Category: Economics

I read the Wall Street Journal today and I am increasing finding out that I prefer the Journal better to the New York Times. I actually went to the library to read.

Alright, I didn’t actually go the library to read the Journal but rather, went there to borrow Immanuel Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason. I know the book and am familiar with it but had never actually read the book. So, while I am free at the moment, I figured, “Hey, let’s read another classic!” However, that’s not the point of this entry.

Digressing, as I was returning from the library, Kerry’s sister-in-law was speaking at the Diag (a huge green open space on campus from those unfamiliar with Ann Arbor). I decided to hang around but she proved to be boring. I prefer hearing Nader to some democrat ranting about the same old thing over and over again. Regardless of that, again, that’s not the point of this entry.

As I was saying, I read the Journal at the library and a couple articles caught my eyes. To be specific, there were four articles; three concern democracy and another about the World Bank’s Doing Business 2005 report.

Most interestingly, the three articles are about democracy in Russia, Germany and Indonesia. I say it’s interesting because in my opinion, I could form three different classes for each country where the groups could be labeled as progress in democracy, stagnation and simply the wrong direction.

The first class depicts progress in democracy and this is about Indonesia. In the coming week, Indonesia is set to choose her President. I think this is the second time the Indonesians will be able to directly elect their leader. With the runoff around the corner, it seems that the incumbent will lose to the challenger and more importanly, there is no news that Megawati, the current President, is trying to influence the election machine. Furthermore, the democratic process doesn’t seem to lose steam after the bombing incident at the Australian embassy in Jakarta.

Trivia: According to the Journal, Indonesia will be holding the largest one-day-election in the world. India is the largest democracy in the world but India runs the democratic process in the time span of weeks.

Then, there is this stagnation class and Germany is in this grouping. Nothing is wrong in Germany actually. It is just that in next German election, it is projected that there will be a smaller majority in the Bundestag for the two main parties. This means it will be harder to pass a decision on many issues through the Bundestag, in particular, decision on the much needed economic reform that Germany needs. It is mentioned in the column that the German people are mad at the current government led by the Christian democrats and the social democrat for loosening up Germany’s layoff restrictions. The liberalization of the barriers increases unemployment while at the same time, helps firms in Germany to cut losses.

Perhaps stagnation is not the right word to describe the situation in Germany. Maybe “possible problem” is the proper term.

The third class is resided by Putin’s Russia. A few weeks ago, 335 human lives, more than half were children, were killed by terrorists. It was despicable act of inhumane, deserving no respect from any civilized individual. Of course, Russian armed force’s decision to storm the terrorists’ ground is a contributing factor to the horrific drama but I agree with the storming because no government should ever be held hostage by anybody or else, such ugliness in Beslan would encourage more ugliness.

While some of us were mourning, Putin shook one of Russia’s last bastions for democracy by announcing from now on, regional governors will be elected directly by Kremlin instead of via election. Now, it will be from the above instead from the bottom up. It seems that Russia is going back to its Soviet days.

And the last article is about the Doing Business 2005 report. I have nothing much to say on this but merely to repeat one of the report’s result. The report concluded that monetary aid does not help third world countries to improve themselves. Possibly, the aid might even prevent growth. This sounds like a problem with corruption. It might be the fact that the money given is not being fully channeled to developmental projects but instead, it gets into someone’s pocket. As a result, little or no beneficial endeavors being undertaken while debt of the countries increases, making the countries probably poorer.

Oh well. So many things are troubling the world but at least Michigan won, though in a rather unconvincing style in my opinion. The Wolverines won 24 – 21 against the Aztecs. After the game, Michigan probably looks like this.

I wonder how we will look like after the Buckeyes game. I caught that at the Graduate Library.Also, the world would have one less problem if Manchester United loses to Liverpool on Monday.

p/s – thought this is great.

Sometimes, I guess people are so focused on one thing that they forgot the attributes that they share.