Robert Reich - John Perkins - Fergal Keane & Panorama TV - Adam Curtis TV - Stanley Fischer - Paul Foot - Dick Amey - Annie Machon - Che Guevara - Jose Saramago - Jeffrey Sachs - Pramoedaya Anato Toer - Richard Werner -
The dirty little secret is that both Houses of Congress are irrelevant. America’s domestic policy is now being run by Alan Greenspan and the Federal Reserve. America’s foreign policy is now being run by the International Monetary Fund. When the President decides to go to war, he no longer needs a declaration of war from Congress. Robert Reich, USA Today 7th January 1999
We economic hitmen really have been responsible for creating this first truly global empire. And we work many different ways. But perhaps the most common is that we will identify a country that has resources our corporations covet, like oil, and then arrange a huge loan to that country from the World Bank or one of its sister organisations. But the money never actually goes to the country. Instead it goes to our big corporations to build infrastructure projects in that country, power plants, industrial parks, ports, things that benefit a few rich people in that country in addition to our corporations ... The whole country is left holding a huge debt; such a big debt it can’t be paid, and that’s part of the plan. John Perkins, author Confessions of an Economic Hitman, economist for Chas T Main Inc
The cost of the guarantee threatened to bankrupt the Irish economy. The government was forced to seek international rescue. The IMF & EU stepped up loans worth eighty-five billion Euros. Fergal Keane, Panorama: How to Blow a Fortune, BBC 2011
Then in March 1976 Britain fell into the abyss. Foreign investors led by American bankers panicked. The pound began to slide against the dollar. And nothing would stop it. Britain faced bankruptcy. In desperation Labour turned to the International Monetary Fund for a loan. And the IMF team came to London. They were determined that the only way to restore confidence was for the British government to adopt monetarist policies. Adam Curtis, Pandora’s Box, BBC 1992
What will lift people out of poverty is not cancelling their debt but what policies their countries pursue. Stanley Fischer, IMF
Then the IMF, in the shape of brilliant young men from investment banks in Massachusetts, made their final demand. They wanted prescription charges imposed on medicines. Wilson’s ministers begged, wheedled, and offered all sorts of other cuts in exchange. Free medicine, they whined, was the sacred cow of the Labour Party. Of all the policies they bad introduced when they first came into office four years previously, they were proudest of their removal of the health charges. The great Aneurin Bevan, along with Harold Wilson, had resigned from a former government on the issue. Could they please, they implored, be spared the health charges?
The IMF, sensing its certain victory, and knowing well how important it was to humiliate the government in the eyes of its socialist supporters, stuck firm. Though the health charges were only peanuts in the context of total government spending – some £8 million+ – it insisted on them. The Labour ministers surrendered. A great portrait of them with their hands in the air should be unveiled at Labour Party headquarters and dedicated to all those who suppress their socialist opinions so that the next Labour government can do the ‘little things’. Paul Foot, The Case for Socialism ch6
The evidence is now undeniable that the IMF has played a destabilising role in world financial affairs. We must reject the president’s no-strings-attached $18 billion request and instead adopt IMF reforms. Dick Amey
Asset stripping countries and they’ve been doing it systematically starting with Chile in the 1970s. These disciples of the Chicago School keep cropping up every time there is some sort of crisis in a country ... They use things like the International Monetary Fund and World Bank to bail out countries ... and then impose conditions that asset strip those countries ... and impoverish the people. Annie Machon, interview 30th April 2010
The interests of the IMF represent the big international interests that today seem to be established and concentrated in Wall Street. Che Guevara
The world is governed by institutions that are not democratic – the World Bank, the IMF, the WTO. Jose Saramago
I think the IMF helped to detonate the Indonesian crisis. Jeffrey Sachs
For hundreds of years Indonesia was sucked dry by the rich countries of the West ... In this way, the West became strong and prosperous, controlling finance and commerce. Now we are dictated to by the IMF and the World Bank. A country as rich as Indonesia has been turned into a country of beggars because the Indonesian elite is spineless. Pramoedaya Ananto Toer, author & former political prisoner
The IMF policies are clearly not aimed at creating economic recoveries in the Asian countries … The agenda is clearly to crack open Asia for foreign interests. Richard Werner, cited Princes of the Yen: Central Banks and the Transformation of the Economy, 2014