posted by devonwhittle on Aug 18, 2008
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Rodrik’s article in the Guardian makes some good points about the recent failure over Doha. Let’s hope that when things get back on track we can get a real development agenda going and the
WTO can start living up to its preamble more.
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posted by devonwhittle on Aug 16, 2008
I found
this post by John Fox on ‘Chinese fakery’ quite interesting. I find it too easy to forget the repressive nature of modern day China, and the issues Fox highlights are good reminders that all is not well.
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posted by devonwhittle on Aug 12, 2008
Remember
Sally Young’s book The Persauders? She also recently testified at an inquiry into political advertising at the last Federal Election, saying that TV stations should be required to give free time to political parties during election campaigns to address the tremendous costs incurred during political campaigns. Of course this has some issues in regards to who decides who gets aired and in what proportions - if not designed right it could just contribute to the stranglehold the two parties have on Australian politics. Also let’s not forget
Australian Capital Television Pty Ltd v Commonwealth and the implied right to political communication - the last time this was tried it was struck down by the High Court.
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posted by devonwhittle on Aug 10, 2008
Free trade advocates have often used the promise of democracy to encourage free trade at any cost. That is, they believe that wealth will naturally lead to a democratic society, so can justify increasing trade with authoritarian states on the basis that this will lead to demands for better governance from a rising middle class. But is that what we are seeing in China? Robert Reich
questions this doctrine, pointing out the rise of ‘authoritarian capitalism’ in China rather then the ‘democratic capitalism’ hoped for.
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posted by devonwhittle on Aug 5, 2008
According to
Peter Gallagher, the government (taxpayers) gave the car industry $1.1 billion last year. That means each “job saved” cost us $300,000. Not sure how he crunched the numbers (that is, if it considered jobs created in subsidiary industries, etc), but that number is pretty astounding. Why not spend that on retraining and re-employment help instead of throwing more money at the industry?
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