Economist Debates: Fiscal stimulus: Statements This house believes that America needs substantial new fiscal stimulus.
The status: by Greg Ip
Does America need another fiscal stimulus? In a few weeks' time Barack Obama will urge Congress to give the economy an added boost, such as by extending a payroll tax cut and enhanced unemployment insurance benefits. Republicans in Congress sound sceptical.
It is remarkable that two years after the official end of the recession we are even having this debate. Recovery from the worst recession and financial crisis in over 60 years was bound to be slow, yet it has been shockingly so. Real GDP has grown at just a 2.5% annual rate since mid-2009 and has yet to attain its pre-recession peak. In the first half of this year, it has slumped to about 1%. This is in spite of the Federal Reserve lowering short-term interest rates effectively to zero and implementing two rounds of "quantitative easing"—that is, buying government bonds with newly printed money to drive down long-term interest rates as well.
And, of course, there is Barack Obama's stimulus, passed in early 2009, worth some $830 billion, since supplemented with various extensions and expansions such as the payroll tax cut, which expires this December.
The paucity of results naturally raises a question: does such stimulus work? And should we have more of it? So many factors affect the broad economy that it is impossible to definitively identify the effect (or lack of it) of macroeconomic policy.
Economists divide into two schools on this question. One blames the lack of more encouraging results on the magnitude of the headwinds the economy faces, and argues the right response to the current bout of weakness is more stimulus.
There is certainly circumstantial evidence for this. The GDP revisions show that the economy had fallen even further during the recession than the Obama administration realised at the time of its first plan. Moreover, many of the underlying causes of the crisis have yet to be cured: house prices are still under pressure, and some 23% of homeowners owe more on their mortgage than their home is worth. To make matters worse, Middle East unrest jolted oil prices this year while a tsunami and earthquake in Japan severely disrupted supply chains.
Richard Koo belongs to this first school, and argues in favour of our proposition. His analysis is shaped by the experience of Japan in the past two decades. Like Japan, America has experienced the collapse of an asset bubble. Because its private sector is trying to chisel away at debts accumulated during the inflation of that bubble, it is reluctant to take on additional debt no matter how low interest rates are. "Since the government cannot tell the private sector not to repair its balance sheets, the only way for the government to keep the economy from collapsing is to borrow and spend the unborrowed savings in the private sector and put them back into the economy's income stream," he writes in his opening statement.
In the second school are sceptics who say the economy has shown so little response to the massive injections of stimulus because it was badly designed and flouted some elementary principles of human behaviour. First, the bureaucratic delays inevitable when executing even "shovel-ready" projects mean that much of the money took too long to be spent, or has not been spent at all. Meanwhile, temporary tax cuts were as likely to be saved as spent, as a large body of literature would predict.
Second, by adding to the nation's already crippling debt load, the stimulus would have naturally led households to conclude that their taxes were going to go up. So they simply saved more, thus offsetting the purpose of the stimulus.
Finally, sceptics add one more indictment of the stimulus: by expanding the welfare state, it added to a pervasive and suffocating atmosphere of uncertainty that has discouraged business from hiring and investing, and individuals from making big purchases.
If they are right, another stimulus package would be not only a waste of money but also potentially counterproductive. Allan Meltzer of Carnegie Mellon University makes this point in his opening statement against the proposition. "It is not enough to point to the number of unemployed and part-time employed to claim that something must be done," he says. "Mistaken actions do much more harm than good in part because they destroy confidence."
I hope you will read these two statements carefully and make your own comments. We will be highlighting excerpts from these comments as well as soliciting the opinions of thoughtful outsiders. In a few days Mr Koo and Mr Meltzer will rebut each other's opening statements, and then we will get their closing statements—just in time to help Mr Obama and Congress decide what to do
Martes, Agosto 23, 2011
A Divisive History: How "His Story" Dominated "Our Story"
The Philippine educational system and the subsequent history being taught in Philippine textbooks are at the minimum - western oriented and at the most - racially biased.
The core idea in the current version of Philippine history is " the Philippines was a group of Islands that were ruled by Rajah's, Datu and chieftains - independent of each other and that the Filipinos did not have a civilization or political interaction with the rest of the world until Magellan came" There is also this idea that the Filipinos did not have a civilization and that the Philippines was wholly a creation of the Spaniards. This is an idea that has taken root in the minds of many Filipinos up to this day. This is an idea designed to divide the Filipinos. This idea is further propagated by current Philippine Textbooks and Historians that glorify the history of Manila at the expense of the history of the provinces in essence making our history - not as a history of the Filipino people but a History of Manila as a conqueror.
This Manila - centric history alienates the other regional ethnicitys' from each other. There is lack of oneness with the Philippine history and to a lesser degree - to the Filipino National Identity. This disjointedness is most acutely felt among the Muslim Filipinos and in previous decades - among the Bisaya (who were equated with househelp).
Similarly the histories of the provinces have been relegated to mere hoaxes or fabrications or assigned to footnotes in history. Many of the historical narratives of Indigenous peoples (usually oral) and even the tarsilas of the Muslims have been shelved in the darkest recesses of Philippine history as unimportant curiosities. Most commonly these oral sources of history have been discounted as hoax due to the lack of hard documentation. Consequently, - the Filipino historian do not do research on leads supplied by these oral histories. One of these well known "oral" history is the Maragtas.
In the case of the Maragtas - it has been erroneously labeled as a hoax. But what is the Maragtas??
The Maragtas are a collection of Oral stories that was compiled by Pedro Alcantara Monteclaro and published in 1907. On Monteclaro's foreword he said that the stories are remnants of stories being told by the elders of his community. The Maragtas saw limited use by historians due to the espoused view by William Henry Scott that the Maragtas is a fabrication by Pedro Monteclaro.
William Henry Scott's assertion that the Maragtas is a pure fabrication has to be critically evaluated. Scott has claimed that the Maragtas cannot be supported by written documentation. However, Scott has failed to evaluate the contents of the Maragtas scientifically and has failed to grasp the Maragtas contextually (i.e. based on culture, customs and modes of transmission of knowledge by Filipinos).
Let us then take a look at the merits of the Maragtas.
First,
The Maragtas according to Pedro Monteclaro is a record of "oral" histories. As such it has no written documentation. The idea of oral histories was not prevalent or given weight during the Spanish and American colonial times given that western historical tradition usually relied on written histories to transmit knowledge. Malays on the other hand used chants and epic to transmit knowledge rather than putting important histories on paper.
The reason for this is that paper and plant materials tend to rot and degrade faster in the humid and hot climates of south east asia. Thus the ancient Hiligaynon developed their history in an oral tradition by creating the "Binukot". The binukot are women of royal parentage who's main function in society is to study and memorize the history of her people. They are not allowed to work and are supported by the people of the community. In fact, binukot are married into the richest families who have proven their ability to support a binukot. Thus binukots are the living encyclopedia's of the hiligaynon nation.
the same oral tradition existed in south east asia prior to the arrival of the europeans. In fact the empires of Madjapahit and Sri Vijaya would have remained unproven and undiscovered if not for the temple complex of Borobodur. Recent knowledge about the extent and the workings of Madjapahit are mostly taken from epics since there are no or few surviving written documents.
The prevalence of Oral traditions vs written has not been taken into consideration by Henry Scott.
Second,
The description of the courts, royal titles and the politics of the ten datu's can be correlated with actual events.
The story of the ten datu's happened during the 12th century at a time of transition in the royal courts and a time when Sultan Makatunaw (this is not his real name - but this is a an allegorical name - makatunaw meaning - he who dissolves i.e. destroyer) ascended the throne. This new Sultan ws seen by the rest of the royal family as evil and immoral. He was further hated because he desired and engineered his marriage to Dayang Kapinangan who at the time was already bethrothed to another prince - Datu Sumakwel.
This contest between Makatunaw and Sumakwel prompted the Grand Vizier - Datu Poteh to mediate and he then advised Sumakwel and the other princes to take Kapinangan and flee the empire. Poteh said that this is what the God Munsad Buralakaw (the God's of the seas, politics and men) wanted.
The ten Datu's assaulted the bridal train, stole Kapinangan and fled to Sulu. They then sailed north and the grace of Buralakaw (who saved them from a storm) reached Aninipay and became the legendary founding fathers of the Bisaya and the Tausug.
When we evaluate this story and match this to other oral histories the following records matched.
a. the oral history of the Bisaya in borneo tells of the Sulu people drowning the son of Awang Alak Betatar a hundred years before the Bisaya in Borneo converted to Islam and a hundred years before the Sultanate of Brunei was created ( which was in 1370).
b. the Oral Histories of the Badjao also correlated to the story that a princes was about to be Married to the royalty of Brunei but was instead stolen.
Both oral histories occur at roughly the same period in the 12th century.
The royal titles used such as Datu are are also similar to the royal title used in the rest of South East Asia.
The title Datu Poteh (or Patih - since in hiligaynon/hiniray.a /a/ can be pronounced as /uh/) was said to be the right hand/prime minister of the Sultan - this corresponds to the royal title "senapati" or Rakryan Mapatih or Patih Hamangkubhumi in (in hiligaynon - "pati" means to obey)
Also, the concept that the flight of the Datu's was not only political but also religious must also be evaluated. The priest reminded the datu's about their kasugtanan (agreement) with Buralakaw. It is helpful to note that the ancient priest of Madjapahit were called Dharmmadhyaksa ring Kasewan (State's highest Hindu Shivaist priest) and Dharmmadhyaksa ring Kasogatan (State's highest Buddhist priest). The datu's home nation was called "bornay/barunay" which is the old name of Brunei (how did Monteclaro come up with that name in 1907 when interest in South East Asian history was minimal is a question we need to ask as well). From "It was renamed "Barunai" in the 14th Century, possibly influenced by the Sanskrit word varunai (वरुण), meaning "seafarers", later to become "Brunei". The word "Borneo" is of the same origin."
The Name Varunai also has its origins in the God Varuna who has corresponding qualities with the God Munsad Buralakaw who was the God of men and politics. The God Buralakaw was the sea comet (comets or light belive coming from the sea going to heaven). his twin is the God Bulalakaw. Buralakaw was said to be the patron god of burnay.
It is worth mentioning that Pedro Monteclaro was able to show these traditions/terms in his book in 1907. The Madjapahit (borobodur) and Sri Vijayan empires were only rediscovered during the 1920's. More than two decades after Monteclaro
It is time for historians to take a look at the Maragtas as a historically based account (although it has been made into a legend). Doing so might give us insights in how interkingdom politics and alliances were forged and broken during the pre spanish period. The philippines were more of the greek states i.e. one nation with different polities rather than just unrelated - self contained kingdoms. A more comprehensive and equitable study of Philippine history can be the cement that will bind, Christians, Muslims and Lumads into the Filipino National Identity. We need a history that is not divisive but rather celebrates our inteconnectedness.
Opinions expressed are strictly those of the author.
Excerpts are taken from www.wikepedia.com and can be reached via links. Any content copied from wikepedia are intellectual properties of wikepedia and their respective authors.
A Common Word - Bridging the Religious Divide
A Common Word is an expanded response by 138 Muslim scholars, clerics and intellectuals on September 13th 2007. This open letter was built upon an earlier response by 38 Muslim Clerics to Pope Benedict XVI's Regensburg address of September 13th 2006. (see full letter)
A common word is considered a milestone in interfaith dialogue. Please support "A common word" by clicking on the "endorse here" button on the upper right portion of the page.
A common word is considered a milestone in interfaith dialogue. Please support "A common word" by clicking on the "endorse here" button on the upper right portion of the page.
The Aliens are Coming
In a globalizing society, the rate of change has become faster than the average persons ability to adapt to. Norms and beliefs that were well established - have a tendency to become obsolete overnight.
In this era, the internet and air travel has made the world a smaller place. No nation or group can be separate from the rest of humanity. Unlike the people of the past who had the option of staying in isolation, today's humanity have no choice but to directly confront issues and ideas that are alien and incomprehensible to their of life and thinking.
The question nowadays is "how do we deal with this alien other?"
Throughout history, mankind has dealt with the "alien other" with violence. The need to control and even exterminate the "alien other" is hardwired into the human psyche. People fear what they do not know and thus fearing they try to first eliminate the unknown, and second (if the first does not work) - to control it and the last is (if everything else fails) - to understand it. Understanding was therefore only secondary to the need to feel safe.
This blog is about fostering understanding. This blog is intended for people to discuss, argue and debate. This is a forum where everyone gains and the biggest loss anyone could have would be no more than a bruise to their egos.
Incipe ergo disputationem
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