THE VILLAIN IS THE IMF
The Bank of International Settlements (BIS) in Basel, Switzerland, is the kingpin that controls the world banking community, a banking community otherwise totally independent of any nation, including our own. The world financial organizations control the capitalist money system of every nation and the banks that furnish the money for it.
The IMF, plus the World Bank (not the same as the BIS) was founded after WW II for the stated purpose of financial aid to Third World countries so they could join the rest of the financial-technological world. The IMF would arrange the deal and the World Bank would lend the money. Very nice. Now let us see what happened, not only to those financially poor Third World small countries, but to the large technological nations as well.
In 1962, the IMF officially founded the Group of Ten nations to plan the world economy "for the good of all." The Group of ten (G-10) was originally divided into three sections, the G-5, G-7 and G-10+1. Now, according to the Statesman's Yearbook, the IMF has formed a new power group, the G-6--the U.S., Britain, Japan, France, Germany, and Saudi Arabia. However, the Book of International Organizations paints a broader picture. The G-10 is the real power, dealing with every facet of society. Through their client states, they run the world, politically, culturally and financially, setting the policies for our world today, establishing dictators over small countries, removing forests and natural earth products to pay debts to the banks, controlling nations by international banks and corporations worldwide, controlling national money policies worldwide (including our own Federal Reserve Bank System), creating the NAFTA treaty, GATT, etc.
Many people realize that our new international economy aims for a world controlled by corporations. What they don't understand is that corporations themselves are not free entities. Corporations do their business on credit. This credit comes from the banks. Without that credit they cannot do business. Therefore, the prime mover is the financial community, the international banks who owe allegiance to no nation, while using the currency of all nations. These financial organizations are a syndicate accountable only to the BIS. They are chain banks, monopoly banks, similar to monopoly corporations. They are the new world conquerors. Their aim is to remove all national sovereignty, to substitute corporations for national governments in all nations large or small.
How was this accomplished? By debt, by interest owed on national debts, by rules they set for all borrower nations, rules that end up impoverishing the nations, forcing workers to work for insufficient wages, leading to possible populace uprisings which open the door to military control, which will set in place the hoped-for control by corporations.
This is the pattern that entrapped the small agricultural nations, forcing them to sell their products cheaply to international industry. It has forced the GATT agreement first on small nations, now on large ones, laying the groundwork for worldwide corporate control. All this is happening in the U.S. today while people doze before their TV sets or speculate on their president's sex life.
Imagine, if you will, the following scenario. After World War II, a small country throws off its colonial master, proclaims itself free, and elects its own political leaders. I shall call it Little Nation. Little Nation wasn't much. No big industries, no TVs, few cars, no modern conveniences, but its people had food and peace. The International Bank for Reconstruction and Development--World Bank, for short--contacted this Little Nation's president and explained that it had been created in 1944 along with the International Monetary Fund to help small nations be their very best, help their citizens have the good things other countries had. "We will lend you the money so you can modernize, bring in foreign business and make your people more prosperous," World Bank says.
This sounded good, so Little Nation borrowed the cash. It put in a hydroelectric plant for electricity, telephones and some big buildings as government buildings and office buildings. It was ready for foreign trade and foreign business.
But that foreign business did not come in immediately, and Little Nation, being an agricultural nation, did not get enough money for its products to pay the interest on the loan, much less the required payment on the loan itself. Agricultural products sell cheap; industrial products are expensive. The World Bank allows only 30 days after a project is operating for repayments. After 60 days, debtor nations are turned over to the collection agent, the IMF. "Little Nation" has now become "Little Debtor" and the story changes.
"We will help you," IMF declares. "We will give you credit for the money you owe World Bank for interest. We will pay World Bank, and you can pay us. You will still be in business. However, you will have to make some changes to be more efficient, to have more money. You will have to raise taxes, cut wages, cut the value of your money so that foreign businesses will choose you to buy from. Get rid of those inefficient small farms, start agribusinesses for a bigger money crop. Raise less food--you must buy your food. When you buy that food from other countries, they may insist you also buy soft drinks and things called "junk food," but that is a small price to pay to get this money, isn't it? But most important, if you are giving any "freebies," such as social programs, to your people, these must be removed. You cannot afford to waste money. You also need foreign businesses, so give them good inducements to move in. Get all the cash you can to pay this debt we are covering for you.
Little Debtor would like to drop the whole thing, but if it does, its marketing days are over forever. No parts or servicing for the expensive plant and telephone company that World Bank sent the foreign companies in to build, no emergency food in case of drought. It would be worse off than it was before.
Now Little Debtor owes more. It has inflation at home, unemployed farmers and small business people who couldn't handle the inflation. Its poor have no aid. Farmers grow a cash crop, so people buy most of their food from foreign countries at high prices. Foreign businesses are enticed to come into Little Debtor to aid the unemployment situation; forests are cut to sell the lumber and make space for foreign cattle raisers; toxic waste dumps are provided for foreign industrialists. Everything possible is done to bring in cash because if these multi-millions of dollars borrowed are not all paid off in 3 to 5 years, IMF will come in and take all the money out of Little Debtor's treasury, leaving nothing for it to run the country with.
If Little Debtor's president begins to complain about the things foreign companies are doing to his country, they will give him a cut of the action. He can become a rich man and have a Swiss bank account. If he spreads the money around to other political leaders, there is enough for many to become rich on.
These new rules have impoverished the people. They wonder what happened to their president. Actually, he is no longer a president. He is a dictator.
Ultimately, the people are forced to revolt in order to eat. "Put down the insurrection immediately-you're destabilized," Little Debtor's dictator is told. "If you don't do so, other measures will be taken." Often, these "other measures" do have to be taken: the CIA comes in to handle things. The CIA is U.S. "National Security" (meaning "Financial Security"). People complain that the hand of the CIA is found in unsavory enterprises, not realizing that the CIA does not work for the U.S. government, but for international business to carry out the wishes of the IMF. The CIA's hired army and its war machine are efficient. Its media people will tell the world about the need to put down the "communist attacks on Little Debtor in an attempt to destroy its democracy."
Now multiply Little Debtor by all the small nations in the world and add some big ones and you have the picture.
Our nation is being shackled by the monopoly capitalist system run by the International Monetary Fund banks and their minions, the international corporations. That is the problem we face. That is the problem we must solve if we are to keep our democracy. The villain is the IMF. It has been able to commit its villainy because people attack the effects, not the cause. Why not aim at the IMF?