End the IMF!

09-04-2009 • Economic Policy Journal

Fund manager, Nathan Lewis, explains how the International Monetary Fund is nothing more the collection arm of the big banks: The International Monetary Fund operates primarily as a banker bailout machine. They cajole and tempt and confuse and threaten the leaders of governments worldwide to pay off the failed bets of the big bankers using the taxpayer funds of their countries. This has been going on a long time, at least since the early 1980s. Thus, I am not in the teeniest bit surprised that the same thing is happening today in Iceland and Latvia.... Michael Hudson has some of the details:"...The European Union and International Monetary Fund have told them to replace private debts with public obligations, and to pay by raising taxes, slashing public spending and obliging citizens to deplete their savings..." This is the trick: replacing private debts with public obligations. Lots of people loaned money to banks and corporations in Iceland. They are now facing h