Below you'll find a list of all posts that have been tagged as “International Monetary Fund”
The legitimacy of a given social order rests on the legitimacy of its debts. Even in ancient times this was so. In traditional cultures, debt in a broad sense—gifts to be reciprocated, memories of help rendered, obligations not yet fulfilled—was a glue that held society together. Everybody at one time or another owed something to someone else. Repayment of debt …
Earlier in August, Ukraine managed to avoid a technical default by paying off its $120 million eurobond coupon. The next payment, $500 million, is due to be made in September. “Creditors are always in a bad situation under these conditions – there’s no money to be had, but they still want their money. But I actually think there’s no chance that Ukraine’s going to be able to pay what they owe, and …
Though transparency was a cause he championed when campaigning for the presidency, President Obama has largely avoided making certain defense costs known to the public. However, when it comes to military appropriations for government spy agencies, we know from Freedom of Information Act requests that the so-called “black budget” is an increasingly massive expenditure subsidized by American taxpayers. The CIA …
hock of all shocks, the IMF announced the Chinese yuan will not be admitted into the SDR until at least Sept. 2016. What exactly does this mean? I can tell you the gold community is so shell shocked and fearful at this point, it “must be bad for gold”, right? Going back a couple of weeks, China announced they had …
For a moment this summer, it appeared that Greece had cornered its creditors. In a hotly contested vote in which their European neighbors openly intervened, Greeks overwhelmingly voted to reject more austerity. In a controversial turnaround, however, Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras then submitted to the demands of eurozone leaders for more austerity measures in return for a bailout loan …
Dr. Richard Smith is an historian specializing in China and its transition to capitalism, and on economics, environmental and ecological issues. He received his doctorate in history from UCLA and has written on the many penetrating investigative reports and research papers on the capitalism’s failures and threats to the preservation of our planet. He is the author of “Green Capitalism: The God that Failed” published earlier this year by the World Economics Association. He is currently working two new books addressing China’s environmental threats and another on capitalism and the global environment.
Dr. Richard Smith is an historian specializing in China and its transition to capitalism, and on economics, environmental and ecological issues. He received his doctorate in history from UCLA and has written on the many penetrating investigative reports and research papers on the capitalism’s failures and threats to the preservation of our planet. He is the author of “Green Capitalism: The God that Failed” published earlier this year by the World Economics Association. He is currently working two new books addressing China’s environmental threats and another on capitalism and the global environment.
Debt: The Creation of A Global Crisis
The forced, politically engineered bankruptcy of the City of Detroit has been an ongoing discussion on Leid Stories for almost two years. Its historic bankruptcy court filing, to discharge $18 billion in debts, still wreaks havoc with Detroiters, who now must live under the yoke of blistering austerity.
Detroit, however, was a template for almost 60 U.S. cities said to be on the brink of bankruptcy because of debt, as Puerto Rico, a U.S. territory, grapples with an onerous debt of $73 billion.
But debt is a geopolitical contrivance, says Yanis Varoufakis, who on July 6 quit as finance minister in Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras’s government of Greece, opposing European Union, International Monetary Fund and bankers’ demands for drastic cutbacks to service the country’s debt obligations.
In a wide-ranging talk in Seattle three years ago, when he was an economics professor, Varoufakis deconstructs the myth of a global debt crisis.
Carolyn and Mark Matousek discuss his work with helping people transform through telling the truth about their own personal stories. Download this episode (right click and save)
Puerto Rico’s governor may have said the commonwealth’s debt is unpayable, but that doesn’t mean Puerto Ricans aren’t going to pay for it. Vulture capitalists are circling the island, ready to extract still more wealth from the impoverished island. You already know the drill: Capital is sucked out by corporate interests that pay little in taxes, budget deficits grow and …
