A lot of people have asked me recently, “What do you think of Jim Yong Kim’s appointment to the World Bank?”, expecting me, as a Korean, to beam proudly at having a prominent member of the Korean community now head one of the world’s most powerful institutions. Sadly, many Koreans will gladly grant the expected reaction of “That’s great!” or “That’s awesome having one of our own represent us at such a high level.” And these people that give this answer just because they are Korean and Jim Yong Kim is Korean represent a critical problem with the world today. What more idiotic reason to support a person or think a person is “great” just because you share the same race and skin color as someone else? But yet many sheeple subscribe to exactly such foolishness and utter lack of critical thinking. At first glance, Jim Yong Kim seems like a decent person. He developed programs in Haiti in the 1990s for treating tuberculosis at reduced costs of $150 to $200 a patient, but to imply he is a pioneer and great success due to this matter, as a Wikipedia entry implies, simply is not accurate.
Many drugs and treatment programs in other developing countries, not just Haiti, are a fraction of their cost in the United States, because pharmaceutical companies, if they want to sell any of their drugs in other countries, must drastically slash their prices to make them affordable to people of greatly reduced incomes. And we all know that the pharmaceutical industry’s number one priority is making money and that even at these drastically slashed prices, they are still turning a profit in most instances sans a few isolated cases of products designed to be loss-leaders. Still, many Asians, after hearing sound bytes like this, will stop using their brains and will throw their support behind Dr. Kim, stating that Dr. Kim will bring a fresh perspective and hope to an abysmal organization like the World Bank, much in the same capacity that people of color rationalized voting for Barack Obama in 2008, falsely believing, simply due to his skin color, that he would bring great change to an office in which people had lost a great amount of faith.
If one looks at Jim Yong Kim’s history, there are many red flags to consider before anyone should support this appointment. Kim was formerly an adviser to the director-general of the World Health Organization (WHO), an organization whose critics have accused it as serving as a front for the pharmaceutical industry to force health care initiatives upon countries, not for the benefit of the people, but for the profits of the industry. Most recently, critics accused the WHO of magnifying the reality of the “swine flu” threat way out of proportion solely to benefit the pharmaceutical companies that were manufacturing the swine flu vaccine.
Interestingly enough, over many decades now, Presidents and Prime Ministers of numerous developing countries have levied similar damning accusations against the World Bank, accusing the World Bank of being a bank that only serves the interests of Europe and the US to the detriment of their countries. And this is precisely why I believe that this current US administration is putting a yellow face to lead the World Bank now. This move, in my opinion, is 100% political with Machiavellian intentions. And whether Dr. Kim knowingly is part of this plan or an innocent pawn that is being used, he is just a puppet in a larger plan to deceive rising powers in India, China and other countries dominated by people of color and to convince their leaders to trust an inherently untrustworthy and immoral organization like the World Bank.
With the enormous media attention given John Perkin’s book, “Confessions of an Economic Hit Man”, in which he confessed that his function “was to convince the political and financial leadership of underdeveloped countries to accept enormous development loans from institutions like the World Bank and USAID” that he knew they could not repay, it is hard to believe that Dr. Kim would be unaware of the shady past of the World Bank. Basically, Perkins stated that much like “liar mortgage loans” destroyed individual families in the US, World Bank loans magnified the scope of destructive loans to the entire developing world. Perkins stated that once the World Bank and IMF imposed crippling debts on developing nations by selling them false analytical reports of economic growth that were impossible to achieve, US bankers then moved in and forced these countries to accept “bailouts” that were littered with concessions favorable to Western interests and detrimental to the citizens of these countries that otherwise never could have been achieved. Ultimately, Perkins stated, these concessions widened the disparity of income gap not only within these countries and also between developed nations and developing nations, but that these immorally gained concessions further subjugated these nations to future control by Western interests by setting the economic development of these countries back by decades.
From a logical perspective as well, it is obvious that Dr. Kim has been selected throughout his career to move up the chain of command. What qualifies a medical doctor to become President of a university with no training in education? Yet Dr. Kim was appointed as President of Dartmouth University. Furthermore, what qualifies a medical doctor to head an international banking organization with no training in finance? Yet President Obama appointed Dr. Kim to become head of the World Bank. Dr. Kim’s promotions would be analogous to a world leader appointing a lifelong Kindergarten teacher to become his Secretary of Defense. Furthermore, review these statements from Dr. Kim in a Wall Street Journal article that was released this week:
“The ministers and the heads of central banks and others I’ve spoke with have been very supportive.” If heads of corrupt central banks are already on board with Dr. Kim, then this means they view him as an asset they can utilize to achieve their goals. As I stated above, what is the best method of gaining trust from people and nations you desire to manipulate? Put a face in front of it to which they can relate.
“I’ve been working with people in the World Bank for years.” Really? In what capacity? I, for one, would like to have full disclosure regarding the exact capacity in which you have worked with the World Bank for years. Did you work with the World Bank while you were President of Dartmouth? While with the WHO? Or even earlier in your career?
“As a person who has run a huge knowledge institution…” This statement alone gives me pause and induces a feeling of queasiness. If Dr. Kim didn’t find great fault with the structure of today’s educational institutions, including Dartmouth, and is leaving with his belief that they are “huge knowledge institutions” unsullied, then his agenda must be aligned with the elite of dumbing down students instead of actually turning them into smarter, critical thinking beings.
So if you are Korean or Asian and support Jim Yong Kim’s appointment to the World Bank simply because he looks like you, or on the belief that he is there to transform the World Bank from a destructive to a constructive organization, then you simply serve as the poster boy or girl for the successes of the global educational system to increase acquiescence to their commands of what to think instead of being able to use the grey matter inside your head to think for yourself. Maybe if the new head of the World Bank was a leader from a poor Latin America, Asian, African or Caribbean country that had a history of activism with no ties to Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan, or any other multinational bank or elite organizations with a history of self-promotion of rich interests over poor interests, then I would give this leader the benefit of the doubt until I saw otherwise. Unfortunately, Jim Yong Kim does not remotely begin to fit this description.
About the author: JS Kim is the Founder & Chief Investment Strategist of maalamalama, a fiercely independent, precious metals focused investment research & consulting firm dedicated to exposing the fraud of the global financial system and helping clients build wealth by understanding truth.
