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Natasha McDowall - My Blog
Natasha McDowall - My Blog


Another documentary i found interesting
Related to country: Jamaica

Translations available in: English (original) | French | Spanish | Italian | German | Portuguese | Swedish | Russian | Dutch | Arabic

"Life & Debt aims to clarify the impact that these economic policies have on the day-to-day lives of the people they are said to benefit. The voting rights within the IMF are roughly proportionate to the contributions paid in by member nations. The breakdown of the democratic process becomes clear as the Jamaican people are removed from participation in the decisions that truly affect their lives. The IMF promotes an agenda of monetary austerity, currency devaluation, and lowering wages. The goal is to reduce inflation by balancing a nation's loan repayments and imports with its export earnings. The result is usually a recession. The World Bank takes a longer run perspective. It aims for structural adjustment, which means trying to transform a borrower nation's economy into a free- market economy. It typically proposes market deregulation, sometimes accompanied by new lending from the World Bank and private lenders. These policies are supposed to benefit Third World economies by integrating them into the global market. What actually happens is that Third World people suffer, while commercial banks in the North collect a great deal of interest. In Jamaica, only 5 percent of total money borrowed since 1977 has been able to stay inside the country. "

My only problem with the film is that it does not explore the role the Jamaican goverenment played in this problem and does not hold them at least partially responsible for the problems Jamaica faces today.

April 7, 2008 | 3:28 PM Comments  0 comments

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An interesting Documentary...
Related to country: Dominican Republic

Translations available in: English (original) | French | Spanish | Italian | German | Portuguese | Swedish | Russian | Dutch | Arabic

In the Dominican Republic, a tropical island-nation, tourists flock to pristine beaches unaware that a few miles away thousands of dispossessed Haitians have toiled under armed-guard on plantations harvesting sugarcane, much of which ends up in U.S. kitchens. They work grueling hours and frequently lack decent housing, clean water, electricity, education or healthcare. Narrated by Paul Newman, "The Price of Sugar" follows Father Christopher Hartley, a charismatic Spanish priest, as he organizes some of this hemisphere's poorest people to fight for their basic human rights. This film raises key questions about where the products we consume originate and at what human cost they are produced

April 7, 2008 | 3:23 PM Comments  0 comments

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