Asia Times: The Coming Trade War

[unhappycamper]

The Coming Trade War
Henry C K Liu
June '05

Commment: The series is a lengthy, but a very worthwhile read.

PART 1
The coming trade war and global depression
Trade protectionism is re-emerging, but the irony is that it is being driven not by the poor economies that have been hurt the most by the globalized neo-liberal trade regime, but by the wealthy economies, especially the US. (Jun 15, '05)

PART 2
Dollar hegemony against sovereign credit
Twentieth-century history showed that economic fundamentalism can have devastating results. Early in that century, rigid adherence to the gold standard was exacerbated by sterling hegemony, ultimately leading to the Great Depression and World War II. Now a new bunch of fundamentalists are in charge. (Jun 23, '05)

PART 3
Trade in the age of overcapacity
Neo-liberals have created a false dichotomy between so-called command economies and market economies. With the CNOOC-Unocal controversy, ideologue fantasy is once again clashing with harsh reality as the US on the one hand relies on China to relieve its overcapacity problem while on the other it fears for its national security. (Jul 7, '05)

PART 4
Scarcity economics and overcapacity
The myth of scarcity is as old as the story of Adam and Eve, who were driven out of the garden of plentitude by a jealous god bent on preserving his pre-eminence - rather like today's wealthy capitalists. But the myth is unsustainable, as even the concept of employment is becoming obsolete. (Jul 27, '05)

Link to series:
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/others/trade-war.html

Henry C K Liu was born in Hong Kong and educated at Harvard University, US, in architecture and urban design. His interest in economics and international relations started when he participated in interdisciplinary work on urban and regional development as a professor at the University of California Los Angeles, Harvard and Columbia. He is currently chairman of a new York-based private investment group.