Wyclef for President?

In 2004, Wyclef Jean--the noted Haitian activist, singer and former member of the Fugees-- released a song titled "If I were president," which served as a campaign promise of sorts. Here's a snippet:

If I were president
Instead of spending billions on the war,
I can use that money so I could feed the poor.
Cause I know some so poor,when it rains that's when they shower.
Screaming "Fight the power". That’s when the war should devour.

Jean might just get the chance to discover what he could. Last week, he announced his intention to run for the Haitian presidency (against his own uncle and several others) The incumbent and much maligned Rene Preval cannot run again, thus Haiti will have a new president. Is Wyclef Jean the right man for the job?

The Haitian presidential line is filled with despots and dictators, members of the elite class and former Roman Catholic priests, illiterates, medical doctors, the powerful and the powerless. We haven't yet had a singer. Certainly, Jean's status as a well-known singer should not preclude him from serious contention; if Schwarzenegger with his dubious acting skills can govern the most powerful state in the Union (as a California resident, I might take issue with whether he's actually done a decent job, but that's a point for another day) why not a singer for Haiti? But does Wyclef Jean have what it takes to bring Haiti out of the darkest moment in its 216 year history?

On the one hand, Jean has strong support from the Haitian poor who see him as a local boy made good who never abandoned them. Although he moved to Brooklyn as a teenager, Jean takes great pride in the fact that he never renounced his Haitian citizenship in favor of the more advantageous American one (if he had, the Haitian presidency would be closed to him as Haiti does not recognize dual citizenship). When Jean faced sharp criticism over Yele Haiti, an organization started by Jean to help Haitians, he pulled together a press conference and brandished his passport as both a sword and shield. Surely one who retained his Haitian nationality years after leaving the island could never be guilty of the terrible acts his organization was accused of? Acts such as not paying taxes and spending donors' money on lavish travel and on Jean himself, for example. While I might argue that many who have brandished the Haitian passport before him have done those things and much worse, Jean's tactics seemed to endear him more to the Haitian community at home and abroad--my own family included. Organizational irregularities aside, Jean has strong ties to the Haitian community and has served as Haiti's Minister of Culture and Ambassador at large. Moreover, unlike much of Haiti's elite, Jean's wealth was not created on the backs of Haiti's poor. He doesn't have ties to Haiti's strongly entrenched and regressive ruling class. He is an outsider who presumably could not be so easily co-opted.

On the other hand, Jean has little experience to guide Haiti through this delicate period in its history. Billions of dollars has been pledged in the Haitian rebuilding effort, although much of it has not yet materialized. Will Jean know how to pressure the international community to provide the funds it has promised? Will he put the proper mechanisms in place to police corruption and ensure the funds are well spent? Does he have a viable plan to create a new economy for Haiti? Haiti's administrative capacity was lamentable before the earthquake, now it is simply non-existence. Can Wyclef Jean create a professional cadre of civil servants that can get the functions of the state working again for Haiti's ordinary citizens? Jean gave an interview to Rolling Stone recently where he addressed many of these concerns (see it here).

Even if Wyclef Jean win's the Haitian presidency, all is not done. Haiti's elite has a long history of brutally doing away with leaders they cannot control. But Jean has a song to sing for all of them:

If I was president,
I'd get elected on Friday, assassinated on Saturday,
buried on Sunday. then go back to work on Monday.

Can Free Trade End Islamic Terrorism?

Does U.S. trade policy encourage Islamic terrorism? Edward Gresser, Director of the Progressive Policy Institute, suggests so. Muslim countries are left out of globalization's reach, Gresser maintains. U.S. trade policy should be used to bring these marginalized countries into the global family so as to more aggressively stamp out Islamic terrorism:

Our tariff regime puts many nations in the Middle East, whose young people are susceptible to the sirens of Islamic fundamentalism, at an unintended disadvantage. This works against our efforts to stamp out jihadism.

Grasser points out that most of the 57 Muslim countries participating in the world economy are experiencing something of a "de-globalization": Since 1980, the population of the Middle East has jumped from 175 million to 300 million, while that of Muslim south and central Asia has gone from 225 million to 360 million. But the Muslim world's share of global trade has contracted by 75% in a generation. The result? "A quarter of a billion young people are fighting for opportunities no more extensive than those their parents had in the 1970s."

Grasser's figures are stark and depressing, but he maintains the problem is easily fixed. All we need to do is create more preference programs for the Middle East--programs along the lines of the African Growth and Opportunity Act, or the myriad free trade arrangements with Latin America and the Caribbean.

While I am an optimist about the pacification role free trade can play, I am not sure opening up the world market to more Pakistani bedsheets and sweaters is the answer to the terrorism problem. As many others have noted, poverty alone does not begin to explain terrorism. If it did, we would have far more terrorists than we do now considering the state of many African, Caribbean, Latin American and Asian economies. History has shown us countries left out of the globalization revolution tend to become islands of poverty, isolation and despotic rule . . but not necessarily exporters of global terror (consider North Korea or Myanmar, for example).

Poor Middle Eastern countries experience the same trade challenges faced by poor countries the world over: lack of foreign investment that would allow them to grow export markets, greater tariff barriers in products like textiles and footwear, and difficulties meeting quality standards imposed by American and European regulations. These challenges must be confronted (and I would suggest from a global rather than regional approach), but would that necessarily lead to a reduction in terrorism? It seems unlikely. (photo credit)

The Long Tail of International Trade?

I've recently completed reading Chris Anderson's The Long Tail: Why the Future of Business is Selling Less of More, a fascinating look at how the internet and the companies who know how to use it (think: Amazon, eBay and Google) are catering to niche consumer demand in a way that is revolutionizing not only commerce but culture. Anderson focuses almost exclusively on domestic concerns, but if his theory holds true, the implications for international trade are also enormous and merit further study.
We probably do not need yet another book explaining how the internet has changed everything. The Long Tail goes far beyond describing the digital age, however. Anderson focuses on an economic phenomenon, which he dubs "The Long Tail". The Long Tail gets its name from distribution charts which plot out consumer demand. Not surprisingly, what the graphs demonstrate is that there is high demand for popular (and generic) fare that caters to a wide audience. The latest Oprah book club pick will prove an instant success with many running out to get a copy. When plotted, demand for an "Oprah book" will be at the head of the distribution curve (see chart--photo credit) . It used to be that publishing houses, movie studios and record labels focused on predicting and producing the next big thing likely to appeal to the widest possible audience (the head of the distribution curve), and bricks and mortar stores focused on stocking and supplying only those hits. But companies like Amazon and Rhapsody, a digital music online store, have literally turned the distribution chart on its head. These companies have discovered there is a lucrative market for the fringe/niche or tail of the demand curve. Music from obscure garage bands and the latest self-published e-book also find their audience. In fact, when aggregated, demand for niche products outstrips demand for the generically popular "hits."
The implications for business are enormous: Companies that can capitalize on this phenomenon by lowering their production and warehousing costs (through digital technology, for example) can stock the most niche of niche products and still find a profitable audience for it. In the long term, our culture has just shifted from the age of top-40s hits to an infinite fragmentation of the market where mini-hits prove almost more profitable than mega-hits.
Although Anderson pays little attention to it, the Long Tail's implications for international trade are significant. To the extent that our tastes diverge from the generic, products created abroad easily find their audience in any locale (consider the way Japanese Anime has become a world-wide phenomenon). But it also raises the specter that those countries unable to effectively harness the internet--the least developed and lesser developed countries--will once again be left behind. The unanswered question of Anderson's fascinating book is how do we empower those countries to find their markets?

Food and Fuel

As the cost of oil rises, you might think one unintended (but welcome) consequence might be a shift to local production for things like fruits and vegetables. Consumers have now been conditioned to expect year-round access to foods like avocados, strawberries and Belgian endives no matter the growing season. But you might assume such luxury is being threatened by the global oil crisis. Surely the cost of transporting kiwis from Italy (now the world's largest supplier) or mangoes from Mexico or the Caribbean by air or by refrigerated shipping containers to markets as diverse as the United States, the European Union and more far-flung outposts in sub-Saharan Africa are rising to prohibitive levels? Increasing fuel prices might be just the boost proponents of the Italian-inspired Slow Food movement needs to propel it into the mainstream.

In fact, there is little evidence that food imports are being displaced by local production. The International Herald Tribune did an excellent piece a few months ago, entitled Putting Pollution on Grocery Bills, which explores how taxation policy impacts the food on our plates. But as I think about this oil crisis (well, it is only a "crisis" if you are on the wrong end of a gas pump), food, pollution and local production I wonder if it is possible to go back in time. Can we go back to a softer, gentler era where countries of the world grew their own crops to feed their own populations. What are some of the unintended consequences likely to arise from that? How about the many developing countries that are less efficient in food production--wouldn't their food prices only continue to rise? I am not sure what the answer is, today I am only full of questions.