Bloggers Parliament
December 17, 2003
World Bank Chief: It's Time to Restore Balance
In our world of 6 billion people, one billion own 80 percent of global GDP, while another billion struggle to survive on less than a dollar a day. This is a world out of balance.
When James Wolfensohn, president of the World Bank, addressed the Board of Governors of the Bank at a meeting in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, on September 23, he concluded his talk with an appeal to re-balance the economy on a world wide scale.
Wolfensohn said: "It is time to take a cold, hard look at the future. Our planet is not balanced. Too few control too much, and too many have too little to hope for. Too much turmoil, too many wars. Too much suffering." He continued, saying that, acting together, "we must rebalance our world to give everyone the chance for life that is secure - with a right to expression. Equal rights for women. Rights for the disabled and disadvantaged. The right to a clean environment. The right to learn. The right to development... These are not exotic objectives. All of us want the same, rich and poor alike."
The World Bank and specially the Board of Governors Wolfensohn was addressing at the occasion, hold the key to ending the economic imbalance of this world, but don't hold your breath that they will actually do so. Drumming up donations for poor countries is all they can come up with, when what's needed would be deep reforms of the very monetary system this planet runs under.
When, in conclusion, Wolfensohn states: "we all share one planet. It is time to restore balance to the way we use it. Let us move forward to fight poverty, to establish equity, and assure peace for the next generation", he does not tell us that it is the economic policies pursued by the institution he heads and whose owners he addresses, which are the underlying cause of poverty. He does not tell us that World Bank loans come with conditions to gut social programs in poor countries - it's called tightening the belt - and that most of the money they loan never even arrives in the countries who need the money but goes straight to the "creditor banks" to pay for ... interest. He does not tell us that instead of favouring a debt free economy world wide, the Bank's policies are driving us deeper and deeper into the hole day by day.
Contrast that with the experience of a group of small islands in the English Channel. Their misery seemed endless and their debt was a burden without hope - until they happened upon a trick that allowed them to slip out from underneath the yoke of the international banking system's destructive debt based economic straitjacket.
Countries all over the world should look into the experience of Jersey and Guernsey and take heart: There IS a way out of economic misery. But it does imply re-thinking the basics of monetary policy.
Continue reading "World Bank Chief: It's Time to Restore Balance"
Permalink "World Bank Chief: It's Time to Restore Balance"
Posted at 03:56 PM
| Comments (2)
| Trackbacks (1)
Trackback link:
http://www.newmediaexplorer.org/cgi-bin/mt-tb.cgi/815
November 22, 2003
UsuryFree Community Currencies
This article is being posted to Bloggers Parliament as a suggested solution to the problem of Economic imbalances/Money, in recognition of the fact that our current monetary system is deeply inequitable, leaving the producers of value (all of us who work) with crumbs, while a large part of the resources produced is automatically transferred to those who happen to have accumulated the greatest piles of monetary resources.
Tommy-Usury: Free reports from the ongoing International Seminar About Financial Responsibilities and UsuryFree Community Currencies at UQAM, the University of Quebec in Montreal.
22 November 2003
In the first interim report, Tommy says Bernard Lietaer presented the concept of complementary community currencies. Litaer's prediction: "Orthodox economics will fight complementary community currencies just like conventional medicine fights the introduction of acupuncture and other alternative healing methods."
27 November 2003
A second interim report on the presentation of Molly Scott, Professor at the University of Wales, who relates of experiments with local currencies, designed to liven up the economies of villages that suffered from the closure of coal mines - their former principal source of income and economic activity.
28 November 2003
The third interim report relates the talk of Michael Linton, the software engineer who designed the original usuryfree LETS (Local Employment Trading System) software in the early 1980's. Tommy also adds his own thoughts on how to expand the local employment trading system into an internet-based world wide exchange of "hours", the currency LETS are based on.
* - * - * - * - * - * - * - *
Continue reading "UsuryFree Community Currencies"
Permalink "UsuryFree Community Currencies"
Posted at 11:11 PM
| Comments (1)
| Trackbacks (2)
Trackback link:
http://www.newmediaexplorer.org/cgi-bin/mt-tb.cgi/729
October 13, 2003
If you want peace, prepare for peace...
This article is posted as a contribution to Bloggers Parliament.
The Problem category addressed is
"Threats or dangers to individuals, countries or the planet."
The specific problem addressed here is the existence of nuclear weapons which are wholly unsuited for warfare in our planetary environment. They not only barbariously wipe out large parts of the population of any nation or area attacked, but may potentially cause a cataclysm of unforseen dimensions by destabilizing planetary tectonic or other natural equilibria.
The solution is not mine. It is Nobel laureate Joseph Rotblat's, discussed in an interview with Newsweek.
I would only add that for nuclear weapons to be actually eliminated, non-proliferation, if it only means no more new nuclear nations, is the wrong goal. We must go for actual elimination of nuclear (and other) weapons of mass destruction, and the demand should be sustained loudly by an international campaign of an alliance of people and countries who will not hesitate to pressure the "biggest bully" to comply just the same as everyone else.
As we know, there may always be the rogue country, one who might have designs on controlling others through the use of overwhelming force. A country might theoretically disarm but then in secret go back on its word and make nuclear weapons to blackmail the rest of the world with them. There would have to be a strong peace-keeping and enforcement capability vested in an international organization such as the United Nations.
Such an international governing body should not be controlled by one or a few "privileged nations" as today's U.N. and it should have - in addition to the allegiance of all nations on earth, the strength to confront any one nation or group of nations that would threaten or prepare for the use of nuclear or other weapons of mass destruction.
Here's the Newsweek interview:
Continue reading "If you want peace, prepare for peace..."
Permalink "If you want peace, prepare for peace..."
Posted at 05:34 PM
| Comments (5)
| No trackbacks
Trackback link:
http://www.newmediaexplorer.org/cgi-bin/mt-tb.cgi/564
World Bank Chief: It's Time to Restore Balance
December 17, 2003
UsuryFree Community Currencies
November 22, 2003
If you want peace, prepare for peace...
October 13, 2003
|
|
|
Warning: include(/usr/www/users/ikonos/newmediaexplorer/sepp/includes/credit.htm) [function.include]: failed to open stream: No such file or directory in /usr/www/users/aadams84/www.newmediaexplorer.org/sepp/bloggers_parliament.htm on line 283
Warning: include() [function.include]: Failed opening '/usr/www/users/ikonos/newmediaexplorer/sepp/includes/credit.htm' for inclusion (include_path='.:/usr/local/lib/php') in /usr/www/users/aadams84/www.newmediaexplorer.org/sepp/bloggers_parliament.htm on line 283
Warning: include(/usr/www/users/ikonos/newmediaexplorer/sepp/includes/license.htm) [function.include]: failed to open stream: No such file or directory in /usr/www/users/aadams84/www.newmediaexplorer.org/sepp/bloggers_parliament.htm on line 287
Warning: include() [function.include]: Failed opening '/usr/www/users/ikonos/newmediaexplorer/sepp/includes/license.htm' for inclusion (include_path='.:/usr/local/lib/php') in /usr/www/users/aadams84/www.newmediaexplorer.org/sepp/bloggers_parliament.htm on line 287
|
