Fifty-two countries on verge of debt default, UN warns
By ethanh // 2023-07-19
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The world's developing countries are not making any real progress in relieving their debts, the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) has warned. At a recent meeting of G20 ministers in India, the subject of debt relief was brought up as a follow-up to the publishing of a UN report the week prior detailing the fact that half the planet is on the verge of defaulting. The point of the meeting, which took place in Gandhinagar, Gujarat, was to try to work through a way to restructure the debt held by the worst-off developing nations, but very little progress, if any, was made. "I think the bottom line is, as of [July] 2023, the issue of debt restructuring is really not advancing at all on a scale that is called for and needed," warned UNDP administrator Achim Steiner in a statement to Reuters, adding that the situation is a "grave concern." UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres further warned that 52 countries currently have no pathway forward in reducing their debt burden. "This is more than a systemic risk – it's a systemic failure," Guterres said while promoting a UN Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) report about the growing debt problem, which he says affects 3.3 billion people living in countries that spend more money on interest payments than on health or education. (Related: Because of soaring inflation and increasing consumer debt, more Americans than ever are relying on Buy Now Pay Later (BNPL) services.)

The international financial system propagates inequality and debt slavery

According to UNCTAD, at least 19 developing nations currently spend more on interest than on education, while another 45 spend more on interest than on health care. All in all, about 40 percent of the planet is in serious debt trouble. It is no secret that the global financial system, based on fiat and backed by nothing, is a debt-based system that enslaves everyone except the top one percent. This system harms the poorest countries the most, which the UN report highlights. The "inherent inequality in the international financial system," the report states, is "burdening developing countries disproportionately." Countries in Africa, for instance, currently pay four times more interest than the United States does, and eight times more than the richest countries in Europe. Efforts to restructure this debt are failing because upwards of 62 percent of it is now held by private creditors, up from 47 percent 10 years ago. In 2022, global public debt reached an all-time high of $92 trillion, according to Guterres. This represents a 500 percent surge since 2000. The UNDP is blaming the Wuhan coronavirus (Covid-19) for the most recent surge in inflation and interest rates, which has left one in five people around the world, or about 1.65 billion people, with hardly enough money to put food on the table. Roughly 20 percent of the world's population currently makes less than $3.65 a day, which is hardly enough to sustain a family. Meanwhile, the world's obscenely rich are becoming even more obscenely rich by the day. All of these warnings were ignored at the recent NATO summit in Lithuania, where a U.S.-led military bloc focused all attention on pledging even more money to fund the conflict in Ukraine. "The IMF and World Bank are nothing more than Western loan sharks feeding off the misery of the most impoverished countries so they can feed their own greed," one commenter wrote about the travesty known as the current global financial system. "Corrupt governments take out loans, often embezzling these huge sums of money, then pass the responsibility of paying back these debts onto their own citizens, turning them into debt slaves." Eventually, the global financial system is going to collapse, paving the way for a new world order. Learn more at Collapse.news. Sources for this article include: RT.com Newstarget.com
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