Nations play the international finance game, manipulating the institutions that govern the world economy for their own benefit, and that of the corporations that operation within their borders. The problem of China has been particularly acute given the confluence of public and private as represented by its communistic system, and by the People's Republic's willingness to use the floating dollar to its own considerable economic advantage. By having pegged, or near-pegged its currency to the American dollar for so long, China has benefited by seeing its vast numbers of exports to the United States remain eminently affordable despite the dollar's steep slide. The Asian nation remains a magnet for Western companies eager to find cheap sources of manufactured goods and, as with India, a prime location for the outsourcing that many allege is robbing developed economies of even high-skilled jobs. India is particularly noted for its cultivation of high-tech industries and associated outsourcing. The resultant job drain was not the intended consequence of a monetary financial policy that was supposed to make all nations "equal." Nandan Nilekani, an Indian entrepreneur in the booming technological haven of Bangalore, attributes his nation's ability to compete on a global level directly to the American dot.com boom of the 1990s, and the enormous capital sums it raised. It was these very funds that made computers affordable and widespread in places like Bangalore, thus making possible India's conquest of old barriers of time and distance. It is a curious fact that the organizations that were put in place to "help" the world's developing nations while maintaining American and European economic dominance have worked also against those nations. While many of the globe's people's remain mired in poverty, technologically-backward, and benefiting little from the wonders of modern industry, certain nations, like China and India, have made out well from policies that have shifted wealth and opportunity in their directions. The United States bolsters its superpower status, both economically and politically, through a mass of loans and the artificial gravity afforded its currency. At the same time, America's, and Europe's multinational corporations have...

They have made use of the tools afforded them by supranational organizations, like the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank, to funnel cash toward the economic powerhouses of Asia. These countries also manipulate the system, employing the easy money almost as subsidies while they reap the benefits of lower labor and manufacturing costs. India, in particular, has captured a considerable part of the windfall on the highest end of the economic spectrum, making use of the high technology financial gambit to build up its own technological infrastructure, an infrastructure that now permits it to be a major player in the world of computer technology. China, for its part, produces a major portion of America's manufactured good, growing rich, while the United States descends deeper and deeper into debt. The international system is indeed a source of global integration, but it is also fraught with problems, as few realize that many of its methods and institutions possess unintended consequences. The question remains as follows: who benefits, and should these beneficiaries be continued to reap the rewards, or should there be a re-alignment to achieve true equity?
Works Cited

Friedman, Thomas L. "It's a Flat World After All." New York Times Magazine. 3 April 2003, 34.

Mallaby, Sebastian. "Saving the World Bank: Mission Impossible?" Foreign Affairs 84.3. May 2005.

Rourke, John T. "Financial Regime: The International Monetary Fund." International Politics on the World Stage. New York: McGraw-Hill, 2000.

Sachs, Jeffrey D. "The FP Memo - Urgent: How to Run the International Monetary Fund." Foreign Policy. July-August 2004.

John T. Rourke, "Financial Regime: The International Monetary Fund," International Politics on the World Stage, New York: McGraw-Hill, 2000, 37.

Jeffrey D. Sachs, "The FP Memo - Urgent: How to Run the International Monetary Fund," Foreign Policy, July-August 2004, 61.

Sebastian Mallaby, "Saving the World Bank: Mission Impossible?" Foreign Affairs 84.3, May 2005, 5.

Thomas L. Friedman, "It's a Flat World After All," New York Times Magazine, 3 April…