UN General Assembly
1989

Ultimately, crises are brought about by failure to interpret objectively existing risk indicators and by lack of willingness to commit the necessary ideas and resources to prevent them. The debt crisis requires the same long-range vision as was applied to Japan and Europe after the war. What is at stake is the destiny of mankind. Almost one third of the world's population is unable to achieve a solution to the problem of economic growth as a prerequisite to the possibility of servicing the debt. The danger of a social explosion embracing over 1 billion human beings will not be avoided, and the consequences of that explosion will be felt in the industrialized nations, which look with unprecedented coldness upon the rapid deterioration of the situation*