Articles by Jomo Kwame Sundaram
We found 14 results.
[Obscenity] World Bank Urges Governments to Guarantee Private Profits even if Investors Fail Contractual Agreements
Jomo Kwame Sundaram and Anis Chowdhury | IPS/Human Wrongs Watch - TRANSCEND Media Service,
30 Nov 2020
24 Nov 2020 – The World Bank has been leading other multilateral development banks and international financial institutions to press developing country governments to ‘de-risk’ infrastructure and other private, especially foreign investments. Governments have little choice but to accede to their private partners’ demands. Thus, WB guidance further undermines governments.
→ read full article
Can Private Finance Really Serve Humanity?
Jomo Kwame Sundaram and Anis Chowdhury | Human Wrongs Watch - TRANSCEND Media Service,
20 Jul 2020
14 Jul 2020 – The recent explosion of private finance has nursed the hope, dream or illusion that it can be mobilized for the public good, e.g., to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals, associated with Agenda 2030. However, such hopes ignore how changes in financial investing have deeply transformed corporations, national economies and prospects for the world economy and social progress.
→ read full article
Inequality and Its Many Discontents
Anis Chowdhury and Jomo Kwame Sundaram | IPS – TRANSCEND Media Service,
16 Dec 2019
3 Dec 2019 – Much recent unrest, such as the ‘yellow-vest’ protests in France and the US ‘Abolish the Super-Rich’ campaign, is not against inequality per se, but reflects perceptions of changing inequalities. Most citizens resent when they are not only unacceptably high but also rising. Excessive inequality is widely seen as fundamentally unfair. Even President Obama described “dangerous and growing inequality” as “the defining challenge of our time”.
→ read full article
Privatization Increases Corruption
Jomo Kwame Sundaram | IPS/Human Wrongs Watch – TRANSCEND Media Service,
29 Jul 2019
23 Jul 2019 – International financial institutions (IFIs) have typically imposed wide-ranging policy reforms – called ‘conditionalities’ – in exchange for country governments to secure access to financial assistance. IFI policy conditionalities, such as the privatization of state-owned enterprises, can create new rentier opportunities, undermining government will and capacity to curb corruption.
→ read full article
Wealth Concentration Continues to Increase
Anis Chowdhury and Jomo Kwame Sundaram – Inter Press Service-IPS,
29 Jan 2018
23 Jan 2018 – As the ‘masters of the universe’ gather for their annual retreat at Davos, the World Economic Forum (WEF) has just published its Inclusive Development Index (IDI) for the second time.
→ read full articleQuantitative Easing for Wealth Redistribution
Jomo Kwame Sundaram – Inter Press Service-IPS,
28 Aug 2017
22 Aug 2017 – Following the 2007-2008 global financial crisis and the Great Recession in its wake, the ‘new normal’ in monetary policy has been abnormal. At the heart of the unconventional monetary policies adopted have been ‘asset purchase’ or ‘quantitative easing’ (QE) programmes. Ostensibly needed for economic revival, QE has redistributed wealth – regressively, in favour of the rich.
→ read full articleGenetically Engineered Disappointments
Jomo Kwame Sundaram and Tan Zhai Gen – Inter Press Service-IPS,
22 May 2017
16 May 2017 – Advocates of genetically engineered crops have long claimed that it is necessary to raise crop yields and reduce human exposure to agrochemicals. GE promised two major improvements: improving yields affordably to feed the world, and making crops resistant to pests to reduce the use of commercial chemical herbicides and insecticides. There has been little compelling evidence to this effect after two decades.
→ read full articleGrowing Inequality under Global Capitalism
Anis Chowdhury and Jomo Kwame Sundaram – Inter Press Service-IPS,
8 May 2017
4 May 2017 – Income and wealth inequality has increased in recent decades, but recognition of the role of economic liberalization and globalization in exacerbating inequality has never been so widespread. The guardians of global capitalism are nervous, yet little has been done to check, let alone reverse the underlying forces.
→ read full articleWashington Rules Change, Again
Jomo Kwame Sundaram – Inter Press Service-IPS,
20 Feb 2017
16 Feb 2017 – Over the last four decades, the Washington Consensus, promoting economic liberalization, globalization and privatization, reversed four decades of active state intervention… More than ever, it will be crucial for developing countries to work together, not only to ensure that South-South and ‘triangular’ (with the North) cooperation represents a progressive alternative to the Washington Consensus and its national chauvinist successors. Such solidarity will determine how well the South — and the world as a whole — will fare during the coming eclipse.
→ read full articleISDS Corporate Rule of Law
Jomo Kwame Sundaram – Inter Press Service-IPS,
5 Dec 2016
Investor-State Dispute Settlement provisions in ostensible free trade agreements and bilateral investment treaties have effectively created a powerful, privileged system of protections for foreign investors that undermine national law and institutions.
→ read full articlePrivatization Cure Often Worse Than Malady
Jomo Kwame Sundaram and Anis Chowdhury – Inter Press Service-IPS,
7 Nov 2016
Privatization of SOEs has been a cornerstone of the neo-liberal counterrevolution that swept the world from the 1980s following the economic crisis. Developing countries, seeking aid from the IMF and the World Bank, often had to commit to privatization as a condition for credit support.
→ read full articleTrump, Clinton, Obama and the TPP
Jomo Kwame Sundaram – Inter Press Service-IPS,
17 Oct 2016
Americans and Europeans are increasingly convinced that while elite interests are well served by ‘globalization’, the public interests of consumers and working people are not. The strong American popular opposition to the TPP, the Brexit vote and other recent developments in the West suggest growing rejection of the myth that national public and corporate elite interests are identical.
→ read full articleUS Government Report Exposes Exaggerated TPPA Growth Claims
Jomo Kwame Sundaram – Inter Press Service-IPS,
1 Aug 2016
28 Jul 2016 – The 2016 report by the US International Trade Commission acknowledges that the Trans-Pacific Partnership will not deliver many economic benefits promised by its cheerleaders. Implementing the TPP will greatly profit some large corporations, especially those getting IPR and financial rents.
→ read full articleThe Trans-Pacific Partnership Fraud
Jomo Kwame Sundaram – Inter Press Service-IPS,
8 Feb 2016
The Trans Pacific Partnership Agreement privileges foreign investors while imposing substantial costs on partner countries. The TPP has, in fact already been used to try to kill the Doha ‘Development’ Round of multilateral trade talks, but may well also undermine multilateralism more broadly in the near future.
→ read full article