Radhika Desai 债务是政治的 财富从穷人流向富人

债务是政治性的：为什么财富从穷人流向富人

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

国际金融体系的结构如何导致财富从穷人流向富人？政治经济学家 Radhika Desai 和 Michael Hudson 讨论了债务政治。

国际金融体系的结构如何导致财富从穷人流向富人？政治经济学家 Radhika Desai 和 Michael Hudson 讨论了债务政治。

您可以在此处找到更多《地缘政治经济时间》剧集。

文字记录
RADHIKA DESAI：大家好，欢迎收看第 31 期《地缘政治经济时间》，该节目探讨了我们这个时代快速变化的政治和地缘政治经济。我是 Radhika Desai。

迈克尔·哈德森：我是迈克尔·哈德森。

拉迪卡·德赛：每两周在幕后为您带来我们节目的还有主持人本·诺顿、摄像师保罗·格雷厄姆和转录员扎克·韦瑟。

您可能认为，鉴于最近几周发生的事件，我们今天谈论的可能是似乎即将失控的战争，尤其是以色列似乎决心升级与真主党的敌对行动，以至于愿意以完全站不住脚的理由提出指控。您可能认为我们将讨论的是，究竟谁在控制局面，这一点根本不清楚，尤其是在这个经常自诩为世界警察的国家。事实上，我们当然打算在未来讨论这些话题。然而，今天我们将重点讨论一个非常密切相关的话题，那就是债务。

我们被教导将债务视为一种普通的经济或市场关系，与商品和服务的买卖没有什么不同，买卖双方是两个形式上平等的当事方。双方都给予对方一些东西，粗略地说，它们的价值是相等的。所以，平等就是以物易物，一切都很好。

然而，我们都知道，即??使在商品和服务交换的情况下，双方也不是形式上平等的，他们之间的权力差异对交易有着巨大的影响。如果是这样，即使在普通的商品和服务交换的情况下，在债务-信贷关系的情况下更是如此。

事实上，它不应该被认为是一种经济或市场关系，而应该被认为是一种深刻的政治关系，比任何其他所谓的经济关系都更依赖权力。

谁得到信贷，谁得不到信贷？谁得到了优惠条件，谁得到了苛刻的条件？谁支付高利息，谁支付低利息？当债务违约时，谁会得到救助？谁又需要为同样的问题付出更多代价？

这些都是围绕债务的问题，它们都表明债务是一种多么深刻的政治关系。

正如克劳塞维茨所说，战争只是政治的另一种方式，因此战争和债务也息息相关。

自从 1694 年伦敦银行家说服威廉三世向他们借钱而不是向他们征税来资助战争以来，战争就产生了债务，巨额债务，当前的战争也不例外。

乌克兰实际上正在打一场由债务推动的战争，无论这场战争结束后乌克兰还剩下什么残余国家，我们预计这场战争肯定不会在 11 月 5 日之前结束，都将背负无法偿还的债务。

与此同时，市场已将以色列的债务评级降至几乎垃圾级，如果台湾领导人愚蠢到同意成为美国对抗中国的代理人，台湾肯定会遭遇类似的命运。

今天，谈论债务又多了一个理由。世界银行、世界各地的经济学家，还有联合国贸易和发展会议（UNCTAD），也就是所谓的发展中国家智库，都在谈论新的第三世界债务危机。

你们当中有些人可能还记得或知道，20 世纪 80 年代初就曾发生过一次债务危机。自那时起，不可持续的债务一直是第三世界发展前景的主要障碍。

从我们看到的情况来看，当前第三世界债务危机或发展中国家债务危机（无论你想用什么委婉的说法）的起源与 20 世纪 80 年代的债务危机非常相似。

然而，结果可能大不相同，这是我们可以讨论的。迈克尔和我至少会对此进行推测。

最后，当我们谈论公共债务或主权债务时，我们必须谈论国际货币基金组织和世界银行，它们是西方金融资本的执行官。当他们为债务偿还造成的福利损失而假惺惺地流泪时，他们一方面这样做，将资金从发展中国家的医疗保健、教育或清洁水源中转移出去。另一方面，他们施加最严苛的还款条件，确保大规模的资本逆向流动，也就是说，资本流动

不是像经济学教科书上说的那样，从富国流向穷国，而是相反，从穷国流向富国。

与此同时，它们对乌克兰等友好国家的债务表现出最温柔的怜悯。难怪在纪念这两个吸血鬼机构成立 80 周年之际，又有一场呼吁废除它们的运动。

唯一的好消息是，它们正变得越来越没有效率，越来越不重要，主要是因为中国崛起为一个主要债权国。

这就是我们今天要谈论的背景。迈克尔，你做了大量的工作。我知道你一直在关注乌克兰的债务问题，可以追溯到 2014 年，甚至更早。那么你为什么不先谈谈乌克兰的债务以及国际货币基金组织如何处理它呢？

迈克尔·哈德森：乌克兰目前的债务纠纷表明，在对待无法偿还债务且陷入类似债务困境的国家时，国际货币基金组织乃至整个国际债券界都奉行双重标准。

两年前，当乌克兰与俄罗斯的战争开始时，俄罗斯不得不进行干预，因为乌克兰的俄语区遭受了平民袭击，很明显乌克兰不会偿还债务。因此，当时债务到期的国际债券持有人说，好吧，你现在不必还钱。我们知道你们在打仗。让我们推迟两年，等到 2024 年 8 月 1 日。

这正是我们现在的处境。两年前，他们说战争到那时肯定会结束。国际货币基金组织和美国说，乌克兰将击败俄罗斯，据我们所知，我们将进军俄罗斯，但不会发生战争。到那时，乌克兰可以偿还债务。所以每个人都说，好吧，等一下，你只会继续给我们带来利息。

你可以想象一个月前付款到期时发生了什么。乌克兰会怎么做？显然，乌克兰没有钱，债券持有人可以选择。要么他们坚持要付款，说你违约了，我们会把你列入违约名单，如果你不能付钱给我们，那就意味着国际货币基金组织根据其规则（它不遵守规则），但根据规则（如果人们遵守规则），它不允许向对私人债权人违约的国家提供贷款。

这是因为国际货币基金组织是警察，充当私人债权人的说客，迫使债券得到支付。

因此，主要的债券持有人，我们说的是最大的债券基金、太平洋投资管理公司债券基金、黑石集团聚在一起，他们有选择。他们做的事情非常了不起。他们居然说，好吧，乌克兰，你们不仅不必偿还现在到期的债务，还可以减记约 39% 的债务，因为我们知道你们无法偿还。只要答应几年后开始偿还我们，那时我们知道你们将击败俄罗斯，有能力偿还。他们实际上在乌克兰的垃圾债券上蒙受了巨额损失。

令我惊讶的是，这不是普通国际银行家会做的事情。他们完全可以说，不，我们要取消抵押品赎回权，他们应该明白，美国政府和国际货币基金组织会尽一切努力防止乌克兰违约，他们会救助乌克兰。但不知何故，美国政府却强迫债券持有人。

我们不知道为什么，但债券持有人做了一件非常不寻常的事情，承担了即将到期的 500 亿美元贷款的损失。国际货币基金组织解释说，由于西方不再遵守法治，而是遵守基于规则的秩序，所以一切都可以继续进行。

我们已经知道，国际货币基金组织的另一项协议条款规定，不允许向处于战争状态的国家提供贷款。国际货币基金组织表示，我转述一下，如果该国发动战争是为了美国和北约支持的目的，当然，因为我们基本上是北约的分支机构，当然也是美国国防部和国务院的分支机构，我们可以放弃这些规则。这些规则只适用于我们想对付难以偿还债务的顽固国家的情况。

所以他们只是向乌克兰提供了新的贷款，使其能够继续打仗。债券持有人都假装乌克兰不会输，他们会以某种方式偿还债务并支付债券持有人。

没有人知道是什么真正说服了他们。但当然，由于黑石集团和太平洋投资管理公司与美国国务院关系密切，因此肯定存在讨论、压力和某种秘密承诺，即不用担心，我们会照顾好你。

显然，乌克兰已经制定了两项计划来偿还债务。黑石集团和摩根大通正在合作组织一项他们所说的一旦乌克兰债务到期，就会出售乌克兰资源的大买卖。

战争结束了。他们认为，这将是美国公司、欧洲公司购买乌克兰土地、乌克兰公共设施和任何资产的巨大市场。

因此，如果乌克兰赢得军事战争，我们知道这不会发生。但如果他们赢了，那么他们将不再是一个拥有自己资源的国家。无论如何，它最终会看起来像阿根廷或其他国家，被告知要通过出售土地、出售矿产权来偿还债务。乌克兰拥有矿产，全部位于俄语区，包括锂和其他矿产。而幻想是，政府将以某种方式用所有这些支付给乌克兰政府的收购其资产的资金来支付债券持有人并保持偿付能力。

这基本上是国际货币基金组织过去 50 年的战略。如果拉丁美洲国家或非洲国家无法偿还债务并不得不向国际货币基金组织借款，他们就必须出售矿产权、土地和其他东西。

一定有 B 计划。我一直在想办法。我怀疑债券持有人被告知，如果奇迹发生，乌克兰在战争中失败，那么欧元区将拿走他们从俄罗斯没收的 3000 亿美元，并将其作为战争赔偿交给乌克兰。乌克兰将用他们从俄罗斯没收的钱来偿还债券持有人。这只是我的猜测，但我无法想象债券持有人会现在就承担损失，除非他们脑子里有这两个计划，即 A 计划和 B 计划。

正如拉迪卡所说，这不是市场关系。这是一种政治关系。

拉迪卡·德赛：迈克尔，你知道，这真的很有趣。当然，我的意思是，有趣的是，在这种情况下，私人债权人被要求对他们对乌克兰的贷款进行近 40% 的减记。

现在，无论幕后有什么阴谋诡计，无论出于什么原因，事实是，即使他们真的减记了债务，美国也只能得到两点好处。第一，通常这种减记发生在债务人已经支付了巨额债务之后，比最初签订的合同还多。

但其次，你知道，在过去的 40 多年里，美国一直为其金融机构提供全面支持。所以不管怎样，这些人实际上都不会失去什么。

但有一点确实很有趣。乌克兰可以要求私人债权人为乌克兰减记债务，但世界其他国家不会忽视这一点，因为第三世界国家的许多债务都是欠私人债权人的。这些私人债权人通过向第三世界国家放贷而受益匪浅。我们稍后会谈到他们究竟是如何受益的。

因此，当第三世界债务危机（已经持续）达到临界点时，我认为第三世界国家将完全有能力指出，看，你可以要求私人债权人在乌克兰问题上大幅减记。为什么我们不能呢？我们的事业更加伟大。所以，你知道，我认为这将变得非常清楚。

但还有一件事我想说，那就是，当然，美国历史上是通过战争赚钱的。我的意思是，你自己也指出，美国在第一次世界大战结束时基本上成为了一个债权国，主要是因为它拒绝免除它对欧洲交战国的贷款，就像英国在拿破仑战争期间曾免除对交战国的贷款一样。

当英国提出这一点时，[美国]说，不，我们不会免除这些债务。我们希望你们偿还这些债务。这就是美国成为债权国的原因。当然，它在某种意义上保留了对这一领域的控制权。因此，美国不仅通过向交战国出口越来越多的武器等材料而受益，就像它在乌克兰、以色列、台湾等国家所做的那样，其经济已经变得非常依赖战争。

但当它的金融机构向这些国家放贷时，它也会如此。

你也谈到了俄罗斯资产。你知道，我发现这个俄罗斯资产故事真正有趣的地方是，美国正在向欧洲人施加压力，要求他们使用俄罗斯资产，因为你知道，大多数俄罗斯资产实际上是欧元。然后在英国和美国金融机构中，较小数额的资产是英镑和美元。

但美国也在向欧洲施加压力，因此金融机构，私人金融机构实际上对这样做有点谨慎

因为他们不想让其他存款人认为他们会这样做，因为如果其他存款人开始认为他们会失去存款，他们就会失去生意。

所以他们一直在这样做，所以这又是对欧洲施加压力的一部分。如果你让欧洲抹黑自己的金融体系，而美国仍然处于困境之中。所以这也真的很有趣。

是的，我的意思是，你可以看到这种偏袒。我认为，迈克尔，你也知道，国际货币基金组织对乌克兰表现出的这种偏袒历史更悠久，对吧？他们一直在做这种事情，嗯，如果不是 2014 年，至少肯定是在当前冲突开始之前。

迈克尔·哈德森：我实际上想早点开始。你提出了一个重要的观点，即工业化国家、欧洲和美国的债务都是战争债务。

它始于 13 世纪。罗马教会向其他基督教国家宣战，主要是德国，这些国家不接受罗马天主教的统治方向。他们与正统的基督教国家作战。所以他们基本上雇佣了像征服者威廉这样的军阀把英国变成了一个封地。

问题是他们有为梵蒂冈工作的军队，军阀有点像农奴。但你如何获得战争资金呢？

正是罗马教会在 13 世纪组织了来自意大利、北意大利银行家、伦巴第人的商业银行家，他们被要求向英国和其他参战国家提供贷款。

为了做到这一点，罗马基督教会颠覆了整个基督教精神，说如果你是为了我们认可的基督教目的，比如参战，收取利息是可以的。从 13 世纪和 14 世纪一直到 20 世纪，几乎所有的外债、内债、欧洲国家的公共债务都是战争债务。这种情况还在继续。

战争债务的重要之处在于它们不是自我摊销的。发动战争并不能让你有钱偿还债权人。这就是问题所在。

全球南方债务在很大程度上不是国际战争的结果。这使得全球南方债务不同于欧洲债务。你可以称之为阶级战争，或者像我们所做的那样，是工业国家与工业供应商之间的地缘政治战争。

拉迪卡·德赛：这是一种帝国主义。这是一种帝国主义。

迈克尔·哈德森：你可以说这是一种金融殖民主义。对我来说，这个问题早在 20 世纪 60 年代中期就开始显现。1965 年，我是大通曼哈顿银行的国际收支经济学家。大多数银行都有自己的经济学家来判断第三世界客户能负担得起多少钱。他们让我研究智利、阿根廷和巴西，他们说，看看他们的出口潜力有多大。看看他们的国际收支如何。他们获得了多少盈余，以至于我们可以让他们以某种方式承诺将盈余用于贷款？因为银行的国际部门通过向这些国家放贷赚钱。

我做了一个快速分析，我可以说，如果你看看国际收支平衡，他们已经靠借贷为生了。他们已经没有产生盈余了。而且早在 60 年代中期，银行就开始削减贷款，因为当时向这些国家放贷仍然在很大程度上是一种市场现象。

他们说，我们是债权人。我们不想发放坏账。我们能获得贷款的唯一方法是知道有 [贸易顺差] 和国际收支顺差。这不再是问题。

所以在某个时候，我想这一定是在 20 世纪 70 年代，我是多家经纪公司和承销商的顾问。当时我被称为三位末日博士之一。我说，我看不出拉丁美洲如何能再承担更多债务。他们已经借了太多的钱了。

我们在美联储开会，美联储官员转过身来对我说，哈德森先生，你说这些拉丁美洲国家无力偿还债务。但假设你对英国做了分析。英国也处于同样的境地。没有办法说它如何偿还债务，对吗？

当时英国正在贬值英镑。我说，是的，完全正确。美联储官员说，好吧，但它确实偿还了债务。它如何偿还？我们借钱给他们，因为他们是我们的盟友。如果我们告诉银行，你们有能力向这些国家贷款，虽然没有明显的支持手段，但我们会支持他们，那么你们就不需要做经济分析了。这是政治分析。如果他们是朋友，就像英国一样，我们会支持他们。

你知道，英格兰最终贬值了。到 20 世纪 70 年代末，我在联合国训练研究所工作。1978 年和 1979 年，我为联合国训练研究所撰写了一系列文章，发表了一系列文章，指出全球南方国家

无法支付。我在墨西哥城的联合国训练研究所会议上公开表示了这一点。

因此，除非美国借钱给他们，否则他们已经无法支付。正如我们之前讨论过的，到 1982 年，墨西哥无法偿还其短期债务（称为 tessobonos），从而引发了整个拉丁美洲债务危机。当时，这些债务的收益率可能为 20%，因为市场投资者发现他们无法支付。这在很长一段时间内都是显而易见的。

这导致了多米诺骨牌效应。阿根廷、巴西和 20 世纪 80 年代的剩余时间里，布雷迪计划出台，国际债券持有人聚在一起说，我们知道第三世界国家（当时被称为第三世界国家）无法支付。你必须将债务减记为可支付的金额，至少要让债权人知道，是的，在这个减记的水平上，他们可以负担得起债务的服务。

美国和欧洲的投资者都不相信这份协议。1989 年和 1990 年，我被基金经理斯卡德·史蒂文斯 (Scudder, Stevens) 聘用，负责创办世界上第一只主权债务基金，主要针对第三世界债务。

当他们聘用我时，他们说，迈克尔，你被称为末日博士。你一直在说这些国家无法偿还债务。假设我们创办一只第三世界债券基金，而且它只是一个五年期基金。你认为阿根廷、巴西在未来五年内有能力偿还这笔债务吗？

当时是 1989 年，巴西和阿根廷支付的美元债券利息为 45%。想象一下，你知道，两年后，你收回了所有的利息，而你仍然拥有所有的债券。

斯卡德走遍了美国，与银行会面，没有一家银行、一家投资基金或养老基金愿意投资。他们说，不，我们已经被拉丁美洲债券搞得焦头烂额了。我们不想再买任何债券。

他们去了欧洲、英国、德国、法国，但没人买。最后，他们找到了美林证券，说，你能承销这些债券吗？让我们找一个可能以 45% 的利率购买这些债券的国家。

美林证券告诉其位于阿根廷的拉丁美洲办事处发行该主权债务基金的股份。斯卡德想称之为主权高息信托，狗屁，但我认为他们的名字不太贴切。

唯一会购买阿根廷和巴西债务的人是在阿根廷市场购买的，这些股票在那里出售，公司在荷属西印度群岛成立。美国人不允许购买这些股票。当你有离岸基金时，通常只对外国人开放。

购买阿根廷和巴西主权美元债务的国家本身就是这些国家的成员。显然，这一定是寡头集团在搞的鬼。毫无疑问，央行行长和总统的家人买下了这些基金，因为，好吧，我们负责偿还债务，所以我们当然会买下这个基金。如果我们要违约，那么我们就会把债务卖给一些傻瓜。但只要我们负责决定偿还美元债务，我们就有能力购买它们。

你有这个客户寡头集团，整个第三世界基本上都在购买这些第三世界债务。然后这个基金就起飞了。它是 1990 年全球表现第二好的基金。我认为澳大利亚的房地产基金是第一个。

突然之间，这导致向第三世界国家贷款的新一轮浪潮，主要是因为国际货币基金组织说，好吧，这些国家在美国的轨道上。我们支持他们的政府。毕竟，这是在智利被推翻后，当时美国政府在拉丁美洲各地设立暗杀小组，安插了客户寡头，当然，这些寡头会偿还美元债务。

那时，它不再是一种市场关系。它完全变成了政治关系，所有美国和欧洲的投资者都开始加入进来。

拉迪卡·德赛：好吧，我只是想澄清一下。这很有趣，迈克尔。我只是想澄清一下，我并不是说债务有时是市场关系，有时是政治关系。我认为这始终是一种政治关系。甚至所谓的风险溢价，即所谓的穷国应该支付的，你知道，他们借给他们的风险更大。这意味着他们必须支付更高的利率。研究表明，事实上，这种所谓的风险溢价完全是人为制造的。这些私人债权人向穷国放贷赚的钱远远多于向富国放贷赚的钱。

从这个意义上说，我认为信贷始终是一种政治关系，各种因素，包括社会偏见，都会发挥作用，所以，你知道，穷国几乎总是被认为是一个糟糕的选择。因此，他们必须支付更高的利率。

他们得到的条件更差，就像在一个国家里，某些边缘群体，

如果你是黑人或拉美裔，那么你将不得不支付更高的费用，你的信用评级会更低，诸如此类。所以从这些方面来看，我认为这始终是一种政治关系。

你已经转到第三世界债务的问题上。那么让我们来谈谈第三世界债务，因为我认为，你知道，你给出了一个很好的叙述，但有一组非常关键的事件我想特别提请大家注意，因为这将使我们能够从历史的角度看待当前的债务危机。

我说的是 1982 年爆发的债务危机。但当然，起源至少可以追溯到那之前的十年。所以它实际上可以追溯到黄金窗口的关闭、布雷顿森林体系的崩溃、石油价格的上涨，石油价格在 20 世纪 70 年代初首次翻了两番，然后在 20 世纪 70 年代末再次翻了一番，部分原因是美元的贬值。美元大幅下跌，以至于所有这些石油出口国都说，好吧，如果我们要用美元收钱，我们需要更多的美元，我们的石油价格也需要上涨。

当油价上涨四倍时，人们记得这对系统来说是一次巨大的冲击。但在幕后还发生了其他事情，这就是开始，你知道，迈克尔，你和我讨论过美元体系等等。

我们强调的一件事是，1971 年之后，在美元与黄金之间的联系被打破之后，美元被置于一种新的基础上。这种新基础就是我们所说的金融化，即以美元计价的金融活动的大规模扩张，人为地增加了对美元的需求。

现在开始发生的事情是，首先，亨利·基辛格以他典型的马基雅维利主义方式，在石油危机之后，去了所有阿拉伯国家，石油出口国，说，看，伙计们，我们没问题，你知道，如果你们必须提高石油价格，那没问题，我们可以接受。但你应该把你们得到的额外钱存入西方金融机构，以美元计价的存款形式存入。事实上，他们就是这么做的。

因此，西方银行变得资金充裕。他们突然坐拥巨额资金。你认为这对银行来说是件好事。但实际上，这对银行来说是个大麻烦，因为如果你坐拥巨额资金，而你必须支付利息，你就必须以某种方式利用这些资金来赚取你将支付给储户的利息。所以你必须找到借款人。

那时西方金融机构开始疯狂放贷，向任何第三世界国家放贷。事实上，他们甚至放贷，对不起，关于这一点我只想说最后一点，还有一件事，他们当时甚至向社会主义国家放贷。对不起，迈克尔，你想说点什么。

迈克尔·哈德森：不仅仅是银行。到了 20 世纪 90 年代，私人债券基金也开始出现。

拉迪卡·德赛：我还是在谈论 20 世纪 70 年代。对不起，我还是在谈论 20 世纪 70 年代。所以也许我会讲完 20 世纪 70 年代的故事，然后我们再讲 20 世纪 90 年代。因为这是一个非常有趣的故事。所以在这个时候，他们开始疯狂放贷。

在这种背景下，请记住，在 20 世纪 70 年代，通货膨胀率非常高，利率几乎跟不上通货膨胀率。因此，实际上，很多时候，实际利率都是负的。因此，第三世界国家长期以来一直在为工业化等目的借贷，用我读过的一位作家的话来说，我忘记了名字，但他基本上是说，这就像一台神奇的赚钱机器，你知道，他们可以几乎不花任何钱获得无限量的信贷。事实上，如果利率为负，银行就会付钱让他们借钱。所以这就是大量借贷发生的背景。

但通货膨胀持续存在。最后，美联储，即将上任的美联储主席保罗·沃尔克决定撸起袖子，通过引发经济衰退来彻底消除通货膨胀。所以他所做的就是简单地限制货币供应。他说，我只会限制货币供应。我不在乎利率走向何方。

然后他们就一跃而上，从负实际利率上升到 15%、18% 和 20% 的两位数利率。突然之间，所有这些国家的债务负担并没有因为任何长期发展而改变。他们的状况因一个决策者的单一决定而改变。

因此，保罗·沃尔克在美国引发了一场危机，一场非常漫长的经济衰退，但在第三世界，他引发了债务危机。于是债务危机爆发了，特别是墨西哥、巴西和阿根廷，它们最初拖欠了债务

1982 年，他们开始偿还债务。

我甚至还记得当时菲德尔·卡斯特罗对他们说，看，你们已经还得够多了。你们不需要还，你们应该拒绝偿还债务，你们应该放弃债务，等等。

但不幸的是，事情并非如此。所有第三世界国家基本上都是这样，拉丁美洲紧随其后的是非洲。这两个大陆尤其遭受了重创，实际上，在经济上，他们遭受了重创，经历了经济衰退。

突然间，他们不得不扩大出口，因为他们几乎没有实现工业化，他们所能出口的只是其他第三世界国家都会出口的各种初级产品，无论是咖啡、棉花、茶叶、可可，还是草莓，什么都有，各种新鲜的第三世界初级产品都买不到。很难买到的棉花突然涌入西方市场。丝绸本来很难买到，但突然间，丝绸充斥了西方市场。

所以，西方国家得到了如此巨大的财富，他们得以购买廉价商品。当然，如果每个生产咖啡的国家都出口咖啡，如果每个生产棉花的国家都出口棉花，价格就会下降。所以，他们不得不越来越努力地维持原有的地位。所以，第三世界国家真的陷入了困境。当然，社会支出被削减，诸如此类。

这就是第三世界债务危机的起源和爆发。迈克尔，我知道你想说点什么。所以我让你进来。然后我们想谈谈当前的债务危机。

迈克尔·哈德森：我想总结一下你所说的。当油价上涨四倍时，与沙特阿拉伯达成的协议是，你可以收取任何你想要的价格，但要把收入留在美国。这导致美国市场充斥着资金。这些钱被存入美国银行。你说得对。银行说，我们要怎么处理这些钱？他们必须找到客户。而付钱的客户是第三世界债务人。

是什么结束了这一切？正如你所说，当保罗·沃尔克提高利率时，国际投资者突然抛售了他们的海外资产，并说，我们将在 1980 年购买收益率为 20% 的美国国债。我记得很清楚。所以你是对的。这导致了整个危机。突然之间，美国银行不再有沙特美元了。当信贷停止时，墨西哥和拉丁美洲国家突然无法借到利息来偿还债务。

正如你所指出的，在整个 20 世纪 70 年代，基本上各国都会借钱，而且他们偿还债务没有任何问题，因为他们借了利息。这是一个庞氏骗局。

拉迪卡·德赛：大宗商品价格也很高。请记住，那是通货膨胀的 1970 年代，因为商品价格很高，所以他们可以赚钱偿还债务。我的意思是，第三世界国家赚不到钱来偿还债务，这并不是理所当然的。

真正的困难在于，贷款并不是因为第三世界国家需要钱。贷款是因为私人债权人需要贷款。所以他们基本上是在向第三世界国家兜售这些贷款。

迈克尔·哈德森：是的，我同意。是的。

拉迪卡·德赛：不管怎样，让我们??看看这个。我有一些图表。你知道，正如我之前提到的，联合国贸易和发展会议发布了一份名为《债务之家》的精彩报告。这是一份 2024 年的报告，它有一些非常有启发性的图表，我将分享其中一些。

那么我们开始吧。迈克尔，这是一张图表，显示发展中国家的公共债务增长速度是发达国家的两倍：

所以如果你在这里看到，你会发现发达国家的债务在增长。当然，我们已经看到公共债务自 2020 年以来增长尤其显著。抱歉，我的光标现在去哪儿了？

它自 2020 年以来增长尤其显著，你可以看到实心黄线是发展中国家。这基本上是一条指数线。所以，2010 年，想象一下所有国家，这三类国家的债务在 2010 年都是 100。所以，发达国家的债务从 100 上升到大约 150 多一点，也许 160。

但对于发展中国家来说，公共债务总额在 12、13 年内从 100 上升到 350 多。所以，这真的很有趣。

当然，真正有趣的是，如果你看看不包括中国的发展中国家，你会发现债务要少得多，因为中国一直在借很多钱。但当然，我们并不担心中国的信用价值，因为中国有足够的钱来偿还。中国有巨大的生产力来偿还债务。

所以，问题在于发达国家线和不包括中国的发展中国家线之间的中间部分。这就是问题所在。

迈克尔·哈德森：很难从 1990 年开始，因为

如果你在 1990 年遇到这种情况，那么你就会遇到 1998 年亚洲债务危机。这是亚洲货币的全面崩溃，也是马来西亚以外几乎所有地方债务危机的结果。第三世界国家，尤其是亚洲国家，出现了大规模抛售——

RADHIKA DESAI：是的，但那不是公共债务，迈克尔。那实际上是西方资本进入这些国家。我的意思是，我认为我们必须将其括起来，我们必须取出来，我们必须扩展另一个节目来谈论 1998 年债务危机。所以，1998 年，货币危机就是因为私人资本进入了各种资本市场。西方私人资本进入了这些所谓的大型新兴市场的各种资本市场。

但现在让我们回到这场公共债务危机，然后我们再做另一个节目来讨论这个现象。

这是一张图表，另一张图表也很有趣：

自 2014 年以来，净债务流出的发展中国家增加了一倍多。再一次，你看到这里，这些都是发展中国家，然后它们被分为非洲，深蓝色是亚洲和大洋洲，然后是拉丁美洲。所以，你可以看到，在 2014 年，它已经降到了非常低的水平。从那时起，债务基本上已经上升，从大约 25% 多一点上升到 50% 多一点。

所以，你可以看到，净债务流出的实际金额增加了一倍多。也就是说，在此期间，从这些国家流出的资金比流入的资金多。所以，这是另一个非常有趣的观点。

然后这个数字也很有趣：

更多国家面临沉重的债务负担，尤其是在非洲。所以，这只是这三个地区发展中国家公共债务占 GDP 比重超过 60% 的图表，国际货币基金组织正是在这个数字开始发出警报。

为了便于比较，我认为美国的债务最近已经超过 GDP 的 100%。我认为这个数字更像是 110% 或 20%。我不确定确切的数字，但通过比较你可以看出，这些国家的承载能力当然较低，或者至少被认为承载能力较低。

这张图表非常有趣：

我们之前谈到了第三世界债务危机，其中有一些私人资本，但现在你可以看到，对于整个发展中国家来说，私人债权人占发展中国家总债务的 61%，在拉丁美洲，这个比例更高，在拉丁美洲最高，正如你在一张较小的偏差图中看到的那样，在亚洲和大洋洲，这个比例略低，在非洲，这个比例最低。

然后，其他两类，即双边债权人和多边债权人，构成了剩余部分。

因此，私人资本、私人资金在这场债务危机的起源中发挥了非常重要的作用。

另一个数字显示，利息支付相对于收入增加了一倍：

因此，如果你把公共收入、这些政府的税收收入算上，对于整个发展中国家来说，利息支付已经从收入的 4.2% 上升到 7.8%。再说一次，在非洲，增长最为迅猛，而在拉丁美洲和加勒比地区，增长速度较慢，因为这些地区的增长速度已经非常快了，而在亚洲和大洋洲，增长速度也较慢。

然后这张图也很有趣，迈克尔，请随意发言，但我觉得这张图真的很有趣，或者说这个数字非常有趣，因为你看到的是全世界的公共债务总额，然后是世界上哪个地方产生了多少债务。

因此，你可以看到，美国当然产生了最大的债务。日本紧随其后，但当然，你必须记住，日本的公共债务主要是欠日本人的，但无论如何，这是这里的公共债务，其次是法国、德国等，然后是其他国家。

在发展中国家，首先，发展中国家的份额要小得多。然后在这个份额内，尽管大部分债务人-债权人关系都处于迈克尔所说的魅力圈内，即支付能力基本上不受怀疑，如果受到怀疑，在某种意义上，美联储会支持它，因此这场债务危机正在发生。

是的，迈克尔，继续说吧。

迈克尔·哈德森：情况比你的图表显示的要糟糕得多。债务与 GDP 之比对第三世界国家以及美国以外的几乎所有国家来说都是毫无意义的。债务不是用 GDP 来偿还的。在美国，你可以说这是，但全球南方国家、亚洲国家的债务不是以本国货币计算的，而是以美元计算的。

问题是，你如何将他们的 GDP 转换成美元？与美国不同，这些国家没有以本国货币计算的债务。所以

你真正需要比较和查看的是这些国家的贸易顺差和国际收支顺差是多少？

我们说的是 1,000%。现在看看你刚刚放出的这张图表。以非洲为例，从 2010 年到 2023 年。高达 9%。9% 意味着在大约八年内翻了一番。现在，自 2010 年以来已经过去了八年多。仅凭利息支付，非洲的债务就翻了两三倍。

因此，这些国家（全球南方国家）的大部分债务不是借来的钱。这是他们现有债务的利息。他们可以借钱来支付利息，但所有这些都是利息的累积，而不是贷款。这些国家的实际新信贷流几年前就已经枯竭了。他们只是承担了过去债务的利息，他们相信国际货币基金组织会以某种方式协调一切，照顾他们，并假装他们能够偿还这些债务，但大多数全球南方国家没有办法偿还这些债务，尤其是美元化的债务，因为他们没有赚美元的手段，而这些手段实际上并没有。

那么他们做了什么？你展示的那几十年，他们基本上是私有化的，只是通过借利息来偿还债务，并在一定程度上出售他们的遗产。

RADHIKA DESAI：正确。你所说的迈克尔，也就是资金的提取实际上在这组图表中有所体现。

因此，这表明私人债权人的撤资导致近 500 亿美元的资金流出。发展中国家按债权人类型划分的外部公共债务净转移。因此，你可以看到，总净资源转移已经从正数变为正数，例如略低于 100。因此，流入这些国家的资本，上升到 170 亿美元左右，然后在 2014 年左右下降，但随后大幅下降，变为负 500 亿美元左右。

然而，其中的双边债务，即一个国家借给另一个国家，或多边债务，即国家集团或世界银行、国际货币基金组织等组织借给某个国家的债务，一直保持相对稳定。

实际情况是，为了应对西方国家利率上升，私人资本基本上已经退出了这些市场。所以本质上是他们，正是私人资本的撤出造成了这个问题。

迈克尔·哈德森：我不喜欢资源转移的委婉说法。没有一分钱的资源被转移到这些国家。金融贷款不是资源。资源是帮助你成长的有形生产资料。资源是工厂。资源是一些生产资料。

向各国提供资金，特别是用于偿还债务的资金，并不是资源。这是一种金融债权。它与资源相反。这是他们欠下的债务，是对他们施加的金融枷锁和束缚，而不是资源转移。这是国际货币基金组织债权人的说法。

拉迪卡·德赛：当然，绝对是这样。这是你提出的另一个重要观点，因为我认为，特别是西方债务似乎属于这种类型，本质上是用来从这些国家榨取越来越多的资本，而没有为它们的生产能力做出贡献。

而我认为最近，中国作为主要债权国的崛起为这些国家的生产能力建设做出了更大的贡献，无论是农场、矿山、工厂、基础设施还是其他什么。

但这是我们谈论的另一件事。你知道，我们指出，第三世界国家支付的风险溢价更高。因此，这份报告指出，发展中国家的借贷成本远高于发达国家。

那么发达国家向发展中国家发行的债券收益率是多少？

德国的借贷成本为 0.8%。有趣的是，美国的利率远高于德国，实际上是德国的三倍，为 2.5%。

亚洲国家为 5.3%。拉丁美洲和加勒比国家为 6.8%。非洲国家为这些贷款支付近 10% 的利息。

现在，这基本上就是我们正在研究的这场债务危机的轮廓。

但其起源也非常相似，因为你知道，我们之前强调过 1980 年债务危机的起源，这场危机在 1982 年爆发，并在接下来的二十年里持续了差不多。这场债务危机的起源在于西方金融机构急于向第三世界国家放贷。

所以你可能会问，西方借款人这次急于借贷是从何而来的？

嗯，故事很简单。众所周知，在互联网泡沫之后，艾伦·格林斯潘，是吗？是的，我认为艾伦·格林斯潘仍然在追求，乞求

开始推行低利率政策。

然后在 2000 年代中期，由于美元面临下行压力，他被迫开始提高利率，最终在利率达到 5% 左右时，刺破了房地产和信贷泡沫。

在随后的混乱之后，美联储，对不起，我应该补充一点。他推行低利率政策，因为他认为这是保持房地产泡沫持续下去的最佳方式。事实上这是正确的，因为当时的房地产泡沫，我在我的书《地缘政治经济学》中提到过，房地产泡沫是推动任何经济增长的唯一因素。我的意思是，它相当疲软，但这就是你所拥有的一切。投资处于绝对的最低点。所以他们认为，好吧，让我们让它破裂，让房地产泡沫破裂，我们会没事的。但当然，这给美元带来了下行压力，因为你能在 2% 和 3% 的利率政策下维持多久美元坚挺？

嗯，美元正在走弱，这太过分了。进口价格在上涨，石油价格也在上涨。因此，格林斯潘开始提高利率，结果房地产和信贷泡沫破灭了。现在，在房地产和信贷泡沫破灭之后，他们当然推行了更低的利率政策。

ZIRP，即所谓的零利率政策出台，他们实行量化宽松政策，他们有各种各样的方式将越来越多的资金推入银行系统，但提供的利息却越来越少，这意味着他们被迫，他们基本上被迫承担越来越大的风险，以获得回报。他们现在愿意承担的风险之一就是向第三世界国家放贷。因此，第三世界国家再次开始享受资金流入的巨额收益。

但当然，同样的事情又发生了。通货膨胀在美国卷土重来，通货膨胀实际上开始施加压力，为了平息通货膨胀，美联储被迫开始加息，但众所周知，他已将利率提高到 5.25% 左右，但他没有再提高利率，杰罗姆·鲍威尔也没有进一步提高利率，因为即使将利率提高到这个水平，也引发了一种缓慢的金融崩溃，这种崩溃的开端我们在 2023 年 3 月看到的硅谷银行和其他类似银行的崩溃中看到了。

还有许多其他的，我们现在生活在一个泡沫时代，不仅仅是这个或那个泡沫，而是一切泡沫。所有这些资产市场都很有可能崩溃，但尽管如此，这些利率已经上升，它们给发展中国家带来了债务危机，这些国家已经受到了 COVID 的影响，受到了 COVID 带来的经济挫折，也受到了高油价的影响。他们还遭受着高食品价格的困扰。他们还饱受化肥价格高企之苦。所以，把所有这些因素综合起来，对许多第三世界国家来说，这就是灾难的根源。

迈克尔·赫德森：如果这些国家存在您所描述的问题，那么国际货币基金组织如何向这些国家提供贷款，使它们能够偿还债务并不断展期，以利率借给他们，而不是违约？这不是市场关系。如果我们将市场关系定义为债权人负责任地行事，他们就不会向无法偿还债务的国家提供贷款，因为市场关系应该平衡风险和利率。但这根本没有发生。风险如此之高，以至于利率必须高得多。

所以必须有另一种解释。解释是国际货币基金组织和美国政策制定者知道债务无法偿还。我们所说的是，债务无法偿还并不是只有我们知道的秘密。向无法偿还的国家发放贷款的原因恰恰在于，如果一个国家无法用其出口收入、其他国际收支和流动资金来偿还贷款，它就必须像个人一样行事。如果你向银行借钱抵押贷款，但无法偿还，银行就会收回你的房子。这就是全球南方国家所发生的事情。

国际货币基金组织会说，哦，你付不起钱？好吧，我们会向你提供贷款，这样你的货币就不会再次贬值，也不会随着外汇进口价格的上涨而提高你的消费价格。我们会向你提供贷款，但你必须出售你的公用事业、石油和资源。让我们把世界银行的朋友请来。世界银行应该帮助你，还记得吗？

世界银行有整个顾问团说，我们将帮助你将资源私有化。我们将为全球南方国家做贝莱德为乌克兰做的事情。我们将帮助你将所有自给自足的手段卖给外国人

我们可以帮助你不再是一个主权国家，而成为一个好的国家，美国称之为民主国家，让外国人购买你私有化的所有资产，就像玛格丽特·撒切尔那样。

这就引出了一个问题，什么是主权债务？如果这些国家必须向外国人出售其基本支持手段，那么它们还是主权国家吗？它们根本不是主权国家。国际货币基金组织和世界银行联手阻止其他国家掌控自己的命运，阻止全球南方国家使用其税收收入实际投资于社会支出和资本形成，并补贴自己的农业工业自给自足，而不是能够做到这一点。

让国家背负债务的作用是，它们所有的国内财政盈余都支付给外国债权人，而不是供本国使用。这意味着债务国已经不再是世界上任何有意义的主权国家。

我认为这就是逻辑，这种意识正在全球南方国家中传播。他们意识到偿还外债是一种金融新殖民主义，只不过是没有炮舰的殖民主义，除非你像智利那样，美国必须介入并进行政权更迭行动。所以这改变了整个问题。

拉迪卡·德赛：这也是一个有趣的观点。你知道，我记得早在国际货币基金组织和世界银行成立 50 周年时，就已经有一场废除它们的运动，主要是出于你刚才列举的同样的原因。

他们一直充当外国、西方外国资本的执行官。这就是他们今天继续做的事情。但你知道吗？迈克尔，你提到了 1998 年金融危机。在 1998 年金融危机之后，国际货币基金组织对韩国的干预方式，韩国不是一个欠发达国家，而是一个极其多元化、工业化、复杂的经济体。

他们基本上试图以你所描述的方式处理这个问题，你知道，迫使韩国等国抛售资产，包括私人和公共资产。

许多国家开始注意到这一点。实际上，特别是国际货币基金组织，特别是国际货币基金组织和世界银行的贷款组合缩减，因为第三世界国家也开始看到他们在 2000 年之后获得资金，当然，是私下获得的。但同时，他们获得的资金越来越多，中国的信贷也越来越多。

因此，这些机构的作用已经减弱。它们不再那么强大。我认为他们正试图在国际上保持某种作用。但我认为，在新的环境下，这场债务危机究竟将如何解决将会很有趣。

例如，在我们的其他节目中，我们一直在谈论世界大多数国家如何表现出越来越多的团结迹象，金砖国家正在扩张，中国正在建立新的联盟，等等。

现在，这是否会导致债务国形成联合阵线，并说，好吧，你想和我们作为债权人集团打交道，我们就和你作为债务人集团打交道。我们将拭目以待。我认为如果这样的事情发生了，那将会非常有趣。我认为这有可能发生，这真的要视情况而定。

我认为，在节目开始时，我们谈到这样一个事实：如果可以要求私人债权人对乌克兰进行非常大幅度的减记，以便打一场战争，那么为什么不能要求私人债权人对第三世界债务进行大幅减记，以便孩子们有饭可吃，有学校可上学，有干净的水可喝，等等。

因此，在所有这些方面，我认为债务的政治性质已经越来越公开。因此，由于信贷，由于扣押俄罗斯资产、委内瑞拉资产、阿富汗资产等，美国金融体系也被武器化。因此，所有这些事情的政治性质正变得越来越清晰。

那么，问题是，世界大多数国家、发展中国家、俄罗斯和中国等国家是否会真正采取相应行动？是的，请继续。

迈克尔·哈德森：这就是问题所在。你不能通过借钱来摆脱债务。这样做只会增加更多的利息支付，这是一个骗局。事实上，全球南方国家和其他国家无法用现有产出偿还债务，因为他们无法印制美元。他们只能印制自己的货币，如果他们把这些货币投入市场购买美元，货币就会大幅贬值，进口价格就会上涨，从而导致通货膨胀。

一个国家可以说，好吧，我明白，比如阿根廷或巴西，我们明白这一点，但如果我们不偿还债务，那么债券持有人的信用就会像格里萨法官对阿根廷所做的那样。格里萨可以

说，好吧，攫取他们在国外的所有资产。

你提到中国改变了局面。第三世界国家只有一种方式可以拒绝偿还债务，那就是联合起来，说，好吧，我们要拒绝偿还债务，如果美国和欧洲的债券持有人试图攫取我们在那里的资源，那么我们将通过国有化外国对我们自己的土地和矿产权以及公用事业的所有权进行报复，我们不得不根据国际货币基金组织的承诺出售这些资产，这将使我们更具竞争力。

这个问题可以追溯到 1955 年的万隆会议，当时不结盟国家已经看到了问题，你之前提到过，在 70 年代、80 年代和 90 年代，人们已经认识到了这个问题，但在那个时候，各国没有办法联合起来。

在我看来，全球南方国家唯一的实际做法是拒绝偿还债务，并说，对不起，你们发放了坏账。如果你借给我们一笔我们无法偿还的贷款，那么你就没有尽到债权人应尽的责任，市场分析称，我们只会借给我们有能力偿还的贷款。否则，你就是在借给我们一笔无法偿还的贷款，我们不会因为你借了一笔坏账而牺牲我们的增长并出售我们的自然资源。那是你的问题，不是我们的问题。

债务人的问题是让坏账问题成为债权人的问题，而不是他们自己的问题，而这需要重组整个国际金融体系，实际上就是我们一直在谈论的全球多数国家与美国-北约之间的决裂。到目前为止，尽管有关于金砖国家银行的讨论，但我们所说的规模并没有实现。人们仍然需要改变意识，认识到这些债务无法偿还，也不应该偿还，而且实际上是令人厌恶的债务。

我认为，这可能还需要一两年的时间，我们举办这些地缘政治秀的原因就是试图传播这种意识，告诉人们这不是一个可以解决的问题。它无法解决。这是一个困境，避免困境的方法是改变整个体系。好吧，布雷顿森林体系和美国统治的过去 80 年来一直是一个糟糕的体系。现在是时候让我们成为一个主权国家，并说我们自己的增长比偿还外国债权人的债务更重要了。

拉迪卡·德赛：我认为迈克尔说得完全正确，这里有一些非常棘手的问题需要解决，但我想说，在很多方面，寻找美元体系的替代方案，迈克尔和我讨论过的这种掠夺性美元体系，这种需要掠夺性贷款的美元体系，这种美元体系，很可能在替代方案出现之前就崩溃了。这就是为什么事情如此紧迫，因为从本质上讲，你知道，我们向你展示了美国债务的图表。美国债务正在膨胀，超出了市场承受能力。

近几个月来，国际货币基金组织一再警告美国债务的质量和数量不可持续，美联储已经在支持国债市场，因为国债市场正在崩溃。认为美国可以发行任意数量的债务，而世界会心存感激，会购买越来越多的债务，这种想法完全是胡说八道。

世界还没有准备好吸收美国愿意印发的债务数量。一旦国债市场崩溃，很多其他东西也会崩溃。

正如我所说，美联储，也许我们应该再做一期节目，再做一期美元体系的节目，因为事情真的到了紧要关头，因为美联储既不能因为通货膨胀而降低利率，如果不降低利率，金融危机就会来临，也不能为了完成任务而进一步提高利率，因为那只会意味着金融危机会更快发生。

如果不这样做，通货膨胀就会破坏美元的价值。所以，做也好，不做也好。这就是我们回到美元体系的地方，但今天我们就债务的政治性质、债务的力量和权力债务进行了非常有趣的对话。

所以我们很快就会再见，但与此同时，请喜欢我们的节目，请与很多人分享我们的节目，很快再见。再见。

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.