Report: Spending on Bailouts 40 Times Other Crises

SARAH ANDERSON & JOHN CAVANAGH

Anderson is director of the Global Economy Project at the Institute for Policy Studies and Cavanagh is IPS director. They are co-authors of a new report titled "Skewed Priorities: How the Bailouts Dwarf Other Global Crisis Spending."

They write: "The financial crisis is only one of multiple crises that will affect every country, rich and poor alike.

"There's also the global poverty crisis. Tens of millions of people
across the developing world are expected to fall into extreme poverty
and joblessness as a result of an economic mess originating in the
United States. This is bad news for workers everywhere, as it means
even more brutal competition in the globalized labor pool.

"And then there's the climate crisis. If we don't do something about
that one, we could find out what a real meltdown feels like.

"Yet the richest nations in the world appear fixated almost entirely on
the financial crisis, and specifically, on propping up their own
financial firms. ... [T]he approximately $4.1 trillion that the United
States and European governments have committed to rescue financial
firms is 40 times the money they're spending to fight climate and
poverty crises in the developing world.

"And as officials head to two upcoming global summits, there's strong
reason for concern that rich country governments may backtrack even
further on their aid and climate finance commitments."