Tim Talks Politics - The Weekly Brief, August 30, 2019
The Weekly Brief - August 30, 2019
Fires in the Amazon
Late last week, I started to see news stories pop up about fires in the Amazon basin. The news cycle on this story seemed to whip into its own firestorm as critics ranging from environmentalists to French President Emmanuel Macron castigated Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro for not doing more to prevent the fires, which are mostly due to agriculture and logging (much of it illegal). The politics got personal as Bolsonaro refused to accept any international aid unless Macron apologized for his combative remarks.
Given the Bolsonaro-Macron spat, the story of a burning rainforest. while indeed tragic, seems to have more of a political spin on it as no American news outlets that I know of covered the burning African rainforests, which are apparently greater than the Amazon.
Amidst the calamitous cries of a climate crisis due the fires, one scientist notes that the atmospheric impact of the fires is minimal, even if the environmental degradation is not.
Word of the week: “Prorogue”
New British PM Boris Johnson took the not entirely unprecedented step of asking the Queen to suspend Parliament for a month between the middle of September and October. The move quickly drew criticism for its alleged antidemocratic effort to ram through a Brexit deal.
The move is longer than past Parliamentary suspensions and is apparently timed to give the PM a freer hand to negotiate a Brexit deal with EU officials by mid October. If a deal cannot be reached, however, it is likely a “hard” Brexit will happen on October 31.
G7
The G7 conference ended early this week with the French-hosted meeting of advanced economies proving to be something of a mixed bag for Emanuel Macron’s attempts to keep France at the center of global diplomacy.
Efforts to develop a joint statement on climate change, coupled with the aforementioned spat with Brazil’s President, came to naught, but efforts to get Iran and America back to the table may have borne some fruit.
President Trump expressed his willingness to meet with the Iranians, a Macron-brokered overture that was quickly rebuffed, then softened by Iran who nonetheless reminded the G7 that the future of JCPOA hung in the balance.
The big “loser” if there was one at the G7 was China, which, much to Beijing’s chagrin, was publicly cautioned against direct action against the ongoing Hong Kong protesters.
Corporations and social good
The G7 wasn’t the only body of bigwigs meeting to discuss the shape of the world. In the US, the Business Roundtable, a meeting of 181 CEOs made headlines with the declaration that corporations must embrace the wellbeing of stakeholders, not shareholders, in their business decisions.
It’s a significant change, but one the Council on Foreign Relations believes was a long time coming, and in need of regulatory support to be sustained. While the move was hailed by many, some CEOs expressed concern on the lack of discussion/direction on what to do when stakeholder and shareholder interests clash, which will inevitably happen.
Axios sees what will perhaps be a more significant outcome of this move towards apparently greater social consciousness: CEOs will become a new class of politicians. The Hoover Institution offers another interesting thought: Will smartphone using people in Africa fit into this model?
Trade war update
Last week, China punched back in the escalating trade war by slapping $75 billion in tariffs on US goods, which almost immediately triggered a market downturn, or at least contributed to it. The move may have been the face saving countermove China was looking for, as President Trump announced a couple days later that Beijing was ready to restart talks.
Questions now begin to mount regarding just how long the Chinese and American economies can take this bruising battle. An AEI study seeks to contextualize the Chinese economy, pointing out some of its internal struggles, while another AEI report notes that in a state controlled business environment, China’s economic decision-making is tightly tied to political and security concerns.
In terms of American costs being incurred in the trade war, the Center for American Progress has developed a cool little calculator that shows you how the trade war could be impacting your state and Congressional district.
Afghanistan: Peace on the horizon?
Details slowly began to emerge of a potential peace deal with the Taliban in efforts to draw down Afghanistan: An offer we can’t refuse?
While the Pentagon maintains that a full withdrawal is not on the table, it seems that a substantial troop reduction is, which the President appears to have confirmed. Is the deal a good one? Wrong question, says Carnegie Endowment, it’s likely the best we can get.
The American Enterprise Institute got General Petraeus on the phone for a breakdown on America’s evolving Afghanistan policy.
Updates
Several stories that I’ve covered in past issues of the Weekly Brief had developments over the last week that were not front and center in the news, but here they are in bullet form:
The College Board, after receiving “feedback” from parents and educators (read “outrage”) decided not to add “adversity scores” to future SATs.
A US-sponsored security buffer along the Turkey-Syria border got a helpful boost from Russian President Vladimir Putin after Turkey President Reccip Erdogan visited Moscow.
An American oil company, Noble Energy, hit black gold off the Equatorial Guinea coast, promising a major economic boost for the small, Spanish-speaking African country.
In a landmark ruling that could have massive repercussions, hopefully positive, for America’s opioid crisis, an Oklahoma court ruled against Johnson & Johnson, assigning the company a degree of responsibility for the crisis.
In the wake of a spate of mass shootings, a bipartisan bill is getting traction in Congress to address domestic terrorism by giving federal law enforcement access to similar tools and procedures that are used to battle international terrorism.
Counter-narratives
A big part of the Weekly Brief’s ethos is critical analysis of media narratives (of left and right origins), which drives me to seek out a diversity of viewpoints for all the topics discussed in the Brief. However, sometimes a narrative is just so deeply embedded in the cultural zeitgeist as to be, well, bipartisan. Yet, even these narratives require some critical analysis and a few of those counter-narratives popped up this week.
On the unstoppable, ever accelerating juggernaut of transformative AI in our economics and society, Axios suggest we hold the phone. Apparently the AI field itself is divided on just what the future of AI will be.
We’ve all heard about income and/or wealth inequality and how we live in a time where the rich just keep getting richer. Usually, this narrative has an implied “they’re not playing by the rules” vibe to it (and I’ve heard this from Republicans and Democrats alike). So who do you call in when someone isn’t playing by the rules? The government, of course! Except, the government may be the one driving the problem (NOTE: the linked article is from a conservative source picking on Democrats, but the studies the article cites are from mostly nonpartisan sources).
Are you carrying your own shopping bags to market in any of the 400 American states and municipalities that have banned single use plastic bags? Effective green policy at the local level? Not so much. Apparently,you need to tax the use of single-use bags to get the environment dividend.
Climate change is here, it’s happening and will likely devastate large swaths of the planet, forever altering how we live and work. Climate change is indeed a reality, but not nearly that bleak, argues Bjorn Lomborg at the Copenhagen Consensus Center.