| Sajha.com Archives | |
| Username | Post |
| paramendra | Posted
on 26-Sep-02 06:31 PM
What do you think? All Sides Brace for World Bank Protests -- D.C. Police Warn Commuters to Avoid Driving Tomorrow |
| paramendra | Posted
on 26-Sep-02 06:37 PM
Globalization and Its Critics |
| Poonte | Posted
on 26-Sep-02 08:02 PM
I will be there with a whole bunch of my classmates...will report back to you afterwards! |
| DHUMBASSE (DUMBASS) | Posted
on 26-Sep-02 08:30 PM
I have to work tomorrow. I work downtown, and am worried about my commute. It is safer to take the Metro,but I heard the protesters are planning to obstruct that either. I do not know how the days gonna go. |
| Naresh_karki | Posted
on 26-Sep-02 08:49 PM
Me too...I have class tomorrow. |
| Poonte | Posted
on 29-Sep-02 12:46 PM
Unfortunately, I had to cancel my much-looked-forward-to trip to the World Bank protests--something urgent came up for the weekend, and I had to go out of town. My friends think I chickened out! Anyway, in a nutshell, I think of the World Bank and the IMF as two huge landlords, attaching impossible strings to the loans they make to the poor farmers, i.e., the underdeveloped world. In the name of helping the helpless, their policies only benefit the rich at the expense of the poor. Let me know if anyone wishes me to elaborate any further... |
| Naresh_karki | Posted
on 29-Sep-02 12:50 PM
Poonte are you in DC? Which school... I was also planning to protest but couldnot make it out. :( |
| paramendra | Posted
on 29-Sep-02 01:29 PM
Poonte, plz elaborate. |
| Poonte | Posted
on 30-Sep-02 12:18 PM
Paramendra-jee, My primary objection to the WB and the IMF is about the structure of their internal bureaucracy. The decision-making body of board members consists of ONLY the developed, donor countries, with an American always as the president. Furthermore, the president has the authority to act independently of the board members if he deems it necessary, thus granting the US a free hand in making decisions unilaterally. I find it quite unacceptable that the developing/underdeveloped countries, for whom the funds of the Bank and the Fund are supposedly created, has absolutely no say at all over the decisions made by them. I believe the IMF has recently changed its course and started granting the presidency to a French national, but it is still far from being able to act independently of the monopoly of the US government. World Bank’s policy is to finance only those projects that promote private investments such as roads and electricity. Only recently, under heavy criticisms, have they started to venture into education, health and the environment; however, the policy transition to accept a wider scope of development has been extremely slow at the best. Even with the projects to develop infrastructures, the WB $$$ is to be used only to finance the imported materials and human resources—a recipient, for example, cannot spend the loan on financing the salaries of indigenous workers. This helps promote what experts call a dependency theory of development—the loan $$$ is spent and re-routed to return to the donor country, creating a stagnation of the internal economy of the recipient country. This trend of prohibiting the circulation of $$$ into the internal economy has an adverse effect on the economic stimulation of the loan receiver, thus making the latter ever more dependent on the donor countries. Until 1960, when the IDA (International Development Association) was created within the WB, their interest rates were almost as high as the commercial rates. IDA opened a small window of soft loans to a limited # of countries with GDP/Capita under a certain level, but still places greater emphasis on the high-interest loans than soft loans or grants. As for the IMF, the very fact that the amount of $$$ a country can borrow from the Fund depends on the subscription amount that the country has paid, enables only the rich countries with higher rates of subscriptions get help from the Fund. Unless, of course, one has a rich friend who can guarantee the loan. It is, therefore, no wonder that the list of principle users of the IMF financing in the latter half of the previous century lacked the names of the real needy, poor, destitute countries. Did you know that the UK was number two? Mexico, Argentina, India and Russia were among the rest of the top five. Therefore, the WB and IMF has hardly been helping the poor, and when it seems like they are helping, they are in fact helping only the richer countries by forcing the recipients to pay high interest rates and to import equipment and services from the developed countries. I also do not believe Adam Smith’s “Wealth of Nations” can be translated into the bible of every country’s economy. Having American monopoly, the Bank and the Fund strictly impose upon the recipient country a do-not-budge capitalist doctrine. Depending on the historical, geographical and cultural backgrounds of the various recipients of the funds from the Bank and the Fund, they should be allowed to be flexible on the type of economy that may best suit their needs. Some argue that the lender has the right to impose upon the receiver any limitations that the former sees fit, and that the latter is not obliged to accept the loan if they feel that the conditions are too harsh. Nevertheless, the fact is that many countries around the world do need help, and if the lender imposes upon them the impossible conditions, they may not even survive, let alone pay back the loan. |
| paramendra | Posted
on 30-Sep-02 12:47 PM
Poonte, I agree with the general thrust of what you say. The World Bank/IMF go against two major working ideologies: (1) democracy, and (2) free markets. |
| Bitchpatroll | Posted
on 30-Sep-02 12:54 PM
Mr Param I have no shame Indra, So did you contribute to the betterness of Sajha ? or you you only know how to talk out of your behind(serious case of diarrhea mouth). |
| Poonte | Posted
on 30-Sep-02 12:55 PM
Yes, Paramendra...may I also add "in the name of democracy and free markets," they go against the very notions of political and economic freedom. |