Tag Archives: Sri Lanka

Sri Lankan Plan For Economic Utopia Stifled By Pesky Citizens’ Need For Food

Posted on July 16, 2022 | Leave a comment

From The Babylon Bee:

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SRI JAYAWARDENEPURA KOTTE — The Sri Lankan government’s sensible plan to become a green, climate-friendly utopia has experienced a slight hiccup after the nation’s 22 million citizens have run out of food, fuel, and hope.

Advised by green activists and intellectuals, the Sri Lankan President’s sprawling, vibrant agenda that included forced organic farming, massive debt to China, and skimming millions for personal gain — was actually quite successful for the first seven minutes.

“You know, if it weren’t for the inconvenient starvation of the entire populace, our program was working,” said President Gotabaya Rajapaksa while fleeing on an eco-friendly, zero-carbon, upcycled, bamboo fiber raft with suitcases full of Sri Lankan dollars. “That’s the problem with people, they always tarnish progressive policies by dying from them.”

After the Sri Lankan people noticed that they were, quite suddenly, without food or jobs or fuel or security, millions of them paid a personal visit to the presidential palace to recommend some slight changes to the president’s agenda.

At publishing time, liberals were reminding everyone that it was Capitalism’s fault.

https://babylonbee.com/news/sri-lankan-plan-for-economic-utopia-stifled-by-citizens-need-for-food

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Green Dogma Behind Fall Of Sri Lanka, by Michael Shellenberger

Posted on July 10, 2022 | Leave a comment

Was organic farming behind the collapse in Sri Lanka? From Michael Shellenberger at michaelshellenberg.substack.com:

Organic farm advocates said they wanted what’s best for the 22 million people of the island nation off the coast of India. What went wrong?

Police use water canon to disperse farmers taking part in an anti-government protest demanding the resignation of Sri Lanka’s President Gotabaya Rajapaksa on July 6, 2022. (Photo by AFP) (Getty Images)

Sri Lanka has fallen. Protesters breached the official residences of Sri Lanka’s Prime Minister and President, who have fled to undisclosed locations out of fear of death. The proximate reason is that the nation is bankrupt, suffering its worst financial crisis in decades. Millions are struggling to purchase food, medicine and fuel. Energy shortages and inflation were major factors behind the crisis. Inflation in June in Sri Lanka was over 50%. Food prices rose by 80%. And a half-million people fell into poverty over the last year.

But the underlying reason for the fall of Sri Lanka is that its leaders fell under the spell of Western green elites peddling organic agriculture and “ESG,” which refers to investments made following supposedly higher Environmental, Social, and Governance criteria. Sri Lanka has a near-perfect ESG score (98) which is higher than Sweden (96) or the United States (51).

To be sure, there were other factors behind Sri Lanka’s fall. Covid lockdowns and a 2019 bombing hurt tourism, a $3 billion to 5 billion-per-year industry. Sri Lanka’s leaders insisted on paying China back for various “Belt and Road” infrastructure projects when other nations refused to do so. Sri Lanka racked up a huge foreign debt. And higher oil prices meant transportation prices rose 128% since May.

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Posted in Business, Collapse, Government, Insurrection

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