Word: zoellick
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...when the world was awash in asset bubbles, there was perhaps no market more overheated than commodities. Prices of everything from iron ore to palm oil to corn reached dizzying heights. Crude oil nearly quintupled in five years; rice tripled in only five months. World Bank President Robert Zoellick called rising food and oil prices a "man-made catastrophe" that had the potential to quickly erase years of progress in overcoming poverty. Pundits dusted off Malthusian theories that the planet was physically unable to support the burgeoning appetites of an increasingly wealthy global population...
...when the world was awash in asset bubbles, there was perhaps no market more overheated than commodities. Prices of everything from iron ore to palm oil to corn reached dizzying heights. Crude oil nearly quintupled in five years; rice tripled in only five months. World Bank President Robert Zoellick called rising food and oil prices a "man-made catastrophe" that had the potential to quickly erase years of progress in overcoming poverty. Protests and riots over high prices for necessities erupted across the developing world. Pundits dusted off Malthusian theories that the planet was physically unable to support the burgeoning...
...various parts of the automobile industry. And the bank didn't mention the nasty spat that has broken out between the U.S and Mexico; the U.S. has stopped a program that allowed Mexican trucks on American roads, and Mexico has retaliated with tariff increases. Said World Bank president Robert Zoellick: "Leaders must not heed the siren song of protectionist fixes. Economic isolationism can lead to a negative spiral of events such as those we saw in the 1930s, which made a bad situation much, much worse...
...Zoellick got it just about right. Economic historians will long argue about the relative impact of trade restrictions - led by the U.S. Smoot-Hawley tariffs of 1930 - on the scale of the Great Depression. The U.S. economy was much less integrated into a global economic system then than it is now. But given the retaliation from America's trading partners after the new tariffs were applied, few would argue with Zoellick's assessment that the contraction of trade in the 1930s made the long downturn worse than it needed to be. "Protectionism," British Prime Minister Gordon Brown told TIME recently...
...Respite of sorts came to the region last week when a $31 billion package was announced by the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD), the European Investment Bank (EIB) and the World Bank. But World Bank President Robert Zoellick says East European banks need $140 billion of fresh capital, much of which may have to come from Western Europe...