Would you like us to cite all sources as if this were a research paper, or carry along as per IMF position papers/statements and simply deliver our arguments without in text citations?
It’s optional to use footnotes for your citations but I would appreciate it (although it won’t impact your grade).
Silicon Valley’s Kool-Aid encompasses long-term visions of both techno-utopias and techno-dystopias. The unifying fantasy is that, in the long run, technological advance will endow man and/or AI with absolute power. In the utopias, men become gods and mankind conquers the galaxy; and in much more ambitious versions, the entire universe itself. (It would be orders of magnitude harder to reach other galaxies than other stars.) In the more common dystopias, man won’t be able to compete with AI, or the elite will but the commoners won’t (this is Harari’s version). In either case, the Valley’s Kool-Aid is that technology will revolutionize human life and endow some—depending on the narrative: Silicon Valley, tech firms, AIs, the rich, all humans, or AI and humans—with god-like powers. Needless to say, this technology will come out of Silicon Valley.
In reality, a small oligopoly of what Farhad Manjoo calls the Frightful Five (Facebook, Google, Apple, Microsoft and Amazon) have cornered unprecedented market power; and stashed their oligopolistic supernormal profits overseas, just to rub it in your face. Apple alone has an untaxed $216 billion parked offshore. Far from obeying the motto “data wants to be free,” these oligopolistic firms hoard your data and sell it to the highest bidder. The dream of tech start-ups is no longer a unicorn IPO. Rather, it is a buyout by one of the oligopolists. If you are a truly successful firm in the Valley, you have either benefited from network externalities (like the Frightful Five which are all platforms with natural economies of scale), or you have managed to shed costs onto the shoulders of people who would’ve hitherto been your employees or customers (like Airbnb, Uber and so on). Silicon Valley is, in fact, more neoliberal than Wall Street. While the Street has managed to shed risks and costs to the state, the Valley has managed to shed risks and costs to employees and customers. That’s basically the Valley’s business model.
Today we finish the wrap-up. First simulation is on Thursday. Second simulation is next Tuesday.
Reminder:
This is the template you should all use for your position paper.
Click to access NL_Position_Paper_WB_RE_2010_July.pdf
The following will deliver their position papers ON THURSDAY:
| Xiaoxuan Zhi | Masaaki Kaizuka-Japan | 6.16 | |||
| Dakota Wyne | Carlo Cottarelli – Italy | 4.13 | |||
| Christina Lucas | Carlos Urtado – Spain | 5.31 | |||
| Sarah Bellot – LH | Jafar Mojarrad – Iran | 2.2 | |||
| Lejla Brackovic | ANthony de lannoy – Croatia | 5.43 | |||
| Fei Xie | Subir Vithal Gokarn-India | 3.05 | |||
| Saliha Agha | Sunil Sabharwal- US | 16.53 | |||
| Xiaoyun Luo | Heenam Choi -South Korea | 3.9 | |||
| Amani Broyles | Jorge Angel Estrella-Argentina | 1.59 | |||
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| Kusumawan,Edith,Victoria | Maxwell M. Mkwezalamba-South Africa | 2.97 |
Looking forward to discussing the Matthijs and Blyth paper today. It’s one of the most important out there and a great way to bring the class to a close.
I want everyone to pitch in with their own ideas about the growth regime we find ourselves locked in and the sources of instability we are facing.
Mark your calendars: May 11, 10 am.
1) Which parts of the loan document should you focus on for the simulation?
Only the parts that deal with fiscal policy. Control F the doc and you will find out.
3) When and how will we you assigned countries?
Here is the IMF executive board. I want an excel spreadsheet in my email by Weds at 5 on which name you will be representing. Failure to do so will result in me doing the assignments.
2) What will be the nature of the paper you have to write based on the simulation?
This is the template of the position paper you have to submit:
Click to access NL_Position_Paper_WB_RE_2010_July.pdf
Do make it shorter though. I want exactly 750 words. No exceptions.
International Development and International Organizations 