Financialization,distance and global food politics

This paper provides a new perspective on the political implications of intensified financialization in the global food system. There has been a growing recognition of the role of finance in the global food system, in particular the way in which financial markets have become a mode of accumulation for large transnational agribusiness players within the current food regime. This paper highlights a further political implication of agrifood system financialization, namely how it fosters ‘distancing’ in the food system and how that distance shapes the broader context of global food politics. Specifically, the paper advances two interrelated arguments. First, a new kind of distancing has emerged within the global food system as a result of financialization that has (a) increased the number of the number and type of actors involved in global agrifood commodity chains and (b) abstracted food from its physical form into highly complex agricultural commodity derivatives. Second, this distancing has obscured the links between financial actors and food system outcomes in ways that make the political context for opposition to financialization especially challenging.     

Anticipating Future Capital: Regional Caste Contestations,Speculation and Silent Dispossession in Andhra Pradesh

ABSTRACT

In 2014, the state of Andhra Pradesh was bifurcated by the Indian government, leaving the truncated state without a capital city. A period of political uncertainty before bifurcation and the announcement of the new capital city created possibilities for land speculation and for the acceleration of the commodification of real estate in different parts of the state. Concentrating on Guntur-Vijayawada in the Coastal Andhra region and Donakonda town close to the Rayalaseema region, this article explores how speculative investments based on political calculations by members of regional elite castes translated into the emergence of competing regional investment zones as possible future choices of the capital city. Through an extended and largely ethnographic study, this article shows how caste politics and regional processes of land speculation led to land transfers without violent struggles between different groups. Rather, the cultural politics of regional differentiation and the economy of anticipation allowed a pragmatic convergence of interests to emerge, where acquisition of agricultural land was followed by silent dispossession.     

灾后日元升值初探

短期来看,日元汇率没有因经济受到巨大损失而贬值却转向迅速升值在于投资者形成"保险机构或企业资金的资金回流"的预期,投机力量就借助这个题材不断的推升日元。长期来看,这一轮日元升值并不是因贸易摩擦、美国压迫日本的结果,而是与金融危机过程中动荡的国际货币体系有关。日元在国际货币体系内主要执行价值贮藏的功能,而其贸易结算功能相对较弱。日元快速升值的根本原因是日元在估值上存在升值压力,以及日元发挥避险货币和套利交易的作用。中日两国都面临着美元贬值的巨大风险,可采取相互增持对方货币资产的方法,逐渐减少降低外汇储备中美元的比例,建立区域汇率稳定性机制。     

对防范“献身式抵抗运动”的思考——以“校长开房案”举牌事件为例

"献身式抵抗运动"是一种新型网络集群行为,其区别于传统集群行为的炒作性给公安机关带来了巨大挑战,给社会稳定带来了巨大隐患,因此这类运动应引起公安机关高度重视,并根据不同阶段的特点采取相应的应对措施。     

The ‘White Working class’ in South Africa

In general, the analysis of classes in the literature on South Africa beginsfrom the political and ideological levels and not from the concept of the mode of production. The effect of this is to obscure the nature of the class structure and changes in it and leads to a neglect of shifts in class alliances in the class struggle. In this paper, concepts of the ‘white working class’ commonly found in the literature are critically analysed and an alternative conceptualization which begins from the mode of production is outlined. The paper ends with a brief analysis of changes in the relationship between the white working class and the state.     

房地产市场中政府的责任与作用

在我国,能够大幅度影响房屋价格的主要因素是政府的政策行为。由于地方政府“成本推进”和中央政策“需求拉上”的共同作用,导致了近几年房屋价格大幅度上升。政府有责任将房屋价格降至合理水平,这取决于中央政府的决心和能力。关键的措施是规范地方政府的牟利行为,并通过提高银行的存款利率、抑制通货膨胀以及规范上市公司的分配行为,使居民的储蓄和投资资金不被蚕食。     

对建设项目法人责任制的思考

项目法人实施中存在的问题有:没有按《公司法》的规定设立项目法人;行政领导对项目法人的行政干预过多;项目法人没有项目的前期决策权;项目法人不能有效地控制成本。相应的解决对策为:在项目法人的设立中引入竞争机制;利用合同来规范政府及项目法人的行为,减少行政干预;采取措施,让项目法人参与项目的决策工作;制订《国家投资项目管理法》,依法对国家建设项目实施管理。     

对合议庭合议的理性思考

合议庭的组成形式是功能理性的反映,但在实践中其功能则难以强化,有必要从改变审批制、集体参与一贯制等方面进行改革。     

Untimely Economies of Survival

This article takes the recent turn against hope in breast cancer activism as a point of entry into a broader examination of speculative economies of science that creatively imagine, materialize, and manage futures in the present. It argues that untimeliness – anticipatory, simultaneous, porous, and prognostic in its articulation – captures these alternate arrangements of life and action as they are mobilized in cancer research that hails healthy women as experimental subjects to participate in clinical studies.     

关于一起荒诞案件的法律思考

在以股票为媒介的现代金融业出现以后 ,它给人类的生活方式和财富观念带来巨大冲击。它在短时间内给少数幸运儿带来巨大财富。这种“不劳而获”、“一夜致富”效应极大地冲击着人们的价值观念。金融行业的极少数“白领”自认为占据“发财致富”的“天时”、“地利” ,在金钱的蒙蔽之下 ,被投机心理所驱使 ,从而丧失理智 ,铤而走险 ,将手伸向国家银库。金融行业白领犯罪案件已成为经济犯罪案件中的一个重要方面 ,从法律、制度、管理机制上探讨遏制此类案件的方法 ,十分必要。