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債務是政治性的：為什麽財富從窮人流向富人
https://geopoliticaleconomy.com/2024/08/04/debt-politics-wealth-flow-poor-rich/
Debt is political: Why wealth flows from poor to rich
https://geopoliticaleconomy.com/2024/08/04/debt-politics-wealth-flow-poor-rich/
作者：Radhika Desai 和 Michael Hudson 2024 年 8 月 5 日
國際金融體係的結構如何導致財富從窮人流向富人？政治經濟學家 Radhika Desai 和 Michael Hudson 討論了債務政治。
國際金融體係的結構如何導致財富從窮人流向富人？政治經濟學家 Radhika Desai 和 Michael Hudson 討論了債務政治。
您可以在此處找到更多《地緣政治經濟時間》劇集。
文字記錄
RADHIKA DESAI：大家好，歡迎收看第 31 期《地緣政治經濟時間》，該節目探討了我們這個時代快速變化的政治和地緣政治經濟。我是 Radhika Desai。
邁克爾·哈德森：我是邁克爾·哈德森。
拉迪卡·德賽：每兩周在幕後為您帶來我們節目的還有主持人本·諾頓、攝像師保羅·格雷厄姆和轉錄員紮克·韋瑟。
您可能認為，鑒於最近幾周發生的事件，我們今天談論的可能是似乎即將失控的戰爭，尤其是以色列似乎決心升級與真主黨的敵對行動，以至於願意以完全站不住腳的理由提出指控。您可能認為我們將討論的是，究竟誰在控製局麵，這一點根本不清楚，尤其是在這個經常自詡為世界警察的國家。事實上，我們當然打算在未來討論這些話題。然而，今天我們將重點討論一個非常密切相關的話題，那就是債務。
我們被教導將債務視為一種普通的經濟或市場關係，與商品和服務的買賣沒有什麽不同，買賣雙方是兩個形式上平等的當事方。雙方都給予對方一些東西，粗略地說，它們的價值是相等的。所以，平等就是以物易物，一切都很好。
然而，我們都知道，即??使在商品和服務交換的情況下，雙方也不是形式上平等的，他們之間的權力差異對交易有著巨大的影響。如果是這樣，即使在普通的商品和服務交換的情況下，在債務-信貸關係的情況下更是如此。
事實上，它不應該被認為是一種經濟或市場關係，而應該被認為是一種深刻的政治關係，比任何其他所謂的經濟關係都更依賴權力。
誰得到信貸，誰得不到信貸？誰得到了優惠條件，誰得到了苛刻的條件？誰支付高利息，誰支付低利息？當債務違約時，誰會得到救助？誰又需要為同樣的問題付出更多代價？
這些都是圍繞債務的問題，它們都表明債務是一種多麽深刻的政治關係。
正如克勞塞維茨所說，戰爭隻是政治的另一種方式，因此戰爭和債務也息息相關。
自從 1694 年倫敦銀行家說服威廉三世向他們借錢而不是向他們征稅來資助戰爭以來，戰爭就產生了債務，巨額債務，當前的戰爭也不例外。
烏克蘭實際上正在打一場由債務推動的戰爭，無論這場戰爭結束後烏克蘭還剩下什麽殘餘國家，我們預計這場戰爭肯定不會在 11 月 5 日之前結束，都將背負無法償還的債務。
與此同時，市場已將以色列的債務評級降至幾乎垃圾級，如果台灣領導人愚蠢到同意成為美國對抗中國的代理人，台灣肯定會遭遇類似的命運。
今天，談論債務又多了一個理由。世界銀行、世界各地的經濟學家，還有聯合國貿易和發展會議（UNCTAD），也就是所謂的發展中國家智庫，都在談論新的第三世界債務危機。
你們當中有些人可能還記得或知道，20 世紀 80 年代初就曾發生過一次債務危機。自那時起，不可持續的債務一直是第三世界發展前景的主要障礙。
從我們看到的情況來看，當前第三世界債務危機或發展中國家債務危機（無論你想用什麽委婉的說法）的起源與 20 世紀 80 年代的債務危機非常相似。
然而，結果可能大不相同，這是我們可以討論的。邁克爾和我至少會對此進行推測。
最後，當我們談論公共債務或主權債務時，我們必須談論國際貨幣基金組織和世界銀行，它們是西方金融資本的執行官。當他們為債務償還造成的福利損失而假惺惺地流淚時，他們一方麵這樣做，將資金從發展中國家的醫療保健、教育或清潔水源中轉移出去。另一方麵，他們施加最嚴苛的還款條件，確保大規模的資本逆向流動，也就是說，資本流動
不是像經濟學教科書上說的那樣，從富國流向窮國，而是相反，從窮國流向富國。
與此同時，它們對烏克蘭等友好國家的債務表現出最溫柔的憐憫。難怪在紀念這兩個吸血鬼機構成立 80 周年之際，又有一場呼籲廢除它們的運動。
唯一的好消息是，它們正變得越來越沒有效率，越來越不重要，主要是因為中國崛起為一個主要債權國。
這就是我們今天要談論的背景。邁克爾，你做了大量的工作。我知道你一直在關注烏克蘭的債務問題，可以追溯到 2014 年，甚至更早。那麽你為什麽不先談談烏克蘭的債務以及國際貨幣基金組織如何處理它呢？
邁克爾·哈德森：烏克蘭目前的債務糾紛表明，在對待無法償還債務且陷入類似債務困境的國家時，國際貨幣基金組織乃至整個國際債券界都奉行雙重標準。
兩年前，當烏克蘭與俄羅斯的戰爭開始時，俄羅斯不得不進行幹預，因為烏克蘭的俄語區遭受了平民襲擊，很明顯烏克蘭不會償還債務。因此，當時債務到期的國際債券持有人說，好吧，你現在不必還錢。我們知道你們在打仗。讓我們推遲兩年，等到 2024 年 8 月 1 日。
這正是我們現在的處境。兩年前，他們說戰爭到那時肯定會結束。國際貨幣基金組織和美國說，烏克蘭將擊敗俄羅斯，據我們所知，我們將進軍俄羅斯，但不會發生戰爭。到那時，烏克蘭可以償還債務。所以每個人都說，好吧，等一下，你隻會繼續給我們帶來利息。
你可以想象一個月前付款到期時發生了什麽。烏克蘭會怎麽做？顯然，烏克蘭沒有錢，債券持有人可以選擇。要麽他們堅持要付款，說你違約了，我們會把你列入違約名單，如果你不能付錢給我們，那就意味著國際貨幣基金組織根據其規則（它不遵守規則），但根據規則（如果人們遵守規則），它不允許向對私人債權人違約的國家提供貸款。
這是因為國際貨幣基金組織是警察，充當私人債權人的說客，迫使債券得到支付。
因此，主要的債券持有人，我們說的是最大的債券基金、太平洋投資管理公司債券基金、黑石集團聚在一起，他們有選擇。他們做的事情非常了不起。他們居然說，好吧，烏克蘭，你們不僅不必償還現在到期的債務，還可以減記約 39% 的債務，因為我們知道你們無法償還。隻要答應幾年後開始償還我們，那時我們知道你們將擊敗俄羅斯，有能力償還。他們實際上在烏克蘭的垃圾債券上蒙受了巨額損失。
令我驚訝的是，這不是普通國際銀行家會做的事情。他們完全可以說，不，我們要取消抵押品贖回權，他們應該明白，美國政府和國際貨幣基金組織會盡一切努力防止烏克蘭違約，他們會救助烏克蘭。但不知何故，美國政府卻強迫債券持有人。
我們不知道為什麽，但債券持有人做了一件非常不尋常的事情，承擔了即將到期的 500 億美元貸款的損失。國際貨幣基金組織解釋說，由於西方不再遵守法治，而是遵守基於規則的秩序，所以一切都可以繼續進行。
我們已經知道，國際貨幣基金組織的另一項協議條款規定，不允許向處於戰爭狀態的國家提供貸款。國際貨幣基金組織表示，我轉述一下，如果該國發動戰爭是為了美國和北約支持的目的，當然，因為我們基本上是北約的分支機構，當然也是美國國防部和國務院的分支機構，我們可以放棄這些規則。這些規則隻適用於我們想對付難以償還債務的頑固國家的情況。
所以他們隻是向烏克蘭提供了新的貸款，使其能夠繼續打仗。債券持有人都假裝烏克蘭不會輸，他們會以某種方式償還債務並支付債券持有人。
沒有人知道是什麽真正說服了他們。但當然，由於黑石集團和太平洋投資管理公司與美國國務院關係密切，因此肯定存在討論、壓力和某種秘密承諾，即不用擔心，我們會照顧好你。
顯然，烏克蘭已經製定了兩項計劃來償還債務。黑石集團和摩根大通正在合作組織一項他們所說的一旦烏克蘭債務到期，就會出售烏克蘭資源的大買賣。
戰爭結束了。他們認為，這將是美國公司、歐洲公司購買烏克蘭土地、烏克蘭公共設施和任何資產的巨大市場。
因此，如果烏克蘭贏得軍事戰爭，我們知道這不會發生。但如果他們贏了，那麽他們將不再是一個擁有自己資源的國家。無論如何，它最終會看起來像阿根廷或其他國家，被告知要通過出售土地、出售礦產權來償還債務。烏克蘭擁有礦產，全部位於俄語區，包括鋰和其他礦產。而幻想是，政府將以某種方式用所有這些支付給烏克蘭政府的收購其資產的資金來支付債券持有人並保持償付能力。
這基本上是國際貨幣基金組織過去 50 年的戰略。如果拉丁美洲國家或非洲國家無法償還債務並不得不向國際貨幣基金組織借款，他們就必須出售礦產權、土地和其他東西。
一定有 B 計劃。我一直在想辦法。我懷疑債券持有人被告知，如果奇跡發生，烏克蘭在戰爭中失敗，那麽歐元區將拿走他們從俄羅斯沒收的 3000 億美元，並將其作為戰爭賠償交給烏克蘭。烏克蘭將用他們從俄羅斯沒收的錢來償還債券持有人。這隻是我的猜測，但我無法想象債券持有人會現在就承擔損失，除非他們腦子裏有這兩個計劃，即 A 計劃和 B 計劃。
正如拉迪卡所說，這不是市場關係。這是一種政治關係。
拉迪卡·德賽：邁克爾，你知道，這真的很有趣。當然，我的意思是，有趣的是，在這種情況下，私人債權人被要求對他們對烏克蘭的貸款進行近 40% 的減記。
現在，無論幕後有什麽陰謀詭計，無論出於什麽原因，事實是，即使他們真的減記了債務，美國也隻能得到兩點好處。第一，通常這種減記發生在債務人已經支付了巨額債務之後，比最初簽訂的合同還多。
但其次，你知道，在過去的 40 多年裏，美國一直為其金融機構提供全麵支持。所以不管怎樣，這些人實際上都不會失去什麽。
但有一點確實很有趣。烏克蘭可以要求私人債權人為烏克蘭減記債務，但世界其他國家不會忽視這一點，因為第三世界國家的許多債務都是欠私人債權人的。這些私人債權人通過向第三世界國家放貸而受益匪淺。我們稍後會談到他們究竟是如何受益的。
因此，當第三世界債務危機（已經持續）達到臨界點時，我認為第三世界國家將完全有能力指出，看，你可以要求私人債權人在烏克蘭問題上大幅減記。為什麽我們不能呢？我們的事業更加偉大。所以，你知道，我認為這將變得非常清楚。
但還有一件事我想說，那就是，當然，美國曆史上是通過戰爭賺錢的。我的意思是，你自己也指出，美國在第一次世界大戰結束時基本上成為了一個債權國，主要是因為它拒絕免除它對歐洲交戰國的貸款，就像英國在拿破侖戰爭期間曾免除對交戰國的貸款一樣。
當英國提出這一點時，[美國]說，不，我們不會免除這些債務。我們希望你們償還這些債務。這就是美國成為債權國的原因。當然，它在某種意義上保留了對這一領域的控製權。因此，美國不僅通過向交戰國出口越來越多的武器等材料而受益，就像它在烏克蘭、以色列、台灣等國家所做的那樣，其經濟已經變得非常依賴戰爭。
但當它的金融機構向這些國家放貸時，它也會如此。
你也談到了俄羅斯資產。你知道，我發現這個俄羅斯資產故事真正有趣的地方是，美國正在向歐洲人施加壓力，要求他們使用俄羅斯資產，因為你知道，大多數俄羅斯資產實際上是歐元。然後在英國和美國金融機構中，較小數額的資產是英鎊和美元。
但美國也在向歐洲施加壓力，因此金融機構，私人金融機構實際上對這樣做有點謹慎
因為他們不想讓其他存款人認為他們會這樣做，因為如果其他存款人開始認為他們會失去存款，他們就會失去生意。
所以他們一直在這樣做，所以這又是對歐洲施加壓力的一部分。如果你讓歐洲抹黑自己的金融體係，而美國仍然處於困境之中。所以這也真的很有趣。
是的，我的意思是，你可以看到這種偏袒。我認為，邁克爾，你也知道，國際貨幣基金組織對烏克蘭表現出的這種偏袒曆史更悠久，對吧？他們一直在做這種事情，嗯，如果不是 2014 年，至少肯定是在當前衝突開始之前。
邁克爾·哈德森：我實際上想早點開始。你提出了一個重要的觀點，即工業化國家、歐洲和美國的債務都是戰爭債務。
它始於 13 世紀。羅馬教會向其他基督教國家宣戰，主要是德國，這些國家不接受羅馬天主教的統治方向。他們與正統的基督教國家作戰。所以他們基本上雇傭了像征服者威廉這樣的軍閥把英國變成了一個封地。
問題是他們有為梵蒂岡工作的軍隊，軍閥有點像農奴。但你如何獲得戰爭資金呢？
正是羅馬教會在 13 世紀組織了來自意大利、北意大利銀行家、倫巴第人的商業銀行家，他們被要求向英國和其他參戰國家提供貸款。
為了做到這一點，羅馬基督教會顛覆了整個基督教精神，說如果你是為了我們認可的基督教目的，比如參戰，收取利息是可以的。從 13 世紀和 14 世紀一直到 20 世紀，幾乎所有的外債、內債、歐洲國家的公共債務都是戰爭債務。這種情況還在繼續。
戰爭債務的重要之處在於它們不是自我攤銷的。發動戰爭並不能讓你有錢償還債權人。這就是問題所在。
全球南方債務在很大程度上不是國際戰爭的結果。這使得全球南方債務不同於歐洲債務。你可以稱之為階級戰爭，或者像我們所做的那樣，是工業國家與工業供應商之間的地緣政治戰爭。
拉迪卡·德賽：這是一種帝國主義。這是一種帝國主義。
邁克爾·哈德森：你可以說這是一種金融殖民主義。對我來說，這個問題早在 20 世紀 60 年代中期就開始顯現。1965 年，我是大通曼哈頓銀行的國際收支經濟學家。大多數銀行都有自己的經濟學家來判斷第三世界客戶能負擔得起多少錢。他們讓我研究智利、阿根廷和巴西，他們說，看看他們的出口潛力有多大。看看他們的國際收支如何。他們獲得了多少盈餘，以至於我們可以讓他們以某種方式承諾將盈餘用於貸款？因為銀行的國際部門通過向這些國家放貸賺錢。
我做了一個快速分析，我可以說，如果你看看國際收支平衡，他們已經靠借貸為生了。他們已經沒有產生盈餘了。而且早在 60 年代中期，銀行就開始削減貸款，因為當時向這些國家放貸仍然在很大程度上是一種市場現象。
他們說，我們是債權人。我們不想發放壞賬。我們能獲得貸款的唯一方法是知道有 [貿易順差] 和國際收支順差。這不再是問題。
所以在某個時候，我想這一定是在 20 世紀 70 年代，我是多家經紀公司和承銷商的顧問。當時我被稱為三位末日博士之一。我說，我看不出拉丁美洲如何能再承擔更多債務。他們已經借了太多的錢了。
我們在美聯儲開會，美聯儲官員轉過身來對我說，哈德森先生，你說這些拉丁美洲國家無力償還債務。但假設你對英國做了分析。英國也處於同樣的境地。沒有辦法說它如何償還債務，對嗎？
當時英國正在貶值英鎊。我說，是的，完全正確。美聯儲官員說，好吧，但它確實償還了債務。它如何償還？我們借錢給他們，因為他們是我們的盟友。如果我們告訴銀行，你們有能力向這些國家貸款，雖然沒有明顯的支持手段，但我們會支持他們，那麽你們就不需要做經濟分析了。這是政治分析。如果他們是朋友，就像英國一樣，我們會支持他們。
你知道，英格蘭最終貶值了。到 20 世紀 70 年代末，我在聯合國訓練研究所工作。1978 年和 1979 年，我為聯合國訓練研究所撰寫了一係列文章，發表了一係列文章，指出全球南方國家
無法支付。我在墨西哥城的聯合國訓練研究所會議上公開表示了這一點。
因此，除非美國借錢給他們，否則他們已經無法支付。正如我們之前討論過的，到 1982 年，墨西哥無法償還其短期債務（稱為 tessobonos），從而引發了整個拉丁美洲債務危機。當時，這些債務的收益率可能為 20%，因為市場投資者發現他們無法支付。這在很長一段時間內都是顯而易見的。
這導致了多米諾骨牌效應。阿根廷、巴西和 20 世紀 80 年代的剩餘時間裏，布雷迪計劃出台，國際債券持有人聚在一起說，我們知道第三世界國家（當時被稱為第三世界國家）無法支付。你必須將債務減記為可支付的金額，至少要讓債權人知道，是的，在這個減記的水平上，他們可以負擔得起債務的服務。
美國和歐洲的投資者都不相信這份協議。1989 年和 1990 年，我被基金經理斯卡德·史蒂文斯 (Scudder, Stevens) 聘用，負責創辦世界上第一隻主權債務基金，主要針對第三世界債務。
當他們聘用我時，他們說，邁克爾，你被稱為末日博士。你一直在說這些國家無法償還債務。假設我們創辦一隻第三世界債券基金，而且它隻是一個五年期基金。你認為阿根廷、巴西在未來五年內有能力償還這筆債務嗎？
當時是 1989 年，巴西和阿根廷支付的美元債券利息為 45%。想象一下，你知道，兩年後，你收回了所有的利息，而你仍然擁有所有的債券。
斯卡德走遍了美國，與銀行會麵，沒有一家銀行、一家投資基金或養老基金願意投資。他們說，不，我們已經被拉丁美洲債券搞得焦頭爛額了。我們不想再買任何債券。
他們去了歐洲、英國、德國、法國，但沒人買。最後，他們找到了美林證券，說，你能承銷這些債券嗎？讓我們找一個可能以 45% 的利率購買這些債券的國家。
美林證券告訴其位於阿根廷的拉丁美洲辦事處發行該主權債務基金的股份。斯卡德想稱之為主權高息信托，狗屁，但我認為他們的名字不太貼切。
唯一會購買阿根廷和巴西債務的人是在阿根廷市場購買的，這些股票在那裏出售，公司在荷屬西印度群島成立。美國人不允許購買這些股票。當你有離岸基金時，通常隻對外國人開放。
購買阿根廷和巴西主權美元債務的國家本身就是這些國家的成員。顯然，這一定是寡頭集團在搞的鬼。毫無疑問，央行行長和總統的家人買下了這些基金，因為，好吧，我們負責償還債務，所以我們當然會買下這個基金。如果我們要違約，那麽我們就會把債務賣給一些傻瓜。但隻要我們負責決定償還美元債務，我們就有能力購買它們。
你有這個客戶寡頭集團，整個第三世界基本上都在購買這些第三世界債務。然後這個基金就起飛了。它是 1990 年全球表現第二好的基金。我認為澳大利亞的房地產基金是第一個。
突然之間，這導致向第三世界國家貸款的新一輪浪潮，主要是因為國際貨幣基金組織說，好吧，這些國家在美國的軌道上。我們支持他們的政府。畢竟，這是在智利被推翻後，當時美國政府在拉丁美洲各地設立暗殺小組，安插了客戶寡頭，當然，這些寡頭會償還美元債務。
那時，它不再是一種市場關係。它完全變成了政治關係，所有美國和歐洲的投資者都開始加入進來。
拉迪卡·德賽：好吧，我隻是想澄清一下。這很有趣，邁克爾。我隻是想澄清一下，我並不是說債務有時是市場關係，有時是政治關係。我認為這始終是一種政治關係。甚至所謂的風險溢價，即所謂的窮國應該支付的，你知道，他們借給他們的風險更大。這意味著他們必須支付更高的利率。研究表明，事實上，這種所謂的風險溢價完全是人為製造的。這些私人債權人向窮國放貸賺的錢遠遠多於向富國放貸賺的錢。
從這個意義上說，我認為信貸始終是一種政治關係，各種因素，包括社會偏見，都會發揮作用，所以，你知道，窮國幾乎總是被認為是一個糟糕的選擇。因此，他們必須支付更高的利率。
他們得到的條件更差，就像在一個國家裏，某些邊緣群體，
如果你是黑人或拉美裔，那麽你將不得不支付更高的費用，你的信用評級會更低，諸如此類。所以從這些方麵來看，我認為這始終是一種政治關係。
你已經轉到第三世界債務的問題上。那麽讓我們來談談第三世界債務，因為我認為，你知道，你給出了一個很好的敘述，但有一組非常關鍵的事件我想特別提請大家注意，因為這將使我們能夠從曆史的角度看待當前的債務危機。
我說的是 1982 年爆發的債務危機。但當然，起源至少可以追溯到那之前的十年。所以它實際上可以追溯到黃金窗口的關閉、布雷頓森林體係的崩潰、石油價格的上漲，石油價格在 20 世紀 70 年代初首次翻了兩番，然後在 20 世紀 70 年代末再次翻了一番，部分原因是美元的貶值。美元大幅下跌，以至於所有這些石油出口國都說，好吧，如果我們要用美元收錢，我們需要更多的美元，我們的石油價格也需要上漲。
當油價上漲四倍時，人們記得這對係統來說是一次巨大的衝擊。但在幕後還發生了其他事情，這就是開始，你知道，邁克爾，你和我討論過美元體係等等。
我們強調的一件事是，1971 年之後，在美元與黃金之間的聯係被打破之後，美元被置於一種新的基礎上。這種新基礎就是我們所說的金融化，即以美元計價的金融活動的大規模擴張，人為地增加了對美元的需求。
現在開始發生的事情是，首先，亨利·基辛格以他典型的馬基雅維利主義方式，在石油危機之後，去了所有阿拉伯國家，石油出口國，說，看，夥計們，我們沒問題，你知道，如果你們必須提高石油價格，那沒問題，我們可以接受。但你應該把你們得到的額外錢存入西方金融機構，以美元計價的存款形式存入。事實上，他們就是這麽做的。
因此，西方銀行變得資金充裕。他們突然坐擁巨額資金。你認為這對銀行來說是件好事。但實際上，這對銀行來說是個大麻煩，因為如果你坐擁巨額資金，而你必須支付利息，你就必須以某種方式利用這些資金來賺取你將支付給儲戶的利息。所以你必須找到借款人。
那時西方金融機構開始瘋狂放貸，向任何第三世界國家放貸。事實上，他們甚至放貸，對不起，關於這一點我隻想說最後一點，還有一件事，他們當時甚至向社會主義國家放貸。對不起，邁克爾，你想說點什麽。
邁克爾·哈德森：不僅僅是銀行。到了 20 世紀 90 年代，私人債券基金也開始出現。
拉迪卡·德賽：我還是在談論 20 世紀 70 年代。對不起，我還是在談論 20 世紀 70 年代。所以也許我會講完 20 世紀 70 年代的故事，然後我們再講 20 世紀 90 年代。因為這是一個非常有趣的故事。所以在這個時候，他們開始瘋狂放貸。
在這種背景下，請記住，在 20 世紀 70 年代，通貨膨脹率非常高，利率幾乎跟不上通貨膨脹率。因此，實際上，很多時候，實際利率都是負的。因此，第三世界國家長期以來一直在為工業化等目的借貸，用我讀過的一位作家的話來說，我忘記了名字，但他基本上是說，這就像一台神奇的賺錢機器，你知道，他們可以幾乎不花任何錢獲得無限量的信貸。事實上，如果利率為負，銀行就會付錢讓他們借錢。所以這就是大量借貸發生的背景。
但通貨膨脹持續存在。最後，美聯儲，即將上任的美聯儲主席保羅·沃爾克決定擼起袖子，通過引發經濟衰退來徹底消除通貨膨脹。所以他所做的就是簡單地限製貨幣供應。他說，我隻會限製貨幣供應。我不在乎利率走向何方。
然後他們就一躍而上，從負實際利率上升到 15%、18% 和 20% 的兩位數利率。突然之間，所有這些國家的債務負擔並沒有因為任何長期發展而改變。他們的狀況因一個決策者的單一決定而改變。
因此，保羅·沃爾克在美國引發了一場危機，一場非常漫長的經濟衰退，但在第三世界，他引發了債務危機。於是債務危機爆發了，特別是墨西哥、巴西和阿根廷，它們最初拖欠了債務
1982 年，他們開始償還債務。
我甚至還記得當時菲德爾·卡斯特羅對他們說，看，你們已經還得夠多了。你們不需要還，你們應該拒絕償還債務，你們應該放棄債務，等等。
但不幸的是，事情並非如此。所有第三世界國家基本上都是這樣，拉丁美洲緊隨其後的是非洲。這兩個大陸尤其遭受了重創，實際上，在經濟上，他們遭受了重創，經曆了經濟衰退。
突然間，他們不得不擴大出口，因為他們幾乎沒有實現工業化，他們所能出口的隻是其他第三世界國家都會出口的各種初級產品，無論是咖啡、棉花、茶葉、可可，還是草莓，什麽都有，各種新鮮的第三世界初級產品都買不到。很難買到的棉花突然湧入西方市場。絲綢本來很難買到，但突然間，絲綢充斥了西方市場。
所以，西方國家得到了如此巨大的財富，他們得以購買廉價商品。當然，如果每個生產咖啡的國家都出口咖啡，如果每個生產棉花的國家都出口棉花，價格就會下降。所以，他們不得不越來越努力地維持原有的地位。所以，第三世界國家真的陷入了困境。當然，社會支出被削減，諸如此類。
這就是第三世界債務危機的起源和爆發。邁克爾，我知道你想說點什麽。所以我讓你進來。然後我們想談談當前的債務危機。
邁克爾·哈德森：我想總結一下你所說的。當油價上漲四倍時，與沙特阿拉伯達成的協議是，你可以收取任何你想要的價格，但要把收入留在美國。這導致美國市場充斥著資金。這些錢被存入美國銀行。你說得對。銀行說，我們要怎麽處理這些錢？他們必須找到客戶。而付錢的客戶是第三世界債務人。
是什麽結束了這一切？正如你所說，當保羅·沃爾克提高利率時，國際投資者突然拋售了他們的海外資產，並說，我們將在 1980 年購買收益率為 20% 的美國國債。我記得很清楚。所以你是對的。這導致了整個危機。突然之間，美國銀行不再有沙特美元了。當信貸停止時，墨西哥和拉丁美洲國家突然無法借到利息來償還債務。
正如你所指出的，在整個 20 世紀 70 年代，基本上各國都會借錢，而且他們償還債務沒有任何問題，因為他們借了利息。這是一個龐氏騙局。
拉迪卡·德賽：大宗商品價格也很高。請記住，那是通貨膨脹的 1970 年代，因為商品價格很高，所以他們可以賺錢償還債務。我的意思是，第三世界國家賺不到錢來償還債務，這並不是理所當然的。
真正的困難在於，貸款並不是因為第三世界國家需要錢。貸款是因為私人債權人需要貸款。所以他們基本上是在向第三世界國家兜售這些貸款。
邁克爾·哈德森：是的，我同意。是的。
拉迪卡·德賽：不管怎樣，讓我們??看看這個。我有一些圖表。你知道，正如我之前提到的，聯合國貿易和發展會議發布了一份名為《債務之家》的精彩報告。這是一份 2024 年的報告，它有一些非常有啟發性的圖表，我將分享其中一些。
那麽我們開始吧。邁克爾，這是一張圖表，顯示發展中國家的公共債務增長速度是發達國家的兩倍：
所以如果你在這裏看到，你會發現發達國家的債務在增長。當然，我們已經看到公共債務自 2020 年以來增長尤其顯著。抱歉，我的光標現在去哪兒了？
它自 2020 年以來增長尤其顯著，你可以看到實心黃線是發展中國家。這基本上是一條指數線。所以，2010 年，想象一下所有國家，這三類國家的債務在 2010 年都是 100。所以，發達國家的債務從 100 上升到大約 150 多一點，也許 160。
但對於發展中國家來說，公共債務總額在 12、13 年內從 100 上升到 350 多。所以，這真的很有趣。
當然，真正有趣的是，如果你看看不包括中國的發展中國家，你會發現債務要少得多，因為中國一直在借很多錢。但當然，我們並不擔心中國的信用價值，因為中國有足夠的錢來償還。中國有巨大的生產力來償還債務。
所以，問題在於發達國家線和不包括中國的發展中國家線之間的中間部分。這就是問題所在。
邁克爾·哈德森：很難從 1990 年開始，因為
如果你在 1990 年遇到這種情況，那麽你就會遇到 1998 年亞洲債務危機。這是亞洲貨幣的全麵崩潰，也是馬來西亞以外幾乎所有地方債務危機的結果。第三世界國家，尤其是亞洲國家，出現了大規模拋售——
RADHIKA DESAI：是的，但那不是公共債務，邁克爾。那實際上是西方資本進入這些國家。我的意思是，我認為我們必須將其括起來，我們必須取出來，我們必須擴展另一個節目來談論 1998 年債務危機。所以，1998 年，貨幣危機就是因為私人資本進入了各種資本市場。西方私人資本進入了這些所謂的大型新興市場的各種資本市場。
但現在讓我們回到這場公共債務危機，然後我們再做另一個節目來討論這個現象。
這是一張圖表，另一張圖表也很有趣：
自 2014 年以來，淨債務流出的發展中國家增加了一倍多。再一次，你看到這裏，這些都是發展中國家，然後它們被分為非洲，深藍色是亞洲和大洋洲，然後是拉丁美洲。所以，你可以看到，在 2014 年，它已經降到了非常低的水平。從那時起，債務基本上已經上升，從大約 25% 多一點上升到 50% 多一點。
所以，你可以看到，淨債務流出的實際金額增加了一倍多。也就是說，在此期間，從這些國家流出的資金比流入的資金多。所以，這是另一個非常有趣的觀點。
然後這個數字也很有趣：
更多國家麵臨沉重的債務負擔，尤其是在非洲。所以，這隻是這三個地區發展中國家公共債務占 GDP 比重超過 60% 的圖表，國際貨幣基金組織正是在這個數字開始發出警報。
為了便於比較，我認為美國的債務最近已經超過 GDP 的 100%。我認為這個數字更像是 110% 或 20%。我不確定確切的數字，但通過比較你可以看出，這些國家的承載能力當然較低，或者至少被認為承載能力較低。
這張圖表非常有趣：
我們之前談到了第三世界債務危機，其中有一些私人資本，但現在你可以看到，對於整個發展中國家來說，私人債權人占發展中國家總債務的 61%，在拉丁美洲，這個比例更高，在拉丁美洲最高，正如你在一張較小的偏差圖中看到的那樣，在亞洲和大洋洲，這個比例略低，在非洲，這個比例最低。
然後，其他兩類，即雙邊債權人和多邊債權人，構成了剩餘部分。
因此，私人資本、私人資金在這場債務危機的起源中發揮了非常重要的作用。
另一個數字顯示，利息支付相對於收入增加了一倍：
因此，如果你把公共收入、這些政府的稅收收入算上，對於整個發展中國家來說，利息支付已經從收入的 4.2% 上升到 7.8%。再說一次，在非洲，增長最為迅猛，而在拉丁美洲和加勒比地區，增長速度較慢，因為這些地區的增長速度已經非常快了，而在亞洲和大洋洲，增長速度也較慢。
然後這張圖也很有趣，邁克爾，請隨意發言，但我覺得這張圖真的很有趣，或者說這個數字非常有趣，因為你看到的是全世界的公共債務總額，然後是世界上哪個地方產生了多少債務。
因此，你可以看到，美國當然產生了最大的債務。日本緊隨其後，但當然，你必須記住，日本的公共債務主要是欠日本人的，但無論如何，這是這裏的公共債務，其次是法國、德國等，然後是其他國家。
在發展中國家，首先，發展中國家的份額要小得多。然後在這個份額內，盡管大部分債務人-債權人關係都處於邁克爾所說的魅力圈內，即支付能力基本上不受懷疑，如果受到懷疑，在某種意義上，美聯儲會支持它，因此這場債務危機正在發生。
是的，邁克爾，繼續說吧。
邁克爾·哈德森：情況比你的圖表顯示的要糟糕得多。債務與 GDP 之比對第三世界國家以及美國以外的幾乎所有國家來說都是毫無意義的。債務不是用 GDP 來償還的。在美國，你可以說這是，但全球南方國家、亞洲國家的債務不是以本國貨幣計算的，而是以美元計算的。
問題是，你如何將他們的 GDP 轉換成美元？與美國不同，這些國家沒有以本國貨幣計算的債務。所以
你真正需要比較和查看的是這些國家的貿易順差和國際收支順差是多少？
我們說的是 1,000%。現在看看你剛剛放出的這張圖表。以非洲為例，從 2010 年到 2023 年。高達 9%。9% 意味著在大約八年內翻了一番。現在，自 2010 年以來已經過去了八年多。僅憑利息支付，非洲的債務就翻了兩三倍。
因此，這些國家（全球南方國家）的大部分債務不是借來的錢。這是他們現有債務的利息。他們可以借錢來支付利息，但所有這些都是利息的累積，而不是貸款。這些國家的實際新信貸流幾年前就已經枯竭了。他們隻是承擔了過去債務的利息，他們相信國際貨幣基金組織會以某種方式協調一切，照顧他們，並假裝他們能夠償還這些債務，但大多數全球南方國家沒有辦法償還這些債務，尤其是美元化的債務，因為他們沒有賺美元的手段，而這些手段實際上並沒有。
那麽他們做了什麽？你展示的那幾十年，他們基本上是私有化的，隻是通過借利息來償還債務，並在一定程度上出售他們的遺產。
RADHIKA DESAI：正確。你所說的邁克爾，也就是資金的提取實際上在這組圖表中有所體現。
因此，這表明私人債權人的撤資導致近 500 億美元的資金流出。發展中國家按債權人類型劃分的外部公共債務淨轉移。因此，你可以看到，總淨資源轉移已經從正數變為正數，例如略低於 100。因此，流入這些國家的資本，上升到 170 億美元左右，然後在 2014 年左右下降，但隨後大幅下降，變為負 500 億美元左右。
然而，其中的雙邊債務，即一個國家借給另一個國家，或多邊債務，即國家集團或世界銀行、國際貨幣基金組織等組織借給某個國家的債務，一直保持相對穩定。
實際情況是，為了應對西方國家利率上升，私人資本基本上已經退出了這些市場。所以本質上是他們，正是私人資本的撤出造成了這個問題。
邁克爾·哈德森：我不喜歡資源轉移的委婉說法。沒有一分錢的資源被轉移到這些國家。金融貸款不是資源。資源是幫助你成長的有形生產資料。資源是工廠。資源是一些生產資料。
向各國提供資金，特別是用於償還債務的資金，並不是資源。這是一種金融債權。它與資源相反。這是他們欠下的債務，是對他們施加的金融枷鎖和束縛，而不是資源轉移。這是國際貨幣基金組織債權人的說法。
拉迪卡·德賽：當然，絕對是這樣。這是你提出的另一個重要觀點，因為我認為，特別是西方債務似乎屬於這種類型，本質上是用來從這些國家榨取越來越多的資本，而沒有為它們的生產能力做出貢獻。
而我認為最近，中國作為主要債權國的崛起為這些國家的生產能力建設做出了更大的貢獻，無論是農場、礦山、工廠、基礎設施還是其他什麽。
但這是我們談論的另一件事。你知道，我們指出，第三世界國家支付的風險溢價更高。因此，這份報告指出，發展中國家的借貸成本遠高於發達國家。
那麽發達國家向發展中國家發行的債券收益率是多少？
德國的借貸成本為 0.8%。有趣的是，美國的利率遠高於德國，實際上是德國的三倍，為 2.5%。
亞洲國家為 5.3%。拉丁美洲和加勒比國家為 6.8%。非洲國家為這些貸款支付近 10% 的利息。
現在，這基本上就是我們正在研究的這場債務危機的輪廓。
但其起源也非常相似，因為你知道，我們之前強調過 1980 年債務危機的起源，這場危機在 1982 年爆發，並在接下來的二十年裏持續了差不多。這場債務危機的起源在於西方金融機構急於向第三世界國家放貸。
所以你可能會問，西方借款人這次急於借貸是從何而來的？
嗯，故事很簡單。眾所周知，在互聯網泡沫之後，艾倫·格林斯潘，是嗎？是的，我認為艾倫·格林斯潘仍然在追求，乞求
開始推行低利率政策。
然後在 2000 年代中期，由於美元麵臨下行壓力，他被迫開始提高利率，最終在利率達到 5% 左右時，刺破了房地產和信貸泡沫。
在隨後的混亂之後，美聯儲，對不起，我應該補充一點。他推行低利率政策，因為他認為這是保持房地產泡沫持續下去的最佳方式。事實上這是正確的，因為當時的房地產泡沫，我在我的書《地緣政治經濟學》中提到過，房地產泡沫是推動任何經濟增長的唯一因素。我的意思是，它相當疲軟，但這就是你所擁有的一切。投資處於絕對的最低點。所以他們認為，好吧，讓我們讓它破裂，讓房地產泡沫破裂，我們會沒事的。但當然，這給美元帶來了下行壓力，因為你能在 2% 和 3% 的利率政策下維持多久美元堅挺？
嗯，美元正在走弱，這太過分了。進口價格在上漲，石油價格也在上漲。因此，格林斯潘開始提高利率，結果房地產和信貸泡沫破滅了。現在，在房地產和信貸泡沫破滅之後，他們當然推行了更低的利率政策。
ZIRP，即所謂的零利率政策出台，他們實行量化寬鬆政策，他們有各種各樣的方式將越來越多的資金推入銀行係統，但提供的利息卻越來越少，這意味著他們被迫，他們基本上被迫承擔越來越大的風險，以獲得回報。他們現在願意承擔的風險之一就是向第三世界國家放貸。因此，第三世界國家再次開始享受資金流入的巨額收益。
但當然，同樣的事情又發生了。通貨膨脹在美國卷土重來，通貨膨脹實際上開始施加壓力，為了平息通貨膨脹，美聯儲被迫開始加息，但眾所周知，他已將利率提高到 5.25% 左右，但他沒有再提高利率，傑羅姆·鮑威爾也沒有進一步提高利率，因為即使將利率提高到這個水平，也引發了一種緩慢的金融崩潰，這種崩潰的開端我們在 2023 年 3 月看到的矽穀銀行和其他類似銀行的崩潰中看到了。
還有許多其他的，我們現在生活在一個泡沫時代，不僅僅是這個或那個泡沫，而是一切泡沫。所有這些資產市場都很有可能崩潰，但盡管如此，這些利率已經上升，它們給發展中國家帶來了債務危機，這些國家已經受到了 COVID 的影響，受到了 COVID 帶來的經濟挫折，也受到了高油價的影響。他們還遭受著高食品價格的困擾。他們還飽受化肥價格高企之苦。所以，把所有這些因素綜合起來，對許多第三世界國家來說，這就是災難的根源。
邁克爾·赫德森：如果這些國家存在您所描述的問題，那麽國際貨幣基金組織如何向這些國家提供貸款，使它們能夠償還債務並不斷展期，以利率借給他們，而不是違約？這不是市場關係。如果我們將市場關係定義為債權人負責任地行事，他們就不會向無法償還債務的國家提供貸款，因為市場關係應該平衡風險和利率。但這根本沒有發生。風險如此之高，以至於利率必須高得多。
所以必須有另一種解釋。解釋是國際貨幣基金組織和美國政策製定者知道債務無法償還。我們所說的是，債務無法償還並不是隻有我們知道的秘密。向無法償還的國家發放貸款的原因恰恰在於，如果一個國家無法用其出口收入、其他國際收支和流動資金來償還貸款，它就必須像個人一樣行事。如果你向銀行借錢抵押貸款，但無法償還，銀行就會收回你的房子。這就是全球南方國家所發生的事情。
國際貨幣基金組織會說，哦，你付不起錢？好吧，我們會向你提供貸款，這樣你的貨幣就不會再次貶值，也不會隨著外匯進口價格的上漲而提高你的消費價格。我們會向你提供貸款，但你必須出售你的公用事業、石油和資源。讓我們把世界銀行的朋友請來。世界銀行應該幫助你，還記得嗎？
世界銀行有整個顧問團說，我們將幫助你將資源私有化。我們將為全球南方國家做貝萊德為烏克蘭做的事情。我們將幫助你將所有自給自足的手段賣給外國人
我們可以幫助你不再是一個主權國家，而成為一個好的國家，美國稱之為民主國家，讓外國人購買你私有化的所有資產，就像瑪格麗特·撒切爾那樣。
這就引出了一個問題，什麽是主權債務？如果這些國家必須向外國人出售其基本支持手段，那麽它們還是主權國家嗎？它們根本不是主權國家。國際貨幣基金組織和世界銀行聯手阻止其他國家掌控自己的命運，阻止全球南方國家使用其稅收收入實際投資於社會支出和資本形成，並補貼自己的農業工業自給自足，而不是能夠做到這一點。
讓國家背負債務的作用是，它們所有的國內財政盈餘都支付給外國債權人，而不是供本國使用。這意味著債務國已經不再是世界上任何有意義的主權國家。
我認為這就是邏輯，這種意識正在全球南方國家中傳播。他們意識到償還外債是一種金融新殖民主義，隻不過是沒有炮艦的殖民主義，除非你像智利那樣，美國必須介入並進行政權更迭行動。所以這改變了整個問題。
拉迪卡·德賽：這也是一個有趣的觀點。你知道，我記得早在國際貨幣基金組織和世界銀行成立 50 周年時，就已經有一場廢除它們的運動，主要是出於你剛才列舉的同樣的原因。
他們一直充當外國、西方外國資本的執行官。這就是他們今天繼續做的事情。但你知道嗎？邁克爾，你提到了 1998 年金融危機。在 1998 年金融危機之後，國際貨幣基金組織對韓國的幹預方式，韓國不是一個欠發達國家，而是一個極其多元化、工業化、複雜的經濟體。
他們基本上試圖以你所描述的方式處理這個問題，你知道，迫使韓國等國拋售資產，包括私人和公共資產。
許多國家開始注意到這一點。實際上，特別是國際貨幣基金組織，特別是國際貨幣基金組織和世界銀行的貸款組合縮減，因為第三世界國家也開始看到他們在 2000 年之後獲得資金，當然，是私下獲得的。但同時，他們獲得的資金越來越多，中國的信貸也越來越多。
因此，這些機構的作用已經減弱。它們不再那麽強大。我認為他們正試圖在國際上保持某種作用。但我認為，在新的環境下，這場債務危機究竟將如何解決將會很有趣。
例如，在我們的其他節目中，我們一直在談論世界大多數國家如何表現出越來越多的團結跡象，金磚國家正在擴張，中國正在建立新的聯盟，等等。
現在，這是否會導致債務國形成聯合陣線，並說，好吧，你想和我們作為債權人集團打交道，我們就和你作為債務人集團打交道。我們將拭目以待。我認為如果這樣的事情發生了，那將會非常有趣。我認為這有可能發生，這真的要視情況而定。
我認為，在節目開始時，我們談到這樣一個事實：如果可以要求私人債權人對烏克蘭進行非常大幅度的減記，以便打一場戰爭，那麽為什麽不能要求私人債權人對第三世界債務進行大幅減記，以便孩子們有飯可吃，有學校可上學，有幹淨的水可喝，等等。
因此，在所有這些方麵，我認為債務的政治性質已經越來越公開。因此，由於信貸，由於扣押俄羅斯資產、委內瑞拉資產、阿富汗資產等，美國金融體係也被武器化。因此，所有這些事情的政治性質正變得越來越清晰。
那麽，問題是，世界大多數國家、發展中國家、俄羅斯和中國等國家是否會真正采取相應行動？是的，請繼續。
邁克爾·哈德森：這就是問題所在。你不能通過借錢來擺脫債務。這樣做隻會增加更多的利息支付，這是一個騙局。事實上，全球南方國家和其他國家無法用現有產出償還債務，因為他們無法印製美元。他們隻能印製自己的貨幣，如果他們把這些貨幣投入市場購買美元，貨幣就會大幅貶值，進口價格就會上漲，從而導致通貨膨脹。
一個國家可以說，好吧，我明白，比如阿根廷或巴西，我們明白這一點，但如果我們不償還債務，那麽債券持有人的信用就會像格裏薩法官對阿根廷所做的那樣。格裏薩可以
說，好吧，攫取他們在國外的所有資產。
你提到中國改變了局麵。第三世界國家隻有一種方式可以拒絕償還債務，那就是聯合起來，說，好吧，我們要拒絕償還債務，如果美國和歐洲的債券持有人試圖攫取我們在那裏的資源，那麽我們將通過國有化外國對我們自己的土地和礦產權以及公用事業的所有權進行報複，我們不得不根據國際貨幣基金組織的承諾出售這些資產，這將使我們更具競爭力。
這個問題可以追溯到 1955 年的萬隆會議，當時不結盟國家已經看到了問題，你之前提到過，在 70 年代、80 年代和 90 年代，人們已經認識到了這個問題，但在那個時候，各國沒有辦法聯合起來。
在我看來，全球南方國家唯一的實際做法是拒絕償還債務，並說，對不起，你們發放了壞賬。如果你借給我們一筆我們無法償還的貸款，那麽你就沒有盡到債權人應盡的責任，市場分析稱，我們隻會借給我們有能力償還的貸款。否則，你就是在借給我們一筆無法償還的貸款，我們不會因為你借了一筆壞賬而犧牲我們的增長並出售我們的自然資源。那是你的問題，不是我們的問題。
債務人的問題是讓壞賬問題成為債權人的問題，而不是他們自己的問題，而這需要重組整個國際金融體係，實際上就是我們一直在談論的全球多數國家與美國-北約之間的決裂。到目前為止，盡管有關於金磚國家銀行的討論，但我們所說的規模並沒有實現。人們仍然需要改變意識，認識到這些債務無法償還，也不應該償還，而且實際上是令人厭惡的債務。
我認為，這可能還需要一兩年的時間，我們舉辦這些地緣政治秀的原因就是試圖傳播這種意識，告訴人們這不是一個可以解決的問題。它無法解決。這是一個困境，避免困境的方法是改變整個體係。好吧，布雷頓森林體係和美國統治的過去 80 年來一直是一個糟糕的體係。現在是時候讓我們成為一個主權國家，並說我們自己的增長比償還外國債權人的債務更重要了。
拉迪卡·德賽：我認為邁克爾說得完全正確，這裏有一些非常棘手的問題需要解決，但我想說，在很多方麵，尋找美元體係的替代方案，邁克爾和我討論過的這種掠奪性美元體係，這種需要掠奪性貸款的美元體係，這種美元體係，很可能在替代方案出現之前就崩潰了。這就是為什麽事情如此緊迫，因為從本質上講，你知道，我們向你展示了美國債務的圖表。美國債務正在膨脹，超出了市場承受能力。
近幾個月來，國際貨幣基金組織一再警告美國債務的質量和數量不可持續，美聯儲已經在支持國債市場，因為國債市場正在崩潰。認為美國可以發行任意數量的債務，而世界會心存感激，會購買越來越多的債務，這種想法完全是胡說八道。
世界還沒有準備好吸收美國願意印發的債務數量。一旦國債市場崩潰，很多其他東西也會崩潰。
正如我所說，美聯儲，也許我們應該再做一期節目，再做一期美元體係的節目，因為事情真的到了緊要關頭，因為美聯儲既不能因為通貨膨脹而降低利率，如果不降低利率，金融危機就會來臨，也不能為了完成任務而進一步提高利率，因為那隻會意味著金融危機會更快發生。
如果不這樣做，通貨膨脹就會破壞美元的價值。所以，做也好，不做也好。這就是我們回到美元體係的地方，但今天我們就債務的政治性質、債務的力量和權力債務進行了非常有趣的對話。
所以我們很快就會再見，但與此同時，請喜歡我們的節目，請與很多人分享我們的節目，很快再見。再見。
Debt is political: Why wealth flows from poor to rich
https://geopoliticaleconomy.com/2024/08/04/debt-politics-wealth-flow-poor-rich/
By Radhika Desai and Michael Hudson Aug 5, 2024
How does the structure of the international financial system cause a drain of wealth from the poor to the rich? Political economists Radhika Desai and Michael Hudson discuss the politics of debt.
How does the structure of the international financial system cause a drain of wealth from the poor to the rich? Political economists Radhika Desai and Michael Hudson discuss the politics of debt.
You can find more episodes of Geopolitical Economy Hour here.
Transcript
RADHIKA DESAI: Hello and welcome to the 31st Geopolitical Economy Hour, the show that examines the fast-changing political and geopolitical economy of our time. I’m Radhika Desai.
MICHAEL HUDSON: And I’m Michael Hudson.
RADHIKA DESAI: And working behind the scenes to bring you our show every fortnight are our host, Ben Norton; our videographer, Paul Graham; and our transcriber, Zach Weisser.
You may think that today, given the events of recent weeks, we might be talking about the wars that seem set to spiral out of control, particularly with Israel appearing so determined to escalate its hostilities with Hezbollah that it is willing to make accusations on entirely and visibly flimsy grounds. You might think that we will talk about how it’s not at all clear who’s in control, particularly in that country that so often fancies itself as the world’s policeman or woman, as the case may be. And indeed, we certainly intend to cover these topics in the future. However, today we will focus on a very closely related topic, and that is debt.
We’re taught to think of debt as an ordinary or economic or market relationship, no different from the buying and selling of goods and services, which is done by two formally equal parties. Each gives something to another, and they’re, roughly speaking, equal in value. So, equal is like is exchanged for like, and everything is fine.
However, we all know that even in the case of the exchange of goods and services, parties are not formally equal, and differences in power between them has enormous influence on the transaction. And if that is so, even in the case of the ordinary exchange of goods and services, it is even more so in the case of the debt-credit relationship.
Indeed, it should be thought of not so much as an economic or a market relationship, as a profoundly political one, more reliant on power than any other so-called economic relationship.
Who gets credit and who doesn’t? Who gets favorable terms and who gets harsh terms? Who pays high interest and who pays low interest? Who gets bailed out when in default, and who is required to pay even more for the same problem?
These are the sorts of questions that hang around debt, and all of them show what a profoundly political relationship debt is.
And as Clausewitz says, war is just another way of doing politics, and war and debt are therefore also deeply connected.
Ever since London bankers convinced William III to borrow from them rather than to tax them to finance their wars back in 1694, wars have generated debt, massive debt, and the current wars are no exception.
Ukraine is effectively fighting a debt-fueled war, and whatever rump Ukrainian state remains after this war is over, and we expect it certainly cannot be before the 5th of November, is going to be saddled with unpayable levels of debt.
Meanwhile, markets have downgraded Israel’s debt to practically junk status, and a similar fate will surely await Taiwan should its leaders be foolish enough to agree to be a US proxy against China.
And today there is another reason to talk about debt. The World Bank, as well as economists all over the world, and also the UNCTAD, the developing world’s think tank, so to speak, have all been talking about a new third world debt crisis.
There was one, some of you may remember or know, back in the early 1980s. And indeed, since then, unsustainable debt has remained a major obstacle in the third world’s development prospects.
From what we see, the genesis of the current third world debt crisis, or developing world’s debt crisis, whatever euphemism you want to use, the debt crisis of the poor countries of the world, is very similar to that of the 1980s.
However, the outcomes may be quite different, and this is something we can discuss. Michael and I will at least speculate about that.
And finally, when we talk about public debt or sovereign debt, we have to talk about the IMF and the World Bank, the bailiffs of Western financial capital. When they shed crocodile tears about the welfare losses caused by debt repayment, which divert money away from health care or education or clean water in the developing world, they do that on the one hand. And on the other hand, they impose the most draconian repayment terms, ensuring massive reverse capital flows, that is to say, capital flowing not from rich country to poor countries, as it’s supposed to do in economics textbooks, but on the contrary, from poor countries to rich countries.
At the same time, they demonstrate the tenderest of mercies for the debt of friendly countries like Ukraine. It is no wonder that there is another campaign marking the 80th anniversary of these two vampire institutions calling for their abolition.
The only good news is that they are becoming less and less effective and less and less important, chiefly because of the rise of China as a major creditor.
So this is the background to what we are going to talk about today. And Michael, you’ve done an enormous amount of work. I know you’ve been following the debt of Ukraine going back to 2014, if not earlier. So why don’t you start us off by talking about the debt of Ukraine and how the IMF has been dealing with it?
MICHAEL HUDSON: The current Ukrainian debt tangle shows what a double standard there is for the IMF, and in fact, the whole international bond community, when it comes to treating countries that can’t pay their debt and are in similar debt straits.
Two years ago, when the fighting with Russia began, when Russia had to intervene because the Russian-speaking areas of Ukraine were under civilian attack, it was obvious that Ukraine wouldn’t pay the debt. So the international bondholders that had debt falling due then said, okay, you don’t have to pay us now. We know that you’re at war. Let’s put it off for two years, and let’s wait until August 1, 2024.
That’s exactly where we are now. Two years ago, they said the war will certainly be over by then. The IMF and the United States said Ukraine is going to beat Russia, and for all we know, we’ll march into Russia, but there won’t be a war. Ukraine can pay back then. So everybody said, okay, wait, you’ll just keep accruing interest to us.
You can imagine what happened a month ago as the payment time came due. What was Ukraine going to do? And obviously, Ukraine didn’t have the money, and the bondholders had a choice. Either they could insist on being paid and say, you’re in default, we’re going to list you in default, and if you can’t pay us, that means that the IMF, according to its rules, which it doesn’t follow, but according to the rules, if people did follow them, that it’s not permitted to lend to countries that are in default against private creditors.
That’s because the IMF is a policeman acting as a lobbyist for the private creditors, forcing bonds to be paid.
And so the leading bondholders, we’re talking about people, the biggest bond funds, PIMCO bond fund, Blackstone got together, and they had a choice. What they did was something very remarkable. They actually said, okay, Ukraine, not only do you not have to pay the debt that’s falling due now, but you can write down the debt by about 39% because we know that you can’t pay. Just promise to pay us beginning in a few years more from now when we know that you will have defeated Russia and can afford to pay. And they actually took a very large loss on what had become Ukrainian junk bonds.
What surprised me is this is not what normal international bankers did. It was open to them to say, no, we’re going to foreclose, and they would have understood that the US government and the IMF would have done everything they could to prevent a default by Ukraine, and they would have bailed out Ukraine. But somehow, the US government arm-twisted the bondholders.
We have no idea why, but the bondholders did something that is very uncharacteristic in taking the loss on the $50 billion loan that was falling due. The IMF explained that since the West no longer lives by the rule of law, but by the rule based order, everything can go ahead.
We already know that one of the other articles of agreement of the IMF says that it’s not allowed to make a loan to a country in war. The IMF said, and I’m paraphrasing, well, if the country is going to war for a purpose that the United States and NATO support, of course, since we’re the arms of NATO, basically, and the US Defense Department and State Department, of course, we can waive the rules. The rules are meant only for when we want to apply them against recalcitrant countries that have difficulty paying the debt.
So they just made new loans to Ukraine to enable it to keep fighting the war. And the bondholders all pretended that somehow Ukraine isn’t going to lose, that somehow they’re going to come out solvent and pay the bondholders.
Nobody has any idea of what actually convinced them. But of course, since Blackstone and PIMCO are very close to the US State Department, there must have been a discussion, arm twisting and some kind of off-the-books promise that don’t worry, we’ll take care of you.
And apparently there are two plans that are set up for how Ukraine can pay the debts. Blackstone and JP Morgan are working together to organize what they say will be a bonanza of selling off Ukrainian resources once the war is over. And they think that this is going to be a huge market for American companies, European companies to buy Ukrainian land, Ukrainian public utilities and any assets they have.
So if Ukraine wins the military war, we know that won’t happen. But if they did, then they’ll cease to be a country that owns its own resources. Anyway, it’ll end up looking sort of like Argentina or other countries that are told, pay your debts by selling off your land, selling off your mineral rights. And Ukraine has minerals, all in the Russian speaking areas, lithium and others. And the illusion is that somehow that all this money that will be paid to the Ukrainian government for buying out its assets will be used by the government to pay the bondholders and remain solvent.
That’s basically the IMF strategy for the last 50 years. If Latin American countries or African countries can’t pay their debts and have to borrow from the IMF, they have to sell off their mineral rights, their lands and the others.
There must be a plan B. And I’ve been trying to figure it out. And my suspicion is that the bondholders were told, well, if somehow a miracle happens and Ukraine loses the war, then the Eurozone will take the $300 billion that they’ve taken, seized from Russia, and they will give this to Ukraine as reparations for the war. And Ukraine will use the money they seized from Russia to pay the bondholders. That’s only my guess, but I can’t imagine the bondholders would have taken the loss right now unless they had these two, plan A and plan B, in their minds.
Well, as Radhika said, this is not a market relationship. It’s a political relationship.
RADHIKA DESAI: And, you know, Michael, I mean, this is really interesting. And of course, I mean, it is interesting to see that in this case, the private creditors have been asked to take an almost 40% haircut on their loans to Ukraine.
Now, whatever the black machinations going on behind the scenes, the murky machinations going on behind the scenes, whatever the reason, the fact is that even if they actually took a real haircut, the U.S. got, well, there are two things. Number one, typically such haircuts come after the debtor has already paid an enormous amount already, more than what was originally contracted.
But secondly, you know, the United States has always, over the last, I would say, certainly 40-odd years, the United States has backstopped its financial institutions completely anyway. So through one way or another, these people are actually not going to lose.
But there is something really quite interesting. The fact that Ukraine can be, that private creditors can be asked to take a haircut for Ukraine will not be missed by the rest of the world because a lot of third world debt is to private creditors. These private creditors have benefited enormously by lending to third world countries. And we’ll talk about that in a minute, exactly how they have benefited.
So when the debt crisis of the third world, which is already ongoing, reaches a critical point, I think that the third world countries will be in a very good position to point out that, look, you can ask private creditors to take such a substantial haircut in the case of Ukraine. Why not us? Our cause is even greater. And so, you know, I think that that will become very clear.
But there’s a further thing that I wanted to say as well, which is, of course, that the United States has historically made money through war. I mean, you yourself have pointed out that the United States essentially became a creditor nation back at the end of the First World War, essentially by refusing to forgive the loans it had made to the European belligerent countries in the manner in which, for example, England had at one point forgiven its loans to belligerent countries in the Napoleonic Wars.
And when England brought up this point, [the U.S.] said, no, we are not going to forgive those debts. We want you to repay those debts. That’s how the United States became a creditor nation. And of course, it has in some sense retained its control over this. So not only does the United States benefit by exporting more and more material to these arms and whatnot to the belligerent countries, as it is doing in the case of Ukraine or Israel or what have you, Taiwan and so on, its economy has become terribly dependent on war.
But it also does so when its financial institutions lend to these countries.
And you also spoke about the Russian assets. And, you know, what I find really interesting about this Russian assets story is that the United States is putting pressure on the Europeans to use the Russian assets because, you know, most, it’s true, most Russian assets are actually in euros. And then smaller amounts are in pounds and in dollars in British and U.S. financial institutions.
But the United States is putting pressure on Europe also so that the financial institutions, the private financial institutions are actually a little wary of doing this because they don’t want their other depositors to think that they’re going to do this, because if the other depositors start thinking that they’re going to lose the deposits, they’re going to lose the business.
So they have been, so this is, again, part of turning the screws on Europe. If you get Europe to discredit its own financial system, while the United States remains sort of high and dry. So that’s really quite interesting as well.
So, yeah, I mean, you can see the partiality. And I think, Michael, you’ve also, you know, this partiality that the IMF is showing to Ukraine has a longer history, right? They have been doing this sort of thing going back to, well, if not to 2014, at least certainly before this current conflict started.
MICHAEL HUDSON: I’d actually like to begin earlier. You made an important point that the debts of the industrialized nations, Europe and the United States, have all been war debts.
It started in the 13th century. The Roman church declared war on other Christian countries, mainly Germany, that didn’t accept the Roman Catholic direction for control. And they fought against the orthodox Christian countries. And so they basically hired warlords like William the Conqueror to turn England into a fiefdom.
The problem is how they have armies that work for the Vatican, the warlords were sort of serfs. But how do you get the money to pay for the war?
It was the Roman church that in the 13th century that organized merchant bankers from Italy, the North Italian bankers, the Lombards, they were called to make loans to England and other countries going to war.
In order to do this, the Roman Christian church reversed the whole spirit of Christianity, saying charging interest is okay if you do it for a good Christian purpose that we approve, like going to war. From the 13th and 14th century right down through the 20th century almost all of the foreign debts, the domestic debts, the public debts of European countries were all war debts. And that’s continued.
The important thing about war debts is they’re not self-amortizing. Going to war doesn’t give you the money to repay the creditors. And that’s a problem.
Global south debts largely are not a result of international war. That makes the global south debts different from the European debts. You could call it a class war or what we do, a geopolitical war of the industrial nations against the industrial suppliers.
RADHIKA DESAI: It’s an imperialist. It’s an imperialist.
MICHAEL HUDSON: And it’s a financial colonialism, you can say. To me, the problem began to loom already in the mid-1960s. In 1965, I was Chase Manhattan’s balance of payments economist. And most banks had their own economists to judge how much money can third-world customers afford to pay. They had me looking at Chile, Argentina, and Brazil, and they said, see what their export potential is. See how their balance of payments is. How much surplus are they gaining that somehow we can get them to pledge the surplus for us to make loans? Because the international department of the bank made money by lending out to these countries.
I did a quick analysis and I could say, well, if you look at the balance of payments, they’re already living by borrowing. They’re already not generating a surplus. And you had banks already in the mid-60s begin to cut back on the loans because it was still— lending to these countries was still largely a market phenomenon back then.
They said, well, we’re the creditors. We don’t want to make a loan that goes bad. And the only way that we can secure our loans is to know that there is a [trade surplus] and a balance of payment surplus. That ceased to be the problem.
So at some point, and I think this must have been in the 1970s, I was a consultant for a number of brokerage firms and underwriters. And I was known as one of the three Dr. Dooms at that time. I said, I don’t see how Latin America can pay to take on any more debt. They’re already loaned up.
We had a meeting at the Federal Reserve and its officialturned to me and said, Mr. Hudson, you say that these Latin American countries can’t afford to pay the debts. But suppose you did your analysis to England. England is in the same boat. There’s no way of saying how it can pay its debts, is there?
This is when England was devaluing sterling. I said, yeah, that’s absolutely right. And the Federal Reserve man said, well, but it does pay its debt. And how does it repay? We lend them the money because they’re our ally. And if we tell the banks, you can afford to lend money to these countries with no visible means of support, but we’ll stand back of them, then you don’t need to do an economic analysis. It’s a political analysis. And if they’re friends, just like for England, we’ll back them up.
Ws you know, England did end up devaluing. By the late 1970s, I was working for UNITAR. And in 1978, 1979, I wrote a series of, published a series of articles for UNITAR saying the global South cannot afford to pay. I went on record at a UNITAR conference in Mexico City saying this.
So it became already that they couldn’t pay unless the U.S. would lend them the money. Well, by 1982, as we’ve discussed before, Mexico started the whole Latin American debt bomb by not being able to make the payments on its short-term debt called tessobonos that were yielding maybe 20% at that time because the market-based investors saw that they couldn’t pay. It was apparent for a long time.
That led to a domino effect. Argentina, Brazil, and the remainder of the 1980s saw the Brady Plan come in and the international bondholders got together and said, we know that the third world countries, as they were called then, can’t pay. You’ve got to write down the debts to something that is payable and at least will give the creditors an idea that yes, at this written down level, they can afford the service of the debts.
This agreement wasn’t believed by American or European investors. In 1989 and 1990, I was hired by Scudder, Stevens, which was a money manager, to start what became the world’s first sovereign debt fund, mainly for third world debt.
When they hired me, they said, Michael, you’re known as Dr. Doom. You’ve been saying that the countries couldn’t pay. Suppose we start a third world bond fund and it’ll only be a five-year fund. Do you think that Argentina, Brazil can afford to make the payments on this debt for the next five years?
This was at a time in 1989 when Brazil and Argentina were paying 45% interest on their dollar bonds. Just imagine, you know, in two years, you get all of your money back in interest and you still have all of the bonds.
Scudder went all around the United States meeting to banks, not a single bank, not a single investment fund or pension fund was willing to invest. They said, no, we’ve got burned with the Latin American debt bonds. We don’t want any part of it.
They went to Europe, England, Germany, France, nobody would buy anything. So finally, they went to Merrill Lynch and said, can you underwrite these bonds? Let’s find some country that might buy these bonds at 45%.
Merrill Lynch told its Latin American office in Argentina to issue shares in this sovereign debt fund. Scudder wanted to call it the Sovereign High Interest Trust, SHIT, but I think they had a name that didn’t quite get that.
The only people who would buy Argentinian and Brazilian debts bought them in the Argentinian market where the shares were sold and the company was organized in the Dutch West Indies. Americans were not allowed to buy these shares. When you have an offshore fund, that usually is only for foreigners.
The countries that were buying Argentinian and Brazilian sovereign dollar debts were members of these countries themselves. And obviously, they must be the oligarchy that was doing this. No doubt, the central bankers and the president’s family bought them because, well, we’re in charge of paying the debt, so of course we’ll buy the fund. And if we’re going to default, then we’ll sell the debts to some sucker. But as long as we’re in charge of deciding to pay the dollar debts, we can afford to buy them.
You had this client oligarchies throughout the third world were basically buying this third world debt. And the fund took off. It was the second best performing fund in the entire world in 1990. I think an Australian real estate fund came first.
All of a sudden, this led to a new flood of lending to the third world countries, largely because the IMF said, well, these countries are in the U.S. orbit. We’re supporting their governments. After all, this is after the Chilean overthrow when the U.S. government had assassination teams all over Latin America putting in place client oligarchies that, of course, were going to pay the dollar debt.
At that point it ceased to be a market relation. It became completely political and all of the U.S. and European investors began to jump in.
RADHIKA DESAI: Well, I just like to clarify. This is very interesting, Michael. And I just like to clarify that I wasn’t saying that debt is sometimes a market relationship and sometimes a political relationship. I think that is always a political relationship. And even the so-called risk premium that allegedly poor countries are supposed to be paying that, you know, their lending to them is riskier. So that means that they have to pay higher interest rates. Studies have shown that, in fact, this so-called risk premium is an entirely manufactured thing. And that these private creditors make far more money lending to poor countries than they make lending to the rich countries.
In that sense I would say that credit is always a political relationship and all sorts of things, including social prejudices, come into play so that, you know, poor countries are almost always considered a bad bet. And therefore, they have to pay higher interest rates.
They get worse terms, just as within a country, certain marginalized groups, whether you’re if you’re a Black American or a Latino American, then you will have to pay higher, you know, your credit rating will be lower and all these sorts of things. So in these ways, I think that it is always a political relationship.
You’ve already segued into talking about third world debt. So let’s talk about third world debt, because I think that, you know, you gave a good narrative, but there is one very key set of events that I would like to particularly draw attention to, because that will allow us to look at the current debt crisis in a historical perspective.
I’m speaking of the debt crisis that erupted in 1982. But of course, genesis goes back at least a decade before that. So it goes back actually to the closing of the gold window, the collapse of the Bretton Woods system, the rise in the price of oil, which was first quadrupled in the early 1970s, and then later doubled again in the late 1970s, in part because of the decline of the dollar. The dollar fell so hard that all these oil exporters said, well, if we are going to collect in dollars, we need more dollars, prices for our oil.
When oil prices were quadrupled people remember it as a big shock to the system. But behind the scenes there was something else that was happening, which is that, and this was the beginnings, you know, Michael, you and I have had our discussions of the dollar system and so on.
And one of the things we emphasize is that after 1971, after the link between the dollar and gold was broken, the dollar was placed on a new kind of basis. And that new basis is what we call financialization, that is vast expansions of dollar-denominated financial activity, which artificially increased the demand for dollars.
So now what began to happen is that, first of all, Henry Kissinger, in his typical Machiavellian fashion, in the aftermath of the oil shocks, went off to all the Arab countries, the oil exporting countries and said, look, folks, we are okay, you know, if you must have higher prices for oil, that’s fine, we’ll accept that. But you should put the extra money you’re getting, you should put them, you should deposit them in Western financial institutions, in dollar-denominated deposits. And indeed, that is what they did.
So Western banks became flush with money. They were suddenly sitting on vast piles of money. And you think that would be a good thing for banks. But actually, it’s a big headache for banks, because if you’re sitting on piles of money on which you have to pay interest, you’ve got to employ it somehow to earn the interest that you will pay the depositors. So you have to find borrowers.
And that’s when Western financial institutions went on an absolute lending spree, lending to anybody, any third world country that would borrow from them. And indeed, they even lent, sorry, just one final point on this point, just one more thing, they even lent to socialist countries in this time. Sorry, you wanted to say something, Michael.
MICHAEL HUDSON: It wasn’t only the banks. By the 1990s, you had private bond funds come in.
RADHIKA DESAI: I’m still talking about the 1970s. Sorry, I’m still talking about the 1970s. So maybe I’ll finish my story of the 1970s, then we’ll come up to the 1990s. Because it is a really interesting story. So at this point, they started lending like crazy.
And in this context, in the 1970s, remember, inflation was very high, and interest rates were barely keeping up with it. So that actually, a lot of the time, the real interest rate was negative. So third world countries who had been asking to borrow for such a long time for their industrialization and so on, they, in the words of one writer I was reading, I forget the name, but he basically said it was like a magic money machine, you know, that they could get unlimited quantities of credit for next to nothing. In fact, the banks were paying them to borrow if the interest rates were negative. So this was the context in which a lot of this borrowing took place.
But inflation persisted. And finally, the Federal Reserve, the incoming Federal Reserve Chairman, Paul Volcker, decided that he was going to roll up his sleeves, and he was going to absolutely kill inflation by inducing a recession. So what he did was he simply restricted money supply. And he said, I’m just going to restrict money supply. And I don’t care where interest rates go.
And they leapt up, and they went up from, you know, negative real interest rates, to like, like 15 and 18 and 20% double digit interest rates. And so suddenly, the debt burden of all these countries, you know, it was not changed because of any secular development. Their condition changed as a result of a single decision on the part of a single decision maker.
So Paul Volcker induced a crisis within the United States, a very long recession, but in the third world, he induced the debt crisis. And so that debt crisis erupted, particularly with Mexico, Brazil, and Argentina, originally defaulting on their debt in 1982.
And I even remember back in the day, Fidel Castro, actually saying to them, look, you folks have already paid back more than enough. You don’t need to, you should repudiate this debt, you should just give up this debt, etc.
But unfortunately, that’s not what happened. And all the third world countries were essentially, Latin America was followed by Africa. And these two continents, in particular, actually went through the ringer, really, economically, they were in the ringer, they experienced economic retardation.
Suddenly, they had to expand their exports, given that they had barely industrialized, all they could export was what every other third world country would export all sorts of primary commodities, be it coffee, be it cotton, be it tea, be it cocoa, be it, you know, strawberries, what have you, you couldn’t walk for all sorts of fresh third world primary commodities. Cotton, which was hard to buy, was suddenly flooding Western markets. Silk, which was hard to buy, was suddenly flooding Western markets.
So you got this big bonanza, Western countries got to buy cheap things. Because of course, if every country that can produce coffee is exporting coffee, if every country that is producing cotton is exporting cotton, prices fall. And so they had to run harder and harder to stay in the same place. So third world countries really went to the ringer. And of course, social expenditures were cut, and all these sorts of things.
So that was the genesis and the eruption of the third world debt crisis. And in a minute, Michael, I know you want to say something. So I’ll let you come in. And then we want to go into talking about the current debt crisis.
MICHAEL HUDSON: I want to just summarize what you said. When the oil prices were quadrupled, the deal that was made with Saudi Arabia is, you can charge whatever you want, but keep your earnings in the United States. That flooded the US market with money. The money was put in the US banks. And you’re right. The bank said, what are we going to do with all this money? They had to find customers. And the paying customers were the third world debtors.
What brought this to an end? When Paul Volcker raised the interest rates, as you said, all of a sudden the international investors sold their foreign holdings and said, we’re going to buy US treasury bonds yielding 20% in 1980. I remember that very well. So you’re right. That led to the whole crisis. All of a sudden, no more of this gusher of Saudi dollars in US banks was available. And when the credit stopped, all of a sudden, Mexico and Latin American countries couldn’t borrow the interest to pay.
Throughout the 1970s, as you pointed out, basically, countries would borrow and they didn’t have any problem paying the debt because they borrowed the interest. That’s a Ponzi scheme.
RADHIKA DESAI: The commodity prices were also high. Remember, that was the inflationary 1970s because commodity prices were high, so they could earn the money to pay. I mean, it’s not given that a third world country cannot earn what it is to pay.
The real difficulty is that the lending took place not because third world countries needed the money. The lending took place because the private creditors needed to lend. So they essentially went touting these loans to third world countries.
MICHAEL HUDSON: Yes, I agree. Yeah.
RADHIKA DESAI: So anyway, let’s look at this. I have some charts. You know, UNCTAD, as I mentioned earlier, has published a wonderful report called The House of Debt. It’s a 2024 report, and it’s got some really instructive graphs and charts, and I’m going to share some of them.
So here we go. This is a chart, Michael, that shows that public debt has grown twice as fast in developing countries:
So if you see here, you have the developed countries and their debt has grown. And of course, we’ve seen that public debt has grown particularly since 2020. Sorry, where did my cursor go now?
It has grown particularly since 2020, and you can see the solid yellow line is the developing countries. And this basically is an index line. So, 2010, imagine that all countries, all these three categories of countries’ debt was 100 in 2010. So, it has gone for the developed countries from 100 to about a little over 150, maybe 160.
But for developing countries, the total public debt has gone from 100 over some 12, 13 years to over 350. So, that’s really quite interesting.
And of course, what’s really interesting as well is that, of course, if you look at developing countries excluding China, it’s much less because China has been borrowing a lot. But of course, we’re not worried about China’s credit worthiness because China has plenty of money to repay back. China has enormous productive power to pay back.
So, the problematic bit is the middle bit between the developed countries’ line and the developing countries’ excluding China line. That’s the problematic bit.
MICHAEL HUDSON: It’s hard to begin in 1990 because if you had it in 1990, you’d have the 1998 Asian debt crisis. And this was the whole collapse of the Asian currency and the result of the debt crisis for almost everywhere except Malaysia. There was a huge sell-off of third world, especially Asian—
RADHIKA DESAI: Yeah, but that wasn’t public debt, Michael. That was really a Western capital going into these countries. I mean, I think we have to bracket, we have to take out, we have to expand another show talking about the 1998 debt crisis. So, in 1998, the currency crisis is what they were because private capital had been going into all sorts of capital markets. Western private capital had been going into all sorts of capital markets in these so-called big emerging markets.
But let’s come back to this public debt crisis for now, and then we’ll do another show on that phenomenon.
So, this is the one chart, and another chart is also quite interesting here:
So, developing countries with net debt outflows have more than doubled since 2014. So, once again, you see here, these are all the developing countries, and then they are divided between Africa here, the dark blue is Asia and Oceania, and then Latin America. And so, you can see that in 2014, it had come down to very low point. And since then, essentially this debt has risen and it has gone from about a little over 25 to over 50.
So, you can see that the actual amount of net debt outflows have more than doubled. That is to say, in this period, more money has been coming out of these countries than going into them. So, that’s another really quite interesting point.
And then this figure is also interesting:
More countries face high debt burdens, especially in Africa. So, this is just a chart of the number of developing countries, again, in these three regions, where public debt is above 60% of GDP, which is about when the IMF starts raising alarms.
And just for comparison’s sake, the debt in the United States has now gone, I think, above 100% of GDP recently. I think it’s more like 110 or 20%. I’m not sure about the exact figure, but so you can see by comparison that these countries, of course, have lower carrying capacity, or at least are considered to have lower carrying capacity.
And this chart is really interesting:
So, we talked about the third world debt crisis earlier, and there was some private capital, but now you see that for developing countries as a whole, private creditors are responsible for 61% of total developing country debt, which is higher in the case of Latin, the highest in the case of Latin America, as you see in one of the smaller bias charts, and then a little less in case of Asia and Oceania, and the least in the case of Africa.
And then the other two categories, which are bilateral creditors and multilateral creditors, constitute the rest.
So, private capital, private money, is playing a very big role in the genesis of this debt crisis.
And then another figure shows that interest payments have doubled relative to revenue:
So, if you take the public revenues, the tax revenue intake of these governments, for developing countries as a whole, interest payments have gone from 4.2% of revenues to 7.8%. And then again, in the case of Africa, the rise is the steepest, with the rise being less steep in the case of Latin America and the Caribbean, where it was already very high, and rising less steeply in the case of Asia and Oceania.
And then this graph is also fascinating, and Michael, feel free to come in, but I find this graph really interesting, or this figure very interesting, because what you’re looking at is the total public debt of the whole world, and then which bit of the world has generated what.
So, you can see that the United States, of course, has generated the biggest pile of debt. Japan is a close second, but of course, you have to remember that public debt in Japan is largely owed to Japanese people, but nevertheless, it is the public debt here, and then France, Germany, et cetera, and then other countries.
And in the developing world, so first of all, the share of the developing world is much smaller. And then within that share, so this debt crisis is occurring, even though bulk of the debtor-creditor relationship are in this charm circle that Michael was talking about, in which essentially the capacity to pay is not doubted, and if it is doubted, in some sense, the Federal Reserve is there to backstop it.
Yeah, Michael, go ahead.
MICHAEL HUDSON: The situation’s much worse than what your charts show. Debt to GDP is meaningless for the third world countries and for almost any country outside of the United States. Debt is not paid out of GDP. In America, you could say it is, but the debt of the Global South countries, Asian countries, is not in their own currency, it’s in dollars.
The question is, how do you turn their GDP into dollars? These countries do not have, unlike the United States, these countries do not have debt in their own currency. So what you really need to compare and to look at is what is the trade surplus and the balance of payment surplus of these countries?
Wwe’re talking like 1,000%. And now just look at this chart that you just put up. Take Africa from 2010 to 2023. Up to 9%. 9% means you’re having a doubling time in about eight years. Now, it’s been much more than eight years since 2010. You’ve had the debt of Africa double and quadruple simply by interest payments.
So most of the debt of these countries, the Global South countries, is not money that’s been borrowed. It’s interest that have accrued on their existing debt. And they can borrow to pay the interest, but all of that is an accrual of interest, not loans. The actual flow of new credit to these countries has already dried up years ago. It’s just their accruing interest on the past debts that they took on being assured that somehow with the IMF coordinating things, it was looking after them and the pretense that they would be able to pay these debts when there was no way in which most Global South countries could repay these debts, especially dollarized debts without some means of earning dollars, which they really don’t have.
So what did they do? That little decades that you’re showing when they were essentially privatizing, only making the debts by borrowing the interest and to some extent selling off their patrimony.
RADHIKA DESAI: Correct. And what you’re talking about, Michael, which is the withdrawal of funds is actually shown in this set of charts.
So this shows private creditor withdrawal causes nearly US 50 billion in outflows. Developing countries’ net transfers on external public debt by type of creditor. So you can see here that in the total net resource transfer has gone from whatever it is like, like just under 100 in positive. So their capital inflows into these countries, it went up to whatever 170 or something, then dip down in the middle in about 2014 or so, but then it has gone down massively and it has become negative, negative 50 or so billion.
Out of that, however, bilateral debt, that is one country lending to another, or multilateral debt, that is groups of countries or organizations like the World Bank, IMF, et cetera, lending to a given country, they have remained relatively steady.
What has happened is that in response to rising interest rates in Western countries, essentially the private capital has withdrawn from these markets. So essentially they are the ones, it is the withdrawal of private capital that has created this problem.
MICHAEL HUDSON: I don’t like the euphemism resource transfers. Not a single penny of resources was transferred to these countries. A financial loan is not a resource. A resource is tangible means of production that help you grow. A resource is a factory. A resource is some means of production.
Giving countries the money, especially the money to pay their debts, isn’t a resource. It’s a financial claim. It’s the opposite of a resource. It’s a debt that they owe, a financial handcuff and a straitjacket on them, not a resource transfer. This is IMF creditor talk.
RADHIKA DESAI: And so, sure, absolutely. And this is another important point that you’re making because I think that, you know, particularly Western debt seems to be of this sort that, you know, essentially used to squeeze out, you know, more and more capital out of these countries without contributing to their ability to produce.
Whereas I think more recently, the rise of China as a major creditor has contributed far more to creating productive capacity in these countries, whether it is farms or mines or factories or infrastructure or what have you.
But here’s the other thing we were talking about. You know, we were pointing out that, you know, third world countries pay a higher risk premium. So, you know, borrowing costs of developing countries, this report says, are way higher than developed ones.
So what is the bond yield ratio of from developed to developing countries?
So Germany pays 0.8% for borrowing. The United States, interestingly, pays much higher than Germany, in fact three times as high, which is 2.5%.
Asian countries pay 5.3%. Latin American and Caribbean countries pay 6.8%. And African countries pay nearly 10% interest for these loans.
Now, this is essentially the outlines of this debt crisis that we’re looking at.
But the genesis was also very similar because, you know, earlier we were emphasizing how the genesis of the debt crisis of 1980, that burst open in 1982 and continued for the next two decades, more or less. This, the genesis of this debt crisis lay in the desperation of Western financial institutions to lend to third world countries.
So you might well ask, where did the desperation of the Western borrowers to lend come from this time?
Well, the story is very simple. As people know, already in the aftermath of the dot-com bubble, Alan Greenspan, was it? Yeah, I think it was still Alan Greenspan was pursuing, beginning to pursue a low interest rate policy.
And then in the middle of the 2000s, he was forced to start raising interest rates because of the downward pressure on the dollar, which eventually after interest rates reached about 5% or so, pricked the housing and credit bubbles.
And in the aftermath of the mayhem that followed, the Federal Reserve, sorry, and I should add one other thing. He was pursuing a low interest rate policy because he felt that that was the best way of keeping the housing bubble going. And indeed that was correct because the housing bubble at that time, I note this in my book, Geopolitical Economy, the housing bubble was the only thing that was driving forward any kind of economic growth. I mean, it was pretty anemic, but that’s all you had. Investment was at absolute rock bottom. So they thought, all right, let’s let it rip, let the housing bubble rip and we will be fine. But of course, then that put downward pressure on the dollar because how long can you have 2% and 3% interest rate policy and have a strong dollar?
Well, the dollar was weakening and this was too much. Prices of imports were growing up, prices of oil was going up. So Greenspan started raising interest rates and lo and behold, the housing and credit bubbles burst. Now in the aftermath of the housing and credit bubbles, of course, they pursued an even lower interest rate policy.
The ZIRP, the so-called zero interest rate policy came in, they had quantitative easing, they had all sorts of ways of pushing more and more money into the banking system, but offering them less and less in terms of interest, which means that they were forced to, they have been essentially forced to take ever riskier, ever greater risks in order to make a return. And among the risks they now became willing to take was to lend to third world countries. And so third world countries then once again began to enjoy a big bonanza in terms of incoming funds.
But of course, that again, the same thing has happened. Inflation came back in the United States and inflation essentially started putting pressure on, in order to quell inflation, the Federal Reserve has been forced to start raising interest rates, except as everybody knows, he has raised them to about five, 5.25%, but he has not been raising them, Jerome Powell has not been raising them any further because even bringing them to this point has set, has triggered a kind of slow motion financial crash whose beginnings we saw with the crash of the Silicon Valley Bank and other such banks we saw in March of 2023.
And there are many other, we are now living in the time, not just of this or that bubble, but the everything bubble. And it’s quite possible that all these asset markets will come crashing, but nevertheless, these interest rates have gone up and they have created a debt crisis for developing countries who are already suffering from COVID, from the economic setback that was COVID, who are also suffering from high oil prices. They’re also suffering from high food prices. They’re also suffering from high fertilizer prices and all these things. So you bring all this together and it’s a recipe for disaster for many third world countries.
MICHAEL HUDSON: How can the IMF make loans to these countries to enable them to pay the debt and keep rolling it over, lending them the interest rates, not to default, if they have the problems that you describe? This is not a market relationship. If we define a market relationship as creditors act responsibly, they won’t make loans to countries that can’t pay their debt because the market relationship is supposed to balance risks with the interest rate. That hasn’t happened at all. The risks are so high that the interest rates would have to be much, much higher.
So there has to be another explanation. The explanation is the IMF and the American policymakers know that the debts can’t be repaid. What we’re saying is that the debts can’t be repaid is not a secret known only to us. The reason that loans are made to countries that can’t be paid is precisely because if a country can’t pay it out of its export earnings, out of its other balance of payments and flows, it has to do what an individual would do. If you borrow money to the bank for a mortgage and can’t pay, the bank gets your house. That’s what happened to the global south countries.
The IMF will go and say, oh, you can’t pay? Well, we’ll make you the loan in order so that your currency won’t devalue again and raise your consumer prices as foreign exchange import prices go up. We’ll make you the loan, but you have to sell off your utilities, your oil and resources. Let’s bring in our friends from the World Bank. The World Bank is supposed to help you, remember?
The World Bank has all of this advisory group to say, we will help you privatize your resources. We will do for the global south just what BlackRock is doing for Ukraine. We’ll help you sell all of your means of self-support to the foreigners. We can help you stop being a sovereign country and become a good, what America calls democracy, letting foreigners buy all of your assets that you’re privatizing, Margaret Thatcher style.
This calls into question, what is a sovereign debt? Are these countries sovereign if they have to sell off their basic means of support to foreigners? They’re not sovereign at all. The IMF and the World Bank work together as a one-two punch to prevent other countries from taking control of their own fate, to prevent the global south countries from using their tax revenues to actually invest in social spending and capital formation and subsidizing their own agricultural industrial self-sufficiency instead of being able to do this.
The function of having to load down countries with debt is all of their domestic fiscal surplus is paid to foreign creditors, not for use in their own countries. This means that debtor countries have ceased to be sovereign in any meaningful way of the world.
I think that that is the logic, is this consciousness is spreading among the global south countries. They realize that paying foreign debts is a kind of financial neocolonialism, except it’s colonialism without the gunboats, unless you’re like Chile and America has to come in and do a regime change operation. So this has transformed the whole issue.
RADHIKA DESAI: This is also an interesting point. You know, I remember back in when the IMF and the World Bank had turned 50, there was already a movement to abolish them, largely, you know, basically for the same reasons that you have just enumerated.
They have always acted as bailiffs of foreign, Western foreign capital. And that’s what they continue to do today. But you know what? And you had mentioned, Michael, the 1998 financial crisis. In the aftermath of the 1998 financial crisis, the manner in which the IMF intervened in the case of South Korea, which was no underdeveloped country, is an extremely diversified, industrial, sophisticated economy.
And they essentially tried to treat it in the same way as you described, you know, forcing sort of fire sales of assets, both private and public on South Korea and so on.
A lot of countries began to take note. And actually, the IMF and IMF in particular, but IMF and World Bank loan portfolio shrank because third world countries also began to see that they were getting money, of course, privately after 2000. But also, they were getting money increasingly, Chinese credit was becoming available.
So, as a result, the role of these institutions has diminished. And they are no longer as powerful. I think that they are trying to hang on to some kind of role internationally. But I think that in the new environment, exactly how this debt crisis will be resolved is going to be interesting.
For example, in our other shows, we’ve been talking about how the world majority is showing increasing signs of solidarity, BRICS countries, BRICS is expanding, China is creating new alliances, and so on.
Now, will this lead the debtor countries to create a joint front and say, okay, you want to deal with us as a group of creditors, we will deal with you as a group of debtors. And we will see where this goes. I think if such a thing happened, that will be quite interesting. I think that it could happen, it really depends.
And I think the more, you know, earlier at the beginning of the show, we were talking about the fact that if private creditors can be asked to take a very substantial haircut for Ukraine, in order to fight a war, why can’t private creditors be asked to take a substantial haircut for third world debt so that children may eat, or go to school, or have clean water, or what have you.
So, in all of these ways, I think that debt, the political character of debt has become more and more in the open. So, it is also with the weaponization of the US financial system, because of the credit, you know, because of the sequestration of Russian assets, and Venezuelan assets, and Afghan assets, and what have you. So, the political character of all these things is becoming more clear.
So, the question then is, will the world majority, will the developing world, will the developing world, along with Russia and China and so on, actually take, actually act accordingly? Yes, please go on.
MICHAEL HUDSON: Here’s the problem. You can’t borrow your way out of debt. All that does is add yet more interest payments, and it’s a pomzi scheme. The fact is that global south countries and other countries can’t pay the debt out of their existing output, because they can’t print the dollars. They can only print their own currency, and if they throw that on the market to buy dollars, the currency is going to go way down, their import prices go up, and they have inflation.
A country can say, okay, I realize, like Argentina or Brazil, we realize this, but if we don’t pay the debt, then the credit of the bondholders can do what they did to Argentina under Judge Grisa. Grisa can say, well, grab all of their assets abroad that you can do.
You mentioned that China changed the picture. There’s only one way that third world countries can repudiate the debt, and that is banding together and saying, well, we’re going to repudiate the debt, and if the bondholders in America and Europe try to grab our resources there, then we’ll retaliate by nationalizing the foreign ownership of our own land and mineral rights and public utilities that we’ve had to sell off under the IMF promises that this will make us more competitive.
The problem goes way back to 1955 at the Bandung Conference when the non-aligned nations already saw there was a problem, and you mentioned before how this was recognized in the 70s, recognized in the 1980s and 90s, but at that point, there was no way that countries could band together.
The only way that I see in practice for the Global South countries not to pay their debts and say, I’m sorry, you’ve made bad loans. If you make a loan that we can’t pay, then you’ve failed in doing what creditors are supposed to do, a market analysis saying we’ll only make loans that can afford to be paid. Otherwise, you’re making us a loan that can’t be repaid, and we’re not going to sacrifice our growth and sell off our natural resources just because you’ve made a bad loan. That’s your problem, not our problem.
The problem for debtors is to make the bad loan problem a problem of the creditors, not their own problem, and that requires a restructuring of the whole international financial system and actually the kind of break between the global majority and US-NATO that we’ve been talking about. So far, even though there’s talk of a BRICS bank, there’s nothing of the scale that we’ve spoken about that is done. There still needs to be a change in consciousness that the debts can’t be paid and shouldn’t be paid and are in fact odious debts.
This is the consciousness that I think it may take another year or two, and the reason we’re having these geopolitical shows is to try to spread this consciousness of saying this is not a problem that can be solved. It can’t be solved. It’s a quandary, and the way to avoid the quandary is to change the whole system. Say, okay, it’s been a bad system for the last 80 years of Bretton Woods and US domination. It’s time now for us to be a sovereign country and say our own growth comes before paying the debts to foreign creditors.
RADHIKA DESAI: I think Michael is absolutely right that there are some really knotty issues here to untangle, but I would say that in many ways, the search for alternatives to the dollar system, to this predatory dollar system that Michael and I have talked about to such an extent, the dollar system which requires these forms of predatory lending that we have been talking about today, this dollar system, it’s quite possible that it will collapse before alternatives are in place. That is why things are so urgent, because essentially, you know, we showed you that chart with US debt. US debt is ballooning beyond the capacity of markets to sustain it.
The IMF has warned again and again in recent months as to the unsustainable quality, as this unsustainable quantity of US debt, and the Federal Reserve is already supporting treasury markets because treasury markets are collapsing. This idea that the United States can issue as much debt as it wants and the world is, the grateful world will buy more and more of it, it’s complete rubbish.
The world is not ready to absorb the quantity of debt the US is willing to print. And once the treasury market goes, so will a heck of a lot of other things.
And as I said, the Federal, and maybe we should do another show, another one of our dollar system shows, because really things are coming to a head, because the Federal Reserve can neither lower interest rates because of inflation, and if it doesn’t lower them, then the financial crisis will come, and nor can it raise them further in order to finish the job, because that will simply mean the financial crisis will occur sooner.
And if it does not do that, inflation will undermine the value of the US dollar. So one, it’s damned if you do and damned if you don’t. And that’s where we are back to the dollar system, but today we’ve had this really interesting conversation about the political character of debt, the power of debt and the debt of power.
So we will see you again soon, but in the meantime, please like our show, please share our show with lots of people, and see you again very soon. Bye-bye.
