And now for something completely different…

I’m back in the university setting after a couple of years out and have been under a barrage of ‘awareness’. In this short post I’m going to complain about stupidity and stupid people for a moment. Generally it seems fashionable today to side with hippies and socially conscious folk especially if you’re in your early 20’s and undergoing ‘higher learning’. Walk onto any campus in Canada - likely elsewhere as well - and you’ll find no end of people parading about trying to convince you that their cause-of-the-week is particularly important. Well, my awareness is raised and here’s a short, incomplete, list of what I’ve learned. I hope you’re feeling suitably ‘aware’ after reading this. Stop me if you’ve heard this one….

- people in the world are suffering

- people in the world are starving

- life just generally isn’t fair

- you live in a rich country and have unimaginable wealth so you should help poor people

- capitalism and democracy sucks; yay Che Guavara

- drinking coffee and eating bananas makes you a bad person

- STDs may be bad for your health

- etc, etc, ad nausium

So, do you feel educated and more aware about the world around you? I know I do. Phewf.. I’m glad there’s a lot of complaining going on; that must mean things will get better.

The biggest problem with all of this is, of course, that ‘awareness raising’ has become and end unto itself. I’m well aware that the world sucks in a lot ways, thanks for the info tips. If anyone cares to look further into a problem as well as the proposed solution - on the rare occasion that a solution of ANY kind is proposed while people are raising our collective awareness right up our own asses - they would find that the ’solutions’ are economically ill-conceived and would actually lead to much more harm than good. Here I provide a single example. I’ve been to a couple OPIRG (Ontario Public Interest Research Group) meetings and one in particular left me fuming. There was a short, extremely biased, film presented about the deplorable situation of banana farmers in Jamaica. I won’t deny that Jamaica has an abundance of socio-economic trouble to deal with, but the OPIRG solution blew my mind.

Banana farmers in Jamaica are finding it difficult to survive given the current market price for bananas and the fact that it’s cheaper for them to import much of their produce from the US than to shop and eat locally produced food. This isn’t news to anyone living in country that participates in global market economies because imports are often less expensive (including within Canada). The situation is more complicated and global economics is very difficult to sort through, so I won’t be doing that here. Suffice it to say that local farmers often need to get government aid which comes to the Jamaican government from the World Bank. Just to clarify a point about the World Bank from its own website:

Who owns the World Bank?

The World Bank is like a cooperative in which 185 member countries are shareholders. For a complete list of our members and when they joined, see the Members page in the About Us section of our website

Where does the World Bank get its money?

We raise money in several different ways to support the low interest and no interest loans (credits) and grants that the World Bank (IBRD and IDA) offers to developing and poor countries.

IBRD lending to developing countries is primarily financed by selling AAA-rated bonds in the world’s financial markets. IBRD bonds are purchased by a wide range of private and institutional investors in North America, Europe and Asia. While IBRD earns a small margin on this lending, the greater proportion of income comes from lending out our own capital. This capital consists of reserves built up over the years and money paid in from the bank’s 185 member country shareholders. IBRD income also pays for World Bank operating expenses and has contributed to IDA and debt relief. We maintain strict financial discipline to maintain the AAA status of our bonds and continue to extend financing to developing countries.

Shareholder support is also very important for the Bank. This is reflected in the capital backing we have received from shareholders in meeting their debt service obligations to IBRD. We also have US$178 billion in what is known as “callable capital,” which could be drawn from our shareholders as backing, should it ever be needed to meet IBRD obligations for borrowings (bonds) or guarantees. We have never had to call on this resource. For more information on the World Bank’s bonds and notes, go to the World Bank Debt Securities.

IDA, the world’s largest source of interest-free loans and grant assistance to the poorest countries, is replenished every three years by 40 donor countries. Additional funds are regenerated through repayments of loan principal on 35-to-40-year, no-interest loans, which are then available for re-lending. IDA accounts for nearly 40% of our lending.

Does the World Bank make a profit and, if so, what is done with it?

We often do have a surplus at the end of the fiscal year, which is earned from the interest rates charged on some loans and from fees charged for some of our services. Some of the surplus goes to IDA—the part of the bank that provides grants and interest free loans to the world’s poorest countries. The rest of the surplus is either used for debt relief for heavily indebted poor countries, added to financial reserves, or helps us respond to unforeseen humanitarian crises.

Which means it has to return to its shareholders requiring that it operate much like any other financial institution and is held accountable to those 185 member countries for its policies and expenditure.

The World Bank requires that governments borrowing money from them sign contracts in which they agree to work with financial specialists to distribute the money in certain ways. This is a requirement of the World Bank and all of the countries involved that comes from previous experiences wherein loaned finances were used to supply warlords with weaponry. You might think that OPRIG would be in support of regulations that are in place to keep money away from criminals, but the World Bank representative responses to questions were carefully edited and the board of directors may as well have been sitting about a cauldron eating babies. Unfortunately, Jamaican debt does continue to worsen and it’s government continues to make decisions that don’t help the situation. However, the World Bank has advised them that the farmers who are having difficulty making money selling bananas ought to change their crops over to something that is more cost effective on the world market - produce for bio-fuels for example - because the global market fluctuates and it is unwise to remain in an industry that is failing when it is just as easy to switch over to another crop. Continual rotation of crops, or increased crop diversity, would lend to a risk management system for local farmers that could then continue to export their produce for profitable returns. Of course, OPRIG didn’t want to get into that or even discuss the alternative solutions. Rather, they wanted to take everyone to the grocery store and ‘educate’ us about which items to buy and which not to buy based on where they are coming from. I have no doubt that the nearly starving Jamaican farmer would applaud their honourable efforts when he ceases to receive ANY money for his bananas due to the boycott.
Essentially, my argument here is that not nearly enough research is done into the vast complexity of any situation before undergraduate university students and half-wit demonstrators embark on redundant and meaningless campaigns to ‘raise awareness’. I’m already well aware of many problems around the world that need solving. All of the time and effort they spend raising awareness never seems to result in any positive action. Boycotts don’t solve problems. What the world actually needs is economically viable, realistic, solutions to real-world problems. So, my message to all hippies: Remove heads from collective asses, cut your damn hair, get a real education in something useful (i.e. NOT fine arts), get into politics, and make real, economically viable, changes. Globalization isn’t necessarily a bad thing if you take the time to examine the details and complex nature of the situation. It isn’t realistic, or even useful, to do away with capitalism. Anarchy is also NOT a solution.

Now back to regularly scheduled brainwashing… note that fearmongering and propaganda doesn’t only come from governments!