"Americans" - Ted Rall, Universal Press Syndicate
Showing posts with label finance. Show all posts
Showing posts with label finance. Show all posts
Wednesday, July 18, 2018
Tuesday, June 19, 2018
World Bank & IMF Polices Behind the Inadequate Health Infrastructure to Quell Ebola
Another interview where it is being reiterated that IMF & World Bank, the international financial institutions, are essentially, tools of the developed countries to keep the developing countries from ever developing. I have blogged about this several times before this post.
IMF & the World Bank are the instruments of the West, to keep the development goal, out of reach, from developing countries in Latin America, Asia, & Africa. These institutions provide billions in loans to countries with known corrupt leaders & then impose harsh restrictions, like austerity measures, to recover those loans. The corruption of the political leaders are well known. Those austerity measures tie the hands of the successive governments, regardless of how much they are well-intentioned, behind their backs, & the developing countries fail to develop.
These countries are instructed to privatize everything, increase prices & taxes for the local citizenry, but decrease their taxes & royalties from natural wealth, & let the international corporations loot the developing countries of their natural wealth. Of course, then, is it any wonder that developed countries keep developing further & amassing huge wealth, whereas, the developing countries stay at the bottom of the pile. If, by any chance, the leaders of the developing countries resist following the demands of the IMF, World Bank, of the political leaders of the developed countries, then political assassinations & interference, & ultimately, war, is imposed on those developing countries.
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SHARMINI PERIES, EXEC. PRODUCER, TRNN: … do you think this is an adequate response on the part of the World Bank?
NII AKUETTEH, FMR. DIRECTOR AT AFRICA ACTION: I don't think so … the World Bank and the IMF have contributed to the weak health systems in Africa … . So, therefore, so to speak, they contributed to the problem; therefore they need to own up to their mistakes and they need to do more to help rescue these countries.
PERIES: What do you mean by that? What role has IMF and the World Bank played in West Africa in the past?
AKUETTEH: Oh, well, you know, two phrases. One is structural adjustment programs. Anybody who's been studying Africa since independence knows that especially since the '80s, when Ronald Reagan got into power in the United States and the World Bank and the IMF actually made themselves the economic stewards of economic policy in Africa, structural adjustment, otherwise called austerity measures, they have imposed these policies on the African countries regardless of what the people want, regardless of what the leaders wanted. So structural adjustment is one of those phrases. And the governments were told, were forced, that in order to get a good mark from the World Bank and the IMF, you have to keep government small, you have to slash government officials' pay; after you have slashed the number of government officials, you have to privatize everything and you have to force people to pay, and especially to pay for health care and to pay out of pocket for education.
So I think, though structural adjustment went on for decades and they devastated the African economies, the other phrase that I wanted to throw in is IMF riots. This actually came from Africa, where every time the IMF would impose economic conditions, ordinary people in the street were so hit hard that they would riot. And so it actually created a new phrase in the English language and in economic writing: IMF riots.
PERIES: So, Nii, explain more, in the sense that, yes, of course the IMF would have these horrendous austerity policies and neoliberal economic policies and force governments to shrink their bureaucratic and civil service, all these things in the past were set up in order to service their people. But why are they forced to come to these kinds of agreements with the World Bank and the IMF?
AKUETTEH: I think that's a great question, because on the surface of it, a government, a country can simply say, sorry, your conditions are too harsh, we don't have to deal with you. After all, the United States doesn't take the advice of the World Bank and the IMF. A number of big countries don't. But for African countries, number one, they are economically small and weak. Secondly, having just gotten out of colonialism--I know this is about 50 years ago, but when you are trying to restructure economic systems that was built over more than a century, it is not easy. And so they are tied into the global economy. They are tied into their former colonial masters. That is especially France and the U.K. And they are tied to the United States.
Now, those three countries, the United States, the U.K., and France, play a major role in the World Bank and the IMF. And therefore the World Bank and the IMF actually act as policeman and gatekeepers for the entire global economy if you are an African country, because the rest of the global economy says to you, we will deal with you only if the World Bank and the IMF says you are well behaved. And the World Bank and the IMF will say you are well behaved only if you agree to their conditions. And therefore it's almost impossible for an African country to say, listen, I don't want to do this anymore.
You know, everybody who reads the news, Africa news, and especially U.S.-Africa, will know that the West doesn't much care for Robert Mugabe. Usually you will be told that it's because he is internally repressive and other things. But I happen to think that one major factor also is that for about ten years after Zimbabwe became independent, Robert Mugabe followed the dictates of the World Bank and the IMF very closely. And after about ten years he said, no, this is not working no more. For instance, they made Zimbabwe sell its stock of maize, and say it's uneconomical to hold it; sell it, buy it when you need it. But that was bad economic advice, because when they wanted to buy it, they had to pay more. And so I am saying that countries that defy the IMF and the World Bank get punished by the larger global economy, and therefore it's not been very easy for those countries to reject what the World Bank and the IMF recommend, because they were doing it on behalf of the global economy.
PERIES: But these economies are very resource-rich. I mean, places like Sierra Leone have diamonds and gold, and West Africa is considered one of the natural resource rich regions of the world. The World Bank adopting these policies is really opening the doors and the gates to a flood of corporations coming in to do business in the region and reap the resources out of the region and leave very little behind. Can you sort of describe those complex relationships between the World Bank, the IMF, the local governments, the corporations that have left--the conditions that they have left in the region that is now unable to cope with … a grave epidemic of Ebola in the region?
AKUETTEH: I think that question is fantastic. I mean, because the reason that the World Bank and the IMF do what they do, the reason that they squeeze the African countries and say to them, you do what we tell you, never mind what your own people might want, never mind what your own leaders might want, the IMF and the World Bank, there's a method to their madness. And I believe said the method, the reason they do what they do, is actually to make it safe and hospitable for international corporations to go in and plunder Africa's wealth. It is as simple as that.
Now, it's been going on for years. The IMF and the World Bank are creatures created after the Second World War. They're Bretton Woods institutions. So, after the Second World War, with the U.K. and Western Europe being weakened, they were created to help stand up again in the global economy. So they took over what has been done, which is plundering Africa's wealth, leaving very little for the Africans … . That question goes to why this is done. The World Bank and the IMF would tell the African countries, keep governments small; you can't afford--. I mean, when I was in school, our governments were being told, listen--I'm from Ghana--you are a small country, the United States doesn't invest this much into education, so why should you? You shouldn't invest in education; let parents pay for it, when most parents are poor and when education is an investment. So they want to keep governments small. They want the people of the country to get as little as possible from the wealth--the bottom line is because they want the Western corporations to continue taking the wealth from out of Africa.
This is precisely why they do it. Even as recently as in Liberia, when Ms. Johnson Sirleaf--whom I know well because she was my boss at a certain point-- when she became president, she got a lot of kudos from the West because she is well known in the West and it was great that a woman had been in elected president in Africa. But behind the scenes, she was told that, listen, you will get a lot of corporations investing if you don't insist that they clean up the environment, if you don't push hard for labor protections, if you don't insist on high taxes, so all the things that the World Bank and the IMF says.
I'm saying your question is great because it goes to the heart of it: it's designed to make it easier for Western corporations to plunder Africa. It's as simple as that.
Thursday, August 11, 2016
Jamaican trek convinced me development schemes rarely work
The main problem is that the public, around the world, still thinks that the developed countries built major international financial & trade organizations, like IMF (International Monetary Fund), World Bank, & WTO (World Trade Organization) to help in the development of developing countries of Africa, Asia, & Latin America. That is so not the case.
Actually, these organizations were made to make it seem like transferring money from developed countries to developing countries, in the name of a good cause, & of course, making it look like the developed countries are contributing their fair share to make the world a better place. But this is not the case. IMF & World Bank do transfer money to developing countries but with such restrictive terms & conditions that the organizations who are supposed to work in the field with those loans etc. have their hands tied behind their backs. Interest payments on those funds are also astronomical due to several factors; political volatility, civil unrest, lack of proper governance, corruption, market volatility etc.
But, then, why do IMF & World Bank hand billions of $$$ to corrupt officials in developing countries, who are well-known corrupt, thanks to organizations like Transparency International (I have a problem with them, too, but that's for another place & time)? First, these international financial organizations hand over billions to corrupt officials without any questions asked, & when those officials are pushed out of the government, & people want a change for the better, that same poor public is hit with economic sanctions (which further raises interest rates on those billions of loans) & are asked to pay back those loans (which were given to well-known corrupt officials) through hard austere budgets. WTO also works in tandem with these organizations by directly / indirectly advocating for trade barriers, which help the incumbents (developed countries) expand their economic might all over the world while keeping the economies of the developing countries tied up in knots from which they can never try to get out or severely change their economic system.
Of course, in such dire economic times, like we are currently seeing in Greece, the public starts to filter out of the country to seemingly better prospects in terms of life, economy, jobs, education etc. Those economic migrants are then hired as general labourers in developed countries, which provided those loans in the first place. With no / scarce jobs & educated people out of the country, that developing country has its back against the wall, with hands & feet tied behind its back. The public which is left behind in the country are financially constrained to grow the economy, which in itself, running on a very austere budget, & government can't pour money in the economy because of austerity, & hence, crime, civil unrest, corruption, political & market volatilities rear their ugly heads, which in turn, require the country to always essentially have its hand out for more loans & funds. Hence, the developing countries are always stuck in the mud, so to say, & can never seem to get out of it to become a developed country.
So, who really benefits with these international organizations? Developed countries. They get their interests on those loans. They get cheap & educated labour from these developing countries. Their companies have the world to expand their markets & export all over the world, which in turn, helps keep the trade balances & monetary value of their currencies in a healthy shape. All the while, the developing countries stay in the "developing" pool & get the blame for not being able to ever develop itself.
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Jamaica is a small country full of clever, intelligent people who are being poorly served by the world that historically shaped it. Remarkably, this painful past has somehow led to an ability for it to punch far above its weight.
In February 2015 I had the opportunity to experience first hand the mood & feeling of the people by walking Jamaica from east to west accompanied by 10 local people on the One-Love One-Step walk. We hiked from Morant Point to Negril, through the most neglected parishes over the mountains & into farming communities. This is a country full of stories & folklore & to understand the people, it is critical to listen to them.
The focus of the walk was to highlight the local issues surrounding climate change & to feel the pulse of people’s lives. We interviewed & filmed over a hundred Jamaicans talking about how they feel & what their expectations are for their future & those of their children. The only word I can distil to share with you is hopelessness. It is endemic & it is corroding the heart of this nation.
The economy is built on the extraction of natural resources, sugar, bauxite, people. Most of the money earned from tourism leaves the island & a modern-day exodus is killing the country, a classic brain drain towards the provision of a low-cost labour force of farm workers & chambermaids in the US & Canada, working on temporary visas doing the jobs no one else wants to do.
Now in the third year of an IMF-backed economic programme, Jamaica is running the most austere budget in the world, with a primary surplus of 7.5%. Even Greece, which is facing a tense standoff with the IMF & European authorities over its debt, is only expected to run a primary surplus of 3% of GDP this year & 4.5% for years thereafter – & this is widely considered to be politically unsustainable.
I have seen millions of dollars wasted in Jamaica & across the Caribbean, I have also seen this happen in India when I was working there developing primary healthcare opportunities. In my experience, much of the waste is not caused by local bodies but by the organisations that provide the funding. They inadvertently wrap local people up in red tape, creating unrealistic outputs based on feeding their own need to hit internal & international targets.
Again & again I have seen fantastic local people frustrated by a system that is not designed to fit them, that is not built on their story but some self-serving development corporation that purveys a one-size-fits-all approach. These agencies then blame local people & organisations for failure. An example is the coffee industry, focused only on Blue Mountain (BM) coffee which received investment & development, both internal & external, & has led to the desertification of many small coffee farms throughout Jamaica – 80% of all BM coffee is sold to one major Japanese customer.
There is a slow re-introduction of freshwater Tilapia farming & Cassava processing plants but they are built on crumbling & undeveloped sites because of the tragic mismanagement of the Financial Sector Adjustment Company (Finsac) & the last big hurricane to hit the island. Development money in these sectors rarely reaches the small farmer. This has led to increasing the crime & praedial larceny rates (the theft or agricultural produce or livestock).
The time has come for a slow development movement, built on the stories & realities of local people. Last year I commissioned Uncovering Authentic Jamaica, a piece of social research, to better understand the Jamaican people & their development needs.
“People are our greatest asset. But they want to get out,” said one hotelier at Treasure Beach tourist trap. We discovered many tangible opportunities, most of which existing development agencies ignore or do not understand as they do not fit the standard model. For example, only focusing on women’s development doesn’t fit a country like Jamaica where the young men are falling woefully behind the women both in job opportunity & educational attainment. Much is left un-researched in Jamaica because it is a proud country full of patriotic people & Brand Jamaica has to be maintained.
There are good things happening & Jamaicans do have an indomitable spirit. A group of young men are changing their world & creating an eco village in the middle of Kingston & organisations such as Farm-up Jamaica are ringing slow but steady change.
As all good gardeners know, it is best to water a tree at the drip line, the area under the outer circumference of the branches. This is where the tiny rootlets are located that take up water for the tree. Trees should be watered here, not at the base or they may develop root rot. Applying this thinking to development would consider how interventions are initiated at the right place at the right time. Present intervention often has a scatter-gun approach. There is a lack of robust, focused & brave investment.
If we apply “drip line” thinking to emerging economies, then we identify exactly where key interventions should be applied. Support this with an impactful business development model, increasing value chain share, & thinking beyond fair-trade, we could create a pivotal change.
The future is bright, but only if we work bravely to restructure debt interest payments & find a better solution for Jamaica than crushing austerity, declining living standards & growing hopelessness.
Dee Kyne is a social entrepreneur & environmentalist working to end ecocide.
Actually, these organizations were made to make it seem like transferring money from developed countries to developing countries, in the name of a good cause, & of course, making it look like the developed countries are contributing their fair share to make the world a better place. But this is not the case. IMF & World Bank do transfer money to developing countries but with such restrictive terms & conditions that the organizations who are supposed to work in the field with those loans etc. have their hands tied behind their backs. Interest payments on those funds are also astronomical due to several factors; political volatility, civil unrest, lack of proper governance, corruption, market volatility etc.
But, then, why do IMF & World Bank hand billions of $$$ to corrupt officials in developing countries, who are well-known corrupt, thanks to organizations like Transparency International (I have a problem with them, too, but that's for another place & time)? First, these international financial organizations hand over billions to corrupt officials without any questions asked, & when those officials are pushed out of the government, & people want a change for the better, that same poor public is hit with economic sanctions (which further raises interest rates on those billions of loans) & are asked to pay back those loans (which were given to well-known corrupt officials) through hard austere budgets. WTO also works in tandem with these organizations by directly / indirectly advocating for trade barriers, which help the incumbents (developed countries) expand their economic might all over the world while keeping the economies of the developing countries tied up in knots from which they can never try to get out or severely change their economic system.
Of course, in such dire economic times, like we are currently seeing in Greece, the public starts to filter out of the country to seemingly better prospects in terms of life, economy, jobs, education etc. Those economic migrants are then hired as general labourers in developed countries, which provided those loans in the first place. With no / scarce jobs & educated people out of the country, that developing country has its back against the wall, with hands & feet tied behind its back. The public which is left behind in the country are financially constrained to grow the economy, which in itself, running on a very austere budget, & government can't pour money in the economy because of austerity, & hence, crime, civil unrest, corruption, political & market volatilities rear their ugly heads, which in turn, require the country to always essentially have its hand out for more loans & funds. Hence, the developing countries are always stuck in the mud, so to say, & can never seem to get out of it to become a developed country.
So, who really benefits with these international organizations? Developed countries. They get their interests on those loans. They get cheap & educated labour from these developing countries. Their companies have the world to expand their markets & export all over the world, which in turn, helps keep the trade balances & monetary value of their currencies in a healthy shape. All the while, the developing countries stay in the "developing" pool & get the blame for not being able to ever develop itself.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Jamaica is a small country full of clever, intelligent people who are being poorly served by the world that historically shaped it. Remarkably, this painful past has somehow led to an ability for it to punch far above its weight.
In February 2015 I had the opportunity to experience first hand the mood & feeling of the people by walking Jamaica from east to west accompanied by 10 local people on the One-Love One-Step walk. We hiked from Morant Point to Negril, through the most neglected parishes over the mountains & into farming communities. This is a country full of stories & folklore & to understand the people, it is critical to listen to them.
The focus of the walk was to highlight the local issues surrounding climate change & to feel the pulse of people’s lives. We interviewed & filmed over a hundred Jamaicans talking about how they feel & what their expectations are for their future & those of their children. The only word I can distil to share with you is hopelessness. It is endemic & it is corroding the heart of this nation.
The economy is built on the extraction of natural resources, sugar, bauxite, people. Most of the money earned from tourism leaves the island & a modern-day exodus is killing the country, a classic brain drain towards the provision of a low-cost labour force of farm workers & chambermaids in the US & Canada, working on temporary visas doing the jobs no one else wants to do.
Now in the third year of an IMF-backed economic programme, Jamaica is running the most austere budget in the world, with a primary surplus of 7.5%. Even Greece, which is facing a tense standoff with the IMF & European authorities over its debt, is only expected to run a primary surplus of 3% of GDP this year & 4.5% for years thereafter – & this is widely considered to be politically unsustainable.
I have seen millions of dollars wasted in Jamaica & across the Caribbean, I have also seen this happen in India when I was working there developing primary healthcare opportunities. In my experience, much of the waste is not caused by local bodies but by the organisations that provide the funding. They inadvertently wrap local people up in red tape, creating unrealistic outputs based on feeding their own need to hit internal & international targets.
Again & again I have seen fantastic local people frustrated by a system that is not designed to fit them, that is not built on their story but some self-serving development corporation that purveys a one-size-fits-all approach. These agencies then blame local people & organisations for failure. An example is the coffee industry, focused only on Blue Mountain (BM) coffee which received investment & development, both internal & external, & has led to the desertification of many small coffee farms throughout Jamaica – 80% of all BM coffee is sold to one major Japanese customer.
There is a slow re-introduction of freshwater Tilapia farming & Cassava processing plants but they are built on crumbling & undeveloped sites because of the tragic mismanagement of the Financial Sector Adjustment Company (Finsac) & the last big hurricane to hit the island. Development money in these sectors rarely reaches the small farmer. This has led to increasing the crime & praedial larceny rates (the theft or agricultural produce or livestock).
The time has come for a slow development movement, built on the stories & realities of local people. Last year I commissioned Uncovering Authentic Jamaica, a piece of social research, to better understand the Jamaican people & their development needs.
“People are our greatest asset. But they want to get out,” said one hotelier at Treasure Beach tourist trap. We discovered many tangible opportunities, most of which existing development agencies ignore or do not understand as they do not fit the standard model. For example, only focusing on women’s development doesn’t fit a country like Jamaica where the young men are falling woefully behind the women both in job opportunity & educational attainment. Much is left un-researched in Jamaica because it is a proud country full of patriotic people & Brand Jamaica has to be maintained.
There are good things happening & Jamaicans do have an indomitable spirit. A group of young men are changing their world & creating an eco village in the middle of Kingston & organisations such as Farm-up Jamaica are ringing slow but steady change.
As all good gardeners know, it is best to water a tree at the drip line, the area under the outer circumference of the branches. This is where the tiny rootlets are located that take up water for the tree. Trees should be watered here, not at the base or they may develop root rot. Applying this thinking to development would consider how interventions are initiated at the right place at the right time. Present intervention often has a scatter-gun approach. There is a lack of robust, focused & brave investment.
If we apply “drip line” thinking to emerging economies, then we identify exactly where key interventions should be applied. Support this with an impactful business development model, increasing value chain share, & thinking beyond fair-trade, we could create a pivotal change.
The future is bright, but only if we work bravely to restructure debt interest payments & find a better solution for Jamaica than crushing austerity, declining living standards & growing hopelessness.
Dee Kyne is a social entrepreneur & environmentalist working to end ecocide.
Thursday, March 31, 2016
"Tax Bracketology" by Adam Zyglis
Tuesday, March 29, 2016
"The Secret Life of Walter Mitty" quote
This line from the movie, "The Secret Life of Walter Mitty", says a lot. We don't need to do a lot of things in life just to draw attention to ourselves; be it taking a dangerous selfie or spending hundreds on branded clothes, cosmetics, new & flashy cars, & even a damn big house, because ...
Wednesday, November 4, 2015
World's refugee population hits all-time high of 60 million, half of them children – UN
Unsurprisingly, what else to expect from the report. To help these refugees, peace has to be instituted in the developing countries, but then that would mean that developed countries of the West (US, Canada, UK, Germany, France) and even new economic powers like China & Russia have to stop selling arms & weapons to these developing countries. These developing countries where these refugees are coming from don't have any resources of their own to manufacture these deadly arms & weapons.
Secondly, developed countries of the West have to stop installing their own puppet governments in these developing countries. They need to stop interfering with the negative development of the countries. It's well known how US constantly interfered in the internal affairs of Latin American & Middle Eastern countries. US interfered with Japan to the point that Japanese PM Shinzo Abe changed the constitution to make the country more militaristic. That's not exactly a positive step towards creating peace in the world.
Thirdly, aside from covert & political interference by the developed West, the West also needs to stop with the military interference in the shape of active invasions. Recent examples of Iraq, Syria, Libya, Afghanistan & some old examples of Cambodia, Vietnam, Philippines etc. by the American, British, French, & other forces would provide ample evidence of this interference.
In one of my prior blog posts, I mentioned that one of the primary reasons the developed countries of the West do all these interferences in the developing world is to create active chaos in developing countries. This chaos & anarchy helps developed countries to keep a strong control over financial, mineral, energy, & human resources of the developing countries.
Developing countries keep themselves embroiled in these messes, & spend their valuable resources in resolving these matters. Developed countries provide loans to developing countries, take out resources from the grounds of developing countries for their own use, & let the bright minds of the developing countries move to developed countries, where they are mostly used for menial labour.
Developing countries, which are embroiled in wars or not, are left to shoulder all the burden of either suffering from internally displaced refugees or provide for refugees who have sought refuge in their lands from foreign lands. Developed countries, on the other hand, cause the problem & then get out of the picture.
The primary reason this problem of refugees is keep getting worse with no sign of any improvement is that developed countries actually want more chaos & anarchy in developing countries. Hey, it's not happening in their corner of the world, so why bother resolving it. They actively cause it & prefer to keep it that way. When there is a problem in their corner of the world (problems arising from the dissolution of former Yugoslavia), then they are on the mission of resolving it asap & actually successfully achieve it, too. After all, when there's a will (to resolve a problem), there's always a way.
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The annual “Global Trends Report: World at War” was released ... by the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR).
It stated that worldwide displacement is at the highest level ever recorded, adding that the number of people forcibly displaced at the end of last year had reached 59.5 million – compared to 51.2 million a year earlier, & 37.5 million a decade ago. 14 million people were displaced in 2014 alone.
According to figures detailed in the report, over half of those refugees are children.
The year 2014 also hit a 31-year low for the number of refugees who were able to return to their home countries, at just 126,800.
"We are witnessing a paradigm change, an unchecked slide into an era in which the scale of global forced displacement as well as the response required is now clearly dwarfing anything seen before," said UN High Commissioner for Refugees António Guterres.
The figures show that one in every 122 people on the planet is now either a refugee, internally displaced or seeking asylum. If these people had a country of their own, it would be the world's 24th largest.
Every day last year, approximately 42,500 people became refugees, asylum seekers or internally displaced, the report said.
And those numbers – which represent the biggest leap ever seen in a single year – are likely to worsen, according to the agency.
Causes of displacement
Since 2011, the main reason for the surge has been the war in Syria – now the world's largest driver of displacement, surpassing Afghanistan for the first time. A total of 7.6 million Syrians are internally displaced, & 3.9 million are outside the country.
The report noted that at least 15 conflicts have erupted or reignited worldwide in the past 5 years: 8 in Africa, 3 in the Middle East, one in Europe & 3 in Asia.
"Few of these crises have been resolved & most still generate new displacement," the report stated.
Meanwhile, continuous instability & conflict in Afghanistan, Somalia & other areas has led millions to be constantly on the move, stranded as long-term internally displaced or refugees.
The report also drew attention to the current Mediterranean refugee crisis – the result of instability in North Africa.
It added that countries housing the majority of refugees are part of the global poor. Almost 9 out of every 10 refugees were in regions or countries considered less economically developed. One-quarter were in nations among the UN's list of least developed nations.
In the face of the rising displacement numbers, Guterres warned that people in need of “compassion, aid & refuge are being abandoned.”
"For an age of unprecedented mass displacement, we need an unprecedented humanitarian response & a renewed global commitment to tolerance & protection for people fleeing conflict & persecution,” he said.
The UNHCR report comes just 3 days after an Amnesty International report said the world is facing the “worst refugee crisis since World War II.”
The report, called 'The Global Refugee Crisis: A Conspiracy of Neglect, accused governments of effectively letting thousands of people die by failing to provide them with basic human protection.
It paid particular attention to the situation in Syria, Mediterranean, Africa & Southeast Asia.
Amnesty is urging world leaders to call an international summit on tackling the refugee crisis, & for all countries to ratify the UN Refugee Convention. This gives displaced persons legal rights & status in the nations where they have sought refuge.
Secondly, developed countries of the West have to stop installing their own puppet governments in these developing countries. They need to stop interfering with the negative development of the countries. It's well known how US constantly interfered in the internal affairs of Latin American & Middle Eastern countries. US interfered with Japan to the point that Japanese PM Shinzo Abe changed the constitution to make the country more militaristic. That's not exactly a positive step towards creating peace in the world.
Thirdly, aside from covert & political interference by the developed West, the West also needs to stop with the military interference in the shape of active invasions. Recent examples of Iraq, Syria, Libya, Afghanistan & some old examples of Cambodia, Vietnam, Philippines etc. by the American, British, French, & other forces would provide ample evidence of this interference.
In one of my prior blog posts, I mentioned that one of the primary reasons the developed countries of the West do all these interferences in the developing world is to create active chaos in developing countries. This chaos & anarchy helps developed countries to keep a strong control over financial, mineral, energy, & human resources of the developing countries.
Developing countries keep themselves embroiled in these messes, & spend their valuable resources in resolving these matters. Developed countries provide loans to developing countries, take out resources from the grounds of developing countries for their own use, & let the bright minds of the developing countries move to developed countries, where they are mostly used for menial labour.
Developing countries, which are embroiled in wars or not, are left to shoulder all the burden of either suffering from internally displaced refugees or provide for refugees who have sought refuge in their lands from foreign lands. Developed countries, on the other hand, cause the problem & then get out of the picture.
The primary reason this problem of refugees is keep getting worse with no sign of any improvement is that developed countries actually want more chaos & anarchy in developing countries. Hey, it's not happening in their corner of the world, so why bother resolving it. They actively cause it & prefer to keep it that way. When there is a problem in their corner of the world (problems arising from the dissolution of former Yugoslavia), then they are on the mission of resolving it asap & actually successfully achieve it, too. After all, when there's a will (to resolve a problem), there's always a way.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The annual “Global Trends Report: World at War” was released ... by the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR).
It stated that worldwide displacement is at the highest level ever recorded, adding that the number of people forcibly displaced at the end of last year had reached 59.5 million – compared to 51.2 million a year earlier, & 37.5 million a decade ago. 14 million people were displaced in 2014 alone.
According to figures detailed in the report, over half of those refugees are children.
The year 2014 also hit a 31-year low for the number of refugees who were able to return to their home countries, at just 126,800.
"We are witnessing a paradigm change, an unchecked slide into an era in which the scale of global forced displacement as well as the response required is now clearly dwarfing anything seen before," said UN High Commissioner for Refugees António Guterres.
The figures show that one in every 122 people on the planet is now either a refugee, internally displaced or seeking asylum. If these people had a country of their own, it would be the world's 24th largest.
Every day last year, approximately 42,500 people became refugees, asylum seekers or internally displaced, the report said.
And those numbers – which represent the biggest leap ever seen in a single year – are likely to worsen, according to the agency.
Causes of displacement
Since 2011, the main reason for the surge has been the war in Syria – now the world's largest driver of displacement, surpassing Afghanistan for the first time. A total of 7.6 million Syrians are internally displaced, & 3.9 million are outside the country.
The report noted that at least 15 conflicts have erupted or reignited worldwide in the past 5 years: 8 in Africa, 3 in the Middle East, one in Europe & 3 in Asia.
"Few of these crises have been resolved & most still generate new displacement," the report stated.
Meanwhile, continuous instability & conflict in Afghanistan, Somalia & other areas has led millions to be constantly on the move, stranded as long-term internally displaced or refugees.
The report also drew attention to the current Mediterranean refugee crisis – the result of instability in North Africa.
It added that countries housing the majority of refugees are part of the global poor. Almost 9 out of every 10 refugees were in regions or countries considered less economically developed. One-quarter were in nations among the UN's list of least developed nations.
In the face of the rising displacement numbers, Guterres warned that people in need of “compassion, aid & refuge are being abandoned.”
"For an age of unprecedented mass displacement, we need an unprecedented humanitarian response & a renewed global commitment to tolerance & protection for people fleeing conflict & persecution,” he said.
The UNHCR report comes just 3 days after an Amnesty International report said the world is facing the “worst refugee crisis since World War II.”
The report, called 'The Global Refugee Crisis: A Conspiracy of Neglect, accused governments of effectively letting thousands of people die by failing to provide them with basic human protection.
It paid particular attention to the situation in Syria, Mediterranean, Africa & Southeast Asia.
Amnesty is urging world leaders to call an international summit on tackling the refugee crisis, & for all countries to ratify the UN Refugee Convention. This gives displaced persons legal rights & status in the nations where they have sought refuge.
Monday, September 28, 2015
Millions more have a bank account, but what is the impact on global poverty?
Primary problem is that poverty is not going to end by some poor people, in developing countries, opening a bank account. If merely opening a bank account would alleviate poverty, then there would be no poverty in the developed world at all. But, as you may know already, that's not the case. A walk in urban areas of any metropolitan city of the developed world; Paris, London, New York, Toronto, Vancouver, Los Angeles, Chicago, Frankfurt etc., will show poor people, & the rising poverty, out in the open.
Alleviating poverty requires a much deeper, multi-faceted, radical approach. It will not happen overnight. It may take a generation or two. Social inequality requires a lot more work & participation of other social classes than merely opening a bank account.
For instance, cost of living in the developed world is constantly rising. Affordable housing in major cities from Paris & Frankfurt to Toronto & Vancouver to New York & Los Angeles is reaching out of hand of poor people. All of their other living expenses, i.e. food & utilities, keep rising, too. But, their salaries or wages are not keeping pace. Many are working in low-wage jobs, i.e. in service industry (restaurants, hotels) or retail industry, where minimum wages are way below to a level, which is understood to be required to sustain a living.
So those people are falling below the poverty line & are being classified as poor. They all have the bank accounts, & are actively using those accounts, too, but they are no use against the forces forcing these people pushing them in poverty. Capitalism, without any ethics or morals, are letting the rich get richer, at the brutal expense of making the masses further poor.
Rich keep finding ingenious ways to keep their money in their hands, for instance, loopholes in tax dodging & labour market, or greasing the political wheels with thick wads of cash, while, downloading all the expenses of government social services, infrastructure, education, healthcare etc. on to the poor masses. When the poor masses are getting a meagre salary, from which, they also have to pay rising taxes, education fees, medical bills, rising rents, increasing food prices etc., then how will they ever rise out of poverty?
Opening a bank account may help an abject poor farmer in Uganda to, perhaps, become more effective & efficient in conducting financial transactions, but it won't help alleviate poverty or eliminate social & financial inequality for billions around the world.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Chabruma Luhwavi, a Tanzanian merchant, used to end his working day fearing thieves would rob him of his earnings as he drove home through Dar Es Salaam’s dark streets. But that fear vanished once he opened a bank account for his business, which he accesses through his mobile phone.
...
Chabruma’s story is one example of how hundreds of millions of people around the globe are joining the financial system. Put simply, they are getting some type of account in which they can deposit, manage & save their hard-earned money.
Why is that important? Access to banking services – called “financial inclusion” – is increasingly held up as a key tool for pulling the world’s poor from poverty. Without an account, it’s a lot harder to save money, pay bills, receive wages, or operate a business.
In 2014, in partnership with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation & Gallup, we set off on a year-long journey to the heart of the debate on banking & poverty reduction.
We had a long list of questions. How many people around the world own a bank account? How does account ownership vary across gender & income groups? And, perhaps most importantly, are people actually using their accounts – &, if so, how?
Which brings us to today: we recently announced our findings with the Global Findex database, based on interviews with 150,000 adults in more than 140 economies – & there’s plenty to celebrate.
Worldwide, 62% of adults now have an account at a formal financial institution (such as a bank) or a mobile money account, up from 51% in 2011, when we launched the Global Findex. The number of adults struggling to get by without an account fell by 20%, to 2 billion.
Yet we found account ownership doesn’t easily lead to use. Look at India. Under an ambitious new programme, we discovered 125 million new bank account owners there. Account ownership has nearly doubled since 2011; but 43% of them have gone unused for a year. The same is true for one-fifth of all accounts in the emerging world.
Our journey taught us that the poverty-reduction potential of account ownership flourishes when people use their account to save money or send & receive payments. Your account can’t pull you out of poverty – unless you put it to work.
For women, owning an account is doubly important. It means privacy & control over their money & how it is spent. Research shows that giving women their own account increases household spending on food, education, & other necessities – which also means less money squandered by irresponsible family members.
To pay school fees, women, especially, often must travel to the school & take time off from work, thereby losing wages. Children can be barred from class until their mother pays up. Digital payments from an account eliminate these costs. But in developing nations, more than 500 million adults with an account pay school fees in cash.
Using an account to save can also help people weather an emergency such as a job loss or health crisis. In China, more than 40% of adults & in Indonesia, 70%, save at a bank or another financial institution. But fewer than 20% of adults in other developing regions save at a bank or financial institutions – instead, storing their money in their home for the future or for emergencies or as assets, such as gold or livestock, that can be lost or stolen.
The benefits from account ownership are reflected in instances of high account use across emerging economies. In Latin America, 40% of accounts are used to receive wages or government social benefits. More than a quarter of farmers in Kenya & Tanzania receive payment for the sale of their agricultural products directly to an account. Individuals are also using accounts to share money. In Sub-Saharan Africa, more than half of account holders use their accounts to send or receive funds to friends or relatives who live far away. Keeping funds in an account is safer than keeping the money under a mattress.
Our Global Findex database points to a number of opportunities for businesses & governments to help people get more out of their accounts. As financial inclusion takes centre stage in the poverty reduction agenda, international development agencies should focus not only on expanding account ownership, but on improving account use as well.
Leora Klapper is a lead economist at the Development Research Group, World Bank, & one of the authors of the Global Findex 2014.
Alleviating poverty requires a much deeper, multi-faceted, radical approach. It will not happen overnight. It may take a generation or two. Social inequality requires a lot more work & participation of other social classes than merely opening a bank account.
For instance, cost of living in the developed world is constantly rising. Affordable housing in major cities from Paris & Frankfurt to Toronto & Vancouver to New York & Los Angeles is reaching out of hand of poor people. All of their other living expenses, i.e. food & utilities, keep rising, too. But, their salaries or wages are not keeping pace. Many are working in low-wage jobs, i.e. in service industry (restaurants, hotels) or retail industry, where minimum wages are way below to a level, which is understood to be required to sustain a living.
So those people are falling below the poverty line & are being classified as poor. They all have the bank accounts, & are actively using those accounts, too, but they are no use against the forces forcing these people pushing them in poverty. Capitalism, without any ethics or morals, are letting the rich get richer, at the brutal expense of making the masses further poor.
Rich keep finding ingenious ways to keep their money in their hands, for instance, loopholes in tax dodging & labour market, or greasing the political wheels with thick wads of cash, while, downloading all the expenses of government social services, infrastructure, education, healthcare etc. on to the poor masses. When the poor masses are getting a meagre salary, from which, they also have to pay rising taxes, education fees, medical bills, rising rents, increasing food prices etc., then how will they ever rise out of poverty?
Opening a bank account may help an abject poor farmer in Uganda to, perhaps, become more effective & efficient in conducting financial transactions, but it won't help alleviate poverty or eliminate social & financial inequality for billions around the world.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Chabruma Luhwavi, a Tanzanian merchant, used to end his working day fearing thieves would rob him of his earnings as he drove home through Dar Es Salaam’s dark streets. But that fear vanished once he opened a bank account for his business, which he accesses through his mobile phone.
...
Chabruma’s story is one example of how hundreds of millions of people around the globe are joining the financial system. Put simply, they are getting some type of account in which they can deposit, manage & save their hard-earned money.
Why is that important? Access to banking services – called “financial inclusion” – is increasingly held up as a key tool for pulling the world’s poor from poverty. Without an account, it’s a lot harder to save money, pay bills, receive wages, or operate a business.
In 2014, in partnership with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation & Gallup, we set off on a year-long journey to the heart of the debate on banking & poverty reduction.
We had a long list of questions. How many people around the world own a bank account? How does account ownership vary across gender & income groups? And, perhaps most importantly, are people actually using their accounts – &, if so, how?
Which brings us to today: we recently announced our findings with the Global Findex database, based on interviews with 150,000 adults in more than 140 economies – & there’s plenty to celebrate.
Worldwide, 62% of adults now have an account at a formal financial institution (such as a bank) or a mobile money account, up from 51% in 2011, when we launched the Global Findex. The number of adults struggling to get by without an account fell by 20%, to 2 billion.
Yet we found account ownership doesn’t easily lead to use. Look at India. Under an ambitious new programme, we discovered 125 million new bank account owners there. Account ownership has nearly doubled since 2011; but 43% of them have gone unused for a year. The same is true for one-fifth of all accounts in the emerging world.
Our journey taught us that the poverty-reduction potential of account ownership flourishes when people use their account to save money or send & receive payments. Your account can’t pull you out of poverty – unless you put it to work.
For women, owning an account is doubly important. It means privacy & control over their money & how it is spent. Research shows that giving women their own account increases household spending on food, education, & other necessities – which also means less money squandered by irresponsible family members.
To pay school fees, women, especially, often must travel to the school & take time off from work, thereby losing wages. Children can be barred from class until their mother pays up. Digital payments from an account eliminate these costs. But in developing nations, more than 500 million adults with an account pay school fees in cash.
Using an account to save can also help people weather an emergency such as a job loss or health crisis. In China, more than 40% of adults & in Indonesia, 70%, save at a bank or another financial institution. But fewer than 20% of adults in other developing regions save at a bank or financial institutions – instead, storing their money in their home for the future or for emergencies or as assets, such as gold or livestock, that can be lost or stolen.
The benefits from account ownership are reflected in instances of high account use across emerging economies. In Latin America, 40% of accounts are used to receive wages or government social benefits. More than a quarter of farmers in Kenya & Tanzania receive payment for the sale of their agricultural products directly to an account. Individuals are also using accounts to share money. In Sub-Saharan Africa, more than half of account holders use their accounts to send or receive funds to friends or relatives who live far away. Keeping funds in an account is safer than keeping the money under a mattress.
Our Global Findex database points to a number of opportunities for businesses & governments to help people get more out of their accounts. As financial inclusion takes centre stage in the poverty reduction agenda, international development agencies should focus not only on expanding account ownership, but on improving account use as well.
Leora Klapper is a lead economist at the Development Research Group, World Bank, & one of the authors of the Global Findex 2014.
Monday, September 14, 2015
Monday, June 1, 2015
Sunday, April 26, 2015
ISIS generating $1 Billion USD from drugs trafficking
What a coincidence:
1. US & its allies invade Afghanistan. Poppy production increase several folds.
2. US & UK invade Iraq. ISIS comes into being.
But, hey, apparently, both these invasions were a resounding success for US & its allies.
* Who cares if those 2 countries were turned into rubble?
* Who cares if Afghanis & Iraqis are displaced, internally & externally, as refugees?
* Who cares if their neighbouring countries (Pakistan, Turkey, Jordan etc) are housing those refugees, at their own costs?
* Who cares if all these drugs are financing terrorists?
* Who cares if all these drugs are destroying the lives of Europeans & North Americans? ... perhaps, it's karma for destroying those 2 countries.
1. US & its allies invade Afghanistan. Poppy production increase several folds.
2. US & UK invade Iraq. ISIS comes into being.
But, hey, apparently, both these invasions were a resounding success for US & its allies.
* Who cares if those 2 countries were turned into rubble?
* Who cares if Afghanis & Iraqis are displaced, internally & externally, as refugees?
* Who cares if their neighbouring countries (Pakistan, Turkey, Jordan etc) are housing those refugees, at their own costs?
* Who cares if all these drugs are financing terrorists?
* Who cares if all these drugs are destroying the lives of Europeans & North Americans? ... perhaps, it's karma for destroying those 2 countries.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Drug money is a massive source of profit for ISIS, who makes up to $1 billion annually from sales throughout its conquered lands, according to the Russian Federal Drug Control Service (FSKN).
"The area of poppy plantations is growing. This year, I think, we’ll hear news about a record-high poppy harvest, therefore a high yield of opium & heroin. So this issue should be raised not only in Moscow, but also in the UN in general, because this is a threat not only to our country, but also European security. Over the past 5 years the Balkan route has been split - heroin traffic now also goes through Iraqi territory," TASS quotes FSKN head Viktor Ivanov as saying.
"According to our estimates, IS makes up to $1 billion annually on Afghan heroin trafficked through its territory," he added. The FSKN in November said that the sale of Afghan heroin in Europe could generate upwards of $50 billion for the militants.
What’s more, over half of Europe’s heroin now comes from the IS, according to Ivanov.
Indeed, drug money has been high on the IS’s list of profit generators, together with oil & conquest.
A recent report by the Financial Action Task Force talked of how the IS has been branching out into all manner of finance-generating activities, though it is the reliance on oil that makes them a truly unique terrorist group, unlike others before it.
Sunday, April 19, 2015
India negotiating free trade zone with Russia-led Customs Union
India is to start negotiating a free trade agreement with the Customs Union of Russia, Belarus & Kazakhstan within the next six months, Indian Deputy Minister of Commerce & Industry Rajeev Kher has said.
As most of the developed world in the West is suffering an economic downturn, the developing world has been stepping up efforts to bring their economies closer.
Most recently, China said it could establish a free trade zone with a broader Russia-led economic bloc that also includes Armenia & is expected to include Kyrgyzstan soon.
As most of the developed world in the West is suffering an economic downturn, the developing world has been stepping up efforts to bring their economies closer.
Most recently, China said it could establish a free trade zone with a broader Russia-led economic bloc that also includes Armenia & is expected to include Kyrgyzstan soon.
The Eurasian customs union is a regional bloc that includes Russia, Belarus & Kazakhstan aimed at creating a single economic space with common tariffs. The group has a population of 168 million people & a GDP of more than $2 trillion.
The BRICS countries which include Brazil, Russia, India, China & South Africa will also have established by the end of the year the $100 billion New Development Bank, as a rival to the IMF & the World Bank.
Wednesday, April 15, 2015
Tuesday, March 24, 2015
Avg. American household is WORSE off than in 1983
Everywhere Rich getting richer & Poor keeps getting poorer. Inequality keeps increasing. A tiny portion of the population (in a country & in the world) keeps increasing its wealth w/o regard to any thoughts of how the majority will survive. This sense of entitlement of money will further increase the wealth gap between rich & poor, up to a point, when the majority poor will violently take over the reins of the financial, political, & judicial systems, which in turn, can mean bad times for the rich.
This economic injustice & social inequality is already causing lots of rift & chaos in European societies (austerity measures & unemployment giving rise to far-right political parties, which in turn, giving rise of hatred & discrimination in the society for minorities; religious, ethnic, racial etc.). Greece is threatening to exit EU, & we all have seen the protests in Athens, Madrid, Rome, & of course, who can forget the worldwide occupy movements.
Governments already angling to quell that chaos & before a large section of the society take up arms against the elites, by bringing in "anti-terror" legislation, in which, the definition of word "terrorist" has been deliberately kept vague, so anybody rises up against the elites of the society will be swiftly put down.
Be it international or domestic terrorism, one of the primary reasons is not any religion or power grab. The primary reason is this social inequality. ISIS keeps increasing in numbers because youth unemployment is so high all over Europe & North America. Youths are not seeing a bright future in front of them. They are burdened with education debts & no future with good, secure, permanent employment. On an international scale, whole continents like Africa are still largely undeveloped & have bleak futures.
This hoarding of wealth by a small minority of the world also causing some worldwide problems, like water, food & energy. There is enough wealth in this world that if that wealth had been used appropriately, instead of being hoarded & hidden away in tax havens, our society would have found innovative solutions to water conservation, growing food for the growing population, & new & sustainable ways to power our homes & factories. But much more severe problems like pollution, food shortages, & water shortages will not only becomes much more severe in our future (they already are with whole continents like Australia & US state, California, suffering severe droughts) but much more violence & chaos is awaiting us when a huge majority will finally grows tired of their respective governments & take arms against rich themselves. It will be the French revolution on a worldwide scale.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The wealth of the average American household declined between 1983 & 2013, according to a leading economist.
Writing in a paper entitled Household Wealth Trends in the US, 1962-2013: What Happened over the Great Recession?, Professor Wolff claimed that America's worth rose partly because technology has improved & productivity has increases.
This means that society as a whole has become better & generating wealth.
The issue, for many, is that this extra wealth has been funnelled into the top 20% of the population, with the top 1% finding themselves 82% better off. However, the bottom 60% has become poorer, Vox.com reported.
Wolff found that the median wealth figure for middle-income families - that means it's been adjusted for inflation - for 1983 was $78,000 & the median wealth figure for 2013 was $63,800.
This economic injustice & social inequality is already causing lots of rift & chaos in European societies (austerity measures & unemployment giving rise to far-right political parties, which in turn, giving rise of hatred & discrimination in the society for minorities; religious, ethnic, racial etc.). Greece is threatening to exit EU, & we all have seen the protests in Athens, Madrid, Rome, & of course, who can forget the worldwide occupy movements.
Governments already angling to quell that chaos & before a large section of the society take up arms against the elites, by bringing in "anti-terror" legislation, in which, the definition of word "terrorist" has been deliberately kept vague, so anybody rises up against the elites of the society will be swiftly put down.
Be it international or domestic terrorism, one of the primary reasons is not any religion or power grab. The primary reason is this social inequality. ISIS keeps increasing in numbers because youth unemployment is so high all over Europe & North America. Youths are not seeing a bright future in front of them. They are burdened with education debts & no future with good, secure, permanent employment. On an international scale, whole continents like Africa are still largely undeveloped & have bleak futures.
This hoarding of wealth by a small minority of the world also causing some worldwide problems, like water, food & energy. There is enough wealth in this world that if that wealth had been used appropriately, instead of being hoarded & hidden away in tax havens, our society would have found innovative solutions to water conservation, growing food for the growing population, & new & sustainable ways to power our homes & factories. But much more severe problems like pollution, food shortages, & water shortages will not only becomes much more severe in our future (they already are with whole continents like Australia & US state, California, suffering severe droughts) but much more violence & chaos is awaiting us when a huge majority will finally grows tired of their respective governments & take arms against rich themselves. It will be the French revolution on a worldwide scale.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The wealth of the average American household declined between 1983 & 2013, according to a leading economist.
Writing in a paper entitled Household Wealth Trends in the US, 1962-2013: What Happened over the Great Recession?, Professor Wolff claimed that America's worth rose partly because technology has improved & productivity has increases.
This means that society as a whole has become better & generating wealth.
The issue, for many, is that this extra wealth has been funnelled into the top 20% of the population, with the top 1% finding themselves 82% better off. However, the bottom 60% has become poorer, Vox.com reported.
Wolff found that the median wealth figure for middle-income families - that means it's been adjusted for inflation - for 1983 was $78,000 & the median wealth figure for 2013 was $63,800.
Thursday, March 12, 2015
Friday, January 16, 2015
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