Defending IMF Financial TerrorismStephen Lendman Longstanding Times policy supports wealth, power and privilege. Populist interests are spurned. Unmet human needs are ignored. Managed news misinformation is featured. Wrong over right is endorsed. Its been so from inception. Times editors admit IMF policies arent widely loved. It forced countries in financial distress to adopt counterproductive austerity policies, and it failed to anticipate the financial crisis. No matter. It helped stabilize the global economy, most recently by providing loans to troubled European countries like Greece and Ireland. Its the worlds primary defense against global financial disasters. Increasing the funds resources will ensure that it can respond quickly to another wave of turmoil in Europe or elsewhere that would inevitably hurt the American economy. Its hard imagining more twisted thinking. Times editors endorse doubling the funds capital. Doing so assures twice as much damage. IMF policies reflect financial terrorism. Abolish the fund now and end it. Its hugely exploitive. Its the loan shark of last resort. It makes neighborhood ones look saintly by comparison. It doesnt solve problems. It exacerbates existing ones. It creates new ones. It debt entraps nations. Bondage suffocates them. Indebted nations are obligated to take new loans. Theyre needed them to service old ones. Doing so increases indebtedness. Structural adjustment harshness follows. Its force-fed. Debtor nations have no choice. IMF diktats demand: Democratic values dont matter. Human needs go begging. Countries forfeit their material wealth and resources. Freedoms lost. A race to the bottom follows. Workers become serfs. Economies are financialized into debt bondage. Doing so transforms them into dystopian backwaters. IMF shock therapy takes no prisoners. Debt service overrides national sovereignty. Poverty, unemployment and deprivation follow. Numerous examples explain. Chileans under Pinochet suffered. Inflation skyrocketed. Unemployment exceeded 20%. About 45% of Chileans became impoverished. Output fell 12.9%. Cheap imports flooded the country. Social safety net protections ended. Trade unionist crackdowns became policy. Local businesses closed. Severe repression targeted non-believers. Democracy under Allende died. Wealth shifted up to the top. Much of Chiles middle class disappeared. Out-of-control corruption and cronyism replaced it. For privileged insiders, Chilean society was paradise. Most others suffered Great Depression deprivation. Chiles model spread cross border. Through the early 1990s, Latin American debt rose exponentially. In 1980, it was $110 billion. In 1992, it reached $473 billion. Interest payment grew from $6.4 billion to $18.3 billion. Thats how debt entrapment works. Worker livelihoods, health and welfare suffer. Those likely enough to have jobs endure low-income to sub-poverty wages. Foreign predators profit enormously. They do so on human misery. IMF diktats facilitate it. Pain replaces prosperity. Nations are strip-mined for profit. Millions of jobs are lost. Western brands replace local ones. IMF policy statements dont explain. They perpetuate the myth about helping as a lender of last resort. Loans come with strings. Force-fed austerity follows. Debt service matters most. Banker bottom line priorities override national sovereignty. Worker gains disappear. Ordinary people suffer hugely. Human welfare and economies are sacrificed on the alter of paying bankers first. Thats how predatory IMF diktats work. Dont expect New York Times editors to explain. According to Paul Craig Roberts, IMF loans dont help world economies. They shield private banks from their own mistakes at the expense of the world economy. IMF policy mandates stabilizing exchange rates linked to the dollar and bridging temporary payment imbalances. Article I of its Articles of Agreement says it lends: to give confidence to members by making the general resources of the Fund temporarily available to them under adequate safeguards, thus providing them with opportunity to correct maladjustments in their balance of payments without resorting to measures destructive of national or international prosperity. It claims it provides loans to reduce poverty and increase economic development. In difficult economic times, it says, it helps countries to protect the most vulnerable in a crisis. It never operated as mandated. Its policies are polar opposite. Theyre ruthlessly exploitative. Theyve been that way from inception. During the 1997 Asian financial crisis, Pat Buchanan urged No more Bailouts Abolish the IMF. Asias crisis was man-made, the work of corrupt and incompetent political elites, crony capitalists and idiot-investors who deserted their own countries to chase hot profits in Asia. IMF bailouts put Western taxpayers on the hook for $100 billion. The Global Economy is like a high-stakes poker game, where the big players pocket their winnings, while the house i.e., the taxpayers makes good their losses at the end of a bad night. (A)bolish the IMF. Conservative economist Steve Hanke agrees. IMF policies dont generate prosperity or alleviate poverty, he says. The only cure for the IMFs ills is to pull the plug on that international bureaucracy. Global Exchange co-founder Kevin Danaher urges abolishing the IMF and World Bank. His book 10 Reasons to Abolish the IMF World Bank explains why. It covers globalization for dummies. It exposes common myths. It urges ending decades of predatory injustice. It gives 10 reasons why. (1) Mandates were violated. Promises made were broken. The rising tide that (lifts) all boats never happened. Free-market diktats demonstrably and significantly increased inequality. (2) GDP inaccurately measures economic wellbeing. People matter more. Their needs are ignored. IMF/WB diktats mandate it. (3) Free-trade isnt fair. Unelected technocrats run things. Government officials are pressured, bullied and bribed to go along. They do so for benefits they derive. (4) Unelected IMF/WB/WTO policy makers are interlinked. Conflicts of interest corrupt them. Monied interests control them. Checks and balances are absent. Public scrutinys avoided. (5) Force-fed austerity causes enormous harm. No success stories exist. (6) Real ones achieved relatively high economic growth through extensive state involvement. Measures include land reform, tight control of trade, state enterprises, government-funded research and infrastructure, high tariff barriers to protect infant industries from foreign competition, and favoring certain sectors of the economy through subsidies and state-directed investment. (7) Predatory capitalisms environmentally destructive. Ecological sustainability becomes impossible. (8) Wealthy nations lose out. America suffered the decimation of our manufacturing sector, declining average wages, growing inequality, an increase in the average work week, a ballooning deficit in the US balance of trade, and a growing mountain of debt (government debt, consumer debt, corporate debt). (10) Popular resistance shows promise. Global justice supporters demand change. Responsible alternatives exist. Its high time mass activism demanded them. Its way past time predatory international lending agencies were abolished. Saving humanity depends on it. Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago and can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net.His new book is titled How Wall Street Fleeces America: Privatized Banking, Government Collusion and Class War.Also visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com and listen to cutting-edge discussions with distinguished guests on the Progressive Radio News Hour on the Progressive Radio Network Thursdays at 10AM US Central time and Saturdays and Sundays at noon. All programs are archived for easy listening.http://www.progressiveradionetwork.com/the-progressive-news-hour/ 