Nigerian President Buhari has promised to crack down on corruption. So far, lots of talk, but here's a concrete step. No way to know if Dasuki is guilty or worse than others, but there are shady things in his past.
Nigeria's sacked national security adviser, Sambo Dasuki, has been charged in court with illegally possessing weapons, an official statement has said.
Firearms were seized during a raid on his properties last month, it added.
Dasuki
Mr Dasuki denied any wrongdoing at the time and said the weapons belonged to his security guards.
He is the first senior official of the former government to be charged under President Muhammadu Buhari's rule…
Mr Dasuki played a prominent role in the fight against terrorism during Goodluck Jonathan's rule…
Mr Dasuki was at the centre of a row over Nigeria's unorthodox arms procurement in 2014, when South Africa seized suitcases packed with millions of dollars of cash at an airport in Johannesburg.
The Nigerian government said the money was intended to purchase weapons for the fight against Boko Haram, and denied allegations of corruption…
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[U]ncertainty… permeates the Communist elite as they contend with two unnerving developments beyond their control: an economic slowdown that appears to be worse than officials had anticipated… and a campaign against official corruption that has continued longer and reached higher than most had expected.
Driving decisions on both issues is Mr. Xi, who took the party’s helm nearly three years ago and has pursued an ambitious agenda fraught with political risk. Now, weeks before a summit meeting in Washington with President Obama, those risks appear to be growing, and there are signs that Mr. Xi and his strong-willed leadership style face increasingly bold resistance inside the party that could limit his ability to pursue his goals.
Xi
Mr. Xi has positioned himself as the chief architect of economic policy… [and] is making enemies with an anticorruption drive that has taken down some of the most powerful men in the country and sidelined more than a hundred thousand lower-ranking officials…
Mr. Xi has pledged sweeping market-oriented reforms to overhaul the Chinese economy for long-term growth, including plans to weaken monopolies enjoyed by state enterprises, to wean the economy from its dependence on inefficient state-directed investment, and to liberalize the nation’s financial markets, with the aim of making the country’s currency, the renminbi, a strong competitor to the dollar on world markets…
“Everyone understands that the economy is the biggest pillar of the Chinese government’s legitimacy to govern and win over popular sentiment,” said Chen Jieren, a well-known Beijing-based commentator on politics. “If the economy falters, the political power of the Chinese Communist Party will be confronted with more real challenges, social stability in China will be endangered tremendously, and Xi Jinping’s administration will suffer even more criticism.”
Some have asked whether the party leadership and its technocrat advisers are up to the task of managing a slowing economy after decades of experience with one that has only soared…
The policy adviser to senior party and government leaders said fears that the slowing economy could lead to social unrest prompted the Politburo in a July 30 meeting to approve a raft of measures to bolster growth, including the decision to devalue the currency. Other steps will follow, the person said.
Mr. Xi’s campaign against corruption enjoys broad support in a nation where the widening gap between rich and poor is attributed to the ability of a small minority to prosper by abusing government positions or using political connections. As the economy falters, though, the risks for Mr. Xi multiply, said one retired party think tank official.
“The main thing is the economy. As long as the economy continues to decline, people will have more and more objections, and there will be more and more pressure on the leadership,” said the person, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to freely discuss internal party politics. “And right now, the fact is that the economy is in decline.”
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The Party and the government want to get those savings actively involved in the investment that underpins China's growth. So Party and government media have encouraged buying stocks.
Now, we have the collapse (er… corection). What do the official media say now? In the USA nearly every news report repeats the official line that no one should panic and make changes. (Unless you borrowed 0.5% money to speculate. Then you're in trouble.) Here's the Chinese version as reported by The New York Times.
After China’s stock markets crumpled, prompting a global sell-off, People’s Daily, the premier newspaper of the Chinese Communist Party, had other things on its mind.
There was no mention of the market mayhem on the newspaper’s front page on Tuesday, when it featured a report about economic development in Tibet. Indeed, there was not a single reference to the stock markets throughout the entire 24 pages of the paper, which [dwelt] instead on the forthcoming 70th anniversary of Japan’s defeat in World War II.
The silence continued on Wednesday, when the paper again did not report on the stock market upheavals, although it did have articles about Chinese central bank decisions and Prime Minister Li Keqiang’s restatement of confidence in the broader economy, despite the effects of what he called global “market volatility.”…
“My hunch would be that they’re really not about to stomach another wave of more open reporting by the Chinese media,” said David Bandurski, the website editor for the China Media Project, based at the University of Hong Kong, who has written extensively on China’s controls on news.
“This is an explosive economic story for China,” he said…
On Monday, the 7 p.m. news broadcast on China Central Television, the country’s main television network, also skipped mention of the plummet in stock prices.
China Digital Times, which collates leaked, confidential propaganda and censorship directives to Chinese journalists, reported that in June they were told to keep coverage of the stock markets strictly in line with official rules intended to deter pessimism or panic…
Other newspapers and websites in China reported on the market turmoil, though often presenting China as an unlikely bystander in a wider global downturn…
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Britain’s unelected and overcrowded House of Lords… seems poised to resume the long expansion of its ranks…
Prime Minister David Cameron is expected to nominate several dozen new members…
Though adding new peers to the Lords is standard in British politics, there is growing disenchantment with political institutions across Europe…
The House of Lords is an easy target. Swollen numbers mean its ornate, gilded chamber is too small to seat all attendees on busy days, let alone the entire membership, while its age profile can make it look like a retirement home…
More than half of its members are 70 or older, and just two are younger than 39, according to the society. Of the 781 peers, 589 are men…
These days, members are less likely to be scions of the landed aristocracy than politicians, advisers or party supporters, ennobled as a reward for loyal service or other (sometimes financial) contributions…
Last year, they resisted a cost-cutting measure to share catering services with the House of Commons, because the quality of their champagne might suffer.
More recently, The Daily Mail highlighted written complaints by unnamed lords and ladies about the food they were served, including one peer who moaned that a cheese crème brûlée consumed in February “wasn’t very cheesy,” and that a supreme of hake was “completely unadorned, with a hard crust on top.” Another member fumed that “cabbage, broccoli, sprouts and spinach have almost vanished completely in favor of root vegetables!”
Despite such privations, a seat in the Lords remains prized. With it comes a title and the right to claim up to 300 pounds, or about $470, as a daily allowance for attending sessions (without having to give up any other job). Benefits include a desk in the historic Parliament buildings and access to facilities like a parking lot, restaurants and watering holes, including the wood-paneled Bishops’ Bar.
For those who have spent their lives in politics, the House of Lords is also seductive because it gives them a public platform, and an opportunity to shape laws, without the inconvenience of standing for election.
Mr. Cameron’s Conservative Party has the most members, 226, or 14 more than the opposition Labour Party…
[T]he centrist Liberal Democrats, who won just eight seats in the House of Commons and 7.9 percent of the vote in May, have 101 seats in the upper chamber.
Despite such anomalies, the assembly survives partly because it knows its place. As an unelected body, the Lords will ultimately yield on legislation if the elected House of Commons so demands…
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China, like Russia, is trying to limit the influence of foreign ideas and organizations. Here's a main tool they're using.
BTW: Here's a new Chinese word to add to you vocabulary: faxhi. According to the quoted expert, it refers to "law-based governance," meaning that it refers to laws the Communist Party can use to stay in control, not rule of law, which is how the ruling elite likes to translate the term. (What is rule of law in Western terms?)
RECENTLY the Communist Party has put forward a raft of proposals aimed at preventing perceived challenges to its monopoly of power. On July 1st a national-security law was passed that authorised “all measures necessary” to protect the country from hostile elements. Now a draft of China’s first law for regulating foreign non-governmental organisations (NGOs) is expected to pass in the coming weeks. The law is deemed necessary because of the threats NGOs are presumed to pose.
The draft law represents a mixture of limited progress and major party retrenchment in a sensitive area. Under Mao Zedong, China had no space for NGOs. But they have multiplied in the past decade to fill the gaps left by the party’s retreat from people’s daily lives. Officials say the law will help NGOs by giving them legal status, a valid claim. But it will also force strict constraints on foreign or foreign-supported groups. No funding from abroad will be allowed. And all NGOs will have to find an official sponsoring organisation. They will then have to register with China’s feared public security apparatus, which will now oversee the entire foreign-backed sector…
About 1,000 foreign NGOs operate in China, with thousands more providing financial and other support. Some larger ones, such as Save the Children, have been there for decades and are welcomed. Groups overtly supporting labour or human rights are not.
Foreign money has been crucial, though it is impossible to measure exactly how much flows in. For anything sensitive, such as promoting the rule of law or policies against discrimination, the only source of funding is abroad. This is the money the party wants to shut off…
By letting some NGOs register formally, the law would allow them to open bank accounts for the first time and take part in official activities. But it would also bring closer monitoring, and requires groups to hire employees only through official channels. Any group dealing with sensitive issues would be unlikely to find a sponsor and would be forced to close…
Any foreign non-profit organization… that does not have an office in China would need a temporary permit and an official sponsor to engage in any kind of programme there. Anything from a university exchange to a visiting orchestra could be denied entry based on something said or done that is perceived to be against China. The aim may be to silence criticism of the regime abroad… The party may try to allay such fears [of business groups] because it cares about foreign business. But it seems unafraid to show that it wants non-governmental organisations to bow to the government. “They are saying: ‘We don’t want any of your values, we’ll do things our way,’” says a former diplomat in Beijing. Many Chinese officials believe foreign-funded NGOs to be Trojan horses for Western ideas…
The new draft law follows a meeting of the Communist Party last year that trumpeted how China must be ruled by fazhi, a phrase translated as the “rule of law”. But [Jia Xijin of Tsinghua University’s NGO Research Centre] points out that fazhi is not the rule of law as understood in the West. It should, rather, be translated “law-based governance”, meaning that the law is a tool the party can use to maintain order.
The new law will not necessarily be implemented to the letter. As with the internet, the party is eager to see the NGO sector flourish, but only on its own terms. It will use the language of civil society to persuade the world that such a concept exists in China. Yet anyone pushing genuine civil liberties will not be tolerated. Gradual reform is possible, but control remains everything.
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You might have heard of guanxi. It's an important key to understanding Chinese politics, government, and society.
"World Learner Chinese" says guanxi, "is a general Chinese term used to describe relationships that may result in the exchanges of favors or 'connections' that are beneficial for the parties involved." It sometimes means simply "networking" and implies trust. The article emphasizes the beneficial nature of "good guanxi." It also notes that "there is a fine line between guanxi and bribery. It can also be a system of relationships that excludes outsiders (like foreign investors).
Business Insder suggests that the importance of guanxi arises from a long-standing lack of rule of law because it promotes a level of trust. The magazine also warns foreign investors that while important, guanxi is not a guarantee for the success of investments in China. Nor is it easy to establish.
The mayor of the northern Chinese city where huge explosions killed over 100 people last week took responsibility for the disaster on Wednesday…
NYTimes photograph
“I bear unshirkable responsibility for this accident as head of the city,” said Huang Xingguo, the mayor and acting Communist Party secretary of the metropolis, Tianjin…
The mayor’s appearance came as China’s state-run Xinhua news agency reported that two major shareholders in the company that owns the warehouse, Rui Hai International Logistics, used their political connections to win government approvals for the site, despite clear violations of rules prohibiting the storage of hazardous chemicals within 3,200 feet of residential areas…
The two executives, who deliberately concealed their ownership stakes behind a murky corporate structure, told Xinhua that they used their personal relationships with government officials to obtain licenses for the site. Both men have been detained.
The executives established Rui Hai in 2012 but had other people list their shares to avoid the appearance of a conflict of interest. [One] admitted that he held 55 percent of the shares through his cousin… [The other] holds 45 percent of the shares through a former classmate.
“I had my schoolmate hold shares for me because of my father,” a former police chief for the Port of Tianjin who died in 2014, [he] told Xinhua. “If the news of me investing in a business leaked, it could have brought bad influence.”
On Wednesday, Mr. Huang promised a thorough and transparent investigation of Rui Hai.
“No matter who owns the company, what kind of connection there is, we will investigate until the end,” he said…
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THE capital’s “airpocalypse”, the choking smog that descended on Beijing in the winter of 2012-13, galvanised public opinion and spooked the government. The strange thing is, though, that information about air pollution—how extensive it is, how much damage it does—has long been sketchy…
Responding to the outcry, the government set up a national air-reporting system which now has almost 1,000 monitoring stations… Scientists from Berkeley Earth, a not-for-profit foundation in America, have trawled through this recent cloud of data for the four months… and emerged with the most detailed and up-to-date picture of Chinese air pollution so far.
Pollution is sky-high everywhere in China. Some 83% of Chinese are exposed to air that, in America, would be deemed by the Environmental Protection Agency either to be unhealthy or unhealthy for sensitive groups. Almost half the population of China experiences levels of PM2.5 that are above America’s highest threshold…
Berkeley Earth’s scientific director, Richard Muller, says breathing Beijing’s air is the equivalent of smoking almost 40 cigarettes a day…
The sliver of good news is that pollution levels are better in some places than in others. They are… least bad in the south… probably because that area was washed by monsoon rains during the period of the study. More importantly, levels of PM2.5 in large western cities such as Chongqing and Chengdu are about half the national average. Figuring out what they are doing right would be a first step towards reducing the smog elsewhere.
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Can a state have rule of law if the courts don't work? How many roadblocks to effective rule of law can you come up with if courts are not functioning?
Justice Fred Oho of Delta State High Court has revealed that there are over five million cases pending in Nigerian courts due to a 'hugely cumbersome and overburdened legal system'…
He said the cases he was referring to had been argued in the past 20 years and witnessed endless postponements.
"There are currently over five million cases pending in Nigerian courts. Some of these have been appealed and argued for more than 20 years," he said…
He however stated that with stakeholders in the legal community spearheading legal reforms there was hope that speeding trials and delivery of judgments could then be facilitated.
"One of the primary mechanisms through which the Nigerian courts have sought to deal with backlog and delays is through the creation of Multi-Door Court Houses designed to promote rapid conciliation and binding resolutions of disputes," he observed.
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Auto license, motorcycle license, television license
When the BBC was established in 1922, radio was a novelty and television was an experiment on engineers' workbenches. After World War II, television became a reality and the BBC expanded to the new medium. All the while, it's primary source of funding has
been a yearly fee for radio and television licenses. Currently, a household pays about US$175 per year for a television license. Most countries outside of the Americas require licenses for televisions and/or radios.
The question being asked in Britain is whether or not non-payment of the license fee should be a criminal or a civil offense. The fate of BBC financing is in the background. [This report does NOT come from the BBC.]
Michael Gove, the justice secretary, has raised concern that prosecutions for non-payment of the BBC licence are overburdening the courts.
He has discussed the issue with John Whittingdale, the culture secretary, who is considering whether evasion of the licence fee should be decriminalized…
Gove has now made his case… about how decriminalisation could ease the caseload of magistrates courts. TV licence prosecutions account for 180,000 out of 1.5m magistrate cases each year.
Faced with slower growth at home and rising labor costs, Chinese entrepreneurs are seeking foreign markets as never before. But as they rush abroad, they are grappling for the first time with unruly trade unions, independent courts and meddlesome journalists. And for many, navigating the unfamiliar waters of multiparty politics and confronting the power of public opinion makes for heavy going.
As they venture into foreign democracies, many Chinese companies experience culture shock. Having made their money in a one-party state, where political connections are the key to a successful business and the rule of law is easy to sidestep, they are finding things just aren’t as simple abroad.
From the United States to Asia, Chinese entrepreneurs have a litany of complaints and have made a succession of costly mistakes…
[He Enjia, president of the Textile Enterprise Association of the Chinese Chamber of Commerce in Cambodia complained] “In the last two years, things changed in Cambodia.” He explained that factory owners used to be able to hire police to suppress striking workers. “Now it’s impossible. The influence of the opposition party is growing, with the help of the Western media.”
By some measures, outward investment from China outpaced foreign investment into the country for the first time last year. But abroad, where the public often demands greater transparency and courts enforce stricter environmental and labor laws, it is a steep learning curve for many Chinese companies…
[A]s China’s economy slows… companies are being forced to diversify abroad, to “play catchup” and learn new skills in order to survive.
It has not been plain sailing. Indeed, there are countless examples of costly miscalculations.
In the United States, Chinese companies are facing hundreds of millions of dollars in damage claims over drywall imported to rebuild thousands of homes in the wake of Hurricane Katrina; it is alleged to have emitted toxic gas…
In Texas, state-owned Aviation Industry Corporation of China (AVIC) is being sued for $7.5 billion by a former joint venture partner, Tang Energy, which claims it cheated on their deal to develop wind power — partly by creating competing businesses in the same field. It is something AVIC might have gotten away with at home, but not in the West.
“In China the state owns the enterprises, and it owns the court. So if you’re a state-owned company, you never have to worry about having a fair fight. And here they have a fair fight on their hands,” E. Patrick Jenevein III, Tang’s CEO, said last year…
All over the world, Chinese companies have faced a political backlash for bringing in their own workers rather than employing locals — and for mistreating the locals they do employ…
But Li Yi, secretary-general of the Guangxi province branch of the Chinese Chamber of Commerce in Cambodia, says Cambodia’s many nongovernmental organizations are a nuisance…
There are cultural differences, too. Chinese managers complain that Cambodians are not as hardworking as Chinese, but their heavy-handed efforts to increase productivity are not always successful.
In June, a Chinese construction site manager was reported to have screamed at his workers once too often for being lazy, according to the Phnom Penh Post. After their shift was over, a group of workers returned to the site at night and hacked the manager to death with an axe…
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One of the first posts to this blog back when I started it 2006, was
about a scene from a movie that I used in class. It bears repeating
because many of you were not reading this blog back then. I think the
advice is still good.
When it first came out in 1975, I saw Monty Python and the Holy Grail.
I saw it again several years after I began teaching comparative. From
that point on, one of the beginning scenes (you probably know which one) became a
regular feature of the first day of class.
It's full of conceptual ideas that go a long way to proving that the
Pythons paid attention to at least some of their tutors at Cambridge.
Once you and your students have enjoyed seeing this scene (more than
once, perhaps), there are many opportunities to explore concepts that
should become very common knowledge before the course ends. Here's my
beginning list of things students should explore, research, and discuss:
social class, social cleavages, executive, elections, legitimacy,
mandate, exploitation, ethnic identity, autonomy, autocracy, and divine
right.
(Be careful, your students will want you to show more of this movie,
especially the "I"m not dead yet" scene that follows the "Peasants"
scene.)
Arthur and his trusty servant Patsy "ride" into a field where peasants
are working. They come up behind a cart which is being dragged by a
hunched-over peasant in ragged clothing. Patsy slows as they near the
cart...
ARTHUR: Old woman! DENNIS: Man! ARTHUR: Man, sorry. What knight lives in that castle over there? DENNIS: I'm thirty seven. ARTHUR: What? DENNIS: I'm thirty seven -- I'm not old! ARTHUR: Well, I can't just call you `Man'. DENNIS: Well, you could say `Dennis'. ARTHUR: Well, I didn't know you were called `Dennis.' DENNIS: Well, you didn't bother to find out, did you? ARTHUR: I did say sorry about the `old woman,' but from the behind you looked-- DENNIS: What I object to is you automatically treat me like an inferior!
Arthur: Well I *am* king...
Man: Oh, king, eh, very nice. And 'ow'd you get that, eh? (he reaches
his destination and stops, dropping the cart) By exploiting the workers!
By 'angin' on to outdated imperialist dogma which perpetuates the
economic and social differences in our society. If there's ever going to
be any progress,--
Woman: Dennis! There's some lovely filth down 'ere! (noticing Arthur) Oh! 'Ow'd'ja do?
Arthur: How do you do, good lady. I am Arthur, king of the Britons. Whose castle is that?
Woman: King of the 'oo?
Arthur: King of the Britons.
Woman: 'Oo are the Britons?
Arthur: Well we all are! We are all Britons! And I am your king.
Woman: I didn't know we 'ad a king! I thought we were an autonomous collective.
Man: (mad) You're fooling yourself! We're living in a dictatorship! A self-perpetuating autocracy in which the working classes--
Woman: There you go, bringing class into it again...
Man: That's what it's all about! If only people would--
Arthur: Please, *please*, good people, I am in haste! WHO lives in that castle?
Woman: No one lives there.
Arthur: Then who is your lord?
Woman: We don't have a lord!
Arthur: (surprised) What??...
Arthur: I am your king!
Woman: Well I didn't vote for you!
Arthur: You don't vote for kings!
Woman: Well 'ow'd you become king then? (holy music up)
Arthur: The Lady of the Lake-- her arm clad in the purest shimmering
samite, held aloft Excalibur from the bosom of the water, signifying by
divine providence that I, Arthur, was to carry Excalibur. THAT is why I
am your king!
Man: (laughingly) Listen: Strange women lying in ponds distributing
swords is no basis for a system of government! Supreme executive power
derives from a mandate from the masses, not from some... farcical
aquatic ceremony!
Arthur: (yelling) BE QUIET!
Man: You can't expect to wield supreme executive power just 'cause some watery tart threw a sword at you!!
Arthur: (coming forward and grabbing the man) Shut *UP*!
Man: I mean, if I went 'round, saying I was an emperor, just because
some moistened bink had lobbed a scimitar at me, they'd put me away!
Arthur: (throwing the man around) Shut up, will you, SHUT UP!
Russia’s capital city has worn many outfits since the fall of the Soviet Union.
There was the tattered but hopeful garb of the first years, threadbare and full of possibility. Then came the leopard print fur of the 1990s, an era of stomach-churning economic collapse when the rich roared around in Mercedes sedans and everyone else suffered through the endless steeplechase of life under uncontrolled capitalism.
More recently, however, the city has donned a beautiful summer dress. There is a bike share program, Wi-Fi on the subway and free tango lessons in Gorky Park. Express trains now zip past traffic snarls to the airports and Uber taxis have replaced wheezing Soviet-era gypsy cabs. Cars park in real parking spaces and tow trucks haul them away if they do not.
But while Moscow looks ever more like an elegant European capital, its political life is marching steadily in the opposite direction. Last month, Russia’s powerful state investigation committee proposed removing the principles of international human rights from the Constitution… Two American charities announced plans to close offices, citing the hostile environment.
For an outsider, the disconnect is dizzying. Which is the real Russia? The one besieged by foreign agents or the one where tattooed hipsters glide around on skateboards? And when — if ever — will those two worlds collide?
In many ways, Moscow is resurgent: a more beautiful, confident version of itself. Over the top has given way to casual elegance…
But the rich are not the only beneficiaries. Russians are substantially better off since President Vladimir V. Putin first came to power in 2000. The average salary has roughly tripled, after inflation, and poverty has declined sharply, bringing a feeling of stability and well-being that was lacking in the 1990s. More Russians can now plan life in advance (Where will I go on vacation this year?) instead of snatching it a day at a time (What will I eat for dinner tomorrow?).
Among intellectuals, the mood is dark. In recent weeks, newspaper articles have attacked the journalism department at Moscow State University for teaching liberal ideas. Several professors at St. Petersburg State University have been fired for what their colleagues say are their liberal views.
Many are leaving. The number of Russians emigrating to Israel was up by about two-thirds in the first five months of this year… Temporary teaching positions become permanent and graduate programs turn into extended stays…
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There is definitive proof, for anyone willing to look, that Greece is not solely or even primarily responsible for its own financial crisis. The proof is not especially exciting: It is a single bond, with the identification code GR0133004177. But a consideration of this bond should end, permanently, any discussion of Greece’s crisis as a moral failing on the part of the Greeks.
GR0133004177 is the technical name for a bond the Greek government sold on Nov. 10, 2009…
A bond is a form of i.o.u.; when a government or a company issues one, it is actually borrowing money with a precisely defined promise to pay it back after a specified period of time at a set interest rate. Every bond has the same basic criteria: duration, yield and risk. This means that bonds can be easily compared and traded…
Federal bonds funded the growth of an American highway infrastructure and created a truly national economy; municipal bonds brought the South out of its agrarian doldrums. In Europe, the impact was even greater. European bonds allowed money to flow freely across borders, knitting disparate states that had warred for millenniums into one unified economy. More prosaically, bonds provided objective rigor to the funding of private companies’ activities, helping to break up a cozy, WASPy boys’ club that had determined which enterprises got to borrow money…
On that day in 2009 when GR0133004177 was issued, investors had every reason to assume that this was an especially risky loan… I was shocked, looking back, to see the winning number: 5.3 percent. That is a very low interest rate, only a couple of percentage points above the rate at which Germany, Europe’s most creditworthy nation, was borrowing money. This was a rate that expressed a near certainty that Greece would never miss a payment…
In hindsight, of course, we know that the investors should not have lent Greece anything at all, or, if they did, should have demanded something like 100 percent interest. But this is not a case of retrospective genius. At the time, investors had all the information they needed to make a smarter decision. Greece, then as now, was a small, poor, largely agrarian economy, with a spotty track record for adhering to globally recognized financial controls. Just three weeks earlier, a newly elected Greek prime minister revealed that the previous government had scrupulously hidden billions of dollars in debt from the rest of the world. In fact, the new leader revealed, Greece owed considerably more money than the size of its entire annual economy…
The original sin of the Greek crisis did not happen in Athens. It happened… in Frankfurt and London and Shanghai and New York. Yes, the Greeks took the money. But if I offered you €7 billion at 5.3 percent interest, you would probably take the money, too. I would be the one who looked nuts. And if I didn’t even own that money — if I was just watching over it for someone else, as most large investors do — I might even go to jail…
The institutions that bought that €7 billion in Greek debt in 2009 made a very bad judgment. Even at the time, it was clearly a foolish gamble — so foolish, in fact, that it can be explained in only one way. They believed that in the event of default, the Germans would bail the Greeks out. And just to be clear: This doesn’t mean they believed that the Germans would be kind to the Greeks. It means they believed that the Germans would be kind to the people who owned Greek bonds, a significant percentage of whom were certain to be German themselves. In lending money to Greece at 5.3 percent interest, they weren’t calculating Greece’s ability to pay. They were calculating the German government’s willingness to help out German banks…
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Teaching (and learning) comparative government and politics is a complex and demanding task. We can all use all the help we can get. This cyber place is somewhere to facilitate helpful interactions.
Just The Facts! 2nd edition is a concise guide to concepts, terminology, and examples that will appear on May's exam.
