IMF – WB – WTO – Scaremongering Threats on De-Globalization and Tariffs – The Return to Sovereign Nations
by Peter Koenig for The Saker Blog
As key representatives of the three chief villains of international finance, the IMF, World Bank (WB) and World Trade Organization (WTO) met on the lush resort island of Bali, Indonesia, they warned the world of dire consequences in terms of reduced international investments and decline of economic growth as a result of the ever-widening trade wars initiated and instigated by the Trump Administration. They criticized protectionism that might draw countries into decline of prosperity. The IMF cuts its global economic growth forecast for the current year and for 2019.
This is pure scaremongering based on nothing. In fact, economic growth of the past that claimed of having emanated from increased trade and investments has served a small minority and driven a widening wedge between rich and poor of both developing and industrial countries. It’s interesting, how nobody ever talks about the internal distribution of GDP growth that these handlers and instruments of empire and liars for the elite are boasting about; nobody ever seems to question the way these growth rates are calculated – or perhaps just drawn out of hot air? Take the case of Peru, a resource-rich country that boasted in the past often an economic growth of 5% to 7%. On average, the distribution of this growth was such that 80% went to 5% of the population and 20% was to be distributed among 95% of the people. This doesn’t even address the fragmentation of the lower and higher tiers of the percentage breakdowns, but it surely creates more poverty, more inequality, more unemployment and more delinquency.
Or just look at the insane and totally unfounded IMF prediction of 1 million percent inflation of the Venezuelan new currency in 2019? = What are they talking about? No substantiation whatsoever. The same with the prediction of dire consequences from reduced trade, when trade as we know it, has and is serving almost exclusively the rich industrialized countries, leaving poorer developing countries behind with a burden of unfair deals and often a resulting debt trap.
Such manipulations of truth coming out of international financial and trade organizations, especially the IMF and the WB, are so flagrantly and scrupulously wrong that they cannot be backed with a shred of professionalism, yet they get away with it because of their apparent unfailable reputation, scaremongering government into doing what is against their and their peoples’ best interest, namely caring for their own local, sovereign economy, without any foreign interference.
That’s what neoliberal and neofascist economic doctrine wants – driving globalization forward, pushing its bitter medicine of austerity down poor governments throats, so to further exploit their people, creating more poverty, milking their social systems and steeling their natural resources.
Enough! Wake up! – Whatever you may think of President Trump – and he is certainly no panacea for world peace and his abject policy of interference in foreign lands and fueling conflicts and wars in the Middle East and around the globe must be condemned – but his protectionist policies, the “tariff wars” are a welcome sword into the belly of globalization – of the very neoliberal doctrine that has for the last thirty years brought more misery to 99.99% of the planet’s population than any other economic doctrine since Adam Smith. Trump may or may not know what he is doing, but certainly his handlers and advisers, hidden or overt, know the purpose of their newly professed turn of international policy. Its intention is to cut the political cohesion created by globalization, to divide again for the empire to conquer. Yes. The intention is not to promote local economies, per se, but rather to get countries ready for unguarded bilateral negotiations and agreements between Washington and the developing world, under which the latter have no protection, and with their mostly corrupt leaders, they buckle under facing the harsh conditions of the empire. So, the purpose is not to help, say, the Latin American US backyard to become sovereign again, to the contrary, with imposed bilateral deals – see Brazil, Argentina, Chile, Ecuador, Peru, Colombia – they are slated to become increasingly vulnerable to the US and US-dollar hegemony.
The point is – for self-conscious and alert governments with the desire to return to their sovereign national politics – this is a crucial moment of truth to take advantage of. The ship is turning. It is the moment to jump off the globalized bandwagon, the globalized trade – the open borders for indiscriminate foreign investments; it is time to sit down and reflect – and return to autonomous local policies: local economies, for local markets, with local money and local public banking for the benefit of the local economy. Trade, of course is part of a local economy; but trade should best be kept within the realm of friendly neighbors and nations that have similar interests and similar political convictions.
Trade under de-globalized circumstances should and will return equal benefits for partners, a win-win situation for all trading partners – as it should be according to the original interpretation of trade. By contrast, modern trade as we know it, has almost consistently benefitted the rich countries to the detriment of the poorer ones.
A good example for fair and equal trade may be ALBA (Alianza Bolivariana para los Pueblos de Nuestra América) – an association of 11 Latin American and Caribbean countries (Antigua and Barbuda Bolivia, Cuba, Dominica, Grenada, Nicaragua, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Saint Lucia, Saint Vincent, Surinam, the Grenadines and Venezuela), initiated and created by Venezuela and Cuba. ALBA may be an excellent illustration on how trade should work between countries or groups of countries. Most people have never heard of ALBA, for the simple reason, the international media are typically silent about it, because the neoliberal elite doesn’t want a case of equality to become an example for others to follow. There exist currently other similar, even lesser known cases of fair and equal trade, throughout the world, that are equally silenced by the media.
Promoting fair and equal trade is not an agenda item of WTO, nor of the IMF or the World Bank. Their role is just the contrary, being facilitators for the west to further exploit the people of the South and to further deplete the workers’ accumulated social safety-net funds that are still available in many western industrialized countries, especially in the western EU; the bedrock of social safety that can be privatized and sucked empty by the international corporate banking system, along with privatization of social infrastructure, such as water supply and sanitation, electricity, hospitals, airports, railways – and much more. All what has the air of profitability can and must be privatized under neoliberal economic doctrines.
Countries, nations and societies, beware from adhering and working with these nefarious globalizing organizations – IMF, WTO and WB. They are mere servants of western corporatism and debt enslaving financial systems driven by the US Federal Reserves (FED), as well as Wall Street, primarily with their European banking partners.
This is an appeal to all countries that are proud of regaining their political sovereignty and economic autonomy, to ignore scaremongering and fear imposing threats by the IMF, the World Bank and WTO. They are not representing the truth, but their nasty role is to belie reality in favor of manipulative invented statistics that are expected to being believed because they stem from these so-called well-reputed institutions. Again, the best example of the IMF’s nonsensical statements is their repeated denigration of Venezuela, accusing the country of fostering an economy that creates a one million percent inflation in 2018 and even higher, they say, in 2019. – Can you imagine? – That says it all. Be aware – their words, whether spoken in Bali, Washington or Geneva, are nothing more than fear- and threat mongering hot air.
Peter Koenig is an economist and geopolitical analyst. He is also a water resources and environmental specialist. He worked for over 30 years with the World Bank and the World Health Organization around the world in the fields of environment and water. He lectures at universities in the US, Europe and South America. He writes regularly for Global Research; ICH; RT; Sputnik; PressTV; The 21st Century; TeleSUR; The Vineyard of The Saker Blog, the New Eastern Outlook (NEO); and other internet sites. He is the author of Implosion – An Economic Thriller about War, Environmental Destruction and Corporate Greed – fiction based on facts and on 30 years of World Bank experience around the globe. He is also a co-author of The World Order and Revolution! – Essays from the Resistance.
Well, this is good news as far as I can say. Time to stop the Globalization monster. There is nothing wrong with independent countries working peacefully together. Not under one World Government. BTW, and who elects it?
Anonius:
“There is nothing wrong with independent countries working peacefully together.” Absolutely true and if known human history is any indication, it has never been accomplished anywhere on Earth except in small communities and only for brief periods of time. Long enough to give humans some memory and nostalgy of it, and a deep yearning for it, but never long enough to spread beyond very small confines.
Unreachable goal which, if we are to believe Joseph P. Farrell, might not even exist anywhere in the universe. Some “Mission Impossible” we accepted when choosing to be born. I often wonder if humans weren’t set up for failure from the get go… by whom and for what purpose, I don’t know. And when I’m done torturing myself with questions, the answer to which I will only know when I pass on, I listen to Anita Moorjani and Dr. Eben Alexander and go back to my truth: feeling at peace here and now and doing what I set out to do.
I do have to question the wisdom of putting creative intelligence in chimpanzees’ brain though…
Wrong! Christine.
For centuries (1241-1669 a.d.) the ‘Hanse’ cities as well as other surrounding cities doing business with cities of the Hanseatic league have been doing win-win thriving business. You can still see the difference in architecture and other signs of the former wealth of these cities as a result of this cooperation. Just look at Brugge in Belgium, or Delft in the Netherlands to get an idea. So, no “Mission Impossible” at all, it has been done and could well be done again.
Mr. Koenig is right on all the points that he put forward in this essay.
Nearly 30 years ago, Sir James Goldsmith, who was a brash and colorful business tycoon (the Richard Branson of his day), began a crusade against globalism and the process of globalization. He became a member of Parliament and a member of the European Parliament (like Nigel Farange -of UKIP fame- is today) just so he could make his views known to more people on a wider scale.
He wrote a book -“The Trap”, published in 1995- which forecasted completely and perfectly the consequences of globalization. He was invited to the US Congress to make his feelings known to the general public. But the major media generally disparaged him and his views, because he was not “an economist”.
It is past the time to recognize that Economics is not a science. Our countries and cultures, as well as our economies, are too important to be left in the hands of economists. Populism is the true democracy. Any argument, that there are certain areas of government or public policy which are too important to be left in the hand of elected representatives, is an attack upon the democratic form of government.
Thanks for mentioning Sir James Goldsmith . His prophetic interview with Charlie Rose from 1994.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wwmOkaKh3-s
He was once part of the Clermont set, a group of robber barons/high roller gamblers that included Onassis, Niarchos, Lucan, Aspinall, Packer and any one else with sufficiently long pockets that Aspinall could slowly fleece.
This does not necessarily negate his later-life conclusions regarding globalisation, of course. He wound up living in a forest in Mexico as a reclusive eccentric, I believe.
Way to go.
Only those of us of ‘a certain age’ will remember your list of rich miscreants, one minion. Each one you mention has a colourful history that only serious wealth//immunity from all authority can generate.
We will soon be gone and the usual suspects continue their unobstructed if tormented/tormenting way : lying, deceiving, thieving, murderous, thuggish rampage to destruction
I very much agree with the views of this author as to the nefarious intent of the named organizations. I only have a slight disagreement with one statement:
“beware from adhering and working with these nefarious globalizing organizations – IMF, WTO and WB. They are mere servants of western corporatism and debt enslaving financial systems driven by the US Federal Reserves (FED), as well as Wall Street,”
I know this is a sort of ‘what came first, the chicken or the egg’ type argument. And it is easier to decide what came first between the chicken and the egg. But, I really do think the case is the other way around. It is the international bankers, including their destructive instrument, the Federal Reserve banking system which runs and dictates the policy of nations including the U.S. These people hold no national loyalty. I am quite suspicious that, now that Trump has taken total responsibility for the U.S. economy, which he says is succeeding biggly, that they intend to pull the plug and bring it all crashing down. And Trump will get the blame. A world economic disaster that may involve also war to destroy the existing order. I’m sure they already have their solution ready to be imposed and it won’t be for the good of the people, but will bring much more enslavement than already exists.
This understanding of the power wielded by the money lenders was stated by Myer Amschel Rothschild, that he wanted control of the currency and he would not care who made the laws. Other men have clearly seen this danger including founders of the U.S., the one Canadian Prime Minister William Lyon MacKenzie King. Even Woodrow Wilson, in his death bed confession regarding the creation of the Federal Reserve lamented that he sold his country to be slaves. So this author is absolutely correct that we need to separate from these organizations run by these international bankers and use local money to support local production and trade. Sadly, all the leaderships are so corrupted we are likely to see the former rather than the latter.
A quick note on the IMF.
I once had a dream with Satan’s whore, Christine Lagarde. There was a big, giant, menacing, demonic illuminati-themed castle. I was walking through the cursed, wretched place. There was dark energy everywhere. It was a place of evil. Like something straight out of Resident Evil.
So there we were, in her (mod-to note: profanity deleted) castle. I was sitting at a dining table in a great hall, across from Christine. Also seated at the table were my parents. My parents were bamboozled and unaware of what was happening, but the demon whore was plotting their deaths. Christine was plotting to kill my parents.
I was then woken from the dream by an evil spirit, who didn’t want me to see this. The entity rushed straight at me, tackled me and as soon as this happened I woke up instantly.
Its very simple: at the national level the objective is to make citizens take on debt; at the international level the objective is to make countries take on debt. In both cases, the citizen or the country become captive.