World Bank Wants To Hand Over Seeds To Agribusiness…

world bankJoseph P Farrell – …Yes, you read that correctly: the World Bank is now formulating agricultural policy for, well, just about everyone, and (surprise surprise) it thinks GMOs are a great idea, and that farmers sewing and planting (and of course, trading) their seeds is a very bad idea; here’s the article (shared by Ms. M.W.):

World Bank Aims to Hand Over Seed Industry to Agribusiness

While noting that the world’s seed supply lies largely under the control of six agribusiness giants (except, of course, in Russia, which has banned them… hmmmm), the first three paragraphs note something important:

A host of concerned organizations and individuals have come out in opposition to a corporate-backed plan by the World Bank to control the world’s seed industry. The groups say that the wide-reaching plan will strip farmers of their rights to seeds and food.

The denouncement comes in response to the World Bank’s report titled, “Enabling the Business of Agriculture.” A letter signed by 157 organizations and academics, was addressed to World Bank President Jim Yong Kim and the EBA’s five donor organizations, to demand an end to the controversial project.

“The EBA dictates so-called ‘good practices’ to regulate agriculture and scores countries on how well they implement its prescriptions,” said Frederic Mousseau, policy director from the Oakland Institute. “The Bank, behind closed doors, convinces governments to implement reforms based on the EBA scores, thereby bypassing farmers and citizens’ engagement,” he added. – (Emphasis added)

There you have it: a “study group” sponsored by a central bank recommends “good practice”, i.e., “regulations” designed to favor certain competition( in this case, the big agribusiness giants), the bank then adopts its own recommendations, and tells governments to do the same, otherwise the spigot of World Bank loans stops, and a country won’t be able to buy I.G. Farbensanto’s expensive seeds and pesticides.

In other words, more globaloney:

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World Bank-IMF Pushes “Carbon Pricing” Global Tax-&-Spend Scheme

carbonWilliam F. Jasper – Carbon budget. Carbon regime. Carbon pricing. Carbon trading. These are code words for the colossal UN grab for money and power at the upcoming global Climate Summit in December in Paris.

With the United Nations’ world summit on global warming now only weeks away, the propaganda war is ratcheting up — at a furious pace. One of the latest salvos aimed at convincing the peoples and national governments of the world to empower the UN with vast new tax and regulatory powers is an op-ed co-authored by World Bank President Jim Yong Kim and International Monetary Fund Managing Director Christine Lagarde for Project Syndicate (founded and funded by George Soros). Entitled “The Path to Carbon Pricing,” the op-ed is the latest rendition of the “carbon budget” scheme that the WB-IMF elites have been promoting for a number of years as a means to provide the UN and their Wall Street bankster allies with, literally, trillions of dollars in carbon taxes, carbon trading permits, and “green” investments.

”In just six weeks, world leaders will meet in Paris to negotiate a new global climate-change agreement,” Lagarde and Kim wrote. “To date, 150 countries have submitted plans detailing how they will move their economies along a more resilient low-carbon trajectory. These plans represent the first generation of investments to be made in order to build a competitive future without the dangerous levels of carbon-dioxide emissions that are now driving global warming.”

“The transition to a cleaner future will require both government action and the right incentives for the private sector,” say the WB-IMF duo. “At the center should be a strong public policy that puts a price on carbon pollution. Placing a higher price on carbon-based fuels, electricity, and industrial activities will create incentives for the use of cleaner fuels, save energy, and promote a shift to greener investments.” The means they advocate for accomplishing this are “measures such as carbon taxes and fees, emissions-trading programs and other pricing mechanisms.” Continue reading

Meet the Secretive Committees that Run the Global Economy

globalAndrew Gavin Marshall  – There exists an overlapping and highly integrated network of institutions, committees and secret meetings of ad-hoc groups that collectively run the global economy. This network consists of finance ministries, central banks, international organizations and the various conferences and confabs that bring them together. This network is responsible for facilitating global financial diplomacy and managing the architecture of global financial governance. In short: it is the most powerful and informal political structure in the world.

With the United States at the center of the system, the Treasury Department and Federal Reserve Bank are the two most important American institutions in global financial governance – and the Treasury Secretary and Federal Reserve Chairperson are the world’s two most powerful financial diplomats. Both institutions are headquartered in Washington, D.C., just down the street from the headquarters of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank Group, two global financial bodies created in 1944 to manage the world economy on behalf of the rich Western nations that founded them.

Twice a year, the IMF and the World Bank host large international conferences. The Spring Membership Meeting, typically held in April, and the Annual membership meeting draw a crowd consisting of most of the finance ministers and central bank governors from the IMF’s 188 member nations, representing the Fund’s Governing Board. They descend on D.C. where the meetings are typically held (though occasionally they are hosted in other countries as well), and draw scores of journalists, academics and thousands of bankers and financiers who are eager to meet, greet, wine, dine and make deals with the political decision-makers of the global economy.

The top five shareholders of the IMF (United States, Japan, Germany, France and U.K.) reflect the membership of an ad-hoc group of finance ministers that began meeting in 1973, thereafter known as the Group of Five (G-5). At the time, U.S. Treasury Secretary George Shultz described the group as “a channel for informal and very frank communication on monetary and other issues, both of a long-term and more immediate character.” But the G-5 was hardly the first of such groups. Continue reading

Phoney Opposition: The Truth About the BRICS

bricsJames Corbett – This is a transcript of a recent email interview conducted between Devon Douglas-Brewers and independent journalist James Corbett, where they discuss BRICS, the view that many have of the organization as a resistance force and the truth behind that. The conversation ends with how we can fight back against the powers that be in our own way.


DEVON DOUGLAS-BOWERS: What are BRICS (An international financial alliance involving Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa) and the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AAIB) really about? Many people argue that it is these countries challenging the dominate US-based system. How is that true or not true in some respects?

JAMES CORBETT: Who is contending that the AIIB or the BRICS’ New Development Bank is in any way competitive with the Bretton Woods institutions (IMF/World Bank)? Certainly not anyone involved with any of these institutions.

In March, IMF chief Christine Lagarde pledged IMF cooperation with the AIIB.

In June, World Bank chief Jim Yong Kim issued a statement congratulating the AIIB on its formation and calling it an “important new partner” for the Washington-led development bank.

In July, NDB [New Development Bank] President K.V. Kamath returned the favor, conceding that the NDB and the IMF/World Bank are complementary institutions, not rivals.

Also in July, the AIIB and the World Bank signed an actual cooperation agreement, promising to identify projects for joint financing later this fall.

brics
Paulo Batista, BRICS bank VP and IMF Executive Director

No, these institutions do not view themselves as competitive. It is only various media pundits who have speculated that these new banks are in fact some sort of challenge to the so-called “Washington consensus.” What none of these experts has bothered to report (for obvious reasons) is the remarkable fact that the Vice President of the NDB is also an Executive Board member of the IMF, who then went on to pledge cooperation and joint action between the NDB and IMF. Also missing from this narrative is the fact that the NDB’s chief, Kundapur Vaman Kamath, is a former staffer of the supposed NDB “rival” Asia Development Bank. Or there’s Jin Liqun, widely tipped to be the head of the AIIB, who also happens to be a former Vice President of the Asia Development Bank and alternative Executive Director of the World Bank. Continue reading

US Military Uses IMF And World Bank To Launder 85% Of Its Black Budget

budgetJake Anderson – Though transparency was a cause he championed when campaigning for the presidency, President Obama has largely avoided making certain defense costs known to the public. However, when it comes to military appropriations for government spy agencies, we know from Freedom of Information Act requests that the so-called “black budget” is an increasingly massive expenditure subsidized by American taxpayers. The CIA and and NSA alone garnered $52.6 billion in funding in 2013 while the Department of Defense black ops budget for secret military projects exceeds this number. It is estimated to be $58.7 billion for the fiscal year 2015.

What is the black budget? Officially, it is the military’s appropriations for “spy satellites, stealth bombers, next-missile-spotting radars, next-gen drones, and ultra-powerful eavesdropping gear.”

However, of greater interest to some may be the clandestine nature and full scope of the black budget, which, according to analyst Catherine Austin Fitts, goes far beyond classified appropriations. Based on her research, some of which can be found in her piece “What’s Up With the Black Budget?” Fitts concludes that the during the last decade, global financial elites have configured an elaborate system that makes most of the military budget unauditable. This is because the real black budget includes money acquired by intelligence groups via narcotics trafficking, predatory lending, and various kinds of other financial fraud. Continue reading