Submitted by Thomas Czermak on February 12, 2008 - 8:03pm.
There's a very concise interview with Chomsky @ alternet.org about the new South American Bank, headed up by the new left, and of course, about the failures of the IMF and World Bank. It's often hard to ask Chomsky questions that he then gives sizeable explanations (that just anyone can grasp) to in response.
Chomsky on the fall of the IMF:
The IMF is in trouble now because it is losing its reserves. It was functioning on debt collection and if countries either restructured their debt or refused to pay it, they're in trouble. Incidentally the countries could legitimately refuse to pay much of the debt, because, in my opinion at least, it was illegal in the first place. For example, if I lend you money, and I know you're a bad risk, so I get high interest payments, and then you tell me at one point, sorry I can't pay anymore, I can't call on my neighbors to force you to pay me. Or I can't call on your neighbors to pay it off. But that's the way the IMF works. You lend money to a dictatorship and an elite, the population has nothing to do with it, you get very high interest because it's obviously risky, they say they can't pay it off, you say okay your neighbors will pay for it. It's called structural adjustment. And my neighbors will pay me off. That's the IMF as a creditors' cartel. You get higher taxes from the north. read more »
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