Blog Post- May 1

No pot of gold at the end of the IMF rainbow

http://www.undispatch.com/node/8148

The world’s economic leaders are getting frustrated with the International Monetary Fund. An organization that was once established to stabilize interest rates that has evolved into a relief fund, has not been delivering on its promises. The UN Millennium Goals poverty, hunger, education, equality, disease and infant mortality, are in jeopardy. The leaders are now asking themselves, why they should continue to fund a global cartel that is not doing what it was intended to do. The developing countries around the world need the aid now more than ever, but it can be a hard request when every country is struggling on the home front.

World Bank ready to raise funding for swine flu
http://www.reuters.com/article/internal_ReutersNewsRoom_ExclusivesAndWins_MOLT/idUSTRE53Q7FH20090427
The United States is prepared to give the World Bank more money to give to developing countries to help with the recent swine flu outbreaks. The US has already established a funding facility a few years ago to help with a different type of flu, but health officials are fairly certain that this plan is flexible enough to bring an end to the swine strand. The World Bank announced that it would need $25 million in immediate funding for Mexico and an additional $180 million in future loans. As tight as budgets are now, this price is very cheap compared to the potential expenses of this epidemic. This flu could quickly be taken care of and quarantined, or it could vastly expand and endanger thousands of lives. At times like these, the cost of money is nothing compared to lives.

The IMF: Economic Shepherd or Black Sheep?
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=103560947
The IMF has a lack of capital and is no longer capable of performing the goal it was created for. The 1997 Asian financial crisis put a strain on the IMF that lowered its capital loan availability. Now with an even greater crisis, the money that has been loaned is greatly needed. Industrialized countries, like the United States, have pledged to give the IMF a credit line of $850 billion dollars to help with the depletion of assets. Middle developers like, Brazil, pledged to give resources in the form of bought IMF bonds. In the long run however, it is these countries that are probably going to need more than the more industrialized countries. The goal is that these new funds create a stimulus to rejuvenate the fund and hopefully pick up the global economic confidence.

Banking on the Fund
http://www.economist.com/opinion/displaystory.cfm?story_id=13446763
Many of the Worlds developing countries are in serious need of additional money to help bail their country of its recession. Not every state has a financial system advanced as the United States that can get the economy out of a recession simply by lowering interest rates. The question comes from where the money comes from when nearly every country in the world is experiencing that same recession. The G20 has promised to give more backing to this fund, but with problems of their own it can be hard for the different countries to give in “charity”. In recent years, we have seen the world’s leading nations try to bulk up the fund by giving more to it, not when it is needed the most, we have the opposite happen by a decrease in amounts given.

IMF: Banks Need Billions More
http://www.forbes.com/2009/04/21/imf-europe-banks-markets-equity-recession.html
The number crunchers at the IMF are expecting $4.1 trillion dollars in loss of assets by the world’s banks and stating that in order to fix it billions of dollars will have to be given back for the banks to be able and confident to make additional loans. The IMF is expecting to give US banks over $250 billion dollars to get the economy back to pre-crises levels, not to mention the $375 billion it is planning to give the European banks. They are also considering giving specific countries, such as England, an additional $100 billion to jump start individual nations. All in all, the IMF is planning on contributing over $600 billion dollars to Europe. That is a lot of money.

A Developing World Bailout?
http://www.forbes.com/2009/03/10/bailout-g20-banks-business-washington-global.html
World leaders from the world’s most developed countries recently met to discuss the possibility of bailing the world out? The World Bank will need major donations from every country to essentially help every country. Not only are the countries bailing themselves out, but now they are considering bailing out each other. This is putting tremendous pressure on the more developed countries, such as the US who just spent $800 billion, and are now getting ready to send additional billions of dollars to foreign aid. The bank is expecting the United States to be the leader in this role and contribute over 4% of its annual GDP to the bailout. The final vote has not taken place yet, and many countries are still on the fence, but one thing is certain, change has come!

Model UN Simulation

My favorite part of the Model UN International Simulation was the meetings.  The meetings with other countries gave me a first hand use knowledge that I gained while studying and reviewing the material I learned.  It also gave me the opportunity to fully participate in the experience and to engage to a fully participate in the group experience. 

I also really liked trying to convince Hezbollah to attack Israel.  When we were trying to start a war it made it easier to be engaged and kept everyone busier than when we were just responding to the crazy news reports that were coming out.  It gave us a way to control our environment rather than just become a victim to it.  For example, we had to try numerous plans to try and get nukes before it actually happened, and then it took forever for the plan to actually happen.  But, creating other plans and carrying out other missions helped create a busier and more active Iran.

I wish that instead of a movie, we had a whole week of preparing on the Middle Eastern conflict.  The movie did help, but there is so much that occurs in the Middle East, that I would have liked to cover more of the history and more of the conflicts that have and are occurring there. 

Well, the first proud accomplishment our group had was receiving nuclear capabilities.  The staff would not accept any of our original plans, so we had to redo/make new plans for about 2 hours.  We spent most of the first day talking about nukes, and never gained access to them until the end of the second day. 

I was also proud of the deal that we made with China.  We allowed them to establish a Security Base near the gulf in return for 300,000 barrels of oil a day.  This fixed our trade deficit and gave our country extra money, which as the Minister of the Economy was the main objective of mine.  It also established an alliance with China that was proven to the rest of the world.  It was a very good deal that was made.

Iraq was a constant source of frustration for me.  From the very start, they were provoking Iran.  It all started with the problem over sharing water.  They wanted more access that we were not willing to give them.  Then they reached out to other countries to form an alliance against Iran.  When we finally did share more water, they claimed that we poisoned the water and that they were having an E coli outbreak. 

If there was anything that I wish we had done differently, I wish we had spent more time embracing Iraq.  I wish that we had received Nukes faster, and then bombed Iraq.  Maybe not even completely, but just enough to cause them to leave us alone.

The overall experience is very rewarding in how much you learn.  It causes you to think about International Relations from the role of the leaders and future plans, rather than just what happened in the past.