Articles
Crafty smurfs behind Chinese currency flight overseas
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A growing army of Chinese savers, worried about the depreciating value of their country’s Yuan currency, are surreptiously removing their nest-eggs overseas in a practice known as “smurfing”. So much Chinese money is being exported by the thrifty smurfs that the Beijing authorities are worried at a growing imbalance showing up on the economy’s books.
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Poul Thomsen (IMF), Greece and IMF Cynicism
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For the casual reader, Poul Thomsen’s recent piece on the role of the IMF in the bailout review negotiations taking place between Greece and the Troika would seem balanced and reasonable. At the end of the day, as he has argued elsewhere, the numbers simply need to add up. For that, there is a trade-off between the “ambition of the reforms” Greece needs to impose and the amount of debt relief that can be granted by its European partners. Put bluntly, more austerity implies less debt relief and vice versa.
Thomsen argues that given the contentious character of the negotiations the IMF is simply there as a friendly companion that supports both its Greek and European partners to make the tough decisions required to develop a program that adds up. However, for someone who is more familiar with the role that the IMF in general, and Thomsen in particular, has played in putting Greece in the precarious situation in which it finds itself today, his piece can only be defined as brazen and cynical.
In order to unpack Thomsen’s argument, we need to go by parts:
Ultimately a program must add up: the combination of reforms plus debt relief must give us and the international community reasonable assurances that by the end of Greece’s next program, after almost a decade of dependence on European and IMF assistance, Greece will finally be able to stand on its own”
Indicators are in fashion in SDG era ... What about human rights?
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So much is offered to us through indicators-stuffed networks that we live in constant awe for not being able to absorb it all --and much more so, not having the time for reflection (so as to use the same for effective human rights accountability purposes). (Albino Gomez)
1. The sayings
‘What gets measured, gets done’.
‘What is counted is the only thing that counts’.
‘Today’s investments in country health information systems will lead to a better tomorrow for billions of people’.
‘Accurate and timely health data are the foundation to improving public health’. (J.Y. Kim, M. Moellmann)
are terribly misleading and flawed.
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'Unmask the Corrupt' Campaign
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Transparency International (TI) says it will impose social sanctions on the world’s nine most symbolic cases of grand corruption as voted by the public in its new campaign, Unmask the Corrupt.
“The nine cases were chosen based on popular voting by the public and also because of their widespread impact on human rights,” a TI spokesperson wrote to OCCRP via email. The campaign will focus attention on “the less visible side of grand corruption, such as laws allowing [for] anonymous companies and those who facilitate corrupt deals.”
According to a news release by TI, the campaign faced a vote-rigging problem during the online election process. The organization found fake registrations for votes cast by unknown parties in an attempt to manipulate the vote.
“Lying, cheating, stealing and fraud are the tools of the corrupt. We want to pursue sanctions against as many of these cases as possible. We cannot single out just one case, they all must be dealt with,” said Transparency International Chair José Ugaz in response to the attempted vote fraud.
The nine top cases selected for the campaign include:
Is the U.S. enabling tax evasion?
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The combination of increasing inequality and anemic economic growth has thrown a political spotlight on tax havens. Research has shown that governments are losing at least $200 billion in potential tax dollars every year because of them. And politicians throughout the world are feeling pressure to address this perceived injustice.
Consider, for example, Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton’s recent comments about companies “routing income through the Bahamas or the Cayman Islands or wherever” in an effort to minimize or avoid taxes. Clinton would like the United States to capture lost tax revenues from corporations booking profits in their offshore subsidiaries.
