I'm barely at home to post lately, but have enjoyed your comments and links, Poirot, especially since they tend to agree with me.
The main point I'm trying to get across is the interconnectedness of everything. Our wealth is the product of globalisation, just as third world population explosion and poverty ultimately is. The whole thing is completely unsustainable and out of control, and there's nothing anyone can do about it. We should stop the blame game and see it how it is, because the power elites are clearly bent on driving the whole thing over the cliff; it will then be a scramble to see who dominates in the aftermath.

Good summation, Squeers.
In our globalised world it is all connected. We're all aboard the train and it's heading towards the cliff. The U.S. debt ceiling crisis (apparently 14.3 trillion isn't high enough) is an ominous portent of things to come - although one expects they'll play out their brinkmanship until the last minute.

Yabby,

"That is not the fault of the IMF or the World Bank, but the fault of the EU and the US Govts!"

That could be the most naive post I've ever read from you.
Think of the IMF and the World Bank as the banqueting staff - they set up the whole show at the behest of the EU and the U.S. (and various other Western interests) who then help themselves to the goodies on offer.

Yes Poirot, I know that as a good old leftie you'd be lost without
evil Western conspiracy theories.

Fact is that if you are a developing country and you want to build
a dam, and nobody else will lend you the money, the World Bank will.

If you are a Korea or a Thailand and your finances get out of whack
and nobody else will lend you the money, the IMF will. As they did.
Look at those two now.

Fact is that EU and US dumping of agricultural products is driven
by their respective domestic politics and has absolutaly nothing
to do with free trade or globalisation but everything to do
with local political pork barrelling. 300 billion $ a year is the
last figure that I saw, hardly chicken feed and hugely distorting.

If you don't understand the difference, so be it. Economics and
politics are not the same thing, even if you confuse them.

I found the following website interesting and I'd like to share it with you - it answers quite a few questions:

http://www.globalissues.org/issue/2/causes-of-poverty

Almost half the world — over 3 billion people — live on less than $2.50 a day.
Lexi,
The sad reality is that these 3 billion breed three times faster than the rest. I don't see this as their fault alone by any means. Every single western but not necessarily white decision maker on this planet has their finger in the pie of guilt.

Lexi,
The gist of the website in your last post appears to me that human fertility is a decease that wouldn't need much at all to stamp out much of the misery. Certainly more environmentally friendly & cheaper & more effective then warfare & refugees.