UN Secretary General Calls for 'Drastic' Measures to Help World's Poor

[audtatious]

"UNITED NATIONS — Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon called for "drastic" measures to shore up banks and extend lines of credit to the world's poor Friday and pledged to support European and American efforts to rethink the global financial architecture."

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,443985,00.html

So, maybe we should rethink it as a EU-style? No individual financial pot but an all for one? Hey, I got it, let's get rid of money all together and let the UN run things because they always have everyone's best interests at heart.....

Wonderful.

[hannibal]

Whats the point of this post Matt?? The article simply says the world wide recession may impact developing countries the hardest. While larger economies like the US and European countries will recover, Ban wants to make sure poorer countries arent permanently crippled by this.

Whats this junk about getting rid of money and letting the UN run everything??

[audtatious]

I'm just curious if the money they want is in addition to the 845 billion that Obama wants to send to them. It's the standard "we hate the USA and Europe but want them to save us all". Where's the request for money from Russia, UE and other countries?

[AZhitman]

Ugh.

Don't get me started on the U.N.

We provide the majority of the financial support, but two-bit "leaders" of tiny countries have the same amount of influence as the country that finances this sham.

Get us out.

[HashiriyaS14]

Ugh.

Don't get me started on the U.N.

We provide the majority of the financial support, but two-bit "leaders" of tiny countries have the same amount of influence as the country that finances this sham.

Get us out.

While I am a very committed multilateralist, I agree that the present structure of the UN is grossly unfair to the United States.

Given that we DO finance the show, I think we should try and re-negotiate.

I think that international consensus is tremendously important, but I dislike the fact that the United Nations has the ability to deploy it's own forces and issue aid in it's own name and then effectively force us to write the checks for it.

The UN is valuable as a discussion forum and as a place to build consensus, but if action is to be taken that action should be taken BY member nations, not by the UN itself. This would remove the US and other wealthy nations from the responsibility of funding military operations and aid with which they do not agree.

[Jesda]

African dictators are long overdue for a new Mercedes.

[hannibal]

There's a great book on the issue called 'The Elusive Quest for Growth' by William Easterly. Check it out...