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Invisiblesilversoul7
Chill the FuckOut!
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Registered: 10/10/02
Posts: 27,301
Loc: mndfreeze's puppet army
Third World Debt
    #3499146 - 12/14/04 06:11 PM (19 years, 3 months ago)

I just wanted to get everyone's opinion on this. For those who don't know about it, back in the 70's, OPEC raised the price of oil, which they invested in various American banks. Many third world nations couldn't afford the oil they needed, so they took out loans from these banks to buy oil. This was probably one of the worst financial decisions ever made. The money wasn't spent on projects which could be used to pay off the debt, so the interest just kept building up, and these nations have had to spend more and more of their GNP on debt repayment, leaving their countries to go to ruins. Now, the question has often been asked as to whether or not the debt should be forgiven. This to me is easy: Of course it should. People should not be made to suffer for their government's incompetence. However, it seems that a better question would be what it would entail to forgive the debt. This isn't a government that these countries owe money to. It's private banks. So what should be done about this?


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"It is dangerous to be right when the government is wrong."--Voltaire

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InvisibleGreat_Satan
prophet of God
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Registered: 09/05/04
Posts: 953
Re: Third World Debt [Re: silversoul7]
    #3499169 - 12/14/04 06:16 PM (19 years, 3 months ago)

The Federal Reserve will pay for it as usual.

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OfflineSWEDEN
Miracle of Science

Registered: 10/25/04
Posts: 2,577
Loc: PNW
Last seen: 6 years, 10 months
Re: Third World Debt [Re: silversoul7]
    #3499224 - 12/14/04 06:24 PM (19 years, 3 months ago)

There sure can be a lot of speculation on what should be done, but what actually can be done is another thing entirely.

What should be done:  Bankers should leave everyone the fuck alone and refocus their drive reduction necessity to something other than the accumulation of more money/power.

What can be done:  Since the above will never happen, what else can 3rd wolrd populations do but suffer, multiply, and strap on explosive belts.  What else can we as Americans do but... I don't want to be the one to suggest it, never know who might be watching >_<  :eyeball:

Something needs to change, and sitting around isn't going to change it.  Neither will protesting.


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OfflineSWEDEN
Miracle of Science

Registered: 10/25/04
Posts: 2,577
Loc: PNW
Last seen: 6 years, 10 months
Re: Third World Debt [Re: SWEDEN]
    #3499236 - 12/14/04 06:26 PM (19 years, 3 months ago)

"The Federal Reserve will pay for it as usual."

The Federal Reserve is institutionalized fraud at its best. You cannot create wealth out of thin air. The U.S. dollar has maybe 1-2% of what its value once was, thanks to the FR. Alan Greenspan can suck my hairy shlong.


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InvisibleGreat_Satan
prophet of God
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Registered: 09/05/04
Posts: 953
Re: Third World Debt [Re: SWEDEN]
    #3499252 - 12/14/04 06:28 PM (19 years, 3 months ago)


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InvisibleKrishna
कृष्ण,LOL
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Registered: 05/08/03
Posts: 23,285
Loc: oakland
Re: Third World Debt [Re: Great_Satan]
    #3499347 - 12/14/04 06:39 PM (19 years, 3 months ago)

definitely - cancellation of all 3rd world debt is something that must be done if we ever want the world to reach some state of equity and sustainability. i'm about to eat some dinner, so will post a more detailed analysis of this later tonight- but just one point to think about in my absence - an overwhelming majority of countries that acquired debt in this period also did so when they were suffering underneath dictatorships. thus, how is it fair to further and systematically impoverish the people of these countries for the actions of cruel, facist, (not to mention western-supported) dictators?


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InvisibleSearch59
Yet anotherhobby for me.

Registered: 10/28/04
Posts: 116
Re: Third World Debt [Re: Krishna]
    #3499388 - 12/14/04 06:44 PM (19 years, 3 months ago)

The solution is simple, OPEC needs to stop FUCKING with the prices and just keep it steady. The countries will catch up when THEIR product that they produce. When the oil costs just as much as the product sells for, debts will never be paid back.


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The only beneficiaries of Prohibition were bootleggers(drug makers), crime bosses(drug pushers), and the forces of big government(DEA).
(wheres the benefit for the consumer?)

You gotta check this out.
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Ride the wave of the mellow fractal rainbow!

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OfflinePhred
Fred's son
Male

Registered: 10/18/00
Posts: 12,949
Loc: Dominican Republic
Last seen: 9 years, 2 months
Re: Third World Debt [Re: silversoul7]
    #3499477 - 12/14/04 06:57 PM (19 years, 3 months ago)

Both parties made a mistake -- the countries taking out the loans mishandled the funds they received, but they're the ones in the catbird seat. The banks misjudged the people they were loaning to and now are basically without recourse should the borrower default.

If the banks have nothing as collateral (and typically in cases such as these the only "collateral" they receive is a fistful of government bonds issued by the regime in charge at the time of the loans) then they are completely exposed. If the borrower defaults on the loan the bank has no recourse but to write it off.

This has happened many times in the past -- banks being stiffed by governments defaulting on their loans -- and it will happen again in the future. Bankers have to get it pounded through their thick heads that rather than being a safe investment as so many seem to still (against all evidence) believe, lending to governments -- especially foreign governments -- is a sucker bet. One of the main reasons the IMF and the World Bank are so much more influential today than they were in the past is precisely because private banks became increasingly reluctant to make such loans.

You ask what should be done? By whom?

The governments of the country the lending banks are located in have no dog in this hunt, so they need do nothing. The banks can't do anything. The borrowing nations hold all the cards. They can make partial payments or no payments as they see fit. The only negative result of such actions is to make future loans more difficult and/or costly to acquire. That is unfortunate and it may not be the fault of the people currently in charge of those nations, but that is the reality of the situation.


pinky


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InvisibleGreat_Satan
prophet of God
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Registered: 09/05/04
Posts: 953
Re: Third World Debt [Re: Phred]
    #3499740 - 12/14/04 07:37 PM (19 years, 3 months ago)


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Offlinezappaisgod
horrid asshole

Registered: 02/11/04
Posts: 81,741
Loc: Fractallife's gym
Last seen: 7 years, 9 months
Re: Third World Debt [Re: Phred]
    #3499762 - 12/14/04 07:40 PM (19 years, 3 months ago)

I think a big reason why these banks even lend money to shitholes like Sierra Leone and its ilk is that some douchebag gets a big ego trip out of putting together a huge deal and sells it to the board. I've always wondered why these fucking tools ever lent these swine money. You would have to be out of your mind. It's like lending money to Eric Roberts in the "Pope of Greenwich Village." At some point, you have to take his thumb.


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OfflineAlan Stone
Corpus

Registered: 11/23/02
Posts: 986
Loc: Ten feet up
Last seen: 18 years, 8 months
Re: Third World Debt [Re: Great_Satan]
    #3503103 - 12/15/04 11:03 AM (19 years, 3 months ago)

If you're gonna post off-topic links, at least find some articles based on objectivity. Seems to me the author of that article is every bit as " racist, crude, childish, self-defeating and, at bottom, nonsensical." as he would have us European intelligentsia be.

Quote:

The U.S. is the world's most successful democracy.



Uh-huh. Not only is the article ad-hominem, seeking to discredit those that critisize America, it's also based on good ole-fashioned patriottism. There are other success factors than military scores.

Quote:

The right of voters to elect more than 80,000 public officials, the length and thoroughness of electoral campaigns, the pervasiveness of the media and the almost daily reports by opinion polls ensure that government and electorate do not diverge for long and that Washington generally reflects the majority opinion in its actions.



Persuasiveness of the media: who could call that a good thing, if they're (like Fox News) claiming to be objective?
Daily polls: they don't tell you anything about how sincerely the government is interested in that opinion.
Washington reflecting the people's opinion: don't all democratic governments do that?
So far, nothing valuable brought to the table.

Quote:

It is this feature that intellectuals--especially in Europe--find embittering.



What feature?

Quote:

They cannot openly admit that an entire people--especially one comprising nearly 300 million, who enjoy all the freedoms--can be mistaken.



Population is no argument. Add up Europe's population and it exceeds the U.S.'
Freedoms? Yeah, like the freedom to privacy, the freedom to have religious education in public schools, the freedom to have affordable health care, affordable education, etc.

Quote:

But in their hearts these intellectuals do not accept the principle of one person, one vote. They scornfully, if privately, reject the notion that a farmer in Kansas, a miner in Pennsylvania or an auto assembler in Michigan can carry as much social and moral weight as they do.



Ad hominem; conjecture.

Quote:

In fact, they have a special derogatory word for anyone who acts on this assumption: "populist." A populist is someone who accepts the people's verdict, even--and especially--when it runs counter to the intellectual consensus (as with capital punishment, for example). In the jargon of intellectual persiflage, populism is almost as bad as fascism--indeed, it's a step toward it. Hence, the argument goes, the U.S. is not so much an "educated democracy" as it is a media-swayed and interest-group-controlled populist regime.



Wrong. A populist is someone who'll pull stunts to divert attention from his/her other plans for the nation. This is not only found in America, it's also found in Europe. Example: a while ago, the then-assigned secretary of public transit in Belgium came up with the idea to offer free public transportation to retired folks. At the same time, his own political party wasn't doing so well in polls AND the government's budget couldn't really afford the plan.
That's what populism is, pulling stunts to blindfold people, making sure they'll refrain from long-term thinking.

Quote:

The truth is, on the European Continent there is little experience of working democracy. Italy and Germany have had democracy only since the late 1940s; Spain, since the 1960s. France is not a democracy; it is a republic run by bureaucratic and party elites



The amount of time a country's been democratic says nothing about its current leaders. France being run by party elites: is not America run by Republican elites? Would Bush have run for president if his father never had?

Quote:

whose errors are dealt with by strikes, street riots and blockades instead of by votes.



What street riots? I've been following international news for a few years, and I've never come across any political issues being dealt by street riots or blockades. As to strikes: trade unions are a micro-democracy in their own right. They join in social discussions with the government. If they want to exert influence, who says they shouldn't?

Quote:

Elements of the French system are being imposed throughout the EU, even in countries such as Denmark and Sweden that have long practiced democracy with success.



Not much longer than other European countries, though.


Quote:

In a French-style pseudodemocracy, intellectuals have considerable influence, at both government and street levels. In a true democracy, intellectuals are no more powerful than their arguments.



Then this author must be pretty powerless.

Quote:

What these Euro-elites particularly abhor is the way in which the framers of the Constitution made every effort to involve the population through the process of public debates, town meetings and ratification votes--and this at a time when Europe was still governed (for the most part) by the absolute sovereigns of the ancien r?gime.



Yeah, right. No evidence given to back this up. Makes sense why.

Quote:

The European intelligentsia gets its notion of America chiefly from Hollywood, TV soaps like Dallas and fiction. Few of them have any experience of America, outside of three or four big cities. Middle America is unexplored territory. The fact that the U.S. has proved a highly efficient crucible for melding different peoples into a human sum greater than its constituent parts is seen as a misfortune in Europe because it produces a cultural stew that lacks purity of any kind and is therefore at the mercy of commercial forces.



Methinks he doesn't get the definition of "intelligentsia". Any "intellectual" who bases an opinion on Hollywood and tv alone is not an intellectual. Nice subvertive way to blend in racism into the argument. Intellectuals care not for the "purity" of bloodlines.

Quote:

Third, European elites tend to look at Americans as a subcivilized mass, whose function is to be obedient consumers in a system run by big business. The role of competition in U.S. economic life--and in every other aspect of life--is ignored, because competition is something Continental Europeans like to keep to a minimum and under careful control.



Oh, puh-leeze ! Competition is kept fair here, not "to a minimum". If Coca-Cola ruins Meso-American soda pop producers by plumetting the price beyond all reason, how is that "competition"? If Microsoft is the company licensing manifacturers for drivers for their devices, how is that "competition" with Apple?

Quote:

Although Americans are seen as highly materialistic consumers, they are also despised and feared for their spiritual interests, their participation in religious worship and their subscription to creeds of morality. Europeans see no inconsistency in their condemnation of the U.S. for being at one and the same time paganly unethical and morally zealous.



Link between religion and morality, please?

Quote:

The truth is, any accusation that comes to hand is used without scruple by the Old World intelligentsia.



The truth is, any accusation that comes to hand, no matter how personal and irrelevant to the issues at hand, is used without scruple by the New World NeoCons.

Quote:

It is an envy made all the more poisonous because of a fearful European conviction that America's strength is rising while Europe's is falling.




http://www.forbes.com/business/feeds/ap/2004/12/15/ap1713732.html


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It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it.

- Aristotle

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