- This is a mischievous piece of propaganda aimed at arousing sentimental pity for "poor Bangalee" by distorting background information -- all for the sake of glorifying the con-artist, Dr. Md. Yunus.
- The Nobel Committee in 1913 made a very bold decision to award the Prize for Literature to Tagore (the 1st 'brown' man to get any Nobel), whose name was not known to the rest of the world. The word "Bengali" was nowhere mentioned in the Nobel citation in 1913. Europe and America erupted in outrageously shameful racist comments as a reaction to the announcement of Tagore's Prize. "Ignoble decision by Nobel" cried the NY Times.
- The world was a different one when Amartya Sen's Nobel in Economics came about and which was hailed by the world. Yunus and Grameen Bank's Nobel for Peace was a whole different matter. The most serious objection to his award had to do with the concept that microfinance contributes to poverty reduction. Here is Patrick Bond in Himal Magazine (Oct. 2010): << Contrary to the carefully cultivated media image, Yunus is not contributing to peace or social justice. In fact, he is an extreme neoliberal ideologue. To quote his philosophy, as expressed in his 1998 autobiography, Banker to the Poor,
"I believe that 'government', as we know it today, should pull out of most things except for law enforcement and justice, national defense and foreign policy, and let the private sector, a 'Grameenized private sector', a social-consciousness-driven private sector, take over their other functions".
At the time as he wrote those words, governments across the world, especially in the United States, were pulling back from regulating financial markets. In 1999, for example, Larry Summers (then US Treasury secretary and now President Barack Obama's overall economics tsar) set the stage for the crash of financial-market instruments known as derivatives, by refusing to regulate them as he had been advised.
The resulting financial crisis, peaking in 2008, should have changed Yunus's tune. After all, the catalysing event in 2007 was the rising default rate on a rash of 'subprime mortgage' loans given to low-income US borrowers. These are the equivalent of Grameen's loans to very poor Bangladeshis, except that Yunus did not go so far as the US lenders in allowing them to be securitised with overvalued real estate. >>Friday at 3:54pm · · 1
Date: Sun, 2 Sep 2012 15:25:45 -0400
From: adewan@emich.edu
To: politiconomy@list.emich.edu
Subject: [Politiconomy] Demonizing Professor Yunus
When will the drama of demonizing Yunus end?
Please click the link below:
http://www.daily-sun.com/details_When-will-the-drama-of--demonising-Yunus-end_250_2_5_1_0.html
Thank you for your attention and interest,
--
Abdullah A. Dewan
Ph.D.(monetary/macroeconomics)
M.Sc.(Phys), M.S.(nuclr. engr)
Professor of Economics
Eastern Michigan University, USA
Phone#(734)487-0003
Please click the link below:
http://www.daily-sun.com/details_When-will-the-drama-of--demonising-Yunus-end_250_2_5_1_0.html
Thank you for your attention and interest,
--
Abdullah A. Dewan
Ph.D.(monetary/macroeconomics)
M.Sc.(Phys), M.S.(nuclr. engr)
Professor of Economics
Eastern Michigan University, USA
Phone#(734)487-0003
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