Debt

African Countries Aren’t Borrowing Too Much: They’re Paying Too Much For Debt

March 3, 2020 Misheck Mutize, Theconversation.com Educate! Africa, Debt, Finance and the Economy

There is renewed concern about the sustainability of rising debt levels in many African countries. Much of this debt is being incurred through foreign currency denominated Eurobonds issued on international financial markets. The total value of Eurobonds issued between 2018 and 2019 was more than the value of all bonds sold between 2003 to 2016.

Debtors Of The World, Unite!

March 2, 2020 By Hannah Appel, Bostonreview.net Organize! Debt, Electoral Politics

Moral thinking about debt has fluctuated throughout history, as Olivia Schwob’s recent piece in these pages deftly details. The current moment, she notes, marks the possibility of still another turning point. Millions of debtors, isolated, are owned by the banks. But if you’re part of a collective that owes $14.15 trillion, you all own the banks.

I Will Hold You In My Arms A Day After The War

February 3, 2020 Vijay Prashad, Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research. Educate! Debt, Global Finance, Neoliberalism, Wars and Militarism

On Monday, 27 January, the South African photographer Santu Mofokeng slipped away. His camera had been a familiar presence in the anti-apartheid struggle; after years of photographing police violence and popular resistance, he tired of making ‘images bespeaking gloom, monotony, anguish, struggle, [and] oppression’, he wrote in 1993. It was then that Santu turned his camera on the life of the black working class. ‘Perhaps I was looking for something that refuses to be photographed,’ he said. ‘I was only chasing shadows, perhaps’. Those who search for the future chase shadows. When the future is bleak, you feel like shutting your eyes. In mid-January, the UN Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) released its flagship report, World Economic Situation and Prospects 2020.

The Corporate Debt Bubble Is A Train Wreck In Slow Motion

January 25, 2020 Brandon Smith, Alt-market.com Educate! Corporations, Debt

There are two subjects that the mainstream media seems specifically determined to avoid discussing these days when it comes to the economy - the first is the problem of falling global demand for goods and services; they absolutely refuse to acknowledge the fact that demand is going stagnant and will conjure all kinds of rationalizations to distract from the issue. The other subject is the debt bubble, the corporate debt bubble in particular.

Lebanon Protests: The People Want The Downfall Of The Bank

November 11, 2019 Hicham Safieddine, Middleeasteye.net Resist! Banks, Debt, Lebanon, Protests

There is no shortage of corruption in Lebanon. According to Transparency International, people in Lebanon are the most likely in the MENA region to describe their politicians and state institutions as highly corrupt. From the smallest bureaucratic transaction to the largest government contract, billions of dollars are drained from people’s pockets through bribery and from the public purse through embezzlement. But the focus on liberal forms of corruption, as defined by Transparency International and other international actors, has reduced the crisis to a problem of bad governance.

Army Recruitment Now Based On Student Debt

November 5, 2019 Staff, Couragetoresist.org Educate! Army, Debt, Military Recruitment, Students

The U.S. Army wants a 500,000 active-duty force by the end of this next decade, about 25,000 more than today. And preying on low income high schoolers is apparently how they intend to do it. This past month the Army announced that they have already surpassed their recruitment goals for 2019–with three months still to go. That a big change from recent years’ where unsuccessful recruiting outcomes have been the norm. So what changed? Recruiters are no longer using patriotism as their main marketing strategy. And wars in the Middle East are not on the talking points either.

China Breaks The Western Debt Stranglehold On The World

November 5, 2019 By Peter Koenig, Journal-neo.org Educate! China, Debt, Inter-Imperialist Rivalry

The west has colonized, exploited, ravaged and assassinated the people of the Global South for hundreds of years. Up to the mid-20th Century Europe has occupied Africa, and large parts of Asia. In Latin America, though much of the sub-Continent was “freed” from Spain and Portugal in the 19th Century – a new kind of colonization followed by the new Empire of the United States – under the so-called Monroe Doctrine, named after President James Monroe (1817 -1825), forbidding Europeans to interfere in any “American territory”. Latin America was then and is again today considered Washington’s Backyard.

A Radical Break With The Status Quo Is The Most Sensible Path Forward

November 4, 2019 Diliff, Publicbankinginstitute.org Create! Banks, Debt, New Economy

“Today, it is quite clear that only a radical break with the past will deliver us from the post-crisis malaise and the climate crisis that has emerged alongside it. … A public banking system must be established as part of this in order to direct capital away from speculation and towards productive, sustainable investment. These plans must be accompanied by greater state and worker ownership so that the returns from growth are not monopolised by a tiny elite.

Ministers Resign After Third Day Of Protests In Lebanon

October 20, 2019 Al Jazeera. Resist! Debt, Lebanon, Mass Movement

A Lebanese Christian party has announced it is quitting the government after a third day of protests across the country against tax increases and alleged official corruption. After tens of thousands took to the streets on Saturday, four ministers from the Lebanese Forces party, a traditional ally of Prime Minister Saad Hariri, resigned from his cabinet. "We are convinced that the government is unable to take the necessary steps to save the situation", said Samir Geagea, head of the party. Hariri has given his deeply divided coalition until Monday evening to commit to a reform package aimed at shoring up the government's finances and securing the disbursement of desperately needed economic assistance from donors.

Protesters Call For Removal Of MoMA Trustee Linked To Puerto Rican Debt Crisis

October 18, 2019 Zachary Small, Theartnewspaper.com Resist! Debt, Museums, Protests, Puerto Rico

The newly expanded Museum of Modern Art in New York has yet to officially reopen to the public—and already finds itself under siege. Dozens of protesters plan to crash its opening preview party on Friday 18 October, calling upon the museum to divest itself from private prisons by severing its ties with Bank of America and the investment management firm BlackRock, whose CEO Laurence Fink sits on the museum’s board. Fidelity Investments, which manages MoMA’s pension fund, is also a large owner of private prison stocks.

UVA Suspends Medical Lawsuits In Wake Of KHN Investigation

September 14, 2019 Jay Hancock and Carmen Heredia Rodriguez, Kaiser Health News. Educate! Bankruptcy, Debt, Health Care, Hospitals

Charlottesville, Va. — Under pressure after Kaiser Health News reported Monday that it sues thousands of patients a year and sends many into bankruptcy, University of Virginia Health System suspended about a dozen patient lawsuits Thursday and said it will announce changes to its billing and collections policy Friday. Over six years, the state institution filed 36,000 lawsuits against patients seeking a total of more than $106 million in unpaid bills, a KHN analysis finds. At a weekly session at the Albemarle County Courthouse often dominated by UVA hospital litigation, UVA lawyer Melissa Riley said cases due to be heard Thursday would be withdrawn while the system takes a broader look at its long-standing practice of aggressive debt collection.

The Key To A Sustainable Economy Is 5,000 Years Old

August 30, 2019 By Ellen Brown, Truthdig.com Educate! Debt, New Economy

We are again reaching the point in the business cycle known as “peak debt,” when debts have compounded to the point that their cumulative total cannot be paid. Student debt, credit card debt, auto loans, business debt and sovereign debt are all higher than they have ever been. As economist Michael Hudson writes in his provocative 2018 book, “…and forgive them their debts,” debts that can’t be paid won’t be paid. The question, he says, is how they won’t be paid. Mainstream economic models leave this problem to “the invisible hand of the market,” assuming trends will self-correct over time.

Are Ordinary People In The United States Screwed? My Reply

August 18, 2019 Jack Rasmus on his website. Educate! Debt, Finance and the Economy, New Economy, Recession, wealth inequality

In short, the policies since 2008–both Obama’s and Trump’s–for ten years now have been subsidizing the rich, the elites, the owners of capital incomes like never before in US history. Tax cuts and Fed policies have subsidized (i.e. redistributed) tens of trillions of dollars for the elites from fiscal and monetary policies. The redistribution/subsidization has been so extreme that that fiscal and monetary policies are now effectively ‘dead in the water’ when it comes to try to stimulate the real US economy once it descends into recession–which is less than 12 months away for the US and already happening in Europe, Latin America, and parts of Asia. Fiscal policy in the US is now dead-ended as an effective stimulus policy tool due to the $22 trillion current US national debt levels and annual $1 trillion plus budget deficits.

The Average U.S. Farm Is $1,300,000 In Debt, And Now The Worst Farming Crisis In Modern History Is Upon Us

August 16, 2019 By Michael Snyder, Endoftheamericandream.com Educate! Debt, Farming

We haven’t seen anything like this since the Great Depression of the 1930s. Leading up to this year, farm incomes had been trending lower for most of the past decade, and meanwhile farm debt levels have been absolutely exploding. So U.S. farmers were desperate for a really good year, but instead 2019 has been a total disaster. As I have been carefully documenting, due to endless rain and catastrophic flooding millions of acres of prime farmland didn’t get planted at all this year, and the yields on tens of millions of other acres are expected to be way, way below normal.

The Mexican Debt Crisis And The World Bank

August 13, 2019 Eric Toussaint, Cadtm.org Educate! Debt, New Economy, US Imperialism, World Bank

Robert McNamara and president Luis Echeverria (1970-1976) were thick as thieves. The Mexican president had cracked down on the radical left. From 1973 on, Mexico’s foreign currency revenue soared thanks to the tripling of oil prices. This increase in currency revenue should have prevented Mexico from borrowing. However the volume of WB loans to Mexico rose sharply: it quadrupled from 1973 to 1981 (from USD 118 million in 1973 to 460 million in 1981). Mexico also borrowed from private banks with the World Bank’s backing.

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