It's all about the 'Benjamins'

There is a vernacular phrase that is expressive of recent developments in world stock markets. "It�s all about the Benjamins," the saying goes, referring to Benjamin Franklin, an American printer, philosopher, diplomat and scientist, whose portrait is on the face of $100 bills.

The International Mobilization for Global Justice, which at Final Call press time planned to confront the leaders of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank during their April 16-17 meetings in Washington, D.C., to demand cancellation of the debts owed by the poor, less-developed-countries to the wealthy, industrialized Western countries, will be "all about the Benjamins." Just as was the "Battle in Seattle" over policies of the World Trade Organization last year.

Those who pay close attention to the fluctuations in the numbers of "Benjamins" required to buy and sell things around the world, were in for a shock recently when the prices (and therefore the value) of shares in the 30 largest companies in America�the Dow Jones Industrial Average�as well as those smaller companies compiled by the National Association of Securities Dealers Automated Quotations�the NASDAQ average�took a one-day beating on Wall Street trading, and in trading in markets around the globe.

Fears of a stock market crash similar to the 1929 crash just before the Great Depression of the 1930s, caused trembling among investors of seismic, rather than of shivering, proportions.

Ironically, the losses on paper at the worst hour of the stock tumble were calculated in the trillions of dollars, more than the combined debt of the poorest countries in Africa, Asia and Latin America.

Then the stock markets regained their footing so to speak, and investors warily resumed their business of buying and selling the money�the capital�that businesses need to do anything and everything they do in the modern world.

Bystanders in all of this, both inside this country and around the world,were Black and other non-white people.

In America, Black families have about one-third the wealth of white families, primarily because of the inheritance that most Blacks never had at the end of 300 years of servitude slavery, compounded by an additional 137 years of lynchings, racism, discrimination, denied opportunities, higher unemployment lower wages. Less wealth (fewer "Benjamins") means less disposable income to save and invest in stocks and bonds.

The less developed countries throughout Africa, Asia and Latin America producen most of their wealth from natural resources, products they mine or harvest from the earth�oil, gold, copper, aluminum, cocoa, textiles, or agriculture.

The economic "boom" of the last several years, and even the recent turbulence in stock trading took place mostly within the technology sector, the information sector, and has been mostly unrelated to the ways less developed countries in the Third World, or even non-whites inside this country earn their living�through the export of resources or the sale of their labor through employment.

The rumblings of the world going "bust" may have passed Black and Third World people by in this country and around the world, just as did the "boom."

But unless the world�s have-nots are able to leverage a strategy of elimination of the national debts made by the former colonizers of poor, recently independent countries on the one hand; and wealth accumulation through savings and the pooling of resources inside the industrialized countries on the other; the wealthy barons of commerce will surely slam the door in the face of the late-arrivals when the inevitable cycle produces a scarcity of funds�a scarcity of "Benjamins."

An uphill battle continues to "level the playing field" for the rich and the poor, but the stock market, the world of technology and intellectual property, and Black folks in this country and around the world, are more closely related than many have thought or dare to admit.