Are the World Bank and International Monetary Fund just a mouthpiece for the 1%ers...?

[MindMover]

The World Bank and The International Monetary Fund

Through loans, often to governments whose constituents suffer the most under the global economy, and "structural adjustment" policies, the World Bank (WB) International Monetary Fund (IMF) has kept most nations of the global south in poverty. Conditions on accepting loans ensure open market access for corporations while cutting social spending on programs such as education, health care and production credits for poor farmers.

Created after World War II to help avoid Great Depression-like economic disasters, the World Bank and the IMF are the world's largest public lenders, with the Bank managing a total portfolio of $200 billion and the Fund supplying member governments with money to overcome short-term credit crunches.

But when the IMF and the WB lend money to debtor countries, the money comes with strings attached. These strings come in the form of policy prescriptions called "structural adjustment policies." These policies—or SAPs, as they are sometimes called—require debtor governments to open their economies to penetration by foreign corporations, allowing access to the country's workers and environment at bargain basement prices.

Structural adjustment policies mean across-the-board privatization of public utilities and publicly owned industries. They mean the slashing of government budgets, leading to cutbacks in spending on health care and education. They mean focusing resources on growing export crops for industrial countries rather than supporting family farms and growing food for local communities. And, as their imposition in country after country in Latin America, Africa, and Asia has shown, they lead to deeper inequality and environmental destruction.

http://www.globalexchange.org/resources/wbimf

When the IMF research division continues to perpetuate this kind of propaganda.....????

Oil prices could double by 2022, IMF warned



Global trade would be profoundly affected if crude prices permanently doubled from current historic high of $113 a barrel

The oil prices warning comes as the International Energy Agency predicts oil consumption will accelerate for the rest of this year. Photograph: George Esiri/EPA

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has been warned by its internal research team that there could be a permanent doubling of oil prices in the coming decade with profound implications for global trade.

"This is uncharted territory for the world economy, which has never experienced such prices for more than a few months," the report warns.

The new IMF "working paper" come as the value of crude on world markets remains at the historically high level of $113 a barrel and just after the International Energy Agency reported that consumption would accelerate for the rest of this year in line with a wider economic recovery.

Undertaken amid mounting concerns about "peak oil", the IMF study does not presume that there is a constraint on how much oil can be taken out of the ground. It prefers to believe that extraction rates will depend on the price that will be able to be charged for the final product.

"While our model is not as pessimistic as the pure geological view that typically holds that binding resource constraints will lead world oil production on to an inexorable downward trend in the very near future, our prediction of small further increases in world oil production comes at the expense of a near doubling, permanently, of real oil prices over the coming decade," argues the report, entitled The Future of Oil: Geology v Technology.

The paper, which contains a warning that it should not be reported as representing the views of the IMF itself was nevertheless prepared by several authors including Jaromir Benes, a former head of macroeconomic modelling in the Czech National Bank but now employed by the IMF in Washington.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2012/may/13/oil-price-doubling-decade-imf



About the IMF

http://www.imf.org/external/about.htm

About the World Bank

http://www.worldbank.org/


Poll: How long before the 99ers realize that they need there own banks...?

0 votes, 2 passes | Time left: Unlimited
	It will take another 1-3 years before the fit hits the shan again....
	0 (0%)
	Nah, this crap will carry on and on for another 5-10 years before 99ers will all be broke....
	0 (0%)
	Are you joking around, the 99ers love sucking the hind tit and will continue to enjoy there lot in life.....
	0 (0%)
	2 DU members did not wish to select any of the options provided.
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[Vincardog]

1. In a word YES

[MindMover]

2. Banksters.....

[url=http://www.flickr.com/photos/41483660@N04/6675009837/][img][/img][/url]
[url=http://www.flickr.com/photos/41483660@N04/6675009837/]bankers[/url]

[RB TexLa]

3. The answer is: No, they aren't.

[white_wolf]

4. Yes they are.

[leveymg]

5. Anyone in the WB will tell you, there's a world of difference between the two.

They aren't under the same management, and they don't pursue the same policies, programs, and agendas. Particularly in the last 20 years, World Bank has distanced itself from the IMF's austerity and structural adjustment programs. So has IMF, to a major degree. They aren't the bank for the 1%. Look at the private investment funds and hedge funds for that.

[raouldukelives]

6. Nope.

They also speak for all the investors, corporate servants & politicians (but I repeat myself) who without the weight of their confidence & labor brought to apply many of these negotiations would fail before they started. So maybe they speak for the 16% or thereabouts.