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TextThe 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 (£3.9trn) - 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.
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"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".
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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
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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.
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[Andrew Simms, director of the New Economics Foundation] "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.
Originally posted by futuretense
You can't throw money at the World's problems here and solve them..........and I certainly wouldn't want the UN to be the arbitrator of such funding when you consider the various corrupt dictators and governments they have as members speaking on behalf of human rights
The UN says nation/states are obsolete??
Well then, whose do they think is going to act as checks and balances on holding the UN accountable to any potential abuse??
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Besides,the international bankers and their central banking cartels are the real enemies of the world's ills.they along with transnational corporations whose charters maximize profits and externalize costs without any consideration to society, national security, the environment or human dignity in general.they are the problem
its not the nation states, they are just the puppets to the bankers/transnational corporations
Originally posted by SwearBear
Umm... the same UN that ran those child sex-slave smuggling rings? The same UN that was led by a SS officer at one point? The same UN that is very much for gun control? The same UN that wanted control of the internet?
I mean, Jesus H. Christ, this is the worst idea I've ever heard of, especially when coming from these guys.
Who is going to keep a world government in check, when there's basicly one organization in control of everything?
Should power really be centralized into this one government? Since when has centralization of political power been good?
Ever seen Lord of The Rings? Ever wonder why there were originally 19 rings, untill 'Sauron' unified them into one? Ever wonder why not even that little innocent hobbit 'Frodo' can't resist the power of the ring, if he looks at it long enough?
Can this much power, absolute power, be handed down to a human, or even a group of humans? Power tends to corrupt, absolute power corrupts absolutely, as we've heard many times before.
What if this world government goes totalitarian? Who is going to stop it? Especially with all the technology available today?
The Communists back in the day in Russia said their system would end all inequality, poverty, give food to everyone and everything would be great. They offered this utopia which didn't exist.
What makes the UN's utopia any diffrent? Are they really going to give all that money or will they just f us over?
The simple fact is that utopias don't exist.
Sorry but I think this is a bad idea.
[edit on 31/1/2006 by SwearBear]