UN Unveils Plan To Release Untapped Wealth Of ......7 Trillion

[babsbunny]

UN unveils plan to release untapped wealth of...$7 trillion (and solve the world's problems at a stroke)
By Philip Thornton, Economics Correspondent
Published: 30 January 2006
The most potent threats to life on earth - global warming, health pandemics, poverty and armed conflict - could be ended by moves that would unlock $7 trillion - $7,000,000,000,000 (£3.9trn) - of previously untapped wealth, the United Nations claims today.

The price? An admission that the nation-state is an old-fashioned concept that has no role to play in a modern globalised world where financial markets have to be harnessed rather than simply condemned.

In a groundbreaking move, the UN Development Programme (UNDP) has drawn up a visionary proposal that has been endorsed by a range of figures including Gordon Brown, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, and Joseph Stiglitz, the Nobel Laureate.

It says an unprecedented outbreak of co-operation between countries, applied through six specific financial tools, would slice through the Gordian knot of problems that have bedevilled the world for most of the last century.

If its recommendations are accepted - and the authors acknowledge this could take years or even decades - it could finally force countries to face up to the fact that their public finance and growth figures conceal the vast damage their economies do to the environment.

http://news.independent.co.uk/world/politics/article341967.ece

[bonito]

1. Good article n/t

[hansberrym]

2. But if you call right now, we'll throw in a set

of ginsu knives ! All for the low, low price of $7 trillion (and the US Constitution, the Bill of Rights, your freedom, your children's children's freedom....)