The author of this book contends that the reality of free trade and globalization is impoverishment for growing numbers of people. What is more, the unemployment and marginalization are not confined to the Third World, but also exist in the rich countries and the former Soviet Union. This overview of macroeconomic disaster in the making explains how and why the processes are related. It shows how structures of the global economy have changed fundamentally since the early 1980s, and how the leading international financial institutions, notably the IMF and the World Bank, have forced Third World and Eastern European countries to facilitate these changes. The consequences of the new financial order, as the author's examples from all parts of the world show, is a globalization of poverty.