Inflation and Rising Food Prices Lead to Riots in Haiti, Cairo, Next, Revolution?

There is no faster way to make someone angry than to reach into their wallet. To add fuel to the fire, steal the money that would have paid for their dinner, and catastrophe ensues.

A downright frightening facet of the global economic downturn is rising inflation. Some people—wealthy, the middle class in industrialized countries—can deal with the spike in the price, say, of rice. However, most of the world, lest it be forgotten that more than ten billion live on less than $2 a day, cannot simply buy a 36-inch instead of a 42-inch flatscreen television to balance the budget. The proof?

Food riots.

In the streets of Haiti, the most destitute state in the Americas, exactly such a disaster is taking place right now. In Cairo, where corruption had already mangled the bread industry, rising food prices have set off unrest there as well. Both countries are desperately poor; while there are nice hotels in Cairo, more than 74 million Egyptians live on less than $1 a day. People have also gone from wits end to violence in Cameroon and Cote d'Ivoire. Protests have hit Uzbekistan, Yemen, Bolivia and Indonesia.

The venerable World Food Programme of the United Nations, which feeds more than 70 million people every day, is now starved for cash and suppliers. World Bank President Robert Zoellick, after asking rich countries to go above and beyond for another $500 for WFP, said, "While many worry about filling their gas tanks, many others around the world are struggling to fill their stomachs."

Remember that unreasonable bread prices was an instigator of the French Revolution. From "A Popular History of France," by Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot, "We could see the French flying over the roads, across fields and through hedges, in such numbers that the sight must have been seen to be believed.  There were in the outskirts of our town and in the neighboring villages, so vast a multitude of knights and men-at-arms tormented with hunger, that it was a matter horrible to see. They gave their arms to get bread."

A riot of desperation may unsettle Port-au-Prince, and Haitians are targeting President René Préval. From the Associated Press, "We heard the speech, but the speech is empty," said student protest organizer Herve Saintiles, 37. "We are going to hold the president responsible for all these problems." Holding officials responsible is one thing, revolution is quite another.

Perhaps the scarcity of resources, as a Malthusian demand of people around the world, has now become one of the defining characteristics of this globalized planet, one that stands in stark contrast to the French aristocracy two centuries ago.

And if revolution came in Cairo, in Port-au-Prince, or in Yaoundé, would we even want to see where it was headed?

UPDATE: Hait's Prime Minister Jacques Edouard Alexis has resigned; Zoellick has said that 33 countries are at risk; Wall Street Journal front page: biofuels "appalling."

[Photo of the 18th-Century France from Gutenberg.]

Prying Apart the Jaws of That Crocodile Phrase: Globalization

Definitions are limiting, and for good reason. After all, when a word comes to mean everything, the truth is that it actually means nothing.

Globalization is the latest victim. Everywhere you turn, it's globalization. Trade policy? Globalization puts Americans out of work. Ecological disaster? Globalization.

This happens for two reasons. First, it's easy. Do you have an idea, are you trying to explain something going on in the world around you? You can either blame it on the terrorists, or sound more civilized and appeal to the catch-all: globalization.

The second reason is that nobody really has any clue as to what's going on. And caught in a torrential downpour of uncertainty—sad wars without end like Darfur and the Congo, two billion people around the world living on less than two bucks a day—otherwise intelligent minds reach for the nearest, biggest, umbrella they can grab: globalization.

Here, then, is a proclamation that we either start spending the time to pry apart the jaws of that crocodile phrase and begin to explain exactly what is going on, or, even better, we come up with original ways to look at the world. Some will be insightful, some will be wrong. But propagating an ambiguous, cloudy term that means so little (another, is the oft-remarked 'international community,' because what in the world is that, other than a cheap generalization?) spits out vapid thoughts, empty ideas, if any at all, and if there's anything the world desperately lacks is just an inkling of which way is up.

Because globalization is really just a synonym for the Internet.

[Photo of protester in downtown Mexico City, 2007, taken by Ana Bast.]

What is It About This Picture?

Americans Turning Away From Globalization

A protectionist wind is stirring America.

Typical antiglobalization tracts spout the evils that free-market capitalism wreak on the poor and developing nations south of the equator. Rich, gluttonous Americans are often stereotyped as the perpetrators of exploitative economic policies. Critical theorists have called the United States the big power in a new kind of empire. So-called "economic hit men" have even gone soft, defected to the other side, and confessed their demonic deeds.

Only, Americans themselves have now grown skeptical. A new poll of Republicans shows that 60 percent of them believe that foreign trade is bad for the US economy. The American right, not exactly an anticapitalist constituency, is turning against globalization.

They aren't the first, though. The protectionist wind has been blowing for a while, because despite the fact that estimates put US profit from trade liberalization somewhere between $500 billion and $1 trillion a year, which translates into a sum between $1,650 and $3,300 for every American.

Those numbers come from a report in Foreign Affairs that calls for a New Deal for Globalization, that is, literally a New Deal in the spirit of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt's huge public works program to lift American society out of the Great Depression of the 1930s.

Though the US has profited from globalization, many of its own citizens have not. From Foreign Affairs, "By some measures, inequality in the United States is greater today than at any time since the 1920s." The rich have gotten richer, while growth in income for the rest of the population has floundered.

Kenneth Scheve and Matthew Slaughter, authors of the treatise, suggest that the uneven benefits are behind the backlash. They call for a redistribution of income via a tax overhaul. That isn't happening at least until 2009, so in the meantime, and leading up to the next election, will the presidential campaigns hoist their sails to gain from this gale?

Many of them already have. And several free-trade agreements are coming up this session for renewal.

Considering the leftist turn of many South American countries, and in light of Costa Rica now thinking about tossing CAFTA, might the Americas (and who else?) have to refigure their economies?

(Update: Costa Rica approved the free trade deal with the US after some arm-twisting.)

(Image from soartsyithurts.)

By Century's End, Half the World's Languages Will Have Vanished

Do you know what happened last week? A language went extinct.

According to a new report, there are five parts of the planet where languages, according to the Times, are disappearing "in an instant." Some depart from the human race entirely, others are merged into more dominant languages, for instance, the way Russia in the 1950s enrolled children of minority populations in boarding schools, thereby extinguishing their first language.

National Geographic, who participated in the research, has assembled an interactive site of the world's regions of endangered languages. They are found on every continent, from the American midwest to Southeast Asia.

Of the 7,000 languages spoken on the planet today, National Geographic claims that by the end of the century, half will have vanished.

"I Think Globalization is Here to Stay"

From the Davos World Economic Forum, 2004.

Moderated by Stephan Klapproth, Journalist, Swiss Television SF DRS, Switzerland

Participating bigwigs:

• Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, Minister of Finance of Nigeria
• Juan Somavia, Director-General, International Labour Organization (ILO), Geneva
• Joseph E. Stiglitz, Professor, Graduate School of Business, Columbia University, USA
• Christoph Stückelberger, General Secretary, Bread for All - Brot für alle, Switzerland

Subprime Market Fallout Shakes Middle East

Earlier, the Inquirer pointed to tightened purse strings around the world because of the shoddy home loan market going bust in the US. Deals from Argentina to Japan have been put on hold, because financing has finally begun to discriminate.

In there a sour deal was listed in the United Arab Emirates. London-based Barclays bank had put the brakes on a $937 million loan to DAE Aviation, the Washington, DC subsidiary of Dubai Aerospace Enterprises Ltd. The company had wanted to buy some airplane maintenance companies from investment behemoth, the Carlyle Group.

And now it seems that the ripples of the subprime fallout are rolling deeper into Dubai.

Oil-rich investors in the Middle East have been making the best of depressed markets. For instance, Dubai World has just taken a $5 billion stake in MGM Mirage. At the same time, however, the Journal points to Emaar Properties, the maverick real estate company, which is taking a bit hit.

Emaar is one of the jewels in the crown of the Middle East economy. In a project for the UAE, Emaar is partway finished with the $20 billion Burj Dubai project, which will include the world's tallest building, the Dubai mall (Emaar says it will be the biggest in the world), and a serious of housing developments.

Emaar also has operations in the US, and in a conference call yesterday, Chief Financial Officer Amit Jain said that those operations were taking a hit on Emaar's bottom line.

According to the Journal, shares hit their lowest price in two years yesterday at about 9.75 dirhams, or $2.65. Emaar shares pulled on the Dubai bourse, which dropped 2.4%.

Lehman Brothers, other banks, and plenty of subprime lenders have already began firing staff. Could the subprime mortgage fallout prove to be more a kick in the shins than a full-on topple for the world economy?

(Image a rendering of the Burj Dubai.)

Branding Isn't Just For Products Anymore; Market Your Country Here!

From Houston to Luanda, First Class Oil

The demand in Luanda, Angola, for oil and gas lawyers is apparently on the up and up. Despite the fact that it is 7,644 miles from Houston to the capital on the southeastern coast of Africa, according to a report by Mary Flood in the Houston Chronicle, oilmen are now being accompanied three times a week on a direct flight.

Angola, a country of 16 million, had been ruled by the Portuguese since the 15th century and was left in shambles when the Europeans went running home after a socialist-inspired coup toppled the government in 1975. The country's long coastline could have been a valuable asset to the freed Angolans, but war ravaged the country. Only lately has the economy begun to grow, spurred by two unsurprising developments.

First, the country has oil reserves. It joined OPEC in 2006 and currently outputs about a 1.5 million barrels a day. That is expected to rise to 2 million. Second, China, as it has in much of Africa, in 2004 invested $2 billion to build the country's infrastructure. As usual, the money came as a line of credit, to be paid with future oil deliveries.

There is plenty of room for development: UNICEF reports that life expectancy in 2005 was just 41 years.

Return your seats to their full and upright position. The flight is run by World Airways and Angola's Sonair. Tickets come by invite only. According to Flood's report, traveling from Texas would otherwise take more than two days. 15-hours nonstop is a nice perk.

In fact, just today Houston-based Marathon Oil Corporation announced a deep water discovery off the coast.

Here's a suggestion for the oil industry workers and lawyers hopping on that flight. Ditch the in-flight magazine and read up on how the oil industry mucked up the Nigerian delta. Private flights don't seem that big a deal, but if anyone remembers the wretched history of Shell oil in Nigeria, bad business doesn't make for good industry, and the Chinese laboring away on roads and bridges may have the upper hand in this one.

(Image from Robert P. Byrne's flickr.)