Robert Zoellick, President of the World Bank, and a man who believes that 2009 will be a “dangerous year”, will be speaking on March 31st and has agreed to take questions from Reuters readers.
Zoellick has been outspoken during the current economic crisis predicting the first shrinking of the economy since the ’30s, warning that increased government spending will simply create a ‘sugar high‘ until banks’ toxic assets are dealt with properly, and urging a tougher stand against protectionism.
But the World Bank’s primary focus is on helping developing nations and alleviating poverty. Earlier this month it published research showing that the spreading crisis will push 46 million more people into poverty in 2009 on top of 130-155 million pushed into poverty in 2008.
With the London summit of the Group of 20 nations on April 2nd fast approaching what do you want to know about the World Bank’s role in shoring up the world economy and helping poorer nations? Use the comments section below, or use the #askwb tag on Twitter, and I’ll get as many of your questions to Robert Zoeliick as possible.
UPDATE: This event has now taken place and you can view the questions we put to Robert Zoellick in the player below. We have no means to pass on any further questions to the World Bank but you are welcome to add your comments on the discussion thread below.
How closer have we come to eliminating world poverty and creating financial equality among humans on our planet according to the goals of your institution?
What steps are you taking to correct the errors and to improve this necessary vision?
Quantitative and qualitative speaking according to factual statistics what have you really done to increase the per person income and not the average or GDP of countries since the insertion of your organization?
How come there is more and more poverty and more and more people making less and less and a few ones getting richer?
What is not working with your old proposed model and what are you going to do about it now?
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296 comments so far
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Have you any thoughts you might wish to share regarding the psychological underpinings for the Kondratiev long wave theory’s periodical economic deleveraging?
Dear Sir. How could a bank fail. When we get a loan we have to have collateral. Pay late fees and interest. Where does all the money go. This is my Question if the banks are failing. How come they are still building them on every corner in America, Four or Five on each corner. If a bank foreclosed on a house the house is still worth the loan value. How can you lose.
Dear Mr. Zoellick,
-How can men on mars be in the near future while billions do not have food or water?
-How much will low-interest loans and interest-free credits end poverty?
-What can the World Bank do to make the world a better place?
-When will people of developed countries accept that most of the world is in poverty?
-When will humans care about the human race?
And Lastly:
-Are you listening to us, are your ears focused on the world?
What will you do for students who are in repayment of high interest loans. How will you help them to get lower rates.
It seems to me that a ” reset” by all credit reporting agencies is what is needed to kick start the world economies. Every country, bank, company and most importantly every human must have their credit reset to perfect or near perfect condition so as to facilitate LOANS, most of which are collateralized anyway. The average man on the street must have unrestricted ( by credit scores ) access to loans in order to restart the world economy. All countries, banks and companies firmly stand on the shoulders of the little man, the consumer whom has been left out of the equation long enough. Most consumers do not qualify for loans any longer, without access to funds the average Joe will not spend his last few dollars on new or existing products as he has been forced into ” survival mode” A reset would be far less expensive in monetary terms also, and it would put money into circulation the fastest.
Sir: Being the head of the World Bank and one of the controllers of the entire global banking cabal my question is : How long before the entire U.S.Economy is taken down and the global bank has total control?
Any attempt to replace the us dollar with a one world currency will be met with a revolution like you have never dreamed.
If some US banks are refusing the bail out money because they don’t like the strings attached, such as limits to executive pay, then how badly do they really need the money? Apparently they can make due without. What I would like to know is, supposedly the American people have a certain amount of control over the government but how can we have a say over our privately owned banks who wield such power over our congress?
what do you think of the Nigerian stock exchange?
Dear Sir,
1) Could you please advise whether wars in Iraq and Afghanistan had adverse affect on the US and world economy and promoted the crisis? If not, then did these wars help above economies?
2) Do you see light at the end of the tunnel? If yes, could you please advise of the distance in years to pass?
3) Do you work on the sustainable measures to prevent such crisis in future?
Anyway I wish you success!
Thank you!
Kind regards,
Arzu Kasimov
President
LEXICON, LLC
Translation and Business Services
Baku, Azerbaijan
Tel (direct): 994-55-7966092
Sir, if you’d give me $5 million, I’d move back to South Dakota a contribute greatly to humanity and the arts.
Dear Mr President of the World Bank,
Do you have any plans to end the present fraudulent banking system - namely the Fractional Reserve Banking System - whereby banks lend us money they do not have and then charge interest on it?
What is the World Bank doing to help alleviate the suffering and poverty of the besieged Palestinian nation, babies, children, woman and other senior helpless Palestinians?
Is the World Bank prevented from providing effective assistance by the US, European Union, Quartet sanctioned Israeli military and financial blockade?
What can we as American citizens do to help bring much needed relief to the Palestinians, especially in Gaza?
Sir: I believe that private sector development has the potential to be an engine of economic development. In that connection, can you tell us what is happening with your Sovereign Funds Initiative, which you proposed in a speech on 2 April 2008? You mentioned a “One Percent Solution for Equity Investment in Africa.” Has this initiative begun to invest?
Thank you.
How much of the world’s economic crisis is due to the Democrays (Barney Frank & Chris Dodd) blocking regulation reform of Fannie Mae & Freddie Mac mortgage lending practices during the Bush Administration.
What is the world banks role in the economic recovery and reducing the world nations economic dependencies on United States? Why cant world bank bring in some rules for the world nations investment strategies by not allowing to invest the entire money or funds in One nation’s economy so that some collapse happens to that economy it wont spread to all.
Dear Mr. Robert Zoellick President of World Bank: Hello Mr. Zoellick: Ask God how can you and your staff can come with a plan that will work. Things are a bit constipated because we as people forgot about each other turned into other things like profits at the expense of others and very important, actually the most important “forgot about God”. The question is how can we share our resources using the rules and not giving comletely into profit but rather equal distribution and still make something to eat, cloth, shelter and more important make it on sunday saturday or the designated day to talk to God in His House! As a world leader, you need God more than ever, see, people at an impass, the juices of prosperity are not flowing. So consult with God, He listen 24hrs, he dosent miss a comment or a detail. Visa is everywhere you want to be, God is everywhere, He is into details. He has all the books of everything and has the info handy and available. He has the capacity to look into the future. Just one more observation “At the begining there was GOD” He KNOWS!
We are seeing ever increasing levels of volatility in all markets. This is making it hard for businesses and individuals to take decisions about the viability of fixed investments, effectively raising the hurdle rate required for these investments.
Likewise, the cost of hedging currency and interest rate exposures is becoming punitive.
Question :
At what point will the cost of floating exchange rates become so prohibitive as to force the world back onto fixed or semi-fixed exchange rates?
Sir
Money is not an industry.
What could you possibly do that would merit even one million dollars a year?
What could you possibly do to improve economies that pretend to free market principles only when the cash flow reads “accumulate”?
Money is not an industry.
What about the test case of development — Bangladesh? How do you at this development paradox? Do you claim any credit? Or what goes wrong in your efforts to alleviate poverty and protect interests of the poor and vulnerable? Do you admit that YOU, in the World Bank, have failed to give proper guidelines to the world on how to escape the recession, which is the result of collapse of fundamentalism of the free market economy? And the minnows like Bangladsh are being victim unnecessarily and without any role in the whole affair! Will you correct your position and say sorry to the world? Do you believe, such an approach make you credible?