The world economy has avoided “utter catastrophe” and industrialized countries could register growth this year, Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Krugman said on Monday.
“I will not be surprised to see world trade stabilize, world industrial production stabilize and start to grow two months from now,” Krugman told a seminar. “I would not be surprised to see flat to positive GDP growth in the United States, and maybe even in Europe, in the second half of the year.”
The Princeton professor and New York Times columnist has said he fears a decade-long slump like that experienced by Japan in the 1990s.
He has criticized the US administration’s bailout plan to persuade investors to help rid banks of up to US$1 trillion in toxic assets as amounting to subsidized purchases of bad assets.
Speaking in the United Arab Emirates, the world’s third-biggest oil exporter, Krugman said Japan’s solution of export-led growth would not work because the downturn has been global.
“In some sense we may be past the worst but there is a big difference between stabilizing and actually making up the lost ground,” he said. “We have averted utter catastrophe, but how do we get real recovery?”
“We can’t all export our way to recovery. There’s no other planet to trade with. So the road Japan took is not available to us all,” Krugman said.
Global recovery could come about through more investment by major corporations, the emergence of a major technological innovation to match the information technology revolution of the 1990s or government moves on climate change.
“Legislation that will establish a cap-and-trade system for greenhouse gases’ emissions is moving forward,” he said, referring to the US Congress.
“When the Europeans probably follow suit, and the Japanese, and negotiations begin with developing countries to work them into the system, that will provide enormous incentive for businesses to start investing and prepare for the new regime on emissions ... But that’s a hope, that’s not a certainty,” Krugman said.
NO-LIMITS PARTNERSHIP: ‘The bottom line’ is that if the US were to have a conflict with China or Russia it would likely open up a second front with the other, a US senator said Beijing and Moscow could cooperate in a conflict over Taiwan, the top US intelligence chief told the US Senate this week. “We see China and Russia, for the first time, exercising together in relation to Taiwan and recognizing that this is a place where China definitely wants Russia to be working with them, and we see no reason why they wouldn’t,” US Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines told a US Senate Committee on Armed Services hearing on Thursday. US Senator Mike Rounds asked Haines about such a potential scenario. He also asked US Defense Intelligence Agency Director Lieutenant General Jeffrey Kruse
INSPIRING: Taiwan has been a model in the Asia-Pacific region with its democratic transition, free and fair elections and open society, the vice president-elect said Taiwan can play a leadership role in the Asia-Pacific region, vice president-elect Hsiao Bi-khim (蕭美琴) told a forum in Taipei yesterday, highlighting the nation’s resilience in the face of geopolitical challenges. “Not only can Taiwan help, but Taiwan can lead ... not only can Taiwan play a leadership role, but Taiwan’s leadership is important to the world,” Hsiao told the annual forum hosted by the Center for Asia-Pacific Resilience and Innovation think tank. Hsiao thanked Taiwan’s international friends for their long-term support, citing the example of US President Joe Biden last month signing into law a bill to provide aid to Taiwan,
China’s intrusive and territorial claims in the Indo-Pacific region are “illegal, coercive, aggressive and deceptive,” new US Indo-Pacific Commander Admiral Samuel Paparo said on Friday, adding that he would continue working with allies and partners to keep the area free and open. Paparo made the remarks at a change-of-command ceremony at Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam in Hawaii, where he took over the command from Admiral John Aquilino. “Our world faces a complex problem set in the troubling actions of the People’s Republic of China [PRC] and its rapid buildup of forces. We must be ready to answer the PRC’s increasingly intrusive and
STATE OF THE NATION: The legislature should invite the president to deliver an address every year, the TPP said, adding that Lai should also have to answer legislators’ questions The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) yesterday proposed inviting president-elect William Lai (賴清德) to make a historic first state of the nation address at the legislature following his inauguration on May 20. Lai is expected to face many domestic and international challenges, and should clarify his intended policies with the public’s representatives, KMT caucus secretary-general Hung Meng-kai (洪孟楷) said when making the proposal at a meeting of the legislature’s Procedure Committee. The committee voted to add the item to the agenda for Friday, along with another similar proposal put forward by the Taiwan People’s Party (TPP). The invitation is in line with Article 15-2