The Developed world does not take advantage of the Developing world.

It seems many are under the impression that the "1st world" oppresses or extorts or uses the "3rd world" but this is not true.

After WW2 two organizations were created, one to solve the problem of "depressions" which struck EVERYWHERE, not just the great powers but the little colonies and nations as well. Another organization to reconstruct Europe and Japan.

The International Monetary Fund, a "fire truck" if you will to collapsing economies, was mainly created to bail out 3rd world countries before they collapsed into economic crisis and wars.

The World Bank was originally created as the (actually the name slips my mind for the moment) anyways, was created to first Reconstruct Europe and Japan and to then develop the 3rd world.

Before the end of the 1940s India would become the first "3rd world" nation to be developed by the World Bank in the Asiatic region, even before Japan was fully reconstructed.

This led to the creation of the world we exist in today.

The 3rd world, mainly was developing fine under the institutions established by the 1st world, but there are always surmounting problems to any idealistic goal.

First:

3rd world nations mainly have "one product" economies.

3rd world nations have cyclical debts.

The second problem was not really a problem at all until OPEC raised the oil prices in 1973 which forced developed nations to raise interest rates. Because the developing nations had taken out loans to pay off previous debts, this meant suddenly they had to pay an excrutiating amount to pay off their former debts, thus their economies collapsed.

If you'll open a history book, you'll notice that shortly after 1973 most of Latin America and Africa errupted into civil wars and regional conflicts.

This is to be expected when you have a collapsed economy.

So in that sense it's not even the developed world's fault, it is the Arabs and their greed and attempt to gain more power for themselves.

30 years of progress was ruined thanks to that Oil price hike.

The first problem can not be solved, these nations are so small and their resources so meager they can not become vast producers of many things. These problems make their economies already highly volatile, if a need for one good suddenly drops, many developing nations suddenly lose vast amounts of revenue. The IMF and World Bank exist to aid them in times like this, but the developed world was so battered by the Oil price hike that they have yet to even recover.

So this is a short very brief thread about how if you think that the West, or the developed nations are some how using the developing nations of South America and Africa and Asia for their own benefits, you are just dead wrong.

Since WW2 the West has done as much as it can with several institutions of which I named the two largest to try and create a better infrastructure and economy in the developing world.

Anyone wants to try and debate this however, and state that America and European nations are acting like "vast Empires" sucking the resources out of 3rd world nations and paying them next to nothing leaving them to starve, be my guest. I'm more than willing to just bust out some books to further my point, but I like to be focused by someone else's misconceptions otherwise I am too broad and end up going over peoples' heads.

So this still doesn't prevent the WTO and IMF not to take advantage of these nations. For example, if a family's house is burning down, the firefighters asking them if they have paid there dues, and if they have not the firefighters let it burn. Firefighters don't work that way, but thats how these organizations seem to work. I'm not too familiar on their exact policies, but I know they require certain structures to be established in the financial sector before loans are granted. And I am not familiar about the inner workings of the IMF and WTO, but they are comprised mainly of developed nations.
For example, entrance into the WTO requires certain controls and institutions in a country's economy. The country's examination committee will be made up of most-likely, developed countries who decide that the country in question has met certain standards.

But the IMF is more important as far as loans to jump-start a country's economy. I'm not sure what their laws are. But if they charge interest on loans, they are really not as concerned with building the country in question, but making money off the loans.

It'd be nice if countries didn't have to rely on the IMF in the future.

Except that's not how it works Jahmun, whenever the IMF is capable it bails out economies. Loans between nations are a bit different than loans between people, a nation with horrible credit is still more likely to get a loan than an average person . But this is not an age of "Colonialism" which many people seem to think it is.

Naturally like any institution you can't ask for loans if you're not going to some day repay it (nations don't only go to World Bank or IMF for loans or bail-outs) after all it is not charity.

However, the developed world no longer extracts all the raw materials they want from the developing world for their own uses. That was what Colonialism is.

Now is an age of "nation building" which is why these nations are called "developing" in the first place.

Yes, but I'd think if their primary goal was to build nations, then they wouldn't have interest rates on the loans they give them. I'm just saying this in case they do have interest rates. But I do agree that it would be nice to see more wealth distributed across the globe. And I would like to see the IMF and WTO as more of a temporary institution.

But the problem is in order to remain "self-sustaining" you need interest rates, it's like food, nothing lives without food. Arabs don't have interest rates when dealing with other Arabs but they charge hefty for non-Arabs. Also they are sitting all over oil. LoL.

IMF and WTO probably won't be "temporary" the world just grew too tired of the "colonial" system that exists without this form of "economic interdependence".

Anyway, I need to look in these organizations more.

So..where exactly does all the oil in Iraq go, who profits from it? Is it being used to pay America's debt in rebuilding Iraq? The news seems to be clogged up with Cheney-Halliburton probing, couldn't really find anything about the flow of oil...

Originally posted by FreeMason
The first problem can not be solved, these nations are so small and their resources so meager they can not become vast producers of many things. These problems make their economies already highly volatile, if a need for one good suddenly drops, many developing nations suddenly lose vast amounts of revenue.

And you still want to make them free game for multinational corporations whose only priority is making biggest amount of profit.


Little reading about your holy trinity
www.globalissues.org...
cyberjournal.org...

Originally posted by Jamuhn
Anyway, I need to look in these organizations more.

I would suggest Joseph Stieglitz' book, Globalisation and its Discontents.
Stieglitz was the World Bank's Chief Economist, and won the Nobel Prize for Economics, I think in 2002. He argues that the IMF is run by dogmatic neoconservatives, who require conditions which have been empirically proven to do untold damage to the economies they lend to.
Another good source is the New Inernationalist issue on the IMF, which should be available on their website.
Also, to respond to Freemason's original premise, The New Economic Forum, a UK based thinktank have assessed the flow of global capital, and they find that the economic policies of the IMF etc. direct the flow of capital back to the west. That is to say, they funnel wealth back to the west, rather than allowing it to build up in the developing nations where it is most needed. As such, the developed world continues to exploit the developing world.

Originally posted by FreeMason
The first problem can not be solved, these nations are so small and their resources so meager they can not become vast producers of many things.

These problems make their economies already highly volatile, if a need for one good suddenly drops, many developing nations suddenly lose vast amounts of revenue.

small countries with fewer resources does not necessarily mean weak economies. eg. singapore, hong kong.

countries that need to borrow from the IMF are always subject to conditions with the rescue package which always directly/indirectly favors developed nations.

have you heard of george soros - hedge fund managers and currency traders and what he did to say the thai economy in the late 90s.

do you know why malaysia's has currency controls - banned offshore trading in the malaysian ringgit and domestic financial institutions are barred from offering credit facilities for non-resident banks and stockbroking companies?