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The world is in a precarious situation, with the potential for nuclear conflict. Central banks are taking aggressive measures to address decades-high inflation by raising interest rates, which in turn is causing a banking crisis in the Western world. As recession risks surge worldwide and international trade fractures, the future of the global economy appears to be heading down a dark path.

“A lost decade could be in the making for the global economy,” Indermit Gill, the World Bank’s Chief Economist and Senior Vice President for Development Economics, warned in a new report.

The report “Falling Long-Term Growth Prospects: Trends, Expectations, and Policies” reveals new forecasts that show global long-term potential output in growth rates are expected to slide:

Nearly all the economic forces that powered progress and prosperity over the last three decades are fading. As a result, between 2022 and 2030, average global potential GDP growth is expected to decline by roughly a third from the rate that prevailed in the first decade of this century—to 2.2% a year.

For developing economies, the decline will be equally steep: from 6% a year between 2000 and 2010 to 4% a year over the remainder of this decade. These declines would be much steeper in the event of a global financial crisis or a recession.

World Bank’s chief economist continued:

“The ongoing decline in potential growth has serious implications for the world’s ability to tackle the expanding array of challenges unique to our times—stubborn poverty, diverging incomes, and climate change.”

However, he said:

“But this decline is reversible. The global economy’s speed limit can be raised—through policies that incentivize work, increase productivity, and accelerate investment.”

Ayhan Kose, director of the World Bank’s forecasting group, said the fracturing of the global economy implies “the golden era of development appears to be coming to an end.”

…click on the above link to read the rest…

World Bank Warns Global Economy “Perilously Close To Falling Into Recession”

January 10, 2023

World Bank Warns Global Economy “Perilously Close To Falling Into Recession”

Six months ago, The World Bank slashed its global growth outlook for 2022 and 2023 to +2.9% and +3.0% respectively blaming “the war in Ukraine, lockdowns in China, supply-chain disruptions, and the risk of stagflation” for hammering growth.

Today, in its latest report on global economic prospects, The World Bank has slashed its growth forecast for 2023 by almost a half to just +1.7%, led by weaker growth in all the world’s top economies — the United States, Europe and China.

“Global growth has slowed to the extent that the global economy is perilously close to falling into recession,” the World Bank said.

That would mark the third-weakest pace of global growth in nearly three decades, overshadowed only by the 2009 and 2020 downturns.

The World Bank called on global central banks to remain alert to the risk that aggressively tightening monetary policy to fight inflation could spill across borders. The new report called for discussions between central bankers to “help mitigate risks associated with financial stability and avoid an excessive global economic slowdown in the pursuit of inflation objectives.”

“Weakness in growth and business investment will compound the already devastating reversals in education, health, poverty, and infrastructure and the increasing demands from climate change,” said David Malpass, president of the World Bank.

For now, those central bankers are facing their nemesis… Stagflation…

Though the United States might avoid a recession this year – the World Bank predicts the U.S. economy will eke out growth of 0.5% – global weakness will likely pose another headwind for America’s businesses and consumers, on top of high prices and more expensive borrowing rates.

The United States also remains vulnerable to further supply chain disruptions if COVID keeps surging or the war in Ukraine worsens.

…click on the above link to read the rest…

Ukraine war: World Bank warns of ‘human catastrophe’ food crisis

April 23, 2022

Ukraine war: World Bank warns of ‘human catastrophe’ food crisis

The world faces a “human catastrophe” from a food crisis arising from Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, World Bank president David Malpass has said.

He told the BBC that record rises in food prices would push hundreds of millions people into poverty and lower nutrition, if the crisis continues.

The World Bank calculates there could be a “huge” 37% jump in food prices.

This would hit the poor hardest, who will “eat less and have less money for anything else such as schooling”.

In an interview with BBC economics editor Faisal Islam, Mr Malpass, who leads the institution charged with global alleviation of poverty, said the impact on the poor made it “an unfair kind of crisis… that was true also of Covid”.

“It’s a human catastrophe, meaning nutrition goes down. But then it also becomes a political challenge for governments who can’t do anything about it, they didn’t cause it and they see the prices going up,” he said on the sidelines of the IMF-World Bank meetings in Washington.

The price rises are broad and deep, he said: “It’s affecting food of all different kinds oils, grains, and then it gets into other crops, corn crops, because they go up when wheat goes up”.

There was enough food in the world to feed everybody, he said, and global stockpiles are large by historical standards, but there will have to be a sharing or sales process to get the food to where it is needed.

Mr Malpass also discouraged countries from subsidising production or capping prices.

Instead, he said, the focus needed to be on increasing supplies across the world of fertilisers and food, alongside targeted assistance for the very poorest people.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Ukraine war: World Bank warns of ‘human catastrophe’ food crisis

April 22, 2022

Ukraine war: World Bank warns of ‘human catastrophe’ food crisis

The world faces a “human catastrophe” from a food crisis arising from Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, World Bank president David Malpass has said.

He told the BBC that record rises in food prices would push hundreds of millions people into poverty and lower nutrition, if the crisis continues.

The World Bank calculates there could be a “huge” 37% jump in food prices.

This would hit the poor hardest, who will “eat less and have less money for anything else such as schooling”.

The price rises are broad and deep, he said: “It’s affecting food of all different kinds oils, grains, and then it gets into other crops, corn crops, because they go up when wheat goes up”.

Mr Malpass also discouraged countries from subsidising production or capping prices.

Instead, he said, the focus needed to be on increasing supplies across the world of fertilisers and food, alongside targeted assistance for the very poorest people.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

IMF, World Bank & 10 Countries Held Alarming “Simulation” Of Global Financial System Collapse

December 22, 2021

IMF, World Bank & 10 Countries Held Alarming “Simulation” Of Global Financial System Collapse

Earlier this month Reuters produced a report which didn’t receive nearly enough attention among the American public – its contents would be sure to alarm most people concerned with the outbreak of yet more ‘global catastrophes’. At the very least it’s curious timing: amid the recent pandemic induced disruption in global supply chains, powerful nations and banking institutions decided to get together to run a global economic collapse scenario.

The report described that Israel led a “10-country simulation of a major cyber attack on the global financial system in an attempt to increase cooperation that could help to minimize any potential damage to financial markets and banks.” It was centered on a catastrophic scenario in which “hackers were 10 steps ahead of us,” according to one official who took part.

Collapse, illustrative image via Reuters

Dubbed “Collective Strength”, the exercise was held in Jerusalem (after being moved from the original proposed location of Dubai) and included the participation also of the United States, UK, United Arab Emirates, Austria, Switzerland, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands and Thailand. Officials from the International Monetary Fund (IMF), World Bank and Bank of International Settlements were also involved.

The financial-geopolitical gaming simulation was set amid a scenario where sensitive data was leaked on the Dark Web, which combined with “fake news” reports going viral across societies, resulting in the collapse of global markets and an ensuing run on banks. Further, the simulation envisioned a series of devastating hacks targeting global foreign exchange systems, which also disrupted transactions between importers and exporters, according to Reuters.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

How I Robbed the World Bank

December 15, 2021

How I Robbed the World Bank

jpb world bank press passes wrecking ball 2

I have always had a bad attitude toward official secrets regardless of who is keeping them. That prejudice and John Kenneth Galbraith are to blame for an unauthorized withdrawal I made from the World Bank.

When I lived in Boston in the late 1970s, I paid $25 to attend a series of lectures by Galbraith on foreign aid and other topics. The louder Galbraith praised foreign aid, the warier I became. His hokum spurred my reading and led me to recognize that foreign aid is one of the worst afflictions that poor nations suffer. As one critic quipped, foreign aid is money from governments, to governments, for governments.

After I moved to Washington, foreign aid became one of my favorite targets as an investigative journalist. When I talked to the chief of the U.S. Agency for International Development (AID), Peter McPherson, in 1985, my blunt questions had him literally screaming at me within four minutes of the start of the interview. McPherson probably screamed even louder when he saw the article I wrote thrashing AID.

Foreign aid was revered by the Washington establishment, and the World Bank epitomized the arrogance of the financial masters of the universe (at least in their own minds and press releases). The World Bank, heavily subsidized by U.S. taxpayers, profited from every debacle it spawned. The more loans the bank made, the more prestige and influence it acquired. After a profusion of bad loans to Third World governments helped ignite a debt crisis, I warned in a 1985 Wall Street Journal piece that expanding the World Bank’s role “would be akin to appointing Mrs. O’Leary’s cow as chief of the Chicago Fire Department.”

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Beware the United Nations, IMF, WHO, World Bank, and BIS

September 27, 2021

Beware the United Nations, IMF, WHO, World Bank, and BIS

People must understand that just as a small business wants to expand and grow bigger, that same human tendency exists in government. No matter what form, they will always try to expand their power. The United Nations has been the greatest threat to humanity since Adolf Hitler. They have justified expanding their dreams of world power to bring peace to the world with one government. For years, the IMF has been part of this same agenda. They have sought to replace the sovereignty of the nation-states with a one-world government, and this is what is really behind this COVID and climate change agenda. This “world government,” they argue, should dictate financial policies to nation-states. They want the world to pay taxes to them, not governments.

What the Great Reset Architects Don’t Want You To Understand About Economics

October 24, 2020

What the Great Reset Architects Don’t Want You To Understand About Economics

It shouldn’t come as a surprise that the Vice President of the World Bank Carmen Reinhardt recently warned on October 15 that a new financial disaster looms ominously over the horizon with a vast sovereign default and a corporate debt default. Just in the past 6 months of bailouts unleashed by the blowout of the system induced by the Coronavirus lockdown, Reinhardt noted that the U.S. Federal Reserve created $3.4 Trillion out of thin air while it took 40 years to create $14 Trillion. Meanwhile panicking economists are screaming in tandem that banks across Trans Atlantic must unleash ever more hyperinflationary quantitative easing which threatens to turn our money into toilet paper while at the same time acquiescing to infinite lockdowns in response to a disease which has the fatality levels of a common flu.

The fact of the oncoming collapse itself should not be a surprise- especially when one is reminded of the $1.5 quadrillion of derivatives which has taken over a world economy which generates a mere $80 trillion/year in measurable goods and trade. These nebulous bets on insurance on bets on collateralized debts known as derivatives didn’t even exist a few decades ago, and the fact is that no matter what the Federal Reserve and European Central Bank have attempted to do to stop a new rupture of this overextended casino bubble of an economy in recent months, nothing has worked. Zero to negative percent interest rates haven’t worked, opening overnight repo loans of $100 billion/night to failing banks hasn’t worked- nor has $4.5 trillion of bailout unleashed since March 2020. No matter what these financial wizards try to do, things just keep getting worse. Rather than acknowledge what is actually happening, scapegoats have been selected to shift the blame away from reality to the point that the current crisis is actually being blamed on the Coronavirus!

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Belarusian President Claims IMF & World Bank Offered him a Bribe to Impose COVID Restrictions

September 7, 2020

Belarusian President Claims IMF & World Bank Offered him a Bribe to Impose COVID Restrictions

Belarusian President Aleksandr Lukashenko said last month via Belarusian Telegraph Agency, BelTA., that World Bank and IMF offered him a bribe of $940 million USD in the form of “Covid Relief Aid.” In exchange for $940 million USD, the World Bank and IMF demanded that the President of Belarus:

• imposed “extreme lockdown on his people”
• force them to wear face masks
• impose very strict curfews
• impose a police state
• crash the economy

Belarus President Aleksandr Lukashenko REFUSED the offer and stated that he could not accept such an offer and would put his people above the needs of the IMF and World Bank. This is NOT a conspiracy. You may research this yourself. He actually said this!

Now IMF and World Bank are bailing out failing airlines with billions of dollars, and in exchange, they are FORCING airline CEOs to implement VERY STRICT POLICIES such as FORCED face masks covers on EVERYONE, including SMALL CHILDREN, whose health will suffer as a result of these policies.

And if it is true for Belarus, then it is true for the rest of the world! The IMF and World Bank want to crash every major economy with the intent of buying over every nation’s infrastructure at cents on the dollar!

Calls For Global Debt Jubilee Grow Louder As ‘Anything Goes’ Policy Mania Takes Over

April 8, 2020

Calls For Global Debt Jubilee Grow Louder As ‘Anything Goes’ Policy Mania Takes Over

About 140 global organizations and charities are calling for a worldwide Debt Jubilee to avoid some of the world’s poorest countries from collapsing into chaos amid the COVID-19 crisis, reported BBC News.

The British-based Jubilee Debt Campaign is leading the movement ahead of the G20 meeting this week.

“Developing countries are being hit by an unprecedented economic shock, and at the same time face an urgent health emergency,” said Sarah-Jayne Clifton, director of the Jubilee Debt Campaign.

“The suspension on debt payments called for by the IMF and World Bank saves money now, but kicks the can down the road and avoids actually dealing with the problem of spiraling debts.“

Clifton is urging for the immediate cancellation of 69 of the world’s poorest countries’ debt payments this year, which would free up at least $25 billion for the countries in 2020, and up to $50 billion if the jubilee was extended to the end of 2021.

“This is the fastest way to keep money in countries to use in responding to Covid-19, and to ensure public money is not wasted bailing out the profits of rich private speculators,” added Clifton.

The latest call for a Debt Jubilee should come as no surprise to ZeroHedge readers.

Over the last several decades, governments across the world have added insurmountable debts, leadingBill Buckler via The Privateer to say back in 2012 that the world has dived down a deep hole and into a trap that has “ensnared Japan more than two decades ago.”

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

The Trilateral Commission: Using Crisis As An Opportunity To Reform

March 1, 2020

The Trilateral Commission: Using Crisis As An Opportunity To Reform

A couple of years ago I posted an article that gave a brief overview of the Trilateral Commission, quoting directly from numerous former members of the institution and how their overarching goal was for the integration of nation states at the expense of self determination.

It was in the article where I argued that the prevailing model for globalists dating back to at least the First World War has been to use crisis as an opportunity, first by instigating periods of chaos before presenting themselves as the order to the ensuing turmoil. Four of the world’s largest global institutions – The Bank for International Settlements, the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank and the United Nations – were founded on this principle. Without a series of crises there would have been no rationale for them to exist.

A trend over the past few years has been how in the midst of geopolitical conflict global bodies and world leaders have called for the likes of the European Union and the World Trade Organisation to undergo substantial reforms in the wake of a rise in political nationalism and protectionism. The push for reform has been largely justified on the grounds that the international ‘rules based global order‘ – brought to be out of the ruins of World War II – is under threat, and all as a direct consequence of the growth in anti-globalisation movements that are often characterised as ‘populism‘.

So if global institutions want to broaden their level of power through deeper centralisation, where exactly does the Trilateral Commission fit into that? Earlier this month I happened by chance on a blog called ‘Dorset Eye‘, which launched in 2012 and describes itself as ‘an online citizen media magazine in which local, national and international members of the public have their voices heard‘.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

World Bank Warns “Wave Of Debt” Could Unleash Historic Crisis, Crush The Global Economy

December 22, 2019

World Bank Warns “Wave Of Debt” Could Unleash Historic Crisis, Crush The Global Economy

Something happens to the world’s “really smart people” when the topic of debt is discussed: they become blabbering idiots.

Consider that last month we reported that according to the Institute of International Finance, global debt has now hit $250 trillion and is expected to rise to a record $255 trillion at the end of 2019, up $12 trillion from $243 trillion at the end of 2018, and nearly $32,500 for each of the 7.7 billion people on planet. “With few signs of slowdown in the pace of debt accumulation, we estimate that global debt will surpass $255 trillion this year,” the IIF said in the report.

Separately, Bank of America recently calculated that since the collapse of Lehman, government debt has increased by $30tn, corporates debt by $25tn, household by $9tn, and financial debt by $2tn; And with central banks expected to support government debt, BofA warns that “the biggest recession risk is disorderly rise in credit spreads & corporate deleveraging.”

Where the “really smart people” come in, is the periodic return every couple of years of the naive assumption that despite this relentless increase in global debt, central banks can tighten financial conditions and the world can sustain higher interest rates. What ends up happening is that after a few quarters of “reflation” – which ironically and circularly is critical to inflate the debt away – markets realize that higher rates on this mountain of debt are unsustainable, risk assets tumble and central banks are forced to unleash another wave of easing, in the process further Japanifying first Europe, and then the entire world.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

U.S. Economic Warfare and Likely Foreign Defenses

July 27, 2019

U.S. Economic Warfare and Likely Foreign Defenses

Photograph Source: Trending Topics 2019 – CC BY 2.0

Today’s world is at war on many fronts. The rules of international law and order put in place toward the end of World War II are being broken by U.S. foreign policy escalating its confrontation with countries that refrain from giving its companies control of their economic surpluses. Countries that do not give the United States control of their oil and financial sectors or privatize their key sectors are being isolated by the United States imposing trade sanctions and unilateral tariffs giving special advantages to U.S. producers in violation of free trade agreements with European, Asian and other countries.

This global fracture has an increasingly military cast. U.S. officials justify tariffs and import quotas illegal under WTO rules on “national security” grounds, claiming that the United States can do whatever it wants as the world’s “exceptional” nation. U.S. officials explain that this means that their nation is not obliged to adhere to international agreements or even to its own treaties and promises. This allegedly sovereign right to ignore on its international agreements was made explicit after Bill Clinton and his Secretary of State Madeline Albright broke the promise by President George Bush and Secretary of State James Baker that NATO would not expand eastward after 1991. (“You didn’t get it in writing,” was the U.S. response to the verbal agreements that were made.)

Likewise, the Trump administration repudiated the multilateral Iranian nuclear agreement signed by the Obama administration, and is escalating warfare with its proxy armies in the Near East. U.S. politicians are waging a New Cold War against Russia, China, Iran, and oil-exporting countries that the United States is seeking to isolate if cannot control their governments, central bank and foreign diplomacy.

* Keynote Paper delivered at the 14th Forum of the World Association for Political Economy, July 21, 2019.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Globalists Detail Short and Long Term Guidance for Further Centralisation of Powers

April 25, 2019

Globalists Detail Short and Long Term Guidance for Further Centralisation of Powers

During this month’s Spring Meetings in Washington DC, the IMF and World Bank held their annual Development Committee conference which looked at the economic outlook and potential risks for the global economy.

As is tradition, IMF head Christine Lagarde produced a written statement outlining several areas of priority. All of them were predicated on ‘reaching the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals‘. Whilst on paper the statement is geared towards emerging and developing countries, elements of it relate notably to western nations such as the United Kingdom, despite Britain being considered an advanced economy.

To explain, let’s first examine the stance taken on monetary policy:

In countries with elevated inflation or where exchange rate depreciations could trigger inflation pass-through, central banks should focus on containing inflation expectations (Angola, Argentina, Iran, Turkey). By contrast, monetary policy can be more accommodative where expectations are well anchored (Brazil, Indonesia).

In October 2018, a communique from the thirty-eighth meeting of the International Monetary and Financial Committee stated that where inflation was ‘close to or above target‘, central banks should tighten policy. On the opposite end of the scale, banks should ‘maintain monetary accommodation where inflation is below target‘.

As we have already seen since the 2016 EU referendum, the sustained fall in the value of sterling was according to the Bank of England ‘entirely‘ responsible for a subsequent spike in inflation. Doing what very few thought they would, the BOE raised interest rates in response – the first rise in over ten years. They then followed up with a second hike nine months later, with inflation remaining above the central bank’s mandate of 2%. …click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

World Bank criticised for coal, oil and gas funding

April 15, 2019

World Bank criticised for coal, oil and gas funding

While the influential development bank has scaled up clean energy finance, fossil fuels are still getting a larger share of support, campaigners found

The World Bank is supporting the controversial Trans Anatolian Pipeline gas project (Pic: Tanap)

The World Bank Group faces criticism for continuing to back fossil fuel development, despite moves to clean up its portfolio.

It has earned green credentials for ending direct lending to coal-fired power plants, promising to axe support for oil and gas exploration and increasing its clean energy budget.

Yet over the last five years, the group’s support to oil and gas actually increased, while coal benefitted from indirect subsidies, according to analysisfrom German NGO Urgewald.

The study, which covers 675 active investments, found $21 billion is going towards fossil fuels. While clean energy finance grew rapidly from 2014-18, it has yet to catch up. The equivalent figure is $7bn or $15bn, depending on the inclusion of large-scale hydropower and other projects with disputed environmental benefits.

“It is a big disappointment to find that the World Bank Group continues to provide such vast amounts of public finance for fossil fuels,” said report author Heike Mainhardt. “The bank thereby completely undermines its own efforts for renewable energy sources as well as the Paris climate goals.”

A spokesperson for the World Bank defended its record, saying the Urgewald report “paints a distorted picture of our energy sector work”. The inclusion of “legacy projects where financing was approved many years ago” means it “does not reflect the substantial changes that have happened in World Bank energy financing over the past decade,” he said.

In the last fiscal year, the bank approved $20.5 billion in finance for climate action, he added, meeting a 2020 target two years ahead of schedule.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

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