Archive for September, 2006
No oil shortage
In: Uncategorized
17 Sep 2006Some interesting views from the oil industry on why the world is unlikely to run out of crude. Abdallah S Jum’ah, the president and chief executive of Saudi Aramco, gave several reasons why oil supplies are likely to last another 140 years at present rates of consumption. In a speech to the third international seminar […]
- Tags: economics, energy, environment
Hurrah for global growth
In: Uncategorized
16 Sep 2006Here is the good news. The world economy is growing at its most rapid rate since the early 1970s. Emerging economies – home to about 5.5 billion of the world’s 6.5 billion population – are growing particularly fast. The news comes from the International Monetary Fund’s twice-yearly World Economic Outlook. Sadly it has received little […]
- Tags: development, economics, growth
Consumerism as fascism
In: Uncategorized
15 Sep 2006Sadly it seems that JG Ballard’s new novel, Kingdom Come (Published in Britain by Fourth Estate), portrays consumerism as a form of fascism. An article in today’s Independent quotes one of Ballard’s characters saying: “Consumerism creates huge unconscious needs that only fascism can satisfy. If anything, fascism is the form that consumerism takes when it […]
- Tags: book, consumption
Against local food
In: Uncategorized
14 Sep 2006An astute point on the downside of relying on local food sources from the unexpected source of the International Monetary Fund’s World Economic Outlook. Its chapter on commodity prices (PDF) makes as an aside the point that: “the volatility of food and raw agricultural material prices seems to have fallen on average over the past […]
- Tags: food, technology, trade
My review of Deepak Lal book
In: Uncategorized
11 Sep 2006My review of Deepak Lal’s Reviving the Invisible Hand from the 4 September issue of Fund Strategy magazine: Deepak Lal, professor of international development studies at the University of California, Los Angeles, is an intellectual rarity nowadays. He understands society according to consistent principles – in his case adherence to what he calls “classical liberalism” […]
- Tags: book, development, economics, Fund Strategy, review
The Economist on climate change
In: Uncategorized
10 Sep 2006This week’s Economist includes a survey on climate change which is certainly worth reading. But the two measures proposed in the comment section of the main magazine are thoroughly mainstream. The Economist proposes an economic tool to put a price on the emission of greenhouse cases – it could be a carbon tax or a […]
- Tags: America, climate, environment
Sin Tracker: The BLT as WMD
In: Uncategorized
9 Sep 2006Monitoring the alleged sins of modern life It turns out the humble Bacon, Lettuce and Tomato (BLT) sandwich is a Weapon of Mass Destruction (WMD). This month’s Ecologist magazine has a 10 page cover story on the subject plus an editorial by Zac Goldsmith. Among other things the BLT pollutes rivers because of pig faeces […]
- Tags: food, sin tracker
Stiglitz the sceptic
In: Uncategorized
8 Sep 2006Joseph Stiglitz, a Nobel laureate in economics, is one of the high priests of growth scepticism. The former economic adviser to President Bill Clinton and chief economist of the World Bank is also a leading influence on the anti-globalisation “movement”. In today’s Financial Times he argues that economic growth in the developed world may not […]
- Tags: book, economics, globalisation, growth, inequality
IMF on Asian development
In: Uncategorized
6 Sep 2006It is a pity that so few people look at the masses of material published at this time of year by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank. For example, the new edition of the IMF’s twice-yearly World Economic Outlook includes a chapter on patterns of economic development and growth in Asia (PDF). It […]
- Tags: Asia, development, growth
Spiked article on modernity and 9/11
In: Uncategorized
5 Sep 2006I have a short article on Spiked on how hostility to modernity has become embedded in Western society (pasted below). It is part of a collection of articles looking at the fifth anniversary of the September 11 terrorist attacks: What strikes me as most odd about the response to the 9/11 attacks was their representation […]
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