A report by Debt Justice said private investors who bought the bonds of Ethiopia, Ghana, Sri Lanka, Suriname and Zambia when they were first issued would stand to make $20bn if they were paid in full. If the bonds were bought at current depressed prices and still paid in full, private creditors would profit by $30bn.
So, why would those people buy the bonds in the first place – lend money that is – if they didn’t think there was going to be a profit in it in the first place?
If the local politicians just get to steal it without any comeback at all then nothing will be lent in the first place, will it?
Heidi Chow, executive director of Debt Justice, said: “Private lenders are having their cake and eating it. They’ve already profited from charging premium interest rates to cover their risk and now that countries cannot afford to pay, they also want to profit from full payment.
Idiot, if they don’t get their money back then they don’t make a profit, do they?
She can’t be that stupid.
I hear her mein is excellent…
So private creditors have lost $10bn so far …
“Debt Injustice” wants them to take a further “haircut”
That is the way to make sure no-one lends to these countries in future
I sincerely hope no one does lend to them in future, john77. That way the lenders save their money and the local taxpayers aren’t ripped off.
The only ones who’d suffer would be the grifting politicians.
Debt Justice is a part of a global movement to end unjust debt and the poverty and inequality it perpetuates. Only together can we build a fair economy that serves people and the planet.
We are a UK based charity founded in 1996.
Our work is inspired by the ancient concept of the Jubilee, a periodic resetting of debts, and everything it represents – debt cancellation, celebration, hope, restoration, redistribution and justice. We believe no-one should be forced into debt just to put food on the table or pay for essential healthcare. And yet that’s the reality for many countries across the world, and households here in the UK.
Through fiercely informed campaigning, we build collective power with those affected so together we can rewrite the rules of global finance and build a fair economy for all.
I think we can say with some degree of certainty they aren’t going to be the sharpest knives in the drawer
It’s the usual thing. The members have a bee in their collective bonnet about the ‘right’ way to solve this, and won’t listen to any contrary arguments about practicality.
@ VP
Thanks for doing the unpleasant job of reading their waffle.
The concept of the Jubilee was to restore to each family the land that their ancestor was allotted by Joshua and the sale price of any land sold by a feckless Israelite was calculated in teerms of the value of n harvests where n was the number of years to the next Jubilee. “Debt Justice” are either lazily ignorant or deliberately lying when they claim that Jubilee involved stealing money from lenders. Jubilee was effectively a common end-date for a raft of purchased annuities of different terms and values and was intended to ensure that one feckless person could not impoverish future generations of his family (well, usually one generation would suffer but not more than one).
John77, interesting. So Jubilee in effect made all land leasehold with a universal reversion date?