Free Republic

SANTA MONICA, Calif. (MarketWatch) -- There's a $700 trillion elephant in the room and it's time we found out how much it really weighs on the economy. Derivative contracts total about three-quarters of a quadrillion dollars in "notional" amounts, according to the Bank for International Settlements. These contracts are tallied in notional values because no one really can say how much they are worth. But valuing them correctly is exactly what we should be doing because these comprise the viral disease that has infected the financial markets and the economies of the world. Try as we might to salvage the...

GORDON BROWN hopes to forge a partnership with President Barack Obama in Washington this week, to call for a “global new deal” to lift the world out of recession. As he prepares for his first White House visit since the president’s inauguration, the prime minister has hinted that he is ready to make further tax cuts to boost the UK economy. Brown will meet Obama on Tuesday and address a joint session of Congress on Wednesday. Aides say he has both to demonstrate to a sceptical British public that he commands the respect of the president, and to persuade the...

Anger rises in Germany as the economy falls. Trade unions and globalization-critical protesters are planning demonstrations in Berlin and Frankfurt under the banner: "We're not paying for your crisis." Alexis Passadakis, 31, an activist from the group Attac, tells SPIEGEL what's wrong with the system. SPIEGEL: What do you mean with your battle cry, "We're not paying for your crisis"? Don't you want to pay taxes anymore? Passadakis: We believe that the cost of the economic crisis should be footed by those who profited most from globalization. SPIEGEL: As a leading exporter, Germany too has profited. Passadakis: No, the majority...

New York, NY (AHN) - The consumer cost of rice, a staple for much of the world, could fall this year thanks to a bumper harvest in 2008, the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) reported on Wednesday. The U.N. food agency also cautioned that the negative impact of the global economic downturn and the resulting loss of jobs and income could outweigh the benefits of lower prices for the poorest consumers. Last year's rapid increases in the price of rice and other cereals played a major role in the food crisis, characterized by high fuel and fertilizer prices...

It was a typical globalization-era war that pitted tradition against profits. A large cheese factory wanted to change the Camembert recipe and began a dirty fight against small producers. This time, though, tradition emerged victorious. When Luc Morelon was still convinced that this was a winnable war, he was willing to give interviews in his office on the 30th floor of the Montparnasse Tower, with its view of the Eiffel Tower and of a deceptively peaceful-looking sea of shimmering Parisian rooftops in the morning mist. "snip" he was no longer available for further attacks by the "self-proclaimed custodians of tradition,"...

The FINANCIAL -- According to RIA Novosti, Russian-Iranian trade turnover rose to $3.7 billion last year, Russia's deputy foreign minister said on February 20."We are delighted that trade turnover between our countries reached $3.7 billion last year. This is a significant figure, and one which is expected to be higher this year," Alexei Borodavkin said following scheduled talks between Russian and Iranian foreign ministry officials in the Iranian capital of Tehran.   He said MOSCOW and Tehran considered the development of bilateral economic relations a means to overcome the economic and financial problems that the countries were facing.   Borodavkin...

The FINANCIAL -- What have been the economic consequences of the 2004 and 2007 EU enlargements for the ‘new’ member states? In parallel to the publication of the European Commission’s report on the recent EU enlargements, EUROCHAMBRES asked national Chambers of Commerce from newly acquired Member States to evaluate how their inclusion in the EU impacted on their economic situation and performance. "Respondents believe that the main economic benefits of EU accession have been a higher degree of macroeconomic stability, an easier access to larger markets (including capital markets) and very positive trade ad investment flows, including Foreign Direct Investment. ...

What is the world coming to? Pat Dollard reports the Russian leader warned the US against adopting socialism because it doesn't work: Russian Prime Minister Vladamir Putin has said the US should take a lesson from the pages of Russian history and not exercise “excessive intervention in economic activity and blind faith in the state’s omnipotence”. “In the 20th century, the Soviet Union made the state’s role absolute,” Putin said during a speech at the opening ceremony of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. “In the long run, this made the Soviet economy totally uncompetitive. This lesson cost us...

BEIJING, Feb. 18 (Xinhua) -- Increased borrowing by the United States to fund its massive stimulus package could cause the depreciation of U.S. dollar-denominated assets, Chinese economists have told Xinhua.     Being the largest holder of U.S. Treasury securities, China had reason to be concerned about that possible depreciation, the economists said.     The 787 billion U.S. dollar stimulus bill, the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, is designed to jolt the ailing U.S. economy by providing government spending and tax cuts for both individuals and businesses. U.S. President Barack Obama signed it into law Tuesday.     "To rescue the ailing U.S. economy by...

LONDON (MarketWatch) - Several of Europe's top banks skidded on Tuesday as investors fretted that exposure to their once-fast growing Eastern neighbours will prove to be a thorn in the side of many lenders.The sell-off was sparked by a report from Moody's Investors Services, which said it's concerned about Western European banks that are supporting subsidiaries in Eastern Europe against a rapidly deteriorating global macroeconomic backdrop. "Deteriorating financial strength of East European subsidiaries has a negative spillover effect on their West European parents. Maintaining a robust risk-return profile during a downturn in the untested and still more volatile East European...

As goods pile up in wharves from Bangkok to Shanghai, and workers are laid off in record numbers, people in East Asia are beginning to realize they aren't only experiencing an economic downturn but living through the end of an era. For over 40 years now, the cutting edge of the region's economy has been export-oriented industrialization (EOI). Taiwan and Korea first adopted this strategy of growth in the mid-1960s, with Korean dictator Park Chung-Hee coaxing his country's entrepreneurs to export by, among other measures, cutting off electricity to their factories if they refused to comply. The success of Korea...

When globalisation goes into reverse By Gideon Rachman Published: February 2 2009 19:10 | Last updated: February 2 2009 19:10 There are rock festivals and book festivals – and then there is the annual globalisation festival, otherwise known as the World Economic Forum in Davos. For the past decade, the Davos meeting has brought together big business, high finance and top politics to promote and celebrate the integration of the global economy. Whatever their business rivalries or political differences, the Davos delegates all agreed that the road to peace and prosperity lay through more international trade and investment – globalisation,...

Henry Kissinger made headlines on January 5 by proclaiming Barack Obama to be the architect of a “New World Order.” He told CNBC that “His task will be to develop an overall strategy for America in this period when, really, a new world order can be created. It’s a great opportunity, it isn’t just a crisis.” But even more important than this eye-opening statement was where Kissinger made it―the floor of the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE). Kissinger, a former Secretary of State, was alongside Stephen Orlins, president of the U.S. National Committee on U.S.-China Relations, and two Chinese officials,...

Editor's note: A recent story in the Wall Street Journal profiled former Soviet KGB agent Igor Panarin's prediction that the United States will soon collapse. Vitaliy Katsenelson, who emigrated to the U.S. from Russia 17 years ago, offers a response.DENVER, Colo. (MarketWatch) -- Dear Mr. Ex-KGB: Desperate times call for desperate measures. No kidding. I understand why you took the collapse of the Soviet Union model added some wishful thinking and applied it to the United States. See Wall Street Journal article. The Great U.S. of A is not the Soviet Union, this analogy doesn't work on this country. The...

The collapse of financial globalization … Posted on Monday, December 29th, 2008 By bsetser The last six months — if not the last year — logged what felt like a decade’s worth of financial news. So perhaps it isn’t surprising that swings that normally would attract an enormous amount of attention have gone almost unnoticed. Like the near-total collapse of private capital flows. Both private capital inflows to the US and private capital outflows from the US have fallen sharply. They have gone from a peak of around 15% of US GDP to around zero in a remarkably short period...

BEIJING, Dec. 28 (Xinhua) -- The world has undergone remarkable changes this year, but international security situation on the whole remained stable with "peace" and "development" prevailing as the themes of the times. In 2008, the world has continued moving toward multi-polarization, resulting in a distinctive shift of international forces. Globalization is developing in depth and regional cooperation is gathering momentum. The world has been confronted with one hotspot issue after another and non-traditional threats are increasing. The world economic growth took a turn for the worse due to the outbreak of the global financial crisis. WORLD MULTI-POLARIZATION STRENGTHENED In...

One hundred years ago, there was a financial panic in the United States. There were runs on the banks as depositors rushed to take out their money before they ran out of currency. The stock market dropped to half its peak 1906 average. The financial crisis began in New York City, home of most of the financial “trust” companies. The panic induced Congress to create the Federal Reserve System (the “Fed”) in 1913 to prevent any more such financial crises. But the Fed failed to prevent the even worse bank failures of the Great Depression. The main cause of the...

Consumers and companies will continue to find it difficult to access credit for the next one to two years, the boss of Barclays bank has said. Credit remains available to households and businesses but the amount available is shrinking, John Varley told the BBC. He said he did not expect banks to start to increase their lending again until 2010 at the earliest. In an interview for BBC1's Panorama, Mr Varley also said the banking industry should say sorry for the crisis. The programme, which looks at how Britain's banks went to the brink of collapse in October and what...

INTRODUCTION The natural born citizen requirement in Article II of the United States Constitution has been called the “stupidest provision” in the Constitution,1 “undecidedly unAmerican,”2 “blatantly discriminatory,”3 and the “Constitution’s worst provision.”4 ... snip The natural born citizen clause of the United States Constitution should be repealed for numerous reasons. Limiting presidential eligibility to natural born citizens discriminates against naturalized citizens, is out-dated and undemocratic, and incorrectly assumes that birthplace is a proxy for loyalty. The increased globalization of the world continues to make each of these reasons more persuasive...the natural born citizen clause has increasingly become out of place...

By 2025, the accelerating pace of globalization and the emergence of new powers will produce a world order vastly different from the system in place for most of the post-World War II era, according to a projection by the federal government's top intelligence analysts. The projection, prepared by the National Intelligence Council of the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, was made public by the ODNI today. The ODNI report, "Global Trends 2025: A Transformed World" projects a still-preeminent U.S. joined by fast developing powers, notably India and China, atop a multipolar international system. The world of the near...