Sunday, September 23, 2007

Endless money forms the sinews of war

RAFAEL ENRIQUEZ
Foreign Debt /IMF (International Monetary Fund)
1983 OSPAAAL

From now on, depressions will be scientifically created.
Congressman Charles A. Lindbergh Sr. , 1913

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) is an international organization that oversees the global financial system by observing exchange rates and balance of payments, as well as offering financial and technical assistance. Its headquarters are located in Washington, D.C., USA”. This is an unsophisticated quote from Wikipedia, which certainly does not describe why Jesus is crucified on the USD sign with the IMF abbreviation on the poster above.

At the Bretton Woods conference in 1944 the formation of International Monetary Fund and International Bank of Reconstruction and Development was point one on the agenda. Next year the first 29 UN-countries signed Articles of Agreement which brought to life these two organizations. The official purpose of IMF and IBRD was “to end economical nationalism, which was slowing down the post war economical reconstruction and development”. They were aiming at “encouraging open markets” with “lowering barriers to trade” as well as prohibition of economical restrictions imposed by local governments.

And in fact this opened the new era of colonialism in the world. Before IMF colonies were sucked dry by the dominions because they lacked the arms and the power. IMF brought money into the equation. The main idea of IMF was to state United States Dollar as the one and only reserve currency through which all local currencies could be pegged to gold, thus making them secure. And as USD is the currency of the United States all American companies were automatically privileged compared to the local businesses based on the local money. IMF’s policy was protectionist – third world countries with poor economies weakened by revolutions were forced to get credits from IMF on conditions which led to complete devastation of old economic relations, pauperization of the people and global privatization of the property. This happened in Russia, in Bolivia, Argentina and in many other places around the world. This is why more and more countries nowadays decide to limit the presence of foreign capital in the economy. Cuba is one of them.