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philip rizk

Plutocracy: If Corporations and the Rich Paid 1960s-Level Taxes, the Debt Would Vanish ... - 0 views

www.alternet.org/...taxes%2C_the_debt_would_vanish

debt tax rich

shared by philip rizk on 27 Sep 11 - No Cached
  • So why aren't we taxing the rich?
  • Our political system is failing to tax the rich because the rich have fortunes large enough to buy off the political system
philip rizk

Icelandic voters reject Icesave debt repayment plan | World news | guardian.co.uk - 0 views

www.guardian.co.uk/...icesave-debt-repayment-no-vote

iceland reject debt payment

shared by philip rizk on 27 Sep 11 - No Cached
  • philip rizk on 27 Sep 11
     
    "economic and political chaos"
philip rizk

The girl with the Egyptian flag | African news, analysis and opinion - The Africa Repor... - 0 views

www.theafricareport.com/...rl-with-the-egyptian-flag.html

SA revolution debt

shared by philip rizk on 28 Sep 11 - No Cached
  • must register and consolidate their victories in the institutions of that state
  • how dependent on the advice of foreign experts
  • apartheid debt
  • ...9 more annotations...
  • orderly
  • democracy has not solved the most pressing of our own social contradictions, they have become worse.
  • it is very hard to keep
  • But for a democratic surplus, that is, and the procedural rights and freedoms South Africans enjoy, such as assembly and to vote for whom we choose among contesting elites. It is the absence of an out-and-out dictator, it seems, that keeps South Africa’s poor and discontented in their place.
  • an actual, not merely branded by a well-meaning Al Jazeera, ‘day of rage’.
  • A riot releases a qualitatively different element of political alchemy. It makes no demand. It constitutes itself as power rather than asking for stuff from the state. People in this mode have a burst to them that ranks and ranks of police cannot hold.
  • The top two of these historically are bread prices and repression. It seems that Arab politics has added a third distinct motive to revolt, one flowing from the form of state that has arisen in a privatized, globalised, late capitalist and kleptocractic era
  • Egypt is also an example of a country that decolonized very early and whose nationalist leaders enjoyed much prestige for their role in winning independence and keeping sovereignty. These struggle credentials and symbologies, such as they are, do not last
  • A second wave of post-nationalist, Arab liberation struggles are patently taking place now with a coherent and infectious set of ideas informing them.
  • philip rizk on 28 Sep 11
     
    "must register and consolidate their victories in the institutions of that state"
philip rizk

Egypt's 'Orderly Transition'? International Aid and the Rush to Structural Adjustment - 0 views

www.jadaliyya.com/...E2%80%99-international-aid-and

aid neoliberalism imf worldbank hanieh

shared by philip rizk on 28 Sep 11 - No Cached
  • a critique of these financial packages needs to be seen as much more than just a further illustration of Western hypocrisy
  • a sustained effort to restrain the revolution within the bounds of an ‘orderly transition’
  • Egypt is, in many ways, shaping up as the perfect laboratory of the so-called post-Washington Consensus, in which a liberal-sounding ‘pro poor’ rhetoric – principally linked to the discourse of democratization – is used to deepen the neoliberal trajectory of the Mubarak-era
  • ...16 more annotations...
  • “As momentous as the current security and political restructuring challenges may be, it is absolutely critical that the transition authorities … place a high priority on deepening and accelerating structural economic reforms … transition and subsequent governments must articulate a credible medium-term reform and stabilization framework … [and] need to focus on creating the legal and institutional environment for fostering entrepreneurship, investment, and market-driven growth.”
  • The IIF went on to bluntly identify this acceleration of structural adjustment as the “context” in which aid to Egypt would be provided
  • designed to ensure greater legitimacy for neoliberalism
  • By limiting democracy to the ‘political’ sphere and expanding the notion of freedom to include ‘markets’, they obfuscate the necessary relations of power within the market, and explicitly block the ability of states to determine the use, ownership and distribution of their economic resources. Democratic control of the economy is thus precluded as a violation of ‘good governance’.
  • In the case of Egypt, the discourse of institutional reform has allowed neoliberal structural adjustment to be presented not just as a technocratic necessity – but as the actual fulfillment of the demands innervating the uprisings
  • emphasized by US and European spokespeople over the last weeks: this was not a revolt against several decades of neoliberalism – but rather a movement against an intrusive state that had obstructed the pursuit of individual self-interest through the market
  • Perhaps the starkest example of this discursive shift was the statement made by World Bank President Robert Zoellick at the opening of a World Bank meeting on the Middle East in mid-April. Referring to Mohammed Bouazizi, the young peddler from a Tunisian market place who set himself on fire and became the catalyst for the uprising in Tunisia, Zoellick remarked “the key point I have also been emphasizing and I emphasized in this speech is that it is not just a question of money. It is a question of policy … keep in mind, the late Mr. Bouazizi was basically driven to burn himself alive because he was harassed with red tape … one starting point is to quit harassing those people and let them have a chance to start some small businesses.”  
  • Western loans act to extract wealth from Egypt’s poor and redistribute it to the richest banks in North America and Europe.
  • Contrary to what has been widely reported in the media, this was not a forgiveness of Egypt’s debt. It is actually a debt-swap – a promise to reduce Egypt’s debt service by $1 billion, provided that money is used in a manner in which the US government approves.
  • dependent upon a continuous stream of new loans in order to service previously accumulated long-term debt
  • A PPP is a means of encouraging the outsourcing of previously state-run utilities and services to private companies
  • “a useful phrase because it avoids the inflammatory effect of “privatization” on those ideologically opposed
  • “The EBRD was created in 1991 to promote democracy and market economy, and the historic developments in Egypt strike a deep chord at this bank."
  • A research institute that tracks the activity of the EBRD, Bank Watch, noted in 2008 that a country cannot achieve top marks in the EBRD assessment without the implementation of PPPs in the water and road sectors.
  • The current Egyptian government has given its open consent to this process
  • “the current transition government remains committed to the open market approach, which Egypt will further pursue at an accelerated rate following upcoming election.”
  • philip rizk on 28 Sep 11
     
    "a critique of these financial packages needs to be seen as much more than just a further illustration of Western hypocrisy"
Ahmed Badawi

EBRD to start North Africa lending by mid-2012 - 0 views

www.thedailynewsegypt.com/...frica-lending-by-mid-2012.html

EBRD Debt Neoliberalism North Africa Egypt Loans

shared by Ahmed Badawi on 12 Oct 11 - No Cached
  • Ahmed Badawi on 12 Oct 11
     
    The EBRD, an international lending institution which has focused on emerging European economies, announced last week that shareholder governments had backed the expansion of its mandate to North Africa. The bank is one of the tools the international community will use to supply aid to Arab governments and encourage them to pursue democratic reforms in the wake of this year's Arab Spring political unrest.
nohaelshoky

UPDATE 1-Egypt finmin expects to get IMF loan by end-June - 0 views

www.reuters.com/...idUSL6E8FC21T20120412

debt IMF loan budget economy egypt audit

shared by nohaelshoky on 12 Apr 12 - No Cached
  • nohaelshoky on 12 Apr 12
     
    Thu Apr 12, 2012 5:59am EDT * Minister confident loan will be sealed next month * Muslim Brotherhood won't accept loan without new terms or govt, due in June * IMF had made broad political support a condition CAIRO, April 12 (Reuters) - Egypt's government expects to seal a loan from the International Monetary Fund by May 15, allowing the money to be disbursed before a new president is sworn in at the end of June, the country's Finance Minister Mumtaz al-Saeed said on Thursday.
nohaelshoky

CADTM - Moratorium on Tunisian debt: an urgency for the people of Tunisia - 0 views

www.cadtm.org/Moratorium-on-Tunisian-debt-an

debt audit loan economy Tunisia Moratorium CADTM

shared by nohaelshoky on 12 Apr 12 - No Cached
  • nohaelshoky on 12 Apr 12
     
    By the same authorMarie-Christine Vergiat By the same authorGabi Zimmer By the same authorCADTM Press release 4 April 2011 by Marie-Christine Vergiat, Gabi Zimmer, CADTM Press release of Marie-Christine Vergiat (Front de Gauche) and Gabi Zimmer (Die Linke) MEPs and of the CADTM (Committee for the Abolition of the Third World Debt) Following a meeting held in the European parliament in Brussels organised by the CADTM (committee for the Abolition of the Third World Debt) and two MEPs from the GUE-NGL (European United Left-Nordic Green Left), Marie Christine Vergiat (Front de Gauche) and Gaby Zimmer (Die Linke), and several members of the European and national parliaments belonging to different political affiliations, are launching an appeal calling for the immediate suspension of the EU debt repayment by Tunisia (with frozen interests).
nohaelshoky

The Arab Spring and international debt: Tunisia, Egypt and Bahrain's debt to Norway | e... - 0 views

eurodad.org/?p=784725

debt egypt audit loan

shared by nohaelshoky on 09 Apr 12 - No Cached
  • nohaelshoky on 09 Apr 12
     
    Eurodad partners and have released a new report on Tunisia, Egypt and Bahrain's debts to Norway During the winter of 2011 the world witnessed a political earthquake in North Africa and in the Middle East. The Arab spring raised several questions around debt cancellation and especially on debt legitimacy.
philip rizk

Calling Foreign Debt 'Immoral,' Leader Allows Ecuador to Default - 0 views

www.washingtonpost.com/...AR2008121204105.html

ecuador debt default

shared by philip rizk on 28 Sep 11 - No Cached
  • Ecuador is ceasing payments not because the oil-rich country cannot afford to pay but because it has made a political decision not to.
  • Some analysts fear it may set a precedent
nohaelshoky

Deauville Partnership -- International Financial Institutions (IFIs) statement -- Septe... - 0 views

www.imf.org/...091011.htm

Deauville EIB debt audit agreement IFC

shared by nohaelshoky on 02 Oct 11 - No Cached
  • nohaelshoky on 02 Oct 11
     
    As a response to the historical changes underway in the Middle East and North African countries (MENA), the Deauville Partnership launched at the G8 Summit in May 2011, provided the concerned countries with a framework for partnership based on (i) a political process to support the democratic transition; and (ii) an economic framework for transparent, accountable government as well as sustainable and inclusive growth.
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