Recently by Simon Black: This Too Shall Pass. So Will This, This, This, This, and This Too.
Debt is slavery… or at least indentured servitude of the worst kind. That looming mortgage, the high interest credit card debt, the short-term car loan – these are the forces that keep people from breaking free and taking action.
Ironically, debt begets more debt. According to FinAid, the average US student loan debt for a four-year private university graduate is nearly $36,000, and $24,000 for public. Throw in that first car loan and maybe a mortgage, and suddenly you’re staring at hundreds of thousands of dollars in demoralizing claims on your future income.
At this point, most people figure… ‘hey, I’m already in debt up to my nose, might as well get in up to my eyeballs and buy a new plasma screen on credit.’
Debt is an enormous psychological burden that influences life’s major decisions. It’s why so many people stay committed to jobs that are unfulfilling in cities they detest under conditions they find disheartening. Nobody wants to rock the boat too much… take too many risks and you could lose your job, and hence the ability to make those monthly payments.
This familiar story has been playing out across the developed world for years. This is not an ill, however, that exclusively affects individuals and families. Even at the macro level, debt has the power to subjugate entire nations to the whims of their creditors.
Enter the IMF.
In July 1944, world leaders gathered in Bretton Woods, New Hampshire to be dictated terms of the new global financial system. The US dollar was set as the global reserve currency, and the International Monetary Fund was established to shower the world’s nations with the dollars they needed to participate in this system.
Like most governmental and non-governmental organizations, however, the IMF eventually took on a life of its own.
(The CIA is a perfect example of this; formally established in 1947, the CIA was charged with… wait for it… being the ‘central’ agency to coordinate US intelligence. It grew quickly into its own beast, culminating in the creation of the post-9/11 National Intelligence Directorate. It’s job? You guessed it: being the ‘central’ agency to coordinate US intelligence.)
Over the years, the IMF became the roving economic police force of the ruling class, coercing developing nations to take enormous loan packages they had no hope of paying off.
As a result, the local IMF (or World Bank) representative in developing countries became extremely powerful figures. Leaders in poor countries were so terrified of loan default, the IMF was able to shape policy and allocate national resources as the west saw fit.
