by Alex Evans | Oct 10, 2008 | North America
It’s official: I relinquish any and all claims to knowing anything whatsoever about US politics. This – I blush – is me, back in January:
It may be pushing it to call [John McCain] ‘centrist’ – but he blurs the red / blue battle lines, and he’s perceived by both sides as having integrity. In their different ways, John McCain and Barack Obama – with his language of ‘hope’ and ‘change’ – both represent an acknowledgement of the need for some kind of rapprochement between red and blue America. But out of the two, it’s John McCain who currently looks the more credible prospect for achieving that goal.
What was I thinking?
As the New York Times observes, “what has been most striking about the last 48 hours on the campaign trail is the increasingly hostile atmosphere at Mr. McCain’s rallies, where voters furiously booed any mention of Mr. Obama and lashed out at the Democrats, Wall Street and the news media”. TPM puts it harder than that, and refers to the “unhinged” nature of the McCain / Palin crowds.
David Gergen pretty much agrees in this CNN interview –
[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bi9LFX88ElQ]
– in which he says, “There is a free-floating sort of whipping-around anger that could really lead to some violence. And I think we’re not far from that … I think it’s really imperative the candidates try to calm people down.”
John McCain, ladies and gentlemem. Healer-in-Chief.
by Richard Gowan | Oct 10, 2008 | Off topic
After some months of chronicling what one reader describes as “Sarko-bling”, it is a pleasure to find that one world leader is keeping it simple, Nobel prize or not.
by Alex Evans | Oct 10, 2008 | North America, Off topic
According to the Onion:
ORLANDO, FL—Republican vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin sought to silence those who have criticized her lack of foreign affairs experience Tuesday by announcing plans for a weeklong, 10-nation tour of Walt Disney World’s Epcot.
According to Palin, the trip—her first past Frontierland—will include speaking engagements at Norway’s famous Viking ride, sausages at Germany’s Kaufhaus, and, time permitting, a fact-finding mission to Future World.
“This ambitious trip should finally demonstrate that I am ready to assume the vice presidency, whether by standing in long lines at Morocco’s Tangierine Café or by sitting down face-to-face with Mexico’s Three Caballeros,” Palin announced during a campaign stop outside a Chinese restaurant in Tulsa, OK.
“All of our neighbors deserve good diplomacy, from the Universe of Energy down to the French pavilion.” Palin also promised a visit to the American Adventure exhibit before returning home, adding that she hoped to learn more about her own nation and the diverse peoples within.
by Alex Evans | Oct 10, 2008 | Climate and resource scarcity, Conflict and security, Economics and development, Global system
Although there’s no consensus on whether we’re heading for a 2-3 year recession or a much longer period of deflation a la Japan in the 1990s (c.f. Nouriel Roubini on V, U and L shaped recessions), four implications for development are already clear.
First, donor countries are going to be facing a dramatically different situation in their public sector budgets from next year. With the US Treasury’s $700 billion bailout plan now approved by Congress, the incoming US Administration will face a budget deficit of up to a trillion dollars next year, rather than $300 bn as planned. Other donors will find their budgets constrained too – by falling growth, lower tax revenues and probably also higher public debt. In the UK, for example, public borrowing next year is likely to have to rise from an expected £43 bn to £100 bn or more.
All this means that governments will have less to spend – so we should start worrying now about what that means for development assistance. While it remains to be seen whether those governments that have committed to spending 0.7% of national income on aid will row back on those commitments, it now looks much likelier that for example climate adaptation costs will come out of aid budgets, rather than being additional to 0.7% – as they should be.
This shift will be compounded by the second implication of the credit crunch: change in public attitudes. So far, the full impacts of the financial crisis have yet to hit the real economy in developed countries. But when they do, they will accelerate a switch that we can already see, towards more priority on issues that are ‘close to home’, and less on global issues like development and climate change.
Third, the financial crisis will obviously hit growth in developing countries. Monday’s stock market falls hit developing country exchanges hardest: the benchmark MSCI emerging markets index, for example, fell 11% as investors fled for safety. Meanwhile, the debate about whether developing countries in Asia and Africa have ‘decoupled’ from developed countries seems to be ending, with the conclusion that developing country growth is not immune from a downturn in the wider global economy.
And fourth, a reduction in commodity prices for the duration of the global downturn (however long that may be) as demand for them falls. As I’ve mentioned, futures prices for grain crops are already falling; we can expect that trend to be supported by falling energy prices, which will reduce some of the pressure on food that’s come via fertiliser prices, transport costs and demand for crops as biofuels.
That said, let’s be clear: the fall in commodity prices due to a global downturn does not mean that we’re out of the woods for good on high food and fuel prices. As Javier Blas notes in the FT today, the downturn also means that necessary investment in increasing supply will be put off. As soon as we’re out of the dowturn and demand starts going up again, we’ll discover that there’s been no shift in the underlying supply fundamentals – and hence that the stagflation drivers we were all worrying about until the credit crunch really began in earnest are just waiting where we left them. Let’s hope policymakers use the current easing as a moment of opportunity to start getting long term policy frameworks in place to manage high commodity prices a bit better than we did over the last two years.
by David Steven | Oct 10, 2008 | North America
Here’s some idle speculation for Friday. Starting points:
- John McCain is now in deep trouble – pundits are talking about the election as a done deal.
- He clearly can’t stand Barack ‘that one‘ Obama – and Obama is subtly feeding his anger.
- When cornered, McCain’s instinct is to do something dramatic – pick Palin as VP, suspend his campaign to fight the financial meltdown etc.
- Sarah Palin has haemorrhaged support with mainstream voters, but is building a strong bond with the base. Her main political interest in now in 2012 not 2008.
- The Alaskan legislature will report on the Troopergate mess today and there are signs that the report could be damaging (though not necessarily fatally so).
Now one would expect the McCain/Palin campaign to tough Troopergate out – after all, they’ve played a pretty ruthless offense so far. But what if McCain wanted to make one last attempt to reclaim the election. Imagine how it might play out…
- Report is published. McCain/Palin campaign let the flames burn for a while (rather than rushing into douse them). Media frenzy builds.
- Tearful Sarah Palin gives press conference to withdraw as VP. Presents herself as the victim of a sexist, elitist media that has drunk the Obama Kool-Aid. Can’t bear to be a distraction any longer, but promises to be back once she’s cleared her name in Alaska.
- A shaken and angry McCain accepts her resignation. The base is in flames. The McCain camp seemingly in disarray.
- A news cycle later – McCain is back with Romney as his new pick for VP. Announces that Romney’s job will be to work exclusively on the fallout from the financial meltdown. He’s the only man with the CV to get the US out of this mess.
- McCain/Romney then run on experience in public, Obama’s character behidn the scenes and through surrogates (all the old stuff – but now also ‘He killed Sarah! The bastard’)
- We all sit back to see whether, this time, the stunt will work.
Will it happen? Probably not. But if it does, you read it here first…
Update: It doesn’t need to be Romney who replaces Palin. Indeed, McCain could pick anyone who he thought would be the most plausible White Knight to ride in and rescue the American (and global) economy. Bloomberg? Greenspan? Anyone who would seem right today and for at least the rest of the month…
