Comments on the News: Oct 30, 2020- WTO Director-General Selection

 Two links pretty much cover this topic

1. Politico: Discord over next global trade chief threatens to blow up WTO

2. Reuters: EU arms itself against U.S. and others in trade disputes

Comments on the News: Oct 28, 2020 - Effects of Education Levels

 This starts with a chart about the change in proportion of (white) people with a college education in the US since the '70s.

My comments then consider BLS data on the effect of educational attainment levels on unemployment and income.

Then I talk about Mansfield and Mutz's research on the support for free trade.

I close with some discussion of the Dunning-Kruger effect.

So, a lot going on here.

Comments on the News: Oct 27, 2020 - US defense ties to India and Japan

 Two items in the news about the US strengthening defense ties with India and Japan. 

1. India signs defensive agreement with US following Himalayan standoff with China
   
   
2. Japan and China both claim these islands as their own. Now the US is showing Tokyo how it can help defend them

CNN also has a good background report on the conflict between India and Chin over Kashmir 

Here are my comments:

Comments on the News: Oct 26, 2020 - Chile's Constitution

Chile just had a referendum on its constitution. CNN reports that they have voted to rewrute it with a convention of elected delegates. An early column on CNN asks the question "Can a new constitution solve Chile's old problems?" For background on the protests that led to the refendum, go to CNN's Chile Protest page.

Here are my comments:

Comments on the News: Oct 23, 2020- China's Saber Rattling

China has been making some interesting statements about their security on the anniversary of their involvment in the Korea War. This CNN article about it has some even mire interesting links in it. Those lonks iniclude the following:

Lowy Institute Asia Power Index: Key Findings 2020

CNN report: Australia to join India, US, Japan in large naval exercises

The PLA statement on the war (If your browser will translate it)

However, I did not discuss in the video the most interesting thing I found. i.e., testimony (actually more of a conference paper) by Dennis Blasko about the PLA's internal criticism of its readiness. I think this is a must read for anyone interested in China's military.

Here are my video comments:

Comments on the News: Oct 22, 2020 - Protests in Nigeria

 Protests in Nigeria against police corruption turned deadly on Tuesday. CNN has an article explaining the background of the protests and Al Jazeera has this article about the violence. As always, the Freedom House country report on Nigeria is a useful reference.

I also mention Barry Weingast's Fundamental Political Dilemma of the State, which he discusses here and here

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Comments on the News: Oct 21,2020 - The Uighurs in Xinjiang

 

There are lots of articles on the Uighurs but many are behind paywalls. This article by Vox should be accessible. There is also this AP article from June.

Here is a report with secret video of the purported labor program. I have to admit that when recording my own video I forgot that this video was posted by the NYT (or maybe mistook another video for it). That is why I said I could not vouch for the source, which is absurd to say about the Times  (unless you are a conspiracy theorist).

Here are my comments

Comments on the News: Oct 20, 2020 - China vs Cuba

 Today's comments started a week or so ago with an Economist article referring to Cuba as "Queueba."  NBC picked up the story ()mainly from Reuters) about Cuba plans to scrap their two currency system.

Yesterday, CNN Business ran a story with the headline "China's economy is the envy of the world"

This put me in mind of an NPR story from 2012 about the farmers of Xiaogang.  This last story is a great one that I think everyone should read/hear.

Here are my comments:

Comments on the News: Oct 19,2020- Bolivia's Election

 

Al Jazeera had an article this Saturday on Bolivia's election  that caught my eye. Though the election is now over and it looks like the MAS candidate won, that article on Saturday had some good background.

Comments on the News: Oct. 16, 2020 - Cash Payments to Homeless

Today's comments focus on a study done in Vancouver of the effect of large lump sum payments to homeless people. While the premise and results of the study are interesting on their own merits, I want to draw your attention to the methodology used by the researchers, i.e., a randomized trial.

This approach is very much in line with what the folks at the J-PAL (Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab) do. This link will take you to a selection of their randomized evaluations. 

It is worth noting that two of the lab's founders, Esther Duflo and Abhijit Banerjee, won the 2019 Nobel Prize in Economics (along with Michael Kremer) for their work in studying poverty. I highly recommend Banerjee and Duflo's book Poor Economics: A Radical Rethinking of the Way to Fight Global Poverty to my IR students. 

If you are interested in a shorter read, you can read their JEP paper "The Economic Lives of the Poor." 

Here is my video:

BTW- I commented on one of the topics in Poor Economics in this back in 2014

Comments on the News: Oct 15, 2020 - Kyrgyzstan

 Today I take a brief look at recent political unrest in Kyrgyzstan. Britannica offers a good map of  Kyrgyzstan. You can see news articles on the topic at Al-Jazeera and Reuters.  

Here are my comments:

BTW Here is a link to the video that one of my students sent me (Thanks to him for suggesting the topic). I can't vouch for the content, but the producer has much better video skills that I do.

Comments on the News: Oct 14, 2020

 I started posting morning comments on YouTube about international news. The idea is to look past the election and US domestic politics news to things going on in the wider world. This is partly about keeping an international perspective and partly about keeping my sanity in the run up to the election.

Today, I commented on a CNN article about protests in Thailand. I also referenced Freedom House's Freedom in the World report on Thailand.  

Here is the video: