November 2010

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Interview: Cambridge Economist Ha-Joon Chang on the G20 Summit and Currency Wars

Picture: Democracy Now Democracy Now - Before leaving Seoul in South Korea, America's President Barack Obama defended last week’s $600 billion move by the Federal Reserve to buy up government bonds. Obama rejected critics’ claims the U.S. is waging a currency war by devaluing the dollar. But Obama failed to win international backing for his effort to pressure China to raise its currency value. The U.S. has accused China of artificially manipulating the price of the yuan for economic gain. To find out more about these...

Special Report: How Does the South African Media Report on the Economy?

Picture: SACSIS SACSIS - In Spring 2010, The South African Civil Society information Service (SACSIS) co-hosted a roundtable discussion with the Friedrich Ebert Stiftung (FES) South Africa Office. The meeting sought to get a better understanding of how the South African media reports on the economy. One of the key reasons behind hosting the event was that as a country and indeed as the world, we live in precarious times. Given the financial crisis of 2008 and the global recession that followed, 30 million...

Alide Dasnois: The South African Economy Is Not on the Right Growth Path

Video Alide Dasnois, Editor of the Cape Times, said that the South African economy was not on the right growth path when she spoke at a roundtable discussion co-hosted by SACSIS and the Friedrich Ebert Stiftung South Africa Office. She also highlighted the problem of ideology that does sometimes creep into reporting, despite editors' best efforts to clean it out. Dasnois talked about the importance of encouraging debate in newspapers. To this end, the Cape Times launched a series called...

Haroon Bhorat: Is Inequality Good or Bad? It Depends

Video "Is Inequality Good or Bad? It Depends," said Prof. Haroon Bhorat of the University of Cape Town's School of Economics, setting off a heated debate at a  roundtable discussion co-hosted by SACSIS and the Friedrich Ebert Stiftung South Africa Office. Every issue should not be a normative one, said Bhorat who urges people to follow the numbers to find the real answers. Our normative response to the question, "Is inequality wrong?" is "yes, of course it's...

Leonard Gentle: Surely the Starting Point is to Take a Moral Position on the Question of Inequality

Video SACSIS columnist, Leonard Gentle, challenged Dr. Haroon Bhorat's assertion that every issue does not have to be a normative one, at a roundtable discussion co-hosted by SACSIS and the Friedrich Ebert Stiftung South Africa Office. Surely the starting point is to take a position on inequality, he argued. The roundtable discussion, which examined the media's perspective of the South African economy, put the following questions to editors: Is the economy on the right growth path? What are the...

Saliem Fakir: The Media Lacks a Grand Narrative on the Political Economy

Video The media lacks a grand narrative on the political economy said SACSIS columnist, Saliem Fakir, at a roundtable discussion co-hosted by SACSIS and the Friedrich Ebert Stiftung South Africa Office. Fakir argues that the media does not even understand its own role in society. The roundtable discussion, which examined the media's perspective of the South African economy, put the following questions to editors: Is the economy on the right growth path? What are the prospects for making it more...