#IMF

[sdrose93]

Ethan 🥰

[csuitebitches]

Random reading recommendation 1 (find this under my pinned post, under “reading”)

https://www.imf.org/-/media/Files/Publications/SDN/2024/English/SDNEA2024001.ashx

International Monetary Fund - Gen-AI: Artificial Intelligence and the Future of Work PDF.

ABSTRACT: Artificial intelligence (AI) has the potential to reshape the global economy, especially in the realm of labor markets. Advanced economies will experience the benefits and pitfalls of AI sooner than emerging market and developing economies, largely because their employment structure is focused on cognitive- intensive roles. There are some consistent patterns concerning AI exposure: women and college-educated individuals are more exposed but also better poised to reap AI benefits, and older workers are potentially less able to adapt to the new technology. Labor income inequality may increase if the complementarity between AI and high-income workers is strong, and capital returns will increase wealth inequality. However, if productivity gains are sufficiently large, income levels could surge for most workers. In this evolving landscape, advanced economies and more developed emerging market economies need to focus on upgrading regulatory frameworks and supporting labor reallocation while safeguarding those adversely affected. Emerging market and developing economies should prioritize the development of digital infrastructure and digital skills.

[fandomnerd9602]

Paris locks Ethan and Y/N in the alleyway…

Ethan: we are going to die

Y/N: if it’s at her hands, it’s a worthy death

Ethan: you are such a simp

Y/N: that’s calling the kettle black. What about you and that Grace girl!

Y/N turns to Paris…

Y/N: hey gorgeous what do you say to a little walk around Venice with me?

Paris actually blushes and smiles…

Paris: sounds lovey actually

She unlocks the gate. Her and Y/N walk out together…

Ethan: am I really being a simp?

[probablyasocialecologist]

From where I’m standing, ultimate blame lies with the Western-dominated neoliberal system that keeps developing countries in a form of debt-fueled colonization. The system is in crisis, its shaky foundations exposed by the tumbling dominoes of the Ukraine war, resulting in food and fuel scarcity, the pandemic and looming insolvency and hunger rippling across the world.

Sri Lanka is Exhibit A. We were once an economic hope, with an educated population and a median income among the highest in South Asia. But it was an illusion. After 450 years of colonialism, 40 years of neoliberalism, and four years of total failure by our politicians, Sri Lanka and its people have been beggared.

[...]

Sri Lanka — like so many other countries struggling for solvency — remains a colony with administration outsourced to the International Monetary Fund. We still export cheap labor and resources and import expensive finished goods — the basic colonial model. The country is still divided and conquered by local elites, while real economic control is held abroad. The I.M.F. has extended loans to Sri Lanka 16 times, always with stringent conditions. It just keeps restructuring us for further exploitation by creditors.

And as much as the West blames Chinese predatory lending, only 10 to 20 percent of Sri Lanka’s foreign debt is owed to China. The majority is owed to U.S. and European financial institutions or Western allies like Japan. We died in a largely Western debt trap.

[doodlerdoodle]

The IMF team in Venice

Bonus:

[huntmavs]

The core four’s agent profiles!

[apas-95]

.

[wwprice1]

Rewatching the Mission films reminded me how much I absolutely love this duo!

[alwaysbewoke]

[pontedeiconzafelzi]

The mi team as times of the day

LUTHER

Luther reminds me of midnight. Or perhaps twilight, when the lampposts are silently glaring away in the blinding darkness for no one, except maybe a few stray sheep now and then. The stars are just slightly visible in the kaleidoscope of sky above, shifting in and out of view erratically like playful children playing hide and seek. He's wise and daring, strong and gentle at the same time. Like midnight, as it grows deeper, he seems to stay even more stoic, more quiet still. But sit down and listen; wait for a cricket or two. You'll hear him speak words as soothing as wind, freshening you up and pushing you on just when you need it oh so desperately. And when you don't, his voice is there all the same, smoothening out the tangles in your hair and making sure you don't break a sweat. Still it stays silent, lovingly so, bringing you peace and a little variation of everything as long as you look for it.

BENJI

Benji is the sun. He's so warm and bright and sometimes so dearingly dorky, shifting in and out of what-ifs and yet managing to maintain that perfect level of cool-- as cool as one can be when his teammate is scaling the burj khalifa, anyway. And that's why he's mid-afternoon. His spirit dances so freely, unshackled, bouncing here and there and expressing whatever he likes. And who's to complain when sun rays intrude, crawl sweetly into the crevices of your room, your mind, your smile? Exactly. He brings a sort of hazy comfort to people, and they're not exactly sure why, but they're basking in its warmth all the same. It's the sort of comfort you feel when you visit your favourite spots, remembering how you'd once fallen down there or perhaps laughed till tears lined your eyes. You have no idea till today why it's your favourite spot, but you close your eyes anyway and know, oh so inexplicably, that you're safe. Anyhow, the thing about mid afternoon is that it teeters freely into evening, with no warning. It likes to play around, trick you into getting ready for a new phase of the day, only to turn around and say oops, sorry boys, was just a little passing cloud. And that's what's so refreshing about it- - you never know what's next, but you know it'll be warm anyway.

ETHAN

There're many drastically different aspects of the evening-- the gorgeous, strangely grounding stillness of colour as the sun lays its head; couples holding hands in the streets and neighbours walking their dogs together; the busy office buildings lights going off one by one, windows blinking to darkness, and the blinding light of the sun as it goes down the west, for some reason attracting people to its harsh, scorching glow.

Perhaps they find it tranquil.

One thing that ties all this together? It's people, animals, things, going to rest, laying down their shackles after a gruelling day. Not afraid to simply let go and be, because they know another day is coming.

Putting their own meaning in the mundane and projecting their love onto the ordinary, like how suddenly, sniffing the usual salmon-with-broccoli dinner when you get home from a long day of work is strikingly the most beautiful smell that'll ever seem to grace you.

Similar and yet different from himself, in more ways than i can describe. He's so spirited, blazing out in ways that people like us cannot begin to imagine, slogging away and giving every little bit, every little fibre of his being to his job. To the world, to humanity.

We know he's tried to rest. But really, there's always the next day. All for the purpose of preserving, perpetuating the sweet sweet taste of rest. To protect the peace in which we can rub our dog's belly, snuggle up with a significant other, sigh at a disappearing sunset. Even though he may never get to suck on, chew, digest that oh so palpable relief.

And, like the evening sun, there's something so inherently beautiful about that. He lives out his days with some sort of fiery purpose, flickering at times, but never going out.

Have you ever noticed how drawn people get to fires?

ILSA

When the sun breaks into the horizon at dawn, it's quiet about it. Furtive, almost shying away from the prying stare of the early birds. But it rises steadily all the same, never batting an eye as it pushes them to sing and children to leap out of bed. Gaining strength as it does, too, gently shaking awake the little beings in their beds, snoring away, as some others hurry along with their day.

lIsa's a sign of renewal like that. She springs up change, invigorates thought, eggs on action. It's not particularly evident, but it's fact-- so factual that it's taken as a given. No one counts on the sun to stay on the other side when the clock strikes a certain point, does it? No one forgets the reason they draw their curtains, push their flowerpots into just the right spots.

She's the driving force, the very energy powering through your veins. The type you don't realise is essential, but once it wanes even in the slightest, you drop to the ground, feeling the strain. She's an essential. The starting domino.

You know it's exactly what you need to feel energized, what you need feel to have that little bud of warmth in your chest bloom and remind you you're human. In more ways than one-- reminding you you can feel, you can hurt, bleed, win, yearn. And as time goes it coats her strength, polishing it and embroidering it with little marks that show she's withstanding the wear of time.

But it's funny, really, that her irrevocability should be so overlooked.

No, it's lovely how the full force of her shine dilutes itself over her landscape, concentrating just the right amount of her glow into people's lives. And every morning, there'll be a few regulars, standing at the edge of their balconies. They tiptoe, crane their necks so far in front just to drink in the beauty of her providence, smiling when the warmth soaks their skin, when the shine seeps in through their eyelids.

And all is right in the world.

[incorrect-missionimpossible]

Brandt: This is a map of all the possible places Ethan could have run off to this time Hunley: That's a globe Brandt: Yeah, we have no fucking clue where he is

[kp777]

By Julia Conley

Common Dreams

April 16, 2024

"The institutions of world finance have lost their muscle," wrote more than 100 activists, celebrities, and political leaders. "You can be the leaders who bring them into the 21st century."

Quoting the economist John Maynard Keynes at the time of the founding of the modern global finance system in 1944, more than 100 signatories on Tuesday called on the world's largest economies to allow the world "to taste hope again" by pouring resources into solving the global debt and climate crises.

Keynes remarked after the historic Bretton Woods meeting in New Hampshire that the summit offered new hope to everyone from "our businessmen and our manufacturers and our unemployed" as world leaders established the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

But with the world now "rocked by conflict, food insecurity, biodiversity loss, and spiraling inflation," said the signers of an open letter organized by communications and campaign group Project Everyone, the global community needs "another Bretton Woods moment"—one that would correct the "imperfect" system hammered out 80 years ago and live up to the ideals that were centered at the original meeting, including "prosperity as a means of peace" and wealth as a means of serving "the common good."

The letter states that global inequality is "compounded by the devastation wrought by climate change," which is disproportionately likely to impact the Global South even as developing countries contribute a mere fraction of the planet-heating emissions of wealthy nations.

The signatories—including International Rescue Committee CEO David Miliband, philanthropist Abigail Disney, and singer and activist Annie Lennox—called on G20 countries to take steps including tripling their investment in the World Bank and IMF, canceling developing countries' debt to the institutions, and reforming tax codes to ensure big polluters and the wealthiest people contribute to efforts to mitigate inequality.

"This is your chance," reads the letter, which was released as world leaders met in Washington, D.C. for the World Bank and IMF's Spring Meetings. "The institutions of world finance have lost their muscle. You can be the leaders who bring them into the 21st century. You can unlock the colossal public and private investment potential of renewable energy, sustainable agriculture, and climate adaptation."

Under the status quo, the signatories noted, the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals are "way off track," with $3 trillion still needed achieve the objective of a "greener, fairer, better world by 2030," as agreed to by 193 U.N. member states.

Project Everyone and its supporters reiterated a demand made by Oxfam International Monday to cancel debts owed by countries in the Global South that are facing rising inequality, as their debt obligations to the IMF and the World Bank have left them unable to invest in education, climate adaptation, housing, and other public services.

"Removing burdensome debt allows countries to invest in their people and their future: in resilience, education, health, and nutrition," wrote the signatories. "This drives growth and creates string partners to trade with... Each of us stands to gain from stability, lower food and energy costs, and nature protection."

The wealthiest countries in the world, said Project Everyone, must look to the leaders who met at Bretton Woods and "fulfill their promise: to transform these instruments for peace and prosperity and truly set them to work in our common interest."

[jeromepowell]

mr. powell!

Haven’t you people ever heard of closing the god damn door?

[metamatar]

Given the manufacture of narratives in our times, a dominant explanation for the crisis in the mainstream media centres around the so-called “debt-trap” that China is accused of having set for Sri Lanka. However, China’s share in Sri Lanka’s total foreign debt was less than 10 per cent in 2020. Sri Lanka borrowed more through international sovereign bonds and from Asian Development Bank and Japan than from China. The China-centred analysis draws from a Western campaign and is essentially aimed at obscuring the central role of several domestic and international agents, especially the International Monetary Fund (IMF), in the making of the Sri Lankan crisis.

Article published: April 22, 2022

[probablyasocialecologist]

Between 1981 and 2004, 123 countries – comprising 82 per cent of the global population – were forced to implement ‘Structural Adjustment Programmes’ (SAPs). Economic policy for the majority of humanity came to be determined by bankers and technocrats in Washington DC.

These policies redistributed incomes to the rich and provided windfall profits to corporations in the Global North. But they had a disastrous impact on working people and small farmers around the world, particularly in terms of access to food. In India, the proportion of the population without access to sufficient calories increased from 75 per cent to 91 per cent in rural areas, and from 57 per cent to 73 per cent in urban areas, during the two decades following neoliberal reforms in 1992. In Latin America and much of sub-Saharan Africa, the quantity of food that could be purchased with an unskilled labourer’s wage declined markedly, reaching levels lower than in the 17th and 18th centuries. Something similar happened in China and the former socialist countries of Eastern Europe, where the share of people unable to afford a basic subsistence basket increased dramatically during the reforms of the 1990s. In region after region, neoliberalization produced food insecurity and caused immeasurable human suffering.

[...]

In total, 15.63 million excess deaths have occurred due to malnutrition that could have been prevented with Cuba-style policies. This includes 35,000 in the US; 409,000 in Mexico; 729,000 in China; 1.2 million in Indonesia; and a staggering 3.65 million in India. The only large populous region left unscathed was Eastern Europe and Russia, perhaps reflecting its history of socialist policy. In the rest of the world, almost 16 million people have died needlessly.

These deaths are not incidental to the capitalist world-system; they are intrinsic to it. From the perspective of capital, the global poor’s claims to food represent a claim on resources (land, labour, energy) that could be appropriated instead to service elite consumption and the growth of the commodity sector. Capital therefore seeks to constrain the consumption of these communities in order to make resources available for accumulation. It is only by squeezing the incomes of the poor, often to the point of causing millions of needless deaths, that capital can ensure the steady flow of resources required for profit maximization and perpetual corporate growth.

[agentfascinateur]

High Time IMF spoke up

... key factors contributing to the difficulties in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip were Israel’s withholding of tax revenues: “As well as the persistently lacklustre support from the international community.”