Sunday, August 31, 2014

● Economic Geopolitics ◊

● Demographics ..
● Economic Geopolitics - international & global economic tensions.
● Economic Politics - Internal economic issues.

21st 
Alaska ..
Isolationism & Future ..
Resource Competition 2024 ..
Why Nations Prosper or Fail ..


20th 
Downturns (The Great Depression) ..

Circular Economy 

Economics Texts 

Innovation
Poverty Trap

⧫ Africa - Geoeconomics ..⧫ Anti-West ..
⧫ Antipodes - Geoeconomics ..
⧫ Baltics, Nordic - Geoeconomics ..
⧫ China & Imperialism - Geoeconomics ..⧫ Corruption ..

>>> Economic

● Corruption, Sanctions

Counterespionage

Coups

Economic Competition

Faltering Economies
CCP - Socioeconomic Inflexibility ..

Laundered Money
Pie Slices London Laundromat 

Political Corruption

Repressive Authoritarianism

Ruscia 

Sanctioned Economies

● Economic Politics ◊

● Economic Geopolitics - international & global economic tensions.⧫ Economics of Military ..

Thursday, August 28, 2014

Autarky vs Free Market

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How to Enrich a Country: Free Trade or (Mercantilist) Protectionism? - tSoL > .> DUHstardly >>   > MAGAtry >>
Economics - PrDaEx >> .

Autarky is the characteristic of self-sufficiency, usually applied to societies, communities, states and their economic systems. The word autarky is from the Greek: αὐτάρκεια, which means "self-sufficiency" (derived from αὐτο-, "self", and ἀρκέω, "to suffice"). The term is sometimes confused with autocracy (Greek: αὐτoκρατία "government by single absolute ruler") or autarchy (Greek: αὐταρχία – the idea of rejecting government and ruling oneself and no other).

Autarky as an ideal or method has been embraced by a wide range of political ideologies and movements, especially left-wing ideologies like African socialism, mutualism, war communismcouncil communism, Communalism, Swadeshi, syndicalism (especially anarcho-syndicalism) and leftist populism, generally in an effort to build alternative economic structures or to control resources against structures a particular movement views as hostile. Conservative, centrist and nationalist movements have also adopted autarky in an attempt to preserve part of an existing social order or to develop a particular industry. Some right-wing populist and far-right movements occasionally espoused autarky as a goal.

Proponents of autarky have argued for national self-sufficiency to reduce foreign economic, political and cultural influences, as well as to promote international peace. Economists are generally supportive of free trade. There is a broad consensus among economists that protectionism has a negative effect on economic growth and economic welfare while free trade and the reduction of trade barriers has a positive effect on economic growth and economic stability.

Autarky may be a policy of a state or some other type of entity when it seeks to be self-sufficient as a whole, but it also can be limited to a narrow field such as possession of a key raw material. Some countries have a policy of autarky with respect to foodstuffs and water for national-security reasons. Autarky can result from economic isolation or from external circumstances in which a state or other entity reverts to localized production when it lacks currency or excess production to trade with the outside world.

An autarkic economy that also will not or can not conduct outside trade is known as a closed economy.

Early state societies that can be regarded as autarkic include nomadic pastoralism and palace economy, though over time these tend towards becoming less self-sufficient and more interconnected. The late Bronze Age, for example, saw formerly self-sufficient palace economies rely more heavily on trade, which may have been a contributing factor to the eventual Bronze Age Collapse when multiple crises hit those systems at once. After that collapse, the ideal of autarkeia formed a part of emerging Greek political culture, emphasizing economic self-sufficiency and local self-rule.

During the Late Roman Empire, some rebellions and communities pursued autarky as a reaction both to upheaval and to counter imperial power. A prominent example is the Bacaude, who repeatedly rebelled against the empire and "formed self-governing communities" with their own internal economy and coinage.

Medieval communes combined an attempt at overall economic self-sufficiency through the use of common lands and resources with the use of mutual defense pacts, neighborhood assemblies and organized militias to preserve local autonomy against the depredations of the local nobility. Many of these communes later became trading powers such as the Hanseatic League. In some cases, communal village economies maintained their own debt system as part of a self-sufficient economy and to avoid reliance on possibly hostile aristocratic or business interests. The trend toward "local self-sufficiency" increased after the Black Plague, initially as a reaction to the impact of the epidemic and later as a way for communes and city states to maintain power against the nobility.

Autarkic ambitions can also be seen in the Populist backlash to the exploitations of free trade in the late 19th-century and in many early Utopian Socialist movements. Mutual aid societies like the Grange and Sovereigns of Industry attempted to set up self-sufficient economies (with varying degrees of success) in an effort to be less dependent on what they saw as an exploitative economic system and to generate more power to push for reforms.

Communist movements embraced or dismissed autarky as a goal at different times. In her survey of anarchism in the late 1800s, Voltairine De Cleyre summarized the autarkic goals of early anarchist socialists and communists as "small, independent, self-resourceful, freely-operating communes." Peter Kropotkin in particular advocated local and regional autarky integrating agriculture and industry, instead of the international division of labor. Pyotr Alexeyevich Kropotkin (Пётр Алексе́евич Кропо́ткин; 9 December 1842 – 8 February 1921) was a Russian anarchist, socialist, revolutionary, economist, sociologist, historian, zoologist, political scientist, human geographer and philosopher who advocated anarcho-communism. He was also an activist, essayist, researcher and writer.

Kropotkin was a proponent of a decentralised communist society free from central government and based on voluntary associations of self-governing communities and worker-run enterprises. His work repeatedly held up communities "that needed neither aid or protection from without" as a more resilient model. He wrote many books, pamphlets and articles, the most prominent being The Conquest of Bread and Fields, Factories and Workshops, but also Mutual Aid: A Factor of Evolution, his principal scientific offering. He contributed the article on anarchism to the Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition and left unfinished a work on anarchist ethical philosophy.

Early socialist movements used these autarkic efforts to build their base with institutions like the Bourse de travail, socialist canteens and food assistance. These played a major role in securing workers' loyalty and building those parties into increasingly powerful institutions (especially in Europe) throughout the late 19th and early 20th-centuries. Through these cooperatives "workers bought Socialist bread and Socialist shoes, drank Socialist beer, arranged for Socialist vacations and obtained a Socialist education."

Today, national economic autarkies are relatively rare. A commonly-cited example is North Korea, based on the government ideology of Juche (self-reliance), which is concerned with maintaining its domestic localized economy in the face of its isolation. However, even North Korea has extensive trade with Russia, China, Syria, Iran, Vietnam, India and many countries in Europe and Africa. North Korea had to import food during a widespread famine in the 1990s.

A better modern example at a societal level is the autonomous region of Rojava, the autonomous northern region of Syria. Largely cut off from international trade, facing multiple enemies, and striving for a society based on communalism, Rojava's government and constitution emphasize economic self-sufficiency directed by neighborhood and village councils. Rojavan society and economics are influenced by Bookchin's ideas, including the emphasis on local and regional self-governance. Under changes made in 2012 property and business belong to those who live in or use it towards these goals, while infrastructure, land and major resources are commons run by local and regional councils. Bookchin however was concerned about the effects of autarkism in respect to the closing off of a community and therefore always stressed the need for a balance between localism and globalism.

An example of a contemporary effort at localized autarky, incorporating the concept's history from black nationalism, Ujamaa, African-American socialism and the civil rights movement, is Cooperation Jackson, a movement aimed at creating a self-sufficient black working class economy in Jackson, Mississippi. The movement has aimed to secure land and build self-sufficient cooperatives and workplaces "to democratically transform the political economy of the city" and push back against gentrification. Cooperation Jackson also saw a gain in electoral political power when its involvement proved pivotal to the 2013 mayoral election of Chokwe Lumumba and the 2017 election of his son, Chokwe Antar Lumumba.

Wednesday, August 27, 2014

BLI - OECD Better Life Index

2017 OECD’s "How’s Life?" exposes deep divisions in well-being > .
23-7-2 What Everyone Gets Wrong About Global Debt | EcEx > .

The OECD Better Life Index, created in May 2011 by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development following a decade of work on this issue, is a first attempt to bring together internationally comparable measures of well-being in line with the recommendations of the Commission on the Measurement of Economic Performance and Social Progress also known as the Stiglitz-Sen-Fitoussi Commission. The recommendations made by this Commission sought to address concerns that standard macroeconomic statistics like GDP failed to give a true account of people's current and future well-being. The OECD Better Life Initiative includes two main elements: "Your Better Life Index" and "How's Life?"

Your Better Life Index (BLI), launched in May 2011, is an interactive tool that allows people to compare countries' performances according to their own preferences in terms of what makes for a better life. It was designed by Berlin-based agency Raureif in collaboration with Moritz Stefaner. First published on 24 May 2011, it includes 11 "dimensions" of well-being:
  1. Housing: housing conditions and spendings (e.g. real estate pricing)
  2. Income: household income (after taxes and transfers) and net financial wealth
  3. Jobs: earnings, job security and unemployment
  4. Community: quality of social support network
  5. Education: education and what one gets out of it
  6. Environment: quality of environment (e.g. environmental health)
  7. Governance: involvement in democracy
  8. Health
  9. Life Satisfaction: level of happiness
  10. Safety: murder and assault rates
  11. Work–life balance
Canberra has been ranked as the world's most liveable city according to the OECD Better Life Index for the second consecutive year, based on results published on 6 October 2014.

How's Life? offers a comprehensive picture of what makes up people's lives in 40 countries worldwide. The report assesses the above 11 specific aspects of life as part of the OECD's ongoing effort to devise new measures for assessing well-being that go beyond GDP.

New indicators and dimensions are planned be added to the Better Life Index in the future. For example, the Better Life Index was criticised for not showing inequalities in a society. Future editions of the index are planned to take inequalities into account, by focusing on well-being achievements of specific groups of the population (women and men and low and high socio-economic status).

From an econometric point of view, the Index seems similar to other efforts aimed at substituting or complementing the gross domestic product (GDP) measure by an econometric model for measuring happiness and well-being of the population. One major criticism is that the Better Life Index uses a limited subset of indicators used by other econometric models such as Gross National Well-being Index 2005, Sustainable Society Index of 2008, and Bhutan Gross National Happiness Index of 2012, and Social Progress Index of 2013. Observers argue that "the 11 dimensions still cannot fully capture what is truly important to a populace, such as social networks that sustain relationships, and freedom of speech.". Various critics have pointed out that the OECD's BLI does not include such dimensions as poverty, economic inequality, access to health insurance and healthcare, environmental and air pollution.

In 2012 OECD relaunched "with new indicators on inequality and gender plus rankings for Brazil and Russia. A couple have been removed too: Governance has been renamed civic engagement, employment rate of women with children has been replaced by the full integration of gender information in the employment data and students' cognitive skills (e.g. student skills in reading, math and sciences) has replaced students' reading skills to have a broader view."

Some argue that some of the criteria are vague and question the purpose of such measure, for example, they question, "what really constitutes "environmental quality"? Can it result in population control policy to minimize damage to the environment? While others argue that the Better Life Index unlike the Gross National Happiness Index does not pay attention to religion. Critics also state that the Better Life Index ignores good family life, or moral formation. Others have criticized its methodology such as the use of relative scores instead of absolute ones.

Blue Economy

Oceans & Conservation - TeMa >> .


British Economy - Interbellum

.British Economy after WW1 - Fear of The Bolshevik Brit 1921 - tgw > .


Tuesday, August 26, 2014

CAATSA & Sanctions


The Countering America's Adversaries Through Sanctions Act (CAATSA) is a United States federal law that imposed sanctions on Iran, North Korea, and Russia. The bill was passed by the Senate on 27 July 2017, 98–2, after it passed the House 419–3. 

On 15 June 2017, the United States Senate voted 98 to 2 for the bill (an amendment to the underlying Iran sanctions bill), which was rooted in a bill introduced in January that year by a bipartisan group of senators over Russia's continued involvement in the wars in Ukraine and Syria and its interference in the 2016 election; with regard to Russia, the bill was designed to expand the punitive measures previously imposed by executive orders and convert them into law. The bill in the Senate incorporated the provisions of the Countering Russian Influence in Europe and Eurasia Act that was introduced in May 2017 by Senator Ben Cardin.

An identical bill was introduced by Democrats in the House of Representatives on 12 July 2017. While the bill's text was unchanged from what had passed the Senate on 15 June, it was titled as House legislation to avoid procedural hurdles. The bill, after being revised to address some of the Trump administration's concerns, passed in the House 419 to 3 on 25 July. On 27 July, the bill was passed overwhelmingly by the Senate, 98 to 2. Both votes, veto-proof majorities.

The bill was signed into law on 2 August 2017 by UNpresident DUHnocchio, who stated [with zero understanding] that he believed the legislation was "seriously flawed".

Canada - Economy

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Economy Of Canada: Northern Powerhouse? - EcAlt > .
24-4-6 Australia & Canada - 2 Economies, 1 Set of Flaws | Econ > .
24-2-24 Canada Can't Solve It's Population Problem with Immigration - EcEx > .
23-11-23 How much federal debt can Canada carry? | About That | CBC > .
23-11-13 How US Lost Thousands Of High-Skilled Workers To Canada - CNBC > .
23-7-23 Arctic is heating fast! - Just > . Arctic Straits > .
23-7-21 Canada’s Arctic Patrol Ships Will Secure the Northern Frontier - USNI > .
23-3-1 CSIS & How Xina Bought Canada’s Elections - Uncensored > .
22-12-28 Demographics Part 2: The Canadian Treadmill...Stops - PZ > .
22-8-3 Stagnating Economy of Canada - EcEx > .
Canada : The water superpower - AtCan > .


The Canadian Economy is a paradox, highly advanced but dependent on natural resources. As the world’s second largest country, land has always played a huge role. Though over time, this has led to speculation over just how dependent Canada’s Economy is on land directly, possessing the third largest oil reserves in the world and increasingly, a booming housing market.
 
Raising some key questions. Such as how dependent is Canada on oil? What role have Canada's free trade agreements played? And is the Canadian housing market a bubble?

Canada is one of the richest and most prosperous countries in the world, and has one of the highest levels of quality of life. However, things weren't always this good in Canada. Between the 80s and 90s the country suffered a severe crisis that shook its solvency.

sī vīs pācem, parā bellum

igitur quī dēsīderat pācem praeparet bellum    therefore, he who desires peace, let him prepare for war sī vīs pācem, parā bellum if you wan...