rn- re: debt relief

1999-10-09

Richard Moore

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Date: Fri, 8 Oct 1999 19:10:25 -0400 (EDT)
To: •••@••.•••
From: David Lewit <•••@••.•••>
Subject: Re: rn: Jubilee success- foreign debt relief

Jan and Richard:

Richard, you are correct.  Further, "poorest countries" may well refer to
those whose debt is simply unpayable--they can barely pay the interest and
have no prospect of ever retiring the principal.  For those accounts, it is
wasteful to the lender to keep spinning the wheels.  There is no compassion
in Clinton's proposed move.  He should propose banning all structural
readjustment conditions for US loans, but hey, he's a good old boy!

See web page for 50 Years is Enough.

Aloha--  Dave L

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Date: Fri, 08 Oct 1999 03:26:16 +0600
To: •••@••.•••
From: "wendell w. solomons" <•••@••.•••>
Subject: Jubilee Year - milestone for debt creation
Cc: •••@••.•••

From Richard:

What this apparently means is that $5.7 billion is owed to private banks,
and that the US governemnt (ie, us taxpayers) is going to give $1 billion
dollars to these banks in return for the debts being written off. Thus
what's _really going on, is that _banks are being given a windfall.  They
are being given $1 billion dollars to reimburse them for loans which they
never should have made in the first place, and which have already been
written off.

Richard outlines the mechanics of this operation. The debt creation model has
appended a trillion dollar public debt to the people of the U.S.A.; they pay
interest which is already equivalent to all income tax collected. The dormant
$ 1 billion now increases the liability of the American people. Here the money
elite uses diversion to make the Year of Jubilee another milestone for its
role in debt creation. Show a penny take a pound.

Now take this post.

From: Ian Burn <•••@••.•••>

... IMF has just visited Colombia which has a contracting economy  (-6%).

Still, like global warming,  it is good to hear Clinton saying the  right
things, even if reality is something different ...

International Secretary - Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand

OK. You hear the logic of "half a loaf is better than no loaf". Also,
from the original Reuter news report:

Following Clinton's speech, advocates for debt relief were ecstatic.
Jubilee 2000, a coalition which has been dogged in its push for  complete
debt forgiveness, said that the G7 should now work out a deal to match
Clinton's pledge.

``This announcement changes everything,'' Jubilee 2000 Director Ann
Pettifor said. ``In order to meet the president's challenge to 'do
better,' the world's leaders must meet again before the millennium.''

That is the purpose for which Clinton was used. This is a device for which
an advertising firm can be taken to court: 'bait and twist.' The idea here
is to create a sterile analogue of what activists ask for and use it to
dampen pleas for the real thing.

Debt creation for Americans must remain. Americans work in a golden  cage
which leaves a $ 150 billion global sales deficit. The 'insecurity' in
foreign markets which flush in savings to cover up that sales deficit
must remain. The creation of indebtedness in vulnerable small countries
through the imposing of neoliberal 'reforms' - that too must remain.

<snip>



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