Monday, April 16, 2007

A MESS OF HELP

The IMF is, in effect, a bank. And as we as customers know, every bank is desperate to sell you credit, especially if it knows you will have trouble repaying it.

So perhaps it is no surprise to read, via Barry at The Cash Nexus, that during the late 1990s the IMF apparently pumped Argentina full of loans it knew the country would be unable to pay :

The report states:

The Fund had literally played a game of confidence, apparently believing that optimism on the part of the IMF would lead to optimism in financial markets for Argentina’s debt.

Argentina´s failure (inevitable, so it seems now) to repay these loans led to devaluation of currency : overnight, a peso went from being worth 1 dollar to being worth one third of a dollar. 50% of the country´s population descended, again overnight, into poverty. Still, anything for an IMF loan-repayment!

2 Comments:

Blogger minifig said...

How dare you suggest that the IMF would act in such a way. They and the WTO are entirely above reproach.

I mean, look at Paul Wolfowitz.

6:58 AM  
Blogger Unknown said...

thanks for the link. There's a quote somehwere from Walter Benjamin about the loneliness of the writer who throws things out not knowing where they will land. On the one hand, I write out of pure ego (a la George Orwell) but aso to forge connections.
I stuck a link on my blog to your site.

4:16 PM  

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