by Jerry Harris
. S. Korean president hits US
President Roh Moo-hyun hit out at the US in strong language saying that S. Korea was “clinging to the crotch of the US’s pants and hiding behind the US’s ass.†Polling extremely low perhaps Roh is returning to his leftist roots that got him elected in the first place.
. China keeps growing
China’s growth is replacing the US as the engine of the world economy. China is the world’s largest consumer of steel, cement, copper, aluminum and zinc and the second largest oil consumer. Says Robin Bhar of UBS, “The fact that growth in the developing world will offset the decline in demand from the US represents a turning point for commodity markets, which have been historically tied to the expansion and contraction in the US economy.â€
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by Jerry Harris, SolidarityEconomy.net
. Transnational capitalists hedge US investments
In November US investors bought a record number of foreign assets ($39.1B) amid fears of the weakening dollar. Wall Street Banks are also profiting from a boom in global business with international revenues growing three times as fast as their US investments. The world’s biggest bank, Citigroup, said its international revenues jumped 34 percent compared to an increase of about 10 percent in the US. For the first time operations in Europe and Asia earned (more...)
by Graham Bowley, Financial Times
Andy Hines is stuck in traffic. Predictable enough for Houston at rush hour, but frustrating none the less. The 44-year-old gesticulates with a wiry, tattooed arm at the lines of red tail- lights forecasting a slow drive ahead, but focuses most of his ire on something less immediately tangible: the future. Or rather, the role of futurology - his chosen profession - in the corporate world.
"I should have just gotten an MBA," Hines says, explaining that futurists are seldom given credit for their ideas within the big organisations where 
by Carol Pagaduan-Araullo, Philippines
As expected, de facto President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo lost no time in trying to parlay her claimed “success†at the 12th ASEAN Summit and the East Asian Summit into glowing predictions about the economy not just in the medium-term but within the year 2007.
Understandably, Mrs. Arroyo is basking in the afterglow of two regional summits that turned out to be one grand production (incidentally, with a price tag of two billion pesos) in terms of the sprucing-up of the public infrastructure of Cebu; the elaborate table-settings and sumptuous food served at the official receptions; the pleasing song-and-dance numbers in 
by Jerry Harris
.Starbucks in China’s Forbidden City
Starbucks Forbidden City location has been called an “affront to Chinese culture†in a protest by netizens to get the coffee shop relocated. China has 123 million people on-line where the campaign has found a home on blogs. Writes Rui Chenggang, “This is not globalization but abuse of Chinese culture.â€
. Tesco to use carbon labels
Tesco is a UK corporation and the world’s fifth largest retail chain. It recently announced it will create an index 
Max Ogden, SolidarityEconomy.net
January 16, 2007, Australia
With acknowledgements for helpful comments – Dave Davies, Dave Feickert, and Greg Pettiona
The Australian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU) has led a very fine campaign against the reactionary industrial relations legislation and is winning the public debate. However in the long term the union movement needs to add another important dimension to its strategy, if it is not only to regain and increase membership and the critical role that a 
by Jerry Harris, SolidarityEconomy.net
. Brazilian capital moves abroad
For the first time Brazilian companies invested more abroad than the amount of direct investments coming into Brazil. In 2006 Brazilian companies had foreign investments of $26B compared to inward investments of $18B. CVRD lead the way with a $17.6B acquisition of Canadian miner Inco. CVRD is the world’s biggest exporter of iron ore and the second biggest mining group in the world. They have operations in 11 countries with their    biggest market being China. These figures point to the growth of the transnational capitalist class in the third world and trade relations growing outside the US/European axis. 
by Jerry Harris
.Saudi Arabia blackmails the UK
Just how far has the British empire fallen? The great colonizers are now cowered by threats from Saudi Arabia fearing the loss of jobs and defense contracts. It appears that the UK defense giant BAE set-up a multi-million dollar slush fund for Saudi princes in order to obtain multi-billion dollar defense contracts. When the Serious Fraud Office threatened an investigation the Saudis hit back threatening to cancel a $79 billion deal for Typhoon fighter jets and move work to France. Prime Minister Tony Blair stepped in and told Lord Goldsmith, the attorney-general, to drop the case. As Blair stated: “Had we allowed things to go forward, we would have done immense damage to the true interests of this country, leaving aside the fact that we would have lost thousands of highly skilled jobs and very, very important business for British industry.†
by Jerry Harris
. Transnational capitalists own half the world
The richest two percent of the world’s adults own 50 percent of the world’s assets. If the world’s wealth was evenly distributed each person would have $20,500 of assets. Instead the poorest half of the population holds only one percent of wealth. This year the 170,000 employees of the big five US investment banks (Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, Merrill Lynch, Lehman Brothers and Bear Stearns) pocketed $36 billion in bonuses. Their overall compensation of about $60 billion was equivalent to Vietnam’s gross domestic product. Marc Faber, author of “Gloom Doom & Boom†notes; “Something is a bit bizarre in the world. The liquidity of the global middle class is not there but the liquidity of Goldman Sachs partners is soaring.†
. Teachers buy ports
The Ontario Teacher’s Pension Fund bought four container terminals for $2.4B from Hong Kong’s Orient Overseas International. Two ports are in New York/New Jersey and the other two in Vancouver. The Pension fund specializes in infrastructure assets.
. China: the rich get richer the poor get poorer
The real income of China’s poorest ten percent fell by 2.4 percent in the last two years. Incomes increased for the other 90 percent, but China, which had relatively even income distribution in 1980 is now less equal 
by Jerry Harris
. Bill Gates wants Bolivia on-line
Gates wrote Bolivia’s socialist president, Evo Morales, offering Microsoft’s help “in the goal of providing all of Bolivia’s people access†to the internet. Gates added, “I am excited to know that our campaign is contributing to your government’s plan†to promote education and economic improvements. Microsoft has just launched a new Word program in Quechua, one of the major languages spoken in Bolivia.
(Financial Times, 11/21/06, Gates seeks common ground with Morales)
. GM crops on over one billion acres
Genetically modified crops are growing at 10 percent a year. Over the past ten years GM crops have been 
by Jerry Harris, SolidarityEconomy.net
. Media competition from al-Jazeera
Al-Jazeera will start broadcasting in English having concluded a string of 87 cable and satellite distribution deals. Al Jazeera has been actively recruiting Arab journalists laid-off by the BBC and says its aim is to provide global news from a developing world perspective without “western-centric†baggage. Beaming out of Qatar, the world’s richest nation in per capita terms.
. Foreign Banks in China
There have been a lot of foreign banks eager to enter China. But even with 70 foreign banks from 20 countries setting up 238 operating branches they still account for only 0.55 percent of China’s local-currency loans.
(FT, 11/16/06, p. 1. “China paves way for foreign banks to offer more services.†Mure Dickie and Sundeep Tucker. 
Gary Braasch reports from the latest U.N. climate-change convention in Nairobi, Kenya. Braasch has been photographing and reporting on climate change since 1999. His forthcoming book, Earth Under Fire: How Global Warming Is Changing the World, will be published by the University of California Press next year.
The seasonal rains have returned to southern Kenya, greening the countryside once again. But in the north and east, near the Somalian border, refugee camps set up for those who lost everything in a deep drought earlier this year are suddenly being flooded out by this season's unusually severe rains. Many see this rapid switch from drought to deluge as global warming in action -- more searing droughts and stronger rainstorms in an intensifying cycle that affects the world's very poorest.
Not far away, in the Kenyan capital of Nairobi, officials and observers from around the world gathered for this year's United Nations summit on climate change. Here, the severity and urgency of global warming should have seemed clearer to delegates than it did at last year's frigid Montreal summit.
No continent is as vulnerable to climate disruption as Africa, and none harbors more poverty. That's why it's been a big deal to African nations that the 12th Conference of the Parties to the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change was held for the first time in sub-Saharan Africa. Many African nations sent large delegations. African luminaries like Nobel Prize winner Wangari Maathai and U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan shed light on the plight of Africans in the face of global climate change. Environmental groups presented papers on threats to the continent. 
by Jerry Harris, SolidarityEconomy.net
Hossein-zadeh has written an essential book on US imperialism and the influence of the military/industrial complex. His effort produces two unique insights on the economic importance of military funding and divisions within the US ruling class over the strategic direction of imperialism.
On political economy Hossein-zadeh argues against the common view that the war in Iraq is mainly about oil. Instead his focus is on the economic base of the military/industrial complex itself and the need for profits via government funding. The author points to the continual pressure of the market and the need for greater accumulation as the basis for the development of militarism in US society. As he states; “The combination of private ownership and the market-driven character of the United States’ arms industries has drastically modified the conventional relationship between war and the means of warfare: it is now often the supply or profit imperatives of weapons production that drive the demand for arms, hence the need for war.†(p. 200) 
. What They Say
Gary Samore, director of studies at the influential Council on Foreign Relations says; “You could have Superman become the US ambassador to Baghdad now and he couldn’t fix the problems or put the pieces together again.†George W. Bush is looking a lot like Humpty Dumpty these days.
Going back into the files I came across an editorial by William Jones, former US ambassador to Haiti under Carter. Jones’ hatred and fear of Aristide and the attempt to help the poor just oozes from his writing. Says Jones, “The misguided threats of the present administration to redistribute wealth must stop. A legal code favoring capital investment should be drawn up as soon as possible by trained professionals, not by politicians… The old Marxist notions of class warfare and hostility to business – still popular in Haiti – have no place in the modern world. Foreign investment must be encouraged…Haitian political and economic leaders must accept it is in 