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Let my People Go

Bhaskar Dasgupta November 30, 2003

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#1 Posted by dvraghavan on December 1, 2003 6:26:46 am
A very thought provoking article indeed. Many would agree that ``Capital is free; Labour is not``. Is this article an extension of the idea.

``real economic miracle in the post world war II time is the accomplishment of modern governments in keeping their people poor``

I do not understand how this is true.

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#2 Posted by Layman on December 1, 2003 6:26:46 am
Sensible article.
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#3 Posted by wajahat on December 1, 2003 8:06:17 am
An excellent article however you ignore industries such as the metal and the dupilicity of the US to increase unfair trade barriers with EU. I do not believe that france subsidises its farmers more than the US. It is infact the USA which on the motives of the world bank and the IMF flaunts its products to the countries that should and are able to produce their own consumables. The entire South American Region lays bare the example to this, what france might be to africa, the US is to South America and most other regions in the world.
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#4 Posted by Shobuz on December 1, 2003 8:28:47 am
A way of how a developed nation become a debtor:

Step 1:
Swiss/World Bank decides a loan amount and the interest rate, with following conditions.

1. Expertise would be hired from creditor country with a salary that can support 15 locals who can do better job then him.

2. A profit needs to be earned hence the profit interest of 7% or 8%.

3. Insurance fees, managerial fees, …….iceberg fees are added.

All these end up to a requirment of running that money in local economy of 12% -15% of interest in average.

Step 2:
Few influential people, political people, foreign people are able to get their hands on this money. They collect the money in the name of Industries,...., that will never exist and deposit to their local business account.

Step 3:
With due process these money gets converted to foreign currency (mostly black to green).

Step 4:
This foreign currency gets transferred to secret Swiss bank account, expensive property are bought in western nations. Example: Sheikh Hasina’s daughter own an entire mall in Florida.

Now the Swiss/World bank has more money to loan.

Years and years this has been happening to Bangladesh. Simply imagine if these millions of dollars would truly be pumped into local economy then what would have happen.

Bangladesh has millions of debt of money that people never saw, never knew they had, yet they are in huge debt.

Once a loan defaulter, more condition are imposed in next loan.

A never-ending cycle. It is difficult to fight with a greedy global organization that has a UN un-ending sinister veracious appetite of creating an entire framework of foreign and local people with latest technology to dominate a nations entire economy with imprinted paper value and signatures, which doesn’t backed by nations assets and productivity.

‘Stop giving loan, instead give a loan of not mending national economy for 5 years and defunct your pet people’- A dream many Bangladeshis are holding today.
……………………………………………………………………………

Example of recent benefits when World Bank stayed away:

Example 1: World bank (thanks to India) gave plenty of trouble while building one of the biggest crucial ‘Padma Bridge’ over ‘Zamuna River’. After many hurdles, a deal was reached where the nation was benefited and bridge was build. Deal is, instead of taking the entire loan from World Bank, Bangladesh came up with some 40% of own borrowed money where World Bank or other has no say in it. This literally helped to half the ‘loan trouble’.

Example 2: Bangladesh wanted to join with ‘World Road’. World bank conditioned that a road will be build such a way that it will cross from Calcutta across Bangladesh to Asaam. While it is a huge commercial benefit to have road connecting to China and East Asia, but it is not beneficial at all to have a connection to China via Asaam. Simply because India has conditioned that to use that road, India gets to use the short road via Bangladesh to Asaam. Not only this condition is dangerous for national sovereignty, but also bad for local economy, as black market would thrive in an uncontrollable way. When Bangladesh disagreed, World Bank with the help of India said no money for “world road’ to Bangladesh. Oh-man what a benefit it has been to Bangladesh of not having the money from World Bank and thanks to India for helping Bangladesh not to get loan. Now Bangladesh & Burma planned to build their own road connecting via Burma to Thailand and China. Imagine a road connection to China via a more-friendly nation with no condition attached. More to that, Burma is also happy, because not only it gives her a better commercial road to Bangladesh, but also gives a shortest road to West India via Bangladesh.

However this did not spell any bad feelings between India and Bangladesh as both nations looked for their best interest. Bangladesh also thanks India during there role in 71 for being friendly & occasionally helpful, while we did our job.

Example 3: Bangladesh Army used to buy expensive non-critical vehicles from European nation as part of ‘XYZ’ defense deal. But from an economic point of view their existed much better deal if it is bought from India. But then what happens if war breaks down between Bangladesh and India and India put some ‘e-devie’ that will cause truck to self-destruct. Well, having a war between B and I is very less for many reason (one sure India not being a close match in fire power with Bangladesh), and even it happens European trucks won’t do any good. Here Bangladeshis did not think India as ‘Boogie man’ and rather did it right from economic point of view.

Example 4: Bangladesh used to buy one Water ferry per cost of $200K from Holland based on International/World bank loan. Now it buys from China with much less price.

There exist more examples of such where local people were able to solve problems of their own with a better sound economic judgment.
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Interact Index

    #4 Shobuz
    #3 wajahat
    #2 Layman
    #1 dvraghavan

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