Area : SNET-L Date : Oct 13 '95, 14:23 From : pom, 1:330/202 To : ALL Subj : (fwd) CLINTON: 1995-10-11 President at IMF and World Bank An From: pomi Subject: (fwd) CLINTON: 1995-10-11 President at IMF and World Bank Annual Meetin Message-ID: Date: Fri, 13 Oct 1995 13:23:44 -0400 (EDT) Following are some excerpts from Klinton's speech at the IMF and World Bank Meeting. These are OBVIOUS to me as propaganda, preparation, and the plan for world government. Anyone with an alternative interpretation, please post it. I for one would like to have some evidence that something other than world government or a centralized structure that supercedes national sovereignty is being referred to. Please note that these paragraphs are chronologically correct but that I've omitted many within the speech and haven't indicated the omissions. I got this from alt.politics.reform for those who want the whole thing. THE WHITE HOUSE Office of the Press Secretary ________________________________________________________________________ For Immediate Release October 11, 1995 REMARKS BY THE PRESIDENT AT ANNUAL MEETING OF IMF AND WORLD BANK The Sheraton Washington Hotel Washington, D.C. 11:15 A.M. EDT THE PRESIDENT: Mr. Chairman, Mr. Secretaries, Mr. Camdessus, President Wolfensohn, to the governors of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank Group, honored guests: On behalf of the United States, it's an honor to welcome you to Washington for your 50th annual meeting. And I am especially pleased to have the opportunity to speak to this group at a moment when you can see the fruits of your labors. But I ask you to remember also that the Mexican crisis put into high relief tensions that are less evident in many, many emerging economies throughout the world in the new realities of the 21st century. It, therefore, provides for us a powerful reminder of why we must continue to lead in the face of these extraordinary new challenges and these new opportunities. History will look back on us and judge how well we responded to this time of intense economic transformation . It is the most intensive period of economic change since the Industrial Revolution. The revolutions in communications and technology, the development of non-stop global markets, the vast currency flows that are now the tides of international business -- all these have brought enormous advantages for those who can embrace and succeed in the new global economy. But these forces have also made all our societies more vulnerable -- to disturbances that once may have seemed distant, but which now directly affect the jobs and livelihoods in every nation in the world, from the richest to the poorest. The unbridled forces of the global market make it more difficult for every nation to sustain the social contract; to sustain individual opportunity for all citizens; to keep families strong; to keep communities thriving; to keep hope alive. The truth is, in this new world there are powerful forces of integration and powerful forces of disintegration. And as we approach the 21st century, we must adapt our thoughts and our actions to this new reality. No nation can turn its back, and we will all have to work together if we want the promise of the 21st century to outweigh its peril in every nation in the globe. The trend toward globalization, after all, has far surpassed anything the great figures of Bretton Woods could have imagined. Interdependence among nations has grown so deep that literally it is now meaningless to speak of a sharp dividing line between foreign and domestic policy. In the United States, when we think of economic policy, we can't divide that which is domestic from that which is global. When we think of security policy, we know that our efforts to combat terrorism, whether it's in the World Trade Center incident or in Oklahoma City, have very much in common with our efforts to help our friends around the world to deal with a bus blowing up in the Middle East or a vial of sarin gas being broken open in a Japanese subway, or in so many other instances that all of you can well relate to. We simply must adjust the world's financial architecture to these new conditions. We must forge a system strong enough, yet flexible enough, to make the most of the historic opportunities and the historic obligations before us. Billions of people, after all, in Asia, in Latin America, in Africa, in Europe, who are turning to democracy and free markets need to see that there can be tangible benefits from their decision, and a better life after breaking the shackles of the past. Today, a child born in Bangkok, or Buenos Aires, or Johannesburg enjoys the possibility of a vastly better life than his or her forebears could ever have imagined. But to redeem that promise, we must work to exalt the forces of integration and to overcome the forces of disintegration that globalization bring. We must see that a future crisis like Mexico's does not rob children of the better lives before those lives ever get started. Fifty-one year ago, at another moment of historic change, President Roosevelt urged our Congress to approve the Bretton Woods agreements. He drew a dark picture of -- or a clear picture of stark contrast. The choice he said then was -- and I quote -- "between a world caught again in a maelstrom of panic and economic warfare, or a world that will move toward unity and widely shared prosperity." "This point in history," he said, "is full of promise and of danger." Today, as we stand on the verge of a new century and confront a radically new international economy, I say to you that we are at a point of history full of promise and of danger. To master the challenge before us, we must focus our efforts on expanding trade, improving investment and capital flows and promoting sustainable development here. And we must do it in the context of our devotion to human freedom and democracy. __________ The best way to grow our economies is to expand trade. Our experience shows that. In the last three years, there has been a stunning explosion in American exports, up four percent in 1993, 10 percent in 1994, 16 percent in 1995. At the same time, global trade has increased over 12 percent over the last three years, and the United States, as we have sold more, has been in a position to buy even more from other countries all around the world. ==== my comment --Note that exports are trivial 16% of the economy. Why are we being told that exports are so important to our economy, that we will benefit greatly by eliminating the domestic jobs that are 84% of our economy and increasing exports? Being an export-driven economy robs us of self-sufficiency and makes us dependent upon others for that percentage that we must now import because of trade agreements providing cheap labor abroad. The imports meet domestic demand that used to be served by domestic production. We could survive quite well without the trivial percentage of exports that is being portrayed as something positive because they promote "interdependence" and the central structures that will then be needed to regulate it. =========== [Klinton excerpt continues..] Ironically, just when the advantages of expanded trade have become so dramatic, we are again hearing the voices of retreat here in our own country. There are those who say that America should simply erect a wall and live within its own borders economically; and when it comes to foreign policy, we should just go it alone. But, my fellow citizens of our shared planet, economic interdependence is a fact of life. The goal must be to have it benefit all people, consistent with our shared vision for a world of freedom and peace and security and prosperity, consistent with shared values of responsibility and opportunity for all people, of stronger families and stronger communities, of nations with sustainable levels of economic growth that preserve our common environment. Mexico's troubles and the other recent events have shown that reforms in the international financial system have to continue. We don't have this all worked out as it needs to be. We should spread the benefits of financial integration around the world so that more and more borrowers have access to capital markets. We have to devise better ways to prevent financial crises and to cope with the crises that inevitably occur. People will turn away from free markets if they feel helpless, if they feel that they are simply pawns in a global game of winner-take-all, rather than partners in a global endeavor that seeks to make it possible for all to win. Since the peso crisis, we have moved from crisis management to institutional reform. At the G-7 Summit in Halifax, we put forward far-reaching proposals to help the international financial institutions meet these new needs. They aim to increase disclosure of nations financial information and identify possible crises early, before they rock the world economy. And they include steps to mobilize the international community quickly when future crises occur. Next time there's a problem like Mexico's, the system will be better prepared. I'm pleased that over the last few days, the broader membership of the IMF has endorsed these proposals, made them more concrete, brought them closer to implementation. I thank you for that, and I congratulate you for it. Fulfilling the hopes of this moment demands that we also renew our efforts to help those who still suffer the curse of poverty. Development that improves standards of living, strengthens democracy, conserves resources and restrains population growth; development that lifts people up and builds societies of citizens and consumers, not victims and dependence -- these -- these objectives benefit all nations, rich and poor. To succeed, we must change the approaches of the past to meet the demands of the future. The international financial institutions, the multilateral development banks, must continue to sharpen their focus on giving all people the chance to make the most of their own lives. That means investing in education, in health care, in other programs that attack the roots of poverty. It means responding to the problems that were highlighted in such stark and clear relief at the Beijing Conference on Women. It means encouraging private sector development. It means that our development programs must support democracy, accountability and the rule of law. It means we must have a common global commitment to environmental protection and sustainable development. Today's despair breeds tomorrow's conflicts. Resolving the funding for dealing with today's despair will save the world and the United States a lot of money and perhaps even precious lives in the future. Restoring funding for IDA is one of our administration's top priorities because it is the right thing to do. Of course, it serves our interests, but it is the right thing to do. (Applause.) When these two institutions opened for business, the IMF and the World Bank, there were 38 nations standing behind them. Even then, John Maynard Keynes likened the affair to the Tower of Babel. Well, today, there are 179 nations represented here. But even though we are larger in number and some of us are larger and more wealthy than others, this increase in numbers does not mean that any one of us, including the United States, can afford to detach itself from the business at hand and hope that others will take up the slack. More than ever, we must all participate in the reform of the international economic system, and we must all do our part. In a world that grows rapidly closer, every one of us is called upon to help harness the forces of integration for the benefit of our people and to make the forces work for all our communities and for the community of nations that is increasingly bound together. Only then can we fulfill the potential of the advances in technology and trade and knowledge. Only in that way will we defeat the forces of disintegration, extreme nationalism and ethnic strife, isolation and protectionism. I believe that the 21st century will be the period of greatest possibility in all human history. I hope it will be a period of unparalleled growth, achievement, prosperity and human fulfillment; it certainly has the potential to be. What these institutions do in the next 20 years will have a large say in what the 21st century looks like for all the people of the world. What we do individually, as nations and leaders, will have a large say in what that world looks like. The institutions that we honor today and that you participate in deserve and require our support. They also deserve and require our best efforts to make constructive changes to meet the new opportunities and the new challenges we face. We must -- we must -- lay the foundation for prosperity, security and freedom that will benefit all the people of the world well into the next century. These next few years area critical point, an historic turning point. And if we do our job, the history of the next century will be less bloody than the history of the 20th century, and even more filled with prosperity and freedom and common human decency. Thank you very much. (Applause.) END 11:42 A.M. EDT --- GEcho 1.02+ * Origin: snet-l@world.std.com <-> FidoNet (1:330/202)