Want to help the poor in Africa? Then shoot an international banker.

[eek.]

The banks came up with a great system in the 80's.

Lend money to really bad regimes and secure the loan on the country.
While these POS regimes come and go the country can't go anywhere.

When a crappy regime does not pay, the debt just accumulates interest and penalties.

When a responsible government appears the bank bangs on their door demanding repayment.
It's usually known to little folks like us as "debt rescheduling".

So Nigeria for instance got $5 billion, but the total amount to date that loan has generated is $45 billion.
The principle amount is now $30 billion and the repayments received have been $15 billion.

jubilee.org

-----------------------------
It's like if you move into a house.
The bank turns up at your door and tells you that the previous occupiers were scummy hooligans who ran up lots of debt while they were living there.
And now YOU have to repay their debt because it was secured on whoever was living in that house.
(Spain actually has this kind of system if you're thinking of moving there btw)

 

[eek.]

So the more money we give to Africa in the form of donations and relief, the greater the amount of loan repayments to international loan-sharks...sorry banks, these African Governments can make !

...what kind of a system is that...

our donations are subsidising loan repayments to Western banks !!

 

[DarrylParsons]

Eek...you godless heathen (lol, sorry couldn't resist)...

What's going on here? You're agreeing with a conservative point of view? What about all those generous, self-sacrificing live 8 artists? Are you saying they are being counter-productive?

 

[nimue77]

Apparently you did not catch the point of Live8. The point was to get momentum behind helping africa and influence the g8 to forgive the debt - not for viewers to give directly.

The banks came up with a great system in the 80's.

Lend money to really bad regimes and secure the loan on the country.
While these POS regimes come and go the country can't go anywhere.

When a crappy regime does not pay, the debt just accumulates interest and penalties.

When a responsible government appears the bank bangs on their door demanding repayment.
It's usually known to little folks like us as "debt rescheduling".

So Nigeria for instance got $5 billion, but the total amount to date that loan has generated is $45 billion.
The principle amount is now $30 billion and the repayments received have been $15 billion.

jubilee.org

-----------------------------
It's like if you move into a house.
The bank turns up at your door and tells you that the previous occupiers were scummy hooligans who ran up lots of debt while they were living there.
And now YOU have to repay their debt because it was secured on whoever was living in that house.
(Spain actually has this kind of system if you're thinking of moving there btw)

 

[DarrylParsons]

Apparently you did not catch the point of Live8. The point was to get momentum behind helping africa and influence the g8 to forgive the debt - not for viewers to give directly.

He did say "relief". How does a viewer or private person give relief?

 

[nimue77]

1) Who said relief?
2) I heard over and over on mtv and abc during live8 that they were not asking for peoples money, but for people to become more aware - and influence the g8 to forgive the debt. Why do you think it was called live8?

He did say "relief". How does a viewer or private person give relief?

 

[DarrylParsons]

I am aware of what the stated purpose of live8 is. The way I interpreted Eek's post was that it was broad enough to include it, since he used the word "relief" in addition to the word "donations". I assumed he meant debt relief, but if he meant another type, then I stand corrected.

 

[eek.]

It was the other type.

Disaster relief
relief aid
Emergency relief
aid relief
humanitarian relief
direct relief
comic relief [UK]
relief supplies
relief effort

 

[Phaedrus]

posted by nimue77:

I heard over and over on mtv and abc during live8 that they were not asking for peoples money, but for people to become more aware - and influence the g8 to forgive the debt. Why do you think it was called live8?

Which is exactly the problem with L8. They don't just want debt forgiveness, they want many other things to be done, including the suspicious and somewhat terrifying-sounding "trade justice," all by the power of the state. In other words, people who were already robbed at gunpoint so that the king of Swaziland could buy another Bentley while his people starve, are to be robbed at gunpoint tenfold over because if you just do the same thing that has consistently failed for decades, but do it harder and broader, this time it will really work.

LiveAid was a phenomenal success that raised over $ 25 million, a great portion of which went directly to aid the suffering in Africa, vs. getting sucked down the black hole of despots' largesse. Unfortunately, in the intervening decades, Geldof has gone stark raving mad, and now believes that the proper way to do this is for friendly white tyrants to rob the innocent and send the proceeds (minus processing expenses of course; this plan if enacted will no doubt require massive increases in expenditure at the State Department and its G8 equivalents) off to not-so-friendly black tyrants.

In other words, Bob Geldof wants to destroy all human life more certainly and clearly than Hitler, Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot, et al. ever dreamed. He wants to do so by trying to get people to be receptive to being beaten and raped and stolen from for the dubiously-demonstrated benefit of other people who could give a rusty fûck about the first group of people. It's 1984 Newspeak come alive: if you disagree with this plan, you are "not compassionate," you support "greedy corporations" etc. simply because you are pointing out the painfully obvious fact that stealing from me won't help the first starving African child even if you strip me down to my balls and kick me out in the street and fence everything and send the proceeds all in a package to little Ndugu straightaway.

I would bet good money that a poll of Live8 supporters are opposed to the War on Drugs. Yet Live8 proposes the exact same thing as the WoD: take a blatantly failed strategy, and do it harder, and maybe this time it will work.

I would bet good money that a poll of Live8 supporters are opposed to the incumbent administration's policies towards terrorism, especially with regards to the link of the War on Terror to patriotic duty ("If you're not with us, you're against us.") Yet these same people espouse an identical mindset when faced with counterarguments against their cause -- except that you're a traitor to mankind rather than America.

Live8 is nothing more than a daft dogshit cause celebré. The only redeeming feature about it is the fact that it will almost certainly not achieve a fraction of its goals, so while annoying, it is as harmless as most of the other similar "we must convince our government to destory us all" sort of idiot causes that crop up from time to time.


Phaedrus

 

[DarrylParsons]

OK fine, so you are in favor of debt relief then?

Suppose the G8 gives in...how would the bankers fare?

What happens next? How long before more loans are requested and the cycle repeats?

BTW just to see if I'm a nuthead for assuming it means debt relief I typed "relief africa" in Google. Of the 10 entries on the first page, 4 were for debt relief, 2 for vibratory stress relief, 1 for Islamic relief, 1 for relief of King Amenemhat I, 1 for canvas relief aid blanket, and 1 for relief map...

 

[Coldweather]

A loan is a loan. They need to pay it back. But we should give some free aid.

 

[CAPNCRUNCH]

The grandkids of the 'We Are the World' kids are starving now!:sad3: When will we learn?arty:

 

[PatPatriot]

The grandkids of the 'We Are the World' kids are starving now!

When will we learn?

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yeh but they got free willie nelson hats.

 

[eek.]

So getting rid of all African debt will destroy civilisation as we know it?

Total African debt is around $250-$300 billion.

King George has just blown around $250-$300 billion on a clusterfuk of history making proportions in Iraq.
On top of that, because team-neocon know debt fuks those poorer places up he wants debt relief of $120 billion for Iraq.

The loan scammers have had their pound of flesh over the last 20+ years and it's time to void any loan over....ooh 3 years old, plus any loan taken out to service old debt no matter how old it is.

The loans were taken out to 'help' those countries, but it was just a cynical cash hand out to any idiot tin-pot Government they could find.
There were no controls levied by the lenders and they deliberately loaned money to governments that were obviously going to be irresponsible and do illegal things with it.
This actually makes the debt illegal and unenforceable.

Credit card debt racked up at Internet casinos is similarly unenforceable.
By all means loan an idiot as much cash as you want to and let them do illegal things with it like playing at internet Casinos.
But as Mastercard and Visa have discovered, don't expect it to be repaid.

 

[SamOdom]

The "western" world is too rich and should be ashamed. Right?

 

[SamOdom]

Something else :digit: The G8 is a racist org. There are no "black" members. How can we change that?

 

[PatPatriot]

Something else

The G8 is a racist org. There are no "black" members. How can we change that?
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Better yet I'd like to know the pct. of black donations to white donations.

 

[CAPNCRUNCH]

Something else :digit: The G8 is a racist org. There are no "black" members. How can we change that?

What about India?

 

[SamOdom]

What about India?

When their general mode of transportation evolves from oxen & cart to something else then maybe.

 

[eek.]

OK fine, so you are in favor of debt relief then?
Suppose the G8 gives in...how would the bankers fare?
What happens next? How long before more loans are requested and the cycle repeats?

I'm sure they'll struggle by.:lolBIG:

The banking industry will just have to establish a decent code of practice when making these loans in the future if they want the debt to be enforceable.
Not just with the creditor, but controls relating to the expenditure.

The banks obviously haven't done this in the past and they are contributing hugely to a hell of a mess in Africa.