EMERGING MARKETS JOCKEY FOR IMF ECHELON, FRENCH OLIGARCHIC PUPPET GETS POST

EMERGING MARKETS JOCKEY FOR IMF ECHELON, FRENCH OLIGARCHIC PUPPET GETS POST

Erle Frayne D. Argonza

Emerging markets are currently contesting for top posts in the Jurassic IMF. The downfall of Strauss-Khan, former managing director of the said bank, highlighted the deep crisis that has beset the bank lately, a crisis that threatens its very own legitimacy.

My position about the IMF was clear since the middle of last decade yet: abolish the bank, and let the member nations concur a new global financial architecture. The IMF was used by Western financier oligarchs to bleed the 3^rd world to bone dry misery, it is a thug bank that clobbered member nations in order to fatten the purse of select financier families, and it continues to make members such as Greece suffer via forced austerity programs.

At any rate, just recently the French finance minister, Madame Legard, was selected to replace Strauss-Khan. What do we expect, that the evil Western financiers will permit the ‘Mandingo nations’ to get that juicy post?

Below is an update from the DevEx regarding the debates and actions by member nations regarding the Jurassic thug bank.

[Philippines, 03 July 2011]

From: DevEx – http://www.devex.com

In IMF Leadership Debate, Emerging Countries Renew Push for Greater Representation in International Forums

Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa, the world’s top emerging economies, released on Wednesday (May 25) a joint statement where they dismissed as obsolete the existing convention of naming a European to the top job at the International Monetary Fund. The IMF directors from these countries stressed that the next IMF managing director should be the best candidate chosen through a merit-based and transparent process, not on the basis of nationality.

The joint statement is the latest, and perhaps most concrete and concerted, effort by emerging countries to assert their voice at IMF. Emerging and developing countries, particularly the so-called BRICS countries, have been pushing for more representation at IMF and a chance to have a candidate from their ranks lead the organization.

This push by emerging nations for a bigger say in IMF appears to be part of a broader campaign of middle-income countries for a more prominent role in the international community. China, for instance, continues to expand its assistance program in Africa, while India, Brazil and South Africa are also positioning themselves as “alternative” sources of development finance.

This campaign is not going unnoticed. The “traditional” donors, in particular, are beginning to recognize the changing global political and financial landscape: The United Kingdom recently indicated its intention to engage with emerging nations, while the United States has already entered into several partnerships with Brazil.

In IMF itself, emerging nations have been “victorious” in having European countries agree to cede some of their seats in the fund’s executive board in their favor. This deal, sealed in October 2010, increased the emerging countries' influence and voting power in the board, but they are still less influential than industrial countries, particularly the United States. Whether this increased clout will contribute to their campaign to end Europe’s dominance of IMF remains to be seen.

CLOSE DOWN THE IMF, IT’S A PREDATOR BANK!

Erle Frayne D. Argonza

The world watches as the director of the International Monetary Fund or IFM, Strauss-Kahn, was arrested for rape case. As the case proceeds, talks have been circulating concerning the reform of the IMF, with the option of enlarging the voting powers of the developing countries in it.

Reforming the IMF for this long-time development worker and analyst isn’t the option. Knowing the IMF as a harbinger of cruel austerity measures on debt-burdened member countries, the option for me is the closure of this inutile bank.

IMF conditionalities, imposed upon member countries that are on IMF programs via ‘letters of intent’, have resulted to appalling pauperism on the debt-burdened countries themselves. Studies done in the 1980s and 90s have shown that many countries put under the IMF programs declined in incomes to as low as half of their previous GDPs or gross domestic products.

The same studies have also shown that wherever the IMF made its presence so strong, more people slide down below the poverty line. Often than not, these were struggling developing countries or DCs such as the Philippines that have been under IMF programs for many decades. Today European countries such as Greece are among the IMF guinea pigs for austerity, and already wages were slashed by 30% as part of the austerity measures.

The IMF, in reality, is an ensurer for the stakes of global financiers whose have installed their puppet technocrats to the echelon of the bank. That it is always headed by a European, notably French, is testimony to the nature of the IMF as a criminal bank that legitimizes the lootings by European financier oligarchs of currencies and assets, legitimized via enforced liberalization, privatization, and deregulation policies.

It used to be the sole definer as to whether a DC can qualify for new rounds of IOUs from western creditors. The latter, acting as a syndicated group, would then compel debtors to pay the loans at unreasonably usurious rates, which alone guarantees that the same DC debtors will be so burdened with debts their fiscal health will falter for a long time to come.

Low fiscal health, high debts, and low foreign exchange reserves are then used as yardsticks by investors to decide against investing in the affected DCs. Those foreign companies that are already inside the DCs concerned, may decide against diversifying investments or even pull out their investments altogether.

Knowing the dire impacts of IMF programs on my own country, and likewise knowledgeable about IMF’s thuggish reversals of development trends in other countries, I can only but fume with contempt every time I think of this criminal organization. Not only should the IMF be foreclosed, its leaders should be criminalized and punished, while its assets be redistributed back to the member countries.

There is no room for this predatory bank in the new multipolar global economy emerging. Close it down before its too late that more countries will experience grinding poverty among its masses due to the predator’s policies.

[Philippines, 18 May 2011]

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SOLIDARITY TO ALL WORKINGMEN & WOMEN!

Erle Frayne D. Argonza
10 May 2011

This social analyst, development worker and self-development guru from Manila hereby extends a most heartfelt solidarity and synergy with the working men & women of our beloved planet Earth!

If there is a core life element that must be celebrated today, the 1st of May, it is the power of labor to build worlds and change the world. That human labor is powerful is ample proof of the great potency of craftsmanship, the same craftsmanship coming straight from the Godhead. It is a proof that we humans are co-creators with the Almighty Providence, and no force must abridge such a truth by shackling labor to exploitative and dehumanizing encumbrances.

We were created in the image of the Almighty Providence, created to serve as free will beings who will co-create worlds with the Prime Creator. Sadly, the power to co-create has been badly misused, which has seen our world, during the epoch of the Money Economy, degenerate into a prison camp controlled by an oligarchic class that shows no compunction in seeing millions die of misery and hunger for the gain-sake of advancing the insatiable greed of the same oligarchs and their technocratic-military-political subalterns.

A class of evil oligarchs that continues to abridge our powers to co-create and earn our rightful keep must be met with penalties in due time as an operation of cosmic laws. They shall reap what they cultivated, and that time draws so near. Yes, fellows, deliverance is near, and the time for fear and intimidation by the ruling elites will end soon.

Meantime, if we bear witness today to Spartacist movements rising in our midst, such as the mass strike movement in Europe, let it be so that the tools of deliverance are rightly the heritage of all free men and women. Let the gains of Spartacism roll on high, as a gigantic eagle set out to free those who were enslaved by the evil overlords.

Happy Labor Day! Mabuhay!

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Come Visit E. Argonza’s blogs & website anytime!
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PHILIPPINE STOCKS @4,200+ POINTS, WILL SURGE ANEW BY 2011

Erle Frayne D. Argonza

Asian bourses continue to perform excellently, and the Philippines is a contributor to this bullish trend. In the past year, there were some junctures when the bourses did dip a bit, but never too dip as not to be able to surge back ahead. The bourses reflect the optimal growth patterns in Asia and are bound to replicate the feat in 2011.

By the start of 2010, I was of the opinion that the Philippine stock exchange will trade very bullishly, that it will eventually breach the all-time best record of 3,600+ points achieved during the era of the Ramos presidency yet. True enough, it did breach the 3,600 points and ended up at 4,200+ points by end of December 2010.

To recap, 2,000 points is the bourse’s psychological break point in my beloved Philippines. Quite a barometer of the economy’s health, the stock index says that the economy here is faltering when the bourse crashes below the 2,000 point barrier and stay down there for many months. At some time in 2009, that incident happened, though fortunately for the country the stock index climbed back past the 2,000-point threshold quickly.

Being among the Asian countries that have learned to insulate themselves from global economic downturns and great recessions, the Philippines did bounce back right away and saw the index breach the 3,000-point level in the first semester of 2010. This trend alone is cause enough for great hope for the coming months and years in this country.

With ‘smart money’ leaving the North due to stagnation and recession, it wasn’t long before the Ph bourse soon felt such ‘manna from heaven’ getting invested into its stock options. With that happening, the stocks meteorically ascended the 4,000-point level in the 2nd semester, and was optimistically forecast to reach 4,600+ points by certain quarters.

Witnessing the pattern of periodic decreases amid a general trend of sharp climb, I did raise eyebrows over the mega-optimistic forecast. I was already happy to see the 3,600+ points breached, but a 4,600 point conclusion is far from achievable in 2010. And so, true to my intuitive forecast, it settled at 4,200+ points, or just 200+ points beyond the new barrier of 4,000 points.

As big ticket projects are now on the pipeline for negotiations and implementation soon, we can expect investments to surge upwards more sharply this 2011. This will be reinforced further by the upgrading by Moody’s of the country’s investment grade from “stable” to “positive” just as soon as the new year commenced.

An offshoot of the optimism in the investment field will be entry of more players locally to purchasing stocks in the new IPO options opened to the public. Furthermore, ‘smart money’ from overseas will inflow into the local bourse and capital markets, thus ensuring another year of surge in the stock index.

This time around, I will be among those who will accept a forecast of the Philippine bourse breaching the 4,600+ points at the end of 2011. Granted that fairness in the stock trading and surety of regulatory mechanisms will be stronger this year, the Philippine bourse will perform excellently again this year and facilely breach that new forecast level.

[Philippines, 13 January 2011]

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Come Visit E. Argonza’s blogs anytime!

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ASEAN BETTER LAUNCH THE ASIAN MONETARY FUND NOW!

Erle Frayne D. Argonza

Buoyed up by the positive economic performances and regional integration efforts of ASEAN member-states, let me ensue with the ASEAN agenda, and articulate this time the matter of the Asian Monetary Fund or AMF. What makes the urgency of constituting the AMF even more exigent is the recent pronouncement made by the Asian Development Bank or ADB about the same theme: launch the AMF now!

The idea of an Asian Monetary Fund actually began with the late strong man Ferdinand Marcos of the Philippines. Awash with colossal hoards of gold, Marcos vouched for the creation of an Asian Monetary Fund that shall function as monetary stabilizer, steward of an Asian currency, and financer of bold development projects.

As per note from some of his own former close supporters (they were my fellow economists in the Independent Review, c. 1998 to 2000), Marcos was very eager to back up (securitize) the Asian currency with his very own gold hoards (they amount to hundreds of trillions of US. $ today).

It was too bad that Marcos had downside images among the global financiers, who conspired behind the scenes to overthrow him. They never liked the idea of an AMF that will compete with their stooge thug bank International Monetary Fund, and they were salivating to control his gold hoards. The Trilateral Commision in fact undertook steps toward aiding the process of social turbulence to unfold in the Philippines, turbulence that eventually overthrew the dictator.

It took some time before the AMF idea would resurface. The opportunity for resurfacing came with the Asian financial meltdown of 1997. That crisis saw the region’s currencies attacked by an insidious cabal of Western oligarchic financiers fronted by George Soros, who all rested happy from their criminal currency attacks that fattened their coffers by the trillions of dollars.

Thus came the technocratic and public policy responses to the crisis of that time, with the Asian Monetary Fund idea floating to the surface as a viable option. Necessarily, the stabilization of currencies will come with the institution of an Asian currency, which came alongside the AMF idea.

It then took many years of haggling and bargaining before a continental resolution was finally signed into a sort of a memorandum of undertaking. To recall, the former Speaker of the House of Representatives (Philippines), Hon. De Venecia, took much pains to legwork Asian leaders into finally signing the concordat and presenting the same to the Philippine state leaders for immediate action after accomplishing his mission.

This time around, it is the Asian Development Bank that has taken the cudgels for pushing for the urgent institution of the AMF. As articulated in a previous article, the ADB is among the continental institutions that can aid in launching an ASEAN central bank (circa 2015) as well as an Asian Monetary Fund.

Since the ASEAN is the most actively engaged regional formation among Asians, it is the most logical body that can facilitate the launching of the AMF. Its country members could easily role play the core membership of the AMF, with the quid pro quo that the latter will aid ASEAN in forming its regional central bank comes 2015.

As early as the late 90s yet, this analyst was very highly supportive of the institution of an AMF and Asian currency. The launching of the currency alone will catalyze the stabilization of monetary-fiscal environments, and can even out the very uneven cost of living situations across countries.

AMF would surely be of great help to insulating Asia’s emerging markets versus the destructive undercurrents of the economic crises of North America, Europe, and Japan. It can likewise aid enormously in regional trading efforts, precisely by securitizing and/of directly financing the pioneering and expansion efforts of exporters.

I would, however, add a caveat to the AMF’s formation: securitize the operations via a gold reserve standard or equivalent. The eradication of the gold standard in 1971 is among the factors behind monetary-financial instabilities and emergence of criminal financial predators over the last four (4) decades, predators that were responsible for de-industrialization, agricultural decay, and economic decline altogether.

The launching of the AMF shouldn’t be delayed a day longer. The global economic roof is collapsing due to the structural defects of the northern economies, and so as a measure of mitigation the region’s own economies be insulated from that crash through launching of the AMF, buffering financial collapse via collective money reserves for contingency uses, and instituting the Asian currency very soon.

To re-echo the theme: there is no better time to constitute the AMF than now. Act now, before it is too late!

[Philippines, 17 November 2010]

[See: IKONOKLAST: http://erleargonza.blogspot.com,
UNLADTAU: http://unladtau.wordpress.com,
COSMICBUHAY: http://cosmicbuhay.blogspot.com,
BRIGHTWORLD: http://erlefraynebrightworld.wordpress.com, ARTBLOG: http://erleargonza.wordpress.com,
ARGONZAPOEM: http://argonzapoem.blogspot.com]

USA’S LEADERSHIP HAD EVAPORATED, WHY OUGHT STOCK MARKETS FOLLOW?

Erle Frayne D. Argonza


Good day fellow global citizens!

It’s late afternoon here in the Philippines, daylight is still around though quite faded a bit. The time of the day seems to be delivering the message that there is still some light in the global economy, and that is a feel-good ambience.

Light there may be for the global economy, but that light no longer comes from the Western economies. Definitely no longer from the once mighty ‘economic superpower’ USA that had lost the leadership leverage this decade when it suffered two (2) successive recessions within a short span.

I’ve already treated the matter of declining Western techno-economic power and hegemony over the rest of the globe in many articles. There is hardly any serious, highly-informed analyst in the world today who doesn’t share the same view, a view that Western (Caucasian) social forecasters do likewise hold even as they forewarned the West of the catastrophes that will confront them.

Stock markets across the globe, however, just couldn’t adjust to the new reality soon enough. They still behave like old hush puppies that look up to Wall Street for precedence in setting the trends of local bourses. That renders the local bourses as laughing stock dinosaurs that need to retool quickly, and the quickest that such retooling will be translated into practice, the better will it be for their respective stock trades and financial-monetary markets.

To reminisce a bit, America was the unchallenged global leader after World War II as it contributed 40% to the Gross World Product or GWP. Its European & Japan partners contributed another 20% to GWP, so that empowered the USA & partners’ (OECD) 60% contribution to GWP to exercise hegemony in all regions of the planet.

Today, the economic landscape had entirely changed. The USA’s $13+ Trillion GDP is down 22% of world income, while the entire EU’s $13+ Trillion is another 22%. EU + USA/Canada + Japan put together couldn’t even amount to 50% of Gross World Product, so the old partners may just have to metamorphose out of their old identities and retool quickly. They no longer hold the planet’s collective purse and should desist from bullying other nations with their economic clout that is pathetically a non-clout today.

Herd behavior, of course, is the least that we can make of the behavior of plummeting bourses. “Follow the leader” mindset of cave dwellers is still in, a mindset that is a messy sticking point for retooling purposes.

Why should local bourses refuse to see the new reality and dis-engage from the antiquated herd instinct? After all, stock markets are the exclusive games of the big corporate boys and consummate traders who have been addicted to the casino economy of antiquity. They hardly matter for the real economy sectors, such as those of Asia’s that have effectively built firewalls between the real economy and casino stock markets.

If to serve a bit of relevance to domestic growth at all, local bourses ought to look at the health of their own domestic physical economies and financial-monetary wellness.

Take a look at East Asia. The region has been driving the global economy beyond doubt, its average investments and savings rates are high, gross international reserves are equally high, and the physical economy as a whole has shown the way to high value-added production. Stock markets should better follow the lead of the healthy conditions of their domestic economies rather than look up to an offshore global leader that is now a chimera.

Or, if they can’t resist looking at offshore patterns, then they should look at their very own regional backyards for such models. Regional integration has been the strategy of the day, so why get fixated to a dinosaur fiction (USA as leader) when there are regional economic patterns that can show the lead.

USA’s lead will never ever return, this is a foregone conclusion. And Europe ought to rethink its integration efforts, as the Eurozone is now hotly burning, so Europe better not behave like a global hero that can fill up the vacuum left by the USA. A continent that is perennially flat on its back and is now burning in financial-monetary flames can never fill up such a vacuum.

As already articulated by me in previous articles, the Western markets will decline progressively across time. Consumption from 2007 through 2015 will decline by as much as 30% of their pre-recession levels. In contrast, Asia’s consumption will more than double during the same period, thus rendering Asia the unquestioned driver of the global economy in terms of (a) technological cutting edge, (b) production levels of the real economy, and (c) consumption levels.

In closing, just like the pattern for mega-cities where no one mega-city can be considered a global center today, so is it with national economies. Economic leadership has already been de-centered, global hegemony had been erased, and there can only be inter-dependence between markets as the most viable option. That interdependence should find translations in the bourses and currency markets.

[Philippines, 13 August 2010]


[See: IKONOKLAST: http://erleargonza.blogspot.com,
UNLADTAU: http://unladtau.wordpress.com,
COSMICBUHAY: http://cosmicbuhay.blogspot.com,
BRIGHTWORLD: http://erlefraynebrightworld.wordpress.com, ARTBLOG: http://erleargonza.wordpress.com,
ARGONZAPOEM: http://argonzapoem.blogspot.com]

RP’S FOREX RESERVES AT ALL-TIME HIGH

Erle Frayne D. Argonza


Magandang gabi! Good evening!

It’s almost bedtime as I write this piece. I am currently listening to world music as I keep my fingers busy on my laptop, even as I am in a celebratory or positive mood after a nice productive day.

Let me genuflect on the reported all-time high gross international reserves or GIR by our central bank here. The latest figure is $48.8 Billion, which is sufficient to purchase ten (10) months worth of imports or so. The GIR has been largely shored up by upscaling exports and continuing high inflows of overseas remittances.

Such a figure would correct my earlier claim of $45 Billion+ in my previous essays on RP development updates. The errata was unintended, as I do have some memory slips sometimes (my figure is applicable to early 2009 yet).

I do appreciate very well the level of GIR of my beloved Philippines. We have always been financially struggling due to our perennial low forex for over five (5) decades since after our 1946 independence (from the USA’s colonial yoke). GIR levels have since been moving up at the turn of the century and millennium, indicative of a relatively healthy macro-economy that can withstand new recessionary rounds to come.

The country’s GIR is in keeping with the east Asian region’s healthy levels of GIR as a whole. This is good news altogether. Contrast our situation with those of the western countries’ more so the USA whose GIR can buy less than a month worth of imports or so.

The only cautionary note that I can make about the matter is that our GIR is largely made up of US dollars. An unsolicited advice to our monetary authorities is for us to adopt a ‘basket of currencies’ policy for our GIR.

The over-concentration on the dollar will make our monetary situation burn in the short-run should the forecast decline of the dollar take place in the financial markets. East Asia should by now carve out contingency measures to deal with the massive dumping of dollars that can happen in case that financial volatilities will lead to the forecast event.

Just the same, let me toast a glass of wine to my compatriots, both overseas and domestic Pinoys, for the latest feat of GIR ascent.

[Philippines, 09 July 2010]

[See: IKONOKLAST: http://erleargonza.blogspot.com,
UNLADTAU: http://unladtau.wordpress.com,
COSMICBUHAY: http://cosmicbuhay.blogspot.com,
BRIGHTWORLD: http://erlefraynebrightworld.wordpress.com, ARTBLOG: http://erleargonza.wordpress.com,
ARGONZAPOEM: http://argonzapoem.blogspot.com]