction projects, nobody knows if this trend is going to remain.
• That leads me to: politics. With the recent political turmoil right across Latin America, and the rise of “Chavezian” populism from Bolivia to Nicaragua, inherently hostile to international integration, no wonder. This despite high commodity prices. Latin America seems to be missing out on something important, once again. The sole exception is Chile. A surge of 48.4%. Conclusion on Latinoland: S.O.S. - Same Old Story.
• A notable trend highlighted in UNCTAD’s 2006 World Investment Report : the rise of South-South FDI and the emergence of multinationals originating in emerging economies, actively involved in global FDI. Mittal Steel from India, Chinese companies from oil to electronics, various mining and energy companies from Russia are but a few examples. Particularly controversial are Chinese investments in Africa, triggered by China’s thirst for oil and hunger for commodities, leading to a de facto support for the world’s “friends of humanity” such as the Sudanese government, or Robert Mugabe.