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.