Today no Government can  promise you security in the face of Bruning Austerity, Selfish Desire, Weapons of Mass Destruction, and Terrorism. They can not prevent!!!

Only the coherence and alignment of the energy of peace from meditation can start to change the world, your life now and your future lifetimes, creating more luck in your life and preventing attacks before they arise.

Only the supreme knowledge and aligned consciousness and the energy of peace from YOUR meditation can start to change YOUR life now and your future lifetimes, giving you more energy, perseverance, good relationships and Luck by preventing defects and failures in Your Life before they arise.

No Government can prevent... has been able to improve the problematic areas of Education and Health. Dummed down and plain unhealthy. In the UK 30% of the people die from cancer and 25% from Heart disease. In fact they keep changing methodologies constantly in the hopes that no-one will notice that in the face of all this effort.... things are getting worse.

And because of this, every three or four years the Governments are thrown out a new one replaces them. And we, stupidly, because of 10,000 years of history, start full of hope whilst they continue to lie and to fail.

More people are starting to practise meditation, One of the Fastest Growing Ancient and Successful Techniques in the World, because it works now and has worked for 5000 years creating in that time all the Spiritual Masters to whom we look up to because of their lives of health and goodness and mercy to all.

It needs artists like Geldoff and Bono from U2 to remind us that our happiness is created by the happiness of everyone around us - Let's help Africa they say.

And others bring the awareness of the environment being destroyed by industrial pollution and not simple carbon dioxide which feeds the trees, - yes those big clouds of pollution and xeno-oestrogens only emanate from the fuctories near you at 4am when all the cars are off the road.

Then the controvery over  consciously Eugenocidalist:- Vaccines, Fluoride in the water, Frankenstein Food.

This same pollution which previously created the  scourge of Tuberculosis is now creating the killers of Cancer, Heart Disease, Aids and low birth rates in every country in the world.

Also the fact that throughout the world many children are lacking in parents, food, water, houses and education and for this reason their pain will provide the next terror and war cannon fodder in the coming years of this century.

Our happiness is bound up in the happiness of others. Who are the happiest people, those who make everyone around them happy.

Governments and the people who run them never have had this point of view. They do not meditate!

Their control comes from making their people afraid, and for this an enemy is needed. Or it does not fit into their budget. Their control comes from creating fear and Chaos.

If we know and create what is to happen then the Chaos Management of your created Problem, the predicted Reaction and then offering your Solution can give you ownership of the World.

All CNN can do is to report this with no insight into the why? That this bank has been robbed by some burglars and this company has failed with the loss of the pension fund or that because Greenspan with the encouragement of Bush approved toxic loans in order to make money for themselves and their families, and Countrywide Mortgage Brokers went up 2100% before it went bankrupt, and after that the whole financial system of the World went bottom up - but the people who were told what would happen, with Money they earned from Countrywide and other scams were able to buy all the assets of the Bankrupt Financial Houses very cheaply. Classic Created Bubble: done many times before!

GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: "By the year 2010, we must increase minority homeowners by at least 5.5 million"

Joseph Stiglitz, a Nobel-prize winning economist, said the U.S. economy risks tumbling into recession because of the ``mess'' left by former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan. ``I'm very pessimistic,'' Stiglitz said in an interview in London today. ``Alan Greenspan really made a mess of all this. He pushed out too much liquidity at the wrong time. He supported the tax cut in 2001, which is the beginning of these problems. He encouraged people to take out variable-rate mortgages.''

You just know that the OrangeMan - Angelo Mozilo CEO Countrywide now ambassador to Netherlands - is going to pull a Ken Lay! After all it worked once, and there's plenty of room next to GW's Paraguay compound for another new arrival. That neighborhood is going to be the wealthiest and most secure on the planet!

Angelo Mozilo may be a scapegoat? The government needs to put a high profile face on the mortgage system's meltdown and they can't use Roland E. Arnall, the former owner of alleged predatory lender Ameriquest Mortgage, since W appointed him to be ambassador to the Netherlands -- after he paid at least $325 million in fines, penalties and associated costs to various state attorneys general. To be noted, Arnall was one of the biggest contributors to the Republican Party whereas Mozilo is reputedly thought to support democrat people and causes. Henry Cisneros, Clinton's disgraced (and pardoned) former HUD Secretary is on Countrywide's Board of Directors as was Kathleen Brown Rice, current California Attorney General and ex-California Governor Jerry Brown's sister.

Remember, Abraham Lincoln.. "You can fool a few of the people all of the time, you can fool most of the people most of the time, and in any democracy, this is enough!"

All the BBC can do then is to report that this country is going to war and yes, you are being conscripted, enslaved into the army.

This has been the case for 10,000 years whilst the governments of Alexander the Great, Julius Caesar, Caligula, Nero, Genghis Khan, Napoleon, Hitler, Stalin, and Mao, have killed untold millions of people, 200 millions alone in the last century.

U2 at their concerts say the worlds biggest arms dealers are, in money order,  USA, UK, France, Russia, and China. An Arms budget of 400 Billions of Dollars per year are needed, 15 Trillions of Dollars have been spent on Arms since the second World War, wasted yet necessary because of this State of Insecurity.

Today we don't need the Old States of the past or even the United States or a State of Insecurity, Instead we need the State of Meditation on One Enlightened Harmonious World where everyone is given the opportunity to evolve, treated well... given food, accommodation, education, meditation, is happy, and an arms budget is not needed!!

The Purpose of this world is the Evolution and Happiness of Humanity.

This we need to Afford through your conscious choice, NOW. By choosing to practice Meditation. Through having a process of  Meditation every day you can enter into that Richer Life!!

As meditation becomes the Practice of Choice in all people, Businesses, Politicians and Government itself, this will change and the whole World will become Defect Free!!

And even meditation is not enough, now we need real Meditative Progress, a Speeding up of the Process of Meditation through Advanced Energy Enhancement Techniques. Energy Enhancement Meditation will give real results of evolution, coherence, alignment and progress in our lives and in the lives of everyone in the World, FAST!!

Internal richness leads to external richness, luck and progress in all areas of your life. Rather than being one who cannot even manage your life, become one who not only can manage your life but also the lives of everyone around you in Richness and in Health.

In this way, through Meditation YOUR life, the lives of your family and friends, your City, Country and Planet can be benefited as waves of meditational energy are projected and spread to all areas of your life and planet of residence for this life and all your future lives. START NOW!!

How did we get into this mess?

More than 20 years of dogged lobbying from the financial industry paid off with the repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act, which was passed by Congress following the 1929 stock market crash. The bill was written to limit the conflicts of interest when commercial banks are permitted to underwrite stocks or bonds.

The financial industry whittled away at Glass-Steagall for years before finally breaking down its regulatory restrictions in August 1987, when Alan Greenspan -- formerly a director of J.P. Morgan and a proponent of banking deregulation -- became chairman of the Federal Reserve Board.

“In 1990, J.P. Morgan became the first bank to receive permission from the Federal Reserve to underwrite securities, so long as its underwriting business does not exceed the 10 percent limit. In December 1996, with the support of Chairman Alan Greenspan, the Federal Reserve Board issued a precedent-shattering decision permitting bank holding companies to own investment bank affiliates with up to 25 percent of their business in securities underwriting (up from 10 percent).

"This expansion of the loophole created by the Fed's 1987 reinterpretation of Section 20 of Glass-Steagall effectively rendered Glass-Steagall obsolete.” (“The Long Demise of Glass Steagall, Frontline, PBS)

In 1999, after 25 years and $300 million of lobbying efforts, Congress, aided by President Bill Clinton, finally repealed Glass-Steagall. This paved the way for the problems we are now facing.

Another contributing factor to the current banking-muddle is the Basel rules. According to the BIS (Bank of International Settlements) website: “The Basel Committee on Banking Supervision provides a forum for regular cooperation on banking supervisory matters. Its objective is to enhance understanding of key supervisory issues and improve the quality of banking supervision worldwide. It seeks to do so by exchanging information on national supervisory issues, approaches and techniques, with a view to promoting common understanding. At times, the Committee uses this common understanding to develop guidelines and supervisory standards in areas where they are considered desirable. In this regard, the Committee is best known for its international standards on capital adequacy; the Core Principles for Effective Banking Supervision; and the Concordat on cross-border banking supervision.”

The Basel Committee on Banking (Basel 2) requires “banks to boost the capital they hold in reserve against the loans on their books.”

Sounds like a good thing, doesn’t it? This protects the overall financial system as well as the individual depositor. Unfortunately, the banks found a way to circumvent the rules for minimum reserves by “securitizing” pools of mortgages (MBS) rather than holding individual mortgages. (which called for more reserves) This provided lavish origination and distribution fees for banks, but shifted much of the risk of default to Wall Street investors. Now, the banks are saddled with roughly $300 billion in mortgage-backed debt (CDOs) that no one wants and it is uncertain whether they have sufficient reserves to cover their losses.

By October, we should know how this will all play out. As David Wessel points out in “New Bank Capital requirements helped to Spread Credit Woes”: “Banks now behave more like securities firms, more likely to mark down the value of assets when market prices fall -- even to distressed levels -- rather than sitting on bad loans for a decade and pretending they’ll be paid back.”

The downside of this is that once that banks write off these toxic MBSs and CDOs; the hedge funds, insurance companies and pension funds will be forced to do the same -- dumping boatloads of this bond-sludge on the market, driving down prices and triggering a panic sell-off. This is what the Fed is trying to prevent through its $60 billion repo-bailout.

Regrettably, the Fed cannot hope to remove a half-trillion dollars of bad debt from the balance sheets of the banks or forestall the collapse of related financial institutions and funds which are loaded with these “unmarketable” time-bombs. Besides, most of the mortgage derivatives (CDOs) have been massively enhanced with low interest leverage from the “carry trade.” When the value of these CDOs is finally determined -- which we expect will happen sometime before the end of the 3rd quarter -- we can expect the stock market to fall sharply and the housing recession to turn into a full-blown economic crisis.

Alan Greenspan: The Fifth Horseman?

So, who’s to blame? The finger pointing has already begun and more and more people are beginning to see how this massive economy-busting equity bubble originated at the Federal Reserve -- it is the logical corollary of former Fed chief Alan Greenspan's “easy money” policies.

Henry C K Liu sums up Greenspan’s tenure at the Fed in his Asia Times article, “Why the Subprime Bust Will Spread”: “Greenspan presided over the greatest expansion of speculative finance in history, including a trillion-dollar hedge-fund industry, bloated Wall Street-firm balance sheets approaching $2 trillion, a $3.3 trillion repo (repurchase agreement) market, and a global derivatives market with notional values surpassing an unfathomable $220 trillion.

"On Greenspan's 18-year watch, assets of US government-sponsored enterprises (GSEs) ballooned 830 percent, from $346 billion to $2.872 trillion. GSEs are financing entities created by the US Congress to fund subsidized loans to certain groups of borrowers such as middle- and low-income homeowners, farmers and students. Agency mortgage-backed securities (MBSs) surged 670 percent to $3.55 trillion. Outstanding asset-backed securities (ABSs) exploded from $75 billion to more than $2.7 trillion.”

"The greatest expansion of speculative finance in history." That says it all.

But no one makes the case against Greenspan better than Greenspan himself. Here are some of his comments at the Federal Reserve System’s Fourth Annual Community Affairs Research Conference, Washington, D.C., April 8, 2005. They show that Greenspan “rubber stamped” every one of the policies which have since metastasized and spread through the entire US economy.

Greenspan, Champion of Subprime loans: “Innovation has brought about a multitude of new products, such as subprime loans and niche credit programs for immigrants. Such developments are representative of the market responses that have driven the financial services industry throughout the history of our country. With these advance in technology, lenders have taken advantage of credit-scoring models and other techniques for efficiently extending credit to a broader spectrum of consumers.”

Greenspan, Main Proponent of Toxic CDOs: “The development of a broad-based secondary market for mortgage loans also greatly expanded consumer access to credit. By reducing the risk of making long-term, fixed-rate loans and ensuring liquidity for mortgage lenders, the secondary market helped stimulate widespread competition in the mortgage business. The mortgage-backed security helped create a national and even an international market for mortgages, and market support for a wider variety of home mortgage loan products became commonplace. This led to securitization of a variety of other consumer loan products, such as auto and credit card loans.”

Greenspan, Supporter of Loans to People with Bad Credit: “Where once more marginal applicants would simply have been denied credit, lenders are now able to quite efficiently judge the risk posed by individual applicants and to price that risk appropriately.

"These improvements have led to the rapid growth in subprime mortgage lending . . . fostering constructive innovation that is both responsive to market demand and beneficial to consumers.

“Improved access to credit for consumers, and especially these more-recent developments, has had significant benefits.

Unquestionably, innovation and deregulation have vastly expanded credit availability to virtually all income classes. Access to credit has enabled families to purchase homes, deal with emergencies, and obtain goods and services. Home ownership is at a record high, and the number of home mortgage loans to low- and moderate-income and minority families has risen rapidly over the past five years. Credit cards and installment loans are also available to the vast majority of households”

Greenspan, Big Fan of “Structural Changes” Which Increase Consumer Debt: "As we reflect on the evolution of consumer credit in the United States, we must conclude that innovation and structural change in the financial services industry have been critical in providing expanded access to credit for the vast majority of consumers, including those of limited means. Without these forces, it would have been impossible for lower-income consumers to have the degree of access to credit markets that they now have.

"This fact underscores the importance of our roles as policymakers, researchers, bankers, and consumer advocates in fostering constructive innovation that is both responsive to market demand and beneficial to consumers.”

Greenspan’s own words are the most powerful indictment against him. They show that he played a central role in our impending disaster. The effort on the part of media pundits, talking heads, and so-called experts to foist the blame on the rating agencies, predatory lenders or gullible mortgage applicants misses the point entirely. The problems began at the Federal Reserve and that’s where the responsibility lies.






Debt, Unemployment, Privatization and War
How Greenspan Skewered America

By MIKE WHITNEY

No one has done more to ensure the ultimate demise of the American middle class than Alan Greenspan.

No one.

In the stately pantheon of class-warriors, Greenspan's spectral-image looms larger than any other; the foremost proponent of hardnosed social-Darwinism and exclusionary economics. Even his carpet-bagging consort, G.W. Bush, pales in comparison.

In just under 5 years the Fed-master has engineered a coup so vast and devastating that $1.3 trillion of borrowed revenue has been adroitly shifted from the beleaguered middle class to the privileged 1% that Greenspan represents.

Whoa!

It is the biggest heist in the history of the planet, and it was designed and executed within the leather-bound citadel of the Federal Reserve.

Thanks, Alan.

The partnership of Bush and Greenspan has been the moral equivalent of the sacking of Rome; maxing out the nation's credit card until every last farthing has been drained from the public till. Greenspan's tenure has left America bobbing atop an ocean of red ink ready to capsize with the first gust of recession.

Greenspan was a key player in facilitating the Iraq war, pushing interest rates to their lowest level 6 months before the war to keep the economy on life-support while the propaganda campaign burst from the front pages of the New York Times and the Washington Post.

It worked like a charm.

The American people were hoodwinked by White House fabrications and anesthetized by cheap money. They began a borrowing frenzy that sluiced zillions into a hyper-inflated housing market that is timed to detonate just as wistful Alan picks up his gold watch and heads for the exit.

Good thinking, Alan.

Now, after years of mismanagement, Greenspan is offering caveats about the chaos he's leaving behind. In his typical gibberish the chairman has warned of "painful" adjustments if deficits are not brought under control.

"Painful" or life threatening?

It was Greenspan, the budget-busting tote for the patrician-class, who defended the lavish Bush tax cuts that put the country on the fast-track to doomsday. Now, he's joined Grover Norquist and the "privatization-kooks" who want to dismantle the tattered ruins of the social safety net and christen the new epoch of predatory capitalism. Alan is a big supporter of "survival of the fittest" economics; the notion that people at the bottom of the societal food-chain deserve to be there so their Nietzschean overlords, like the Fed-chair, can rule supreme.

As Greenspan applies the last few turns of the screw (raising interest rates twice more before he leaves) we're bound to see the credit-shackled middle class begin an orderly march towards the nearest cliff where they will quickly disappear lemming-like into the sea.

Seriously, the American people have no idea of the economic firestorm that's just around the corner.

The economy is underwritten by $8 trillion of debt, requiring massive $2 billion infusions of foreign capital EVERY DAY. As former Fed-chief Volker noted, "It can't go one for ever."

No it can't. Besides, it's all part of a neoliberal plan that has been successfully executed throughout the third world; plunging the host nation into insurmountable debt with the help of crooked regime (Bush and Co.) and then pulling the rug out from under the shocked public. The massive and calculated deficits are intended to create a crisis of insolvency, resulting in the same type of "shock therapy" and "structural readjustment" programs the IMF applies to bankrupt nations around the world. Greenspan has moved the country closer to his goal of dismantling popular social programs so the captains of industry can privatize the public's assets.

So, how did Greenspan pull it off?

How did he keep the somnolent American public from noticing the widening deficits and the alarming transfer of wealth from one class to another?

The answer is; low interest rates, the toxic elixir that can incapacitate an entire nation, leaving its people drowsy and indifferent to imminent disaster.

Recently, Greenspan has begun warning of the difficulties ahead, cautioning that our problems will only be "compounded by a protectionist reversal of globalization". In other words, prepare yourself to compete with the lowest paid worker in Canton province. The hemorrhaging of high-paying jobs that sustain the middle class doesn't bother the Fed-chief. Greenspan has the same irksome sense of equity as his ideological-twin at New York Times, Tom Friedman. Friedman has been preaching the gospel of "free market" capitalism for years. Neither one tries to conceal their contempt for organized labor or the redistribution of profits. Friedman's Brigadoon is identical to Greenspan's; a land of milk and honey where 99% of the denizens live in abject poverty scraping to get by and where the not-so-invisible hand is savagely affixed to the throat of a permanent underclass.

Welcome to Greenspan's nirvana.

Greenspan also warned that the budget "will substantially worsen in the coming years unless major deficit-reducing measures are taken."

"Deficit-reducing measures"? You mean, like rolling back the Bush tax cuts?

Hell no; class-warrior Alan said "he did not believe that major increases in taxes were the solution".

Of course, not. Why should the fat-cats in the silk suits and Ferraris have to pay their share? After all, we can just raise the payroll tax again (Greenspan's earlier plan) and take another pound of flesh from the middle class? No one will notice.

Baby boomers retirement?

Not to worry; Greenspan suggests we extend the age of retirement to some imaginary date when the wealthy will stop fleecing the poor and the national ledger will magically balance.

Cradle to grave; Americans are being prepared for the slaughter. The chances for upward mobility or even subsistent living are being eclipsed by the day. The yolk that one shoulders at birth will follow him until his death.

Greenspan's racketeers have absconded with the nation's bounty behind a smokescreen of low interest rates. They lulled us to sleep with soothing words of "no-interest loans", no down payments, and a real estate windfall for anyone bold enough to sign on the dotted line.

Now, the grim reality has begun to set in. Interest rates are rising, the dollar is reeling, energy costs are skyrocketing, consumer confidence is plummeting, and gold is shooting through the roof. When China and Japan decide to jettison their worthless US Savings Bonds; Greenspan's mighty fortress will collapse in a heap.

The American people are crazy to think that a privately owned institution like the Federal Reserve will ever function in the public interest. The Fed operates behind an iron-curtain of secrecy to protect the interests of its primary constituents; the parasite class. It was authorized under executive order by Woodrow Wilson who was coerced into putting the country's future into the hands of its central bankers so he could finance World War 1. Bankers have always understood that the one who holds the purse-strings calls the shots. This explains what Thomas Jefferson meant when he said, "Banking establishments are more dangerous than standing armies."

While Greenspan teeters off to retirement, he can be confident that his trap has already sprung. The country is dead-broke and will be forced to comply with the demands of its creditors. The impending "austerity measures" will be used to reshape the fabric of American life; a complete reordering of society to meet the standards of a modern capitalist utopia; Greenspan's paradise, the United States of Destitution.

Mike Whitney lives in Washington state. He can be reached at: fergiewhitney@msn.com





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Greenspan `Mess' Risks U.S. Recession, Stiglitz Says
Nov. 16 (Reed V. Landberg and Paul George - Bloomberg)

Joseph Stiglitz, a Nobel-prize winning economist, said the U.S. economy risks tumbling into recession because of the ``mess'' left by former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan.

``I'm very pessimistic,'' Stiglitz said in an interview in London today. ``Alan Greenspan really made a mess of all this. He pushed out too much liquidity at the wrong time. He supported the tax cut in 2001, which is the beginning of these problems. He encouraged people to take out variable-rate mortgages.''

Some rather pointed commentary, including the role of Treasury in promoting Wall St. (emphasis mine).


Financial Hypocrisy

by Joseph E. Stiglitz

Joseph E. Stiglitz, a Nobel laureate in economics, is Professor of Economics at Columbia University and was Chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers to President Clinton and Chief Economist and Senior Vice President at the World
Monday, November 19th 2007

This article was received from Project Syndicate, an international not-for-profit association of newspapers dedicated to hosting a global debate on the key issues shaping our world.

This year marks the tenth anniversary of the East Asia crisis, which began in Thailand on July 2, 1997, and spread to Indonesia in October and to Korea in December. Eventually, it became a global financial crisis, embroiling Russia and Latin American countries, such as Brazil, and unleashing forces that played out over the ensuing years: Argentina in 2001 may be counted as among its victims.

There were many other innocent victims, including countries that had not even engaged in the international capital flows that were at the root of the crisis. Indeed, Laos was among the worst-affected countries.
Though every crisis eventually ends, no one knew at the time how broad, deep, and long the ensuing recessions and depressions would be. It was the worst global crisis since the Great Depression.

As the World Bank's chief economist and senior vice president, I was in the middle of the conflagration and the debates about its causes and the appropriate policy responses. This summer and fall, I revisited many of the affected countries, including Malaysia, Laos, Thailand, and Indonesia. It is heartwarming to see their recovery. These countries are now growing at 5% or 6% or more - not quite as fast as in the days of the East Asia miracle, but far more rapidly than many thought possible in the aftermath of the crisis.

Many countries changed their policies, but in directions markedly different from the reforms that the IMF had urged. The poor were among those who bore the biggest burden of the crisis, as wages plummeted and unemployment soared. As countries emerged, many placed a new emphasis on "harmony," in an effort to redress the growing divide between rich and poor, urban and rural.

They gave greater weight to investments in people, launching innovative initiatives to bring health care and access to finance to more of their citizens, and creating social funds to help develop local communities.
Looking back at the crisis a decade later, we can see more clearly how wrong the diagnosis, prescription, and prognosis of the IMF and United States Treasury were. The fundamental problem was premature capital market liberalization. It is therefore ironic to see the US Treasury Secretary once again pushing for capital market liberalization in India - one of the two major developing countries (along with China) to emerge unscathed from the 1997 crisis.

It is no accident that these countries that had not fully liberalized their capital markets have done so well. Subsequent research by the IMF has confirmed what every serious study had shown: capital market liberalization brings instability, but not necessarily growth. (India and China have, by the same token, been the fastest-growing economies.)

Of course, Wall Street (whose interests the US Treasury represents) profits from capital market liberalization: they make money as capital flows in, as it flows out, and in the restructuring that occurs in the resulting havoc. In South Korea, the IMF urged the sale of the country's banks to American investors, even though Koreans had managed their own economy impressively for four decades, with higher growth, more stability, and without the systemic scandals that have marked US financial markets with such frequency.

In some cases, US firms bought the banks, held on to them until Korea recovered, and then resold them, reaping billions in capital gains. In its rush to have westerners buy the banks, the IMF forgot one detail: to ensure that South Korea could recapture at least a fraction of those gains through taxation. Whether US investors had greater expertise in banking in emerging markets may be debatable; that they had greater expertise in tax avoidance is not.

The contrast between the IMF/US Treasury advice to East Asia and what has happened in the current sub-prime debacle is glaring. East Asian countries were told to raise their interest rates, in some cases to 25%, 40%, or higher, causing a rash of defaults. In the current crisis, the US Federal Reserve and the European Central Bank cut interest rates.

Similarly, the countries caught up in the East Asia crisis were lectured on the need for greater transparency and better regulation.

But lack of transparency played a central role in this past summer's credit crunch; toxic mortgages were sliced and diced, spread around the world, packaged with better products, and hidden away as collateral, so no one could be sure who was holding what.

And there is now a chorus of caution about new regulations, which supposedly might hamper financial markets (including their exploitation of uninformed borrowers, which lay at the root of the problem.) Finally, despite all the warnings about moral hazard, Western banks have been partly bailed out of their bad investments.

Following the 1997 crisis, there was a consensus that fundamental reform of the global financial architecture was needed.

But, while the current system may lead to unnecessary instability, and impose huge costs on developing countries, it serves some interests well. It is not surprising, then, that ten years later, there has been no fundamental reform. Nor, therefore, is it surprising that the world is once again facing a period of global financial instability, with uncertain outcomes for the world's economies.