Peter Gallagher

J Howard launches his cam­paign lay­ing on with a trowel his “warning”:http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5744,10606700%255E12377,00.html that a Labor vic­tory will bring higher inter­est rates and that only the con­ser­v­a­tives can be ‘trusted’ to keep them low. Is this attempt to take credit for the one eco­nomic vari­able—inter­est rates—that he and his Min­is­ters do not con­trol mis­lead­ing? Prob­a­bly not …

Since writ­ing a “book for WTO”:http://www.aspenpublishers.com/Product.asp?catalog_name=Aspen&product_id=9041198857 on their Dis­putes Set­tle­ment sys­tem a cou­ple of years ago I have found that even expe­ri­enced ana­lysts some­times have trou­ble fig­ur­ing out the key ele­ments of dis­putes deci­sions. So I’m exper­i­ment­ing with the use of “argu­ment maps”:http://www.austhink.org/critical/pages/argument_mapping.html as means of teas­ing out the rec­om­men­da­tions of the Panel and the …

Hard on the heels of sto­ries about a grow­ing “food trade deficit”:http://www.inquit.com/article/323/chinas-food-imports-in-perspective comes this (from offi­cial sources) bq. China’s sum­mer grain and early rice out­put this year have posted a first-ever increase after declin­ing for the past sev­eral con­sec­u­tive years, said Vice Pre­mier Hui Liangyu Thurs­day. (“China Daily”:http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/english/doc/2004–08/26/content_369210.htm) |China’s Grain Pro­duc­tion||||| | |1991|1995|2001|2002| |Pro­duc­tion|   |Mil­lion tons|   |   | | …

Stephen Kirch­ner makes a strong case for learn­ing to stop wor­ry­ing and love global liq­uid­ity (nice job if you can get it…) bq. The notion that domes­tic demand should be con­strained by domes­tic pro­duc­tion is increas­ingly anachro­nis­tic in a glob­alised world. While many peo­ple grasp the welfare-enhancing nature of trade in goods and ser­vices, it …

Two for­mer mem­bers of VP Cheney’s staff, writ­ing in the Finan­cial Times look pretty hard for evi­dence of his trade pol­icy in the Kerry cam­paign. They con­clude that there’s rea­son to worry. bq. Mr Kerry has said US allies in Europe and else­where will wel­come his elec­tion. It might be a good time forthose allies …

There’s a grow­ing vol­ume of demand for a ratio­nal­i­sa­tion of the bilat­eral trade strate­gies being pur­sued by gov­ern­ments all around the Pacific basin. I’ve “argued”:http://www.petergallagher.com.au/article/310/whats-the-point that Aus­tralia has both the tech­nol­ogy and con­nec­tions to begin to build a bet­ter approach, per­haps tak­ing advan­tage of the exist­ing APEC frameworks—although not the failed APEC agenda of uni­lat­eral …

The only ‘cri­sis’ in China’s higher grains import num­bers, widely reported today, is in the minds of the media. The growth in imports is small and no cause for con­cern from a food secu­rity per­spec­tive; it’s part of a long-term trend toward a higher vol­ume of food imports that will be needed as Chin­abecomes a …