November 20, 2020 "Information Clearing House" - THE World Bank and the International Monetary Fund work hand in glove — smoothly. Not only are they regularly lending huge sums of money to horror regimes around the world, but they blackmail poor nations into accepting draconian conditions imposed by the west. In other words, the WB and the IMF are guilty of the most atrocious human rights abuses.

You couldn’t tell, when you read above the entrance of the World Bank the noble phrase, ‘Our Dream is World Free of Poverty’. To this hypocrisy I can only add, ‘… And we make sure it will just remain a dream.’ This says both, the lie and the criminal nature of the two international financial institutions, created under the Charter of the United Nations, but instigated by the United States.

The front of these institutions is brilliant. What meets the eye, are investments in social infrastructure, in schools, health systems, basic needs like drinking water, sanitation — even environmental protection — over all ‘poverty alleviation’, ie a world free of poverty. But how fake this is today and was already in the 1970s and 1980s is astounding. Gradually people are opening their eyes to an abject reality, of exploitation and coercion and outright blackmail. And that, under the auspices of the United Nations. What does it tell you about the UN system? In what hands is the UN? The world organisation was created in San Francisco, California, on October 24, 1945, just after World War II, by 51 nations, committed to maintaining international peace and security, developing friendly relations among nations and promoting social progress, better living standards and human rights.

The UN replaced the League of Nations which was part of the peace agreement after World War I, the Treaty of Versailles. It became effective on January 10, 1920, was headquartered in Geneva, Switzerland, with the purpose of disarmament, preventing war through collective security, settling disputes between countries, through negotiation diplomacy and improving global welfare. In hindsight it is easy to see that the entire UN system was set up as a hypocritical farce, making people believe that their mighty leaders only wanted peace. These mighty leaders were all westerners; the same that less than 20 years after the creation of the noble League of Nations, started World War II.

THIS little introduction provides the context for what was eventually to become the UN-backed outgrowth for global theft, for impoverishing nations, around the world, for exploitation of people, for human rights abuses and for shovelling huge amounts of assets from the bottom, from the people, to the oligarchy, the ever-smaller corporate elite — the so-called Bretton Woods Institutions.

In July 1944 more than 700 delegates of 44 allied nations (allied with the winners of WWII) met at the Mount Washington Hotel, situated in Bretton Woods, New Hampshire, United States, to regulate the international monetary and financial order after WWII. Let’s be sure, this conference was carried out under the auspices of the United States, the self-declared winner of WWII, and from now on forward the master over the financial order of the world — which was not immediately visible, an agenda hidden in plain sight.

The IMF was officially created to ‘regulate’ the western, so-called convertible currencies, those that subscribed to apply the rules of the new gold standard, ie $35/Troy Ounce (about 31.1 grams). Note that the gold standard, although applicable equally to 44 allied nations, was linked to the price of gold nominated in US dollars, not based on a basket of the value of the 44 national currencies. This already was enough reason to question the future system. And how it will play out. But nobody questioned the arrangement. Hard to believe though that of all these national economists, none dared question the treacherous nature of the gold-standard set-up.

The World Bank, or the Bank for Reconstruction and Development, was officially set up to administer the Marshall Plan for the Reconstruction of war-destroyed Europe. The Marshall Plan was a donation by the United Stated and was named for US secretary of state George Marshall, who proposed it in 1947. The plan gave $13.2 billion in foreign aid to European countries that had been devastated physically and economically by World War II. It was to be implemented from 1948 to 1952 which of course was much too short a time, and stretched into the early 1960s. In today’s terms the Marshall plan would be worth about 10 times more, or some $135 billion.

The Marshall Plan was and still is a revolving fund, paid back by the countries in question, so that it could be relent. The Marshall Plan money was lent out multiple times and was therefore very effective. The European counterpart to the World Bank-administered Marshall Fund was a newly to be created bank set up under the German ministry of finance, The German Bank for Reconstruction and Development (KfW — German acronym for Kreditanstalt für Wiederaufbau’).

KfW, as the World Bank’s European counterpart still exists and dedicates itself mostly to development projects in the Global South, often in cooperation with the World Bank. Today there is still a special department within KfW that deals exclusively with Marshall Plan Fund money. These funds are used for lending to poor southern regions in Europe, and also to prop up Eastern European economies, and they were used especially to integrate former East Germany into today’s ‘grand Germany’.

Two elements of the Marshall Plan are particularly striking and noteworthy. First, the reconstruction plan created a bind, a dependence between the US and Europe, the very Europe that was largely destroyed by the western allied forces, while basically WWII was largely won by the Soviet Union, the huge sacrifices of the USSR — with an estimated 25 to 30 million deaths. So, the Marshall Plan was also designed as a shield against communist Russia, ie the USSR.

While officially the Soviet Union was an ally of the western powers, US, UK, and France, in reality the communist USSR was an arch-enemy of the west, especially the United States. With the Marshall Plan money, the US bought Europe’s alliance, a dependence that has not ended to this day. The ensuing Cold War against the Soviet Union — also all based on flagrant lies, was direct testimony for another western propaganda farce — which to this day, most Europeans haven’t grasped yet.

Second, The US imposition of a US dollar based reconstruction fund, was not only creating a European dollar dependence, but was also laying the ground work for a singular currency, eventually to invade Europe — what we know today, has become the euro. The euro is nothing but the foster child of the dollar, as it was created under the same image as the US dollar — it is a fiat currency, backed by nothing. The united Europe, or now called the European Union — was never really a union. It was never a European idea, but put forward by US secret services in disguise of a few treacherous European honchos. And every attempt to create a united Europe, a European federation, with a European constitution, similar to the United States, was bitterly sabotaged by the US, mostly through the US mole in the EU, namely the United Kingdom.

The US didn’t want a strong Europe, both economically and possibly over time also militarily (population of the EU is 450 million v US population of 330 million; 2019 EU GDP $20.3 trillion equivalent, v US GDP $21.4 trillion). Most economists would agree that a common currency for a loose group of countries has no future, is not sustainable. In comes the European Central Bank, also a creation inspired by the US Federal Reserve System. The ECB has really no central bank function. It is rather a watch dog. Because each EU member country has still her own central bank, though with a drastically reduced sovereignty.

Out of the current 27 EU members only 19 are part of the Eurozone. Those countries not part of the Eurozone, ie Czech Republic, Denmark, Hungary, Sweden — and more, have preserved their sovereign financial policy and do not depend on the ECB. This means, had Greece opted out of the Eurozone when they were hit with the 2008–2009 manufactured ‘crisis’, Greece would now be well on her way to full recovery. They would not have been subject to the whims and dictate of the IMF, the infamous troika, the European Commission, ECB and IMF, but could have chosen to arrange their debt internally, as most debt was internal debt, with no need to borrow from abroad.

In a 2015 bailout referendum, the Greek population voted overwhelmingly against the bailout, meaning against the new gigantic debt. However, the then Greek president Tsipras, went ahead as if the referendum had never taken place and approved the huge bailout despite almost 70 per cent of the popular vote against it.

This is a clear indication of fraud, that no fair play was going on. Tsipras and/or his families may have been coerced to accept the bailout — or else. We may never know, the true reason why Tsipras sold his people, the wellbeing of the Greek people to the oligarchs behind the IMF and World Bank — and put them into abject misery, with the highest unemployment in Europe, rampant poverty and skyrocketing suicide rates.

Greece may serve as an example on how other EU countries may fare if they don’t ‘behave’ — meaning adhere to the unwritten golden rules of obedience to the international money masters.

This is scary.

AND now, in these times of COVID-19, it is relatively easy. Poor countries, particularly in the Global South, already indebted by the plandemic, are increasing their foreign debt in order to provide their populations with basic needs. Or so they make you believe. Much of the debt accumulated by developing countries is domestic or internal debt, like the debt of the Global North. It doesn’t really need foreign lending institutions to wipe out local debt. Or have you seen one of the rich Global North countries borrowing from the IMF or the World Bank to master their debt? Hardly.

So why would the Global South fall for it? Part corruption, part coercion, and partly direct blackmail. Yes, blackmail, one of the biggest international crimes imaginable, being committed by the foremost international UN-chartered financial institutions, the WB and the IMF.

For example, the whole world is wondering how come that an invisible enemy, a coronavirus, hit all 193 UN member countries at once, so that Dr Tedros, director general of the World Health Organisation, declares on March 11 a pandemic — no reason whatsoever since there were only 4,617 cases globally — but the planned result was a total worldwide lockdown on March 16, 2020. No exceptions. There were some countries that didn’t take it so seriously, like Brazil, Sweden, Belarus, some African countries, like Madagascar and Tanzania — developed their own rules and realised that wearing masks did more harm than good, and social distancing would destroy the social fabric of their cultures and future generations.

But the satanic deep dark state didn’t want anything to do with ‘independent’ countries. They all had to follow the dictate from way above, from the Gates, Rockefellers, Soroses, et al elite, soon to be reinforced by Klaus Schwab, serving as the chief henchman of the World Economic Forum. Suddenly, you see in Brazil, a drastic surge in new ‘cases’, no questions asked, massive testing, no matter that the infamous PCR tests are worthless according to most serious scientists (only sold and corrupted scientists, those paid by national authorities, would still insist on the RT-PCR tests). Bolsonaro gets sick with the virus and the death count increases exponentially — as the Brazilian economy falls apart. 

Coincidence?

IN COMES the World Bank and/or the IMF, offering massive help mostly as debt relief, either as grant or as low interest loans. But with massive strings attached: you must follow the rules laid out by WHO, you must follow the rules on testing on vaccination, mandatary vaccination — if you conform to these and other country-specific rules, like letting western corporations tap your natural resources — you may receive WB and IMF assistance.

Already in May 2020 the World Bank Group announced its emergency operations to fight COVID-19 had already reached 100 developing countries — home to 70 per cent of the world’s population with lending of $160 billion-plus. This means, by today, six months later and in the midst of the ‘second wave’, the number of countries and the number of loans or ‘relief’ grants must have increased exponentially, having reached close to the 193 UN member countries. Which explains how all, literally all countries, even the most objecting African countries, like Madagascar and Tanzania, among the poorest of the poor, have succumbed to the coercion or blackmail of the infamous Bretton Woods Institutions.

These institutions have no quarrels in generating dollars, as the dollar is fiat money, not backed by any economy — but can be produced literally from hot air and lent to poor countries, either as debt or as grant. These countries, henceforth and because of the pressure of the international financial institutions will forever become dependent on the western masters of salvation. COVID-19 is the perfect tool for the financial markets to shovel assets from the bottom to the top.

In order to maximise the concentration of the riches on top, maybe one or two or even three new COVID-19 waves may be necessary. That’s all planned, The WEF has already foreseen the coming scenarios, by its tyrannical book COVID-19 – The Great Reset. It’s all laid out. And our western intellectuals read it, analyse it, criticise it, but we do not shred it apart — we let it stand, and watch how the world moves in the reset direction. And the plan is dutifully executed by the World Bank and the IMF — all under the guise of doing good for the world.

What’s different now from the World Bank and IMF’s role before the COVID-19 plandemic? Nothing. Just the cause for exploitation, indebtment, enslavement. When COVID-19 came along it became easy. Before then and up to the end of 2019, developing countries, mostly rich in natural resources of the kind the west covets, oil, gold, copper and other minerals, such as rare earths, would be approached by the World Bank, the IMF or both.

They could receive debt relief, so-called structural adjustment loans, no matter whether or not they really needed such debt. Today these loans come in all forms, shapes and colours, literally like colour-revolutions, for instance, often as budget support operations — I simply call them blank checks — nobody controls what’s happening with the money. However, the countries have to restructure their economies, rationalising their public services, privatising water, education, health services, electricity, highways, railroads — and granting foreign concessions for the exploitation of natural resources.

Most of this fraud — fraud on ‘robbing’ national resources, passes unseen by the public at large, but countries become increasingly dependent on the western paymasters — peoples’ and institutional sovereignty is gone. There is always a corrupter and a corruptee. Unfortunately, they are still omnipresent in the Global South. Often, for a chunk of money, the countries are forced to vote with the US for or against certain UN resolutions which are of interest to the US. Here we go — the corrupt system of the UN.

And of course, when the two Bretton Woods organisations were created in 1944, the voting system decided was not ‘one country, one vote’, as in theory it is in the UN. The US has an absolute veto right in both organisations. Their voting rights are calculated in function of their capital contribution which derives from a complex formula, based on GDP and other economic indicators. In both institutions the US voting right and also veto right is about 17 per cent. Both institutions have 189 member countries.

COVID-19 has laid bare, if it wasn’t already before, how these ‘official’ international, UN-chartered Bretton Woods financial institutions are fully integrated in the UN system — in which most of the countries still trust, maybe for lack of anything better.

Question, however: what is better, a hypocritical corrupt system that provides the ‘appearance’, or the abolition of a dystopian system and the courage to create a new one, under new democratic circumstances and with sovereign rights by each participating country?

Peter Koenig is an economist and geopolitical analyst. He is also a water resources and environmental specialist. He worked for over 30 years with the World Bank and the World Health Organization around the world in the fields of environment and water. He lectures at universities in the US, Europe and South America. He writes regularly for Global Research; ICH; New Eastern Outlook (NEO); RT; Countercurrents, Sputnik; PressTV; The 21st Century; Greanville Post; Defend Democracy Press; The Saker Blog, the and other internet sites. He is the author of Implosion – An Economic Thriller about War, Environmental Destruction and Corporate Greed – fiction based on facts and on 30 years of World Bank experience around the globe. He is also a co-author of The World Order and Revolution! - Essays from the Resistance. Peter Koenig is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization.