IMF dhe WTO jane te pergjegjshme per skemat piramidale, shkaterrimin e ekonomise sone

[Judges of Ur]

Naiviteti yne kombetar na ka ber te verber per cka ka ndodhur ne Shqiperi. Ne i kemi mbyllur syte ndaj aktivitetit te xhvatesve te vertete te Shqiperise. Por me pak germim ne aktivitin e te plotfuqishmeve IMF dhe WTO duket qarte se keta perbindesh te maskuar qendrojne mbrapa shkaterrimit total te ekonomise shqiptare. lexoni artikullin e meposhtem.


Condensed from an interview by Greg Palast



As a former member of Bill Clinton's cabinet as Chairman of the President's council of economic advisors and the former chief economist for the World Bank, Joe Stiglitz had access to information, which was not available to outsiders. The World Bank fired Joe Stiglitz in 1999 for his apparent dissent of the bank’s economic policies on globalization. He had come to realize that the political ideology of his employer had gone rotten and he was now ready to “spill the beans” regarding some of the bank’s dubious activities. The word is that he was not allowed to go quietly into the night as US Treasury Secretary, Larry Summers, was demanding a public excommunication of Mr. Stiglitz for having made his views known to the pubic.

In a recent interview with The London Observer and BBC TV’s Newsnight, some of the real, often hidden workings of the IMF, World Bank, and the bank’s 51% owner, the US Treasury were revealed. Also, documents marked “confidential”, “restricted”, and “ not otherwise (to be) disclosed without World Bank authorization were brought to light. One such document entitled “Country Assistance Strategy” outlined the assistance strategy for every poor nation, designed, says the World Bank, after a careful, in-country investigation. But, according to insider Stiglitz, the bank’s staff “investigation” consisted of a close inspection of each nation’s five-star hotels. It ends with the Bank’s staff meeting some begging, pleading finance minister who is handed a “restructuring agreement” pre-drafted for his “voluntary” signature. Each nation’s economy is individually analyzed, then, says Stiglitz, the bank hands every minister the same, exact four-step program.

Step One is Privatization – which Stiglitz says could be more accurately labeled “briberization”. National leaders, using the World Bank’s demands to silence the local critics – happily flogged their electricity and water companies for a 10% commission to be paid into a Swiss bank account for simply shaving a few billion off the sale price of their national assets. (Control ends up in the hands of a few and, ultimately, the monopolization of these essential assets leads to higher costs for consumers.)

Step Two of the “rescue” plan is “Capital Market Liberalization”. In theory, capital market deregulation allows investment capital to flow in and out. Unfortunately, as in Indonesia and Brazil, the money simply flowed out and out. Stiglitz calls this the “Hot Money” cycle as cash comes in for speculation in real estate and currency, and then flees at the first sign of trouble. A nation’s reserves can drain in days or hours and when that happens, to seduce speculators into returning a nation’s own capital funds, the IMF demands these nations raise interest rates to 30%, 50% or more. The results are predictable, demolished property values, crippled industrial production and empty national treasuries.

At this point, the IMF drags the gasping nation to Step Three; Market Based Pricing, a fancy term for raising prices on food, water, and other essentials. This leads, predictably, to Step Three and a Half, what Stiglitz calls the IMF riot.

When a nation is “down and out, the IMF takes advantage and squeezes the last pound of flesh out of them. They turn up the heat until the whole cauldron blows up,” as when the IMF eliminated food and fuel subsidies for the poor in Indonesia in 1998. The people rioted, but there were other examples – the Bolivian riots over water prices in 2000 and this February (2001), the riots in Ecuador over this rise in cooking gas prices imposed by the World Bank. (It is almost as though the riots were part of the plan)

One such “plan”, the “Interim Country Assistance Strategy” for Ecuador stated with cold accuracy that “social unrest” was expected. The secret report notes that the plan to make the US dollar Ecuador’s national currency has pushed 51% of the population below the poverty line. The World Bank “Assistance” plan simply calls for facing down civil strife and suffering with “political resolve” – and still higher prices.

The IMF riots cause more panic and the flight of capital out of the countries and the ultimate bankruptcy of governments. (Look at recent events in Argentina). Foreign corporations also take advantage of these situations by buying up remaining assets at fire sale prices.

A pattern soon emerges. There are lots of losers and one clear winner, the Western banks and the US Treasury making big bucks off this crafty international scam. Stiglitz told a story of his early days at the World Bank. He met with Ethiopia’s newly elected president and the World Bank and the IMF had ordered Ethiopia to divert aid money to its reserve account at the US Treasury which, pays a pitiful 4% return, while the nation borrowed US dollars at 12% to feed its population. The new president begged Stiglitz to let him use the aid money to rebuild the nation, but no, the loot went straight off to the US Treasury’s vault in Washington.

Now Step Four of what the IMF and the World Bank call their “poverty reduction strategy.” Free Trade as designed by the WTO and the World Bank. Europeans and Americans are kicking down the barriers to sales in Asia, Latin America and Africa, while barricading their own markets against Third World agriculture. In the past, the West used military blockades to force open markets. Today, the World Bank can order a financial blockade, which is just as effective – and sometimes just as deadly.

Stiglitz is particularly annoyed over the WTO’s intellectual property rights treaty, which, he says, condemns the people to death by imposing impossible tariffs and tributes to pay pharmaceutical companies for branded medicines. “They don’t care if the people live or die.”

The IMF, World Bank and the WTO are interchangeable masks of a singled governance system. They have locked themselves together by what are called “triggers.” Taking a World Bank loan for a school “triggers” a requirement to accept every “conditionality” – they average 111 per nation – laid down by both the World Bank and the IMF. In fact, Stiglitz says the IMF requires nations to accept trade policies more punitive than the official WTO rules.

Stiglitz says that World Bank plans are devised in secrecy and driven by an absolutist ideology and are never open for discourse or dissent. Despite the West’s push for elections throughout the developing world, the so-called “Poverty Reductions Programs undermine democracy.” These programs simply don’t work. Black Africa’s productivity under the guiding hand of the IMF “structural assistance” has gone to hell in a handbag. Only one nation has managed to avoid a similar fate. Botswana told the IMF to “take a hike”.

According to Dr. John Coleman, former MI 6 agent in Britain, the international bankers met in Williamsburg, Va. in 1983 to work out a strategy to prepare the United States for a total disintegration of its banking system. This planned event, The Ditchley Plan, was to stampede the U.S. Senate into accepting control of the monetary and fiscal policies of the IMF and World Bank. The plan called for the IMF and the World Bank influence to be broadened so that it could influence Central Banks of all nations including the U.S. and Canada (See Bank of Canada) and guide them into the hands of a One World Government Bank.