South Korea will seek inclusion of North Korea in global finance organizations

[NNN0LHI]

http://canadianpress.google.com/article/ALeqM5jwcFg9X7g9pEWqDBjUN70GIfAT3w

SEOUL, South Korea - South Korea said Thursday it plans to call for North Korea to be accepted into global financial organizations during next week's meetings of the International Monetary Fund and World Bank.

Finance Minister Kwon O-kyu will also urge international assistance in the development of the North's economy, the Ministry of Finance and Economy said in a statement.

Kwon, who is also a deputy prime minister, leaves Friday to attend the annual conference of the two organizations in Washington, where they are headquartered.

The statement said Kwon will make his appeals in a speech at the meetings next week "in line with the recent South-North summit." The statement did not specify the organizations to which South Korea wants the North admitted.

[Selatius]

1. For the sake of the North Korean people, I hope the country doesn't accept IMF loans

Because then they would demand privatization of water and electric utilities, with interest rates that are too high on top of that.

[NNN0LHI]

2. Seems like only countries who don't possess nuclear weapons get loans

I think countries that possess nukes normally receive gifts.

Don

[Selatius]

3. Oh, I think the Russians could tell you a story about that.

After Yeltsin seized power from the communist hardliners who had overthrown Gorbachev, Yeltsin undertook massive programs of privatization as a prescription of the IMF loans he had taken out on Russia. Something like 1 trillion dollars worth of capital was siphoned out of Russia in rigged, fraudulent sales of profitable state-run enterprises. Firms worth tens of billions were auctioned off for mere hundreds of millions. Many of the buyers were members of the underground Russian mob or were outside carpetbaggers who operated loose on laws and ethics. Often when a firm was purchased, the new owner would immediately turn around and gut the enterprise and fire off the workers and take home the profits, like buying a house valued at 1,000,000 for 100,000 and then selling it for 1,000,000 again to make 900,000 in profit. Thugs who were in their twenties became billionaires by the end of the 1990s.

Today, there is a small cadre of billionaires in Russia. These are the ones who picked clean the Russian economy. Working folks call these men "oligarchs" or "oil oligarchs." The truth still largely holds merit: If you're a billionaire, you either inherited a small but sizeable wealth and built it up, or you simply fucked over people on the way to the top, sometimes even killing people.