Missiles dictate the balance of the
 world economy

BY RAISA PAGES—Granma International staff writer—

IN the eastern part of New Guinea, a transnational corporation is operating the largest gold mine on the planet, valued at more than $80 billion. However, in this same place, thousands of its inhabitants have died due to drought ruining harvests and leaving consequences such as starvation and malaria.

Constantly more acute contrasts and contradictions are taking place in this world. According to a report by the UN Development Program, three multimillionaires possess more wealth than 45 countries combined.

With these truths, Roberto Verrier, president of the Latin American Association of Economists opened the 7th International Forum on Finance for small and medium companies underway in Havana with representatives from 18 countries.

The year that has gone by, he underlined, has brought too many signs that the

contradictions, asymmetries and inequalities of the neoliberal global village have become deeper, with dramatic characteristics and manipulation by the media.

"Never before have we been so far from being able to say good by to weapons. Today, missiles dictate the rate of the world’s economy. The bloody aggression against Iraq, under the false pretext that that nation had weapons of mass destruction, and against the grain of international law, has demonstrated to us the extent to which the arms dealers are deciding the fate of millions of people from their aseptic offices and controlling the reins of the planet," he affirmed.

In the name of the battle against terrorism terror is turning the human race into a sophisticated survival laboratory where Malthusian theories are being revived.

Sixty years after Bretton Woods, millions of human beings, entire nations, have starved in order to pay the wagers of the great "casino" which the world economy has become, he said.

The president of the Latin American Association of Economists affirmed that there is no sign of the alarm ceasing to sound when, instead of growing, development subsidies are being reduced; when debt is a weapon of pressure used to impose policies that deepen imbalances; and when the market continues to be guided by the blind.

During this period of crisis, the most brilliant exponents of economic research in the world agree that there needs to be a complete revision of traditional economic models. They lack alternative proposals above all because of dogmas that remain in effect at a cost that humanity cannot afford.