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razz
1-5-11, 8:47am
I watched a TV Ontario program last night in which Steve Pakin interviewed the chief economist,Justin Yifu Lin, for the World Bank.
http://www.tvo.org/cfmx/tvoorg/theagenda/index.cfm?page_id=7&bpn=779925&ts=2011-01-04 20:00:00.0

This individual swam from Taiwan where he was born and grew up to mainland China with the idea that he wanted to help them leaving his wife and children behind. They did join him once he was established. Obtaining his PhD in Economics from the University of Chicago, he is now Professor of Economics at the University of Peking and Chief Economist providing advice to the directors of the World Bank on how to proceed in assisting countries that are facing economic challenges.

I have read that the appointment of the directors of the World Bank are selected in secrecy and drawn from the corporate world.

As I understand it, countries in Africa have been advised to allow corporations access to produce, manufacture, mine resources with the idea that the sales wil give the countries some revenue to operate and repay WB loans.

Negative consequences
EG: FOOD The longterm consequence has often been that corporations are able to dump food that is heavily subsidized in their home countries in these recipient countries and totally annihilate local food production and sales impovershing the local people who are then desperately dependent on the corporations for jobs.

LAND OWNERSHIP: In many African countries, the men were the hunter/warriors and women owned the land and it was handed down through matriarchal succession. Corporations are buying the land from the men as the women are not regarded as having equal rights. The men spend the money as they have no idea of money management, the women and their families are removed from their longterm homes homes and source of food for the family and are destitute. The corporations then own the land and use the resources.

With China buying so many resources around the world and paying with US bonds, the Chief Economist for the WB being the chief advisor and also a main advisor for China, what is the impact of the WB and what is its role in the developing world and as it unloads US bonds what will be the consequence?

I really have tried to understand all of this by reading but nothing makes sense in any positive way. I truly believe that we will all be impacted but not sure how.

Any ideas to explore to help?

jp1
1-6-11, 9:36pm
Personally I'd recommend reading John Perkins' "Confessions of an Economic Hitman". Fascinating story about how first world countries (in this case the US) use institutions like the World Bank and IMF to get control over developing nations to force them into doing what is in the US's (or its largest corporations') best interest rather than the developing country's. The basic idea is that the WB loans the developing country massive amounts of money for infrastructure projects, promising that the revenues will be more than sufficient to pay off the loans. Then, when the revenue projections are proven false the country is stuck with the debt and its leaders beholden to the US and forced to implement policies that are not in that country's best interests.

Another good book in this genre would be Naomi Klein's "The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism".

There's also an interesting web site called The Daily Bell that believes that there's a world "power elite" who are continually creating over-arching memes in order to influence public opinion for their benefit. The site definitely leans towards conspiracy theories so I take everything there with a couple of grains of salt, but plenty of what they write and what commenters on their articles write seems to have enough validity/logic/possibility of being true that I at least contemplate what they're saying.