Can anyone tell me how the IMF, WTO, or World Bank negetively affect society nd environment?

Question

IMF as in International Monetary Fund and WTO as in World Trade Organization. THANKS!!! :)

Answer 1

"Confessions of a Economic Hit Man. John Perkins        

The Economic Hit Man (EHM) profesionistas is very well paid that swindles million dollars to the countries of the world. They are in charge to canalize money of the World Bank, the American agencies for the development and of other organizations of “international” aid to the great corporations and the pockets of a few prominent families who control the natural resources of the planet. Fraudulent financial information, fixed elections, extorsion, s*x and murder are used. They play a as old game as the empire, but that has taken new and terroríficas dimensions during this period from globalización.

The previous text was written in 1982 as beginning of a book that would be titled the awareness of a Economic Hit Man. The author was going to dedicate it to the presidents of two countries that had been their clients and to which she respected to the degree to consider them his souls twin: Jaime Roldós, President of Ecuador, and Omar Torrijos, President of Panama, both deceaseds in plane crashes. Their deaths were not accidental, affirms, were assassinated to be against to the great industrial and financial corporations of the global empire.

The author began to write the book in four occasions, worried about events like the invasion of Panama in 1989, the Gulf War, Somalia and the ascent of Osama Bin Laden. However, always he was persuaded so that he did not write it by means of contracts or of disguised bribes. The event that convinced it that the book had to write, was the answer of its only daughter just withdrawn of the preparatory one. When the author commented to him that she thought to publish this book, but feared that something could happen to him, she answered to him that she did not worry, that, in case that they catched it, she would continue the book where it had left it.

She relates that the president of a great publishing company, when reading the sketch of the book, was interested in publishing it, with the condition of which the story became like fiction novel, question that he did not accept to be his real life. Finally, another company accepted to publish convinced it by the arguments of the author: the 11 of September, the war of Iraq, the thousands of people who die every day of hunger and, mainly, because it considered that for the first time in history a country had the capacity, the money and the power to change all that; the country where which was born and to served like EHM, that is to say, the United States.

Selling my soul

Once in Indonesia they installed to us in an elegant hotel in Yakarta and days later they transferred us to you take care of it of Bandung, where the project would be made. My interviews with Howard began then Parker, a distant engineer in charge to construct the plant of electrical energy that would satisfy the demand in next the 25 years. In order to determine the capacity of the plant it had to provide my prognoses on the economic growth. In one with the conversations Parker it came up to me on the pressure who was exerting so that I determined stops economic growth based on the oil discoveries. “My experience” said, “is that in the periods of high growth the demand of electrical energy does not surpass 8% annual average, but a 6% are very reasonable; it does not matter to me, which says your numbers made up on the economic miracles of growth”.

The opportunity of my life

When presenting/displaying to me in the MAIN offices, they informed to me into which my new head would be Dark brown Zambotti. Like a most of the employees, to me also it terrified to me. In its office it informed to me into which Parker had dismissed Howard, because she considered that their projections of annual growth of 8% for a country with the potential of Indonesia totally were mistaken; however, my prognoses of growth of between 17 and 20% had made me be promoted.

During the following weeks I dedicated myself to write my report on Indonesia, in agreement with which my head wanted to see: the growth of the demand of electricity during next the 12 years would be of 19%, later would lower to 17% during following the 8, to stay in 15% during 25 years; I needed to knowledge and experience, but boldness exceeded to me. And it worked, my work was accepted by the experts.

In the following months I went to meetings in Tehran, Caracas, Guatemala, London Vienna and Washington, with diverse personalities like Shah of Iran and Robert McNamara. I was dazzled until the degree to believe a species to me of magician who could make bloom industries in different countries, projecting the future with manipulated statistics."....

..."A new and sinister period of economic history

In the Sixties the poster of petroleum-producing countries formed, OPEPC, with the objective to resist the paper of the great denominated companies “the Seven Sisters”, who collaborated to maintain the prices of the crude one low. At the end of 1973, the OPEPC organized a series of coordinated operations that reduced the supply of crude and caused a great world-wide depression to the maximum. That was the worse time in the E.E.U.U. was lost the War of Vietnam and president Nixon was on the verge of resigning. The rates of economic growth lowered to half of which they prevailed in the Fifties and sixty; those of unemployment they increased of substantial way; and nobody could anticipate until where it would take the oil embargo to us.

In that time it became evident what I call “corporatocracia”. The enterprise leaders became political leaders vice versa and. McNamara, that in 1949 was only a manager of planning in the Ford, was named the first president of this company that did not come from the Ford family. Just a short time later, Kennedy named Secretary of Defense later and President of the World Bank. From there, he acted as he connects in the granting of loans and its canalization towards projects that handle the great American companies. Other examples are George Shultz, Secretary of the Treasure with Nixon and President of Bechtel and soon Secretary of State with Reagan; Caspar Weinberger, President of Bachtel and soon Secretary of the Defense with Reagan; Richard Helms, Director of the company with Johnson and ambassador in Iran with Nixon; Richard Cheney, Secretary of Defense with George Bush, President of Halliburton and vice-president again with George Bush. The same Bush began like founder of the company Zapata Petroleum Corp., served as ambassador in United Kingdom with Nixon and Ford and was Director of the company with Ford.

The affair of money laundering in Saudi Arabia

The 6 of October of 1976, Egypt and Syria, of simultaneous way attacked Israel. Sadat, President of Egypt, pressed King Faisal of Saudi Arabia to use against the E.E.U.U., ally of Israel, which he called the arms of petroleum. The 16 of October of 1973, five Arab countries, among them Saudi Arabia, announced an increase in the prices of the 70% petroleum. The representative of Iraq called to nationalize the American companies that operated in the Arab world, to impose a total petroleum embargo to the E.E.U.U.y to the countries which they were in favor of Israel and to retire the Arab bottoms of the North American banks.

The other representatives refused to take so radical measures and chose to diminish in monthly 5% the petroliferous production until their objectives had been reached. The 19 of Nixon October asked for Congress 2,2 thousands of million dollars to destine them like aid to Israel. On the following day, Saudi Arabia and other Arab producers declared the total embargo of all the petroleum boardings destined to E.E.U.U. The embargo lasted little, until the 18 of March of 1974, but the prices of petroleum were increased of 1,39 dollars by barrel in January from 1970 to 8,32 in January of 1974. Like result, the bows between the great corporations, the banks and the governments were narrowed, with the idea that another embargo could not be tolerated. Although the protection of the oil reserves of the E.E.U.U. always has been a high-priority subject, from 1973 became an obsession.

Almost immediately after the embargo was retired officer, the government of the E.E.U.U. initiated negotiations with the Saudi to offer technical attendance, fighting equipment and training to them, as well as the opportunity to take to the country to century XX. These negotiations gave rise to the creation of a well-known organization like JECOR, that totally changed the prevailing schemes to date in the programs from aid to foreign countries. In this case, to make the projects, it would be contracted the American companies, with Saudi money. As bottoms were not used public, these operations did not happen through the Congress. David Holden and Richard Johns, affirm: “JECOR is the agreement between E.E.U.U. and a developing country that has arrived more far. It had the potential to take root of deep way in that country the concept of mutual dependency”. MAIN was contracted and it was in charge to me to make projections with different scenes from which could occur in Saudi Arabia by the investment of vast sums of money in infrastructure. The work would only do it, without support personnel, and it was noticed to me that he was considered question of national security and would be extremely lucrative as much for my as for MAIN.

My projects were focused in developing industries that transformed crude petroleum into products finished for the export. Naturally, to be able to operate, these industries would need thousands megawatts, highways, ductos, communication networks, systems of transport that included airports, seaports and a vast range of services of all type. They did not exist statistical to sustain the econométricos models that showed the diverse scenes. In addition, nobody waited for quantitative analyses; simply I put to work my imagination and I wrote visionary information on the glorious future of the Saudi kingdom, always considering that the true objectives were those to enrich to the American companies and to make to the country employee more and more of the E.E.U.U. The projects that would be constructed would need the technology and the spare parts the companies suppliers of by life. It sent my documents by valise, and we talked about to the project like SAMA Saudi Arabian Money - laundering Affair- (Affair of Saudi Money laundering), and in frank ridicule to the abbreviations of the Arab Central bank, that was call Saudi Arabian Monetaru Agency, or SAMA. A new model of how obtaining with those countries was settling down that did not need loans to finance projects.

The condition imposed to the Saudi was that they invested his petrodollars in values of the American government; the Department of the Treasure would pay us to the advisory and construction companies with the interests. One was convinced the real family of the benefits of this treatment, as much for his country as for them in the personnel.

Financing to Osama Bin Laden

The affair of money laundering in Saudi Arabia also marked precedents in which it talks about to the relations of the E.E.U.U. with some dictators. This one is the case of Idi Amín, that was put in a home in Saudi Arabia. More well-known he is the one of Bin Laden that was supported with more than 3,5 billion dollars in its war against the Soviet Union, during the eighty. After the attacks in 2001 to the World-wide Center of Commerce and the Pentagon, greater evidences emerged from the relations between between E.E.U.U. and Saudi Arabia. In October of 2003, the magazine Vanity Fair published a titled news article “Saving to the Saudi”, that it documented the relation between the Bush family, the Saudi Real House and the family Bin Laden, those that some days after the 11 of September, left the E.E.U.U., in jets prevailed, in spite of all the restrictions that existed.

Colombia: the key from entrance to South America

After the experiences in Saudi Arabia, Iran and Panama, MAIN were able a project to design a hydroelectric plant in Colombia. The E.E.U.U. have seen Colombia as an essential factor to promote their commercial policy and its interests in Latin America. This one is a typical country where the strategy was used to promote its indebtedness to construct to electrical, wagon plants and telecommunications so that the companies acceded to operate the resources of their territories in the amazonian forest.

The American Republic against the global empire

A day, Paula a Colombian friend said to me: “I want to speak to you frankly; all the farmers and Indians who live along the river where your company construct hate to you. Much people get along with the guerrilla, your government calls Communists, terrorists or dealers of drugs, but the reality is that they are women and men with family and children who live in the earth that your company is destroying.

I commented to him of the attack with AK 47 that they had perpetrated in the zone where it was prohibited to send to Americans. The attackers had left a letter in which they conminaban to “his Colombian brothers” to let work for the foreign companies. Paula asked my opinion to me, and I answered to him that it thought that they were communist, “what is what you create?”, I asked to him. He answered to me that he knew that the guerrilla had been trained in Chinese Russia and, and which they sold the arms to them, that also that dealt cocaine to supply itself of the necessary thing for their fight, but that could not make another thing to defend itself; that the World Bank did not help them but, on the contrary, pushed them towards that position; that the plants that were being constructed will benefit to richest, whereas the poor Colombians continue dying because all these constructions would end the resources that constitute their source of their income. This one conversation made recall to mind and see the difference me between the old republic of the United States that offered hope to the world through its philosophy and its moral and the new global empire interested only in material questions.

I thought about my work and I concluded that he had been a MAIN slave. It had inflated budgets to make fall to the countries indebted within I circulate of being able of the empire. The 1º of April of 1980, I went to the office and I resigned............

Part IV

1981 - to the present

The death of the President of Ecuador

Soon after, an important client of MAIN solicitd that they assigned me for the work. They returned to call to me and I accepted the supply three times greater than my last wage. In the following years, fungí like expert adviser of American companies of electricity.

In November of 1980, Carter lost the presidential election against Ronald Reagan. A president whose objectives had been to maintain La Paz world-wide and to diminish the dependency of the E.E.U.U. of external petroleum was going to be replaced by that he thought that this country could have this resource wherever it was, using the troops. Reagan was in favor of the global empire and “corporatocracia”, to serve to those industralists like George Bush, George Shultz, Caspar Weinberger, Richard Cheney, Richard Helms and Robert McNamara, that apparently served him.

At the beginning of 1981 Jaime Roldós he presented/displayed the Law of Hydrocarbons to the Congress of his country. The companies were against, but Roldós was not intimidated; in addition, it expelled the missionaries from the Linguistic Institute to Summer. The 24 of May of 1981, died when crashing the helicopter in which it traveled. Stolen Osvaldo raised the power, reinstaló to the Linguistic Institute of Summer and orchestrated an ambitious program to increase the crude extraction of in the gulf of Guayaquil and the Amazon.

Panama: another death of a President

Torrijos was not intimidated with the threats of Reagan, and it refused to renegotiate the Treaty of the Channel. The 31 of 1981 July, the airplane of Torrijos crashed. Outside the E.E.U.U. the smaller doubt did not fit of than it was a murder orchestrated by the company. I was devastated by the tragedy.

My Company of energy, ENRON and George Bush

In 1982, it worked to convince to the Temporary detachment for duty Public of New Hampshire of which the option to construct a nuclear plant was best and the economic one; however, while it informed to me more on the new technologies that worried to take care of the medio.ambiente, more doubts had. I decided to resign to MAIN like external adviser to found the company Independent Power Systems (IPS), whose mission would be the one to develop energy plants which they took care of the medio.ambiente.

The vice-president dismissed of MAIN had accepted an important position in the Inter-American Development Bank and she interested to participate to him in the project through the search of financing for IPS. We received support of Bankers Trust, ESI Energy, Prudential Insurance Company, Chadbourne and Parke, the greater company/signature of lawyers of Wall ßstreet, of which Senator Ed Muskie was partner, and of Riley Stoker Corporation. We even received support of the Congress, that exempted to us of a specific tax, which gave advantage us on our competitors.

In 1986, IPS and Bechtel, independently one of another one, began to construct energy plants that used coal wastes without producing acid rain, which considered revolutionary in the industry, besides to contribute to that new environmental laws were promulgated. The most important contribution was to demonstrate than small independent companies that they proposed new technologies could obtain financing in Wall ßstreet. The rules of the game were changing and the great companies that acted as regional monopolies lost competitiveness with the new rules of deregulation. MAIN was not the exception; few years after obtaining gains record, it fell in financial problems and it was sold to a company of engineering and construction. The only exception seemed to be ENRON; nobody outside a reduced circle of people understood how it was obtaining his fast growth. When them conminaba to explain it, spoke of “creative forms of financing”.

For the oil companies the panorama was similar. In 1984 the company of the son of Bush, denominated Shrub (bush means shrub in Spanish), broke after being fused with Spectrum 7, was sold again to Harken Energy Corporation in bankruptcy situation. George Bush, son of the vice-president of the E.E.U. Or, adviser with a pay of 120.000 dollars to the year was retained as. The magazine Vanity Fair commented the advantages for the company, as soon as George son had seated in the chair of the advice.

Acceptance a bribe

In 1982 the law was sent on regulatory policy with the objective to support to the small companies that developed new alternatives in the electricity generation. This law forced the companies to buy electricity to the small generating companies to right prices. The law tried to diversify the power plants and to support the enterprise spirit. The reality threw different results. The great companies swallowed to the small companies. The lagoons in the law took advantage of to create conglomerates in which regulated and not regulated companies participated; these last ones acquired in bankruptcy after one last competition. IPS was of the few companies nonregulated that not only survived, but that prospered thanks to my last services to “corporatocracia”.

Anywhere in the world emphasis in promoting to the private initiative was made. Organizations like the World Bank were pawned on promoting the privatization of companies that were handled by the governments. As result the EHM concept extended and were sent a multitude of executives to everybody having looked for cheap work, accessible resources and great markets.

Late in 1987 they called to me of MAIN to offer a very lucrative contract to me of consultancy with Stone & Webster Engineering Corporation (SWEC); they communicated to me that solely they wanted to have me in its list of advisers. The day of the company/signature of the contract, my host commented that she had heard about my last book. He clarified to me that in the company they valued the privacy; that it would not be possible that they accepted publications where they mentioned to the company, the negotiations with the banks or the development of the projects. Then I understood as it had been the reason for my hiring and the high income that had offered to me........

The failure of a EHM in Iraq

My positions as consulting president of IPS as well as of SWEC gave access me to information about Iraq that most of people does not know. Many of the engineers who worked in IPS were developing projects in the Middle East, while I remained very I attempt and come up against the work that was making there Economic Hit Men (EHM).

The presence of EHM during the eighty was extremely important in Bagdad; they were sure that Saddam Husein would reach agreements similar to which Washington had agreed with the Saudi. Saddam was a pathological tyrant who assassinated his own people, but this was tolerated by the E.E.U.U. because the country had a strategic position, not only by petroleum but also by the water and its geopolitics. Both rivers that cross the country, Tigris and the Euphrates, provide the greater water inventories to him of the region; additionally, it has borders with Iran, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Syria and Turkey and is located in the coasts of the Persian Gulf.

A great amount of construction companies and engineering had their eyes put in Iraq; nevertheless, apparently Saddam was not buying the scene that the EHM sold to him. In August of 1990, it invaded Kuwait and Bush ordered to attack it to violate to the international laws. It did less of a year that E.E.U.U. had done the same in Panama and now attacked Iraq “to release” to Kuwait. The popularity of Bush increased to 90% in those days.

In November of 1990 I sold IPS. My work in SWEC demanded to me very just a short time, so of subrepticia way it continued working in my book Awareness of a EHM and in 1991 I began to guide small groups in the forest of the Amazon. Of these activities the organization without profit aims was born “dreamed Change”, with the objective to transform the mentality of the citizens of the countries industrialized about how seeing and being related to our planet.

The 10 of September of 2001, sailed by an affluent of the amazons. The following morning I went a small office ago in that we had a radius, there I listened that they were attacking New York. I felt the necessity to visit Zone Zero and arrived at New York a sunny morning of November. I prepared myself to visit the place where there were been the Twin Towers but in agreement it approached to me invaded the horror to me; the destruction was incredible; it was not prepared for that, specially, for the reactions of people; in New York, the passers-by spoke with others, commented of the lost friends and interchanged compasivas smiles.

Venezuela: saved by Saddam

Venezuela is the classic example of country that had become rich with petroleum, with all its consequences: abysmal differences between rich poor men and; a country operated by “corporatocracia” where EHM of the old style with the new style of the corporative version converged.

Soon after raising the power, Chávez dissolved the Congress and promulgated the Hydrocarbon Law that duplicated the rights that paid the foreign companies, ended the autonomy of the state company Petroleums of Venezuela and replaced to all the high executives by loyal personnel him. This company uses 40.000 workers, sells 50 billion dollars to the year and produces 80% of the income by exports of the country. During the oil embargo of 1973, Venezuela quadruplicated its budget. During the eighty it was become indebted at such levels that when they fell the prices of petroleum declared insolvente. The IMF took part and imposed austerity measures. From 1978 to 2003, the entrance to per capita in Venezuela fell 40%.

The measures taken by Chávez caused that just shortly before the 11 of September, Bush was considering to take drastic measures: the 9/11 changed the priorities. Afghanistan already had been invaded, and the intervention in Iraq was inevitable, but what it intrigued to me more it was what happened in Venezuela. The problem was not if Chávez were a good leader or no, but to know the reaction Washington towards a leader who faced the march of the global empire.

Apparently the tactics of Herman Roosvelt were being used. In December of 2002, the Times announced that thousands of Venezuelans had gone out to protest and that 30.000 oil workers had declared themselves in strike. Apparently, they tried to make a coup d'etat of which Chávez was defended with the loyal military. In less than 72 hours it was of return in the power."......

....."It is important to consider that the E.E.U.U. control the international currency par excellence. It has the faculty to print dollars that are not endorsed by gold; its only endorsement is the generalized confidence in the economy of the country and its ability to control the forces and resources that the empire has created to maintain itself. The possibility of printing dollars has given the so immense E.E.U.U. to be able that it can continue rendering to countries that that knows never they will pay. Same EE.U..U. is accumulated an enormous debt. At the beginning of 2003, its national debt exceeded the 6 trillions dollars, and which was considered that at the end of that year it exceeded the 7, is equivalent to say that each American citizen must 24.000 dollars. Great part of this debt is placed in the Asian countries, mainly in Japan and China, that have bought Treasury bills with the bottoms that are accumulated by their high exports.

While the world accepts the dollar as it descries, this excessive debt will not cause problems; nevertheless, if some other currency replaced to the dollar and Japan or China decided to receive their loans, the situation would change drastically. This scene is not absolutely hypothetical; euro entered circulation in January of 2002 and with time it has acquired prestige and strength, and it is possible that the main creditors of the E.E.U.U., decide to turn their credits to euros."

Epilogue

We have arrived at the end of book but also at a beginning. Probably the reader will be wondering itself what can make to stop “corporatocracia” and the autodestructiva march of the global empire. I can give some ideas him.

In the first place, it is necessary to learn to read the news; it is necessary to read between lines and to analyze which can be the implications of the facts that comment in means. The things are not what they seem. NBC belongs to General Electric, ABC is of Disney, CBS of Viacom and Cnn is part of the enormous conglomerate AOL-Time Warner. Most of means they are controlled and manipulated by enormous international corporations that know that the most important part of its work is to perpetuate, to fortify and to expand the system that has inherited."......

...." We needed a revolution in the education, one same one must become student and teacher and inspire to the fellow with the example. The tribe of the Shuars taught to me that the world is as you dream it; we can turn a world of inequality, poverty and contamination, or in one responsible, sustainable and socially egalitarian one; the power that you must to change is the same one that it has to transform to the world.

John Perkins. Confessions of an Economic Hit Man

Berrett - Koehler Publishers, Inc..

San Francisco, 2004

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Answer 2

pay all ur tax

and no black money

should be there with any one then

every one will be happy

goverment will get lot of money

and

then

save the society

we all can be happy

thats all for today again tomm

select me as the best of all

ok