Bring Balance and Integrity back into our Senate.......Vote 1 One Nation above the line, and secure true and honest Representation!
Ian J Nelson Federal Senate Candidate in Queensland
View my video above
An absolute perfect description of what is happening in the U.S. today. We are being dragged into this treachery, and don't think for one minute "little kev's" government would be any different!
Hicks case a shameful episode: lawyers
Friday April 27, 05:24 PM
The Law Council says the David Hicks case is one of the
most shameful episodes in Australia's political history.
The council said the only welcome aspect of Hicks pleading guilty to terrorism
related charges at a US military tribunal in Cuba last month was that his
nightmare would soon be over.
"Mr Hicks' plea and prison sentence will
no doubt be trumpeted triumphantly by the federal government as evidence that he
was guilty of something very serious all along," Law Council president Tim Bugg
said.
But Mr Bugg said Hicks' detention for more than five years had nothing to do
with justice and everything to do with politics and would be looked back on as
one of Australia's most shameful episodes.
"From the very beginning Mr Hicks was a pawn in a political game played
ruthlessly for advantage in both the United States and Australia," he said.
The Howard government's complicity in his detention, in a legal black hole
beyond the reach of anything resembling an impartial or independent judicial
system, marks a low point in Australian political life, Mr Bugg says.
"This sorry saga will remain forever a stain on the record of the Australian
government and on that of the prime minister and ministers in the Howard
government who so enthusiastically defended the indefensible," he said.
Mr Bugg said Hicks' nightmare was nearly over simply because it became
politically imperative for it to end. "Heaven help those in Guantanamo Bay
without someone to stand up for their rights," he said.
"The US and Australian governments clearly won't be coming to their aid."
Hicks, 31, will be transferred to a South
Australia prison in the next few weeks to serve a nine-month jail term after he
pleaded guilty to a charge of providing material support to terrorism.
The rest of his seven-year jail term was suspended.
As reported from Yahoo news release.
Howards Way
21st. April 2007
Watching National television over
the last couple of nights, you would be asking yourself, is this man for real?
(Howard) Cutting water to the Darling Downs Basin, would open the flood
gates for more imported produce from anywhere in the world. Now if you are
asking; so what? Well consider this:
Fully importing all fruit and veges
from foreign nations is fraught with extreme danger to all Australians health
and well-being, remember foreigners can only dream of the crisp, clean produce
that Australian farmers produce, and even then regulated strictly with regards
to hygiene and processing. When I was in the States I personally experienced
people I knew, who would travel many miles, sometimes across borders to purchase
vegetables and fruit that were not "irradiated" or have some dreadful disease,
and that was years ago, I'm told it is worse today.
Another very serious issue with this insane strategy is once this process has begun, we will not be able to stop it! It will rain again, and when it does our precious farmers will need every encouragement to grow as much produce as they can. They will not need this cheap, unhealthy foreign produce to compete with as they will not have a chance. We already know our governments view on this, compete or go under, or leave the land! We know this as those treacherous men and women have said it all before, and that has been their track record since as far back as we can all remember.
By the way, we in One Nation have been saying for nearly ten years now that we need water infrastructure, that it was urgent back then! We were called "simpletons, ludites and racist" and our cries for someone to listen only fell the way of the bigoted, biased media editors and they stopped our message going any further. Our state Parliamentarian Bill Flynn flew to Canberra to try and raise this issue there, only to be ticked off back to Brisbane. You don't here of these criminalities in the mainstream media, why because "they're One Nation", black 'em out from all Australians, my question is Why? Had they reported the news (which is what they are paid to do) and at least started debate on water infrastructure, Australia today would not be in the position we all find ourselves! Out of all this, Blame is healthy, teaching all of us to listen to all sides when it comes to the security of our Nation. Blame = Major Parties total arrogance, their total indifference to our safety, absolute ineptness to comprehend the dangers of sitting on their lazy ignorant backsides, and of course our dangerous media controlled by one man, Murdoch.
George Bush is on record as saying re- the American farmer, " Our farmers and the food they produce is a matter of National Security, and is out of bounds for any purpose". Yet our leader John Howard is chewing at the bit to resign our farmers to even more hardship causing catastrophic repercussions leading to a recession of which they will not recover! All for Globalism. Both major parties have enslaved this nation to this insidious irrepairable strategy demanded by Wall street and the IMF. If you folks in our cities think you will not be affected by all this in the long run, you best think again. 1litre of milk = $5.00, 1 kilo of lamb $40.00, 1 kilo of sugar = $4.50, a loaf of bread = $5.00, 1 kilo of flour = $6.00. Let's be absolutely clear about this, have you watched the multi national supermarkets kill off all Australian competition and then price gouge all of you without a hint of regulation from our whimpy major parties. Why do you think our "fearless leaders" spend so much time over there? (U.S.) Costello is over there right now receiving instructions from that group of maniac money grovelling grubs "the IMF", as to what our government can give back to this nations tax payers, all a sickening scenario but true!
You cannot afford to vote for either of the major parties this coming election, but if you are compelled to, then put honesty and integrity back into our senate and we at One Nation will see that the only legislation passed through that place will benefit all Australians and Australia, not like that other bloke in that other apology for a party who campaigned against the sale of Telstra, and then ran around in circles jumped up and down and proceeded to vote the sale into law. What a fake, lapdogs to the "Neo-liberalist" regime of Howard, Abbot and Costello! You do realise that after the election "Abbot and Costello" will be in charge of the "Neo-liberalist" party.
If you decide to vote for little "Kevy", you will without a doubt give full permission for the "Big - government" mentality of Labor, to double the GST. Continue indoctrinating our school children in their mad "socialist" agenda, and who, after twelve years of schooling, cannot read or write, will be keen to give our nation to whom ever is the minority loudest whingers! You need protection, and in our Senate is where you will get that protection, Checks and Balances, that is what our Senate does and has done since Federation, it works, as per our priceless Constitution.
Ian J Nelson
Howard accused of war crimes
13th.March
This week, a lobby of judges, barristers and legal experts has accused the Howard government of war crimes, deliberately compounding the illegal actions of the Bush Administration. Led by Melbourne barrister Robert Richter the group called for the prosecution of the prime minister and other ministers for the 5 year illegal detention of David Hicks. Richter was also making a point that the incarceration was violating the Australian criminal code and international law.
The call came at the same time this week when Hicks defense lawyers were in court arguing that the Howard government had failed its constitutional duties to protect its citizen Mr. Hicks. Richter explains “Instead of confessing to a wrong and doing the decent thing by trying to set it right, they are pushing ahead with ‘churching the whore’ after the abortion. They urge the Americans to create a facade of legality for what is seen by all honest jurists as a gross violation of national and international law.”
It may still be the case that after 5 years of government lies about Hicks a new charge conjured up and put on the books – the dubious retrospective law.
In reality, Hicks has been illegally detained for 5 years with no end in sight. To string the process along the government over the years has at times hinted that something is being done. Many people have expressed grave concerns on what this 5 year torturous incarceration will do to Hicks mental faculties.
Recently Howard has cooked up 40 new so called anti-terror laws, gravitating around 'arrest without charge' and denying 'the right to a speedy trial.' As Howards rule wanes, he will attempt to rule through terror. YES for this country, for anyone who opposes what the political establishment is doing such as running the social services into the ground after asset stripping them or privatising them.
Posted by johncee1945, Tuesday, 27 February 2007
1st. March 2007
I wonder what Australians would think of both the Howard government and the opposition if they knew just exactly what they really get up to in that place of treachery, federal parliament! Another disgusting blatant cowardly attack on all Australians choice of whom to vote for, ( de-registering all minor parties, but done to damage One Nation) and that, it would seem to be removing choice, as to whom an Australian wishes to vote for, is simply a two party dictatorship.
These gutless little rats running around in the middle of the night passing legislation to de-register all minor parties, and making it incredibly difficult for any independents to run. All Australians desperately need to understand what this parliament has done to pervert the electoral act via these amendments!
I have some facts right here if you care to gloss over them... These words from a sickening smug liberal spokesperson;
"These measures will encourage greater public participation in our democracy, which will lead to a fairer, more competitive electoral system".
Dean Jaensch of Flinders University wrote of the amendments for his readers in the Adelaide Advertiser 30/8/06.
To sum up the most blatant:
Candidates for the House of Representatives will now have to pay a deposit of $500 and for the Senate $1,000. This will make it harder for minor parties and independents to contest elections. This proposal met with Labor support - of course.
The raising of the level of undisclosed donations is now $10,000. This means that a political party will not have to disclose who gave how much to which party unless it goes over $10,000. Jaensch observes this amendment does nothing for transparency and financial influences on the political parties.
. Further, the amendments increase the level of tax-deductible gifts to parties and candidates from $100 to $1,500 per year. He asks: ''Why should the taxpayer give to a person or business who has donated to a political party?" Charities are acceptable to most people - but political parties?
. Sitting members of the federal parliament will now have $217,000 of taxpayers' money in an election year to spend on printing and postage mail-outs, leaflets, and every other type of personal or party propaganda. Peter Costello - good fellow that he is - defended the overall expenditure of $20 million.
Pity the poor taxpayer: "But," writes Mr. Jaensch, "there's more." For the first time, sitting members can now use taxpayers' money to print their how-te-vote cards and the millions of postal vote applications they send out at every election. "But surely these, especially the how-to-vote cards, are for the benefit of the party?" he asks.
Taxpayers, take careful note of such gall: You the hard working people in this land, not only do you have to bear the weight of the heaviest taxation in Australia's history, you will now be funding - over the three year cyde - nearly half a million dollars FOR EVERY MEMBER OF FEDERAL PARLIAMENT to assist him/her in holding on to his plum position for as long as he can, at your expense.
TELSTRA:
Not only have the sitting members done their best to ensure they retain their plum positions, they have also decided to sell another huge portion of the people's asset, Telstra - and, wait for it, invest the proceeds from the sale into what is known as 'The Future Fund'.
Future Fund:
A vague term implying a benefit for someone, sometime, down the track. It is an investment fund set up by the politicians on the proceeds of the Telstra sale (to be managed by David Murray, former chief of the Commonwealth Bank) to ensure that when the politicians do finally leave the political scene they will have access to a share of the golden eggs the Fund will generate for them. As for the under-serviced country and remote area Telstra customers... tough luck.
Ian J Nelson One Nation Senate candidate 2007
An article you must read : Why Haditha Matters
Enough details have emerged from survivors and military personnel to conclude that in the town of Haditha last November, members of the 3rd Battalion, 1st Marine Regiment perpetrated a massacre. The killings may have been in retaliation for the death of a Marine lance corporal, but this was not the work of soldiers gone berserk. The targets (children from 3 to 14, an old man in a wheelchair, taxi passengers), the hours-long duration of killings, the number of Marines involved, the careful mop-up--all amount to wilful, targeted brutality designed to send a message to Iraqis. As Representative John Murtha has pointed out, (an American elected representative), the patently false story floated afterward, blaming the killings on roadside bombs, and Marine payoffs to survivors imply a cover-up that may extend far up the chain of command.
What matters about Haditha? After all, Iraq is a place where civilians die every day. Many of them die as a result of insurgent car bombs, or at the hands of Sunni or Shiite militias. Many thousands of others died in US air attacks early in the war (as civilians did recently in airstrikes in another US war zone, Kandahar).
Even in this context there remains a distinctly sickening horror in close-up systematic killing of civilians that's at odds with the declared US mission in Iraq and is repugnant to U.S. national ideals. Even under intense battlefield conditions, troops can instigate atrocities, or they can resist them. In the My Lai massacre, in 1968, Hugh Thompson Jr., an American helicopter pilot, saved many lives by putting himself between the guns of Charlie Company and the villagers whom those behind the guns--led by their officers--were wantonly killing. A generation of future US military officers were taught the details of the My Lai massacre as a particular lesson: What makes war crimes, is criminal leadership. Whatever the responsibility of the unit commanders in Haditha, it is George W. Bush as Commander in Chief who has sent the clear message that human rights abuses and violations of international law are justified in the "war on terror."
That the Marines institutionally covered up Haditha until Time magazine raised questions with the Corps suggests that the moral damage from the Iraq War is broader than a single debased unit. That is what so powerfully motivates Murtha, a Marine and Vietnam veteran. Another Marine, (U.S.) Senator John Warner, is promising hearings, but his Armed Services Committee's toothless investigation of Abu Ghraib offers scant hope of serious inquiry. As with My Lai a generation ago, it is participants in the Haditha killings or cover-up--some haunted by what they saw or heard about--who are bringing details to the press.
What happened in Haditha and how it was covered up is only half the story. The rest is yet to unfold: whether Haditha kindles a long-overdue reckoning with the moral catastrophe of this war or the shock gets defused by low-level Congressional inquiries; whether Haditha turns out to have been the low point of the US military venture in Iraq or a foreshadowing of worse to come. What we need is not the "picture of what happened" promised by the White House but a full-scale investigation both of the massacre in Haditha and of the climate of impunity that allowed it to happen and to be ignored for so long.
Ian J Nelson (researched by “Citizen”)
“A nation can survive its fools, and even the ambitious. But it cannot survive treason from within. An enemy at the gate is less formidable, for he is known and he carries his banner openly. But the traitor moves among those within the gate freely, his sly whispers rustling through all the alleys, heard in the very hall of government itself. For the traitor appears not a traitor – he speaks in accents familiar to his victims, and he wears their face and their garments, and he appeals to the baseness that lies deep in the hearts of all men. He rots the soul of a nation – he works secretly and unknown in the night to undermine the pillars of a city – he infects the body politic so that it can no longer resist. A murderer is less to be found.” Cicero 42 BC
I personally could not have described our politicians more accurately today as Cicero did in 42 BC. You only have to take stock with this current “Neo – Liberalism” fiscal policy madness of the Howard government, and ask yourself, when was the last policy, or announcement to the struggling people of Australia a “good news” announcement? Alas we don’t get them do we? This is rank treachery, every time a politician opens his despicable mouth, you know it’s going to cause you and your family more grief and hardship.
Australia is on the brink, not their (politicians) mates (big end of town) they’re doing very nicely thank you very much! Paying little or no tax! I am talking about you, the man and woman on the street, the workers. We are very seriously being taxed into poverty. We have suffered our third interest rate rise this year, where there is no rime or reason to have interest rate rises. All these rate rises do, is to blow out the profits of all the foreign owned banks and financial institutions, who pay little or no tax, who do absolutely nothing to growth of our nation.
They are the proverbial parasites, just like those men and women in that place, which was once a place of honour, our federal parliament, but tragically not today! Filled with fools and traitors, all meandering down the halls of political impotency, bowing and scraping to their American masters. With total indifference to the very people they are sworn to represent.
They have tried every disgusting filthy trick in the book to get rid of the good people of One Nation, including total abuse of the judiciary, but we are still here and we will be yelling loud and clear this coming federal election.
We in One nation are here to support our fellow countrymen, your children and their futures, for all Australians! Balance and integrity will prevail!
Ian J Nelson
One Nation senate candidate
10 - 11 - 2006
NATIONAL DEVELOPMENT
Globalism has resulted in the scramble by federal & state governments to corporatise and sell off public assets. The final straw in the pack was the attempt to sell off the Snowy. People power forced the government to back down & take a long hard look at the situation.
In NSW the scandal of private tunnels and toll roads has resulted in ex premiers and politicians being paid off with cushy jobs with foreign investors that now own the peoples roads.
Most labor state governments are also lining up to get on the gravy train, roads, energy, water, airports, telecommunications are all up for grabs.
Nothing has been learnt from overseas, especially the ENRON scam. What is the answer?
One Nation has long had a policy of tax and finance reform, this includes the setting up of authorities to control such vital resources such as energy, water etc. This will include a national infrastructure authority to fund and build all major infrastructures such as roads, bridges, ports, power stations, hospitals etc.
Funding is to be provided in the main from government issued debt free money (as per the constitution) Repayment would come from the debit tax and export taxes on items such as petroleum products in much the same way as the OPEC countries fund their infrastructure.
Other sources of funding could be an import excise tax on imported goods, with a by-law being granted only to products that cannot be produced locally.
Social security fund money that is currently going into consolidated revenue, along with additional voluntary super contributions could go into an authority where the funds can also be used for infrastructure investment. This will eliminate unfunded pensions for public servants & politicians & bring all Australians into an equal retirement pension without an assets test, with the qualification that the contribution period should be 15 years minimum.
With the wealth of our resources there is no need to borrow money at high interest rates from foreign financial institutions. Contracts for construction will be let out by tender to the most competitive bidder to ensure the best value for the dollar spent. Australian owned companies of course will get full consideration on their merit, with first consideration to developing skills in Australia, employment of Australians & sourcing of local equipment & materials.
The Debit tax will eliminate labor shortages, as it will release thousands from unproductive jobs, into real productive jobs.
Colin Law National Policy Co-ordinator
How the IMF props up the bankrupt U.S. dollar system
One of the crucial pillars of support for today's Dollar System is Washington's control of the International Monetary Fund, the IMF. The way this actually works is carefully disguised, behind a facade of technocrats and economic theory of free market ideology. In reality, the IMF is a modern era collection agency for the Dollar Empire. It collects its tribute, through major international banks, which use the dollars to further extend the power of American financial and corporate hegemony, in effect the driving motor of what is globalisation.
Ironically, though the IMF is a main prop of the Dollar System, it's nominally headed by a European, today a German, Horst Koehler, and before him, by a Frenchman, Michel Camdessus. The real power is carefully concealed behind the facade. Under the constitution of the IMF, no major decision is possible without 85% support of the board of directors. The United States, which drafted the original IMF charter at Bretton Woods New Hampshire in 1944, made sure it had the decisive veto control with an 18% vote share. That veto remains to today. Insiders know well that the IMF is run by Washington. It is no accident that its headquarters is also there.
The IMF was originally created in the 1944 Bretton Woods New Hampshire international monetary conference, called by President Roosevelt to set up a post-war monetary and trade system. It was intended as a fund to support stability of currencies and trade of the post-war European allied countries. At that time Washington held the vast bulk of world gold reserves and expected to lend dollars to rebuild Europe. The original IMF idea was to pool a share of reserves of member states, which any single state could then borrow, in event of a short-term payments crisis, to stabilize their currency. Ten years after the Great Depression, the major industrial nations, including the USA, were concerned with creation of a stable, growing Europe, not least as an export market for US products. The first member to borrow was Great Britain after the war. The last European state was Italy in 1977.
Since 1977, no European or G7 country has gone to the IMF to borrow. Instead they have borrowed from private banks or issued state debt. They know all too well how destructive the IMF conditions are. By the end of the 1970s some people were suggesting the IMF had outlived its role, much as some argue with NATO after the end of the Cold War. Washington had other ideas for the IMF however.
The role of the IMF changed dramatically in the early 1980s, under US pressure. Instead of serving as a stabilizing fund for industrial countries of Europe or Japan, the IMF became the decisive agency controlling economic policy of underdeveloped countries. What evolved since the first Latin American debt crises of the early 1980s was an entirely new role for the IMF to act as policeman to collect dollar loans for private New York and international banks. The IMF became the driving motor for what came to be called "globalisation."
After the first oil price rise of 400% in the 1970s, many developing countries such as Brazil, Argentina, or most of Africa, borrowed heavily to finance needed oil imports, or trade deficits. They borrowed dollars from major international banks operating in the London Eurodollar market. London was the centre for, in effect, the recycling of the large sums of petrodollars from Arab OPEC countries to US and other major banks.
The major banks took the new oil dollars and immediately relent them at a nice profit, to countries like Argentina or Egypt. Before the 1970s Argentina had been a fast-growing economy developing modern industry, agriculture and a rising standard of living for its people. It had almost no foreign debt. Ten years later, the country was under control of the IMF and foreign banks. The US changed the rules, in the process creating the debt crisis.
In October 1979, a dramatic shock occurred for the debtor countries. Overnight their cheap dollar loans cost them 300% more interest charge. Paul Volcker of the Federal Reserve Bank in the US, unilaterally changed US interest policy to force the dollar higher against other currencies. The effect was to raise US interest rates 300% and rates in the London bank market by even more. The bank loans to Argentina and other countries had been made in "floating" rate agreements. If the key international rate in the London bank market, LIBOR, was low, Argentina would pay a low rate on its dollar loans. But when it suddenly rose 300% in 1979-1980, many countries suddenly faced a payments crisis.
It took until 1982 for the crisis to reach default level. At that point, Washington demanded the IMF be brought in to police a debt collection process on developing debtor nations. This came to be called the Third World Debt Crisis. The impression was created that countries like Argentina were guilty for mismanagement. In reality, whatever political corruption may have existed in the debtor countries, the corruption of the IMF system and the petrodollar recycling was far greater. The Volcker interest rate shock completed the package of destruction of living standards on behalf of dollar debts.
How did the IMF act in the third world debt crisis? Here is where it becomes clear that the role of the IMF was to support the dollar hegemony of the United States, and not to help poor countries get through a temporary debt problem.
The IMF has been described by some as a tool of neo-colonialism. That is too mild, as 19th Century British or European colonialism, however harsh, never managed to accomplish the extent of devastation and destruction of health and living standards the IMF has done since the 1970s.
The IMF operates as a supranational agency to take control over helpless debtor states, to impose economic policies that force the country ever deeper into debt, while opening the market to foreign, often US capital and global corporate exploitation. The fact that debtor countries never get out of their dollar debt, only deeper in, is deliberate. IMF policy in fact insures this. The dollar debt is a major prop of the dollar system and of private international banks. When that debt is repaid, banks lose power and credit contracts. So long as debt grows, bank credit can grow, the paradox of modern banking.
The tip-off that the real purpose of the IMF is quite different from its public claims, is that despite repeated proof of the destructiveness of its policies, called "conditionalities," the IMF has never changed the method it uses in a target country. There is a reason for that.
Take Argentina as a case in point. In early 2002 Argentina defaulted on repaying $141 billion in foreign dollar debt. One of the most devastating economic collapses in modern history ensued. The IMF was crucial. In early 2000 Argentina had turned to the IMF for emergency credit to prevent a collapse of its currency, then fixed to the strong US dollar. As the dollar rose, Argentina found its exports trade collapsing. The country went into recession. The IMF stepped in with a $48 billion "rescue" package. But there were conditions.
First the government had to agree to severe IMF-dictated cuts in government spending before it would get any money. State subsidies on food for low income were ended, triggering food riots. Interest rates exploded in a vain effort to convince foreign banks and bondholders to not sell. That only worsened the economic depression. State companies were forced to privatise to raise money and "promote free market" liberalization. The Buenos Aires water system was sold for pennies to Enron, as was a pipeline going from Argentina to Chile.
Washington insisted all the while that Argentina hold to its fixed currency value, arguing that the trust of foreign bondholders and creditors was the priority. Meanwhile the country sank into its worst depression in memory, as millions lost jobs, and bank accounts were in the final stage frozen, so ordinary citizens could not even draw savings for life necessities.
What exactly does the IMF do when it comes into a crisis country that asks for emergency lending to overcome a debt or currency crisis? The IMF always uses the same program, regardless of whether it is Russia or Argentina, Zimbabwe or South Korea, all very different cultures, economies and situations. The IMF demands are often referred to as the Washington Consensus, the name given in 1990 by a US economist and IMF backer, John Williamson, to describe the IMF method of attack.
IMF medicine almost always includes demands to privatise state industries, to slash public spending even on health and education, devalue the national currency against the dollar, and open the country to free flow of international capital-both in and, especially, out.
First the IMF demands the government in question sign a secret Memorandum of Understanding with the IMF, in which it agrees to a list of "conditionalities", the pre-condition for getting any penny of IMF aid. Under todays globalise free capital markets, banks do not invest in a country that does not have the IMF seal of approval. So the IMF role is far more than giving some emergency loan. It determines if a country gets any money from any source at all-World Bank, private banks and other.
The conditions of an IMF deal are always the same. Privatisation of state industries is top on the list. The effect of privatisation with a cheap Peso or Rouble currency is that foreign dollar investors are able to buy up the prime assets of a country dirt-cheap. Often the lure of under-the-table deals in privatising their national assets corrupts the politicians involved in the country. Foreign multinationals can grab profitable mining, oil, or other national treasures with their dollars.
The case of the Yeltsin government in Russia is classic, with dollar billionaires emerging overnight on the looting of national assets via IMF-dictated privatisation. The Clinton Administration backed the process fully. They knew it turned Russia into a dollar zone, and that was the intent.
The second demand of the IMF is that a country liberalize, that is open, its financial and banking markets to foreign investors. This allows high-profile speculators like George Soros or Citibank or Credit Suisse to come into a country, run up asset prices in a speculation, take huge profits, as in Thailand in the mid-1990s, and quickly sell, then exit with huge gains, as the local economy collapses behind them. Then Western multinationals can come in after, and take prime assets at very low cost.
This is what happened to Asia in the 1990s. The IMF and US Treasury, which actually determines US IMF policy, began strong pressure on the fast-growing East Asia "Tiger" economies in 1993, to remove national controls on capital flows. They argued it would help Asia get large sums of money to invest. What it did was give US pension funds and big banks a huge new market for speculation. Too much money flowed in, and an unhealthy real estate bubble grew. It burst when Soros and other US speculators deliberately pulled the plug in 1997, triggering the Asia crisis. The end result was that for the first time, Asian economies were forced to turn to the IMF to be rescued.
But the IMF did not "rescue" any Asian economy in 1998. It rescued international banks and hedge fund speculators. In Indonesia, the IMF demanded the government raise interest rates to 80%, on the argument that would keep foreign investors from leaving, and stabilize the situation. In fact, as critics like Joseph Stiglitz charged at the time, the IMF interest rate demands guaranteed a full-blown collapse of the Indonesian and other Asian banking systems
.
Once the IMF got control of South Korea, one of the strongest industrial economies in the world, it demanded break-up of large industry conglomerates, charging "corruption" and "crony capitalism." In fact, Washington hoped to weaken a growing competitor and open the door for US companies like GM or Ford to take over. In part it worked, until Korea and other regional economies were strong enough to re-impose national controls. Malaysia openly defied the IMF demands and imposed currency controls during the crisis. The damage to Malaysia was minimal as a result, a great embarrassment to the IMF.
The next step for IMF conditions, is the demand a country turn to "market-based" domestic prices. This is code for eliminating government subsidies or price controls. Often developing countries have state-subsidized fuel or food or other necessities for their people. In 1998 the IMF demanded, for example, that Indonesia remove state food subsidies for the poor. The idea of "market-based price" is itself a fiction. A market is man-made. The market in Switzerland or Denmark or Japan is different from the market in Cuba or Cameroon. What the IMF is after is a slashing of state budgets to minimize the state role in the economy and make a target country defenceless against foreign takeover of its key assets. The government share in the fragile economy is cut also, in order to insure foreign banks get their "pound of flesh."
Finally the IMF demands the country devalue its currency, and massively, often by 60-70% or more. Here the argument is that this will make its exports "more competitive" and bring more income to repay the foreign dollar debts. This is a crucial part of the IMF Washington Consensus medicine. If, say, Chile devalues the Peso in half, or the Republic of Congo, it must export twice as many tons of copper to earn the same dollar of export surplus. For the giant multinationals in the industrial world, it means the cost of raw materials has become cheaper by half.
Over the past twenty years since the IMF stepped in to play the major role in reorganising developing countries, world raw materials prices have been dramatically depressed, even though demand has risen. The reason is that countries of Africa, Latin America and elsewhere are mainly raw materials exporters, and their commodities, like oil, are all exported in dollars. They need to earn dollars to repay dollar debts. The IMF policies have driven their raw material prices, measured in dollars, drastically lower. This has been deliberate, but is never admitted. The IMF is an agency of American dollar domination of the global economy, not an agency to help developing countries.
None of this is exaggeration, unfortunately. IMF defenders claim that "market liberalization" has resulted in major economic growth over the past 20 years in developing countries. The reality is opposite. In a study done by Joseph Stiglitz when he was at the World Bank, between 1989 and 1997 the GDP of every country in the former Soviet Union had fallen to levels of 30% to 80% of that before the collapse of state controls, with the sole exception of Poland. The level in Russia was only 60% that in 1989. GDP had collapsed 40%, and unemployment went from 2 million to 60 million. The rapid privatisation without adequate legal and institutional safeguards such as unemployment insurance or health insurance, led to social catastrophe comparable to wartime. IMF demands to free capital movement allowed new Russian dollar oligarchs such as Berezovsky to plunder billions of dollars and put it into secret bank accounts in Cyprus or Liechtenstein, while they bought luxury villas in Monte Carlo.
The IMF record in Africa is as outrageous and destructive. In Zimbabwe, the IMF demanded the government privatise certain state companies and cut subsidies on food, education and health care to get IMF aid. The government complied with most demands, and then the IMF accused it of funding the war in the Democratic Republic of Congo, using that as an excuse to deny giving Zimbabwe loans. In Kenya the IMF earlier demanded that specific individuals be named to the government of Moi, people friendly to Western interests. Washington then charged these governments being "corrupt," which conveniently blinds Western opinion from realizing the moral travesty-taking place under IMF auspices.
Take the official World Bank debt statistics and it becomes obvious that the IMF game is to support the dollar. The first debt crisis in the Third World erupted in 1982. The IMF stepped in to "stabilize" the debt problem. Since then, the foreign debts of developing countries have risen exponentially. In Argentina, the earlier "success" of the IMF, foreign debt stood at $62 billion in 1990. In 2000 it was $146 billion. Brazil's foreign debt has gone from $120 billion to $240 billion in the same time. Iran, isolated from the IMF system by US sanctions, is one of the few developing countries, which has managed to reduce its foreign debt.
The total foreign dollar debt of all low and middle-income countries rose from $1.4 trillion in 1990 to $2.5 trillion in 2000, almost double. In most cases, the unpayable interest costs on the debts were merely added to the amount of principal owed foreign lenders, at compound interest rate, of course. With compound interest charges often 10% to 15% per year, the debt grows exponentially.
The result is a Ponzi debt pyramid, in which the more a country pays, the more it owes. Bankers call it "interest capitalization." It is no different from the plight of a poor shopkeeper debtor who is forced to turn to a mafia loan shark to survive and ends up paying more and more at ever more interest, until he is bankrupt and the mafia takes all his possessions. The IMF and banks know only some 80% of Third World debts can ever be repaid. They care only about the legal fiction and the ability to use the debt as a lever to grab assets cheaply. According to the World Bank, between 1980 and 1986, for a group of 109 debtor countries, payment of interest alone to the creditors on foreign debts totalled $326 billion. Repayment of principal on the same debts totalled another $322 billion, for a combined capital flow out to the New York and other creditor banks, in debt service, of $658 billions on an original debt of $430 billion. Yet, despite this enormous effort, these 109 debtors still owed the banks a sum of $882 billion in 1986. This was because of the pyramid effect of compound interest, interest capitalization and Volcker's floating rate policy.
In 1990 the developing world repaid some $150 billion in interest on dollar debt, three times all aid received. This was a huge boost to the dollar credit system, which lends on the basis of assuming it will be repaid the entire $2.5 trillion third world debt. The IMF allows that myth to continue. Occupied Iraq today must still "honour" billions in debts of the Hussein era, many to the former Soviet Union, despite its devastated situation. Russia is still forced to admit billions in debt from the Soviet era to Western agencies. Under the IMF system, debt is more sacred than human life.
The vicious trick in all IMF-led "debt restructuring," is that so long as a debtor is able to pay interest on its loans, the creditor banks in New York or London or elsewhere do not have to declare their loan in default. Even if they know it never will be repaid, they treat it as if it were a fully good credit, and use it as capital collateral for further bank lending. The banking system of the dollar world is to a major degree propped up by the pyramid of unpayable third world loans from Africa to Indonesia to Argentina to Croatia.
There has been a dramatic slowdown in economic growth in developing economies over the past two decades since the IMF was brought in to police the debtor states in 1982. There is a direct link. In Latin America, if we take per capita GDP growth, there was a growth of 75% between 1960 and 1980. In the following 20 years to 2000, per capita GDP grew a mere 6%.
In Sub-Sahara Africa, per capita GDP grew by 36% in the two-decade period to 1980. Then, it fell by a staggering 15% the next two decades. According to the World Bank itself, some 300 million Africans, almost half of the Continent, survive on less than ? 0.65 a day. IMF-dictated cuts in national health care have resulted in rising infant mortality across the Continent. In 2002 Malawi underwent famine. It coincided with the April 2002 decision by the IMF to suspend Malawi on allegations of "corruption." The IMF had ordered Malawi's government to sell its grain reserves in order to repay a South African bank loan of the National Food Reserve Agency. The IMF also ordered export of maize to service debt, ignoring a developing famine crisis. The IMF piously denied it played any role in the famine crisis however.
For Arab states, including Algeria, Morocco, GDP growth per capita swung from a plus 175% between 1960-1980 to a minus 2% in the following two decades, a staggering collapse.
The only apparent exception to this negative trend is East Asia including China. Here growth was faster between 1980 and 2000. But the reason is the including of China, which saw a 400% increase in GDP and accounts for 83% of the region's population. China has adamantly refused any dealings with the IMF, and runs a controlled state-guided economy with full currency controls, hardly an IMF model state.
Globalisation is a word used today, often without precision. If we use the word globalisation to refer to the entire process of IMF and WTO-led neo-colonialism under the Dollar System, then it is a descriptive term. It describes the creation of a global dollar imperium, a Pax Americana. Establishment critics of the IMF system such as Joseph Stiglitz, himself a former Clinton adviser and World Bank official, make accurate charges against the IMF. They assume, however, that it is merely misguided policy that leads to the problems. The entire IMF institution, along with the World Bank and WTO, however, have been deliberately developed to advance this globalisation of the Dollar System, the second pillar of Pax Americana after the military power. It is no mistaken policy, no result of bureaucratic blunders. That is the crucial point to be understood. The IMF exists to support the Dollar System.
Ian J Nelson (material collated from F. William Engdahl) Public Citizen
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