The Chinese realize this. On a political basis, they regularly buy up and write down bad loans with money the government electronically prints itself. This wouldn't work in our democratic system because politicized debt forgiveness is too obvious of a way to buy votes. Instead we have the fed buy bad debts from the banks in a form of politicized bad investment forgiveness, but the debts never go away and the taxpayer is partially stuck with the bill and hence austerity in the form of government bailouts.
I don't follow your point here. "Austerity" and "government bailout" are antithetical.
Did you travel around any? What are the most interesting parts of the country? Did you ever make it to Mecca?
How good are you at recognizing family names and power connections? Did that come with time?
How did people in different parts of the country view each other?
I just returned from a week in Jeddah and Riyadh. Here are some photos from a fancy jail. Housing some of the 5000 terrorist/jihadists in a re-integration program. Think about that, the jihadists get the nice jail, because they are rehabilitatable: http://www.daviddegner.com/albums/terrorist-rehab-in-saudi-a...
The most amusing of all would be safe ways and grocery stores would turn into night club entrances as all the women would be shopping so guys would drive by the entrance and hold up signs with their phone numbers on them. So front of Safeway on a weekend night would be all these sports cars, benz's Etc. Too funny.
Jeddah a lot more lax than Riyadh.
Can't get into Mecca unless you're Muslim. We took a wrong turn on a road trip one time and were stopped and made to turn around.
Check points outside every city. If you were a female and didn't have written consent from your husband you weren't allowed to leave the city.
http://www.robertlacey.com/?q=book/inside-kingdom
It describes the length the Saudi's go to in rehabilitating jihadists - including getting them married!
This is infinitely more humane than the current US strategy of drone strikes, "kills terrorists" never mind the collateral damage and disruption it causes. Hell our DOC could learn a few things. Here, if you are ever once a criminal, you're a criminal for life.
>Here, if you are ever once a criminal, you're a criminal for life
OTOH, recidivism for sorcery must be pretty low over in the Kingdom, since the punishment for this crime (?) is beheading (!).
Yes the US takes part in that, but the organization is the IMF.
The IMF partially realizes their role in this, but its more of an outcome than a conspiracy. They've commented on that book in an interesting non-denial, basically saying that the GDP of the countries they've helped/subjected-in-a-giant-conspiracy is so low and such a small fraction of the IMF budget that it doesn't make sense that they would put much effort in it.
In any case, its just the terms of their contracts. Country can't pay, country must raise taxes or expropriate goods, or find natural resources.
To be clear: The IMF and World Bank are primarily controlled by the Western powers. EDIT: And are seen as tools of Western power by many.
[1]https://www.imf.org/external/np/sec/memdir/members.aspx#3
The deal long (or always?) has been that a European runs the IMF (Legarde) and an American runs the World Bank, currently Jim Yong Kim. As you might imagine, the rest of the world feels a bit left out.
Or sell infrastructure to private industries (this is what the economic hit man interview I saw claimed)
That's not entirely accurate. Saudi Arabia was extraordinarily poor prior to Standard Oil of California's oil finds there. US companies financed most of Saudi Arabia's initial oil infrastructure build out, including the technology that made it all possible in the first place.
http://www.amazon.com/New-Confessions-Economic-Hit-Man/dp/16...
However, being older and somewhat more cynical (particularly after binge reading about the UK involvement in the Iraq and Afghan Wars) I do wonder if I should read this again - are there any materials out there that support his claims?
If anything it's a coup for politicians who want to push debt forgiveness as one of their platforms. Get everyone into debt and then offer forgiveness for votes.
Prices rise to what the market will bear. Cheap debt means the market will "bear" more than it would in a less leveraged society.
If everyone but me takes a loan, the price of tuition goes up. This means I now have to take a loan or not go to school (which means I can't get a job).
Same happens with housing. If everyone but me takes out a jumbo mortgage, prices go up and I now must take out a jumbo mortgage or forego homeownership.
As long as a degree is a required piece of paper to obtain most jobs, college will be a requirement. As long as rent offers no equity and mortgage interest (but not rent) is deductible, homeownership will remain one of the middle class's sole paths to the accumulation of wealth.
Today's wacky "in-deflationary" economic condition can continue as long as central banks hold interest rates near zero and wages are stagnant.
Similarly, "homeowners" are less likely to riot...
Essentially U.S. helps impoverished nations with infrastructure and other aid, but saddles them with debt in order to control them politically or otherwise.
The interesting part was when it came to Saudi Arabia, which had so much money it didn't need to take on debt to develop their infrastructure. So instead they bought America's debt as this article explains.
I lived in the kingdom from '82 - '04 which was quite an interesting time span to have lived there. Things have definitely changed as a younger, mostly western educated generation, returns home and social unrest cannot be quelled with unlimited social programs anymore.
Most of the Saudi's I know now simply take american concepts/franchises and spin them out over there. From hamburger chains to house cleaning services. Works pretty well for them.
The most annoying thing was the weekends were on Thursday and Friday, so if you wanted to do anything international with a bank you could only do it Mon - Wed as their banks were closed on their weekends and then U.S. banks were closed Sat / Sun.
I believe you can still simply walk to a certain part of town and watch an execution, along with a couple of hands once a week there. Just you know, if you wanted something to do on a weekend.