Does the Kony video point toward global problem-solving?
The Kony 2012 director who was found naked in the street will remain in the hospital for several weeks. Danica Russell, Jason Russell’s wife, attributed her husband’s “reactive psychosis” to the “sudden transition from relative anonymity to worldwide attention – both raves and ridicules, in a matter of days.”
“Relative anonymity to worldwide attention” is an understatement. The Internet gives new meaning to Warhol’s observation about 15 minutes of fame. Russell is striving to bring Joseph Kony, the Ugandan leader of the violent Lord’s Resistance Army, to justice for crimes against humanity, and his video exploded onto the global stage. More than 100 million people viewed the video the first week it was online. Many of these people expressed support and donated money to Russell’s cause.
Of course skepticism also went viral. Some questioned Russell’s character, such as when he told a magazine last year that “If Oprah, Steven Spielberg and Bono had a baby, I would be that baby.” They also questioned how Russell was spending the money of the charity he ran, Invisible Children.
I share those concerns, not because I am a critic of Russell or his charity. I think that any organization that attracts that much attention and support has an obligation to be transparent. Courtesy of the Web, we know there will be many more charities, causes and problem-solving groups seeking global fame and thus clout. In fact, we are in the early days of an explosion of new, networked models to solve global problems.
This is good because traditional global institutions are increasingly ineffective.
Throughout the 20th century, nation states cooperated to build global institutions to facilitate joint action and address global problems. Many of these organizations were created in the aftermath of World War Two. In 1944, 44 Allied nations gathered in Bretton Woods, New Hampshire, to develop a series of commercial and financial relationships for the industrial world.
This led to the creation of the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank, and ultimately to the United Nations (1945), G8 (1975), World Trade Organization (1995), and numerous other organizations based on nation states. Some of these are formal institutions, but some are global initiatives designed to solve a problem, such as the Copenhagen conference on climate change.
An unhealthy privilege
–James Saft is a Reuters columnist. The opinions expressed are his own.–
When the U.S. dollar ultimately loses its status as the world’s premier reserve currency it will be painful for all involved, almost certainly disorganized, and very possibly a very good thing.
World Bank President Robert Zoellick outlined the risks to the dollar’s status in a speech in Washington on Monday.
“The United States would be mistaken to take for granted the dollar’s place as the world’s predominant reserve currency. Looking forward, there will increasingly be other options to the dollar,” he said.
Zoellick went on to emphasize how choices in the United States on inflation, fiscal policy and financial system reform would help to influence the dollar’s fate.
Quite true. The U.S. cannot simply devalue its way to competitiveness, nor can it appear to be inflating away its debts without risking a run on the currency. The Chinese and others would sell dollars or fail to buy up new debt if they felt the U.S. was behaving both cynically and irresponsibly.
China has good reasons not to force a crisis and devalue its holdings of dollars, but not immutable ones. The two nations are like two men trying to swim to shore while dragging a heavy box of gold, the difference being that the U.S. is tethered to the box while China is only holding on. If China decides the water is too rough it can let go, sacrifice its dollar holdings and swim for it. The United States is not so lucky.
This article is based on the assumption that the dollar *will* lose privilege as reserve currancy.
As the financial crisis hits the recovery phase I wonder, has this assumption been made out?
For what reason will the dollar cease to be the reserve of choice? America remains higher in GDP then the major players of Europe put together. And stronger then China and several other nations combined.
So what possible competitor currancy can uproot the dollar in terms of national demand or stability? That has yet to be seen.
So until the assumptions have been proven beyond doubt, I find I cannot comment on the accuracy of articles such as this.
China and the world economy
Dr. Gerard Lyons is chief economist and group head of global research, Standard Chartered Bank. The views expressed are his own.
The world is witnessing a shift in the balance of power, from the West to the East. This shift will take place over decades, and the winners will be: - Those economies that have financial clout, such as China - Those economies that have natural resources, whether it be energy, commodities or water, and will include countries, some in the Middle East, some across Africa, Brazil, Australia, Canada and others in temperate climates across, for instance, northern Europe - And the third set of winners will be countries that have the ability to adapt and change. Even though we are cautious about growth prospects in the U.S. and UK in the coming years, both of these have the ability to adapt and change.
China is at the center of this shift.
The scale and pace of change in China is breathtaking. Against this backdrop of dramatic change, let me look at China’s impact on the global economy, especially in the aftermath of the financial crisis.
It is now clear that the financial crisis was a result of three key factors: an imbalanced global economy; a systematic failure of the financial system in the West; and a failure to heed the many warning signs.
The world needs to move towards a more balanced economy. But that will take years. The imbalanced nature of the world economy led some to point the finger of blame at the savers, such as China. The 1944 Bretton Woods agreement placed no obligation on savers, countries with current account surpluses. The obligation to change was put on those countries with the deficits. This has to change.
Whilst China and other savers may not be the main source of the recent problem, they are part of the solution.
West needs to look at its base first, i think the fundamentals are shifting, boy now you learn!
I don’t see Chinese taking any interest in leading the world or trying to accomplish ! The eastern men are survivalist my partner! they can consume all the bull, yet we have some hope they learn! But I have my doubts if Yuan will be in my pockets!
G20 summit shows lack of resolve
–John Kemp is a Reuters columnist. The opinions expressed are his own–
The G20 summit must be considered a disappointing failure, even by the relatively low expectations set for the event. Leaders produced a long agenda of further studies, reports and work, but failed to provide a clear direction or tackle even the most fundamental decisions.
On the key issues, leaders displayed a worrying irresolution. Without unambiguous instructions from the top, discussions between finance ministers and officials will prove protracted and risk getting bogged down in detail. Negotiations between officials can fill in the details; they cannot make the kind of fundamental choices about strategic direction that leaders avoided at the weekend.
A SENSE OF HISTORY
The summit has been bedeviled by comparisons with the Bretton Woods conference in 1944. Intended as a rhetorical device to restore confidence by suggesting governments were taking bold action in an unprecedented spirit of agreement, the ghost of Bretton Woods has raised impossible expectations and distracted both leaders and officials from the real issues facing the global financial system:
(1) The three-week conference at Bretton Woods was the culmination of more than two years of detailed work at official level and more than a decade studying the issues. There was substantial prior agreement about the problem (poorly coordinated monetary and fiscal policies, leading to payment imbalances and protectionism) and the solution (a gold-exchange system, with multilateral surveillance of national policies, and national reserves supplemented by IMF drawing facilities on a conditional basis).
The system was buttressed by a new multilateral development bank to help fund infrastructure and post-war reconstruction, and later by the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) to prevent a slide back into protectionism.
“But too many proposals in the document are either irrelevant or reveal a disinclination to challenge the status quo.”
True enough, Mr Kemp. But have you ever been to a G-7, G-8, G-20, IMF, World Bank etc. meeting where this did NOT apply?
Debate surrounding the world economic crisis
World leaders vowed to work together in overhauling the global financial system as they headed to Washington for a summit on wresting the global economy from recession and avoiding future meltdowns.
Far from the confines of Washington, Reuters readers launched into a lively debate, sparked by Reuters columnists and experts, on what this means for the global financial crisis.
One of the more lively discussions arose from a column theorizing the financial crisis is the greatest threat to international security. Paul Rogers, Professor of Peace Studies at Bradford University and Global Security Consultant to Oxford Research Group argues:
Unless global responses are made to the current economic crisis, the biggest threat to international security will be the impoverishment of hundreds of millions of people, leading to radical and violent social movements that will be met with force, resulting in still greater conflict.
Reader Jonathan Cole contends:
When the “me” impulse overcomes the “we” impulse to the point that it creates a dysfunctional, unjust concentration of wealth and comfort in the hands of a minority, while consigning the rest to poverty, bad health, and early death, it is only a matter of time before the anger bubbles up from the masses.
The U.S. won’t stomach a new Bretton Woods
— Diana Furchtgott-Roth,former chief economist at the U.S. Department of Labor, is a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute. The opinions expressed are her own. —
Leaders of the Group of 20 countries meeting in Washington on Nov. 15 are hoping that America’s role in the global financial crisis will shame President George W. Bush, or maybe President-elect Barack Obama, into supporting greater international financial regulation, diminishing America’s role in international financial institutions.
But America is unlikely to give up control over its financial sector, certainly not under Bush, and probably not even under the internationally-popular Obama.
International leaders demand a replay of the 1944 wartime conference at Bretton Woods, New Hampshire, at which delegates from 44 nations created the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund. The World Bank made loans to war-torn countries and now lends to developing countries. The IMF supervised fixed exchange rates centered on the U.S. dollar and gold, a regime abandoned in the 1970s, and made rescue loans to troubled economies, a role that continues.
When European Union leaders met in Brussels on Nov. 7 to prepare for the financial summit, they proposed a course that might be as far-reaching as Bretton Woods.
An EU statement, sweeping but vague, proposed that financial institutions of “systemic importance” be made subject “to rules or at least to oversight wherever they operate” and that “no market segment, no territory, and no financial institution should escape.” That proposition is a dangerously empty vessel into which all manner of regulatory mischief could be poured.
Such international regulation would be unprecedented.
US is afraid to lose the supremacy of US$ it is normal, but it will soon.
Communication with a viral intent, specifically targeting the global millennial generation. That’s the focus of the Kony video. All your points are well taken, Don. But I think one of the larger issues is how the video has changed communication patterns. The attention and subsequent actions generated by the video can be a model for future campaigns, both political and business. There are lessons in its packaging, distribution and social impact that marketers and social activists can learn from. Loraine Antrim