The End of Poverty?

Executive Summary

• Who is Responsible for Poverty?
• The IMF, World Bank and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation
• Bill Gates as Ethical and Caring?

Poverty, brought to you by Exxon and other conglomerates.

Who is Responsible for Poverty?

Just the preview of The End of Poverty looks so tantalizing because it seems willing to address what is typically unaddressable; that we allow poverty, desperation, and suffering to continue because out institutions set up the preconditions for it. The idea that we are winning a war on poverty globally, or that that is the intent of our major institutions is simply false. Major international institutions such as the World Bank and IMF combine with conglomerates such as Shell and Nike to extract materials at the lowest possible rate (inducing extreme poverty in such countries as Nigeria with Shell) and to pay the lowest possible amount for labor (as with Nike all over Asia). The design is for the major companies from the big countries to take as much as they possibly can from smaller countries, leaving extreme poverty, environmental damage and political instability. Part of the standard of living of rich countries is based upon this extraction and control, called “globalization” which is actually a form or neo-colonialization. Just as using Mexican labor is a form of slavery, but without the unappealing verbiage.

See this link how we have made much more progress against the word “slavery” than against the practice of slavery.

The wealthy companies don’t ever want poverty to decline because it would mean that they can take less from the country. Secondly, that is the design of conglomerates, to extract as much as possible and leave as little behind for the environment and pay wages that are as low as possible. In Ecuador this means leaving roughly 5% for the government from the oil revenues the oil companies extract. (we quantify how much companies and brokers extract from oil resources in this post)

Until we begin to see the real face of corporations and face the reality that they only exist to enrich themselves, we will continue to get scammed. Literally, it is the role of the government, of at least somewhat democratic institutions to reign in conglomerates which are completely undemocratic.

Bill Gates as Ethical and Caring?

How did one of the world’s most unethical businessmen who was known to lie cheat and steal to build his fortune all of a sudden become philanthropic? Now universities like Oxford are bending over backwards to give him honorary degrees for this millions in contributions. There is a simple word for this: corruption. Universities, even those with massive endowments always seem to need money. And there are always unethical businessmen to give money to them…in return for their integrity and research direction.

Bill does not care about global poverty but is using this organization as a front, just as Michael Milken uses the Milken Institute as a front. The evidence is provided by the fact the Bill Gates’ investment group invests in some of the worst and least ethical businesses in order to meet profit objectives.

The IMF, World Bank and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation

Institutions like the World Bank, the IMF and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation worsen global poverty because they are part of the same structure of global poverty. They are false fronts designed to position conglomerates for resource extraction. This is why poverty never improves. Yes, the material status of some countries have improved, but income inequality and poverty has risen drastically in the US over the past several decades as part of a specific policy intended to bring this outcome. The planet overall is more unequal than ever, and this is interrelated to the inability to manage population growth with contraception due to this poverty. The very fact that Bill Gates has accumulated so much money, means there is less for others. Bill Gates and other ultra-wealthy are what lead to intense poverty on the other side of the spectrum. That that media does not see this, demonstrates what a good job elite institutions have done in obscuring real world economics from popular view.

Clearly, the conventional view is quite different from what we have written above. The majority of the population believes that international organizations are actively fighting poverty and that the developed countries want poverty to end. This is entirely a myth, as much myth as the idea that conglomerates care about poverty in their own country.