Good News! G7 Nations Announce They Will Cancel Haiti's Debt
By Susie Madrak Monday Feb 08, 2010 3:30pmI am so pleased this is finally happening. Haiti has been burdened by its national debt for a long time and this will help speed their recovery from the massive earthquake:
The world's leading industrialised nations have pledged to write off the debts that Haiti owes them, following a devastating earthquake last month.
Canada's finance minister announced at a summit in Iqaluit, northern Canada, that Group of Seven countries planned to cancel Haiti's bilateral debts.
Jim Flaherty said he would encourage international lenders to do the same.
Some $1.2bn (£800m) of Haiti's debts to countries and international lending bodies has already been cancelled.
"We are committed in the G7 to the forgiveness of debt, in fact all bilateral debt has been forgiven by G7 countries vis-a-vis Haiti," Mr Flaherty said at the end of the two day gathering of finance ministers.
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what the gov. of Haiti does with this. they need to show us why we should back them even more. It's a great opportunity.
to have China forgive ours?
Pray that the Yellowstone supervolcano erupts.
Now somebody ship them some high strength concrete and rebar for pity's sake.
...will be there soon! (be patient)
Humans acting with compassion. What a concept.
(snark aside... This is great news!)
After 8 years of Republicanism they have just about turned this country into another Haiti.
wow.
I really did not expect this, I'm beyond pleasantly surprised.
Now, as Mr. G says above...
how about sending some concrete and rebar, etc?
So, I need to be struck by an earthquake. Is that the deal?
when we hit the wall again this year?
Avoid hitting the wall.
is in debt? Do you think unemployment benefits is free money? Do you realize so called "assets" in this country are still devaluing?
Do people think this country is going to be able to survive making youtube videos, twittering and tweaking computers and producing nothing?
I suppose the war machine can keep us afloat for a while.
that the ratio of debt to GDP isn't as bad as some countries (check out Italy, still living the Dolce Vita). A helpful graphic is supplied: http://www.visualeconomics.com/gdp-vs-nationa... This data is for 2009. Nor is the debt ratio yet unmanageable. The trend upward is mildly disturbing to financial markets but is nowhere near crisis dimensions. Also quite comparable to Canada and a swath of Europe. The deficit will have to be addressed in due course but panicking about it is pointless. It will be best addressed through economic growth in the GDP. Jobs! Jobs! and Stephen Jobs. If you really want to see a basket case check out Japan! Oddly enough the Japanese Islands are still above sea level.
I don't know if it will keep us afloat...
...but I do know it keeps the unemployment numbers "a little lower"
I was just thinking before I saw this that if taxes were raised in the top 1% to say 80% or even 90%, if these people never made another penny intheir life time they still would not run out of money! So whats the big deal?
republicanism/conservatism is a mental illness!
As M. Thatcher says the problem with socialism is eventually you run out of other people's money.
You rationalize paying for other nations with our money as if it's that simple with little consequences. You certainly have no knowledge of economics or history. Read up on Argentina, once the wealthiest country in the Americas. Your solution and response I see here is no big deal we'll just tax the top money earners that way it doesn't affect your pocket book?
Where the heck is your sanity?
Haiti's primary export...drugs and drug laundering...hmm, and to where? The US.
Solution, relieve their debt, which I know is the compassionate thing to do and tax US people to pay for it. But use other people's money....are you willing to give up one percent of your income more? Heck no, LOL. Then when inflation hits the US soon which it must(unless history suddenly doesn't apply to your logic) who do you think is responsible to bail us out? Those other people again. You can't continue to print money with no hard monies to back it up. Look at Germany after WWI, the paper becomes worth more than the currency printed on it.
Sorry, it has nothing to do with political parties, it has to do with economics.
I don't think our world is governed by economics, it's governed by people.
What I mean by that is that the study of economics is highly relative & subject to not only personal belief, but also to cultural biases & thoroughly unscientific prejudices. Economics is no more rational, logical or testable in the real world than the theories found in Political Science and Philosophy.
The "Invisible Hand," to give one example, isn't a fact or measurable phenomena, it's a religious belief. There's no such thing as a Bull or Bear market, there's just a lot of people trading and speculating, the result of which, when viewed at a distance, lends itself to our human tendency to seek patterns & anthropomorphize.
Your opinions about what is economically sound are just that: opinions. They do not have the weight of science behind them and are subject to the same political forces, including the need for consensus, as any other belief system.
considering at least 2 members of the G7 are guilty of sacking the country for a couple of centuries. This is a shell game. They'll have to borrow to rebuild, et Voilà! meet the new debt, same as the old debt.
Without considerable foreign aid this seems inevitable. They really don't have much earning power for foreign currency to service any new debt. What the world really needs is a world wide disaster insurance system that would cover this type of catastrophe. (I hope I don't need to add a non-profit one.)
...been taken over (by America's out of control military industrial police force complex) ...and doesn't exist as a country anyway (now)!
Because America "invaded" them, ...taxpayers and "The Fed" will be assuming all "associated costs"
G7 is gonna make American taxpayers pay for most of it. (and "The Fed" will do the paperwork)
who is next on the list to go down?
Now if someone would only cancel my debts.
...can create money out of thin air.
(then it stands to reason)
that they can (just as easily) go the otherway with it...?
...use money to make thin air?
(someone tell what is so hard about a few computer keystrokes erasing a few numbers that makes the "G7" "heroes?)
Round up the US Congress, President and cabinet, fly them off to the most remote town on the US Arctic coast (Nome? Prudhoe Bay?) and leave them there until they come up with a health reform bill ready for Obama to sign.
If it worked for the G7, it's worth considering.
was more about avoiding protesters than anything else but it might be worth a try.
despite this.
Trust me on this... not only do I know him from his tenure as Canada's Finance Minister, I know him from when he was Ontario's Finance Minister. That would be the one where after his party lost their election it turned out he was lying to the tune of a couple of billion dollars about the state of the province's finances. And I don't mean misunderstood the situation at hand... I mean flat out lying.
He's loving this because his government's in big trouble up here over prorogation, related to trying to bury some reports about how the Harper government at minimum ignored warnings from their own people about how the Afghans were torturing people that we handed over to them after capture on the battlefield in Kandahar province in Afghanistan.
Watch some Canadian media for the next little bit and see how this is spun as "continuing to work while Parliament is out".
The Harpers are polling way lower now, seems their shenanigans will only be tolerated for so long before the country wises up... This is the second time he's prorogued parliament when he's been in trouble, and it's a shocking abuse of power. The sooner Ignatief gets in to power, the better for Canada...
This subject is not even newsworthy. The debt will build up again in a few years and lots fo US companies will make a killing from the loans.
Haiti is a slave colony - no more no less for the United States and Canada in particular. Anyone who disagrees should look at the history from several different sources - and see how it is forced on the Haitian people.
The reporting on Haiti has never looked at the root causes of their situation, because we are the root cause of their situation - and we have the gall to feel good about it when we send donations or forgive a debt.
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