stipendiat
att poomtangon

Im New Yorker Atelier der Hessischen Kulturstiftung ist derzeit Att Poomtangon zu Gast. Arbeiten des in Bangkok geborenen Konzeptkünstlers sind sicherlich schon bekannt: Poomtangon hat mit ebenso spektakulären wie subtil-poetischen Installationen, etwa 2009 mit dem mit Was­ser gefluteten, nur noch auf Holzplanken oder mit Bootchen zu durchquerendem Frankfurter Portikus On the Way to the Alps I see Sand von sich reden gemacht (weitere 53. Venedig Biennale; ­Festival des Beaux Arts, Pinakothek der Moderne, München, 2010). Nach seiner Ausbildung in allen klassi­schen Disziplinen in Thailand hat Poomtangon 2008 die Frankfurter Städelschule abgeschlossen. 

Poomtangons breit recherchierte Themen reflektieren gesellschaftskritisch Prozesse der Ökologie, Ökonomie und Technologie aus einer kulturell-künstlerischen Perspektive. In seinem jüngsten, während seines Stipendiumsaufenthaltes entwickelten Projekt befasst er sich mit der Rolle der USA in der gegenwärtigen Situation der Weltwirtschaft. Einen kleinen Ausschnitt aus The devil is in the detailsstellt uns Att Poomtangon hier vor. 

Seoul summit toys with temptation

by Donald Kirk / Nov 12, 2010

SEOUL – The devil is definitely in the details when it come to the results of a two-day talkfest among some of the world’s most powerful leaders that was long on good intentions but short on solutions. Lurking within the fine print of the ‘summit leaders’ declaration issued by the Group of 20 on Friday was the sense that no one is committed really to doing anything about the imbalancesthat are the primary concern of the United States and others suffering from huge deficits at the hands of China and other nations with huge trade surpluses.

Donald Kirk, a long-time journalist in Asia, is author of the newly published Korea Betrayed: Kim Dae Jung and Sunshine.
www.atimes.com/atimes/Global_Economy/LK13Dj05.html

Fed’s jobs goal means misery

by Hossein Askari and Noureddine Krichene / Nov 19, 2010

The Seoul G-20 agenda was wrongly concerned with trade ­imbalances. President Obama’s administration and its European ­allies have reached the wrong conclusion that trade imbalances were caused by China’s exchange rate policy. The US trade ­imbalance has been attributed to the role of the US dollar as a ­reserve currency and the ability of the US to run external deficits without losing real resources, a fact that was pointed out by ­Germany.

These deficits were self-multiplying and could only become ­larger. The dominant position of the US dollar as a reserve currency has put the US in a mercantilist position, the same ­position that Spain found itself with the discoveries of gold in its colonies. Other European countries went through the industrial revolutions and had to rely on exports to pay for their imports. Spain used its gold for imports and lagged far behind the rest of Europe in its industrialization process. In the same fashion, the US has relied on printing dollars for imports now over many d­ecades, while Japan, India, South Korea, China, Brazil, and other emerging countries have been leaping forward.

The G-20 has failed to restore financial stability. Antagonism between its members has become deep. The US has refused to rein in its over-expansionary fiscal and monetary policies during the past decade and has wanted the rest of the G-20 simply to follow in its footsteps and support its policy agenda.

It seems that the US believes in monetary expansion as a panacea for all economic problems. There is little hope that the Fed will change the course of its monetary policy or that Obama will renounce large fiscal deficits. It will be hard to predict how far gold and commodity prices will rise when all $600 billion are injected. The monetary injection will become a tax on workers and creditors and will redistribute wealth in favor of borrowers.

The ideology that the central bank is in charge of achieving full-employment has become too embedded in the US political establishment. Politicians and academicians turn to the Fed for immediate solutions to restore full employment. The Fed‘s pursuit of full employment and price stability will mean more instability and misery for the future.

Hossein Askari is professor of international business and international affairs at George Washington University and Noureddine Krichene, who has a PhD from UCLA, is professor of finance at INCEIF in Kuala Lumpur.
www.atimes.com/atimes/Global_Economy/LK19Dj01.html