Paul Krugman ved MIT er en relativt (til amerikansk å være) kjettersk
establishment-økonomiprofessor. Han skriver også godt. Jeg vedlegger en
fersk Argentina-kommentar, og henleder også oppmerksomheten på følgende
interessante meningsmåling om synet på amerikanere, som Krugman
refererer:
>.......we are notoriously bad at seeing ourselves as others see us. A recent
>Pew survey of "opinion leaders" found that 52 per cent of the Americans
>think that our country is liked because it "does a lot of good"; only 21 per
>cent of foreigners, and 12 per cent of Latin Americans, agreed.
>....
Ikke overraskende resultat, spør du meg.
Trond Andresen
*************************************'
> America shouldn't cry for Argentina, but with it
>
> This proud South American nation's descent into economic
> chaos
> may have wider repercussions than many in the US
> realise, writes
>
> Paul Krugman.
>
> Although images of the riots in Argentina have flickered
> across our
> television screens, hardly anyone in the United States
> cares. It's just
> another disaster in a small, faraway country of which we
> know nothing - a
> country as remote and unlikely to affect our lives as,
> say, Afghanistan.
>
> I don't make that comparison lightly. Most people here
> may think that this
> is just another run-of-the-mill Latin-American crisis -
> hey, those people
> have them all the time, don't they? - but in the eyes of
> much of the world,
> Argentina's economic policies had "Made in Washington"
> stamped all over
> them. The catastrophic failure of those policies is
> first and foremost a
> disaster for Argentines, but it is also a disaster for
> US foreign policy.
>
> Here's how the story looks to Latin Americans:
> Argentina, more than any
> other developing country, bought into the promises of
> US-promoted
> "neoliberalism" (that's liberal as in free markets, not
> as in Ted Kennedy).
> Tariffs were slashed, state enterprises were privatised,
> multinational
> corporations were welcomed and the peso was pegged to
> the dollar. Wall
> Street cheered and money poured in; for a while,
> free-market economics
> seemed vindicated, and its advocates weren't shy about
> claiming credit.
>
> Then things began to fall apart. It wasn't surprising
> that the 1997 Asian
> financial crisis had repercussions in Latin America, and
> at first Argentina
> seemed less affected than its neighbours. But while
> Brazil bounced back,
> Argentina's recession just went on and on.
>
> I could explain at length the causes of Argentina's
> slump: it had more to do
> with monetary policy than with free markets. But Argentines,
> understandably, can't be bothered with such fine
> distinctions - especially
> because Wall Street and Washington told them that free
> markets and hard
> money were inseparable.
>
> Moreover, when the economy went sour, the International
> Monetary
> Fund - which much of the world, with considerable
> justification, views as
> a branch of the US Treasury Department - was utterly
> unhelpful. IMF
> staffers have known for months, perhaps years, that the
> one-peso-one-dollar policy could not be sustained. And
> the IMF could
> have offered Argentina guidance on how to escape from
> its monetary trap,
> as well as political cover for Argentina's leaders as
> they did what had to
> be done. Instead, however, IMF officials - like medieval
> doctors who
> insisted on bleeding their patients, and repeated the
> procedure when the
> bleeding made them sicker - prescribed austerity and
> still more austerity,
> right to the end.
>
> Now Argentina is in utter chaos - some observers are
> even likening it to
> the Weimar Republic. And Latin Americans do not regard
> the United
> States as an innocent bystander.
>
> I'm not sure how many Americans, even among the policy
> elite,
> understand this. The people who encouraged Argentina in
> its disastrous
> policy course are now busily rewriting history, blaming
> the victims.
> Anyway, we are notoriously bad at seeing ourselves as
> others see us. A
> recent Pew survey of "opinion leaders" found that 52 per
> cent of the
> Americans think that our country is liked because it
> "does a lot of good";
> only 21 per cent of foreigners, and 12 per cent of Latin
> Americans,
> agreed.
>
> What happens next? The best hope for an Argentine
> turnaround was an
> orderly devaluation, in which the government reduced the
> dollar value of
> the peso and at the same time converted many dollar
> debts into pesos.
> But that now seems a remote prospect.
>
> Instead, Argentina's new government - once it has one -
> will probably turn
> back the clock. It will impose exchange controls and
> import quotas,
> turning its back on world markets; don't be surprised if
> it also returns to
> old-fashioned anti-American rhetoric.
>
> And let me make a prediction: these retrograde policies
> will work, in the
> sense that they will produce a temporary improvement in
> the economic
> situation - just as similar policies did back in the
> 1930s. Turning your back
> on the world market is bad for long-run growth;
> Argentina's own history is
> the best proof. But as John Maynard Keynes said, in the
> long run we are
> all dead.
>
> Last April, George Bush touted the proposed Free Trade
> Area of the
> Americas as a major foreign policy goal, one that would
> "build an age of
> prosperity in a hemisphere of liberty". If that goal
> really was important, we
> have just suffered a major setback. Americans shouldn't
> cry for Argentina;
> they should cry with it.
>
> The New York Times
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