By Debbie Menon

"Developing countries feeling fallout from meltdown?"  Of course they are feeling the fallout!  You cannot have a meltdown without something to melt!

"Developing countries...."   I like that!  Some of those developing countries have been developing for as long as they have been countries.

How is it that most "developing" countries are so poor?

Guess who it is we see in the try-pots?

Global finance ministers are turning attention to the fallout in "developing countries" and poor nations. White House spokesman Tony Fratto said.  Bush acknowledged the problem began in the United States, but told participants that "we're all in this together." "We take this seriously and we want to work with you," Bush assured the ministers, according to Fratto.

I have a pretty good idea what "undeveloped" means, and "under-developed."  I also think I can tell a developed country from an undeveloped country.  But, when a country is said to be a "developing " country, and I look at its history and see that it has not changed since they began recording its history, I wonder.....

Could it be that someone is not using the dictionary or the words properly?

The "developers?"  There must be developers, mustn't there be?  How could an undeveloped country or people, develop themselves?  If one had the capacity, resources and skills to develop, themselves or others, would they not be considered already developed?  It seems to me that "developing" is a transitional term describing an ongoing process of change, an implication of something better than before.

Yet, so many of those poor and developing countries are no better off than they were when I first opened my history books so many years ago.  I wonder just what the "developers" of developing countries are developing…who, why, what, how and for whom?

That is why, of course, the so-called "developing" countries always suffer the pains of deprivation and want, not only first among others in the world, but more and most severely.   Because they have not developed reserve resources to deal with rainy or snowy days.

Perhaps we should ship them carloads of dictionaries. Perhaps we should look for a new Development Group.  At the current rate, developing countries will still be "developing" long after they no longer have a history to write.  And that will be real puzzling, because, according to my mother's old red Webster, that is a contradiction in terms.  Just like "developing" today.

If the world markets have "collapsed" and everyone has "lost" as much money as we are hearing they have, just who in hell is everyone going to borrow from?  Each other?  This sounds to me like another Big Banker Scam.

"Look, you lend me sixty billions of USD and a good rate, and I will lend you the equivalent in Euros at the same rate, OK?  Then you can market my paper at a discount, I will market yours at the same discount; we will start buying back each others paper on margin, which will drive up the market prices.   We both sell out the lot and make a big killing?  Then, we declare bankruptcy, default the paper, claim we lost our pants and ask for a Government bailout."

Prof. Floyd Rudmin writes from The Ends Of the Earth:  "I write from Arctic Norway where I teach psychology in the local university. In the midst of this financial crisis, there needs to be some finger pointing at the government authorities that blocked efforts to prevent this crisis. Angela Merkel said that she as chair of the G8 in 2007 was pushing collective action to make the international banking system safer and accountable. But the US and the UK blocked those attempts. In other words, the US and the UK have banking crises because their governments were either too corrupt, or too incompetent, or too ideological to take effective actions to prevent the crises that others could see coming: AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE Deutsche Welle -WORLD.DE

Incidentally, the Merkel interview has not appeared in the US media. But, it was carried by AFP and by DW in English; therefore every major TV network and newspaper in the USA had access to this story and made the overt decision not to make it known. The media conformity and self-censorship in the USA is stunning.  One of the wonders of the world.  Impossible to imagine or to intentionally invent. But there it is, a reality, doing its dirty job daily. Absolutely amazing."

There was something in Asia Times. It is about HSBC, our nice UK global bank, promoting Lehman's junk bonds to private, customers in Hong Kong.  They called them mini-bonds.  Not selling them to other banks, or insurance companies, but to individuals who earn a salary for a living.

To quote from the essay:  "About 10,000 investors are reported to be affected. HSBC has yet to make a public statement on the topic. A prospectus for a proposed mini-bond issue in 2002 stated that "Neither the trustee ... the swap guarantor [Lehman], the arranger [again Lehman], [nor] the underlying securities issuer ... has any obligation to any note holder for payment,"

It may be some time before everyone knows and feels the effects of America's economic terremoto, but the tsunami it will launch will be severe, fast and practically unnoticeable as it crosses large oceans, but it is inevitable and as it approaches foreign shores, it will build in height, majesty and destructive power.

My advice still stands; grab and hang onto something substantial and, after the torpedo hits pray that you are still alive when you float to the surface. The "industry" is controlled only by and for the profits of the brokers who sit on the trading boards.  It is their Mafia.

The rhetoric in the Mainstream Press is all hullabaloos. This hole is a lot deeper than most people think it is. It has become what Jane Fonda used to call The China Syndrome, a bottomless hole which goes all the way through and comes out the other side, where it is not perceived as the other end of our hole, but the opening end of their hole, which comes out at our end. There is nothing at all except empty space in between the ends... black voids, not unlike bottomless limitless black holes in space. There is no "end" to this econocrisis.  An era has come to an end, an era of Western dominated, Western driven Western Capitalist economics, and it cannot be restarted. It is like a black hole in space... economic emptiness into which all matter, money and resource disappears.   One in which a pen can create fortunes, and an eraser or a "delete" stroke on a keyboard can eliminate all.  In that sense, wealth, money, credit and debt were all a chimera.

Be Happy in your "recovery" work World Leaders!

About the author: Debbie Menon is an independent writer based in Dubai. She can be reached at debbie.menon@yahoo.com.

... Payvand News - 10/14/08 ...

Bookmark/Share this post with:
Delicious | Digg | Facebook | Furl | Google | Magnolia | Newsvine | Reddit | Yahoo