by metatron 18 Replies latest jw friends
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/dec/03/argentina-paying-economic-vulture-fund
The Banksters are afraid. Argentina must suffer, not succeed! It might give ideas to everyone else!
Yes, I realize that the government of Argentina is sort of an arrogant kleptocracy but so far, they've gotten away with it and done very well for themselves. Much better than Greece.............
and that has the Cabal frightened.
metatron
Nice to see a government get its crap reposessed for being a deadbeat just like anyone else.
Someone missed the point of the whole situation. It's not that Aregentina is a deadbeat country you friggin moron. It's that predatory bankers are in it to win it even if it means cruelly subjhecting an entire culture and people to endless poverty. Moron.
Argentina's problem isn't lenders. It is its idiots in government and those who keep on electing them. No one put a gun to their heads and forced them to get into excessive debt. Now it is time to pay the piper.
How to buy a country, lend them money you know they can't pay, then demand ownership of their country. It's interesting that the fund is based in a tax haven. THEY have learned the art of not paying. Anyhow, as stated, it is a big subject, so i have copied some quotes from the comments section. At least some of the people there seem to be fairly knowledgeable.
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Actually Argentina pays its debts. A debt restructuring means just that payments are rescheduled for longer periods at lower rates according to capacity to pay. Also, given the initial conditions of these loans Argentina has payed several times the original amounts. That is why financial markets always return to defaulting countries. Interest rates are so high, that even if you hold the bond at the time of default, which most lenders avoid doing, but set aside the interest payments, you make money lending to developing countries. Soverign lending is good business for banks, not for developing countries for a reason.
Response to Mkubwa, 3 December 2012 2:47PM
Also, austerity is about spending in domestic currency, while foreign debt is in dollars. In other words, what limits your ability to pay is exports, or more precisely your current account situation, not your fiscal position. The problem with Argentina was an overvalued exchange rate, and the liberalization policies that had eroded export revenue. Austerity did nothing to help.
There is an onus on a lender to lend to the right people, and there is an associated risk that if they lend stupidly, they won't get the money back - and that risk is a natural and good part of capitalism.
It was not their loan, they bought the bad debt cheaply with the idea of attempting to gain full payment through the courts.
It is true that a lot of people here are struggling here, but that does not contradict the basic point made by this article that in many ways Argentina in the last nine years has been a success story.
When you take into account the fact that the economy collapsed in 2001, the current situation in which, yes, a lot of people are still struggling and a lot of people are still very poor, in only to be expected. No one has claimed that there has been a miracle, only that things are improving.
There's a still a lot of work to be done. The country's infrastructure was basically neglected for nearly fifty years after the so-called "Revolucion libertadora" (the military coup of 1955) and the current government is really the first one in all that time to try to address these problems.
The other thing to bear mind is what might have happened if the country had followed the advice of the IMF and imposed austerity. People were already dying of hunger in some parts of the country in 2001; IMF-style austerity would only have made this grave situation worse.
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Did you make it this far? There are a lot more comments over there. It's a good place to start in understanding the situation.
S
deleted
The Libertad incident smells like a stunt. An embarrassment to be sure, but I'd be laughing if the Chinese Politburo went after the USS Constitution over junk Treasury bonds. The world can consider itself lucky if all it has is Argentina to lecture about fiscal policy. Unfortunately that is not the case. Things are going to get uglier, and fast.
How to buy a country, lend them money you know they can't pay, then demand ownership of their country.
Oh bullshit. Lend them money and they don't pay, and you are a vulture for trying to stave off losses. Don't lend them money and the rates spike, and now you are an evil bond vigilante.
there was a time in history where alot of working class people bought US savings bonds (EE).
I guess those people that want to be paid back are predatory! LOL
Imagine that!
