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	With more rights, female farmers could help tackle hunger by Alertnet & agencies   September 2011   In the Asia Pacific, almost half of all farmers are women. Yet they control less land and have less access to credit than men, experts said in Bangkok last week.   Such discrimination mean farms controlled by women are less productive than men, sometimes by up to 30 percent, experts said.   But if they were given the same access to resources as men, women farmers in Asia Pacific could help feed the region’s millions of people who go hungry, the United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Agency (FAO) said in a report.   The region, where agriculture employs around 40 percent of the workforce, is home to two-thirds – or some 578 million – of the world’s hungry and undernourished, FAO figures showed.   “For the region as a whole, about 47, 48 percent of all agricultural workers are female. We also see that for the women who are working, agriculture is the most important sector,” senior FAO economist Terri Raney told TrustLaw.   “In the Asia Pacific region, like much of developing world, women are very important in agriculture and agriculture is very important for women,” she added.   Yet, for all their contribution to subsistence economies and food security, the work of rural women is often unpaid, often not considered to be productive work and often their contribution is not sufficiently reflected in a country"s or farm"s economic accounts.   Women also control less land, and have less access to resources such as fertiliser, pest control measures, mechanical equipment and seed varieties. Even if women control the land, it is often of poorer quality and their tenure is insecure. Women also own fewer working animals needed in farming.   “For many countries in the region, the most significant source of gender inequality is related to agricultural lands in terms of inequality in land ownership and size of cultivated land,” Hiroyuki Konuma, FAO representative for Asia Pacific, told journalists.   For example in Cambodia, female-headed households (where husbands are absent) own about 18 percent of total plots used for agricultural activities, five times less than male-headed households, he said.   Access to credit is another challenge. In Vietnam, latest figures showed 24 percent of female-headed households could access loans compared to 33 percent of male-headed households, FAO said, despite women’s proven track record of repaying loans through microfinance initiatives.   “Microfinance has shown that women can be very good credit risk, that women can be relied on to repay their loans,” Raney said.   “But this is a micro programme. In most countries it’s often not a government programme. It’s operated outside of the government and in some cases despite the government’s laws that restrict women access,” she added.   There is inequality in terms of knowledge and education too, with only 7.5 percent of women in Vietnam receiving agricultural information compared to 23 percent of men.   “Women universally have less access than men. It’s the one thing you can generalise about women in agriculture around the world,” Raney said.   This is partly due to a complex mix of cultural practices and legal inequality which give women less of a voice, she said.   FAO argued in this year’s flagship report, which focuses on women and agriculture, that helping female farmers is not only good for women but also for agricultural development, especially as growing populations raise governments’ concerns about food shortages.   “The gender gap imposes real costs on society in terms of lost agricultural output, food security and economic growth,” said the report.   It said if women farmers – who make up 43 percent of the global agricultural workforce – had the same access to productive resources as men, then yields on their farms would increase by 20–30 percent and up to 150 million people would no longer go hungry.   Such gains would represent just the tip of the iceberg in terms of the social benefits that could come from gender equality in farming, the report said.   “When women control additional income, they spend more of it than men do on food, health, clothing and education for their children,” it said, adding that this in turn spurs better human well-being and economic growth. Visit the related web page
	Credit rating companies should be denied their quasi-official status by HuffPost & agencies USA   Nov 2011   EU Commissioner Michel Barnier laments incorrect credit rating of France by Standard & Poors.   The incorrect rating of France by Standard & Poors "is serious and it shows that in the current tense and volatile market situation, market players must exercise discipline and demonstrate a special sense of responsibility", said European Commissioner, Michel Barnier, who is responsible for the EU"s Internal Market and Services.   "This is all the more important since we are not talking about just any market player but one of the biggest rating agencies, which, as such, has a particular responsibility".   "I do not want to comment on the error itself - which was acknowledged by Standard & Poors. It will be up to ESMA (which is the European Supervisory Authority of rating agencies), in coordination with the AMF (the national) to establish the facts, assess them and draw conclusions.   All this strengthens my conviction that Europe must adopt strict and rigorous rules, including but not limited to the rating agencies".   "The draft legislation that I will bring forward will strengthen the legislation on rating agencies on several levels: "Reduced reliance on ratings, and we can see again today just how important that is; Increased competition and elimination of conflicts of interest; Increased transparency and rigor in the rating of sovereign debt and finally creating a European framework for civil liability in the case of serious misconduct or gross negligence. "All these points, especially the latter, are relevant in the context of this case", said the Commissioner.   Aug 2011   Triple-A Idiots, by Robert Kuttner. (Huffington Post)   You have to hand it to Standard and Poor"s. Forget their two-trillion dollar math error. The whole idea that these clowns are evaluating the creditworthiness of the United States is just loony.   For starters, these are the same people who brought us the crisis, by blessing junk sub-prime loans as AAA securities. And they did so because they were paid as consultants by the same financial scoundrels who created the securities.   The executives of the credit rating companies -- not "agencies," for these are private, profit-making, essentially unregulated companies, not public entities -- belong in prison.   They managed to slither out of serious regulation under the Dodd-Frank Act. Their sketchy business models go merrily on, pretty much as before, as if the sub-prime scandal never happened. Rules for the minimal regulation provided by Dodd-Frank have yet to be written.   The last job these thieves deserve is arbiter of the security of Treasury bonds, and markets are even more irrational than they seem if they lend any credence to this downgrade.   The second thing that"s suspicious is the timing. If S&P were going to downgrade the government"s credit rating, the time to do it was while the Republicans were playing chicken with default. But S&P waited until after Obama was blackmailed into taking an austerity deal to assure that the debt would be honored.   So why do the downgrade now, when payment of the debt has been assured. Maybe to get Republicans off the hook? The action left Democrats sputtering and Republicans chortling.   Third, S&P has ventured way outside its franchise when it contends that the downgrade reflects political uncertainty. Credit rating agencies were set up to help investors evaluate relatively obscure bonds that are opaque to individual investors. Is Acme Cement a soundly-run company? Does Madison County Iowa collect enough taxes to pay back its municipal bonds? How about Azerbaijan?   But the debt ratio of the U.S. is a matter of public record, and the great game of default- chicken was hidden in plain view. Even so, financial markets are snapping up U.S. Treasury ten-year bonds at the near record low of about 2.4 percent. Do you think investors would lend Uncle Sam their hard-earned money locked in for ten years for a skimpy 2.4 percent return if they thought there was a snowball"s chance of default?   So exactly what esoteric insight does Standard and Poors add that the markets don"t already know? It beats me.   Their enterprise is so scientific that the three major credit rating companies can"t even agree on a rating for the U.S. They should take up astrology.   This sorry tale is part of the larger corruption of private regulation of the world"s financial markets. Greece, Italy, Spain, Ireland and Portugal are under assault today in part because large hedge funds are gambling, using essentially unregulated credit default swaps, often "naked" swaps backed by no reserves, betting that these nations will default.   These markets need to be re-regulated, and the European Union and its Central Bank need to refinance these debts at affordable costs.   As for the credit rating companies, they should be denied their quasi-official status, and be put out of business in favor of non-profit or public entities. They would have to be totally transparent in their models, and without conflicts of interest in how they get paid.   August 2011   Forget democracy. It is corporations that rule the west, by Chris Zappone.   For me, there is no clearer sign that capitalism has trumped democracy in our time than the credit ratings agency Standard & Poor"s decision to cut the rating on US debt to "AA+" from "AAA".   So what if, in order to maintain a company"s "market" credibility, it has cast doubt on the US government"s ability to repay its debts, potentially driving up the cost to fund US debt and pushing more of a burden onto the taxpayer?   It"s lost on few that the credit rating agencies, S&P, Moody"s and Fitch rubber stamped the sub-prime residential mortgage debt securities AAA before the financial crisis, only to leave the US government with the multibillion-dollar tab to bail out banks and stabilise the system.   Now, as George Washington University law professor Jeffrey Manns points out, those same agencies are waging a behind-the-scenes war with the US government to keep their oligopoly in rating structured finance.   One week into the stomach-turning gyrations on financial markets following S&P"s decision, the blame game between S&P and the US government is really only a microcosm of the shift that"s been under way for a generation in the US, and by extension, wherever market capitalism has been allowed to flourish.   That is, corporations feel entitled, if not duty bound, to put their interests above all else.   Capitalism can do many good things, but unchecked, it begins to undermine democracy and the will of a nation"s citizens.   In the US, the groundwork was laid in President Richard Nixon"s time, which was also when consumer advocate Ralph Nader sought legal remedies to corporate abuses. Once the courtroom became the venue for addressing corporate power, post-Watergate Republicans increasingly focused on deregulation – law changes — as a way to advance their agenda.   The right-wing built a machine of influence through innumerable think tanks and research groups that year after year just happened to think the same thing: deregulation is always the answer. Thirty-five years later, a generation of deregulation set the stage for the market meltdown that began in 2008 and continues today.   Now, the US has come to the logical end point of decades of handing power to companies, executives and the rich. The corporate sector? It"s doing fine. The companies pay few taxes and have productive workers – that"s because in the US, companies have reshaped the law in their own image. Outside of the halls of the companies, the jobless numbers are high, the household and consumer sector — also known as citizens – face years in the wilderness of lost wages and underemployment.   After being told for decades that deregulation would allow the wealth to "trickle down", those same citizens are being told they have to pay billions to clean up the mess of the financial crisis.   Aug 2011   S&P slammed by econnomists. (Boston Herald)   Standard & Poor’s — the same rating agency that touted insurance giant AIG, Fannie Mae and subprime mortgage-backed securities before their collapses nearly sank the economy — is now taking heavy fire after downgrading U.S. credit, a move that drove markets down sharply yesterday.   “It doesn’t make sense to me,” said Alan Clayton-Matthews, economics professor at Northeastern University. “The debt ceiling was raised and both sides, even as they were playing chicken, said the country would not default.”   S&P is one of the “Big Three” companies — along with Moody’s and Fitch — engaged in the dark art of credit rating, but it’s the only one to have downgraded U.S. credit.   Dean Baker, co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research, slammed S&P for lowering the country’s credit rating after the United States actually raised the borrowing limit, pointing out that its decision was based partly on calculations that were later revealed to contain a $2 trillion error.   The Credit Rating Hoax, by William Greider.   Standard & Poor’s, the self-righteous credit-rating agency, has a damn lot of nerve. It provoked scary headlines by solemnly threatening to “short” America. That is, downgrade the credit-worthiness of US Treasury bonds unless Congress and the president oblige creditors by punishing the citizenry with severe budget cuts. What a load of crap.   News coverage on S&P’s credit warning typically failed to mention that Standard & Poor’s itself is in utter disrepute. It was an unindicted co-conspirator in the Wall Street deceitfulness that brought the nation to financial ruin.   During the bubble of inflated housing prices, S&P and other rating agencies blessed the fraud-based mortgage securities issued by Wall Street banks with AAA ratings—deceiving gullible investors around the world and assuring bloated profits (and executive bonuses) for the greedy bankers. S&P provided cover for the massive scam that led to the crisis that sank the national economy.   That story line is the essential reason federal deficits soared in the age of Obama. National wealth was massively destroyed, government tax revenues collapsed, the feds spent trillions bailing out the imperiled financial system. In short, the bankers did it, abetted by see-no-evil accomplices like Standard & Poor’s.   The real explanation for the deficits has been air-brushed out of public discussion. Instead, we are witnessing another brazen scam engineered by the financial establishment—a phony political analysis that blames the victims, Americans at large who lost jobs, homes, savings and security thanks to Wall Street titans.   The fiscal problem, we are told by right-handed commentary, should be blamed on big government, not big bankers. Because Washington has overreached, people must now learn to curb their appetites. Brave politicians in both parties claim they must cut healthcare and Social Security and other important guarantees in order to save the country from wrathful judgment by Standard & Poor’s. What a hoot.   The dereliction of Standard & Poor was spelled out in detail by the blistering report recently issued by the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, chaired by Senator Carl Levin.   Levin’s hearings last year established why the supposedly disinterested analysts at S&P took a dive for the bankers and handed out inflated ratings for toxic assets. They did it for the money, as witnesses acknowledged.   The rating agencies are paid by the banks to do their ratings. If they refuse to stamp newly issued securities with AAA labels, the bank will take its business elsewhere. The firm loses income; executives get smaller bonuses.   This is an outrageous conflict of interest at the very heart of the financial system.   Congress should have had the nerve to outlaw the practice in unambivalent terms. Instead, Congress turned the question over to federal regulatory agencies and asked them to devise a remedy. But the regulators were also among the see-no-evil accomplices that led to the crash.   Senator Levin’s final report includes six recommendations urging the regulatory agencies to get tough with the inflated credit ratings, but don’t hold your breath. What’s required is a serious law that either changes the status of the rating agencies or shuts them down. Otherwise, the temptations for more deception and false assurances will be too strong to resist.   The deficit panic is itself bogus—poor-mouthing America to avoid raising taxes on the folks who got the money. Naturally, this reactionary approach was first promoted by Republicans, but has been tacitly embraced by the Democrats. Barack Obama promises to do the blood-letting more delicately than barbaric Republicans, protecting Social Security and Medicare and other much-loved programs. But can people believe him? They have been burned before by vague good talk.   If you listen closely, Obama is setting himself up to fashion another “grand compromise” with the right.   As the polls keep reporting, the populace is overwhelmingly opposed to any political deal-making that punishes them again for a catastrophe they did not cause. People seem to know it is wrong to dump more pain on them while the real malefactors are not held accountable for their sins.   In Washington, these contrary public attitudes are dismissed as uninformed or self-indulgent. But the one thing that can save the country from the respectable wrath of Standard & Poor’s is the wrath of angry, mobilized citizens. Visit the related web page
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