It is reassuring that there is still such...

For educational purposes only:

..... dedication and self sacrifice in this
world.

While suffering through the monstrous
discomforts of Davos zee great mens
steell came up wiz zee MASTERPLAN.
Ja unt believe me zee western suckers
veel pay - och JA! Ha, ha, haaaa!!

Can't you just see the whole Khofi clan
dancing with joy?

Read 'em and weep.

Best - - Henry


From: The Independent
UN unveils plan to release untapped wealth
of...$7 trillion (and solve the world's
problems at a stroke)
By Philip Thornton, Economics Correspondent
Published: 30 January 2006


The most potent threats to life on earth - global warming,
health pandemics, poverty and armed conflict - could be
ended by moves that would unlock $7 trillion
- $7,000,000,000,000 (oo3.9trn) - of previously untapped
wealth, the United Nations claims today. The price? An
admission that the nation-state is an old-fashioned concept
that has no role to play in a modern globalised world where
financial markets have to be harnessed rather than simply
condemned.

In a groundbreaking move, the UN Development Programme
(UNDP) has drawn up a visionary proposal that has been
endorsed by a range of figures including Gordon Brown,
the Chancellor of the Exchequer, and Joseph Stiglitz, the
Nobel Laureate.

It says an unprecedented outbreak of co-operation between
countries, applied through six specific financial tools, would
slice through the Gordian knot of problems that have
bedevilled the world for most of the last century.

If its recommendations are accepted - and the authors
acknowledge this could take years or even decades - it
could finally force countries to face up to the fact that their
public finance and growth figures conceal the vast damage
their economies do to the environment.

At the heart of the proposal, unveiled at a gathering of world
business leaders at the Swiss ski resort of Davos, is a push
to get countries to account for the cost of failed policies, and
use the money saved "up front" to avert crises before they hit.
Top of the list is a challenge to the United States to join an
international pollution permit trading system which, the UN
claims, could deliver $3.64trn of global wealth.

Inge Kaul, a special adviser at the UNDP, said: "The way we
run our economies today is vastly expensive and inefficient
because we don't manage risk well and we don't prevent
crises." She downplayed concerns over up-front costs and
interest payments for the new-fangled financial devices.
"The gains in terms of development would outweigh those
costs. Money is wasted because we dribble aid, and the
costs of not solving the problems are much, much higher
than what we would have to pay for getting the financial
markets to lend the money." The UNDP is determined to
ensure globalisation, which has generated vast wealth for
multinational companies, benefits the poorest in society.

It urges politicians to embrace some groundbreaking
schemes put in place in the past 12 months to tackle
global warning, poverty and disease, based on working
with the global markets to share out the risk.

These include a pilot international finance facility (IFF)
to "front load" $4bn of cash for vaccines by borrowing
money against pledges of future government aid.

The scheme, which is backed by the UK, France, Italy,
Spain, Sweden and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation,
was born out of a proposal by Gordon Brown for a larger
scheme to double the total aid budget to $100bn a year.

In an endorsement of the report, Mr Brown said: "This
shows how we can equip people and countries for a new
global economy that combined greater prosperity and
fairness both within and across nations."

The UNDP says rich countries should build on this and
go further. It proposes six schemes to harness the power
of the markets:

* Reducing greenhouse gas emissions through pollution
permit trading; net gain $3.64trn.

* Cutting poor countries' borrowing costs by securing the
debts against the income from stable parts of their economies;
net gain $2.90trn.

* Reducing government debt costs by linking payments to
the country's economic output; net gain $600bn.

* An enlarged version of the vaccine scheme; net gain (including
benefits of lower mortality) $47bn.

* Using the vast flow of money from migrants back to their home
country to guarantee; net gain $31bn.

* Aid agencies underwriting loans to market investors to lower
interest rates; net gain $22bn. Professor Stiglitz, the former chief
economist of the World Bank and a staunch critic of the way
globalisation harms the poor, said: "Globalisation has meant the
closer integration of countries, and that in turn has meant a
greater need for collective action.

"One of the most important areas of failure is the environment.
Without government intervention, firms and households have
no incentive to limit their pollution." He said a global public
finance system would force countries to acknowledge the
external damage their policies had, "the most important being
global climate change".

Solving the environmental crisis tops the UN's $7trn wish-list.
It calls for an international market to trade pollution permits
that would encourage rich countries to cut pollution and hit
their targets under the Kyoto protocol.

But - and the UN admits it is a big "but" - the US would have
to sign up to Kyoto and carbon trading to achieve the $3.64trn
that it believes the system would deliver over time. "We are
dealing with a global problem as pollution can only be dealt
with internationally," Ms Kaul said. Richard Sandor, the head
of the Chicago Climate Exchange, added: "Many encouraging
signs are emerging. When the business case is clear, private
entrepreneurs step forward."

But, the proposal is unlikely to get support from some green
groups who believe that action to curb consumption, rather
than market incentives, are the way to reduce carbon emissions.
Andrew Simms, director of the New Economics Foundation,
said it left unanswered questions over how these markets
would be managed and how the benefits and costs would be
distributed. "We have nothing against markets so it would
be missing the point to get into a pro- or anti-market stance.
The point is how you distribute the benefits."

He said the Nineties, the zenith decade for globalisation, had
seen just 60 cents out of every $100 worth of growth
reach the poorest in society, compared with the $2.20 in
the Eighties. He said a pollution trading regime had the
potential to deliver "enormous" benefits to poor
countries, but said the UN report failed to show a detailed plan.

"Our view is that you have to cap pollution, allocate permits
and then you can trade. But it depends on how it is set up.
Because you are dealing with a global commons of the atmosphere,
the danger is that you could be effectively dealing in stolen goods."

He said a system set up now to trade in pollution permits
could end up permanently depriving poor countries that
joined the system further down the road.

International problems - and solutions
PANDEMIC DISEASES
Millions of people across the developing world have died from
malaria, tuberculosis and HIV/Aids, as well as from other
pandemics. Vaccines needed to avert them require much-needed
investment.

SOLUTION: An advance commitment by rich countries to
buy $3bn (oo1.7bn) worth of vaccines would be enough to
encourage pharmaceutical giants to invest in finding
medicines that would eliminate these pandemics.
SAVING: $600bn
ALTERNATIVE SOLUTION: Vaccines are needed but
more should be done in the meantime. Extra aid is needed
for simple tools such as mosquito nets that would curb
spread of malaria.
PARIAH STATES
Big business and global money ignore countries where they
see the risk of conflict outweighing their potential profit margins.
SOLUTION: Guarantees by international organisations such
as the International Monetary Fund to lower the cost of
borrowing for poor nations by underwriting investors' loans
to conflict-torn states.
SAVING: $22bn
ALTERNATIVE SOLUTION: Sometimes large volumes of
cash are needed and this is one. Live8 showed there was huge
support among taxpayers for higher aid to countries in distress.
Hitting a commitment made in the 1960s of 0.7 per cent of
GDP would unlock $140bn a year.
NATIONAL BANKRUPTCY
Once great nations such as Brazil and Argentina were reduced
to the status of beggars after poor economic policy combined
with debts with national and international lenders.
SOLUTION: A system to enable countries to take loans linked
to their average economic growth rate to ensure that they do
not have to cut public spending to raise the money to borrow
needed funds during the hard times.
SAVING: $600bn
ALTERNATIVE SOLUTION: A system to allow countries to
seek protection from their creditors in the same way that US
companies can take so-called Chapter 11 bankruptcy.
SPECULATIVE INVESTORS
Poor countries suffer most from swings in investment tastes
by the big global investors that means money can leave as
soon as it arrives.
SOLUTION: Enable countries to buy "insurance policies"
against big swings in growth that would ensure that they did
not have to cut public spending every time. In 1997 it wreaked
havoc across South-east Asia.
SAVING: $2,900bn
ALTERNATIVE SOLUTION: Curb speculative investment
by imposing a tax on foreign exchange transactions aimed
at destabilising a currency. It could directly raise funds for
development while preventing the worst excesses of the markets.
GLOBAL WARMING
Scientists believe human activity has led to climate change
and disappearing Arctic ice. The world's poor also have to live
with lethal storms and floods.
UN SOLUTION: A system of international trading in permits
to allow pollution that would encourage countries to cut their
emission of greenhouse gases so they can sell their "right to
pollute" to other states. UNDP says it is more effective than
just setting targets.
SAVING: $3,620bn
ALTERNATIVE SOLUTION: An international approach
is needed but one that prevents people from causing harm by
setting pollution targets rather than trying to bribe them not to.
Also agree global airline tax.
BRAIN DRAIN
Millions of skilled workers leave their home countries every
year in search of a better life in the West. In some states nine
out 10 professionals have left.
SOLUTION: Enable countries to borrow on the open markets
against the money workers send home. The capital would be
used to invest in the country to build infrastructure that would
discourage people from leaving.
SAVING: $31bn
ALTERNATIVE SOLUTION: An international code of ethical
guidelines overseen by bodies such as the World Health
Organisation (for doctors and nurses) to monitor the harm that
migration of professionals causes.


.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: (serious) old words, still valid ....
    ... Lots of other countries are opening up services centers and I'm ... Do you think we don't have smalll companies that do exports? ... Understand that there is more disagreement between economists than your "laws of gravity". ... There were once hopes that globalisation would benefit all, both in advanced industrial countries and the developing world. ...
    (sci.research.careers)
  • FMI despre efectele globalizarii
    ... The problem, as some see it, is that workers in rich countries ... In its semi-annual World Economic Outlook, the IMF examines how trade, ... Globalisation is not the only possible reason why labour's share has ...
    (soc.culture.romanian)
  • Re: FMI despre efectele globalizarii
    ... The problem, as some see it, is that workers in rich countries ... technology and immigration have stitched the world's labour markets ... Globalisation is not the only possible reason why labour's share has ...
    (soc.culture.romanian)
  • Re: a more interesting epistle by kaletshy....
    ... "Globalisation has also affected the growth of borrowing in ways ... consumers in the advanced economies. ... global capital markets has allowed countries that embrace high ...
    (uk.politics.misc)
  • Re: a more interesting epistle by kaletshy....
    ... "Globalisation has also affected the growth of borrowing in ways ... consumers in the advanced economies. ... global capital markets has allowed countries that embrace high ...
    (uk.politics.misc)