Posted on 01/24/2009 7:49:34 PM PST by Tailgunner Joe
World Bank President Robert Zoellick Friday called on the new U.S. president to lead the developed world in diverting a small portion of economic stimulus to poorer nations caught up in the global crisis.
Urging President Barack Obama to "send an audacious signal of hope," Zoellick said in an opinion piece in The New York Times that Obama should go to the April gathering of Group of 20 leaders in London with a proposal for developed countries to pledge 0.7% of their stimulus for a "vulnerability fund" to help countries that can't afford to run up deficits for bailouts and spending programs.
A good start would be to earmark $6 billion of the planned $825 billion stimulus package being considered in Congress for the fund, he said.
"With this modest step, the United States would speed up global recovery, help the world's poor and bolster its foreign policy influence," Zoellick said.
"There is no time to waste," he said, arguing that the economic crisis has already pushed 100 million people back into poverty and that 2009 will be a "dangerous year."
Zoellick also urged Italy, which is hosting finance ministers of the Group of Seven leading industrialized nations next month, to take the lead by making the fund a priority.
The World Bank could manage the fund with the United Nations and regional development banks, with safeguards to ensure the money is used properly, Zoellick said. The 0.7% figure comes from the U.N.'s target for aid from each economy.
The three priorities for the fund would be to shore up safety nets for the poor, support infrastructure investment and provide financing to small and medium-size businesses and microfinance institutions.
"Support for a vulnerability fund can help limit the depth and length of the international downturn, prevent the contagion of social unrest and help save a generation from a new poverty trap," Zoellick said.
Just a mere 6 billion, eh?
Screw them, eliminate all foreign aid!!!
We need to get our own house in order before we can aide others from a position of strength.
This is all just another part of the spread the wealth around syndrome.
Uh-huh.
One good thing about living in poverty in a third world country, is that you hardly notice if there is a recession in the first world. This is a plea for a new Mercedes for the Minister of finance of whereever. The money will just go to the rich..
Given debt ratios, technically, we’re the poorest nation on Earth. So, help a brutha out, UN, huh? How much will you contribute to the US basket case?
YO, World Bank ... You can’t even keep your own EMPLOYEES in line.. you think we’re gonna listen to YOu ..about RUNNING THE WORLD???
LOLOLOLOL HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA HEEHEEHEEHEEHEE
I thought this was covered under President Bush’s Millennium Challenge?
http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Millennium_Challenge_Corporation
Does God help those that help themselves to other people’s money?
Does God help those that help themselves to other people’s money?
Well being 11 trillion IN DEBT, eliminates us from being rich. In fact quite the opposite. So what rich nation is going to give to us???
Repeating my post from last night on some other thread, isn’t it amazing the similarity in dollar figures, the $825 Billion dollar “stimulus”, and the roughly same amount Obama wants to give the UN for the Global Poverty whatever it was called program?
There’s also that exact same 0.7% figure again.
Too much similarity here. What is going on?
Indeed, let’s give away money to countries with less free economies and more corrupt politicians than our own.
Good idea - NOT.
Zero already proposed this in the Senate so whatever. But what you have to love is not only the audacity of the UN and regional authorities "making sure the money is spent where it should be" but the fact that, on the one hand, "countries that can't afford to run up deficits for bailouts and spending programs" should be helped out but then, in the name of Global Warming, we soon will tell them to limit their growth as an offset for productive countries CO2 emissions.
The poorer nations of the world can create their own wealth.
Yup. And notice the nice even, easily digestible number of new poor folks @ 100 million. Not 83 or 92 or 103 or something that would sound like actual calculations have been made. And freaking UN groupies just suck it all down.
Yeah, lets give a few hundred million to Robert Mugabe. I am sure he would put the money to good use. And then another few hundred mill to Somalia so the good people of Somalia wont have to resort to piracy.
Ok, let’s do that. But there’s a catch: the poor nations are to become COMPLETELY under our control. No thugs in power. We will decide who is to “administer” their states.
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