Equality, Nature and Culture

I find this article about a study on women's attitudes to housework carried out for Discovery Home and Health site fascinating. Not for any stupid sexist reasons, but because it rings true and has implications:

The Independent daily reported that "even in an age when women are making economic strides and excelling in the workplace, the one thing that gives the majority a sense of empowerment is a good go around the house with the vacuum cleaner -- followed by some cleaning and dusting."

The online study, commissioned by the Discovery Home and Health website, found the average British woman between 18 and 80 spent nine years, two months and 25 days of her waking life cleaning and tidying.

But 59 percent of the women interviewed would have it no other way and said "cleaning makes them feel in control of their lives", while 60 percent said they found it "mentally therapeutic".

Here's the link to the Independent article. The most noteworthy thing is perhaps the point made that whereas "20 years ago housework was seen by many as a sign of female subjugation" nowadays women seem to be freely choosing this activity, moreso, they may even feel that they *need* it.

This takes me directly to one of my more recent theses:

"At the core of the fertility and dual-labour-market transition lies a gender one. Hunter gatherer societies already had a dual labour market, although since this was gender-driven there was only one single fertility regime. Essentially there was a division between 'gathering' (which was principally female or young child oriented) and 'hunting', which needed training (or energy/resource investment) and was male. The transition from this earlier homeostatic regime to the modern fertility longevity trade-off one has been marked by a steady evolution towards gender equality. Modern labour markets are essentially based on formal equality of the sexes in the presence of biological asymmetry. In the long run this is not sustainable and will surely have consequences which are going to be important, but which are, at this stage, difficult to foresee"

Now this gender asymmetry may find *some* alleviation in more equality inside the home (although this will not change the reproductive biology part) but if years of adaptive evolution (whether social or cultural) have lead women so need to undertake certain roles, then remedy may be hard to find. As I say, there will be consequences, even if at this stage what these consequences will be is hard to foresee.

The IMF and Dollar Depreciation

I have a post on Demography Matters which while ostensibly being about Iceland is in fact unavoidably about the global imbalances situation and how such imbalances may or may not 'correct' in the light of our current demographic realities. The heart of this issue is really whether there is any straightforward and 'classic' way to address the US current account deficit. Brad Setser and Nouriel Roubini have of course been in the forefront of urging the 'dollar correction' remedy. I see from the FT this morning that the IMF has now added its voice to the chorus:

"The International Monetary Fund on Wednesday stepped up the pressure for far-reaching shifts in exchange rates, declaring that the dollar will have to depreciate “significantly” over the medium term if global economic imbalances are to be resolved in an orderly fashion."

I guess this would be the point: "if global economic imbalances are to be resolved in an orderly fashion".

I seriously question whether any such shifts are possible, especially in the medium term where Geramny Italy and Japan's problems can only increase not decrease.

The IMF obviously mention the Asian currencies, but as the FT notes "it shied away from giving any specific figures as to the extent of appreciation required".

My personal feeling is that they are wise to refrain from so doing. Clearly *some* Asian currencies can steadily appreciate, but at a rate which will not resolve the imbalances issue appreciably, others (like the Tigers) are themselves rapid agers, and will have their own issues.

What, I think, we need to keep very clearly in mind here is not the relative size of the various populations, but the relative values of the GDPs (both per capita and in absolute terms).

I think a lot of people are now way out of their depth in all of this. A key component of the current IMF view would seem to be this:

"The IMF sharply increased its estimates for growth in Japan, to 2.8 per cent this year and 2.1 per cent next, declaring that the expansion there is now “well-established”."

Of course, if the IMF are right that the Japanese expansion is now 'well established' then the picture begins to change, but I think there are plenty of grounds for serious doubt that it is, and if it isn't, then it'll be another kind of correction that we are about to see.

I think the core of what I am saying is that many of these problems are fairly complex and hard to handle. Simplistic solutions, and platitudes (which is what I think the IMF are going in for) just don't contribute anything useful.

There is always a trade-off.

If what you really think is the most important thing in the short to mid term is correcting the US CA deficit, then Bernanke simply needs to continue doing what he is already doing and keep raising rates. In the short term this will push the dollar even higher, but as it grinds down growth in the US it will begin the correction in the CA deficit. The issue is whether or not you think the price is worth paying.

Ditto the Federal Deficit, reducing this may or may not help the CA deficit, but it would reduce growth in the US, which would indirectly help, but only at the cost of making those who are already worried about a weak labour market even more worried.

Bottom line, the IMF WEO was on a much better level when Rogoff was Chief Economist, and the BIS publications seem to be a much better read these days, as they seem to be getting much nearer the core of what globalisation really means.

Species Extinction

A report published this week in the journal Conservation Biology details the possible species extinction consequences of continued global warming. The report - by Forestry specialist Jay Malcolm of the University of Toronto and an international team of conservation professionals - looked at the changes to vegetation types, or biomes, in 25 so-called 'hotspots' (unique ecosystems with a wide range of endemic species). In fact biodiversity hotspots are some of the richest and most threatened biological pools on Earth. They concentrate some 44 percent of plant and 35 percent of vertebrate species on only 1.4 percent of the Earth's land area. Each hotspot contains its own set of unique species. The researchers modeled what exactly might happen to the plants in these areas under the hypothesis that the atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide doubles in the next 100 years.

Using a variety of models that project habitat changes and migration capabilities for a selection of species, they examined the possible related extinctions in 25 of these "hotspots," reaching the rather alarming conclusion that almost a quarter of the world's plant and vertebrate animal species could face extinction by 2050.

Here's the article abstract (and here's a pdf from the WWF which contains an earlier examination of the same issues):

Global Warming and Extinctions of Endemic Species from Biodiversity Hotspots
JAY R. MALCOLM, CANRAN LIU, RONALD P. NEILSO, LARA HANSEN, AND LEE HANNAH

Abstract: Global warming is a key threat to biodiversity, but few researchers have assessed the magnitude of this threat at the global scale. We used major vegetation types (biomes) as proxies for natural habitats and, based on projected future biome distributions under doubled-CO2 climates, calculated changes in habitat areas and associated extinctions of endemic plant and vertebrate species in biodiversity hotspots. Because of numerous uncertainties in this approach, we undertook a sensitivity analysis of multiple factors that included (1) two global vegetation models, (2) different numbers of biome classes in our biome classification schemes, (3) different assumptions about whether species distributions were biome specific or not, and (4) different migration capabilities. Extinctions were calculated using both species-area and endemic-area relationships. In addition, average required migration rates were calculated for each hotspot assuming a doubled-CO2 climate in 100 years. Projected percent extinctions ranged from <1 to 43% of the endemic biota (average 11.6%), with biome specificity having the greatest influence on the estimates, followed by the global vegetation model and then by migration and biome classification assumptions. Bootstrap comparisons indicated that effects on hotpots as a group were not significantly different from effects on random same-biome collections of grid cells with respect to biome change or migration rates; in some scenarios, however, hotspots exhibited relatively high biome change and low migration rates. Especially vulnerable hotspots were the Cape Floristic Region, Caribbean, Indo-Burma, Mediterranean Basin, Southwest Australia, and Tropical Andes, where plant extinctions per hotspot sometimes exceeded 2000 species. Under the assumption that projected habitat changes were attained in 100 years, estimated global-warming-induced rates of species extinctions in tropical hotspots in some cases exceeded those due to deforestation, supporting suggestions that global warming is one of the most serious threats to the planet's biodiversity.

Peru Elections

Now this breakdown of support ofr Humala is really interesting. I just don't see how people can maintain that this 'native' transformation of some parts of Latin America has nothing to do with demographics:

"The people here in the interior of the country, the humble people, are behind him more so than for those other parties that are in favor of the rich," Luis de la Cruz, a hardware shop owner.

Among the mostly Quechua-speaking inhabitants of Ayacucho and surrounding state, Humala's support neared 60 percent, with more than 70 percent of the region's votes counted.....

Here in the Ayacucho region and along Peru's Andean highland spine, where the petticoated Indian women with their felt hats are postcard-pretty to tourists, campesinos eke out livings growing corn and potatoes and producing colorful tapestries, clay sculptures and other artisan crafts.

"Ayacucho is still the most sensitive department in Peru. The poorest people are here," said Urbano Munoz, a 37-year-old university professor in Ayacucho.

It matters little to them that Humala grew up in the middle class in the capital, Lima, the Pacific coast 205 miles away.

"The people feel defrauded by successive governments and in general by the political class and Ollanta is capitalizing on all this discontent and frustration," said Munoz.

It's a situation not unlike the one that helped Evo Morales, a coca growers' union leader, win the presidency in December in bordering Bolivia.

Humala's father, Isaac, is a retired Marxist lawyer who was born in the Ayacucho region and graced his son with a Quechua name that means "warrior who sees all."



Isaac Humala is the founder of ethnocacerism, a racist movement named after a 19th-century president, Andres Avelino Caceres. It is rooted in a concept of ethnic vindication for Peru's indigenous descendants of the Inca Empire against their lighter-skinned oppressors.

Ollanta Humala insists he does not share his father's racist ideology, but there's little question he has benefited from it.

"He has not needed to champion the racist preaching of his father and his brothers because people see him anyway as someone who is going to put the whites in their place," said Jorge Bruce, a psychoanalyst and respected social commentator in Lima, where nearly one in three of Peru's 27 million people live and where Flores dominated Sunday's vote.

Ruben Gomez, head of Humala's regional campaign in Ayacucho, reluctantly acknowledged that Humala's physical appearance is a powerful draw.

"He is like us, like an average person," Gomez said. "That is the great difference, as opposed to the other politicians who come with neckties, they have another physical look, perhaps that greatly influences how the population sees the candidates."

By contrast, Humala has worn T-shirts and jeans during campaigning.

And in a now-famous photo of Humala, taken during the campaign, he is dressed as Pachakutek, the storied Inca warrior king who expanded that nation's empire to its widest in pre-Columbian times.