TTR contains multitudes this week, looking at the latest on global economic consensus, the future of journalism, labor policy in Latin America and the dire consequences of our recession. We'll also take this opportinity to welcome our two newest interns, Asawin Suebsaeng and Chris Sopher.
- Consensus fail [PDF]. As of the last G20 meeting, real economic consensus between the major world powers has yet to be achieved. A new policy brief written by Michael Pettis for the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace asserts that until the United States, China, and the European Union can agree on the root causes of the global crisis, discordance and economic downturn will worsen and subsist. National interests and domestic issues, including China’s constraining development model and the U.S.’s rapidly declining consumption, will adversely affect trade and slow recovery. Pettis’s recommendations include coordinated stimuli between the EU and U.S. and liberalizing Beijing’s domestic markets. -- AS
- Save the Journalists! Imagine a world with no newspapers -- no slightly soggy bundle on your porch, no professional news online. That dystopian future has many worried; preventing it is the topic of a recent Brookings Institution panel and policy brief, entitled “Saving the News Industry.” Falling circulation -- 62 to 49 million nationwide over the past 20 years, the report notes -- and plummeting ad revenues -- declines as high as 25 percent at some daily papers -- place the industry on shaky ground as it attempts to thrive in the digital age. The panel and paper make several important though not all novel recommendations [PDF], including digital “micropayment systems” (read: iTunes), better online content, new antitrust provisions and tax credits for news subscribers.-- CKS
- Can't buy me fair labor standards [PDF]. Since the Dominican Republic-Central America Free Trade Agreement began in 2005, the Washington Office on Latin America has been tracking the state of labor in the DR and Central America to see if anything came of $23 million intended tamp down preexisting labor violations. According to WOLA, there has been no improvement. In Guatemala alone, six union leaders have been assassinated; in the region as a whole, ten percent of children aged 5 to 14 still work illegally and pre-employment pregnancy tests still prevent women from working. The $23 million in funding was spent on projects laid out in a White Paper written by the trading countries' governments. WOLA insists that results would have been better if unions, human rights groups and the private sector had been involved in drafting the White Paper. To see why, and learn more about implementing the impending Colombia and Panama FTAs, read the report. -- CP
- "Red Alert!" In a new presentation, EPI's Larry Michel sounds the alarm on the dangers of the recession, reporting the disconcerting news that 1/3 of the workforce will be unemployed or underemployed at some point in 2010. Even worse, Michel projects that the child poverty rate will rise to 27 percent, with fully half -- 52.3 percent -- of African American children falling below the poverty line. -- TF
-- TAP Staff
Previous Round-Ups:
