Debt crisis

Debt disaster with no escape

19 October 2020 - by Michael Roberts

The IMF-World Bank semi-annual meeting took place from 12th to 18th October 2020. Earlier the IMF kicked off the show with a warning that the poor countries of the world are heading for a catastrophe from the pandemic slump, leading to defaults (...)
Unleashing the power of pension funds and debt cancellation to finance a just energy transition

25 August 2020 - by Dominic Brown

“Debt cannot be repaid, first because if we don’t repay, the lenders won’t die. That is for sure. But if we repay, we are going to die. That is also for sure.” Those were the words of the revolutionary former president of Burkina Faso, Thomas (...)
Deficits, debt and deflation after the pandemic

6 July 2020 - by Michael Roberts

The Great Lockdown enforced by the COVID-19 pandemic has driven governments across the globe to apply extensive bailout and fiscal stimulus programmes. On average, these measures of wage supplements, furlough payments, loans and grants to (...)
Time For A Renewed Anti-Debt Movement

1 June 2020 - by Eric Toussaint, Beverly Keene, Lidy B. Nacpil, Dorothy Guerrero

The coronavirus and global lockdowns mark 2020 as the year in which we re-confront these same issues, only this time with even greater life-or-death urgency, as leaders in one country after another, responding primarily to their own immediate (...)
“Suspend external debts and apply tax to the wealthy”, is it possible to face the health crisis?

22 April 2020 - by Eric Toussaint

Eric Toussaint, Belgian historian and doctor of Political Sciences from the University of Liège (Belgium), has spent a good part of his life auditing debts from different countries of the world and requesting the suspension of several of them due (...)
Covid-19 on a debt assault

17 April 2020 - by Eric Toussaint, Christophe Koessler

The Committee for the Abolition of Illegitimate Debt (CADTM) is of the opinion that the limited resources of the countries of the South should be devoted to fight the pandemic rather than reimbursing international creditors. The coronavirus (...)
Abolish illegitimate and odious claims by European countries from third parties and give absolute priority to human rights

3 April 2020 - by ReCommons Europe

Phase 2 of the ReCommonsEurope project: “The impact of European financial policies and development cooperation strategies on the South and possible alternatives”. This document is the first of the five texts that form part of the publication (...)
A Debt Jubilee is the Only Way to Avoid a Depression

24 March 2020 - by Michael Hudson

Even before the novel coronavirus appeared, many American families were falling behind on student loans, auto loans, credit cards and other payments. America’s debt overhead was pricing its labor and industry out of world markets. A debt crisis (...)
Escaping the Debt Trap

21 March 2020 - by Michael McCallister

You can’t really understand the world, especially global North-South relationships, without understanding how foreign aid works. The Debt System will help you do that. The book argues for the necessity of a radical restructuring of global (...)
Lebanon is a severe case of subordinate financialization that must avoid the IMF

9 March 2020 - by Costas Lapavitsas, Jude Kadri

Costas Lapavitsas is an economist from Greece. He presently teaches Economics at the University of London and was elected as a member of the Greek Parliament for SYRIZA in January 2015. He left to form Popular Unity in August 2015, when SYRIZA (...)
Out of service: How public services and human rights are being threatened by the growing debt crisis

25 February 2020 - by Iolanda Fresnillo, Eurodad

Public services play a critical role in advancing human rights and fighting inequality. However, growing levels of external public debt, especially in the global south, threaten the very services on which citizens depend in order to have even a (...)
Somalia should reject IMF & World Bank Debt Relief

17 February 2020 - by David Calleb Otieno

Last week, the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) announced that the two institutions were moving closer to offering Somalia a debt relief of USD 5.3 billion translating to about KES530 billion under the Enhanced Heavily (...)
New debt crisis in the South

18 December 2019 - by Milan Rivié

Public external debt in countries of the South [1] is a source of concern, notably because of its dramatic increase within the last two decades and because of parallels with the pre-crisis debt situation of Third World countries in the 1980s. (...)
Series: Adverse International and Local Conditions for Sub-Saharan Africa (Part 6)

New Threats, New Resistances and New Alternatives

12 November 2019 - by Eric Toussaint, Patrick Bond, Ishmael Lesufi, Lisa Thompson

We conclude with thoughts about the agency for resistance to these neoliberal policies, both ones in existence since the early 1990s (Bond 2014) and those that are being re-introduced through SEZs and the renewed export-led ‘growth’ strategy. (...)
Series: Adverse International and Local Conditions for Sub-Saharan Africa (Part 5)

Local South African Economic Conditions

6 November 2019 - by Eric Toussaint, Patrick Bond, Ishmael Lesufi, Lisa Thompson

As the world economy spirals into crisis stage, with fully-fledged deglobalisation and a new round of financial turmoil, the South African context is just as foreboding. Corporations and workers alike are ill prepared for the period ahead, (...)
Series: Adverse International and Local Conditions for Sub-Saharan Africa (Part 4)

Africa’s Renewed Crises of Unbalanced Trade, Disinvestment, Debt

29 October 2019 - by Eric Toussaint, Patrick Bond, Ishmael Lesufi, Lisa Thompson

In addition to China, Africa is meant to be one of the most critical markets for South Africa’s SEZs, and attracting other investment, trade and finance to the continent was one justification for entering the BRICS bloc, according to Jacob Zuma (...)
Migrants, debt and propaganda

3 July 2019 - by CADTM Italy

As regards the docking of the Sea Watch 3 ship, a heated debate is rising in Italy, which could not but involve organizations also dealing with economics, finance and debt. In these days we are witnessing the representation of a dramatic , (...)
Global Sovereign Debt Monitor 2019

29 May 2019 - by Erlassjahr.de, Jürgen Kaiser

Currently, 122 out of 154 countries examined are critically in debt, just under 80 per cent. The situation is particularly alarming in Bhutan, Mongolia, Gambia, Cape Verde Islands, Jamaica, Bahrain and Lebanon. In almost three-quarters of the (...)
Crisis deepens as global South debt payments increase by 85%

9 April 2019 - by Jubilee Debt Campaign

- External debt payments by developing country governments grew by 85%, as a proportion of government revenue, between 2010 and 2018 For the countries with the highest payments, in two-thirds public spending is falling The largest cuts were in (...)
Mozambique: impact of Cyclone Idai boosts case for non-repayment of secret loans, says UN rights expert

4 April 2019 - by Juan Pablo Bohoslavsky

GENEVA (29 March 2019) – “The realisation of economic, social and cultural rights in Mozambique should not be jeopardised by the servicing of the country’s debt and in particular its ‘secret loan’ component. Human rights and devastating impacts of (...)
Mozambique needs urgent action on debt crisis following Cyclone Idai

22 March 2019 - by Jubilee Debt Campaign

Cyclone Idai has caused huge destruction and loss of life in Mozambique, Malawi and Zimbabwe. The true extent of the disaster is not yet known. Below are reactions from partner organisations of Jubilee Debt Campaign in Mozambique, followed by (...)
Debt Cancellation for Somalia

7 February 2019 - by Somalia NGO consortium

You will find below a report on Somalia’s sovereign debt which was issued by a consortium of NGOs. While some of their recommendations and their approach to possible solutions to the debt crisis are not completely in agreement with the CADTM’s (...)
Debt Island: Wall Street Closes in on 40 Years of Profit at Puerto Rico’s Expense

30 January 2019 - by Abner Dennis, Kevin Connor

An important chapter in the story of the Puerto Rican debt crisis is comingto an end this month, as an adjustment plan around sales tax-backed, or COFINA, debt is being voted on by creditors and will likely be approved by the federal court (...)
Things to watch in 2019: Debt and emerging debt crises

18 January 2019 - by Bodo Ellmers

More than a decade after the last global financial crisis hit, the next wave of defaults is lapping at our shores. Financing conditions will become more difficult in 2019. The world’s major central banks ‘normalised’ their monetary policies last (...)
G20 Summit in Buenos Aires: A non-event amidst citizen protests

22 December 2018 - by María José Romero, Bodo Ellmers, Tove Maria Ryding

When the global financial crisis broke, the world looked to the G20 to find solutions. But as G20 leaders recently gathered in Buenos Aires 10 years on for their 2018 Summit, it was all too clear that ‘too big to fail banks’ have grown even bigger (...)