A necessary tool to understand the current global crisis, the data collected here by Damien Millet and Eric Toussaint (CADTM) should enable us to make sense of one of the basic reasons for the international situation, as seen from the viewpoint of the global South. From the 1960s to today’s global crisis, the international network of the CADTM has constantly kept a critical eye on the world economy and the mechanisms of domination that affect it. Analysing various statistics is essential to identify what is really at stake and to propose suitable alternatives.
Human mal-development, inequality, odious debt, financial transfers, the prices of raw materials, the World Bank
World Bank
WB
The World Bank was founded as part of the new international monetary system set up at Bretton Woods in 1944. Its capital is provided by member states’ contributions and loans on the international money markets. It financed public and private projects in Third World and East European countries.
It consists of several closely associated institutions, among which :
1. The International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD, 189 members in 2017), which provides loans in productive sectors such as farming or energy ;
2. The International Development Association (IDA, 159 members in 1997), which provides less advanced countries with long-term loans (35-40 years) at very low interest (1%) ;
3. The International Finance Corporation (IFC), which provides both loan and equity finance for business ventures in developing countries.
As Third World Debt gets worse, the World Bank (along with the IMF) tends to adopt a macro-economic perspective. For instance, it enforces adjustment policies that are intended to balance heavily indebted countries’ payments. The World Bank advises those countries that have to undergo the IMF’s therapy on such matters as how to reduce budget deficits, round up savings, enduce foreign investors to settle within their borders, or free prices and exchange rates.
and the IMF
IMF
International Monetary Fund
Along with the World Bank, the IMF was founded on the day the Bretton Woods Agreements were signed. Its first mission was to support the new system of standard exchange rates.
When the Bretton Wood fixed rates system came to an end in 1971, the main function of the IMF became that of being both policeman and fireman for global capital: it acts as policeman when it enforces its Structural Adjustment Policies and as fireman when it steps in to help out governments in risk of defaulting on debt repayments.
As for the World Bank, a weighted voting system operates: depending on the amount paid as contribution by each member state. 85% of the votes is required to modify the IMF Charter (which means that the USA with 17,68% % of the votes has a de facto veto on any change).
The institution is dominated by five countries: the United States (16,74%), Japan (6,23%), Germany (5,81%), France (4,29%) and the UK (4,29%).
The other 183 member countries are divided into groups led by one country. The most important one (6,57% of the votes) is led by Belgium. The least important group of countries (1,55% of the votes) is led by Gabon and brings together African countries.
http://imf.org
- all the figures included in this vade-mecum for 2009 are derived from reliable sources and have been carefully examined by the CADTM team.
Far from the long-winded ramblings of the dominant discourse, the CADTM’s handbook simply lays out the stark reality in figures. These are the facts we need to fuel reflection about how to lay the foundations of a radically different economic logic, both socially just and environmentally sustainable.
is a historian and political scientist who completed his Ph.D. at the universities of Paris VIII and Liège, is the spokesperson of the CADTM International, and sits on the Scientific Council of ATTAC France.
He is the author of Greece 2015: there was an alternative. London: Resistance Books / IIRE / CADTM, 2020 , Debt System (Haymarket books, Chicago, 2019), Bankocracy (2015); The Life and Crimes of an Exemplary Man (2014); Glance in the Rear View Mirror. Neoliberal Ideology From its Origins to the Present, Haymarket books, Chicago, 2012, etc.
See his bibliography: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%89ric_Toussaint
He co-authored World debt figures 2015 with Pierre Gottiniaux, Daniel Munevar and Antonio Sanabria (2015); and with Damien Millet Debt, the IMF, and the World Bank: Sixty Questions, Sixty Answers, Monthly Review Books, New York, 2010. He was the scientific coordinator of the Greek Truth Commission on Public Debt from April 2015 to November 2015.
7 May, by Eric Toussaint , Dora Villanueva
Éric Toussaint interviewed by Dora Villanueva (La Jornada – Mexico)
Large-scale speculators increase their profits in the grain market4 May, by Eric Toussaint , Dora Villanueva
21 April, by Eric Toussaint , Sushovan Dhar
15 April, by Eric Toussaint , Sushovan Dhar
31 March, by Eric Toussaint
22 February, by Eric Toussaint
8 February, by Eric Toussaint
8 February, by Eric Toussaint
16 January, by Eric Toussaint
13 January, by Eric Toussaint
professeur de mathématiques en classes préparatoires scientifiques à Orléans, porte-parole du CADTM France (Comité pour l’Annulation de la Dette du Tiers Monde), auteur de L’Afrique sans dette (CADTM-Syllepse, 2005), co-auteur avec Frédéric Chauvreau des bandes dessinées Dette odieuse (CADTM-Syllepse, 2006) et Le système Dette (CADTM-Syllepse, 2009), co-auteur avec Eric Toussaint du livre Les tsunamis de la dette (CADTM-Syllepse, 2005), co-auteur avec François Mauger de La Jamaïque dans l’étau du FMI (L’esprit frappeur, 2004).
22 August 2018, by Eric Toussaint , Damien Millet
16 May 2016, by Damien Millet
1 July 2012, by Eric Toussaint , Damien Millet
31 May 2012, by Eric Toussaint , Damien Millet
1 April 2012, by Eric Toussaint , Damien Millet
16 March 2012, by Damien Millet
4 February 2012, by Eric Toussaint , Damien Millet
4 January 2012, by Eric Toussaint , Damien Millet
15 July 2011, by Eric Toussaint , Damien Millet
27 August 2010, by Eric Toussaint , Damien Millet , Sophie Perchellet