Tag Archives: IMF

Our global economic system is broken. Are we headed for a mass revolt?

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How long can billionaires continue to amass wealth while the world’s poorest struggle to buy food?

By Paul Rogers  Published 5-28-2022 by openDemocracy

Screenshot: The Today Show

While it has long been blatantly obvious that the global economic model is not working for all, the rate of accumulation of wealth by a small minority is now breathtaking – if not totally obscene.

With the situation only being worsened by the economic impact of the Ukraine War – which has come on top of the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic – could we be headed for mass revolts sparked by a desperate need for change? Continue reading →

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Poverty is a political choice

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A UN Rapporteur has just delivered a withering critique of the international system.

By Stephen McCloskey  Published 7-9-2020 by openDemocracy

Philip Alston, Special Rapporteur on Extreme Poverty and Human Rights, 22 June 2018. | Flickr/UN Photo/Jean-Marc Ferré. CC BY-NC-ND 2.0.

The United Nations Rapporteur on Extreme Poverty and Human Rights, Philip Alston, has just released his final report, a withering critique of international efforts to eliminate poverty which he describes as the result of “longstanding neglect” by “many governments, economists, and human rights advocates.”

Central to his report are the institutional failings of the World Bank in getting to grips with the scale of global poverty, which it persistently underplays using the flawed measurement tool of an international poverty line, or IPL. The IPL, argues Alston, sets the poverty benchmark at way too low a level to support a life of dignity consistent with basic human rights. Continue reading →

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Cambodia Outraged as US Demands Repayment of ‘Blood-Stained’ War Debt

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The US dropped more than 500,000 tons of bombs on Cambodia during the Vietnam War

By Nika Knight, staff writer for Common Dreams. Published 3-13-2017

U.S. fighter jets and an attack plane drop bombs on Cambodia circa 1973. (Photo: Wikimedia Commons/cc)

Cambodians are responding with outrage to the U.S. government’s demand that the country repay a nearly 50-year-old loan to Cambodia’s brutal Lon Nol government, which came to power through a U.S.-backed coup and spent much of its foreign funds purchasing arms to kill its own citizens, according to Cambodia’s current prime minister Hun Sen.

While the U.S. was backing the Lon Nol government, it was also strafing the Cambodian countryside with bombs—a carpet-bombing campaign that would eventually see over 500,000 tons of explosives dropped on the small Asian country, killing hundreds of thousands of civilians and leaving a legacy of unexploded ordnances. Continue reading →

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IMF Chief Convicted, But Spared Jail Time, for Corruption

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“This should help calm all that they’re-only-in-it-for-themselves, anti-establishment feeling out there,” quipped Globe and Mail senior international correspondent Mark MacKinnon

By Lauren McCauley, staff writer for Common Dreams. Published 12-19-2016

Christine Lagarde in meeting with Iranian President, Hassan Rouhani. Photo:: resident.ir [CC BY 4.0], via Wikimedia Commons

Christine Lagarde, head of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), on Monday was found guilty of “negligence” for approving a massive government payout to business tycoon Bernard Tapie during her tenure as French finance minister.

“This should help calm all that they’re-only-in-it-for-themselves, anti-establishment feeling out there,” quipped Globe and Mail senior international correspondent Mark MacKinnon in response to the latest charge of government corruption.

Though Judge Martine Ract Madoux did not hand down a sentence for the managing director, the court said Largarde “should have done more” to prevent the €405m ($422m) payout, Bloomberg reports.  Continue reading →

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‘The Mother of All Risks’: Insurance Giants Call on G20 to Stop Bankrolling Fossil Fuels

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Multinational firms managing $1.2tn in assets declare subsidies for coal, oil, and gas ‘simply unsustainable’

By Lauren McCauley, staff writer for Common Dreams. Published 8-29-2016

An aerial photograph of Baton Rouge, Louisiana after historic flooding destroyed much of the city, August 18, 2016. (Photo: Thomas Cizauskas/cc/flickr)

An aerial photograph of Baton Rouge, Louisiana after historic flooding destroyed much of the city, August 18, 2016. (Photo: Thomas Cizauskas/cc/flickr)

Warning that climate change amounts to the “mother of all risks,” three of the world’s biggest insurance companies this week are demanding that G20 countries stop bankrolling the fossil fuels industry.

Multi-national insurance giants Aviva, Aegon, and Amlin, which together manage $1.2tn in assets, released a statement Tuesday calling on the leaders of the world’s biggest economies to commit to ending coal, oil, and gas subsidies within four years. Continue reading →

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BOMBSHELL: WikiLeaks Exposes IMF Plan of Financial Terror to Force Government Compliance

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By Jay Smyropolus. Published 4-4-2016 by The Free Thought Project

SM15 IMFC

Photo: IMF

WikiLeaks has once again exposed how supranational organizations create artificial crises in an effort to advance the Western corporate-political elites geostrategic goals, as revealed in the transcript of a teleconference, which took place on March 19, 2016, between top International Monetary Fund (IMF) officials.

The striking conversation reveals IMF officials imply that the threat of an imminent financial disaster was necessary to force other stakeholders into accepting the IMF’s “measures” such as cutting Greek pensions and working conditions. However, a June 23 referendum will essentially freeze European decision-making at an extremely critical moment – potentially risking greater political destabilization, but also giving the organization greater leverage. Continue reading →

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