============================================================================ 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 ============================================================================ 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> ======================================================================== an activist discussion forum - •••@••.••• To subscribe, send any message to •••@••.••• A public service of Citizens for a Democratic Renaissance •••@••.••• http://cyberjournal.org **--> Non-commercial reposting is encouraged, but please include the sig up through this paragraph and retain any internal credits and copyright notices. Copyrighted materials are posted under "fair-use". Help create the Movement for a Democratic Rensaissance To review renaissance-network archives, send a blank message to: •••@••.••• To subscribe to the the cj list, which is a larger list and a more general political discussion, send a blank message to: •••@••.••• To sample the book-in-progress, "Achieving a Livable World", see: http://cyberjournal.org/cdr/alpw/alpw.html A community will evolve only when the people control their means of communication. -- Frantz Fanon Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful committed citizens can change the world, indeed it's the only thing that ever has. - Margaret Mead