Saturday 26 September 2009

UN Recommends De Facto World Government

Institutions of global governance and global central banking have been steadily increasing their power throughout the last century. But this month, several key announcements have been made – quietly and disguised by political rhetoric – that usher in a global transformation that will lead to the completion of the planned World Government.

On 7th September 2009, the UN released their Trade and Development Report, which called for:
  • The establishment of a global central bank.
  • The establishment of a single world currency.
  • A new tax on all international trades.
  • Increased power to international regulators.
  • Increased government intervention in the financial sector.
  • Further bailouts of failing banks and industries.
  • Increased use of government price controls.
  • Increased intervention in the global food market.
  • A cap-and-trade carbon emissions trading system.
The single currency will be based on IMF Special Drawing Rights (SDR’s), and all national and regional currencies will be exchangeable at a fixed exchange rate with SDR’s and other currencies. The exchange rates will be managed by the IMF. This makes SDR’s the de facto world currency. Now inflation and business cycles will be created at the global level, by the issuing of SDR’s. Relative prosperity of the various nations will be controlled by the IMF via making adjustments to the exchange rates.

The new “Tobin tax” – a tax on all international exchanges – will severely hamper international trade, and thus global prosperity. It will also require all international exchanges to be recorded centrally by the body administering the tax. All trades will become subject to increased regulation.

The Report praised the recent bailouts of failing banks and industries, and suggested that the State play an increased role in the economy in general and the financial sector in particular…

“The heavy involvement of governments and central banks therefore justifies a thorough review of the functioning of the financial sector, and a redefinition of the role of central banks and public financial institutions in supporting real economic activity. Large segments of the financial sector cannot be left to function like giant casinos without doing great harm to the real sector of the economy. As a logical consequence of the various efforts to rescue individual financial institutions, and in the interests of greater stability and reliability of the financial system, the balance between private activity and State involvement in the financial sector beyond the crisis may need to be revised fundamentally.” (Overview, VIII)

The Report claims that “markets do not function in an orderly manner” in the international commodity markets, such as the food market…

"In 2009, food emergencies persist in 31 countries, and it is estimated that between 109 million and 126 million people, most of them in sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia, may have fallen below the poverty line since 2006 due to higher food prices. Despite plummeting international food prices in the second half of 2008, domestic food prices generally have remained very high, and in some cases at record highs. It appears that while the pass-through of commodity prices on international exchanges to consumer prices was high in the phase of increasing prices, it was low during the subsequent months of falling prices, which proves that the markets are not functioning in an orderly manner. In addition, forecasts by specialized agencies expect food prices to remain high in the longer run, mainly as a result of continuously rising biofuel demand and structural factors related to population and income growth.” (Overview,IV)

In blaming the free market, the Report ignores the huge distortions to the international food market caused by government involvement, for example the huge subsidies encouraging biofuel production in the name of fighting climate change.

The Report claims that increased greenhouse gas emissions represent both an imminent threat to global climate, and another failure of the market. In fact, even assuming climate change is a problem, and that greenhouse gases are to blame for it, this represents a failure of the government – a failure of having a lack of private property rights. Instead of supporting a private property-rights based approach to the “problem”, the Report – unsurprisingly – supports further interventionism on a huge scale…

“Putting a price on emissions, in the form of taxes or tradable emission permits, and thereby changing the incentive structure for producers and consumers, could help set in motion a process towards establishing low-carbon economies. Measures that increase the demand for less carbon-intensive or carbon-free sources of energy are central to market-based intervention in favour of climate change mitigation, but these measures also need to be accompanied by intervention on the supply side of energy from other sources. Managing supply adjustments and price formation for different sources of energy is necessary in order to prevent prices of non-fossil, renewable energy from increasing – relative to the prices of the more carbon-intensive types of energy – as demand for them grows. Therefore, producers of different fuels need to be involved in the formulation and implementation of an international climate change mitigation policy.

In addition to changes in the incentive structure through the market mechanism, direct government intervention in the form of emission performance standards and strict regulations that prescribe specific modes of GHG abatement is indispensable in order to achieve ambitious targets within the envisaged time horizon. Also, more proactive policies to advance technological progress are required, because innovation towards low-carbon modes of production has become a necessity, unlike innovations in most other areas. Leaving this process to the market mechanism alone carries the risk that it may not provide a sufficiently strong stimulus for accelerating the development and application of appropriate cutting-edge technologies for carbon reduction to reach the required targets.”(p167)

I contend that, taken together, these transformations amount to nothing less than the setting up of a de facto World Government.