Global Priorities: Feeding Markets, Starving the Hungry

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via CommonDreams:



Published on Tuesday, September 23, 2008 by STWR (Share The World's Resources)

Global Priorities: Feeding Markets, Starving the Hungry

The one trillion dollar bailout package that President Bush is promising could have wiped out the last traces of poverty, hunger, malnutrition and squalor from the face of the Earth - if only our global leadership prioritised the poor with the same level of urgency as the financial crisis, writes Devinder Sharma.

by Devinder Sharma


The world's private-sector giants have stepped on a financial minefield. In the past six months, three of America's top five investment banks have disappeared. The remaining two - Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs - are gasping for breath. While Morgan Stanley is considering merger options, the stocks of Goldman have slumped.

Strong tremors were felt all over the world.

In what appears to be a classic example of ‘public-private' partnership, the US government stepped in to bail out AIG by agreeing to lend US $85 billion in emergency funds in return for a 79.9 percent stake, which means effectively taking control of the world's largest insurance company. In the week following the mayhem in Wall Street, central banks in Britain, the European Union, Japan, Switzerland, Canada, Russia and India have pumped in US $600 billion in multiple rescue acts.

Ironical isn't it? The private-sector giants are ultimately rescued by the government's treasury.

In the past year, the US treasury has already spent US $900 billion in bailouts. With the IMF chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn warning that the worst is yet to come, taxpayers all over the world will eventually have to shell out more to cover up the huge losses being incurred by the private giants. It reminds me of the old saying: heads you win, tails I lose.

Sure, the markets won. The US President George Bush could not remain a silent spectator. "Government intervention is not only warranted, but essential," he said urgently before offering the mother of all bailouts - a US $1 trillion package. Sure, within hours the world's markets began to smile again.

The political urgency with which the US government (and governments elsewhere) came to the rescue of the financial system also exposed their double standards. The US $600 billion coughed out in just one week could have completely eradicated hunger (the 854 million people estimated by the FAO to go to bed hungry each night) from the face of the planet. The additional US $900 billion that the US has spent in the past one year could have lifted the world's estimated 2 billion poor people from poverty, and that too on a long-term sustainable basis. The one trillion dollar bailout package that George Bush is promising could have wiped out the last traces of poverty, hunger, malnutrition and squalor from the face of the Earth. .......(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.commondreams.org/view/2008/09/23-2