International Monetary Fund

How The Neocons Subverted Russia’s Financial Stabilization

September 18, 2024 Jeffrey D. Sachs, Scheer Post. Educate! Economic Stability, History, International Monetary Fund, Neocons, Neoconservatism, Russia

In 1989 I served as an advisor to the first post-communist government of Poland, and helped to devise a strategy of financial stabilization and economic transformation. My recommendations in 1989 called for large-scale Western financial support for Poland’s economy in order to prevent a runaway inflation, enable a convertible Polish currency at a stable exchange rate, and an opening of trade and investment with the countries of the European Community (now the European Union). These recommendations were heeded by the US Government, the G7, and the International Monetary Fund. Based on my advice, a $1 billion Zloty stabilization fund was established that served as the backing of Poland’s newly convertible currency.

Three New Kinds Of Refugees In A World Of Migrants

September 7, 2024 Vijay Prashad, Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research. Educate! climate crisis, Immigration, International Monetary Fund, Migrants, Refugees, Regime Change

One summer evening, the unrelenting sun over Niger refused to dip below the horizon. I sought out some shade with three anxious men in Touba au paradis, a small quiet restaurant in Agadez. These three Nigerians had tried to make the crossing at Assamaka, to our north, into Algeria, but found the border barred. They hoped their final destination would be Europe across the Mediterranean Sea, but first they had to make it into Algeria, and then across the remarkable Sahara Desert. By the time I met them, none of these crossings were possible. Algeria had closed the border, and the town of Assamaka had become overrun by desperate people who did not want to retreat but could not go forward.

Generation Z Is At The Forefront Of A Powerful Uprising In Kenya

July 2, 2024 Samuel Karlin, Left Voice. Resist! Gen Z, International Monetary Fund, Kenya, Technology, Youth Activism

Youth in Kenya are rising up in the face of extreme repression. Mass protests began spreading rapidly in response to President William Ruto’s attempt to pass a tax bill. The bill would have raised taxes on household essentials including sugar and cooking oil in compliance with austerity measures that the government is trying to implement in order to receive a loan from the predatory International Monetary Fund (IMF). In response, young Kenyans, proudly identifying as “Generation Z,” have organized a mass movement online. For now, this uprising is developing independently of Kenya’s traditional parties and institutions which would benefit from co-opting the movement out of the streets.

How The International Monetary Fund Continues To Shrink Poorer Nations

October 27, 2023 Vijay Prashad, Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research. Educate! Debt, International Monetary Fund, Neoliberalism, Poverty, Privatization

From 9 to 15 October, the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank held their annual joint meeting in Marrakech (Morocco). The last time that these two Bretton Woods institutions met on African soil was in 1973, when the IMF-World Bank meeting was held in Nairobi (Kenya). Kenya’s then President Jomo Kenyatta (1897–1978) urged those gathered to find ‘an early cure to the monetary sickness of inflation and instability that has afflicted the world’. Kenyatta, who became Kenya’s first president in 1964, noted that, ‘[o]ver the last fifteen years, many developing countries have been losing, every year, a significant proportion of their annual income through deterioration of their terms of trade’.

‘Progress Undone’: New Report Examines Ecuador’s Economy Since 2017

August 16, 2023 Center for Economic and Policy Research. Educate! Ecuador, International Monetary Fund, Neoliberalism, Poverty

Washington, DC — A new report from the Center for Economic and Policy Research examines key indicators for Ecuador’s economy and finds that significant gains of the 2007–2017 period have been erased by subsequent governments that returned to the International Monetary Fund and slashed spending. As a result, poverty and economic inequality have increased, as have crime, insecurity, and worsened health outcomes. “The data make it clear: things have gotten much worse in Ecuador since 2017, with the return to the IMF and to destructive austerity,” CEPR Co-Director Mark Weisbrot said.

Big Companies Earned Over USD 1 Trillion Of Profit In 2022

July 9, 2023 Abdul Rahman, People's Dispatch. Educate! Finance and the Economy, Greed, Hunger, International Monetary Fund, Profits, Taxes

A recently published joint study conducted by Oxfam and Action Aid claims that the total windfall profit of the world’s 722 top companies crossed USD 1 trillion for the second consecutive year in 2022. The study notes that this figure, which is higher than the GDP of a majority of countries in the world, reflects an “obscene” and “immoral” quest for higher profits by the rich, who have exploited the global crisis of energy and food price inflation and higher interest rates in the last two years caused by multiple factors including the COVID-19 pandemic and the war in Ukraine.

Escaping Debt Slavery: Ethiopia, Africa, And The IMF

May 18, 2023 Ann Garrison, Black Agenda Report. Educate! Debt, Ethiopia, Foreign Intervention, International Monetary Fund

Washington is well aware that the Tigray People's Liberation Front (TPLF) tried to regain power militarily and failed. The TPLF has essentially been Washington's proxy in the region. This was a two-year war, and in war, unfortunately, atrocities are committed, but most of the documentation that I have seen places the atrocities on the TPLF side of the fence, and they have been, quite frankly, horrific. Having failed to overthrow the Abiy government and bring the TPLF to power, the United States tried to control the outcome diplomatically, through the Pretoria peace agreement, which Washington orchestrated from the sidelines to save the TPLF from complete defeat. The pressure that is being put on them through this IMF agreement is an example of that.

Sudan’s Crisis And The Hidden Hands Of The IMF

May 12, 2023 Dian Maria Blandina, People's Dispatch. Educate! Austerity, International Monetary Fund, Military coup, Sudan

Sudan is experiencing its fourth week of conflict between two military factions, which has caused the death of over 700 people. Sudanese civilians have fled the capital and the country altogether while the fighting continues with no end in sight. Commentators have so far focused on the military factions and ethnic conflicts. A reductive explanation has been given for the food crisis in Sudan, such as economic crisis, climate change, and the Ukraine war. The significance of macroeconomic policies and the institutions that promote them at the root of these crises tend to be overlooked. Toppling over the breadbasket The IMF imposed liberalization in Sudan, particularly in the agricultural sector, to promote exports.

The IMF Debt Trap And How To Get Out Of It

April 30, 2023 People's Dispatch. Resistance Report Debt, Global South, International Monetary Fund, US Imperialism

Political Economist Grieve Chelwa explains the reasons why countries of the Global South are forced to go time and again to the International Monetary Fund for aid. He talks about how the IMF is essentially a tool of US imperialism and how its policies are designed to keep countries in debt. He also talks about the changing nature of debt and the role of private players such as BlackRock. Grieve Chelwa also explains some of the ways countries in Asia and Africa can get out of this situation, and the kind of international frameworks and policies that will have to be constructed. Grieve Chelwa is the Director of Research at the Institute on Race, Power and Political Economy of the The New School, a member of the Collective on African Political Economy, and one of the authors of the dossier, Life or Debt: The Stranglehold of Neocolonialism and Africa’s Search for Alternatives, published by Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research.

Can BRICS Triumph Over The IMF And World Bank?

April 17, 2023 Ramzy Baroud, Mintpress News. Create! BRICS, Debt, Global South, International Monetary Fund

Who would have expected that the BRICS nations could rise as the potential rival of the G7 countries, the World Bank and the IMF combined? But that once seemingly distant possibility now has real prospects which could change the political equilibrium of world politics. BRICS is an acronym for Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa. It was supposedly coined by the Chief Economist of Goldman Sachs in 2001 as a reference to the world’s emerging economies. It was then known as BRIC, with the ‘S’ added later when South Africa formally joined the group in 2010. BRIC’s first official summit took place in 2009. T

Much Lying From The International Monetary Fund

April 14, 2023 Vijay Prashad, Tricontinental: Institute For Social Research. Educate! Debt, Ghana, International Monetary Fund, Neoliberalism

Remarkably, during her visit to Ghana in late March 2023, US Vice President Kamala Harris announced that the US Treasury Department’s Office of Technical Assistance will ‘deploy a full-time resident advisor in 2023 to Accra to assist the Ministry of Finance in developing and executing medium- to long-term reforms needed to improve debt sustainability and support a competitive, dynamic government debt market’. Ghana certainly faces significant challenges in this arena, with its external debt standing at $36 billion and its debt to Gross Domestic Product ratio hovering over 100 percent.

IMF Is Forcing Some Of Hardest-Hit Countries To Pay Unnecessary Fees

April 14, 2023 Center for Economic and Policy Research. Educate! Debt, Economic crisis, International Monetary Fund, Predatory Lending

Washington, DC — The International Monetary Fund is requiring that some of its most heavily indebted borrowers pay billions in unnecessary and counterproductive fees, new research from the Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR) shows. The new issue brief, “The Growing Burden of IMF Surcharges: An Updated Estimate,” by Francisco Amsler and Michael Galant, finds that the IMF will charge over $2 billion per year in surcharges through 2025, even as IMF Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva warns that “poverty and hunger could further increase,” and as the Fund notes that some 15 percent of countries are experiencing debt distress “and an additional 45 percent are at high risk of debt distress.”

Strike The Women, You Strike The Rock, You Will Be Crushed

March 24, 2023 Vijay Prashad, Tricontinental: Institute For Social Research. Educate! Banking Crisis, Gender Parity, Global Economy, International Monetary Fund

What constitutes a crisis worthy of global attention? When a regional bank in the United States falls victim to the inversion of the yield curve (i.e., when short-term bond interest rates become higher than long-term rates), the Earth nearly stops spinning. The collapse of Silicon Valley Bank (SVB) – one of the most important financiers of technology start-ups in the United States – on 10 March presaged wider chaos in the Western financial world. In the days after the SVB debacle, Signature Bank, one of the few banks to accept cryptocurrency deposits, faced bankruptcy, and then Credit Suisse, an established European bank set up in 1856, fell due its longstanding poor management of risk.

How Argentina Has Been Trapped In Neocolonial Debt For 200 Years

December 19, 2022 Esteban Almiron, Multipolarista. Educate! Argentina, Debt, International Monetary Fund

The deuda (“debt” in Spanish) is one of the most persistent elements in the two centuries of Argentina’s history. It has conditioned the political life and the economy of the country like no other factor, for generations. But this should not be confused with just any debt. The word deuda normally refers to the external debt (both public and private), a debt owed to foreign creditors. Historically, the key aspect of the deuda is that it is based on a foreign currency, the world trade currency controlled by the ruling empire. It was once the British pound. Since 1944 it has largely been the US dollar. The United States can “print” dollars (and the Federal Reserve does so regularly), but Argentina cannot. The same is true of other countries in the Global South with large external debts denominated in foreign currencies.

IMF Warns Of ‘Wave Of Debt Crises’ Coming In Global South

November 14, 2022 Ben Norton, Multipolarista. Educate! Debt, Global Economy, Global South, International Monetary Fund

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has said a “wave of debt crises” may be coming in the Global South, and “the global economy is headed for stormy waters,” as the world faces a “geopolitical realignment” that will be “permanent.” The US-dominated financial institution warned “the worst is yet to come,” as the depreciation of most currencies against the dollar and rising interest rates make it hard for both governments and companies to service their dollar-denominated debt. The director of the IMF’s research department, Pierre‑Olivier Gourinchas, made these comments in a press briefing on October 11. Countries comprising a third of the entire global economy are expected to contract in 2022 or 2023, he prognosticated. “In short, the worst is yet to come; and for many people, 2023 will feel like a recession,” he said.

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