Ecuador, Venezuela: Danger South of the Border

OCTOBER 26, 2010 – It is not difficult to see that the events of September 30, in the Latin American country of Ecuador, amounted to an attempted right-wing coup d’état.[1] Mass mobilizations in the streets and plazas of Quito (the capital) and other cities – in conjunction with action by sections of the armed forces which stayed loyal to the government – stopped the coup before the day was out. But those few hours highlighted, again, the deep dangers facing those fighting for progressive change in Latin America and the Caribbean.

Currency Wars and the Privilege of Empire

OCTOBER 23, 2010 – In uncertain times, the headline was soothing - "Secretary Geithner vows not to devalue dollar."[1] United States Secretary of the Treasury Timothy Geithner was saying, in other words, that if there were to be "currency wars" - competitive devaluations by major economies in attempts to gain trade advantage with their rivals - the United States would not be to blame. Who, then, would be the villain? China, of course. Earlier this year, Democratic Party congressman Tim Murphy sponsored a bill authorizing the United States to impose duties on Chinese imports, made too inexpensive (according to Murphy and most other commentators) by an artificially devalued Chinese currency. "It's time to deliver a strong message to Beijing on behalf of American manufacturing: Congress will do whatever it takes to protect American jobs."[2] But the Geithner balm and the Murphy hyperbole are simply matching sides of a deep hypocrisy. For three generations, the United States has leveraged its position as the centre of empire to print dollars with abandon, devalue at will, and "debase" its currency at a rate impossible for any other economy. But the privileges of empire are starting to unravel, and the U.S. economy is wallowing in the consequences of 60 years of irresponsible monetary policy. Emotional attacks on China are simply a cover for problems deeply rooted in the U.S. itself. One part of that is a long history of currency wars, where the U.S. dollar has been used as a weapon in a manner without parallel in the modern world economy. That story has four aspects - Bretton Woods; the Nixon Shock of 1971; Petrodollars; and Quantitative Easing. This article will look at each in turn.