Could it be that the world is already rich?

Hey everyone,


for our presentation tomorrow we will be looking at the effects inequality has on the developed world. We will be answering three questions;


1) Can there be poverty in the developed world?
2) Can skilled people inevitably avoid poverty?
3) Are wealth and capitalism inherently connected?


In order to get you guys thinking we are posting a documentary on child poverty in the viewpoint of the child giving us an insight on how they are dealing with living in poverty in the UK in 2011. It demonstrates different factors of poverty in particular looking at the income of the different families and how they are seen to cope with the recession and much more.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_pzDclniQzg


Also, we have added this additional clip - which is on the economic growth during the last 200 years, to show just how remarkably living standards have changed. 


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jbkSRLYSojo


Alongside this, we want to share this BBC documentary on poverty in America, which was also posted by Helen a few weeks ago, but we feel as though this is relevant to this weeks topic of poverty in the developed world, so if you've not seen it yet we recommend you do so. 


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NlZqaXd0uRg


Tomorrow we will start our presentation showing you a poverty report - http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=0ZziXDqIb5M
followed by asking you a few questions, which you can think about before the lecture.

1) In what ways do you think poverty is demonstrated in a developed country?
2) To what extent is inequality a casual factor of Poverty?
3) Do you think wealth and capitalism are connected and why?


Hope to see you all tomorrow,

Iffie & Erkki.

Right...just one more little thing and I pledge not to bombard you with any more links. We will only very briefly mention this in the presentation, but it is quite an interesting point. Here Stieglitz (who himself served as Chief Economist of the World Bank) talks about the barriers to ‘free trade’. It makes you wonder if we can really talk about such a thing as ‘free trade’. Here's the link:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4rgj9EG5PS8
Hanna

Hola fellow PovDev students! :-)

As Samantha has already posted, tomorrow we will be focusing on questions of who runs the global economy and the limits to global governance. We will be looking at the global governance of poverty and development. We will look, very briefly, at what we understand by global governance, how it  have developed over time, as well  the main challenges facing global governance in the 21^st century. As the main theme of the whole module is ‘poverty and development’, we will look at different frameworks that give rise to particular kind of strategies of alleviating poverty and fostering development on both national and global level.

We will talk about the crisis of the Washington Consensus, as well as the Millennium Development Goals. We encourage you to use the supplementary material we post on this blog, as it is  (hopefully) relevant to the topic this week and to our SSL. In addition to the video posted by Sam, I believe these couple of link s might be quite useful:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2006/apr/13/comment.business?INTCMP=SRCH

This is an article by Joseph Stieglitz on the road China decided to take in defiance of the Washington Consensus. Stieglitz argues against the WC, raising concerns about the fact that market economies cannot be just left to themselves, or ‘on autopilot’. China balanced handling of the economy, with a mixture of market economy and state intervention should be taken as a ‘roadmap’ for responding to constantly changing economies.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2011/mar/07/china-usa?INTCMP=SRCH

I found this article particularly useful.  It shows the difference between China and the U.S. in providing loans and aid. China is defying the WC, it loans money with ‘fewer conditionalities’. Author argues that China has a clear lead over the U.S.  All discussed in the context of Latin America.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/global-development/poverty-matters/2010/nov/24/washington-consensus?INTCMP=SRCH

WC is far from over, despite all the talk that IMF and WB now include few conditions with their loans, there are examples that both are still operating in ten spirit of the WC. The author is opposed to the WC and argues that we should actively try to get rid of it. This is an article that is useful for anyone who wants to explore the idea that the Washington Consensus is dead.

http://www.economist.com/node/21548963

Some good point about how successful are countercyclical policies, and how much China, who’s as we know from previous articles, is in defiance of WC, has contributed enormously to the worlds goal of reducing poverty.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=imwSdeZ0ytk

Finally, a short video on the demise of the Washington Consensus and the apparent rise of the so- called Beijing Consensus.

See you all tomorrow, 

Hanna & Samantha

Hello good people!

For our presentation tomorrow, me and Hannah are exploring answering the questions: 'Who runs the global economy and are there limits to global governance?'. This video which I will post below will give you a small insight of one of the things which will be covered tomorrow which is Millennium Development Goals (MDG).
I've also put a link to the United Nations website which will give a update on the progress of the MDG today:
http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=41488&Cr=mdg&Cr1=

Hope to see you all tomorrow!

Samantha and Hannah.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v3p2VLTowAA

Hey Guys!

For our presentation tomorrow we're going to be focusing on the following questions:

Who runs the global economy?

Are there limits to Global Governance?

Inside of this we have three key questions that give us a greater idea of how to answer them and we will be asking you opinions on the following questions throughout our presentation. These key questions are:

Who do you feel are the 'major' players in the global economy?
Why do you think the above mentioned players are so important?
Do you believe individual states influences diminished due to the rise of Globalisation?

What are the limits, if any, to Global Governance?
Why would there be limits in place?
What organisations would you say are limited and why?

We're currently having a bit of trouble trying to get our video to work in the presentation so if we're unable to show it, I will log onto here after our presentation and put the link on.

See you all tomorrow,

Matthew & David

—

Interesting articles on Doha deadlock

http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/09/12/us-usa-trade-doha-idUSTRE78B6CB20110912 
World Trade Organization (WTO) members should acknowledge the 10-year-old Doha round of trade talks is "deadlocked" and begin charting a more "credible path forward," a top U.S. trade official said on Monday. 


http://www.wto.org/english/news_e/news11_e/tnc_dg_infstat_29apr11_e.htm 
'WTO ambassadors endorsed on 29 April 2011 Director-General Pascal Lamy’s plan to consult delegations in Geneva and ministers around the world in the search for a different way of achieving a breakthrough in the Doha Development Agenda negotiations. They were clear about what they do not want and said they are open to ideas.'

http://www.worldtradelaw.net/articles/drachedoha.pdf 
'As a general rule, trade agreements do not eliminate protectionist sentiments or the ability of governments to vigorously defend production and employment interests. Rather, they keep these at politically acceptable 
levels. Even the current liberal order has failed to fully embed a liberalized framework for competition in its otherwise comprehensive regulatory system.'

World Bank Critique

Hey everyone!

Tomorrow we're also going to talk about the World Bank and the critique that has been expressed towards it. One important point is that all the Presidents of the World Bank have been from the United States. The current President Robert B. Zoellick is going to finish the 5-year-term in June and it's interesting to see, what kind of person the next one will be.

Here's the link to the website of the "Presidential Elections".

http://www.worldbankpresident.org/

Greetings,

Oona and Lenka