BEE Partner, South Africa Economy Watch

Scenario No. 2

During 2004, the likelihood of a pan-Asian integrated economic and free trade arrangement came a step closer to fruition. At the Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN) summit in Laos, a number of important linkages took place, which will have far- reaching ramifications for the intensification of global competition between nations, and globalisation in general.’ China signed a Free Trade Agreement (FTA) with ASEAN (which consists of Brunei Darussalam, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam) at the summit. This will soon be followed by Japan, India and Korea. Japan, Korea and China are also considering an FTA amongst themselves, whilst India is contemplating an FTA with China. What appears to be emerging is an FTA between Japan, ASEAN, China, India and Korea, or what is being touted as JACIK. Analysts are predicting the expansion of ASEAN into a broader Asian economic community. Read the rest of this entry »

In Australia, despite the paradigm shift in macroeconomics from Keynesian demand management to the monetarist supply-side approach, empirical evidence still supported the use of expansionary fiscal and monetary policy and public sector job creation (for example, Mitchell, 1987a, 1987b, 1994, 1996; Mitchell et al., 1995). The solutions proposed, however, relied heavily on income policy guidelines and were not, in retrospect, comprehensive enough. Further, the stimulus that would be forthcoming was not conceived to be adequately focused to support environmental sustainability, a goal usually ignored in orthodox macroeconomics. In this context, the Job Guarantee reflects work that was conceived when this author was a fourth-year student at the University of Melbourne in the late 1970s. Read the rest of this entry »