Alex Greenbaum

Media accounts of the savage, two-year war between Israel and the Palestinians inevitably focus on the enormous human costs exacted by the ongoing strife but there is another facet of the struggle that may do even more lasting damage: its destructive effect on the two societies' economies. The devastation to the Palestinian economy has been well documented, including a recent United Nations report. Yet the intifada's toll on Israel's economy has gone largely unnoticed. Israel has no natural resources; whatever… more

In the months leading up to the votes on Trade Promotion Authority (TPA), President Bush had to buy off powerful domestic constituencies with tariffs on steel and, more recently, increased subsidies for agriculture. Now that he has TPA, the President has wisely reversed course and proposed a far-reaching plan to use the Doha round of trade talks to eliminate the majority of world-government support for agricultural products by 2010. The agricultural proposal, in conjunction with TPA, will hopefully enable the… more

A new model of consumer-led growth is beginning to emerge in the tiger economies -- in South Korea and Thailand, in particular.

This model owes a lot to the U.S. model. But in this instance, it is not the model that the U.S. Treasury and International Monetary Fund, both Washington-based institutions, have been peddling for more than a decade.

The real American model

Rather, it is the American post-war success story of consumer and government-deficit led growth that has… more

Thought at one time to be the likely centrepiece of its foreign policy, the Bush administration's relations with Latin America are in disarray.

Argentina, once Washington's neo-liberal darling, is in the midst of an economic and social meltdown. In Venezuela, the White House is backtracking after having been caught giving its blessing to an aborted coup attempt. US military involvement in Colombia is growing. And Brazil, one of the few bright spots in Latin America, is hammering the US… more