Haiti's Lame Duck

One Year After the Earthquake, Baby Doc goes to Haiti ...
by Pat Darnell

*
*
*
Interview with Haiti President Rene Preval:   |  [SOURCE]
On 12th January 2010, the world was exposed to terrible images of the earthquake in Haiti.

A year on, President René Préval’s defended his government’s handling of the disaster in an interview with euronews.

Sophie Desjardin, euronews:

We saw the pictures of the collapsed presidential palace, and numerous ministries were destroyed. How do you lead a state when part of its infrastructure is in ruins?

President René Préval:

We had 300,000 dead, 300,000 injured. We had destruction equivalent to 120% of our GDP that we calculate to be around 8 billion dollars. In other words a huge humanitarian disaster, and also serious damage to infrastructure. Haiti lost many schools, many churches, many public buildings. All the ministries fell down, the palace, the parliament and we lost 30% of our civil service staff. It’s a big tragedy.

euronews:

For a year there’s been criticism of your secrecy, some say absence. You were not seen or heard after the earthquake. Why such reserve?

President Préval:

When the earthquake struck, I was feeding my little one-year-old girl. I saved her. I went out into the street, I saw so many dead, the roads were strewn with bodies. I was at the hospital, it was hardly possible to walk. I heard people crying under the debris. And really that was all very emotional. It’s said that the biggest emotions are silent ones, I now understand that saying, I now understand why. I was speechless, and it was difficult for me to express my emotion at that time.

euronews:

The NGOs on the ground deplore the lack of action or decisiveness at a political level. They say they are filling the vacuum left by the state. How has it come to that?

President Préval:

The day after the disaster, the international community rallied with extraordinary generosity. And then after six months there was the reconstruction phase. An interim commission for reconstruction was formed, and on 31st March the international community undertook promises worth 11 billion dollars. Today around two billion (worth) of projects are already submitted, and a billion and a half (dollars worth) have begun.

Haiti cannot (get by alone) given the current state of its potential, which was already weak – don’t forget that 60% of Haiti’s budget is backed by external aid – so we are waiting for promises to become reality, making tangible what’s been undertaken. I should add that we can’t do things again in the same way. No longer can we rebuild shanty towns. The moment has come to found Haiti once again: that means taking care of the provinces that were abandoned for so long.

euronews :

The first round of the presidential election in December brought violence and plunged the country into political crisis. The commission of experts evaluating the process recommended that Jude Celestin be excluded from the 2nd round. He’s your chosen candidate, what’s your reaction?

René Préval, Haitian president:

I’ve not yet received this report. I’ve asked for it to be handed to me after 12th January, after we’ve come together to pray for our dead.

Sophie Desjardin, euronews :

The report’s conclusions have been all over the agency wires since yesterday. I’d just like to know your feeling about the elections. What will happen if Jude Celestin is ousted from the 2nd round?

President Préval:

The elections took place, we had some problems and we asked the OAS (Organization of American States) to come and verify what happened – so that each candidate could see in all transparency why they had votes taken away. And that will reassure them, so that each accepts the position assigned to him, so that we can continue the electoral process.

euronews :

You’ve spent almost 10 years in power. Once dubbed the “Pearl of the Caribbean”, for decades Haiti has been struck by multiple disasters. Have you ever been disheartened?

President Préval:

Indeed this term in office has been very difficult yet despite that, we’ve still had some significant results. Inflation has come down from 13% to 5%. We’ve had growth where GDP had been negative before we arrrived, and we ended last year with growth of 3.5%. So (there’ve been) lots of problems but also some success.

One of Haiti’s problems is instability. I have been the only president to complete his mandate, the only president not to go into exile, the only president who stayed at home and got re-elected, and I hope to be able to hand over power to an elected president and an elected parliament, so that stability comes to Haiti.

Copyright © 2011 euronews

Weapons of Mass Distraction

Poster children for Adult Attention Deficit Disorders have set new precedent for American Wartime Tyranny
by Pat Darnell

With the aplomb of a war criminal; Dick Cheney has offered his best defense upfront of his departure from office. War crime and lame-duckedness are a grizzly combination.

Lame-duckedness is a syndrome, people become blind and get tunnel vision, causing them to only see what is in front of them, putting them into a trance like state while looking for the perfect gift. This effect is similar to what usually happens two days before Christmas.

Guy: Dude, what was up with that chick driving the Escalade, she almost hit you.

Guy 2: She's eat up, she's a Christmas zombie

Does anyone appreciate the risk one takes to present oneself in public office?
One blogger finds the recent interview with VP Dick Cheney enlightening: "..On December 15, 2008, ABC’s Jonathan Karl interviewed Vice President Dick Cheney, who actually managed to evince more delusional confidence than even anticipated. When asked about torture, Cheney disregarded criticism about his part in Guantanamo as the pish-posh of ignoramuses." (Tracy O'Neill, Dick Cheney Condones Torture in ABC Interview with Jonathan Karl, Claims US Has Not Used Torture Techniques Posted by 12/16/2008 09:30 AM)


"Doing what we need to defend the Nation. ..If that is what [is meant] that I [Dick Cheney] have changed, then yes I'm guilty...

MooPig interjects that VP Cheney might have added: ...And all those files are sealed now by the national security councils for the next fifty years. So buck up patriots and laborers, your course is laid in for you and you are "distracted."

We notice that: Gone is the doggedness, and sweaty brow of Cheney; all that is left is the crooked path of an un-surveyed paper trail.

MooPig-sters everywhere, do you hear that? That humming sound? That is the sound of mass confusion, led by weapons of mass distraction. Please all those within the sound of my voice hear this:

It will soon be over. It is complicated because that is the veil lame ducks hide behind in times of mish mash politics; these fellows pull out their weapons of mass distraction.

We deduce: Every story going out to press of the Cheney -- Bush marriage is now moot. Indictment, and pardons, is a last ditch effort to get at the truth about our compromised liberties of the past eight years. Cheney\Bush didn't produce the dead or alive body of Bin Laden, nor did they produce incentive to send American troopers to their deaths in Iraq... and so on.

There's a new marshal in town: "Barry Obama; And partner -- when we see the terrorists bleed, that is the story that will lead."

REISSUE: State of the Union: "It is the Economy Stupid(s), and not just the USA's"

“The real problem is the politicization, both real and imagined... Elected officials violate their social contract with their citizens in name of fiscal balance, undermining the legitimacy of governments and the very process of market liberalization to which such high value is placed. Evidently, the best minds among us have only just begun to think about it.” (Eichengreen, Barry; Jul/Aug2002)

Those in charge of IMF and World Bank are self-critical while also self-absorbed ...this is still one of our most strenuous essays on the state of the union. It keeps being said, as if a worldwide Mantra: "It's the Economy, stupid."

Dubya has lost the election for the Republicans by going into 2009 sealing it with uncertainty, brokenness, and bankruptcy. So that is why we at MooPig keep posting this one unedited... we know it is unlikely to capture ones' imagination, but this is how those guys with "green" in their names actually talk:

by Patrick Darnell (June 13, 2006-Jan 29, 2008)
Introduction -- China
The IMF was established by the United Nations in 1944 to provide loans to countries in financial distress at a relatively low interest rate. Nations having balance-of-payments problems can borrow from the IMF for short time periods and such loans include economic and financial stipulations on the debtor nation. Typically, such stipulations require that the debtor nation follow an austerity program that limits government spending, domestic consumption, and imports. (2006, CTUO)
Sustainable development “requires not just liberalization and privatization, but also initiatives to ensure that all of society shares in the benefits.” When, or if, the IMF heeds its own advice for social and political stability by rubber stamping a process on the borrowing country, it can neglect some very unconstructive issues. "Negative impact on the distribution of wealth, and basic social needs occur when the IMF insists that the prevailed country both liberalize markets and privatize quickly, simultaneously demanding austerity.” (Eichengreen, Barry; Jul/Aug2002)

State of the Art: Developing Economies Festooned
As the most up to speed world player, China gets the Gold medal in pragmatism: “It’s the economy, stupid,” so says the Chinese in the field. The capitalist theme, can it lead to economic power? Freedom of thought, wounded once, now realized. In past, regional attitudes came from nationalist convolutions of the dogmatic leaders’ hatreds. Generally, this chaos of the recent past has been the chief building ingredient to the Chinese pragmatist’s view today.

The release and deliverance from menial work to better working conditions, and higher standard of living often is the first result after the first hurdle: Democratization. “The hardships our parents endured are the unbearable costs of freedom of thought, freedom of dialogue and personal power. Our lives must move to the next level. We must build paved roads leading to the market. The Journey is the story, not in exclusion of anything, but it is the journey,” are the words heard in China’s budding mercantile regions.

What is the Economy of Nations really Based on?

GREED________~~Economic conditions~~____________FEAR

Emboldened: Individualism empowers the Mobile
Today in China, the son and daughter of peasants can travel to and be emboldened by the sources of global rhetoric, in Europe and America from where freedom booms in their ears. Learn and return to their home and kiss the ground of their ancestors. At that emboldened moment the cheating and setups, and betrayals are seen for what they were. “If we have democracy, we have respect,” says the young man and woman.

Richness is the aim. The new leader must make others rich, because he/she is rich. Economics of the village are a clear balance sheet in face of historical corruption. Party politicians of previous decades took bribes, and lived relatively corrupt lives. Before, no one felt he/she could solve the problem.

Unchecked the fatality in corruption was made certain. The cost was over throwing largesse by the purer ones of the village. The repetition of the acts of the impure made the whole country to be scolded by the world.

“The developing economy is putting a lot of hope in the air, on the ground, and in spite of the criticism,” says the region’s mayor who just paved the road to the market. “It is easy to criticize a total country.” When the perspective moves to the individuals in the fields, criticism dies away. What one wants to do is to help: to join in and race against time, to finish, to achieve, to help, and leave the land better than when it was found. (China; 2006)

June 4, 1989 is remembered:

...as the slaughter of students in China. The criticism is giving loss of face to Chinese for generations to come. Resulting in overriding fear, again 2005, new issue of Japanese textbooks brought anti-Japanese riots in China. “A butterfly flapping its wings over the ocean can start a tornado over the nation. Don’t believe in rumors. Don’t participate in illegal demonstrations,” says the Chinese elders.

What the temperament of democratization depicts, is, after all a good-natured event. The clan loyalties detached as the peasants’ voting for the first time, billion people vote as if each is equal each, all over to all other. Often, women win elections over the men, and the load is eased. Results are the jovial campaigning, the over all good-humor of many voting from many levels of education, backgrounds, foregrounds and clans.

The son takes up the job long denied to his own father. It would be a shame if Chinese output does not make a contribution to the world. “If Chinese are to become richer with more money, taller buildings, and more cars and phones without making effort at giving back to the source of its wealth, it is a terrible shame.

Peasants once dreamed of hope in this:
Announcement of Dawn
Loyal to time,
Bring your message to all,
That what they have waited for so long,
Is coming. (Chinese Adage)

The unprecedented globalization, one market attitude of modern day humanity is tethered to many very deep-rooted conventions of the individuals. Primary to the formula of International Economics with the stride out to globalize, are variables of the history, economics and natural resources of the regions and are proving to be the most important aspects. (China; 2006)

“In short [banks and firms] are not oblivious to the risks, but they feel that the other risks are even greater.”(Eichengreen, Barry; Jul/Aug2002)

The Dawn is Here

In effort to understand the most important characteristics of workers in the world today, I am reading articles of secondary research titles. One particular article: “The globalization Wars: An Economist Reports from the Front Lines,” by Barry Eichengreen in Foreign Affairs, is commentary on memoirs of Joseph Stiglitz and his years in Washington, D.C.

“Undeterred, he battles valiantly on behalf of impoverished nations against the unrelenting ‘globalizers’ of the International Monetary Fund.” Says Eichengreen: “As the tale unfolds, the reader waits with bated breath to learn whether the hero can save the world’s poor from the consequences of bad economic advice.” (Eichengreen, Barry; Jul/Aug2002)

According to the critic, Stiglitz is contending that “too often those concerned with economic development have seen economic openness and liberalization as panaceas,” or magic potions. Alternatively, power of the great ideas of the past must carry forward, not be cast aside. Panaceas are non-existing.

Joseph Stiglitz is an economic analyst who took a leave of absence of Stanford University to be the chief economist at the World Bank. His aim was to serve his country and “improve the lot of the developing world.” He found while heading the Council of Economics Advisory during the Clinton years, a:

• Morass of Political opportunism
• Ideologically motivated decision-making
• And bureaucratic inertia

In developing countries, such as China, Ecuador, Malaysia and others, the result of promoting policies “helpful to US commercial and financial interests” has been “devastation.” Developing countries that open themselves to trade all too often will:

• Deregulate their financial markets
• Abruptly privatize national enterprise
• Experience more economic and social disruption than growth

“Foreign direct investments have destroyed potentially viable domestic companies,” and “liberalized international finance has made emerging-market economies more vulnerable to erratic shifts in investor sentiment without conferring [bestowing] any visible benefits.” (Eichengreen, Barry; Jul/Aug2002)

Stiglitz argues: “academics [like him] once seduced by globe trotting [expense accounts] may lose sight of their original motivation for public service...” How soon one forgets that the purpose is “to enlist science in the pursuit of human betterment.” Shamefully, global public employé often have to choose “between dissent [objectivity] and professional [self] advancement.” (Eichengreen, Barry; Jul/Aug2002)

Most prominent in recent history, Stiglitz was a major opponent to the 1997 IMF push for IMF-World Bank meetings that would lead to deregulation of international capital flows. The money that flows is regulated in previous checks/ balances that must be left in place, because Stiglitz has defined statistically asymmetric information.

Asymmetric information is Stiglitz’s master-mind. It means that the lending country has considerably more information about the transaction than does the borrowing country. The imbalance of information pervades the entire term of the loan, and is the main reason why there is little catalyst for private enterprise to follow IMF capital advances.

Stiglitz regards “the poor timing of the meetings as evidence that the IMF saw a liberalized financial system not as a means to development or stability but rather as an end to itself, [or self-serving].”

”The proposal was driven by bureaucratic inertia – scarcely ...flattering.” Stiglitz then was against the interest rate increases of the same year that would “restore balance to the countries caught in the Asian financial crisis.” What is being preached is that the method used in the USA banking system rising and lowering the prime to stave off various economic ills and windfalls, is not the answer as Stiglitz has found in his statistical numerations.

Moreover, administrators do not “have the intellectual luxury of academics,” therefore each decision is miraculous: miraculous because there is so much error in the decisions made each day as the market opens. Lending and rate increases are putting a heavy burden even on the “IMF Managers who as PhD’s understand the threat that higher interest rates place pressure on debt-laden banks and firms.”

Unfortunately, the theory and practice are still unprecedented to a point that “back of the envelope calculations” are becoming as common as taking “long term money out of crisis countries,” like old time runs on banks.

So, who makes out in Global Economic Uncertainty?

There remains so much risk in international monetary finances that one wonders why the USA is so involved in the sordid business. The USA is the “main stakeholder, controlling the single largest block of votes, in the voting of IMF-World Bank affairs.”

One insidious reason that comes to mind is that as politicians go global, like lame duck second term presidents in the last two years of their administration, they go abroad and far away so they don’t have to face their constituency. “Elected officials violate their social contract with their citizens in name of fiscal balance, undermining the legitimacy of governments and the very process of market liberalization to which such high value is placed.” (Eichengreen, Barry; Jul/Aug2002)

Additionally, IMF uses other citizens’ money to take inordinate risks. Then when the interest rates go up to balance the developing country’s economy, the interest earnings are wiped out. The exercise is futile, and practiced on so many fronts, that it makes no sense.

“The real problem is the politicization, both real and imagined.” IMF economic advice reflects the mixed agendas of its principal stakeholders. These agents of globalization Stiglitz warns in his book “are experiencing a crisis of their own, in legitimacy.” That is legality, authority, and authenticity.

Every time the IMF is on path to shift the balance between “debtors and creditors’” there is the mammoth predicament of “moral hazards in shifting that balance... in letting debtors become their own bankers, and bankruptcy judges.” Suffice to say, “Evidently, the best minds among us have only just begun to think about it.” (Eichengreen, Barry; Jul/Aug2002)

Hope: Dream’s friend, Illusion’s sister. [I Ch’ing] (fin)

References

Eichengreen, Barry; The Globalization Wars. Foreign Affairs; Jul/Aug2002, Vol. 81 Issue 4, p157-164, 8p Document Type: Book Review Subject Terms: ECONOMICS* ECONOMIC policy *GLOBALIZATION *INTERNATIONAL Monetary Fund UNITED States 1993- NONFICTION DEVELOPING countries Reviews & Products: GLOBALIZATION & Its Discontents (Book) NAICS/Industry Codes: 928120 International Affairs People.

STIGLITZ, Joseph Database: Business Source Elite
http://search.epnet.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=bsh&an=6836492&loginpage=Login.asp
Stiglitz, Joseph; Globalization and Its Discontents, book, New York: W. W. Norton, 2002, Pages: 282.

China; An historical presentation for TV Discover Channel, June 13, 2006.

by Patrick Darnell (June 13, 2006-Jan 29, 2008)