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<DIV><FONT size=2>Are there such provisions in the agreement, which I haven't
read or seen reported in any detail? When the IMF imposes an austerity
plan, that is certainly "tied" relief. But my sense is that the
Western lenders have been grudgingly recognizing (as governments and
policymakers did in the 30s) that austerity mostly deepens the crisis,
and that the thrust of the current move is to
establish "governance criteria" to stem the corrupt and wasteful
way the political and economic elites in the highly indebted
countries divert loans and grants for their own purposes. I
don't think paper performance benchmarks will solve the
problem - for one thing, the Western banks and international financial
agencies are deeply implicated with those elites and would almost
certainly cooperate in individual cases to circumvent any new rules -
but that doesn't contradict the more general lending concern about elite
corruption, or render it illegitimate. In any case, the debt relief is
necessary, even if in most situations it is just writing off dead loans.
The real keys remain altering the international terms of
trade, and increasing OECD acceptance that interference
with markets by developing states is often essential to their progress and the
long-term interests of the global capitalist economy. </FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=2>MG</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=2>Joanna wrote:</FONT></DIV>
<BLOCKQUOTE
style="PADDING-RIGHT: 0px; PADDING-LEFT: 5px; MARGIN-LEFT: 5px; BORDER-LEFT: #000000 2px solid; MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px">You
got it Michael. It's not a gift; it's blackmail.<BR><BR>Of course, that's not
the play it gets in the press.<BR><BR>Joanna<BR><BR>Michael Perelman
wrote:<BR>
<BLOCKQUOTE cite=mid20050612203338.A25645@ecst.csuchico.edu type="cite"><PRE wrap="">What problem? Isn't that the purpose of he whole thing?
On Sun, Jun 12, 2005 at 07:50:11PM -0700, Jim Devine wrote:
</PRE>
<BLOCKQUOTE type="cite"><PRE wrap="">One problem, as I understand it, with this is that countries have to
follow G8 dictates (i.e., free market economics) in order to get their
debt written off. Is that a valid understanding?
JD
On 6/12/05, Doug Henwood <A class=moz-txt-link-rfc2396E href="mailto:dhenwood@panix.com"><dhenwood@panix.com></A> wrote:
</PRE>
<BLOCKQUOTE type="cite"><PRE wrap="">FT.com - June 12, 2005
Caution over G8 debt plan for poor countries
By Chris Giles and Friederike Tiesenhausen Cave
While the Group of Eight finance ministers were hailing a "historic
breakthrough" at the weekend after they agreed to cancel the debts of
18 poor but well-governed countries, doubts were already being raised
about how great an impact the deal would have.
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