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UN's poverty chief turns on greedy 'super-bankers'
timesonline.co.uk ^ | March 20, 2008 | Rhys Blakely

Posted on 03/20/2008 12:00:41 PM PDT by Tailgunner Joe

The United Nations representative in charge of eradicating poverty has said that the rapacious pursuit of profits by a new generation of “super-bankers” has triggered an economic crisis that risks delaying anti-poverty targets in the poorest countries.

Kemal Dervis, the head of the UN Development Programme, said that the blame for the three economic ructions of the past decade — the Asian crisis of 1997, the dot-com collapse of 2001 and the present American sub-prime troubles — fell at the feet of an overinfluential and underregulated financial sector.

“It is the super-bankers, hedge fund managers and owners of private equity firms that have become the new barons of 21st-century capitalism,” the former Turkish finance minister and vice-president of the World Bank said in India. “It is almost unbelievable: 40 per cent of total corporate profits in the US in recent years went to the financial sector that in itself does not ‘produce' ... but intermediates and organises' the resources that do produce.”

Mr Dervis said that a steep decline in global economic growth was in danger of pushing back the UN's Millennium Development Goals, which call for extreme poverty to be halved and for the spread of HIV/Aids to be halted by 2015.

He said: “A world economy growing at 4 to 5 per cent in purchasing-parity terms is a wonderful thing for development. A major slowdown would be a tremendous setback.”

He added that herd-minded financiers profit hugely from the inflation of asset bubbles, “but pay very little personal penalty when the bubble bursts”. Instead, ordinary people bear the costs through government bailouts and higher inflation stoked by aggressive cuts to interest rates.


TOPICS: Foreign Affairs
KEYWORDS: kemaldervis; undp
U.N. says help poor nations as food prices rise - Mar 19, 2008 - DHAKA (Reuters) - Donor nations should increase financial assistance to developing countries such as Bangladesh to cope with rising food and oil prices, the head of the United Nations Development Programme said on Wednesday.
1 posted on 03/20/2008 12:00:41 PM PDT by Tailgunner Joe
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To: Tailgunner Joe

Awww he’s just pi$$ed ‘cause they’re takin’ his cut...


2 posted on 03/20/2008 12:03:27 PM PDT by henkster (Go to the local welfare office or BMV to see what government health care will be like.)
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To: Tailgunner Joe

U.N. Poverty pimp,”The communist manifesto is the sourcebook for all great economies!”


3 posted on 03/20/2008 12:05:18 PM PDT by vpintheak (Like a muddied spring or a polluted well is a righteous man who gives way to the wicked. Prov. 25:26)
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To: Tailgunner Joe

The coalition, which has been criticized for failing to truly make loans more affordable, says it has reduced the balance or interest rates for many borrowers.

http://money.cnn.com/2008/03/03/real_estate/Hope_Now_helps_million/index.htm?postversion=2008030315


4 posted on 03/20/2008 12:05:25 PM PDT by listenhillary (There's more people in the wagon, than there is pushin')
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To: Tailgunner Joe

Just the Economic Genius needed, an x Finance Minister for Turkey. The UN must be destroyed it is a den of bigots and thieves!


5 posted on 03/20/2008 12:08:03 PM PDT by iopscusa (El Vaquero. (SC Lowcountry Cowboy))
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To: Tailgunner Joe
the financial sector that in itself does not ‘produce' ... but intermediates and organises' the resources that do produce.”

What exactly does the U.N. produce?

A major slowdown would be a tremendous setback

Translation: You guys lost all that money we were planning on confiscating!

6 posted on 03/20/2008 12:10:50 PM PDT by techcor
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To: Tailgunner Joe
Rising food prices? Well that means Rhodesia, the breadbasket of Africa, will be raking in the cash.

Oh, wait, Rhodesia was replaced by Zimbabwe where they shoot farmers, let their equipment rot and eat the seed corn.

7 posted on 03/20/2008 12:51:26 PM PDT by KarlInOhio (Rattenschadenfreude: joy at a Democrat's pain, especially Hillary's pain caused by Obama.)
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To: KarlInOhio

“Super Banker”, wasn’t that Mr. Drysdale’s favorite comic book on the Beverly Hillbillies?


8 posted on 03/20/2008 1:11:40 PM PDT by massgopguy (I owe everything to George Bailey)
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