Re: Cancelling 3rd world debt

["Juan R. Fajardo" <fajardos@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

> George Pennefather wrote:
>
> Can anyone fill us in on the matter of third world debt and Clinton's
> announcement that his administration is cancelling it. Is it genuine?


Where in the world have you heard such an announcement, George?  Either
it is phony, a joke --like Reagan's notorious "the bombing starts in
five minutes" statement-- or you have been misinformed as to its true
content.  I say this for several reasons:

1) the debt us HUGE and thus so are the interest payments on it.  The
imperialist nations cannot afford to cancel, they depend on that money
to keep the world econmy afloat.

2) Except in for minor cases to stave wider crises --such as when the US
will forgive US gov't direct loans so that a cash-strapped economy can
keep up payments to US-based comercial banks-- they have never even
considered cancelling the debt, not even in the 1980s when Latin America
was mired in crisis and there was real fear that one or more countries
would have to default and declare fiscal bankruptcy and send the world
finacial system into a death dive.

3) Th US cannot cancel the debt because it does not own it all.

- Juan Fajardo