Committee for the Abolition of Illegitimate Debt

In many respects, the ongoing international financial crisis throws into sharp relief the deceit and denials of those who promote financial globalisation, whether they sit on the board of the big private banks or move in the higher spheres of the State. Over recent years, the dominant discourse was that all was fine on the debt front: with the introduction of new products, such as the securitisation of debts, the risk had been spread among a number of players. No crisis could be expected, profits were astronomical and growth was sustained.

Today, the edifice is crumbling. How could it be otherwise, when big banks conduct huge operations off the books, erect a house of cards with dubious credit and contribute to the creation of a speculative real estate bubble that eventually bursts? Far from spreading the risk, the system achieved the contrary, with the big banks having accumulated its weaknesses. Each of them then tried to pass the hot potato to its already troubled neighbour.

Instead of acknowledging their mistakes and assuming the consequences, the big banks sought help from the State – whose actions they are normally quick to disparage. They did not hesitate to seek strong public intervention from the same State they usually consider as too interventionist. In fact, the big banking lobbies Lobby
Lobbies A lobby is an entity organized to represent and defend the interests of a specific group by exerting pressure or influence on persons or institutions that hold power. Lobbying consists in conducting actions aimed at influencing, directly or indirectly, the drafting, application or interpretation of legislative measures, standards, regulations and more generally any intervention or decision by the Public Authorities. have always insisted that the public authorities must respect market forces - the sole mechanism able to efficiently distribute resources and fix prices at their real values.

Like obedient underlings, the US and European authorities did as they were asked: you do not refuse a favour to the directors of the big banks that support the main presidential candidates and who move in the same close-knit circles… Thus, the rulers quickly came to the rescue of private interests. On the menu: nationalisation of the troubled banks, exchange of devalued and distressed debt securities for fresh cash (to the tune of 200 billion dollars in the US), cash injection, rescue plans, decreased interest rates Interest rates When A lends money to B, B repays the amount lent by A (the capital) as well as a supplementary sum known as interest, so that A has an interest in agreeing to this financial operation. The interest is determined by the interest rate, which may be high or low. To take a very simple example: if A borrows 100 million dollars for 10 years at a fixed interest rate of 5%, the first year he will repay a tenth of the capital initially borrowed (10 million dollars) plus 5% of the capital owed, i.e. 5 million dollars, that is a total of 15 million dollars. In the second year, he will again repay 10% of the capital borrowed, but the 5% now only applies to the remaining 90 million dollars still due, i.e. 4.5 million dollars, or a total of 14.5 million dollars. And so on, until the tenth year when he will repay the last 10 million dollars, plus 5% of that remaining 10 million dollars, i.e. 0.5 million dollars, giving a total of 10.5 million dollars. Over 10 years, the total amount repaid will come to 127.5 million dollars. The repayment of the capital is not usually made in equal instalments. In the initial years, the repayment concerns mainly the interest, and the proportion of capital repaid increases over the years. In this case, if repayments are stopped, the capital still due is higher…

The nominal interest rate is the rate at which the loan is contracted. The real interest rate is the nominal rate reduced by the rate of inflation. …

In Britain, one of the spearheads of neoliberal globalisation, the crisis floored the bank Northern Rock in September 2007, leading to its nationalisation in February 2008. Once the ship has been steadied at public expense, it will pass back into private hands. Similarly, in the United States, when Bear Stearns, the country’s fifth most important investment bank, found itself short of credit on 13 March, the financial authorities organised a rescue with the help of JP Morgan Chase, which subsequently bought Bear Stearns at a bargain price.

This crisis clearly proves that when management of the world economy is ruled by the logic of maximum profit Profit The positive gain yielded from a company’s activity. Net profit is profit after tax. Distributable profit is the part of the net profit which can be distributed to the shareholders. , society pays an enormous price. The banks have gambled with the savings and cash deposits of hundreds of millions of individuals. Their mistakes have led to huge losses and human tragedy, as was the case with the bankruptcy of the Enron multinational in 2001. Around 25,000 Enron employees found themselves with a paltry pension because the company’s pension fund Pension Fund
Pension Funds Pension funds: investment funds that manage capitalized retirement schemes, they are funded by the employees of one or several companies paying-into the scheme which, often, is also partially funded by the employers. The objective is to pay the pensions of the employees that take part in the scheme. They manage very big amounts of money that are usually invested on the stock markets or financial markets. had been diluted by the directors, who had quietly sold their shares for nearly a billion dollars [1] .

In terms of North and South, the similarities are striking. In the South, the debt crisis of the early 1980s was caused by the unilateral increase of interest Interest An amount paid in remuneration of an investment or received by a lender. Interest is calculated on the amount of the capital invested or borrowed, the duration of the operation and the rate that has been set. rates by the United States, leading to a massive hike in the repayments of Third World countries that the banks had encouraged to take out loans at variable interest rates. Simultaneously, the plummeting prices of raw materials and oil prevented them from coping, forcing them ever deeper into a crisis. The International Monetary Fund 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 (IMF), remote-controlled by the United States and the other great powers, then imposed drastic structural adjustment Structural Adjustment Economic policies imposed by the IMF in exchange of new loans or the rescheduling of old loans.

Structural Adjustments policies were enforced in the early 1980 to qualify countries for new loans or for debt rescheduling by the IMF and the World Bank. The requested kind of adjustment aims at ensuring that the country can again service its external debt. Structural adjustment usually combines the following elements : devaluation of the national currency (in order to bring down the prices of exported goods and attract strong currencies), rise in interest rates (in order to attract international capital), reduction of public expenditure (’streamlining’ of public services staff, reduction of budgets devoted to education and the health sector, etc.), massive privatisations, reduction of public subsidies to some companies or products, freezing of salaries (to avoid inflation as a consequence of deflation). These SAPs have not only substantially contributed to higher and higher levels of indebtedness in the affected countries ; they have simultaneously led to higher prices (because of a high VAT rate and of the free market prices) and to a dramatic fall in the income of local populations (as a consequence of rising unemployment and of the dismantling of public services, among other factors).

IMF : http://www.worldbank.org/ programmes on developing countries. The recipe, as in countries of the North, was as follows: a decrease in social spending, complete and immediate economic liberalisation, an end to control over the flow of capital, complete opening of the market, massive privatisations. However, contrary to what is taking place in the North, the states of the South have been prevented from reducing interest rates and giving credit to banks, causing serial bankruptcies and severe recessions. Finally, just like today, the State was forced to bail out the troubled banks before privatising them, usually to the benefit of the major North American and European banking multinationals. In Mexico, the cost of rescuing the banks, in the second half of the 1990s, represented 15% of the Gross Domestic Product GDP
Gross Domestic Product Gross Domestic Product is an aggregate measure of total production within a given territory equal to the sum of the gross values added. The measure is notoriously incomplete; for example it does not take into account any activity that does not enter into a commercial exchange. The GDP takes into account both the production of goods and the production of services. Economic growth is defined as the variation of the GDP from one period to another. (GDP). In Ecuador, a similar manœuvre in 2000 cost the country 25% of its GDP. Everywhere, the internal public debt rose massively because the cost of the rescue plan for the banks was borne by the State.

The economic deregulation of the last decades has been a fiasco. The only constructive solution would be a complete reversal of priorities: strict constraints on private companies, massive public investments in sectors that can ensure fundamental human rights and protection of the environment, the recovery by public powers of the decision-making levers to favour the general interest.

If the neoliberal train pursues its wild journey, a crash is guaranteed. Those who have set it in motion would like to see it go even faster. The most recent proof: after the last elections in France, the government of Nicolas Sarkozy announced its intention to accelerate the reforms, while the electorate had clearly rejected the current choices. Undoubtedly, a major international economic turnaround is impossible without a massive popular mobilization. Forty years after May 68, such a move is increasingly urgent if capitalism as such is finally to be challenged.