Strauss Kahn's proposed reforms while providing a "human face" to the IMF did not constitute a shift in direction. They were formulated within the realm of neoliberalism. They modified but they did not undermine the central role of IMF "economic medicine". The socially devastating impacts of IMF "shock treatment" under Strauss-Kahn's leadership have largely prevailed. Dominique Strauss Kahn arrived at the helm of the IMF in November 2007, less than a year prior to September-October 2008 financial meltdown on Wall Street. The structural adjustment program (SAP) was not modified. Under DSK, IMF "shock treatment" which historically had been limited to developing countries was imposed on Greece, Ireland and Portugal. Under the helm of DSK as Managing Director, the IMF demanded that developing countries remove food and fuel subsidies at a time of rising commodity prices on the New York and Chicago Mercantile exchanges. The hikes in food and fuel prices, which preceded the September-October 2008 Wall Street crash, were in large part the result of market manipulation. Grain prices were boosted artificially by large scale speculative operations. Instead of taming the speculators and containing the rise in food and fuel prices, the IMF's role was to ensure that the governments of indebted developing countries would not in any way interfere in the "free market", by preventing these prices from going up. These hikes in food prices, which are the result of outright manipulation (rather than scarcity) have served to impoverish people Worldwide. The surge in food prices constitutes a new phase of the process of global impoverishment. DSK was complicit in this process of market manipulation. The removal of food and fuel subsidies in Tunisia and Egypt had been demanded by the IMF. Food and fuel prices skyrocketed, people were impoverished, paving the way towards the January 2011 social protest movement:

Zhirinovsky’s reference to the Kuril Islands in connection with the devastating tsunami that hit Japan in March is a not so subtle suggestion that Russia had something to do with causing the natural disaster that killed thousands, led to the Fukushima crisis and threatened to derail Japan’s economic recovery.

Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, and Iran: What do these seven countries have in common? In the context of banking, one that sticks out is that none of them is listed among the 56 member banks of the Bank for International Settlements (BIS). That evidently puts them outside the long regulatory arm of the central bankers' central bank in Switzerland.

Milosevic was refused his guaranteed right to defend himself. The principle of giving equal treatment to prosecution and defense was violated every day. The prosecutor held weekly press conferences in the ICTY, and Richard Dicker of Human Rights Watch, a renowned producer of anti-Serb propaganda, rushed regularly to the foyer to attack Milosevic to the media. Meanwhile our colleague was ejected from the building when he distributed a handout to a journalist. The huge budget of the ICTY stood behind the accusers. The Milosevic-defense had to rely on donations alone. When the German government criminalized the fundraising campaign, froze our funds and also blocked my account, the ICTY refused us any support. This greatly limited our work.

“From today’s perspective, I believe that we were driven out of paradise when the Wall came down,”. Today’s Germany is described by many ex-East Germans as a “slave state” and a “capitalist dictatorship.” - A majority of Romanians older than 40 consider Communism a good idea (including 74% of those older than 60, and 64% of those aged 40-59).

The British introduced opium along with tobacco as an export item to China in order to reduce the trade deficit. Under the disguise of free trade, the British, the Spanish and the French, with the tacit approval of the Americans, continued sending their contraband to China through legitimate as well as illegitimate trade channels even after the Chinese dynasty put an embargo on opium imports.

The globe is gripped with a series of arenas where the struggle between the U.S. and its allies against the triple entente of Eurasia — Russia, China, and Iran — and their other allies are taking place. The struggles in these fronts vary in shape and dimension, but are all inter-linked and aimed against incorporation into a central entity controlled by the U.S. and its allies.

By October 2008, CDS were trading at 62 trillion dollars, more than the stock markets of the whole world combined.[...] The derivatives trade was "worth" more than one quadrillion dollars [1,0000 trillion], or larger than the economy of the entire world. (In September 2008, the global Gross Domestic Product was sixty trillion dollars).

...along with [China's] material progress will come something much more profound: self-confidence, and an overcoming of historical resentment born of the region’s colonial experience. A new way of looking at the world, when it fully emerges, will affect how we think of everything from the role of the individual in society to the meaning of economic progress and the history of the novel" (Patrick Smith)

... the problem stems from the sloth, complacency, ignorance and incompetence of ordinary Americans.