Showing posts with label protection. Show all posts
Showing posts with label protection. Show all posts
Tuesday, 26 March 2024
Sunday, 6 August 2023
Thursday, 3 August 2023
Friday, 5 March 2021
Sunday, 24 January 2021
On the Indian Farmers' Agitation for MSP
By Girish Menon
In this article I will try to explain the logic behind the Delhi protests by farmers demanding a Minimum Support Price (MSP).
If you are a businessman who has produced say 1000 units of a good; and are able to sell only 10 units at the price that you desired. Then it means you will have an unsold stock of 990 units. You now have a choice:
Either keep them in storage and sell it to folks who may come in the future and pay your asking price.
Or get rid of your unsold stock at whatever price the haggling buyers are willing to pay.
If you decide on the storage option then it follows that your goods are not perishable, it’s value does not diminish with age, you have adequate storage facilities and you have the resources to continue living even when most of your goods are unsold.
If you decide on the distress sale option it could mean that your goods are perishable and/or it’s value diminishes with age and/or you don’t have storage facilities and/or you are desperate to unload your stuff because for you whatever money you get today is important for your survival,
If one were to approach any small farmers’ output, I think such a farmer does not have the storage option available to him. Hence, he will have to sell his output to the intermediary at any price offered. This could mean a low price which results in a loss or a high price resulting in a profit to the farmer.
Whether the price is high or low depends on the volume of output produced by all farmers of the same output. And, no farmer is able to predict the likely future harvest price he would get at the moment he decides what crop to grow.
Thus a subsistence farmer, without storage facilities, is betting on the future price he could get at harvest time. This is a bet that destroys subsistence farmers from time to time when market prices turn really low due to a bumper harvest.
Subjecting subsistence farmers to ‘market forces’ means that some farmers will get bankrupted and be forced to leave their village and go to the city in search of a means of living. In many developed countries, governments have tried to prevent farmer exodus from villages by intervening and ensuring that farmers receive a decent return for their toils,
MSP is a government guarantee of a minimum price that protects farmers who cannot get their desired price at the market, The original draft of the farm law bills passed by the Indian Parliament has no mention of MSP. Also, in Punjab etc., some of these agitating farmers are already being supported with MSP by the state government and they fear that the new bills will take away their protection.
This is a simple explanation of the demand for MSP.
It must also be remembered that:
Unlike the subsistence farmer, the middleman who buys the farmers’ output is usually a part of a powerful cartel and who enjoys more market power than the farmer.
As depicted in ‘Peepli Live’ destitute farmers, if forced to leave their villages, will add to supply of cheap labour in an era of already high unemployment.
These destitute may squat on a city’s scarce public spaces and be an ‘eyesore’ to the better off city dwellers.
Some farmers may even contemplate suicide and this will produce less than desirable PR optics for any 'caring' government.
Sunday, 13 November 2016
Trade is the lifeblood of humanity. Closed doors lead to closed minds
Will Hutton in The Guardian
For 70 years, the US and Britain have underwritten the open global trading system, partly because of a stubborn and correct belief in the merits of free trade, partly out of self-interest as beneficiaries of globalisation and partly because, strategically, it spreads democracy, peace and capitalism.
They have spearheaded successive rounds of tariff cuts and multilateral trade deals and stood by, first, the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (Gatt) and its successor, the World Trade Organisation, to keep the system honest. They have cut regional trade bargains, promoted the European single market and, above all, kept their markets open despite other countries, notably China, gaming the system for their own narrow advantage.
For 70 years, the US and Britain have underwritten the open global trading system, partly because of a stubborn and correct belief in the merits of free trade, partly out of self-interest as beneficiaries of globalisation and partly because, strategically, it spreads democracy, peace and capitalism.
They have spearheaded successive rounds of tariff cuts and multilateral trade deals and stood by, first, the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (Gatt) and its successor, the World Trade Organisation, to keep the system honest. They have cut regional trade bargains, promoted the European single market and, above all, kept their markets open despite other countries, notably China, gaming the system for their own narrow advantage.
The consensus in both countries was that the wider gains transcended any localised pain. No longer. The Americans voting for the anti-trade, America first Trump have consigned all that to history and the unintended consequence of Brexit will mean the same for Britain. The system that underpinned our collective prosperity is about to be trashed.
It brought national and international benefits, including an avalanche of inward direct investment into both countries, powerful international financial and business service sectors, rising global living standards and the economic and democratic transformation of Asia. But both countries’ manufacturing sectors have taken disproportionately heavy hits. Drive round the ailing industrial towns of south Yorkshire or Ohio and compare the economic and social landscape with that of Düsseldorf, Munich, Shanghai or Shenzhen. Decade of consistent manufacturing trade deficits have exacted a cruel toll.
This year, working-class voters across America and Britain’s rotting industrial heartlands delivered their verdict. No more plants moving abroad. No more closures because of cheap imports. No more sales of great companies to foreigners. No more stagnating blue-collar wages. No more immigration. It may be that there are jobs and great prospects aplenty in the burgeoning tech and service sectors in the big cities driven by global trade, but they don’t care. They are hurting and nobody has taken decisive action to help them. The votes for Trump and Brexit mark the end of an era and a new dark age of closure, protectionism and nationalism.
Leading Tory Brexiters will insist that this is a travesty of their position; they want Britain to access more global trade and not be imprisoned, they crazily claim, by the confines of the slow-growing European Union and its bureaucratic inability to cut aggressive trade deals with the rest of the world. They live in a dreamland if they feel that the rest of the world is more committed to free trade than Europe, while EU membership did not hold back Germany from being among the world’s major exporters.
In any case, apart from the promised closure of borders to immigrants, that is not what their voters want, as Nigel Farage always better understood than any of his Tory allies he cordially despises. Working-class voters in south Yorkshire and the West Midlands want the same as their counterparts in Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin. After all, it was those three states, with their tiny 100,000 vote margin, which gave Trump the electoral college votes for victory. He might be a billionaire, but he is, or at least styles himself, a “blue-collar billionaire”. Blue-collar (post-)industrial workers don’t benefit from free trade and immigration, as he has consistently said for 18 months, in the teeth of opposition from the Republican mainstream who remain free traders. His movement, as he called it, wants to stop both.
‘Build that wall” – along the US-Mexican border – was one of the most insistent chants at his rallies, along with the forced deportation of 11 million illegal immigrants. But more importantly for the international trading system, Trump wants to withdraw from the North American Free Trade Agreement (Nafta) between the US, Canada and Mexico, which he casually dismisses as the “worst trade deal in history”. He also wants an immediate halt in negotiations for both the Transatlantic and Trans-Pacific trade agreements and unilaterally he wants to impose swingeing 45% tariffs, against the rules of the World Trade Organisation (WTO) from which he is prepared to “walk away”, on Chinese imports, which account for half of the US’s trade deficit. Thirty-five per cent tariffs are promised on Mexican imports. The remaining 20 free-trade agreements the US has signed are to be reviewed or abrogated. Cumulatively, the impact would be devastating, killing multilateralism by exposing the already enfeebled WTO as helpless, inciting Chinese and Mexican trade retaliation and destabilising the entire global system of trade and finance.
Optimists say that Trump the president will be much more cautious and realist than Trump the campaigner: his talk on trade should be seen as threats to produce more fairly balanced agreements, not a tearing up of the world system. Maybe. But there cannot be a complete divorce between campaign rhetoric and policy. He believes what he says and nobody in his close coterie is going to urge caution. Not Dan DiMicco, his senior trade adviser, who has promised a potential withdrawal, in the first six months of the Trump presidency, from every major US trade deal if it cannot be shown actively to benefit the US. “The era of trade deficits is over,” he says. “It will be: let’s talk, but otherwise we put tariffs on.”
Another intimate, Walid Phares, has said Trump will go “back to ground zero” on every trade deal, such as the one with South Korea that the president-elect described as “job destroying” and wants to revoke. Trump has already given a commitment that on day one he will declare China a currency manipulator as a precursor to introducing up to 45% tariffs on Chinese imports.
These positions are not posturing: they represent a deeply held view that the US does not need trade except on terms that put America first. The idea that successive American administrations have negotiated deals loaded in the US interest is impossible to concede. Because how else would he explain the rust belt? Equally, there can be no concession that blue-collar jobs are disappearing with or without trade because of robotisation and automation. The America of the 1940s and 50s has disappeared for ever and destroying the international trading system is not going to bring it back.
None of that cuts any ice with a demagogic populist. Trump has promises to keep to a “movement” that expects no less. The last time a Republican president and his party controlled both the House of Representatives and Senate with the same convictions on America first trade was 1928. There were warnings that introducing the Smoot-Hawley tariffs on American imports in 1930 would trigger a slump, but America first Republicans could not help themselves and the Democrats were too weak to stop them.
The Peterson Institute for International Economics in Washington predicts that if Trump raises tariffs on China and Mexico, and they retaliate, then US growth will stop in its tracks for at least two years. The prospects could be even worse if Trump goes further. Already world trade growth over the last year has been the slowest for the last 15. Even introducing the mildest of Trump’s measures must presage a further deceleration and if he goes as far as he promises – walking away from the World Trade Organisation, withdrawing from multiple trade agreements and freely imposing tariffs – then the prospect of a 1930s-style implosion is all too real.
In this context, the foreign secretary, Boris Johnson, babbling alongside other Brexiters about the opportunities for trade deals with the US is surreal. To exit the EU, the one continent pledged to open trade, in order to plunge into a world trade system threatened by collapse is the height of folly. If British voters had known Trump was going to be president in June – and known of his attitude to trade – Remain would have won comfortably. Parliament may find it has a duty to veto the application to exercise article 50 before the end of March; the referendum was only ever advisory and Trump’s attitude to trade changes everything.
One of the many tragedies of the rise of neoliberalism is that the promotion of international trade has been able to be portrayed by some on the left as part of the same portfolio of policies as austerity, privatisation and assaulting trade unions. Wrong. Trade is the essential ingredient of growth and prosperity. The rise of Egypt, Greece and Rome was because the Mediterranean promoted seaborne trade. The rise of maritime Europe after the middle ages was because of Atlantic trade. China has grown so explosively since 1978 because of its opening to trade.
Autarchy, protection and closure to immigration have always meant economic stagnation and, lacking the stimulus of other cultures and ideas, a parallel freezing of innovation and cultural vitality. Trade, exchange and intermingling are the lifeblood of humanity. Of course trade brings losers, and the rise of contemporary Conservatism, with its ferocious enmity to state action to support the incomes, skills and life chances of working-class men and women, in a period of great economic change, laid the foundations of huge anger.
It has been two rightwing demagogues – Trump and his British echo, Farage – who have been the first beneficiaries. But as this drama plays out in recession, nationalism and perhaps even forms of inter-state conflict, there will be a rediscovery of ancient verities. Trade and exchange are the foundations of our civilisation and, whatever Trump and his movement think, the more, the better.
It brought national and international benefits, including an avalanche of inward direct investment into both countries, powerful international financial and business service sectors, rising global living standards and the economic and democratic transformation of Asia. But both countries’ manufacturing sectors have taken disproportionately heavy hits. Drive round the ailing industrial towns of south Yorkshire or Ohio and compare the economic and social landscape with that of Düsseldorf, Munich, Shanghai or Shenzhen. Decade of consistent manufacturing trade deficits have exacted a cruel toll.
This year, working-class voters across America and Britain’s rotting industrial heartlands delivered their verdict. No more plants moving abroad. No more closures because of cheap imports. No more sales of great companies to foreigners. No more stagnating blue-collar wages. No more immigration. It may be that there are jobs and great prospects aplenty in the burgeoning tech and service sectors in the big cities driven by global trade, but they don’t care. They are hurting and nobody has taken decisive action to help them. The votes for Trump and Brexit mark the end of an era and a new dark age of closure, protectionism and nationalism.
Leading Tory Brexiters will insist that this is a travesty of their position; they want Britain to access more global trade and not be imprisoned, they crazily claim, by the confines of the slow-growing European Union and its bureaucratic inability to cut aggressive trade deals with the rest of the world. They live in a dreamland if they feel that the rest of the world is more committed to free trade than Europe, while EU membership did not hold back Germany from being among the world’s major exporters.
In any case, apart from the promised closure of borders to immigrants, that is not what their voters want, as Nigel Farage always better understood than any of his Tory allies he cordially despises. Working-class voters in south Yorkshire and the West Midlands want the same as their counterparts in Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin. After all, it was those three states, with their tiny 100,000 vote margin, which gave Trump the electoral college votes for victory. He might be a billionaire, but he is, or at least styles himself, a “blue-collar billionaire”. Blue-collar (post-)industrial workers don’t benefit from free trade and immigration, as he has consistently said for 18 months, in the teeth of opposition from the Republican mainstream who remain free traders. His movement, as he called it, wants to stop both.
‘Build that wall” – along the US-Mexican border – was one of the most insistent chants at his rallies, along with the forced deportation of 11 million illegal immigrants. But more importantly for the international trading system, Trump wants to withdraw from the North American Free Trade Agreement (Nafta) between the US, Canada and Mexico, which he casually dismisses as the “worst trade deal in history”. He also wants an immediate halt in negotiations for both the Transatlantic and Trans-Pacific trade agreements and unilaterally he wants to impose swingeing 45% tariffs, against the rules of the World Trade Organisation (WTO) from which he is prepared to “walk away”, on Chinese imports, which account for half of the US’s trade deficit. Thirty-five per cent tariffs are promised on Mexican imports. The remaining 20 free-trade agreements the US has signed are to be reviewed or abrogated. Cumulatively, the impact would be devastating, killing multilateralism by exposing the already enfeebled WTO as helpless, inciting Chinese and Mexican trade retaliation and destabilising the entire global system of trade and finance.
Optimists say that Trump the president will be much more cautious and realist than Trump the campaigner: his talk on trade should be seen as threats to produce more fairly balanced agreements, not a tearing up of the world system. Maybe. But there cannot be a complete divorce between campaign rhetoric and policy. He believes what he says and nobody in his close coterie is going to urge caution. Not Dan DiMicco, his senior trade adviser, who has promised a potential withdrawal, in the first six months of the Trump presidency, from every major US trade deal if it cannot be shown actively to benefit the US. “The era of trade deficits is over,” he says. “It will be: let’s talk, but otherwise we put tariffs on.”
Another intimate, Walid Phares, has said Trump will go “back to ground zero” on every trade deal, such as the one with South Korea that the president-elect described as “job destroying” and wants to revoke. Trump has already given a commitment that on day one he will declare China a currency manipulator as a precursor to introducing up to 45% tariffs on Chinese imports.
These positions are not posturing: they represent a deeply held view that the US does not need trade except on terms that put America first. The idea that successive American administrations have negotiated deals loaded in the US interest is impossible to concede. Because how else would he explain the rust belt? Equally, there can be no concession that blue-collar jobs are disappearing with or without trade because of robotisation and automation. The America of the 1940s and 50s has disappeared for ever and destroying the international trading system is not going to bring it back.
None of that cuts any ice with a demagogic populist. Trump has promises to keep to a “movement” that expects no less. The last time a Republican president and his party controlled both the House of Representatives and Senate with the same convictions on America first trade was 1928. There were warnings that introducing the Smoot-Hawley tariffs on American imports in 1930 would trigger a slump, but America first Republicans could not help themselves and the Democrats were too weak to stop them.
The Peterson Institute for International Economics in Washington predicts that if Trump raises tariffs on China and Mexico, and they retaliate, then US growth will stop in its tracks for at least two years. The prospects could be even worse if Trump goes further. Already world trade growth over the last year has been the slowest for the last 15. Even introducing the mildest of Trump’s measures must presage a further deceleration and if he goes as far as he promises – walking away from the World Trade Organisation, withdrawing from multiple trade agreements and freely imposing tariffs – then the prospect of a 1930s-style implosion is all too real.
In this context, the foreign secretary, Boris Johnson, babbling alongside other Brexiters about the opportunities for trade deals with the US is surreal. To exit the EU, the one continent pledged to open trade, in order to plunge into a world trade system threatened by collapse is the height of folly. If British voters had known Trump was going to be president in June – and known of his attitude to trade – Remain would have won comfortably. Parliament may find it has a duty to veto the application to exercise article 50 before the end of March; the referendum was only ever advisory and Trump’s attitude to trade changes everything.
One of the many tragedies of the rise of neoliberalism is that the promotion of international trade has been able to be portrayed by some on the left as part of the same portfolio of policies as austerity, privatisation and assaulting trade unions. Wrong. Trade is the essential ingredient of growth and prosperity. The rise of Egypt, Greece and Rome was because the Mediterranean promoted seaborne trade. The rise of maritime Europe after the middle ages was because of Atlantic trade. China has grown so explosively since 1978 because of its opening to trade.
Autarchy, protection and closure to immigration have always meant economic stagnation and, lacking the stimulus of other cultures and ideas, a parallel freezing of innovation and cultural vitality. Trade, exchange and intermingling are the lifeblood of humanity. Of course trade brings losers, and the rise of contemporary Conservatism, with its ferocious enmity to state action to support the incomes, skills and life chances of working-class men and women, in a period of great economic change, laid the foundations of huge anger.
It has been two rightwing demagogues – Trump and his British echo, Farage – who have been the first beneficiaries. But as this drama plays out in recession, nationalism and perhaps even forms of inter-state conflict, there will be a rediscovery of ancient verities. Trade and exchange are the foundations of our civilisation and, whatever Trump and his movement think, the more, the better.
Thursday, 20 October 2016
Cricket should discuss the bouncer more seriously
Jarrod Kimber in Cricinfo
The coroner's inquest into the death of Phillip Hughes should have been an opportunity for cricket to learn from its most public tragedy and ensure that the game was safer from now on. But because of the extreme hurt felt by the Hughes family, and the players feeling like they were on trial, what transpired did not benefit cricket or the family.
There is no doubt that the New South Wales team was trying to bounce Hughes out when he was struck fatally. There is little doubt, with some of the players involved, that harsh words would have been said.
Whether what Dougie Bollinger allegedly said was, "I am going to kill you", to Hughes or not really shouldn't matter. Bollinger is a joke figure, Australian cricket's doofus clown prince, and he is a former team-mate of Hughes'. No one in Australian cricket takes anything he says seriously. And while intent and words matter, what matters most is the ball that ultimately struck Hughes. That is the villain; that was the killer.
Hughes wasn't the last player to be subjected to a barrage of them, and that is what the inquest should have been about: how to make facing a bouncer as safe as we can make it.
There was talk in the immediate aftermath of banning the bouncer. It was an extreme reaction to an extreme situation. It was never truly taken seriously, and as the days turned into weeks after Hughes' death, they got quieter and quieter. Like many things in cricket, once the heat of the moment was gone, there was no intellectual conversation about the bouncer. We just went back to business as usual.
That was the mistake of cricket. Cricket as a business, as a sport, as a thing of love and beauty, has a responsibility to those who play it to take the bouncer conversation seriously.
Bowling is as quick as it has ever been.
Recently I've been involved in two conversations with respected cricket writers telling me bowling isn't any more rapid now than in the previous generations.
One argument was that bowling had always been fast; it had just never been properly measured before. That Fred Spofforth was quick, or Harold Larwood was quick. That explanation doesn't hold up when you think that overarm bowling only became popular in Spofforth's lifetime (even he started playing cricket as an underarm bowler). The original overarm techniques were actually side-arm, much like drunken versions of Lasith Malinga's action. So Spofforth's early tinkerings would have only been so quick.
The Larwood theory plays into the second conversation I had - about the old days, when players were amateur unlike today. These amateurs didn't worry about the next game, about resting themselves, about slowing down, and when their body felt right. They came in and bowled with all the pace they had. Part of the problem with that theory is that Larwood was a professional and played a lot of cricket. So were all the great West Indian bowlers. Many of them were overworked physically by bowling.
But really, the conversation was about the name that comes up every time people talk about fast bowling: Jeff Thomson.
Thommo was quick. Thommo would probably be quick now. And Thommo was so quick now that his balls travel through time and bowl out anyone who suggests bowlers are quicker now.
Whether it be Larwood, Trueman, Hall or Thommo, there is no doubt that bowlers from other eras have bowled quick. How quick, that is for drunken conversations with your uncle.
One man, with an incredible human catapult action, whose muscles seemed perfectly set up to hurl, might be the quickest bowler of all time. But not every bowler was like Thommo.
In the 1979 speed bowling competition, Thommo was 6kph quicker than Michael Holding in second place. That was when Holding was in his prime and Thommo had started to slow down after injuring his shoulder. Thommo's quickest was 147.9kph. He averaged 142.3kph while Holding's fastest ball was slower than that. Thommo was the only bowler clocked at over 145kph (90mph) in that test. The fastest of Len Pascoe, one of those tested, clocked more than 15kph slower than Thommo. Richard Hadlee was slower.
And while the speed gun technology seems to have evolved like fast bowling itself, this is the only guide we have.
So Thommo wasn't like every bowler out there. He towered over the others in this test. And during this same era there were many other bowlers who were playing Test cricket as seamers - Sarfraz Nawaz, who shuffled in like an old man trying to get his shopping done, Max Walker, whose action seemed to strangle his own pace, and Madan Lal, who could have out run the odd delivery in his follow-through. New Zealand had an endless supply of medium-pace.
Those bowlers barely exist anymore. Even bowlers like Tim Southee, Bhuvneshwar Kumar and Jason Holder are far quicker than them. And all three of those bowlers, at times, have been said to be not quick enough. In fact, Southee and Bhuvneshwar have put on extra pace just to survive. There was a time when you needed to bowl 90mph to be seen to bowl quick. We're now getting to the point where you need to bowl 90mph to get picked.
There might have been faster bowlers in the past, but there has never been a time with more fast bowlers.
Allrounders used to be slow first-change bowlers like Walker. The allrounders who bowl these days are Chris Morris, Ben Stokes, Mitch Marsh, Andre Russell, Tim Bresnan and Sean Abbott. None of these guys are slow. At their top speeds, they are fast-medium. Stokes and Russell are quicker than that.
When the helmet was invented there were probably only a handful of bowlers who could bowl at 90mph. Now there are probably at least 50, and that number will soon be 100.
The true evolution of fast bowling isn't the top speeds. Perhaps Thommo was the quickest, or maybe the fastest was from the Tait, Brett Lee and Akhtar era. But the true test of how much quicker bowling has become is how many people these days can bowl around 90mph.
England can pick from Steven Finn, James Anderson, Stuart Broad, Mark Wood, Liam Plunkett, Ben Stokes, Jake Ball and Chris Woakes as their first-choice seamers. Woakes was seen as too slow when he started. This summer he was clocking over 90mph. And if you're batting in county cricket you could be facing Stuart Meaker, Tony Roland-Jones, Mark Footit, Tymal Mills, Boyd Rankin, Jamie Overton, Matt Coles, Kyle Abbott, Fidel Edwards or Tino Best.
There was a time when Australia scared the cricket world with two proper quick bowlers in Thommo and Lillee. After that, West Indies dominated cricket with four quick bowlers for two generations. Now England regularly take in four bowlers who are around 90mph and it's barely commented on. South Africa could easily do the same. Even India, for years the laughing stock of fast bowling talent, have Umesh Yadav and Varun Aaron bowling very quick. The days of New Zealand's army of military medium is well and truly over.
Even first-class teams often have multiple fast bowlers in their XIs now. When the helmet was invented there were probably only a handful of bowlers who could bowl at 90mph. Now there are probably at least 50, and that number will soon be 100.
That is not even mentioning the left-armers. Until Wasim Akram there had been one left-arm quick bowler with more than 150 Test wickets. Now they are everywhere. And as England and South Africa showed when facing Mitchell Johnson, it's a whole different set of skills needed to try and survive a physical attack from a left-arm bowler at top-end pace.
This is the natural evolution of cricket. Not individual bowlers being express, but many players bowling fast. And like rugby is struggling with the fact that their players are bigger and faster now, cricket's struggle is going to be with the fact there have never been as many bouncers bowled at this pace as there are right now.
That will mean more chances occurring of what happened to Hughes. And that is what the discussion has to be about.
Can we stop the ball going through the grill of the helmet? Is the heart in danger from being hit at 90mph? Are there proper concussion guidelines in place? With batsmen brought up wearing helmets getting hit more often, is CTE (Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy) going to be a problem in cricket? Are the medical procedures adequate at international and first-class games? Is there a way we can ever protect the throat? And are the new neck protectors going to save a batsman?
These are the questions that scientists, doctors, cricketers, the ICC and helmet manufacturers should be working on together. At the moment, it seems like the helmet makers are trying to catch up, and while they are doing a good job, there is only so much money in selling a cricket helmet. The real money and help should come from within the cricket industry itself.
Perhaps the coroner's inquest was not the perfect place to talk about protecting cricketers as there was so much emotion around it. But we must now have this conversation. Cricket should have had a safety summit to try to make the game safer. The game owes it to Phil Hughes and to every player who picks up a bat.
The coroner's inquest into the death of Phillip Hughes should have been an opportunity for cricket to learn from its most public tragedy and ensure that the game was safer from now on. But because of the extreme hurt felt by the Hughes family, and the players feeling like they were on trial, what transpired did not benefit cricket or the family.
There is no doubt that the New South Wales team was trying to bounce Hughes out when he was struck fatally. There is little doubt, with some of the players involved, that harsh words would have been said.
Whether what Dougie Bollinger allegedly said was, "I am going to kill you", to Hughes or not really shouldn't matter. Bollinger is a joke figure, Australian cricket's doofus clown prince, and he is a former team-mate of Hughes'. No one in Australian cricket takes anything he says seriously. And while intent and words matter, what matters most is the ball that ultimately struck Hughes. That is the villain; that was the killer.
Hughes wasn't the last player to be subjected to a barrage of them, and that is what the inquest should have been about: how to make facing a bouncer as safe as we can make it.
There was talk in the immediate aftermath of banning the bouncer. It was an extreme reaction to an extreme situation. It was never truly taken seriously, and as the days turned into weeks after Hughes' death, they got quieter and quieter. Like many things in cricket, once the heat of the moment was gone, there was no intellectual conversation about the bouncer. We just went back to business as usual.
That was the mistake of cricket. Cricket as a business, as a sport, as a thing of love and beauty, has a responsibility to those who play it to take the bouncer conversation seriously.
Bowling is as quick as it has ever been.
Recently I've been involved in two conversations with respected cricket writers telling me bowling isn't any more rapid now than in the previous generations.
One argument was that bowling had always been fast; it had just never been properly measured before. That Fred Spofforth was quick, or Harold Larwood was quick. That explanation doesn't hold up when you think that overarm bowling only became popular in Spofforth's lifetime (even he started playing cricket as an underarm bowler). The original overarm techniques were actually side-arm, much like drunken versions of Lasith Malinga's action. So Spofforth's early tinkerings would have only been so quick.
The Larwood theory plays into the second conversation I had - about the old days, when players were amateur unlike today. These amateurs didn't worry about the next game, about resting themselves, about slowing down, and when their body felt right. They came in and bowled with all the pace they had. Part of the problem with that theory is that Larwood was a professional and played a lot of cricket. So were all the great West Indian bowlers. Many of them were overworked physically by bowling.
But really, the conversation was about the name that comes up every time people talk about fast bowling: Jeff Thomson.
Thommo was quick. Thommo would probably be quick now. And Thommo was so quick now that his balls travel through time and bowl out anyone who suggests bowlers are quicker now.
Whether it be Larwood, Trueman, Hall or Thommo, there is no doubt that bowlers from other eras have bowled quick. How quick, that is for drunken conversations with your uncle.
One man, with an incredible human catapult action, whose muscles seemed perfectly set up to hurl, might be the quickest bowler of all time. But not every bowler was like Thommo.
In the 1979 speed bowling competition, Thommo was 6kph quicker than Michael Holding in second place. That was when Holding was in his prime and Thommo had started to slow down after injuring his shoulder. Thommo's quickest was 147.9kph. He averaged 142.3kph while Holding's fastest ball was slower than that. Thommo was the only bowler clocked at over 145kph (90mph) in that test. The fastest of Len Pascoe, one of those tested, clocked more than 15kph slower than Thommo. Richard Hadlee was slower.
And while the speed gun technology seems to have evolved like fast bowling itself, this is the only guide we have.
So Thommo wasn't like every bowler out there. He towered over the others in this test. And during this same era there were many other bowlers who were playing Test cricket as seamers - Sarfraz Nawaz, who shuffled in like an old man trying to get his shopping done, Max Walker, whose action seemed to strangle his own pace, and Madan Lal, who could have out run the odd delivery in his follow-through. New Zealand had an endless supply of medium-pace.
Those bowlers barely exist anymore. Even bowlers like Tim Southee, Bhuvneshwar Kumar and Jason Holder are far quicker than them. And all three of those bowlers, at times, have been said to be not quick enough. In fact, Southee and Bhuvneshwar have put on extra pace just to survive. There was a time when you needed to bowl 90mph to be seen to bowl quick. We're now getting to the point where you need to bowl 90mph to get picked.
There might have been faster bowlers in the past, but there has never been a time with more fast bowlers.
Allrounders used to be slow first-change bowlers like Walker. The allrounders who bowl these days are Chris Morris, Ben Stokes, Mitch Marsh, Andre Russell, Tim Bresnan and Sean Abbott. None of these guys are slow. At their top speeds, they are fast-medium. Stokes and Russell are quicker than that.
When the helmet was invented there were probably only a handful of bowlers who could bowl at 90mph. Now there are probably at least 50, and that number will soon be 100.
The true evolution of fast bowling isn't the top speeds. Perhaps Thommo was the quickest, or maybe the fastest was from the Tait, Brett Lee and Akhtar era. But the true test of how much quicker bowling has become is how many people these days can bowl around 90mph.
England can pick from Steven Finn, James Anderson, Stuart Broad, Mark Wood, Liam Plunkett, Ben Stokes, Jake Ball and Chris Woakes as their first-choice seamers. Woakes was seen as too slow when he started. This summer he was clocking over 90mph. And if you're batting in county cricket you could be facing Stuart Meaker, Tony Roland-Jones, Mark Footit, Tymal Mills, Boyd Rankin, Jamie Overton, Matt Coles, Kyle Abbott, Fidel Edwards or Tino Best.
There was a time when Australia scared the cricket world with two proper quick bowlers in Thommo and Lillee. After that, West Indies dominated cricket with four quick bowlers for two generations. Now England regularly take in four bowlers who are around 90mph and it's barely commented on. South Africa could easily do the same. Even India, for years the laughing stock of fast bowling talent, have Umesh Yadav and Varun Aaron bowling very quick. The days of New Zealand's army of military medium is well and truly over.
Even first-class teams often have multiple fast bowlers in their XIs now. When the helmet was invented there were probably only a handful of bowlers who could bowl at 90mph. Now there are probably at least 50, and that number will soon be 100.
That is not even mentioning the left-armers. Until Wasim Akram there had been one left-arm quick bowler with more than 150 Test wickets. Now they are everywhere. And as England and South Africa showed when facing Mitchell Johnson, it's a whole different set of skills needed to try and survive a physical attack from a left-arm bowler at top-end pace.
This is the natural evolution of cricket. Not individual bowlers being express, but many players bowling fast. And like rugby is struggling with the fact that their players are bigger and faster now, cricket's struggle is going to be with the fact there have never been as many bouncers bowled at this pace as there are right now.
That will mean more chances occurring of what happened to Hughes. And that is what the discussion has to be about.
Can we stop the ball going through the grill of the helmet? Is the heart in danger from being hit at 90mph? Are there proper concussion guidelines in place? With batsmen brought up wearing helmets getting hit more often, is CTE (Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy) going to be a problem in cricket? Are the medical procedures adequate at international and first-class games? Is there a way we can ever protect the throat? And are the new neck protectors going to save a batsman?
These are the questions that scientists, doctors, cricketers, the ICC and helmet manufacturers should be working on together. At the moment, it seems like the helmet makers are trying to catch up, and while they are doing a good job, there is only so much money in selling a cricket helmet. The real money and help should come from within the cricket industry itself.
Perhaps the coroner's inquest was not the perfect place to talk about protecting cricketers as there was so much emotion around it. But we must now have this conversation. Cricket should have had a safety summit to try to make the game safer. The game owes it to Phil Hughes and to every player who picks up a bat.
Monday, 2 May 2016
TTIP leak could it spell the end of controversial trade deal?
Andrew Griffin in The Independent
Hundreds of leaked pages from the controversial Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) show that the deal could be about to collapse, according to campaigners.
The huge leak – which gives the first full insight into the negotiations – shows that the relationship between Europe and the US are weaker than had been thought and that major divisions remain on some of the agreement’s most central provisions.
The talks have been held almost entirely in secret, and most information that is known in public has come out from unofficial leaks. But the new pages, leaked by Greenpeace, represent the first major look at how the highly confidential talks are progressing.
They indicate that the US is looking strongly to change regulation in Europe to lessen the protections on the environment, consumer rights and other positions that the EU affords to its citizens. Representatives for each side appear to have found that they have run into “irreconcilable” differences that could undermine the signing of the landmark and highly controversial trade deal, campaigners say.
For instance, the papers show that the US is looking to weaken the EU’s “precautionary principle” that governs how potentially harmful products are sold, Greenpeace says. The US has much weaker regulation that aims to minimise rather than avoid risks, and that same less strict regime could come to the UK and Europe under the deal.
If the EU made further changes to similar regulations, it would have to inform the US and corporations based there, according to the documents. American companies would then be able to have the same input into EU regulation as European ones do.
There are also notable missing parts of the agreement. None of the texts includes any reference to the global effort to cut CO2 emissions agreed in Paris last year, according to Greenpeace, despite a commitment from the European Commission that it would make environmental sustainability a key part of any deal.
Those who support TTIP argue that it represents an important step that will allow the US and EU to work together more closely and that it will support business in both regions. But parts of the deal and the secrecy that surrounds it have led campaigners to argue that it could include dangerous changes to the consumer protections that are guaranteed by the EU.
Hundreds of leaked pages from the controversial Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) show that the deal could be about to collapse, according to campaigners.
The huge leak – which gives the first full insight into the negotiations – shows that the relationship between Europe and the US are weaker than had been thought and that major divisions remain on some of the agreement’s most central provisions.
The talks have been held almost entirely in secret, and most information that is known in public has come out from unofficial leaks. But the new pages, leaked by Greenpeace, represent the first major look at how the highly confidential talks are progressing.
They indicate that the US is looking strongly to change regulation in Europe to lessen the protections on the environment, consumer rights and other positions that the EU affords to its citizens. Representatives for each side appear to have found that they have run into “irreconcilable” differences that could undermine the signing of the landmark and highly controversial trade deal, campaigners say.
For instance, the papers show that the US is looking to weaken the EU’s “precautionary principle” that governs how potentially harmful products are sold, Greenpeace says. The US has much weaker regulation that aims to minimise rather than avoid risks, and that same less strict regime could come to the UK and Europe under the deal.
If the EU made further changes to similar regulations, it would have to inform the US and corporations based there, according to the documents. American companies would then be able to have the same input into EU regulation as European ones do.
There are also notable missing parts of the agreement. None of the texts includes any reference to the global effort to cut CO2 emissions agreed in Paris last year, according to Greenpeace, despite a commitment from the European Commission that it would make environmental sustainability a key part of any deal.
Those who support TTIP argue that it represents an important step that will allow the US and EU to work together more closely and that it will support business in both regions. But parts of the deal and the secrecy that surrounds it have led campaigners to argue that it could include dangerous changes to the consumer protections that are guaranteed by the EU.
UK Parliament 'would not be able to stop NHS sell-off under TTIP'
Poverty, environmental and other campaigners have claimed that the new leak could be enough to undermine those already controversial talks.
"The TTIP negotiations will never survive this leak,” said John Hilary, the executive director of War on Want. “The only way that the European Commission has managed to keep the negotiations going so far is through complete secrecy as to the actual details of the deal under negotiation. Now we can see the details for ourselves, and they are truly shocking. This is surely the beginning of the end for this much hated deal."
Other campaigners criticised the fact that the only public information that has emerged about TTIP has come from leaks.
“TTIP is being cooked up behind closed doors because when ordinary people find out about the threat it poses to democracy and consumer protections, they are of course opposed to it,” said Guy Taylor, trade campaigner at Global Justice Now. “It’s no secret that the negotiations have been on increasingly shaky ground. Millions of people across Europe have signed petitions against TTIP, and hundreds of thousands have taken to the streets to call for an end to the negotiations. These leaks should be seen as another nail in the coffin of a toxic trade deal that corporate power is unsuccessfully trying to impose on ordinary people and our democracies.”
Poverty, environmental and other campaigners have claimed that the new leak could be enough to undermine those already controversial talks.
"The TTIP negotiations will never survive this leak,” said John Hilary, the executive director of War on Want. “The only way that the European Commission has managed to keep the negotiations going so far is through complete secrecy as to the actual details of the deal under negotiation. Now we can see the details for ourselves, and they are truly shocking. This is surely the beginning of the end for this much hated deal."
Other campaigners criticised the fact that the only public information that has emerged about TTIP has come from leaks.
“TTIP is being cooked up behind closed doors because when ordinary people find out about the threat it poses to democracy and consumer protections, they are of course opposed to it,” said Guy Taylor, trade campaigner at Global Justice Now. “It’s no secret that the negotiations have been on increasingly shaky ground. Millions of people across Europe have signed petitions against TTIP, and hundreds of thousands have taken to the streets to call for an end to the negotiations. These leaks should be seen as another nail in the coffin of a toxic trade deal that corporate power is unsuccessfully trying to impose on ordinary people and our democracies.”
Wednesday, 3 February 2016
We’re drowning in cheap oil – yet still taxpayers prop up this toxic industry
George Monbiot in The Guardian
As these new crisis bailouts for fossil fuels show, it’s those who are least deserving who get the most government protection
Oil appeared to peak in the United States in 1970, after which production fell for 40 years. That, we assumed, was the end of the story. But through fracking and horizontal drilling, production last year returned to the level it reached in 1969. Twelve years ago, the Texas oil tycoon T Boone Pickens announced that “never again will we pump more than 82 million barrels”. By the end of 2015, daily world production reached 97m .
Instead of a collapse in the supply of oil, we confront the opposite crisis: we’re drowning in the stuff. The reasons for the price crash – an astonishing slide from $115 a barrel to less than $30 over the past 20 months – are complex: among them are weaker demand in China and a strong dollar. But an analysis by the World Bank finds that changes in supply have been a much greater factor than changes in demand. Oil production has almost doubled in Iraq, as well as in the US. Saudi Arabia has opened its taps, to try to destroy the competition and sustain its market share – a strategy that some peak oil advocates once argued was impossible.
‘Last week David Cameron flew to Aberdeen, where he announced another £250m of funding for, er, free enterprise, much of which will be used to prop up oil and gas.’ Photograph: Andrew Milligan/AFP/Getty Images
The outcomes are mixed. Cheaper oil means that more will be burned, accelerating climate breakdown. But it also means less investment in future production. Already, $380 billion that was to have been ploughed into oil and gas fields has been delayed. The first places to be spared are those in which extraction is most difficult or hazardous. Fragile ecosystems in the Arctic, in rainforests, in remote and stormy seas, have been granted a stay of execution.
BP reported a massive loss today, partly because of low prices. A falling oil price drags down the price of gas, exposing coal-mining companies to the risk of bankruptcy: good riddance to them. But some renewables firms are being tanked by the same forces; they are losing their subsidies just as gas prices crash. One day they will compete unaided, but not yet.
To cheer or lament these vicissitudes is pointless. They are chance events that counteract each other, and will at some point be reversed. The oil age, which threatens the conditions sustaining life on Earth, will come to an end through political, not economic, change. But the politics, for now, are against us.
Already, according to the International Monetary Fund, more money is spent, directly and indirectly, on subsidising fossil fuels than on funding health services. The G20 countries alone spend over three times as much public money on oil, gas and coal than the whole world does on renewable energy. In 2014, subsidies for fossil fuel production in the UK reached £5bn. Enough? Oh no. While essential public services are being massacred through want of funds, last year the government announced a further £1.3bn in tax breaks for oil companies in the North Sea. Much of this money went to companies based overseas. They must think we’re mad.
Last week David Cameron flew to Aberdeen, where he announced another £250m of funding for, er, free enterprise, much (though not all) of which will be used to prop up oil and gas. A further £20m of public money will be spent on seismic testing. Expect more whale strandings, and ask yourself why the industry that threatens our prosperity shouldn’t cover its own bloody costs.
The energy secretary, Amber Rudd, says she stands “100% behind” this “fantastic industry”. She will “build a bridge to the future for UK oil and gas”. Had she been born 300 years ago, I expect she would have said the same about the slave trade. In a few years’ time her observations will look about as pertinent and about as ethical.
Oil companies have already been granted “ministerial buddies” to “improve access to government” – as if they didn’t have enough already. Now they get an“oil and gas ambassador”, and a new ministerial group, to “reiterate the UK government’s commitment to supporting the oil and gas industry”. A leaked letter shows that Rudd and other ministers want to silence local people by transferring the power to decide whether fracking happens from elected councils to an unelected commission. Let’s sack the electorate and appoint a new one.
Compare all this to the government’s treatment of renewables. Local people have been given special new powers to stop onshore windfarms being built. To the renewables companies Rudd says this: “We need to work towards a market where success is driven by your ability to compete in a market, not by your ability to lobby government.” Strangely, the same rules do not apply to the oil companies. Your friends get protection. The free market is reserved for enemies.
Yes, I do mean enemies. An energy transition threatens the kind of people who attend the Conservative party’s fundraising balls. It corrodes the income of old schoolfriends and weekend guests. For all the talk of enterprise, old money still nurtures its lively hatred of new money, and those who control the public purse use it to protect the incumbents from the parvenus. As they did for the bankers, our political leaders ensure that everyone must pay the costs imposed by the fossil fuel companies – except the fossil fuel companies.
So they lock us into the 20th century, into industrial decline and air pollution, stranded assets and – through climate change – systemic collapse. Governments of this country cannot resist the future forever. Eventually they will succumb to the inexorable logic, and recognise that most of the vast accretions of fossil plant life in the Earth’s crust must be left where they are. And those massive expenditures of public money will prove to be worthless.
Crises expose corruption – that is one of the basic lessons of politics. The oil price crisis finds politicians with their free-market trousers round their ankles. When your friends are in trouble, the rigours imposed religiously on the poor and public services suddenly turn out to be negotiable. Throw money at them, trash their competitors, rig the outcome: those who deserve the least receive the most.
As these new crisis bailouts for fossil fuels show, it’s those who are least deserving who get the most government protection
‘Oil companies have already been granted ‘ministerial buddies’ to ‘improve access to government’ – as if they didn’t have enough already.’ Illustration: Andrzej Krauze
Those of us who predicted, during the first years of this century, an imminent peak in global oil supplies could not have been more wrong. People like the energy consultant Daniel Yergin, with whom I disputed the topic, appear to have been right: growth, he said, would continue for many years, unless governments intervened.
Those of us who predicted, during the first years of this century, an imminent peak in global oil supplies could not have been more wrong. People like the energy consultant Daniel Yergin, with whom I disputed the topic, appear to have been right: growth, he said, would continue for many years, unless governments intervened.
Oil appeared to peak in the United States in 1970, after which production fell for 40 years. That, we assumed, was the end of the story. But through fracking and horizontal drilling, production last year returned to the level it reached in 1969. Twelve years ago, the Texas oil tycoon T Boone Pickens announced that “never again will we pump more than 82 million barrels”. By the end of 2015, daily world production reached 97m .
Instead of a collapse in the supply of oil, we confront the opposite crisis: we’re drowning in the stuff. The reasons for the price crash – an astonishing slide from $115 a barrel to less than $30 over the past 20 months – are complex: among them are weaker demand in China and a strong dollar. But an analysis by the World Bank finds that changes in supply have been a much greater factor than changes in demand. Oil production has almost doubled in Iraq, as well as in the US. Saudi Arabia has opened its taps, to try to destroy the competition and sustain its market share – a strategy that some peak oil advocates once argued was impossible.
‘Last week David Cameron flew to Aberdeen, where he announced another £250m of funding for, er, free enterprise, much of which will be used to prop up oil and gas.’ Photograph: Andrew Milligan/AFP/Getty Images
The outcomes are mixed. Cheaper oil means that more will be burned, accelerating climate breakdown. But it also means less investment in future production. Already, $380 billion that was to have been ploughed into oil and gas fields has been delayed. The first places to be spared are those in which extraction is most difficult or hazardous. Fragile ecosystems in the Arctic, in rainforests, in remote and stormy seas, have been granted a stay of execution.
BP reported a massive loss today, partly because of low prices. A falling oil price drags down the price of gas, exposing coal-mining companies to the risk of bankruptcy: good riddance to them. But some renewables firms are being tanked by the same forces; they are losing their subsidies just as gas prices crash. One day they will compete unaided, but not yet.
To cheer or lament these vicissitudes is pointless. They are chance events that counteract each other, and will at some point be reversed. The oil age, which threatens the conditions sustaining life on Earth, will come to an end through political, not economic, change. But the politics, for now, are against us.
Already, according to the International Monetary Fund, more money is spent, directly and indirectly, on subsidising fossil fuels than on funding health services. The G20 countries alone spend over three times as much public money on oil, gas and coal than the whole world does on renewable energy. In 2014, subsidies for fossil fuel production in the UK reached £5bn. Enough? Oh no. While essential public services are being massacred through want of funds, last year the government announced a further £1.3bn in tax breaks for oil companies in the North Sea. Much of this money went to companies based overseas. They must think we’re mad.
Last week David Cameron flew to Aberdeen, where he announced another £250m of funding for, er, free enterprise, much (though not all) of which will be used to prop up oil and gas. A further £20m of public money will be spent on seismic testing. Expect more whale strandings, and ask yourself why the industry that threatens our prosperity shouldn’t cover its own bloody costs.
The energy secretary, Amber Rudd, says she stands “100% behind” this “fantastic industry”. She will “build a bridge to the future for UK oil and gas”. Had she been born 300 years ago, I expect she would have said the same about the slave trade. In a few years’ time her observations will look about as pertinent and about as ethical.
Oil companies have already been granted “ministerial buddies” to “improve access to government” – as if they didn’t have enough already. Now they get an“oil and gas ambassador”, and a new ministerial group, to “reiterate the UK government’s commitment to supporting the oil and gas industry”. A leaked letter shows that Rudd and other ministers want to silence local people by transferring the power to decide whether fracking happens from elected councils to an unelected commission. Let’s sack the electorate and appoint a new one.
Compare all this to the government’s treatment of renewables. Local people have been given special new powers to stop onshore windfarms being built. To the renewables companies Rudd says this: “We need to work towards a market where success is driven by your ability to compete in a market, not by your ability to lobby government.” Strangely, the same rules do not apply to the oil companies. Your friends get protection. The free market is reserved for enemies.
Yes, I do mean enemies. An energy transition threatens the kind of people who attend the Conservative party’s fundraising balls. It corrodes the income of old schoolfriends and weekend guests. For all the talk of enterprise, old money still nurtures its lively hatred of new money, and those who control the public purse use it to protect the incumbents from the parvenus. As they did for the bankers, our political leaders ensure that everyone must pay the costs imposed by the fossil fuel companies – except the fossil fuel companies.
So they lock us into the 20th century, into industrial decline and air pollution, stranded assets and – through climate change – systemic collapse. Governments of this country cannot resist the future forever. Eventually they will succumb to the inexorable logic, and recognise that most of the vast accretions of fossil plant life in the Earth’s crust must be left where they are. And those massive expenditures of public money will prove to be worthless.
Crises expose corruption – that is one of the basic lessons of politics. The oil price crisis finds politicians with their free-market trousers round their ankles. When your friends are in trouble, the rigours imposed religiously on the poor and public services suddenly turn out to be negotiable. Throw money at them, trash their competitors, rig the outcome: those who deserve the least receive the most.
Saturday, 14 November 2015
The global economy is slowing down. But is it recession – or protectionism?
Heather Stewart and Fergus Ryan in The Guardian
For one Chinese company that depends on global trade, fears over the worldwide economy have come to pass already. “The global economy is pretty bleak at the moment,” says Luo Dong, the owner of Doyoung, a Beijing-based exporter of frozen seafood and fruit. “This is having a big effect on us. Our clients’ sales are a lot slower than they used to be, and as purchasing power overseas drops, our exports are taking a hit.”
Luo’s observations were echoed on a wider stage last week, when the Paris-based Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development voiced the fear gripping many economists: that the drop-off in trade, driven by China, may be a harbinger of something more worrying – a global recession.
Days later, Rolls-Royce became the latest British exporter to face what it called “headwinds” from China, joining a slew of others, from carmaker Jaguar Land Rover to luxury brand Burberry. Meanwhile, commodities including platinum and crude oil resumed their decline in value as investors continued to fret about sliding demand for the raw materials of global commerce. Beijing has cut interest rates six times in less than a year and let the yuan slide against the dollar, underlining the sense of alarm about slowing growth.
Official figures show GDP expanding at around 6.9% in the world’s second-largest economy, conveniently in line with the government’s official target of “around 7%”; but outside analysts believe it may be much weaker. “We find these numbers pretty implausible,” says Andrew Brigden of City consultancy Fathom. “China is slowing a lot more markedly than the official figures show.” Fathom’s calculations, based on alternative indicators such as electricity use, suggest GDP growth of 3% or even less.
However, inside China it feels as though sluggish demand from the eurozone, rather than a homegrown problem, is to blame for the deterioration in the economic weather.
Luo, whose company exports to the US, Europe, Middle East and Africa, says exports have roughly halved since last year. “The worst market has been Europe, largely due to exchange rate fluctuations,” he says.
The European Central Bank has deliberately driven down the value of the single currency by implementing quantitative easing. “The other major factor has been labour costs here, which have gone up about a third,” Luo adds.
For the UK, so far, the impact of global trade headwinds has been relatively mild, notwithstanding the tone of alarm from exporters. Lee Hopley, chief economist at the UK manufacturers’ association EEF, says: “It’s something that’s certainly on our members’ radar, and it’s a source of concern.”
FacebookTwitterPinterest Angel Gurría of the OECD: ‘Global trade, which was already growing slowly over the past few years, appears to have stagnated.’ Photograph: Evaristo Sa/AFP/Getty Images
But for a string of other countries, especially those heavily dependent on commodities exports, the result has been economic chaos – and the OECD fears worse may be to come. After the great financial crisis hit in 2008, reports that demand for exports had “fallen off a cliff”, as it was often put at the time, were among the first signals that a deep downturn was under way.
“Global trade, which was already growing slowly over the past few years, appears to have stagnated,” said Angel Gurría, the OECD’s secretary general, presenting its latest economic forecasts and predicting trade growth of around 2% this year. “What happened in the past 50 years whenever there was such a slowdown in trade growth, it was a harbinger of a very sharp turn of the economy for the worse.”
Gurría explained that the recent slowdown in emerging market economies, led by China, had been particularly damaging because it had come at a time when the advanced economies, in particular the eurozone and Japan, were not yet growing at a robust enough pace to drive global growth.
“A further sharp slowdown in emerging market economies is weighing down on activity and trade. At the same time, subdued investment and productivity growth are checking the momentum of the recovery in advanced economies. It’s a double whammy,” Gurría said.
The OECD’s prescription for this malaise is a collective effort by the advanced economies to ramp up investment – helping to boost demand, improve productivity and generate stronger growth. A similar approach was set out by President Barack Obama on Friday, and he is likely to press for more action to prop up domestic demand at this weekend’s G20 meeting in Turkey.
But with Germany and the UK still enthusiastically espousing austerity, any commitment to new investment seems highly unlikely; so economists have been left trying to count the costs of China’s transition from high-speed, export-led growth to a new economic model at a time when demand in other markets is far from booming.
Economist and China-watcher George Magnus reckons the world will avoid recession, but the damage will be severe for economies that have hitched themselves to the Chinese bandwagon in recent years.
“In Africa, exports to China are 12% of total exports, but three-quarters of the exposure is concentrated among five countries: Angola, South Africa, Democratic Republic of Congo, Republic of Congo and Equatorial Guinea,” he said in a recent blogpost. “In Australia, exports to China are a third of total exports. In Latin America, exports to China are about 2% of regional GDP.”
Most of these countries are exporters of coal, oil and minerals, and their struggles coincide with the end of what became known as the “commodities supercycle” – a decade or so in which prices were held aloft by the belief that demand for raw materials would continue rising, as developing economies became the engines of global growth.
FacebookTwitterPinterest Protests in Brazil, which is now in recession. Photograph: Imago/Barcroft Media
Goldman Sachs’s decision to close down its loss-making Bric fund was a symbolic reminder that the days are gone when the economic rise of Brazil, Russia, India and China (the four countries from which the fund drew its name) seemed guaranteed. Indeed, Brazil and Russia are both in recession.
The US Federal Reserve’s plans to raise interest rates from near zero, which many experts now expect to happen next month, could deepen the agony of countries already struggling with plunging currencies and rising borrowing costs. The International Monetary Fund has warned of a flurry of bankruptcies in emerging economies as rates rise.
“A lot of these countries haven’t been helping themselves: Taiwan, Korea; they’ve all been cranking up their own credit growth,” says Russell Jones of Llewellyn Consulting, an economics advisory firm. But he too believes the world should escape a general slump. “I don’t think we’re on the cusp of a major downturn — probably more of the same.”
Simon Evenett of St Gallen University in Switzerland, who collates detailed data for the thinktank Global Trade Alert, offers an alternative explanation for the recent slide in trade volumes. He calculates that about half of the fall, since exports peaked in September last year, has been caused by the commodity price rout; but the rest, rather than evidence of sickly global demand, has resulted from a creeping rise in protectionism.
His analysis suggests the declines have overwhelmingly taken place in just 28 categories of product. “That’s very concentrated; that makes me doubt that it’s a global downturn.” Eight of these categories are commodities; but the rest map closely on to areas where countries have taken protectionist measures.
In the wake of the financial crisis, policymakers from the G20 countries pledged not to resort to the tit-for-tat protectionism that led to collapsing trade volumes in the wake of the Great Crash of 1929, and was ultimately seen as a contributor to the Great Depression. Since then, there has been little sign of anything with the scope of America’s Smoot-Hawley Act of 1930, which slapped import tariffs on more than 800 products.
But Evenett says there has been a flurry of more subtle manoeuvres: restricting public procurement to domestic firms, for example, or quietly tightening regulations to raise the bar against imports. “I think the China story is adding spice to it, but I think there’s more going on here,” he says.
He is concerned that unless action is taken, politicians will continue to throw sand in the wheels of the international trading system. If he’s right, the downturn seen so far may not be sending a warning signal about global demand; instead, it would be best read as a measure of the fragility of globalisation.
For one Chinese company that depends on global trade, fears over the worldwide economy have come to pass already. “The global economy is pretty bleak at the moment,” says Luo Dong, the owner of Doyoung, a Beijing-based exporter of frozen seafood and fruit. “This is having a big effect on us. Our clients’ sales are a lot slower than they used to be, and as purchasing power overseas drops, our exports are taking a hit.”
Luo’s observations were echoed on a wider stage last week, when the Paris-based Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development voiced the fear gripping many economists: that the drop-off in trade, driven by China, may be a harbinger of something more worrying – a global recession.
Days later, Rolls-Royce became the latest British exporter to face what it called “headwinds” from China, joining a slew of others, from carmaker Jaguar Land Rover to luxury brand Burberry. Meanwhile, commodities including platinum and crude oil resumed their decline in value as investors continued to fret about sliding demand for the raw materials of global commerce. Beijing has cut interest rates six times in less than a year and let the yuan slide against the dollar, underlining the sense of alarm about slowing growth.
Official figures show GDP expanding at around 6.9% in the world’s second-largest economy, conveniently in line with the government’s official target of “around 7%”; but outside analysts believe it may be much weaker. “We find these numbers pretty implausible,” says Andrew Brigden of City consultancy Fathom. “China is slowing a lot more markedly than the official figures show.” Fathom’s calculations, based on alternative indicators such as electricity use, suggest GDP growth of 3% or even less.
However, inside China it feels as though sluggish demand from the eurozone, rather than a homegrown problem, is to blame for the deterioration in the economic weather.
Luo, whose company exports to the US, Europe, Middle East and Africa, says exports have roughly halved since last year. “The worst market has been Europe, largely due to exchange rate fluctuations,” he says.
The European Central Bank has deliberately driven down the value of the single currency by implementing quantitative easing. “The other major factor has been labour costs here, which have gone up about a third,” Luo adds.
For the UK, so far, the impact of global trade headwinds has been relatively mild, notwithstanding the tone of alarm from exporters. Lee Hopley, chief economist at the UK manufacturers’ association EEF, says: “It’s something that’s certainly on our members’ radar, and it’s a source of concern.”
FacebookTwitterPinterest Angel Gurría of the OECD: ‘Global trade, which was already growing slowly over the past few years, appears to have stagnated.’ Photograph: Evaristo Sa/AFP/Getty Images
But for a string of other countries, especially those heavily dependent on commodities exports, the result has been economic chaos – and the OECD fears worse may be to come. After the great financial crisis hit in 2008, reports that demand for exports had “fallen off a cliff”, as it was often put at the time, were among the first signals that a deep downturn was under way.
“Global trade, which was already growing slowly over the past few years, appears to have stagnated,” said Angel Gurría, the OECD’s secretary general, presenting its latest economic forecasts and predicting trade growth of around 2% this year. “What happened in the past 50 years whenever there was such a slowdown in trade growth, it was a harbinger of a very sharp turn of the economy for the worse.”
Gurría explained that the recent slowdown in emerging market economies, led by China, had been particularly damaging because it had come at a time when the advanced economies, in particular the eurozone and Japan, were not yet growing at a robust enough pace to drive global growth.
“A further sharp slowdown in emerging market economies is weighing down on activity and trade. At the same time, subdued investment and productivity growth are checking the momentum of the recovery in advanced economies. It’s a double whammy,” Gurría said.
The OECD’s prescription for this malaise is a collective effort by the advanced economies to ramp up investment – helping to boost demand, improve productivity and generate stronger growth. A similar approach was set out by President Barack Obama on Friday, and he is likely to press for more action to prop up domestic demand at this weekend’s G20 meeting in Turkey.
But with Germany and the UK still enthusiastically espousing austerity, any commitment to new investment seems highly unlikely; so economists have been left trying to count the costs of China’s transition from high-speed, export-led growth to a new economic model at a time when demand in other markets is far from booming.
Economist and China-watcher George Magnus reckons the world will avoid recession, but the damage will be severe for economies that have hitched themselves to the Chinese bandwagon in recent years.
“In Africa, exports to China are 12% of total exports, but three-quarters of the exposure is concentrated among five countries: Angola, South Africa, Democratic Republic of Congo, Republic of Congo and Equatorial Guinea,” he said in a recent blogpost. “In Australia, exports to China are a third of total exports. In Latin America, exports to China are about 2% of regional GDP.”
Most of these countries are exporters of coal, oil and minerals, and their struggles coincide with the end of what became known as the “commodities supercycle” – a decade or so in which prices were held aloft by the belief that demand for raw materials would continue rising, as developing economies became the engines of global growth.
FacebookTwitterPinterest Protests in Brazil, which is now in recession. Photograph: Imago/Barcroft Media
Goldman Sachs’s decision to close down its loss-making Bric fund was a symbolic reminder that the days are gone when the economic rise of Brazil, Russia, India and China (the four countries from which the fund drew its name) seemed guaranteed. Indeed, Brazil and Russia are both in recession.
The US Federal Reserve’s plans to raise interest rates from near zero, which many experts now expect to happen next month, could deepen the agony of countries already struggling with plunging currencies and rising borrowing costs. The International Monetary Fund has warned of a flurry of bankruptcies in emerging economies as rates rise.
“A lot of these countries haven’t been helping themselves: Taiwan, Korea; they’ve all been cranking up their own credit growth,” says Russell Jones of Llewellyn Consulting, an economics advisory firm. But he too believes the world should escape a general slump. “I don’t think we’re on the cusp of a major downturn — probably more of the same.”
Simon Evenett of St Gallen University in Switzerland, who collates detailed data for the thinktank Global Trade Alert, offers an alternative explanation for the recent slide in trade volumes. He calculates that about half of the fall, since exports peaked in September last year, has been caused by the commodity price rout; but the rest, rather than evidence of sickly global demand, has resulted from a creeping rise in protectionism.
His analysis suggests the declines have overwhelmingly taken place in just 28 categories of product. “That’s very concentrated; that makes me doubt that it’s a global downturn.” Eight of these categories are commodities; but the rest map closely on to areas where countries have taken protectionist measures.
In the wake of the financial crisis, policymakers from the G20 countries pledged not to resort to the tit-for-tat protectionism that led to collapsing trade volumes in the wake of the Great Crash of 1929, and was ultimately seen as a contributor to the Great Depression. Since then, there has been little sign of anything with the scope of America’s Smoot-Hawley Act of 1930, which slapped import tariffs on more than 800 products.
But Evenett says there has been a flurry of more subtle manoeuvres: restricting public procurement to domestic firms, for example, or quietly tightening regulations to raise the bar against imports. “I think the China story is adding spice to it, but I think there’s more going on here,” he says.
He is concerned that unless action is taken, politicians will continue to throw sand in the wheels of the international trading system. If he’s right, the downturn seen so far may not be sending a warning signal about global demand; instead, it would be best read as a measure of the fragility of globalisation.
Tuesday, 4 February 2014
Celebrities endorsing products also liable for misleading advertisements: Panel
The authorities are mulling provisions to ensure that celebrities endorsing products are also made liable for misleading advertisements.
NEW DELHI: If the skin whitening cream isn't as phenomenal as advertised or the hair oil not producing a lush mop as promised, you may soon be able to claim compensation not only from the advertisers, but from the celebrities endorsing the product.
The Central Consumer Protection Council(CCPC), under the chairmanship of minister K V Thomas, on Monday decided to set up a sub-committee to suggest strategies to deal with such advertisers. Among the concerns raised was peddling of products by celebrities.
"About 50% of the daylong conference was spent addressing ... the huge impact of misleading advertisements, particularly food items, hair oil and health products," said a CCPC member who attended the meeting in Kochi. "Even the celebrities must pay compensation in case there is a complaint," said Joseph Victor, a CCPC member.
Panel mulls measures to monitor ad claims
What seems to have moved the consumer affairs ministry is a direction from the MP high court to set up an ad monitoring panel as recommended by the Vibha Bhargava Commission. "An ad monitoring committee with proper budgetary support from the Centre may be set up to monitor the advertisements on regular basis... the committee will have the powers to (take) corrective actions and (impose) compensation," the CCPC said.
Sources said that the decision was taken unanimously by CCPC, which has members from central and state governments, besides representatives from consumer organizations and academicians. The sub-committee may be formed in less than a week and could submit its recommendations by February-end, sources said.
Some members told TOI the issue of southern superstar Mamootty endorsing products was discussed. "We have similar problems across the country. We have Shahrukh Khan or some other Hindi film star endorsing consumer items and they get huge payment for doing so. Misleading ads featuring such famous faces shown on TV even for a day serves the purpose of advertisers. We discussed how suo motu action can be taken against ads which have been withdrawn. Even the celebrities must pay compensation in case there is a complaint," said Joseph Victor, a CCPC member.
Another member, Ashim Sanyal, said he had raised the issue of monitoring ads, which are in huge numbers and across different modes and media. "We need to plan the mechanism for monitoring. The sub-committee will come out with directions and provisions to deal with the menace," he added. Lok Sabha MP Charles Dias, who also attended the meeting, told TOI that concerns were raised on manufacturers' ad spend, which is passed on to buyers. "Most of us felt that there should some sort of monitoring on how much is being spent on advertisements," he said.
The Central Consumer Protection Council(CCPC), under the chairmanship of minister K V Thomas, on Monday decided to set up a sub-committee to suggest strategies to deal with such advertisers. Among the concerns raised was peddling of products by celebrities.
"About 50% of the daylong conference was spent addressing ... the huge impact of misleading advertisements, particularly food items, hair oil and health products," said a CCPC member who attended the meeting in Kochi. "Even the celebrities must pay compensation in case there is a complaint," said Joseph Victor, a CCPC member.
Panel mulls measures to monitor ad claims
What seems to have moved the consumer affairs ministry is a direction from the MP high court to set up an ad monitoring panel as recommended by the Vibha Bhargava Commission. "An ad monitoring committee with proper budgetary support from the Centre may be set up to monitor the advertisements on regular basis... the committee will have the powers to (take) corrective actions and (impose) compensation," the CCPC said.
Sources said that the decision was taken unanimously by CCPC, which has members from central and state governments, besides representatives from consumer organizations and academicians. The sub-committee may be formed in less than a week and could submit its recommendations by February-end, sources said.
Some members told TOI the issue of southern superstar Mamootty endorsing products was discussed. "We have similar problems across the country. We have Shahrukh Khan or some other Hindi film star endorsing consumer items and they get huge payment for doing so. Misleading ads featuring such famous faces shown on TV even for a day serves the purpose of advertisers. We discussed how suo motu action can be taken against ads which have been withdrawn. Even the celebrities must pay compensation in case there is a complaint," said Joseph Victor, a CCPC member.
Another member, Ashim Sanyal, said he had raised the issue of monitoring ads, which are in huge numbers and across different modes and media. "We need to plan the mechanism for monitoring. The sub-committee will come out with directions and provisions to deal with the menace," he added. Lok Sabha MP Charles Dias, who also attended the meeting, told TOI that concerns were raised on manufacturers' ad spend, which is passed on to buyers. "Most of us felt that there should some sort of monitoring on how much is being spent on advertisements," he said.
Wednesday, 26 June 2013
Met Police supergrass scandal - corrupt private investigators infiltrate witness-protection programme
The Independent 26/06/2013
Scotland Yard is embroiled in a new corruption crisis after it emerged that senior officers knew for years that criminal private investigators had compromised its highly sensitive witness protection programme – and did nothing about it.
Scotland Yard is embroiled in a new corruption crisis after it emerged that senior officers knew for years that criminal private investigators had compromised its highly sensitive witness protection programme – and did nothing about it.
Days after the Metropolitan Police was rocked by incendiary claims that officers took part in a smear campaign against the family of the murdered black teenager Stephen Lawrence, The Independent can disclose that private investigators (PIs) were employed by organised crime gangs to try to intimidate witnesses who had agreed to give evidence in high-profile trials.
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Also read
With the Met Police, if you are innocent you have everything to worry about
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Scotland Yard uncovered the shocking intelligence up to 15 years ago but, incredibly, did next to nothing to stop the private detectives, who also worked for the News Of The World. A registered police informant codenamed “Michael Green”, who spent years undercover working with a corrupt firm of PIs, warned his handlers at the Met that his colleagues were trying to locate “supergrasses” under police protection and “actively worked on them to withdraw their damaging allegations”.
But, for reasons yet to become clear, the Met failed to charge or even arrest the investigators for intimidating key witnesses. One of the supergrasses who was approached while under police protection later withdrew all of his original testimony, resulting in the collapse of a major criminal trial.
The news comes days after a former Met officer, Peter Francis, claimed he was asked find “dirt” and spy on Stephen Lawrence’s relatives in a bid to undermine the campaign to bring his killers to justice. Details of Scotland Yard’s witness-protection programme being compromised were included in a Serious Organised Crime Agency (Soca) report which was suppressed by the agency but leaked toThe Independent.
The same documents led to last week’s revelation by this newspaper that private detectives had been hired by major companies to hack, blag and steal personal information about rival companies and the public. The latest disclosures have heaped fresh pressure on the Met and Soca, who are thought to have withheld crucial details of the criminal world of private investigators from a parliamentary inquiry last year.Keith Vaz, the Labour MP who chairs the House of Commons Home Affairs Select Committee, said: “These claims are absolutely devastating. The committee has agreed to call Soca to give evidence next week and [the Met Commissioner] Sir Bernard Hogan-Howe will be giving evidence on 9 July. It seems they will have some very difficult to questions to answer. We were very clear in our report that the link between private investigators and the police needs to be broken, so they can be properly investigated without fear and favour. However, no action was taken and we are still awaiting a Government response. This industry needs to be brought out of the shadows and be properly regulated.
“I have today written to request all the information Soca has on private investigators and their links with the public and private sector. We need to be certain there are no more skeletons to come out of the closet.”
The eight-page Soca memo referred to intelligence that PIs were employed by the “criminal fraternity” to “frustrate law enforcement”. The Independentunderstands that the same corrupt investigators have also worked for the News of the World. The Soca report includes intelligence that crime bosses were hiring PIs to access “internal police databases, including those containing serving officers’ private details” and “deleting intelligence records from law enforcement databases”.
The most shocking practice, however, involves attempts to trace protected witnesses. Soca noted that PIs often had an “abundance of law-enforcement expertise either through corrupt contacts or from a previous career in law enforcement”, and they were “attempting to discover location of witnesses under police protection to intimidate them”.
The Independent has spoken to the registered police informant “Michael Green”, who did not wish to be named for fear of reprisals.
He infiltrated a team of private investigators who worked closely with a corrupt former Met police officer, who is well-known to Scotland Yard but has never faced any criminal charges. He cannot be named for legal reasons so the informant referred to him as “Mr Brown”.
He said the gang used to “boast” of locating supergrasses in the witness protection programme and “actively worked on them to withdraw their damaging allegations”.
Mr Green said: “Indeed on one occasion I managed to get possession of a CD ROM disc which was a recording of a person in the witness protection programme being interviewed by Mr Brown who had traced him. Basically, Mr Brown wanted him to retract his evidence.
“My handlers wanted to have the disc copied, but I knew I had to hand it back, and I was concerned that if it was copied it might be discovered. I asked them to check with their own experts to see if that was possible.
Mr Green said his handlers told him that forensic experts claimed it would not be traceable. He said: “I persisted and asked for a second opinion which I believe they obtained from the security services. Their experts stated that it might be proven that the disc had been copied. As a result a sound recording was taken and the disc was not used to burn another copy.”
Despite being handed this extraordinary intelligence, the Met took no action against the private investigators or Mr Brown. The supergrass, whose identity is known to The Independent, later dramatically changed his evidence and caused several convictions to be overturned, to the great embarrassment of the Met and the Crown Prosecution Service.
The Met declined to comment and referred enquiries to a SOCA spokesperson who said: “This report remains confidential and SOCA does not comment on leaked documents or specific criminal investigations.”
Disclosures over the Met’s inability to maintain the security of its witness protection programme have also raised fresh questions over the decision by the Leveson Inquiry to ignore the bombshell SOCA report.
The confidential document was offered to the public inquiry into the press and police by Ian Hurst, a former British Army intelligence officer whose computer was hacked by private investigators employed by the News of the World.
However, in an email to Mr Hurst’s lawyer, Kim Brudenell, the solicitor to the Inquiry said: “The Inquiry does not propose to go into further detail or take further evidence regarding these matters and so will not be pursuing the [informant], utilising Mr Hurst’s statement as evidence or calling him to provide further oral evidence.”
Lord Justice Leveson then embarked on a fortnight of hearings dominated by arguably far less evidence from union officials, civilian police workers and press officers from provincial police forces. Mr Hurst told The Independent: “Leveson obviously considered the media officer for Staffordshire police to be far more relevant to his Inquiry than the experiences of a man who had spent years infiltrating a criminal gang with direct knowledge of Metropolitan police and News of the World corruption.
“There is no more sensitive system within the police than the witness protection programme. I would have thought evidence of it being compromised almost at will by corrupt detectives, private investigators who work with newspapers and organised crime syndicates would have been relevant to culture, practice and ethics of the press and police.”
However, the Met’s former deputy assistant commissioner Brian Paddick did manage to publicly reveal that the witness protection programme had been compromised during his evidence to the Inquiry.
He told Lord Justice Leveson: “That is something I would expect the (Met) to take with the utmost seriousness. However, there is nothing in the documents disclosed to me to suggest that anything was done.”
Despite the acute sensitivities and the Met’s bizarre, decade-long inaction to tackle the corrupt private investigators, Lord Justice Leveson barely referred to the matter in his final report, published last November – for fear of compromising ongoing criminal investigations. He said: “Although I understand the concern, it would not be appropriate for me to go further.”
Tom Watson, the campaigning Labour MP, said: “It is absolutely shocking that the media-criminal nexus could have got anywhere near compromising the Met’s witness protection programme.
“These new revelations are the strongest argument I have heard for Lord Justice Leveson conducting Part Two of his Inquiry as soon as the criminal cases are over.”
A Leveson Inquiry spokesperson said: “The terms of reference for the Inquiry were absolutely about the culture, practices and ethics of the press and how they engaged with the public, the police and politicians. Evidence on other issues would have been considered to have been outside those terms of reference.”
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