Debt crisis

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. Beyond the similarities, the widespread use of bond (...)
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. The SEZ strategy did not begin well, Treasury at (...)
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, especially if it entails another export-led drive (...)
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 and his colleagues. In 2013, for example, deputy (...)
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 , tragic and aberrant propaganda, whose aim is using (...)
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 122 critically indebted countries, the majority of (...)
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 Egypt, Cameroon, Angola and Mongolia, all of (...)
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 Cyclone Idai must imperatively be considered in debt (...)
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 reaction from Jubilee Debt Campaign: Anabela Lemos (...)
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 positions, we found their analysis useful to (...)
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 overseeing the restructuring process in mid-January. (...)
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 year, meaning that the times of cheap and abundant (...)
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 while we’re stuck with a vastly expanded shadow (...)
How do the dominant media manipulate the debt issue?

15 December 2018 - by Eric Toussaint, The Medium

Eric Toussaint talks to The Medium. The discourse in mainstream media and by governments consists of repeating that there is too much public debt, too much public expenditure, that States must pay their debts and reduce their expenditure. With the CADTM, we are raising the questions of where (...)
Argentina: More lending guarantees creeping austerity

16 November 2018 - by Gino Brunswijck

Against a backdrop of public protests, on 25 October the Argentinian government approved the 2019 budget including US$10 billion worth of cuts in essential areas such as education and public works. The next day, the Executive Board of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) completed the first (...)
Ukraine: Between a rock and IMF conditionality

16 October 2018 - by Bretton Woods Project

Alarm bells ring about Ukraine’s ability to meet IMF conditionality UN expert criticises IMF anti-corruption privatisation push In September, IMF staff visited Ukraine to discuss the next tranche of its $17.5 billion loan programme, first approved in March 2014 (see Observer Spring 2014, (...)
The politics of quantitative easing

3 July 2018 - by Rodrigo Fernandez, Pablo Bortz, Nicolas Zeolla

A new age of debt crises in emerging economies is on the horizon. Debt levels have been rising across developing countries since the 2008 global financial crisis, on the back of favourable monetary policies in developed economies. The end of Quantitative Easing (QE) programmes and the rise in (...)
Global debt crisis ahead?

11 May 2018 - by Michael Roberts

Argentina is seeking International Monetary Fund aid after a series of drastic interest rate rises failed to stop the slide in the peso, pushing the country towards a financial crisis. Mauricio Macri, Argentina’s right-wing, pro-big business president, announced the approach to the IMF in a (...)
The Egyptian Network for the Abolition of Debt and the Right to Equitable Development (ENADED)

8 May 2018 - by CADTM, ENADED

Today, as capitalism has an increasing tendency to globalize all aspects of human life, our struggle must be globalized too. It is essential to develop networking strategies with other organizations of the same spheres of struggles. Capitalism has led to more and more significant forms of (...)
Global debt is fast approaching a quarter of quadrillion dollars

20 April 2018 - by Tigran Kalaydjian

Tigran Kalaydjian explains the booming debt crisis - and what it means for the global economy. In an era when calculations in the trillions are commonplace, a figure that hasn’t yet been heard regularly is “quadrillion,” but that may be about to change. As total global debt continues its (...)
European Parliament sounds the alarm over developing world debt crisis

20 April 2018 - by Mark Perera

The number of poor countries facing major debt crises has doubled since 2013, and only 1 in 5 are now considered to be at low risk of crisis. With some countries in the midst of crisis and others on the brink, meeting the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) remains a pipe dream, writes Mark (...)
How mainstream media deal about public debt issues

3 April 2018 - by Eric Toussaint

Éric Toussaint, spokesperson for the CADTM, refers here to the partial approach to the public debt issue developed by mainstream media at an international level: they never include the deleterious consequences of repaying public debt on people’s lives and on human rights in heavily indebted (...)
Debt sustainability review: Tinkering around the edges while crises loom

19 December 2017 - by Tim Jones, Mark Perera

Under the joint Debt Sustainability Framework (DSF) of the World Bank and IMF (Bretton Woods Institutions or BWIs), regular assessments of the risk of external debt distress are conducted for all countries that are eligible to borrow from either institutions’ concessional lending funds (the (...)
Ready for the next storm? Debt (crisis) management discussed at the UNCTAD and Paris Club

28 November 2017 - by Bodo Ellmers

The number of poor countries that are in debt crisis is increasing rapidly, as is the share of public revenue that southern governments need to divert from essential services to pay down debts. The international community is awaiting the storm with remarkable silence: only peacemeal steps have (...)
We saw Puerto Rico’s struggle to survive

27 November 2017 - by Monique Dols, Lance Selfa

The federal government in Washington and local government agencies in Puerto Rico are eager to project the appearance of the island returning to a pre-Hurricane Maria status quo. But millions of Puerto Ricans know better. SocialistWorker.org contributors Monique Dols and Lance Selfa traveled to (...)