Chartbook · Economics & Policy
TIER 4 Sat, 1 Mar 2025 11:59:44 +0000
Great links, images, and reading from Chartbook Newsletter by Adam Tooze ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ | | ---|---|--- | | | Forwarded this email? Subscribe here for more --- --- # Exaggerating American globalization. Haiti's existential crisis. Taking mechanisms literally and Sidetracks IX. ### Great links, images, and reading from Chartbook Newsletter by Adam Tooze | | Adam Tooze --- | Mar 1 --- | --- --- | | | --- | | --- | | --- | | --- | | READ IN APP --- Thank you for opening your Chartbook email. | | ---|---|--- _**Above**_**Felix Del Marle, cartoon titled "League of Nations" (predecessor to the United Nations), as published in **_**Le Rire**_**(April 19, 1919).** **The globalization discourse in the US is WILDLY overdone.** > The US is not now and has never been a very globalized economy. At the aggregate level, viewed over decades, all the globalization shocks taken together add up to imports of good and services going from 4 percent of GDP in the 1960s to 14 percent in 2009 and then plateauing. As a share of US GDP, imports (ex oil) have not budged since 2009 | | ---|---|--- > On the export side there is a downward trend that is likewise quite undramatic. As a share of US GDP exports have trailed downwards over the last decade from 14% to 10-11% | | ---|---|--- Source: Lombard TS by Steven Blitz * * * HEY READERS, THANK YOU for opening the Chartbook email. I hope it brightens your day. I enjoy putting out the newsletter, but tbh what keeps this flow going is the generosity of those readers who clicked the subscription button. | | ---|---|--- Photo by Demi DeHerrera on Unsplash If you are a regular reader of long-form Chartbook and Chartbook Top Links, or just enthusiastic about the project, why not think about joining that group? Chip in the equivalent of one cup of coffee per month and help to keep this flow of excellent content coming. If you are persuaded to click, please consider the annual subscription of $50. It is both better value for you and a much better deal for me, as it involves only one credit card charge. Why feed the payments companies if we don't have to! Upgrade to paid And when you sign up, there are no more irritating "paywalls" * * * **The global advertising market tops $ 1 trillion.** For contributing subscribers only. Upgrade to paid **ArchersFelix Del Marle** | | ---|---|--- **Crisis and Institutional Collapse in Haiti** > The Haitian polycrisis intensifies > > The assassination of President Jovenel Moise in July 2021 plunged Haiti into accelerated institutional decay. Armed groups took control of 80 percent of the capital city and gained autonomy from the powerful political and private actors that had initially funded and controlled them. The state's failure to stop the gangsterization of Haitian society reflects the predatory nature of its ruling class. Moreover, neoliberal policies imposed by Western powers have widened the chasm between the privileged elite and the majority trapped in poverty, contributing to a series of cumulative and worsening social and political crises. The fall of Haiti's Duvalier dictatorship in 1986 unleashed popular euphoria and the promise of democratic reforms; since then, however, the country has endured unrelenting and deepening crises. The state has withered away and is incapable of providing basic security; gangs have taken over 80 percent of the capital city, Port-au-Prince, and are threatening to impose their control on other areas of the country, especially L'Artibonite, the country's breadbasket. Although the story of "big men" building their own militias to defend their interests is not new, the gangsterization of Haitian society has reached new heights. | | ---|---|--- > Armed groups have now gained autonomy from the powerful political and private actors who had initially funded and controlled them. The resort to private force by the ruling class reflected its historical incapacity to establish a social contract on which to erect a legitimate state. The fragility of the state is in turn rooted in a history of cumulative and worsening political and economic crises that have continuously enlarged the social chasm dividing the privileged elite and the majority trapped in poverty. The increasing impoverishment of the urban population has transformed it into a reserve army of gangs for public officials and oligarchs. Haiti's systemic decay, caused by an unproductive economy, is at the root of the country's gangsterization. This material foundation has nurtured an increasingly destructive _politique du ventre_ --belly politics--in which access to public office becomes a means to acquire illicit wealth. In a country where poverty is rampant, controlling the state is a zero-sum game, leading to recurring political instability. While the ruling class has historically relied on a combination of private and state coercion, it is also dependent on external powers to sustain its rule. The country's sovereignty, which was always vulnerable, has become purely symbolic since the first overthrow of democratically elected President Jean-Bertrand Aristide in 1991. The incessant crises that have occurred since then have all had ephemeral resolutions orchestrated by the Core Group composed of foreign powers under the hegemony of the United States. … Moise's assassination (July 2021) left a void of authority, an inoperative constitution, and a broken-down judiciary. At the urging of the Core Group, Ariel Henry became prime minister … On August 31, 2021, a coalition of over 180 political parties and civil society organizations signed the so-called Montana Agreement, calling for a "Haitian solution to Haitian problems," and portrayed Henry as an illegitimate imposition on the country by the international community. … Chartbook 167 Although Henry rejected the Montana Agreement, in December 2022 he negotiated the National Consensus for an Inclusive Transition and Transparent Elections with the support of the business sector and a few political parties and civil associations, as well as the international community. But most Haitians rejected the deal, and it eventually collapsed without leaving a trace. … Realizing that the situation was untenable and that his rule rested on the support of the international community, Henry called for a foreign military intervention to tame the gangs' violence. In October 2023, Henry finally got his wish: the UN Security Council authorized the deployment of a Multinational Security Support (MSS) mission, led by Kenya and largely funded by the United States. Facing multiple financial, legal, and constitutional obstacles, the mission began to deploy in June 2024. Paradoxically, it was when Henry traveled to Nairobi in late February 2024 to sign the final documents leading to the arrival in Haiti of a 1,000-strong Kenyan police force that a virtual total collapse of Haiti's institutions occurred. A concerted onslaught by the gangs provoked an American soft coup. Prevented by the United States and the Dominican Republic from flying back to Port-au-Prince, the prime minister was humiliated and left stranded in Puerto Rico. The Biden administration abruptly withdrew its support for Henry and compelled him to resign and accept a de facto exile. Washington then embarked on an ad hoc strategy, with the help of the Caribbean Community, France, and Canada, to orchestrate the formation of a Transitional Presidential Council. After weeks of complicated negotiations and bickering, an all-encompassing group of Haitian political parties and civic associations agreed to form a council comprising seven voting members and two nonvoting observers. They also consented to the deployment of the MSS mission to Haiti. The council was officially installed as the new interim government on April 25 2024. … Under strong American lobbying, six of the seven members of the council selected Garry Conille as prime minister on June 3. Haitians dubbed Conille the "man of the Americans" because Clinton had appointed him as a key adviser on post-2010 earthquake reconstruction. …The task became even more complicated on November 11, when the Presidential Council, headed by Voltaire, dismissed Conille and replaced him with Alix Didier Fils-Aime. Voltaire and the council accused Conille of failing to address the country's pressing problems, but his dismissal was partly the result of a power struggle over who was ultimately in charge of foreign and domestic policies. … The Biden administration, Kenyan President William Ruto, and Conille all expressed certainty that the MSS mission would succeed and the gangs would be defeated. Such confidence could not hide the reality that when fully deployed, a mission comprising only 1,000 Kenyan police officers and a contingent of 1,500 troops from other Caribbean and African countries may be too small to defeat 200 armed gangs. Moreover, the mission lacks the financial support it was promised and has neither clear rules of engagement nor metrics of success. Not surprisingly, it has failed to stem the gangs' territorial advances, and security conditions have only worsened. | | ---|---|--- > Although the country seems trapped in decay, new grassroots forces are surfacing. Not yet fully visible, they may ultimately transform Haiti. The recent emergence of Bwa Kale--popular self-defense movements fighting back against the gangs encroaching on their neighborhoods--may indicate that people are no longer prepared to put up with being the victims of injustice. Undoubtedly, the risks of vigilantism descending into a spiral of uncontrollable violence exist, but in the absence of public authority, Haitians seem to be left with no other alternative. Source: UCpress by Robert Fatton, Jr. **On why Americans should stick to farming.** For contributing subscribers only. Upgrade to paid **Taking mechanisms literally** | | ---|---|--- Source: Designing Simple Mechanisms by Li, Shengwu. **Sidetracks IX** > The Cold War just ended a lone sun in the belly of the flying bird white sails drift into an alternate river of time all languages circulate against the state of enslavement my identity suspect exile is crossing the void of a journey without a destination--my life > > intoxicated--tram gently rocks through the center of Vienna whisky bottle polished off in a room in Stockholm I make ghostly faces in the mirror a South African poet a French poet and I belt out "The Internationale" on Osborne Street adjusting pace to march straight into first light > > the moon is my mother softly smooth out those secret slips of paper the birth of suffering flashes to mind precisely because of life's incompleteness it completes itself the defensive line of the fathers turns into forest a chainsaw screams out of human will behind the cemetery the city glitters and shines > > the setting sun and an elegy for the twentieth-century scattered chronicles and crossed-out blacklists the wave that has yet to form has already transmigrated postwar flags ceaselessly change colors meanings that survive underground draw water from the cracks between words spit out the bubbles collect postage stamps collect shards of thought butterflies flutter above a forgotten line of defense > > I am Celan in 1947 crossing the border from Bucharest to Vienna the smuggler has the smell of a skunk North Star of my childhood leads the way no identity card except a manuscript of poems overnight at an abandoned train station a stooped shadow stalks through the starlight German the enemy of the mother tongue _it is now time for stone to bloom_ > > I dream of a raging storm a forest as if a crazed herd of horses whirls me away embrace a pillow in the clouds hug the family tightly waves crash against the port side of a battered wooden boat moss blindfolds the rocks perch on the branch of language coffins of war or epidemic take flight shadows in the field dig up potatoes to prepare for winter > > searching for an unfamiliar city in which I can be reborn crow-black clouds bow their heads to smell the tobacco leaves the sea leaves a watermark on banknotes angels on the gallery walls fly away in a hurry the bronze statue on the public square overflows with hostility time is like walking a dog bounding prancing running wildly swiftly stops and turns the corner scratches an itch against a tree then pees and moves on and on without a leash Source: Poetry Foundation By Bei Dao Translated By Jeffrey Yang **F elix Lucien Aime DELMARLE - Aviateur** | | ---|---|--- If you've scrolled this far, you know you want to click: Upgrade to paid #### Invite your friends and earn rewards If you enjoy Chartbook, share it with your friends and earn rewards when they subscribe. 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