>Average life expectancy in India is 63 years, 44% of Indians over 15
>are illiterate, 53% of Indians under 5 are malnourished. India's
>poverty rate appears to have held constant over the decade of the
>1990s. But I don't see how anything is going to push India's poverty
>rate down until education improves.
>
>So the answer to your question is that the bottom 20-40% aren't
>better off not (much, if any). On the other hand, India's middle
>class--the 50th to the 90th percentile--are still very poor by U.S.
>standards, and their incomes have grown remarkably.
>
>Brad DeLong
Of course, what free market ideologues like DeLong can't guarantee is some
kind of steady progress for countries like India into the ranks of the G7.
In terms of creduility, any such assurances would rank slightly below the
3-card monty games popular on NYC's streets not too long ago.
Financial Times (London), May 7, 1993, Friday
Survey of Turkey
By EDWARD MORTIMER
NO TURKISH leader since the founder of the republic, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk,
has presided over such profound changes in his country as Turgut Ozal, who
was prime minister from 1983 to 1989, and president from then until his
death three weeks ago. And none, at least since Adnan Menderes (prime
minister throughout the 1950s), has set his personal stamp so firmly on the
country's politics.
An economist by training, Ozal was bolder in economic than in political
reforms. Between 1980 and 1982, as deputy prime minister in charge of
economic policy, he brought down inflation from 107 to 25 per cent by
withholding state support from industrialist and consumer alike, allowing
the exchange rate to fall and domestic interest rates to shoot up while
wages lagged behind and uncompetitive firms, including some of the banks,
went bankrupt. At this point he resigned and started quietly building his
own political party, which the generals made the mistake of not taking
seriously until too late: they probably thought he had made himself too
unpopular to matter.
Once in power in his own right, he continued with free-market reforms -
deregulation, lowering of import barriers, abolition of exchange controls,
full convertibility of the lira, and a start on privatisation - but was
much less rigorous about the money supply. By 1991 inflation was back up at
70 per cent, and though the Turkey enjoyed record growth rates through the
1980s the benefits were far from equally shared. There was a widespread
feeling that the rich in general, and the Ozal family in particular, were
getting much more than their due.
Yet the truth is that nearly all Turks are materially better off now than
they were when Ozal came to power. And he brought the country some less
tangible benefits, too. Having outwitted the military and come to power
with their reluctant blessing, he was less overawed by them than earlier
civilian leaders had been. For the first time in the republic's history, he
proved - by imposing his own choice as head of the armed forces in 1987,
and by ignoring their views during the Gulf crisis in 1990 - that the civil
power can control the military rather than the other way round.
===
NY Times, April 15, 2001
Needing Cash, Turkey Plans More Sacrifice
By DOUGLAS FRANTZ
ISTANBUL, April 14 � Turkey's economy minister announced a package of
austerity measures today aimed at winning $10 billion to $12 billion in new
foreign loans and restoring confidence in the country's battered economy.
The government plans to cut spending by 9 percent for the rest of the year
and freeze hiring by the state's bloated bureaucracy.
The lira, which has lost nearly half its value against the dollar in the
last two months, will continue to float, and the government will not try to
protect the currency.
Kemal Dervis, who was brought in from the World Bank to supervise an
economic rescue, said the Turkish economy is expected to shrink by 3
percent this year and inflation would rise to 52 percent. "We all should
tighten our belts," Mr. Dervis said at a news conference in Ankara.
About the time Mr. Dervis was calling for more sacrifice, an estimated
40,000 people marched through the streets of Istanbul, the commercial
capital, to protest the economic crisis, which has doubled many price and
led to hundreds of thousands of layoffs.
Unlike a demonstration on Wednesday in Ankara, which turned into a melee,
the march was peaceful and the mood seemed resigned.
"I want to live like a human being," Erhan Sak, 46, a father of four who
earns about $300 a month as a metal worker, said as he marched. "I want my
children to have a proper future. That's why I'm here."
Nearby, waving the flag of her municipal workers union, Emine Ozden, 40,
said the sharp prices increases had left her unable to provide for her two
children and unwilling to bear additional sacrifices.
"I don't have any trust in the government or the program or the people in
politics in general," she said. "They don't have any idea of the
difficulties we face."
The economic crisis has taken a heavy toll across Turkey, and Mr. Dervis
indicated that new foreign loans were needed very soon to help put the
economy back on track.
Turkish officials were meeting this weekend in Ankara with a team from the
International Monetary Fund. The team is expected to return to Washington
by midweek with recommendations for the fund's board on whether to accept
the plan.
Turkey was in the second year of a three-year economic reform plan financed
by $11.5 billion in loan commitments from the I.M.F. in February when a
public dispute between Prime Minister Bulent Ecevit and President Necdet
Ahmet Sezer sent the economy into a tailspin.
If the fund accepts the plan, as expected, the board could speed up the
payment of the $6 billion in remaining loans. The fund's imprimatur also
would open the way for the major industrial nations and the World Bank to
provide new loans.
While Mr. Dervis said he hoped for news on new cash by midweek, Western
officials and analysts said it might take more time. The amount of new aid
is expected to be an important signal to investors.
Mr. Dervis said a law to overhaul Turkey's troubled banking industry would
be sent to Parliament soon. He said privately owned banks would be required
to increase their reserves and jobs will be cut at state-owned banks, long
patronage havens.
The government does not plan any new taxes, he said.
Louis Proyect
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