The Debt Crisis: From Europe to Where?

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The Debt Crisis: From Europe to Where?

Video

25 March 2014 by Eric Toussaint

Conference by Eric Toussaint given on May the 16^th 2013 during the Subversive Festival in Zagreb

The Debt Crisis: From Europe to Where?

Contents

1. Editors’ note
2. Prologue The CADTM: 20 years of struggle for the oppressed - Eric Toussaint
3. Introduction by Eric Toussaint

European Capitalism in Crisis

4. Greece: The very symbol of illegitimate debt - Eric Toussaint
5. Europe Gets Shock Therapy like Latin America in the 1980s and 1990s - Eric Toussaint interviewed by Carlos Alonso Bedoya
6. Greece, Ireland and Portugal: why agreements with the Troika Troika Troika: IMF, European Commission and European Central Bank, which together impose austerity measures through the conditions tied to loans to countries in difficulty.

IMF : https://www.ecb.europa.eu/home/html/index.en.html are odious - Renaud Vivien & Eric Toussaint
7. Greece: The IMF IMF
International Monetary Fund Along with the World Bank, the IMF was founded on the day the Bretton Woods Agreements were signed. Its first mission was to support the new system of standard exchange rates.

When the Bretton Wood fixed rates system came to an end in 1971, the main function of the IMF became that of being both policeman and fireman for global capital: it acts as policeman when it enforces its Structural Adjustment Policies and as fireman when it steps in to help out governments in risk of defaulting on debt repayments.

As for the World Bank, a weighted voting system operates: depending on the amount paid as contribution by each member state. 85% of the votes is required to modify the IMF Charter (which means that the USA with 17,68% % of the votes has a de facto veto on any change).

The institution is dominated by five countries: the United States (16,74%), Japan (6,23%), Germany (5,81%), France (4,29%) and the UK (4,29%).
The other 183 member countries are divided into groups led by one country. The most important one (6,57% of the votes) is led by Belgium. The least important group of countries (1,55% of the votes) is led by Gabon and brings together African countries.

http://imf.org and Lagarde get it wrong - Eric Toussaint & Damien Millet
8. All the loans accorded by the Troika are illegitimate - Eric Toussaint interviewed by Ana Benačić
9. In the eye of the storm: the debt crisis in the European Union - Eric Toussaint interviewed by the CADTM
10. Now approaching Spain, the bank hurricane continues along its path of destruction - Eric Toussaint

The Global Context

11. G20 G20 The Group of Twenty (G20 or G-20) is a group made up of nineteen countries and the European Union whose ministers, central-bank directors and heads of state meet regularly. It was created in 1999 after the series of financial crises in the 1990s. Its aim is to encourage international consultation on the principle of broadening dialogue in keeping with the growing economic importance of a certain number of countries. Its members are Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, France, Germany, Italy, India, Indonesia, Japan, Mexico, Russia, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, South Korea, Turkey, USA, UK and the European Union (represented by the presidents of the Council and of the European Central Bank). : The Symbol of a System Failure - Eric Toussaint
12. Barack Obama: The change that didn’t happened - Eric Toussaint & Daniel Munevar

Resistance & Alternatives

13. The International Context of the Global Outrage- Eric Toussaint
14. Seismic election results in Greece - Eric Toussaint
15. Do we need a public debt? - Damien Millet & Eric Toussaint
16. Our AAA : Audit, Action, Abolition - Damien Millet & Eric Toussaint
17. Eight key proposals for another Europe - Eric Toussaint

Author

Eric Toussaint

is a historian and political scientist who completed his Ph.D. at the universities of Paris VIII and Liège, is the spokesperson of the CADTM International, and sits on the Scientific Council of ATTAC France.
He is the author of Greece 2015: there was an alternative. London: Resistance Books / IIRE / CADTM, 2020 , Debt System (Haymarket books, Chicago, 2019), Bankocracy (2015); The Life and Crimes of an Exemplary Man (2014); Glance in the Rear View Mirror. Neoliberal Ideology From its Origins to the Present, Haymarket books, Chicago, 2012, etc.
See his bibliography: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%89ric_Toussaint
He co-authored World debt figures 2015 with Pierre Gottiniaux, Daniel Munevar and Antonio Sanabria (2015); and with Damien Millet Debt, the IMF, and the World Bank: Sixty Questions, Sixty Answers, Monthly Review Books, New York, 2010. He was the scientific coordinator of the Greek Truth Commission on Public Debt from April 2015 to November 2015.