Political economy and employment, effects of the financial crisis 2008-2009

One of the worse consequences of the financial crisis was the unemployment increase. According with the International Labor Organization between the years 2007 and 2009, the number of unemployed in the world passed from 177.7 millions of persons to 211.5 millions and the projection for the year 2010 is of 213.4 millions.
It is in the developed economies and in the countries of the European Union where the impact of the crisis was felt with most intensity. According with the ILO Global Employment Trends, January 2010, the number of unemployed in the developed economies and the European Union passed from 29 millions of persons in the year 2007 to 45.6 millions in 2010, 57% more in only two years. In the following table you can appreciate the change in the unemployment rates between the years 2000 and 2009.

These figures confirm that was in the developed nations and in Europe (Western and Eastern) where the financial crisis affected more the employment.
In September 2008 the crisis exploited with the collapse of one of the most important investment banks of the United States and since that moment began a chain of banks downfall in that country and in Europe, especially in the United Kingdom and Germany. The financial crisis it became in a social crisis and thousands of people loosed their homes, their goods and jobs in the rest of the world because of the relations of dependence and complementary between the economies.
The figures of unemployment in the United States are enough illustrative of the reality.

In the United States the unemployment passed from 7 millions of persons in the year 2007 to 14.2 millions in the year 2009, seven millions more in hardly two years, it means 100% more. These figures reveal the magnitude and effects of the financial crisis.
It do not reflect all the true
The official figures of the national and international agencies do not reflect the total unemployment reality. For a simple reason: those figures includes as employed the self-employed people, the workers of the informal sector of the economy and the workers that do not have legal rights. If these workers are excluded of the statistics of employed the unemployment figures would be very different. Important amounts of this type of workers exist in the underdeveloped nations, where millions of workers are out of the formal economy.
A growing demand
According with the International Labor Organization document “Recovering of the crisis, a global job pact”, page IV, of June 2009, “45 million new entrants to the global jobs market annually --most of them young women and men—some 300 million new jobs will need to be created from now to 2015 just to keep pace with the growth in the labor force…”
Is it possible to reach that goal?
The experience demonstrates that there is a gap between the supply and demand of employment.
The creation of jobs is linked to the economic expansion. Nevertheless, it is necessary to say that the modern economy is dominated by the intensive use of the resources of capital that –by mean of the technology-- everyday reduce the employment of workers; they are substituted by machines. That is the global trend.
The traditional economy sustains their development in the principle of the most benefit. The economy is very practice and would not change that concept by humanitarian reasons, as the creation of jobs. So that a change in the policy of intensive use of the resources of capital do not seems likely so far.
Other obstacle for the creation of jobs is the situation of the natural resources. A global shortage of resources as water and petroleum are already visible. The abundance of these vital resources is concentrated in too few regions of the globe: the petroleum in the Middle East and Venezuela and the water in the Amazonian region, but both resources are overexploited.
In South America coexist two contradictory phenomenons: the abundance of water in the Amazonian region of Brazil and the scarcity of water in the neighbors’ territories of Bolivia and Peru, as a consequence of the destruction of the Andes glaciers that provide the water to those regions.
The Inter American Bank of Development considers that in 5 or 6 years the Andes glaciers will disappear. It was assured by Juan Pablo Bonilla, Chief of the Climatic Change Department during the Annual Meeting of Governors of the bank in Cancun, March 2010.
The Andes glaciers are part of the mountain system of South America and are present in Argentina, Chile, Bolivia, Peru, Ecuador, Colombia and part of Venezuela.
A similar situation occurs with the glaciers of Himalaya that feed the main rivers of Asia; so that the crisis of water is a global problem that will be more intense in the coming years, affecting the live of the people and the economy.
A different vision
If there is not a change in the political and economical vision the problems of humanity will acquire an unmanageable dimension.
For example, it is necessary a new approach of the economy. The financial benefit must not be the most important objective of the economy and the business. The economy and the business should take in account the ecological and social consequences of the economic activities.
The scientist and technological development is something essential, but it is something essential also to give employment and just wages to the world population. It must have a balance between the economic objectives and the social reality; for that reason the economy should favor the technologies that give more employments to the workers.
Those technologies should consider also the ecological dimension. The pattern of consumption of natural resources employed until now is unsustainable at long term; the best example is how the forests have been destroyed in the entire world. We are now paying the consequences of the depredation.
In the Millennium Goals should be included in the first places the recovery of the forests. That is the unique form of to keep the live at long term.
The creation of ecological employments is a road for to achieve the economic and environment objectives. For example, the establishment of a Global Program of Reforestation sponsored by the international agencies and the governments is a way for benefit the world population. Millions of new jobs may be created through that program.
Other similar ideas might contribute to generate wellbeing for the citizens of the world. The political economy of the 21st century should have as main objective these proposals.

The political economy may contribute to build a better world, reflection on the evolution

Abandoned by the politicians and economists of the 20th century, the political economy necessary will reappear in the 21st century, because of a simple reason: man can hide the true, do not recognize it, but this not change the true; and the true is that the political economy is the most important of the social sciences because it synthesize the two most important activities that determine the live of the human beings. The politics alone is not sufficient; the economy alone neither. The combination of both is the base of the power and government an all the societies.
The political economy was abandoned at the begin of the 20th century because she could not respond to the main economical challenges of that moment, among them the economic cycle, the inflation, the devaluation of the currencies, the poverty and the growing unemployment.
Alfred Marshall (1842-1924) separated the economy of the politics and tried of creating an autonomous discipline; he did it and since then emerged the economics as an independent study. The new economics focused their attention in the microeconomics and the econometrics among other issues.
Marshall had interest in the human side of the economy and in contrast with the previous classical economists he asserted that was possible better conditions of live for the working classes. Marshall had a strong social sense and assured that the principal task of the economics should be to eliminate the poverty.
But the new economy promoted by Alfred Marshall and his pupils could neither resolve the accumulated problems. It was John Maynard Keynes, a traditional economist, former pupil of Marshall, which developed the politics and economic new system that gave to the world a partial solution for the economics problems of that historic stage. That new system was the macroeconomics, an integral political proposal that considered the increase of salaries and the private and public expenditure as the key factor for attacking the jobless and the economic recession. The thesis of Keynes was contrary to the ideas sustained by the Classical Economy, which thought that the reduction of salaries was the way for reactivating the employment and the economic growth.
The conception of Keynes let the recovery of the hit economies of the post war. For that reason the thirty years of growth between 1945 and 1975 was named the Age of Keynes. That period was very favorable for the developed nations of America and Western Europe but not for the rest of the world; in those years and the followings (80 and 90) the gap between the rich and the poor nations registered a great difference. The Capitalism generated an important progress but limited only to a small number of countries.
The Communist regimes of the past and of the present, like the Former Soviet Union and the nations of the Eastern of Europe, China, North Korea and Vietnam neither reached an economic welfare; on the contrary, they were and they are impoverished countries.
The first conclusion in this sense is that none of the economics systems has been able of to improve the quality of live of the majority of the world population so far.
Origin of the wealth and the poverty
The first form of property was the community property. The primitive man did not know the private property. It was the appropriation of the first lands by the stronger men the cause of the original richness; this was too the first economic sin. The consequence of this process was the born of two classes: the owners and the exploited, this means the rich and the poor.
A reflection on the evolution
The concept of evolution deserves an especial consideration. Man of the 21st century has the same predatory attitude of the primitive man. He commits murders, abductions, cheatings and stealing, terrorist acts against innocent people, maintain the slavery and do the war.
In parallel also exists the contrary: goodness, kindness, justice, love, religiosity and peace; the great problem is that in the majority of the societies this is not the common. This lead to an unavoidable question: until what the human being has evolved?
Man has achieved a great level of development since the scientist and technological point of view but not in his social and economic behavior.
In the 21st century exist the same social and economics conflicts of the Prehistory, it means:
a) The struggle by the property of the land: a minority is the owner of the majority of the urban and agricultural lands in the entire world.
b) The majority of the workers worldwide receives an insignificant salary that do not let them neither to buy the essential food.
c) The unemployment and sub employment affects the most of the workers worldwide.
d) The economics and social conditions of the work in the most part of the underdeveloped countries are in the practice conditions of slavery.
e) The struggle by the wealth distribution benefits to the privileged rich classes.
A new conflict has emerged
But a new conflict ---unknown in the past--- has arisen in the beginning of the 21st century: the global shortages of basic natural resources ---as water and petroleum--- that change the economic paradigm. The shortage of natural resources is a consequence of the overexploitation of the resources and of the pollution. The outcome is the scarcity of manufactured goods and more inflation.
A look to the past
The evolution of the humanity is divided in two great stages: the Prehistory and the History; the first is the period previous to the invention of the writing and the second begin since that moment until the present.
In the Prehistory man built the basic elements of the progress: constructed the first instruments of stone, learned how to transform the matter through the fire and discovered the agriculture, the ceramic, the metals, the road, the tools, the architecture, the textile, among other great advances.
At the beginning of the history in successive stages developed the writing and after created the print, an instrument that changed completely the history.
The other great historic jump occurs in the 18th century: the creation of the machine of vapor and of a new scale of production developed during the First Industrial Revolution in Europe.
In the 19th century appears in the scene the Second Industrial Revolution; this was the revolution of the energy and emerged two inputs ---the petroleum and the steel--- that joined to the electricity modified completely the live of millions of people.
In the 20th century the progress of the chemical and the medicine and the creation of the mass media represented the other great changes of the history. In this century happened, moreover, two extraordinary facts: the discovery of the nuclear energy and the conquer of the space.
All the mentioned advances suppose a great dominium of the exact sciences, the mathematics, physics, chemical, biology, medicine and the astronomy.
Man do not dominate the social sciences
But the human being has not been able of to reach the same level of development in the social sciences, especially in the economics and in the politics.
Man has not been able of:
a) Diminishing the poverty and for that reason more of two thirds of the world population lives in the extreme poverty with an income of less of two dollars per day.
b) To guarantee a decent salary to the most of the workers neither to create enough employments in the world.
c) To avoid the war and to live in peace, employing the politics and the diplomacy.
d) Preserving the forests, the nature, neither of does not contaminate the planet.
What does it reveal?
Similar to the savage’s animals
This reveals that man can dominate the external things but he is not able of dominating his primitive’s impulses and his conduct. It means that in his essence man is a predatory animal similar to the savage beasts. A simple example is sufficient for validating this concept: observe the behavior of man against the other men in the war scenarios. Currently, in plenty 21st century there are unbelievable examples in this sense in the Middle East, in Africa, in Asia; you know which those scenarios are and it is not necessary to do explicit mention of them.
Has evolved the human being?
What is evolution?
What do you think?
Conclusion
The political economy may contribute to build a better world.
The first step is recognizing the failure of the economics systems so far.
The Communism has been a complete failure in the nations where has been applied.
The Classical Economy could not anticipate the depression nor the unemployment. It had a non realist and theorist vision of the economy. The classic economic model of pure competition and equilibrium supported in the laws of the supply and demand has never existed. For that reason the Classical economists could not believe that a crisis might occur as a consequence of a fail in the demand.
The Marginalist thesis of Stanley Jevons (1835-1882) and Leon Walras (1840-1910) had also a capital sin: they considered the economy as an automatic mechanism that work in independent form of the rest of the society.
By other hand, the partial vision of the microeconomics imposed by Alfred Marshall at the beginning of the 20th century neither represented a solution for the practice economics problems of that epoch.
The Keynesian model ---that combined the participation of the investments and the regulatory action n of the State with the productive action of the private sector--- has been the most successful economic model until now.
But in the eighty years of the 20th century came back again the formulas of the Classical Economy, especially the Quantity Theory of Money, from the hand of Milton Friedman and his pupils of the Chicago School. The new monetarism caused a severe damage to the world economy because it stressed the difference between the rich and the poor nations and increased the poverty in the entire world, through a mechanism known as globalization.
Which would be a solution?
A synthesis of the best of the capitalism and the best of the socialism might be the possible solution.
The recurrent economic crisis in the capitalists nations put in evidence that the free market policies without none class of restrictions generates graves consequences. The most recent economic debacle of the years 2008 and 2009 is a good example of the assured.
On January 3, 2010 during the American Economic Association meeting in Atlanta, the chief of the Federal Reserve, Ben Bernanke, pointed out that:
“Stronger regulation is the best way to prevent financial speculation from getting out of hand and throwing the economy in a new crisis…” (a) By Jeannine Aversa, AP Economics Writer, On Sunday January 3, 2010, 1:41 pm EST.
Other leaders have expressed opinions in the same direction but the resistance to any change is enormous. This happens not only in the United States but in the rest of the capitalist’s nations of the Western World.
Two concrete measures
The politicians and the economists have lost the time in non important affairs. For example, they have not been able of paying effective attention to the three most important problems that affects the humanity: the poverty, the unemployment and the destruction of the nature and the environment.
A concrete Policy of Global Wellbeing should begin with two activities:
a) A Global Program of Employments. The ecological employments ---through the reforestation--- would be an effective way in that sense.
b) A Global Program of study and improvement of the salaries for the working classes.
These two programs might create the conditions for the construction of a better world.

Wages and welfare, ecological employments

Job and a fair wage is the essence of the economic and social development.

But, what is a just wage?

It is the amount of money for acquiring the goods that a person or a family need for getting welfare.

And what is the welfare?

It is health, food, dress, house, education, recreation, security and stable job; this mean quality of live. The problem is that the most part of the world population do not enjoy of those benefits; the great challenge is changing that situation.

Restrictions of natural resources, especially of water and energy, the scarcity of capital ---know how, technology, goods of capital, infrastructure and money--- do not help to carry out a global and effective program of employments and just wages.

A cause of the poverty

The other great problem is the inequality in the income distribution. The salaries are the basic indicator of the poverty or the well-being of a society.
There is a huge gap between the bosses and executives earnings and the workers salaries.

Only in the developed industrialized nations the workers receive an income for satisfying part of its necessities. In the rest of the world the wages are not enough neither to eat, as it is demonstrated in the following tables.


In Australia an executive receive an average of 200,000 US $ of salary per month, but a worker obtain (minimum wage) 1,908 US $ per month; something similar happen in Germany where the average salary of an executive is of 316,666 US $ per month while a worker obtain (minimum wage) 1,701.26 US $.
But the most difference is in the United States, where the monthly of a worker is of 1,209.60 while the executive earning (average) is of 525,000 US $; this mean 434 times more than the former.


Australia pays the higher wages to their workers, followed by France, Germany, the United Kingdom and Italy in the first five places. In this table the United States is in the sixth position regarding the workers earnings, but the United States is in the first place regarding the remuneration of their executives.

Of the selected countries of Asia, Bangladesh has the lesser income followed by Vietnam and China. A person that visited the industrial city of Guangzhou said to me that the workers in that city are practically slaves; they receive a salary of approximately 120 US $ per month and work the thirty (30) days of the month.
Of the selected countries, the communist nations of the past (Russia) and of the present (China and Vietnam) are the societies where the workers receive the lesser wages; in change, in the developed capitalists nations the workers obtain the higher salaries. This reveal the failure of the communism system and it explain why the communism disappeared in the former Soviet Union and in the Eastern Europe.


The situation in Africa is worse than the situation in the poorest nations of Asia.
In Latin America the Dominican Republic has the major wage but that is an exception in the region and in the rest of the underdeveloped nations.

The extreme poverty in Latin America is a sad reality. The case of Brazil and Mexico, which economies are situated between the first ten economies of the world is something that deserves to be considered with special attention: in both countries the minimum wage was less of 100 US $.

Brazil and Mexico have an important industrial development but is evident that their governments have been not able of establishing a fair wage for the workers.
In the most countries of Latin America still exists concentration of the property of the land and a good part of the peasants live in precarious conditions.



Key of the economic expansion
The economic expansion is not possible without just salaries; the politicians and the private entrepreneurs should be aware of this true.

The wages are the force that impulse the market; they are the key factor that determines the effective demand behavior.
A first step for combating the poverty is to increase the wages to a level that let to the workers satisfying its basic necessities.

If the underdeveloped nations do not make an effective effort for improving the wages the poverty will remain and vice verse.

Conclusion
The analysis of the economic reality lead to a conclusion: the most workers in the world are practically slaves because its salaries hardly let them to eat. Only in the developed industrialized nations this does not happen. Nevertheless, the difference between the wages of the executives and the workers earnings in the industrialized countries is something unbelievable: is hundreds of times superior.

It is necessary to carry out a global program for combating the poverty, preserving the natural resources and the environment.
One way are the ecological employments, through a global program of reforestation and conservation of the forests that still survive, as the Amazonia Region. The base of that program should be fair wages for the workers.

This program does not require a great amount of energy for to be developed; in change, other economic activities in the agriculture and the manufacture need a very important amount of energy, oil and coal especially. The world is running out of basic natural resources as water and petroleum. It is a global shortage of resources that change the economic paradigm.

The great problem of the humankind is that the worlds need more food and more manufactured goods, but there is not enough water nor petroleum for sustaining those requirements. In some regions, like China, there is abundance of coal but this is most contaminant source of energy. The other sources as the nuclear energy are too very dangerous, while the industrial eolic and solar energy are not enough developed. So far, the research with hydrogen has been a success, especially in the transport sector, but still it is in the beginning.

The other great problem is that for developing the agriculture the forests are razed and without the forests the live is not possible.

It is necessary a balance between the necessity of producing the essential goods, the use of the natural resources, the creation of jobs and fair wages. Those are great challenges for the creative capacity, especially for the thinkers, scientists, politicians, economists, entrepreneurs and the mass media.

The ecological employments, an useful proposal for the Copenhagen’s Summit

The mankind has not options. If this generation does not adopt the measures for preserving the environment in too few years the majority of the world will be a desert. The climate change, the garbage, the destruction of the water sources, the industrial pollution, is a true threat for the present and the future.
In Copenhagen still there is a hope. The development of a Global Program of Ecological Employments, through the reforestation, is an effective road for diminishing the global warming, protecting the nature and to attack the poverty.
Sponsored by the United Nations and the World Bank, and with the cooperation of the governments worldwide, this program might be a hope for millions of people in the entire planet. The decision is in the hands of the leaders that in this moment are in Copenhagen. God bless the world.

Effects of the economic crisis on the world stability

The link between politics and economy is beyond doubt. There is a relation of causality between both. In the history of humanity this relation is clearly visible. In periods of economic crisis and extreme unemployment the trend to the violence increases and vice verse, in times of prosperity the trend to peace increases. For example, the two great confrontations of the 20th century, the First World War 1914-1918 and the Second World War 1938-1945 was preceded by a period of severe economic crisis and it may be assured that the two phenomenon’s were essentially a consequence of the economic situation.
The economic ruin fed the animosity feelings of the countries and created radical leaders as Benito Mussolini and Adolf Hitler that incited to the war.
Other local conflicts of the 20 century had the same origin: the poverty, the unemployment and the struggle for the resources.
The 21st century is not an exception and the rule of the history might repeat again.
For that reason the comprehension of the economic reality is something very important, because it let us anticipate what would happen in the world political scenario.
Two decisive facts dominate the global economic situation: the financial collapse and the natural resources crisis. Both phenomena are closely joined and will determine the political future of the humanity, especially the war and the peace between the nations.

This information of Reuters on February 12 2009 is a clear explanation of the situation:

“World economic crisis is top security threat: U.S. Intelligence
By Randall Mikkelsen– 1 hr 41 mins ago

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The global economic crisis has become the biggest near-term U.S. security concern, sowing instability in a quarter of the world's countries and threatening destructive trade wars, U.S. intelligence agencies reported on Thursday.
"The financial crisis and global recession are likely to produce a wave of economic crises in emerging market nations over the next year," said the report. A wave of "destructive protectionism" was possible as countries find they cannot export their way out of the slump.
"Time is our greatest threat. The longer it takes for the recovery to begin, the greater the likelihood of serious damage to U.S. strategic interests," the report said.
The report represents the findings of all 16 U.S. intelligence agencies and serves as a leading security reference for policymakers and Congress. Besides reviewing adversaries, it also considered this year the security impact of issues including climate change and the economy.
It said a quarter of countries have already experienced at least "low-level" instability, such as government changes, linked to the economy.
There have been anti-government protests in Europe and the former Soviet Union, and growing economic strains in Africa and Latin America, the national intelligence director, Adm. Dennis Blair, told Congress in delivering the report.
"Instability can loosen the fragile hold that many developing countries have on law and order, which can spill out in dangerous ways to the international community," Blair told the Senate Intelligence Committee.
Steps such as devaluations, tariffs and export subsidies were possible from countries desperate to boost economies.”
The report is enough illustrative and do not require more explanations.

Since its birth, capitalism created big crisis

The financial capitalism has dominated the world economy since the last decade of 19th century until the first decade of the 21st century, approximately 120 years. During that time, the financial capitalism accumulated a huge amount of money to build the modern world but it has generated, as well major crisis and losses for millions of people and thousands of businesses around the world who have lost their heritage as a result of its speculative practices. For example, “during the period following the First World War the U.S. banks showed a tendency to abandon the field of real banking business and becoming agents of financial speculation. Instead of extending loans, commercial banks used their short-term deposits to buy long period bonds recommended by the major banks and to buy or sell securities to the public willing to invest their money." (1)
(1) Harry Elmer Barnes. Historia de la Economía del Mundo Occidental.. Unión Editorial Hispanoamericana. México. 1973. Pages 622-623.

Through the so-called "controlled companies" financial capitalism appropriated full productive sectors from where all its actions were executed.
In the twenties led by the voracious American financial capitalism even lowered the wages of the workers to obtain more benefits that, among other errors, destroyed the purchasing power of workers and pushed the country towards the Great Depression.
"From 1920 to 1932 approximately 11,000 banks closed in United States before the "total closure" which occurred in early March 1933. Only 18,800 banks remained open. There is a contrast between the 11,000 banks which broke in the United States which the occurred in the same period in Canada, where only one bank was broken, the Home Bank, that closed their doors in 1932. While in United States by 1920 there were about 30,000 banks, Canada only had 10 banks with about 3,970 branches.”
As it can be seen in the quotations above, the financial capitalism led Capitalism system to its first big trial.(2)
(2) Idem,page 624.

How the American society overcame the Great Depression of 1929
Theoretically one could say that the 1929 crisis was caused in United States for two main reasons: a) the greed of bankers and b) the indifference, the “leisser faire” by the government, which created the conditions for the collapse of the economy. It was a misunderstood economic freedom that put the capitalist system near its end. Through a political action by the government of President Franklyn D. Roosevelt, the United States was able to overcome its most serious economic disruption.
These actions were not only economic but also a political concept known as “The New Deal” in which the state intervention was the main issue. The first thing President Roosevelt did to address the crisis was ---under strict control of the government--- to reopen the financial system—which had closed their doors in March 1933. Through a stringent law stopped the speculation in the stock market, established limits on the excesses of the electricity industry, which had been associated with the predatory practices of financial capitalism; enacted the National Industrial Recovery Act to encourage industry, reorganized the transportation, created the Federal Emergency Relief Administration to provide direct employment to the unemployed, created the Federal Surplus Relief Corporation in October 1933 to provide food, clothing and fuel to the unemployed, began a comprehensive public works program to provide direct employment to workers, revalued the dollar; and through the Home Owners Refinancing Act of June 1933, prevented the seizure of million people who could not pay their mortgages, among other important actions.
History repeats itself. And in the years 2008 and 2009, President Barack Obama took a set of measures similar to those adopted by President Franklyn Roosevelt in the thirties of the twentieth century.

Origin of the Global economic failure 2008

In the decade of the eighties in the 20th century appeared again in the horizon a new crisis that affected the most important industrial countries. In those years the mistakes of the global financial system began to be appreciated; in the precedent decade ---the seventies--- the financial international system gave loans of billions of dollars to the undeveloped countries at usury rates of interest.
The global crisis began when in the eighties the undeveloped countries could not pay their debts. In that moment the financial system employed their power and influence over the governments of the richest countries to impose a new method for recovering the loans and to avoid the bankruptcy.
The method was a new system of political economy that was named Globalization. Globalization is a system based in the principles of the Neo liberalism. The main objective of the new economic system was to impede the banks bankruptcy and to improve their benefits.
Bankers were aware that the debt was not recoverable but they created a formula for maintaining the debt as healthy assets. The formula was very simple: the refinancing of the debts at perpetuity, changing papers by other papers when these expire. Another formula employed by the financial system has been to issue billons of shares and bonds ---the most without real value--- to be negotiated in the Stocks Market of the world. The majority of these shares and bonds are a great risk because are surcharged or do not have any value, because do not have any support.
This has been the procedure used by the financial system and the cause of the main crisis of the 20th century, as the Great Depression of the thirties and the economic disaster of the first years of the 21st century.
In the eighties, the Globalization and the Neo liberalism was adopted as an official policy by the government of Margaret Thatcher in the United Kingdom and Ronald Reagan in the United States, and it was imposed to the rest of the world through the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund.
The mechanism was simple: the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund dictated a series of conditions to the undeveloped countries: a) adoption of the free market policies b) none intervention of the States in the economy of the countries c) privatization of the more profitable public companies to be sold to the international capitals.
These conditions were imposed to the undeveloped countries under a threat. The country that did not accept the conditions would not receive new loans of the international financial system and their debts would not be refinanced.
Of course, all the undeveloped countries accepted because they had no other option.

Political consequences of the Globalization

The results of the Globalization were not the best. The Globalization process was a failure. As a consequence of its imposition, the political panorama of many regions of the world changed.
In many countries the governments that adopted the Globalization model fell. In other countries leftist governments emerged. Latin America is perhaps the best example. Since the decade of the eighties, 10 Latin American countries have leftist governments.
The establishment of leftist governments in Latin America is a direct consequence of the Globalization and the Neo liberalism policies.
In the first decade of the 21st century the countries with left-wing governments are: Argentina, Brazil, Bolivia, Paraguay, Ecuador, Venezuela, Dominica Island, Cuba, Uruguay, Honduras and Nicaragua. In Honduras the situation changed in the year 2009 and a new government of right wing won the elections of November 2009.
The situation of Mexico must be considered in an especial manner, where a leftist candidate ---Andrés Manuel López Obrador--- lost the election in 2006 by very few votes and where there is a strong leftist movement with an important parliamentary force. This means that ---at medium term--- Mexico might fall in the hands of the left-wing. The same is happening in another country of Central America, El Salvador, where the Political arm of the former guerrilla, the “Frente Farabundo Martí”, in January 2009 won the parliamentary elections. In March 2009, the former guerrilla won the Presidency of that country, through Mauricio Funes. In Perú, other leftist, Ollanta Humala participated in the elections of the year 2006 and obtained an important voting.
It is necessary to highlight that Brazil and Mexico are between the major’s economies of the world. The Globalization and the Neo liberalism ---and especially the financial speculation that is the origin of the poverty of millions of persons worldwide--- also leaded these countries towards the left.

A way for promoting the democracy

The best road for promoting and strength the democracy is through the economic success. It is possible to create millions of new employments, to recover the economy and preserving the environment. Only it is necessary the political decision. For example, the creation of a Global Program of Reforestation ---ecological employments--- would be an effective form for combating the jobless and helping the conservation of the nature.
It is necessary to give the appropriate place to the real economy and to understand that the true wealth is not the money but the material production, especially the food, the water, the natural resources.
It is necessary a new ---holistic--- approach of political economy that highlight the supremacy of the real economy.

Economic dimension of the ecological employments, a way for fighting against the poverty and the climate change

The creative capacity, the imagination, is the most important. Through the imagination, man has conceived all the changes for building the modern society. A clear example of the creative capacity effects is the science and technology advance.
So far, in spite of the great progress reached in the science and the technology, man has been not able of achieving two important goals for the world population welfare: eradicate the poverty and preserving the environment.
The world population majority lives with less of $2 per day. The water is draining in many regions of the world; the petroleum too. The climate change has become a real threat. While everyday a portion of the forests are destroyed.
What to do?
The problem is that any program of economic expansion requires two scarce elements: money and natural resources. The additional problem is that the economic expansion requires a major use of energy and this imply an augment of the contamination.
Man can resolve the scarcity of financial resources. But he can not resolve the natural resources scarcity. He has to work with the existents resources. But ---with imagination--- man can diminish the contamination.
How?
The ecological employments are a way; it can resolve a good part of the unemployment problem without increase the pollution. And, on the contrary, to create an effective solution to weaken the climate change.
The creation of al Global Program of Ecological Employments divided in stages is a solution. In the first stage might be developed a Global Program of Reforestation. In the second, a Global Program of Preservation of the Water Resources.
Those initiatives would generate millions of new ecological employments worldwide. The main benefits will be for the poor population of the different world countries. The programs will give a salary and will increase the purchase capacity of millions of people. In consequence, it will produce an economic expansion phenomenon that will help the global economy recovery.
The financial resources for carry out the programs might come from the World Bank and the most developed countries. The rich countries will receive too a benefit because of the international commercial expansion that the mass of financial resources invested will cause.
Compared with other forms of jobs creation, the ecological employments are the cheapest. The investments for the creation of a job in other economic activities surpass several times the cost of an environment job creation.
The other great advantage is that these programs do not require an important increase of the fossil energy use.
In synthesis we can say that the programs would promote the global economy recovery, would create millions of new ecological jobs, increase the welfare of millions of families and contribute to diminish the global warming and the natural resources preservation.

The Ban Ki Moon and Robert Zoellick main challenges are combating the world poverty and preserving the environment

They are the leaders of the two most important political and development institutions, United Nations and the World Bank. And the mission of both is helping to build a best World.

The poverty and the destruction of the environment are the two great threats for the humanity.

I think that there is an effective form for helping the world to diminish the poverty and advancing in the preservation of the environment. The creation of a Global Program of Ecological Employments is a way. The first activity of that initiative should be to create a Global Program of Reforestation.

Which will be the benefits?

a) The creation of millions of new ecological employments that will help to millions of poor people worldwide and

b) The conservation of the environment, because of the positive effects of the reforestation on the climate change.

There are other alternatives for creating jobs. But the majority of them require a great amount of energy use, petroleum and/or coal. The effects of the use of fossil energy are well known.

In change, the reforestation does not need to employ great amounts of energy sources to be developed; that is one of its great advantages.

The reforestation is an efficient ecological way for combating the poverty and preserving the planet.

In the Copenhagen Climate Change Conference in December 2009, Mr. Ban Ki Moon and Mr. Robert Zoellick, have the possibility of developing concretes actions for helping the humanity. The Global Program of Reforestation is one opportunity for the world.

The ecological employments are an effective road for combating the world poverty

The environment crisis because of the contamination and the overexploitation of the natural resources is a reality. The extreme poverty of the world population majority is the other sad situation.
The environment crisis and the poverty are closely tied. A solution for both situations might be possible. The unique manner of resolving the poverty is by mean of the employment. Without employment and just salaries the welfare is not possible.
But the creation of new jobs require three conditions: a) financial support b) natural resources and c) know how (technology). The modern world has scarcity of the two first mentioned resources and a concentration of the third (know how) in the most developed countries.
Which might be the solution?
I think that the creation of millions of green, ecological new jobs is possible in the world. (In this point it is necessary highlight that for achieving this goal we do not need more petroleum.)
How?
First of all it would be necessary to create a Global Program of Employment and Protection of the Environment. This kind of program only can be developed by the international agencies, the United Nations, World Bank and the IMF.
The first action of a program like this must be:
a) To create and to carry out ---with the support of the national governments--- a Global Program of Reforestation. The benefits for humanity of this activity in terms of employment and protection of nature it does not have limits. The creation of millions of new jobs and a great advance in the control of the global warming would be, among other, the results.
b) In a second stage, the Program of Employment and Protection of the Environment might develop other activities, as the developing of new jobs for protecting the water resources and managing the garbage.

The mentioned programs would generate millions of new jobs worldwide; protect the environment and diminishing the world poverty.
I would like that this idea might be considered as a contribution to the next Copenhagen Climate Change Conference in December 2009.