Lefties - as in the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank and the World Trade Organization - have joined in a warning to western governments of the economic and social risks they're inviting through austerity budgeting.
"Expressing concern about the weakness of economic activity and rising unemployment, the IMF's Christine Lagarde, the World Bank's Robert Zoellick and the WTO's Pascal Lamy joined the heads of eight other multilateral and regional institutions in calling for policies to create jobs, tackle inequality and green the global economy.
"The world faces significant and urgent challenges that weigh heavily on prospects for future growth and on the cohesion of our societies," said the statement by the global issues group of the World Economic Forum. It was published ahead of the forum's annual meeting in Davos next week, amid concerns that 2012 will see the global economy flirt with recession as a result of the eurozone crisis.
"Our shared objective is the strengthening of growth, employment and the quality of life in every part of the world," said the statement.
"But entering 2012, we worry about: decelerating global growth and rising uncertainty; high unemployment, especially youth unemployment, with all its negative economic and social consequences; potential resort to inward-looking protectionist policies."
In addition to Lagarde, Zoellick and Lamy, the signatories were Mark Carney of the Financial Stability Board, Margaret Chan of the World Health Organization, Angel Gurría of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, Donald Kaberuka of the African Development Bank, Haruhiko Kuroda of the Asian Development Bank, Luis Alberto Moreno of the Inter-American Development Bank, Josette Sheeran of the United Nations World Food Programme, and Juan Somavia of the International Labour Organisation. The forum said it was the first time the heads of the world's major institutions had come together in such a way.
If the first decade of this century has demonstrated anything, surely it must be that what passes for national leadership today is all but deaf to warnings such as this. For example, despite supposed-economist Harper's self-serving claim that no one saw the collapse of 2008 coming, there were plenty of voices sounding the alarm years in advance - people with names like Roubini, Krugman, Stiglitz. The only thing that kept Harper from heeding their clear warnings was his ego, his fundamentalist belief that he is the smartest guy in every room.
I guess the IMF has discovered that their austerity-based plan they use to enslave third-world nations doesn't work so well on the first world. If Europe and the USA go down they'll take as many others as they can with them.
ReplyDelete