Brad wrote: <snip>
>> The total suspension of all foreign debt payments, and wealth (asset)
>> taxes on those who have sent capital abroad and the giant corporations
>> will be more than sufficient.
>>
>> john mage
>>
>
>
> That's not the way it is going. Peso down 75% against the dollar (when
> a decline of 25% would have brought Argentinian domestic prices back
> into line with world export opportunities) suggests that the people
> trading pesos for dollars are expecting Argentina's prices to triple
> in the near future. At the January-February rate of price increase
> Argentina is already up to an inflation rate of 50% per year--an
> inflation rate at which figuring out how to delay payment of your
> taxes becomes a game it's worth everyone's while to play, with very
> dangerous consequences for the government's finances...
>
> I don't see what Duhalde plans to do. And if he doesn't have plans yet,
> they certainly aren't going to work...
>
Asset taxes on those who have sent capital abroad and on the giant corporations is certainly not the way it's gone. But even Duhalde/Lenicov are not yet ready to suspend Argentina's sovereignity as demanded by Rudi Dornbusch <http://news.ft.com/ft/gx.cgi/ftc?pagename=View&c=Article&cid=FT3DWX51JYC&live=true> and the other neoliberal freemarketizers whose programme brought them to this pass. 'Cause now it's clear that Bush/IMF would prefer a full blown social crisis, followed by military coup (fronted by Menem, no doubt) and a torture regime of force - (but which would be described as "free market" "free world" "free press" free this&that as presented by Murdoch, Roger Cohen and the rest of the "free" US press that reported Bush's spew at Monterrey at length but not a word of the magnificent speech by Castro - given a raucous standing ovation according to AFP, but no word in AP).
Anyway, yesterday Duhalde/Lenicov imposed controls limiting the amounts of purchases of dollars by individuals and corporations, and required businesses to deposit their dollars. Today the peso went from Monday's close of 3.60/dollar to close at 3.10.
But a middle course (controls but no serious attempt to e.g.: tax those who sent their dollars abroad - with the sequestration of Argentine property in the event of attempt to avoid the tax; reverse the fraudulent and corrupt privatizations without compensation; let the banks that sent billions of dollars abroad and now cannot meet their promises to pay dollars back to those who deposited dollars put up new capital or go bankrupt and operate under receivers; an emergency asset tax on the largest corporations - to list some of the measures set out by the progressive economists at the University of Buenas Aires in their proposal of 24 January of 2002) looks like a certain failure sooner or later to me as well.
The US is working towards coups in Venezuela and Argentina, and is preparing openly to carry on scorched earth warfare in Colombia. Electrodes to the genitals and free market economists for all.
john mage
Castro's speech at Monterrey
March 22, 2002 (From Granma Online)
The rich world should condone their foreign debt and grant them fresh soft credits to finance development
SPEECH BY HIS EXCELLENCY DR. FIDEL CASTRO RUZ, PRESIDENT OF THE REPUBLIC OF CUBA, AT THE INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON FINANCING FOR DEVELOPMENT, IN MONTERREY, MARCH 21, 2002, YEAR OF THE HEROES IMPRISONED BY THE U.S. EMPIRE
Excellencies:
Not everyone here will share my thoughts. Still, I will respectfully say what I think.
The existing world economic order constitutes a system of plundering and exploitation like no other in history. Thus, the peoples believe less and less in statements and promises.
The prestige of the international financial institutions rates less than zero.
The world economy is today a huge casino. Recent analyses indicate that for every dollar that goes into trade, over one hundred end up in speculative operations completely disconnected from the real economy.
As a result of this economic order, over 75 percent of the world population lives in underdevelopment, and extreme poverty has already reached 1.2 billion people in the Third World. So, far from narrowing, the gap is widening.
The revenue of the richest nations that in 1960 was 37 times larger than that of the poorest is now 74 times larger. The situation has reached such extremes that the assets of the three wealthiest persons in the world amount to the GDP of the 48 poorest countries combined.
The number of people actually starving was 826 million in the year 2001. There are at the moment 854 million illiterate adults while 325 million children do not attend school. There are 2 billion people who have no access to low cost medications and 2.4 billion lack the basic sanitation conditions. No less than 11 million children under the age of 5 perish every year from preventable causes while half a million go blind for lack of vitamin A.
The life span of the population in the developed world is 30 years higher than that of people living in Sub-Saharan Africa. A true genocide!
The poor countries should not be blamed for this tragedy. They neither conquered nor plundered entire continents for centuries; they did not establish colonialism, or re-established slavery; and, modern imperialism is not of their making. Actually, they have been its victims. Therefore, the main responsibility for financing their development lies with those states that, for obvious historical reasons, enjoy today the benefits of those atrocities.
The rich world should condone their foreign debt and grant them fresh soft credits to finance their development. The traditional offers of assistance, always scant and often ridiculous, are either inadequate or unfulfilled.
For a true and sustainable economic and social development to take place, much more is required than is usually admitted. Measures as those suggested by the late James Tobin to curtail the irrepressible flow of currency speculation -albeit it was not his idea to foster development - would perhaps be the only ones capable of generating enough funds, which in the hands of the UN agencies and not of awful institutions like the IMF, could supply direct development assistance with a democratic participation of all countries and without the need to sacrifice the independence and sovereignty of the peoples.
The Consensus draft, which the masters of the world are imposing on this conference, intends that we accept humiliating, conditioned and interfering alms.
Everything created since Bretton Woods until today should be reconsidered. A farsighted vision was then missing, thus, the privileges and interests of the most powerful prevailed. In the face of the deep present crisis, a still worse future is offered where the economic, social and ecologic tragedy of an increasingly ungovernable world would never be resolved and where the number of the poor and the starving would grow higher, as if a large part of humanity were doomed.
It is high time for statesmen and politicians to calmly reflect on this. The belief that a social and economic order that has proven to be unsustainable can be forcibly imposed is really senseless.
As I have said before, the ever more sophisticated weapons piling up in the arsenals of the wealthiest and the mightiest can kill the illiterate, the ill, the poor and the hungry, but they cannot kill ignorance, illnesses, poverty or hunger.
It should definitively be said: "Farewell to arms."
Something must be done to save humanity!
A better world is possible!
Thank you.