News and Analysis: 17-21 May 10 | EmergingFrontierMarkets.com

Based in: Manila, Philippines

Posted on Fri, 21 May 10:

US Senate backs massive financial overhaul measure: The Senate on Thu night passed the most sweeping changes in govt regulation of financial institutions since the Great Depression. Included in the legislation are strong new consumer and investor protections and provisions. The House passed a similar version in Dec, and the 2 bills must now be reconciled in negotiations bet. the 2 chambers, passed anew by each and sent to Obama for his signature, expected by 4 July. Like the House version, the Senate bill would empower the Federal Reserve as the chief police officer on guard vs risks to the broad fincl system, McClatchy News, 21 May 10 GMT

Coffers: Robert Shiller--How nutritious are your investments?: Those labels that you see on packaged foods listing their ingredients and nutritional values had their beginnings in an intl scandal and in the efforts by govts to deal w/ the public outrage that followed. We have to hope that the same kind of outcome will emerge from the financial scandals that have produced public outrage analogous to that directed at the food industries. For today we need laws that will require purveyors of fincl products to provide the essential info that consumers need, says Yale economist and co-author of Animal Spirits ('09), Proj Syndicate (courtesy Korea Herald), 14 May 10 (Squam Lake Grp--Regulation of retirement savings, chap. in The Squam Lake Report: Fixing the Financial System ['10])

Thitinan Pongsudhirak: Thailand's unstoppable red shirts--The culmination of this brinksmanship may well disadvantage the reds in the near term. But each time they are dispersed and return for more, the nation moves closer to a less favorable outcome for its constitutional monarchy that plays into the hands of a growing republican fringe. The establishment forces behind PM Abhisit are understandably insecure and fearful of change because it can be slippery. Concessions and reforms may know no bounds. But playing this democratic game in a winner-takes-all fashion may mean that they end up w/ little left at the end of the day, notes Inst Security Intl Studies dir and Chulalongkorn Univ political scientist, East Asia Forum/ Australia, 13 May 10 (Beyond Thaksin's assets - The rise of the reds, Opinion Asia/ Singapore, Feb '10)

Posted on Thu, 20 May 10:

Singapore, Hong Kong, US come out on top in competitiveness report: For the 1st time in decades, Singapore (1) and Hong Kong (2) have topped the US (3) in this yr's World Competitiveness Yearbook rankings. They are so close that it would be better to define them as the leading 'trio', followed by Switzerland and Australia, IMD/ Switz., 19 May 10 [pdf]

Marcus Noland: They're not brainwashed, they're just miserable--In highly repressive states like NKorea, people engage in what social scientists call 'preference falsification', or, more colloquially, 'keeping your head down' - suppressing the outward expression of their true feelings in favor of maintaining a facade of support. But 2 recent large-scale surveys of NKorean refugees conducted in China and SKorea suggest that privately held assessments of the regime are indeed highly negative. The surveys, of which I am co-author, paint a picture of an atomized society where trust is scant and collective action negligible, says Peterson Inst deputy dir and senior fellow, Foreign Policy Mag, 30 Mar 10

Study/ den: Developing a worldwide league table--The EU plans to publish a global ranking of univs next yr that it hopes will rival existing league tables. The aim is to boost the place of European univs in the Shanghai Jiao Tong Univ and Times Higher Educ ranking systems. A study for the commission in '08 queried the stats used in the Shanghai rankings and concluded neither the Shanghai nor the THE systems were effective in ranking Europe's univs, World Univ News, 7 Feb 10 (Shanghai Jiao Tong Univ's ranking of world univs | Media release | Higher educ rankings: are they statistically reliable? | Critiquing global univ rankings and their methodologies, GlobalHigherEd, Jan '09)

Posted on Wed, 19 May 10:

Thai protest ends, but crisis far from over: Soldiers drove protesters out of their fortified encampment in Bangkok on Wed, but furious crowds rioted and set fire to buildings in parts of the capital and in towns in the northeast. The key near-term unknown is whether rioting and arson attacks represent a last outpouring of anger by protesters, or whether they will intensify and spread overnight and in coming days. The former would give Thai markets some limited near-term relief. The latter would suggest a new phase in the political crisis, w/ the nation sinking further towards the worst-case scenario and would be profoundly negative for markets, Reuters, 19 May 10

Dani Rodrik: Greek lessons for the world economy--Deep down, the crisis is yet another manifestation of what I call 'the political trilemma of the world economy': economic globalization, political democracy, and the nation-state are mutually irreconcilable. We can have at most 2 at one time. Democracy is compatible w/ national sovereignty only if we restrict globalization. If we push for globalization while retaining the nation-state, we must jettison democracy. And if we want democracy along w/ globalization, we must shove the nation-state aside and strive for greater intl governance, says Harvard economist/ Albert Hirschman Prize Laureate, Proj Syndicate (courtesy Biz Standard/ India), 18 May 10 (The inescapable trilemma of the world economy, June '07)

Study/ den: Phil Baty--Flawed rankings: I must make a confession - the rankings of the world's top universities that my magazine has been publishing for the past 6 yrs, and which have attracted enormous global attention, are not fit for purpose. Last Nov, we ended our partnership w/ the company QS which supplied and owned all the data for the rankings bet. '04 and '09. We are now working w/ a world-leading research data specialist which will collect and analyze all the data for our rankings for '10 and beyond, says Times Higher Educ World Univ Rankings editor, Malaysian Star, 2 May 10 (QS--Asian top 200 univs | Govts should ignore rankings - QS, World Univ News, 16 May)

Posted on Tue, 18 May 10:

Europe's debt crisis casts a shadow over China: The pain of the European debt crisis is spreading as the plummeting euro makes Chinese firms less competitive in Europe, their largest market, and complicates any move to break the Chinese currency's peg to the dollar. Letting the renminbi rise vs the dollar would mean a further increase in the renminbi’s value vs the euro, creating even more problems for Chinese exporters to Europe, NYTimes (free registr reqd), 17 May 10

Global trends - 2nd quarter: This report examines major trends shaping the global business environment, with a focus this qtr on 3 topics: 1) Trade - greater risks in '10; 2) Brazil - statism clouds positive outlook; and 3) Energy - climate change and transportation fuels, Eurasia Group-PwC, May '10 [pdf, 1.1MB]

Coffee/ tea room: Ben Bernanke--Economics of happiness: Researchers distinguish bet. 2 related, but different, concepts - 'happiness' and 'life satisfaction'. If, as your parents always told you, money doesn't buy happiness, then what factors do contribute to life satisfaction? Psychologists and economists have done good work on this point, going your parents one better by identifying statistically just what factors are linked to self-reported happiness and how short-run happiness is related to, but distinct from, long-run life satisfaction, notes Fed chairman in his commencement talk, Univ South Carolina (courtesy Fed Reserve), 8 May 10

Posted on Mon, 17 May 10:

Protesters urge peace talks to end Bangkok battles: Thailand's Red Shirts offered peace talks Mon to end raging street battles that have killed at least 37 people as a govt deadline demanding the demonstrators vacate a protest zone passed w/o capitulation. A protest leader said the only hope now to end the violence was intervention by the Thai king, while another said they are ready to negotiate and to submit themselves to the courts. They dropped a previous demand for the UN to mediate, saying the govt can appoint a neutral body for the task. Despite the conciliatory words, the Red Shirts also continued to insist they will not stop until the PM orders a ceasefire, AP (courtesy Malaysia Star), 17 May 10

Forecasters see stronger US recovery: The outlook for the US economy over the next few qtrs looks stronger now than it did just 3 mths ago, acc to 44 forecasters surveyed by the Fed Reserve Bank of Philadelphia. They see real GDP growing 3.3% in '10 and 3.1% in '11. Stronger conditions in the labor market accompany the outlook for growth. Unemployment is now projected to be an average of 9.6% in '10, before falling to 8.9% in '11 The survey is the oldest quarterly survey of macroeconomic forecasts in the US, Survey of Professional Forecasters, 14 May 10

Mouse and wo/men: Hal Varian--'Ultimately, the best protection is an informed buyer who demands openness': A response to 'Protecting the Internet w/o wrecking it'--Zittrain's dilemma is how to gain the benefits of an open, general purpose technology - such as a programmable networked PC - while avoiding the costs - malware that can infect an entire network of devices. He offers several sensible suggestions for policy reforms, but there is no silver bullet, says Google chief economist, Boston Review, Mar-Apr '08 (Zittrain's reply | World Telecommunication/ Information Society Day | Northern Europe tops the ICT devt index)

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