…on debt?
Your Eyewitness grew up believing that “money makes the world go round”. Foolish him!! From figures he’s just seen, even if that were ever true, today it’s debt that spins our world!! The US – the richest country in the world – has an astounding $30 TRILLION in debt out of the world’s 196 countries’ total of $303 TRILLION!! China – poised to overtake the US as the world’s largest economy – clocks in at $13 trillion!! And please, dear reader, we’re talking US greenbacks, not Guyana’s monopoly money! And in case you forgot, it takes ONE THOUSAND BILLIONS to make ONE TRILLION!!
And in case you wondered where we stood on the debt sweepstakes, we’re #164th at $1,14 billion!! So, does this mean that, if we wanna get richer, we should go on a borrowing binge?? Well…um…not really! As you may’ve figured out, hopefully by now – borrowing’s sweet, but payback’s a bitch, and this lesson also applies to countries!! At the personal level, if you can’t pay back, your lender either breaks your kneecaps with a bat in some alleyway; or, if he’s civilised, drags you to the Courts, that’ll throw you in the clinker if you still can’t cough up the dough!!
With countries, they also can go the kneecaps route. Back in the day, France imposed on Haiti a levy for ending slavery that took that nation more than a hundred years to repay!! And it took the landing of American marines to literally crack some kneecaps – and skulls! – to remind the destitute Haitians that “debts” – even imposed ones – gotta be repaid. But that was then. After WWII, the US and the West invented their “legal” enforcer to collect debt repayment – the IMF.
This institution cracked knees using something called SAP – Structurally Adjustment Program – that sucked the country’s citizens dry. Like when the PNC nationalised 80% of the economy and, by 1979, couldn’t repay loans!! The IMF froze all transactions, forced Guyana to its knees till 1989, when Hoyte agreed to a SAP. By then the $800 million debt had become $2.1 billion because of accumulated interest!! Hoyte called it an Economic Recovery Program (ERP) – which Guyanese dubbed “Empty Rice Pots”!!
So, dear reader, what about that $30 trillion the US owes?? Well, this shows that money and debt are identical!! When the US prints a dollar bill, it’s “money” – but also a promise (debt) to anyone holding that piece of paper that they can exchange it for goods in America!! So, America’s “debt” is ultimately paper the rest of the world’s willing to hold, because they believe they can exchange it in the US – and elsewhere – for goods.
So, if the rest of the world calls in their debt – will the IMF break kneecaps?!!
…on self-interest
As the Ukraine War grinds on, since it affects us all, everyone’s forced to wonder who’s “right” and who’s “wrong”. Your Eyewitness is gonna share his perspective on the matter. He’s a realist… ie, someone or some country that views the world as it is, and not in terms of an unrealised ideal that one wishes for – an idealist! Realism sees a world always in conflict, since it’s filled by states whose overweening concern is their OWN security, which rarely totally coincides.
Each of them will then do whatever it takes to gain an advantage to protect what it defines as its interests. Within each group, some will seek dominance, and pursue power as towards that end. Realists, therefore, see the distribution of power among states as the major determinant of how they’ll behave. Ultimately, they give short shrift to international law, international organisations, or morality! The golden rule is, “There are no permanent friends of permanent enemies, just permanent interests”!!
Understand Ukraine now??
…on planes
Your Eyewitness is intrigued by the MoU signed between Guyana and China on “air links” to that country. So, from a realist’s standpoint, what’s in it for us, and for the Chinese??
Is this part of the Belt and Road Initiative??
