Below you'll find a list of all posts that have been tagged as “International Monetary Fund”
Deutsche Bank’s shares plunged to record lows this week, sparking talk of a government bailout to avert a new financial crash. The turmoil surrounding Germany’s biggest bank demonstrates that all of the contradictions of the global financial system that led to the meltdown of 2008 are once again erupting. Now, however, these contradictions are fuelling and intersecting with economic and …
Most Americans know very little about Russia, and what they do know is subverted by many decades of U.S. government anti-Soviet and anti-Russian propaganda. From 1917 to Dec. 26, 1991, when the USSR imploded, Washington depicted the Soviet Union as an immoral aggressor state seeking to destroy capitalism and freedom in the United States and rule the world. Again, from …
Before the externally-orchestrated dirty war on Syria started with the externally-orchestrated “Arab Spring” psy op; before the “peaceful protestors” shot the unarmed Syrian security forces; and before the West armed, trained and funded the international mercenary cannibals who loot, rape, and plunder; Syria was an oasis of civilization surrounded by imperial puppet states. Syria was prosperous, with a growing economy …
Two months after consultancy giant McKinsey dramatically flip-flopped on its long held position of praising globalization, cautioning that – as Britain’s vote to exit the European Union exemplified what happens when people feel like the system is letting them down – the system is on the verge of “explosion”, comparing the buildup of resentment over globalization to a dangerous natural gas leak in …
t feels we are in a time of increasing cultural polarization, marked by the refugee crisis in Europe, the staunch divide of U.S. domestic politics, and the growing disenchantment of millennials with traditional institutions. Now, as we fall victim to the cultural bubbles we live in—the walled echo chambers of opinion that make up our social networks—we need to be …
Dr. Jack Rasmus summarizes his just published book this month, ‘Looting Greece: A New Financial Imperialism Emerges’, Clarity Press, Sept. 2016, explaining how debt and credit are becoming new and even more efficient and generalized means by which the more powerful capitalist countries are beginning to extract and transfer wealth from the smaller and more vulnerable. Jack describes the various techniques and means by which financial measures are used to extract surplus. Greece is a case example of the new imperialism taking shape increasingly globally. ‘Looting Greece’ is a sequel to Dr. Rasmus’s January 2016 publication, ‘Systemic Fragility in the Global Economy’, which described how the shift to financial investing is slowing down the global economy, and how a new global finance capital elite is increasingly dominating national economies and slowing growth. In the last half of the show, Rasmus reviews the major economic events of the past week, including today’s US job numbers, recent US manufacturing data, the US central bank meeting—and why the Fed will raise interest rates for certain before year end and the impact that will have on a shift to fiscal spending in 2017 andthe US economy’s coming recession in 2017-18 as well as on emerging markets, China and US corporate profits. The show concludes with a commentary on recent IMF and BIS reports on the global economy.
Jack takes a detailed look at the strategic and tactical errors of the Syriza party and Greek government in 2015 that led to its eventual capitulation to the Troika, resulting in continued austerity and economic depression in Greece. Among the errors noted are Syriza’s naïve reliance on the support from social democratic allies in Europe that did not exist or abandoned it, Syriza’s repeated unilateral concessions to the Troika without any concessions in turn, its allowing the ECB to slowly shut down Greece’s banking system and its refusal to nationalize its banks to remove them from ECB control, Syriza’s agreement to extend the prior debt terms and continue making debt payments to the Troika while the Troika denied Greece loans and payments it was due, amateur bargaining tactics by Syriza negotiators, Syriza’s refusal to leverage potential support from Russia, China, threaten to leave NATO, or to demand concessions from the Troika in exchange for Greece assistance controlling refugee flows into Europe, Syriza continued signals it would not Grexit or form an alternate parallel currency, Syriza’s poorly worded referendum vote in July, and its leaders’ rejection of the results of the vote. (For more detailed analysis of the Greek debt events from 1999 through May 2016, see Jack Rasmus, ‘Looting Greece: An Emerging New Financial Imperialism’, Clarity Press, September 2016.) See also the article by Rasmus on Greece posted on the PRN website and at Jack’s blog, jackrasmus.com.
This week marks the first anniversary of the 2015 Greek debt crisis, the third in that country’s recent history since 2010. Last Aug. 20-21, 2015, the ‘Troika’—i.e., the pan-European institutions of the European Commission (EC), the European Central Bank (ECB), plus the IMF-imposed a third debt deal on Greece. Greece was given US$98 billion in loans from the Troika. A …
oseph Stiglitz, the Nobel Prize-winning economist and former adviser to US President Bill Clinton, says the consensus surrounding neoliberal economic thought has come to an end. Speaking with Business Insider after the launch of his latest book, “The Euro: How A Common Currency Threatens the Future of Europe” — which argues that the fundamental flaws with the euro and the broader …
Dr. Rasmus discusses the first of a two part series on the nature of Greek debt crises, and how they are the consequence of Euro neoliberalism, dominance of the Eurozone’s ‘Troika’ (European Commission, European Central Bank, IMF) by German bankers, allies and politicians, and the continuing insolvency of European private banks. Citing recent studies that show 95% of Greece’s debt payment to the Troika since 2010 have gone to European bankers, Rasmus argues the recycling of debt and interest payments represents an emerging new form of financial imperialism that is built into the Eurozone’s very structure since 1999. The deeper analysis is available in Dr. Rasmus’s new book, to be released in September, ‘Looting Greece: An Emerging New Financial Imperialism’, by Clarity Press. Rasmus discusses the origins of the 2010, 2012, 2015 (and April 2016 mini) debt crises in Greece, and concludes with the Greek Syriza party’s main strategic error. Next week, Part 2: ‘Why Syriza’s strategy (and tactics) failed and why the Troika’s prevailed’—plus more on the new financial imperialism taking form in the Eurozone periphery and its prospects globally elsewhere.
