Nobel-Winning Economist Meets Chavez

[1932]

Source: Yahoo Finance

Nobel Laureate Praises Chavez's Plan for South American Bank

CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) -- Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz said Wednesday that Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez's plan to create a regional lending bank will be beneficial for South America.

...

"It is a good thing to have competition in most markets, including the market for development lending," the Columbia University professor told reporters during an economic forum. He said the World Bank and International Monetary Fund tend to lay down many conditions that "hinder the development effectiveness."

"One of the advantages of having a Bank of the South is that it would reflect the perspectives of those in the South," said Stiglitz, who met with Chavez.

....

Stiglitz, who won the Nobel Prize for economics in 2001, also criticized U.S. trade agreements with Colombia and other countries. "It is undermining the Andean cooperation, and it is part of the American strategy of divide and conquer, a strategy trying to get as much of the benefits for American companies," and little for developing countries, he said.



Read more: http://biz.yahoo.com/ap/071011/venezuela_nobel_laureate.html?.v=2

---

For those of you who have been wondering when these two would meet...

[rjones2818]

1. It's good to see

some backing for a good idea. And gosh oh gee, it came from Hugo Chavez!

Go Hugo and the Bolivarian Revolution!

:applause:

[JNelson6563]

2. Take that IMF!

:toast:

[IndyOp]

3. Go, Hugo! (n/t)

[Judi Lynn]

4. Thank you for being the one who delivered this news, 1932! It's substantial.

From Bloomberg:

Stiglitz, in Venezuela, Pushes Public-Private Balance (Update1)

By Matthew Walter

Oct. 10 (Bloomberg) -- Joseph Stiglitz, a Nobel economics laureate visiting Venezuela, said developing nations must strike a balance between public and private control of the economy.

After meeting in the presidential palace with Venezuelan leader Hugo Chavez, Stiglitz praised the South American country's success at distributing its oil income among citizens. He urged the government to ensure its economic policies are leading to sustainable growth.

``What's fundamental is to have a balance in the role of the market and the government in the economy,'' Stiglitz said at a forum on emerging markets sponsored by a local bank. ``We have to realize it's not just about setting interest rates, but also about supporting growth.''

The Nobel Prize winner said Venezuela's economic growth in recent years has been ``impressive.'' Chavez, a critic of the U.S. government and a self-described foe of capitalism, has cited Stiglitz in speeches this year warning about the U.S.'s ``irresponsible'' economic policies.

More:
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601086&sid=aqop3ptj2ktg&refer=news

[Joanne98]

5. Yay! Hugo Chavez undoing the damage the shock doctrine did!

He deserves some praise for that. Outstanding job!

[Judi Lynn]

6. One of Venezuela's "opposition" papers, El Universal, published this story 2 days ago, but the

article was TINY, of course, dismissive, and no news of any of this reached the U.S. until today, 2 days later!

Caracas, Wednesday October 10 , 2007
President Chávez meets with Nobel Prize Laureate

Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez welcomed Professor Joseph Stiglitz on Wednesday in his office at Miraflores presidential palace.

Stiglitz, the winner of the Nobel Prize in Economics in 2001, is presently on visit in Venezuela to take part in a forum on "Strategies for emerging markets."

Chávez and Stiglitz exchanged ideas and views on the situation of economics, funding agencies, global markets and the behavior of global pointers, among others, state-run news agency ABN reported.

Minister of Finance Rodrigo Cabezas and chair of Banco Venezuela, Michell J. Goguikian attended the meeting.


http://english.eluniversal.com/2007/10/10/en_eco_art_president-chavez-mee_10A1123081.shtml

[leftist_not_liberal]

7. There is no such thing as the “Nobel Prize in Economics”

There never has been one. “Economics” was not one of the five prizes bequeathed by Alfred Nobel (Physics, Chemistry, Literature, Peace, and Medicine), there is no mention of “economics” anywhere in Alfred Nobel’s will nor in the enabling documents for the Prize when it was established in 1896, and not a nickel of Nobel’s money has ever been awarded for such a “prize”. So where did it come from?

In 1968, the Swedish Bank established the Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel, put up the money for the “award”, and talked the King of Sweden into giving away their “prize” at the same time as the Nobels. The President of the Bank, the very same Erik Lundberg discussed above, promised a selection process and committee “kinda, sorta, just like” that of the “real” prizes, immediately stacked the committee, and they were off to the races.

In 1971, the first prize was awarded to a “neo-liberal”, F.A. Hayek, and the new “prize” became bathed in controversy. The “prize” was awarded jointly to Gunnar Myrdal, Sweden’s most famous economist, and to Hayek. The ungrateful Myrdal immediately turned around and announced publicly that Hayek didn’t deserve the prize. Oddly, Hayek agreed. Nevertheless, none of this prevented the world press from trumpeting, Universities from gushing, and Foundations from funding, the flood of new “laureates”, blissfully, or perhaps intentionally, unaware of the underlying fraud.

The comedy went on unhindered until Peter Nobel, the great-grandnephew of Alfred Nobel, went public with a blistering criticism of the “memorial Prize” in the 1990s. “The Swedish Riksbank, like a cuckoo, has placed its egg in another very decent bird’s nest. What the Bank did was akin to trademark infringement – unacceptably robbing the real Nobel Prizes.” Nobel said, “Two thirds of these prizes in economics have gone to US economists, particularly of the Chicago School… These have nothing to do with Alfred Nobel’s goal of improving the human condition and our survival – indeed they are the exact opposite.”
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=1989989&mesg_id=1990010

[Gravel2008]

13. Yep, true that.

This guy is not a Nobel winner. He got a price founded in the memory of Alfred Nobel. Not the same thing.

[1932]

15. The same people who award the Physics & Chemistry Nobels award Economics

and Amartya Sen has also won the award since the late 90s, so it's not just going to neoliberals in the last decade since Nobel's family criticized the fact that Hayek won it.

And according to Wikipedia, to address the criticism by the Nobel family and others, "In February 1995, it was decided that the economics prize be essentially defined as a prize in social sciences, opening the economics prize to great contributions in fields like political science, psychology, and sociology. Also, the Economics Prize Committee was changed to require two non-economists to decide the prize each year, whereas previously the prize committee had consisted of five economists."

And if you want to discredit the Nobel because of who has won it, I'd be more worried about the fact that Kissinger has won a Nobel Peace Prize. However, I don't think that's any reason to think less of Martin Luther King, Jr's Nobel.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nobel_prize_economics

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royal_Swedish_Academy_of_Sciences

[applegrove]

8. I love Joseph Stiglitz.

[Judi Lynn]

9. Joseph Stiglitz, in Caracas, Praises Venezuela’s Economic Policies

Joseph Stiglitz, in Caracas, Praises Venezuela’s Economic Policies
October 11th 2007, by Kiraz Janicke – Venezuelanalysis.com



Caracas, October 11, 2007 (venezuelanalysis.com) - Nobel Prize winning economist and former vice-president of the World Bank, Joseph Stiglitz, praised Venezuela's economic growth and "positive policies in health and education" during a visit to Caracas on Wednesday.
(snip)

He added that while Venezuela's economic growth has largely been driven by high oil prices, unlike other oil producing countries, Venezuela has taken advantage of the boom in world oil prices to implement policies that benefit its citizens and promote economic development.

"Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez appears to have had success in bringing health and education to the people in the poor neighborhoods of Caracas, to those who previously saw few benefits of the countries oil wealth," he said.
(snip)

Stiglitz also criticized the "Washington Consensus" of implementing neo-liberal policies in Latin America, in particular the US free trade agreements with Colombia and other countries, saying they failed to bring benefits to the peoples of those countries.

More:
http://www.venezuelanalysis.com/news/2719

[Judi Lynn]

10. Nobel economist endorses Chávez regional bank plan

Nobel economist endorses Chávez regional bank plan

Rory Carroll in Caracas
Friday October 12, 2007
The Guardian

The Nobel prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz has endorsed an ambitious plan by Venezuela's president, Hugo Chávez, to create a pan-regional bank for Latin America. Professor Stiglitz, a Washington insider and former World Bank chief economist, said the Bank of the South would benefit the region and give a welcome shakeup to western lending institutions.

The bank, known in Spanish as Banco del Sur, is due to be founded next month in Venezuela's capital, Caracas, with start-up capital of up to $7bn from seven South American countries. It represents a victory for Mr Chávez, who conceived the project and drove it through numerous obstacles. Mr Chávez, a self-described socialist revolutionary, argued that the bank would wean the region off Washington-dominated prescriptions and help to deliver economic independence.
(snip)

Latin America has an unhappy history with western lending institutions. It racked up huge debts in the 1970s and 1980s and was forced into painful retrenchement to repay the loans in the 1990s, prompting complaints that the international financial system was a form of neo-colonialism which kept the region mired in poverty.

The leaders of Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Ecuador, Paraguay and Uruguay are expected to join Mr Chávez in Caracas at a November 3 summit to launch the Bank of the South.
(snip/)

http://www.guardian.co.uk/venezuela/story/0,,2189350,00.html

[bvar22]

11. K&R

Little wonder that the predatory Capitalists HATE Chavez.
Chavez is interfering with the plan to privatize the resources of SA and export the profits.

[Judi Lynn]

12. Found a photo of their meeting.

[leftist_not_liberal]

14. Hehe

Where is the huge gilded room and ginormous furniture?

[Judi Lynn]

16. Great contrast from Greg Palast, in the Argentina, driven into the ground by friends of right-wing

US economists, (later working its way OUT of that pit), and Venezuela, with Chavez:

Sell the Lexus and Burn the Olive Tree:
Globalization and Its Discontents
excerpted from the book
The Best Democracy Money Can Buy
by Greg Palast

~snip~
The Anti-Argentina

While the immediate cause of America's panicked need to move Chavez was a looming oil embargo, the heart of the Bush administration's grievance goes much deeper, to Venezuela's unique place as the "Anti' -Argentina"-to globalizers, the economic equivalent of the Anti-Christ. Argentina accepted the World Bank's four-step economic medicine with fatal glee: free trade, "flexible" labor laws, privatization and reduced government budgets and regulation. Chavez rejects it all outright, beginning with the phony "free" trade agenda under the terms of the WTO and NAFTA (which the United States would expand to South America under the aegis of the Free Trade Area of the Americas). Trade under these terms is anything but free to the peoples of the Southern Hemisphere-the "Opium Wars" coercive imbalance as identified by Joe Stiglitz. Instead, Chavez calls for a change in the North-South terms of trade, increasing the value of commodities exported to Europe and America. Chavez's longer-term policies of rebuilding OPEC and higher tariffs on oil must be seen in the context of smashing imbalanced trade relations epitomized by the WTO.

We saw how the World Bank's secret June 2001 "Country Assistance Strategy" progress report ordered Argentina to pull out of its economic depression by increasing "labor force flexibility." This required cutting works programs, smashing union rules and slicing real wages. Contrast that with Chavez's first act after defeating the coup: announcing a 20 percent increase in the minimum wage. Chavez's protection of the economy by increasing the purchasing power of the lower-paid workers, rather than cutting wages, is anathema to the globalizers.

Chavez moved to renationalize oil and rejected the sale of Venezuela's water systems, while Argentina sold off everything including the kitchen-sink tap. Economist Mark Weisbrot of the Center for Economic Policy Research calculated that the loss of income from state businesses accounts for 100 percent of Argentina's cavernous fiscal deficit. Argentina followed World Bank and WTO directions and sold off the banks and water companies owned by the state or Argentines to Citibank, Enron, Bank Santander and Vivendi of the United States, Spain and France. These swiftly vacuumed up Argentina's hard currency reserves, setting the stage for the national bankruptcy at the first hint of speculator-driven currency panics. Imagine if Argentina had not sold off its oil companies on the cheap, or impoverished Ecuador had not dropped out of OPEC-they would today be wealthy, not wanting.

Chavez took the path exactly opposite to the guidance given, and ultimately imposed, on Argentina by the World Bank and IMF. To pull out of the downturn threatened by a corporate embargo of investment in his nation, Chavez taxed the oil companies and spent the money-the "bricks and milk" solution, old-style Keynesianism. This is none too revolutionary despite his rhetoric. Chavez is no Fidel-in fact, he's not a socialist of any sort. With Marx discredited as the philosophy of the "losers" of the Cold War, "Chavismo" is as radical as it gets. Chavez is an old-style social democratic reformer: increased investment in housing and infrastructure, control over commodity export prices and land to the landless-an attack on the "landlordism" that Professor Stiglitz places at the heart of world poverty. Had Chavez won office in the time of Jack Kennedy, he would have fit in nicely with the old "Alliance for Progress" development model, JFK's kinder, gentler answer to Communism. Today, Chavez's redistributionist reformism offers an operating, credible alternative to the IMF's corporate-friendly free market nostrums.
(snip/...)

http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Palast_Greg/Sell_Lexus_TBDMCB.html