COMMENTARY

Peter Burgess

Structural Adjustment programs of the IMF and World Bank have led to a race to the bottom, where standards of living are continuously reduced.

♥ For every $1 in aid a developing country receives, over $25 is spent on debt repayment.
♥ The poorer the country the more likely it is that debt repayments are being extracted directly from people who got nothing out of the loan.
♥ The IMF has put Indonesia in a death trap till 2040, it has also driven more than 100 million Indonesians below the poverty line.
♥ The poorest nations of the world are literally drowning in debt, their populations are working to pay off the interest on World Bank loans.
♥ When the IMF bails out a country, it actually only bails out the big banks in the country which are owned by Wall Street's big banks.
♥ Every loan that the World Bank makes comes with a Structural Adjustment Program intended to open up poor people lives to corporate control.
♥ Forbes Magazine gave Monsanto its 'Company of the Year Award' in 2009 even as it drove thousands of Indian farmers to despair and suicide.
♥ For every $1 in aid to the poor, $205 are given to rich world agriculture for the purpose of driving up food prices.
♥ 25,000 people continue to die each day from hunger in a world with a huge surplus of food.
♥ Around 27-28 percent of all children in developing countries are estimated to be underweight or stunted.
♥ IMF/World Bank structural adjustment programs and Bank project loans have led to 64% of the world's deforestation.
♥ The World Bank has approved millions of dollars in loans for the privatization of water systems in poor countries.
♥ Corporations use more water than the poorest 70% of the world's people.
♥ In India, Coca Cola has deprived locals of water use, up to 9 liters of water are required to make 1 liter of Coca Cola.
♥ Bill Gates' net worth is higher that the net worth of all African American males in the United States.
♥ The United States is the world's largest manufacturer of culture, 94% of media consumed in the world is owned by American capitalists.
♥ 20% of the world's people live on under $1.4 a day while American consumers are urged to spend more more more for a 'healthy' economy.
♥ One million people are employed by the diamond industry in India, they make an average of $1.2 per day.
♥ More than 80 percent of the world's population lives in countries where income differentials are widening at a frightening pace.
♥ There are 121 million children in the world that lack any education, most of them end up in Fortune 500 sweatshops.
♥ Less than 1% of what the world spent every year on weapons was needed to put every child into school by the year 2000.
♥ A survey of weapons companies execs has found than 4/5 are fine with their weapons killing children as long as it isn't their children.
♥ Nearly a billion people entered the 21st century unable to read a book or sign their names but they all recognize corporate logos.
♥ For every billionaire in our world there are 1.3 million people living in abject poverty.
♥ In 1953 the CIA assassinated Iranian leader Mohammad Mosaddeg because he was not giving the U.S. sweet oil concessions.

Corporations and Worker’s Rights — Global Issues

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7 shares - AG Adathakkar, Adrian MANEA, James Barrow, John Bill, John Kellden and 2 more

as the world stands now, it is NOT functional. yet people carry on like they are not in a global war and can just worry about their personal lives while the world dies more every day. until we've built a functional world that is not leaving thousands to starve and suffer every day, people should not be allowed to have anything less then the same focus they would have if their nation was loosing a global war. till then terrorism is absolutely 100% justified, and won't stick to low tech much longer. already organic tech makes nukes look weak. 2:59 PM (edited)