Recently, Max Keiser had Paul Moore, former Head of Risk at HBOS, on his show.
Moore claimed that 100 million people were driven back into extreme poverty by the financial crisis.
He stated that he would not be surprised if the banking crisis caused more deaths than any conflict since world war II
Keiser Report: Semaphore of Fraud (E325)
around 18:00 minutes in
Majia here: below an excerpt From my book Governing Childhood published in 2010 and an update:
The World Bank
reported in February of 2009 that up to 53 million more people would become mired in
poverty due to soaring food and fuel prices catalyzed by the financial crisis
(“Economic Crisis Set to Drive”). This increase would bring the total number of
people living on less than $2 a day to over 1.5 billion. Children will be
disproportionately impacted by this crisis, as the United Nations news center
reports:
The global financial crisis sweeping through Wall Street and the
European banking sector will touch the lives of the world’s most vulnerable,
pushing millions into deeper poverty and leading to the deaths of thousands of
children, according to a new United Nations study.
Reduced growth in
2009 will cost the 390 million people in sub-Saharan Africa
living in extreme poverty around $18 billion, or $46 per person, warned the
report by the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization. . . New
estimates for 2009 suggest that lower economic growth rates will trap 46
million more people on less than $1.25 a day than was expected prior to the
crisis, for a total of an extra 53 million trapped on less than $2 a day, on
top of the 1.37 billion before the current crises. (“Financial Crisis to
Deepen”)
The World Bank observed that
approximately 40 percent of the 107 developing nations were highly exposed to
the effects of the crisis (“Financial Crisis to Deepen”).
The outflow of
currency from developing nation to affluent ones coupled with the decline in
global consumption of exports together threaten to imperil developing economies
that focus on export oriented production (Goodman A1, A15). A World Bank report
issued in June 2009 notes further deterioration of the global economy and
expresses concern for the “damage” done to low-income countries by the decline
in export and the outflow of capital, which are together rendering it
difficult, if not impossible, for many developing countries to finance needed
imports such as basic commodities (World Bank “Global Development” 6-9).
Increased global risk aversion has made it difficult for companies and
governments in developing economies to raise capital (10). Worse, depreciation
of currencies in the developing world has increased the “local currency cost of
servicing dollar-denominated debt” (World Bank “Global Development” 18). This
means that developing nations will have to pay more of their own currency to
service foreign debt denominated in dollars unless debt forgiveness and/or
refinancing occurs.
The World Bank projected that by 2010 the poverty rate would increase to 89 million: "Given the current growth projections for 2010, there will be a further increase in poverty in that year, with a cumulative increase of 89 million people living under $1.25 a day and 120 million more under $2 a day by 2010." (Ravallion http://siteresources.worldbank.org/WBI/Resources/213798-1259968479602/outreach_ravallion_dec09.pdf).
Find the World Banks's response to the crisis here http://ieg.worldbankgroup.org/content/dam/ieg/crisis/crisis2_full_report.pdf
Majia here: Conclusion? The financial crisis drove millions of people into severe poverty, a situation that typically precludes adequate nutrition and health care. We don't know how many people the financial crisis actually "killed," but the toll is sure to have been large and is probably ongoing. Helping banks, as opposed to helping people, was prioritized globally, as one can see from the prioritization of responses in the World Bank's self-study of its handling of the crisis (see chapters 2 and 6).
The World Bank projected that by 2010 the poverty rate would increase to 89 million: "Given the current growth projections for 2010, there will be a further increase in poverty in that year, with a cumulative increase of 89 million people living under $1.25 a day and 120 million more under $2 a day by 2010." (Ravallion http://siteresources.worldbank.org/WBI/Resources/213798-1259968479602/outreach_ravallion_dec09.pdf).
Find the World Banks's response to the crisis here http://ieg.worldbankgroup.org/content/dam/ieg/crisis/crisis2_full_report.pdf
Majia here: Conclusion? The financial crisis drove millions of people into severe poverty, a situation that typically precludes adequate nutrition and health care. We don't know how many people the financial crisis actually "killed," but the toll is sure to have been large and is probably ongoing. Helping banks, as opposed to helping people, was prioritized globally, as one can see from the prioritization of responses in the World Bank's self-study of its handling of the crisis (see chapters 2 and 6).
“E Economic Crisis Set
to Drive 53 Million More People Into Poverty in 2009 – World Bank.” United Nations News
Center 13 February 2009.
10 May 2009 http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=29897&Cr=financial&Cr1=crisis.
“ World Bank Finds
More People Live in Steep Poverty.” The
New York Times 27 August 2008: A9.
W World Bank. “Global
Development Finance 2009: Charting a Global Recovery. World Bank Global
Development Finance June 2009. 22 June 2009 http://web.worldbank.org/WBSITE/EXTERNAL/EXTDEC/EXTDECPROSPECTS/EXTGDF/EXTGDF2009/0,,contentMDK:22218327~menuPK:5924239~pagePK:64168445~piPK:64168309~theSitePK:5924232,00.html.
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