Keeping People Poor

Have you ever wondered how these countries who are broke got that way?

The media talks about these countries all the time, but they never seem to hit the nail on the head as to why these countries are in the situation that they are.

They either explain in eco-babble or they don’t explain at all.

Why can’t these countries print their way out of their mess like we do here in America?

Well, that’s one of the problems.

They are trying to print their way out of it.

Unfortunately, they’re not the United States of America, which prints the worlds reserve currency – the dollar bill.

The United States can print money without too much consequence because everybody in the world wants it and needs it.

Thus Americans do not feel the effects of inflation as much as they would if America was not the world’s reserve currency.

But other countries can’t do that without consequence.

But they do it anyway.

Okay, but how did they get that way in the first place where they felt the need to print money?

They got that way because their governments don’t take in enough money to meet their expenditures.

Basically, the government is broke.

Either they don’t have an efficient tax collection process, or they have too much debt.

This debt can take the form of exorbitant payments to the International Monetary Fund, or it can take the form of exorbitant payments to government employees, or social and military programs.

Along the way, the elites – who more often than not are thugs backed up by America – have taken their excessive cut off the loot. They either steal the money from the loans that they receive from the IMF, or they take a cut out of the government money shelled out for dams, railroads, social programs and salaries.

Thus, the government has more going out than is coming in.

To compensate for this the government has a choice.

The government can either engage in austerity, or it can print more money. Or it can do both.

Austerity invites rebellion, and this the government does not desire.

Therefore it is much safer for the government to print money. And lots of it.

Printing more money however invites inflation (which can also incite rebellion but apparently less so because at least people have something in their hands).

But inflating the currency doesn’t solve the underlying problems of the country, because the government still has to pay the IMF back in dollars, not in its own native currency.

That’s the problem.

The problem is worsened if the country doesn’t have a product that is essential to the rest of the world.

If it did, it could charge more money for the product and work its way out of debt.

But it can’t charge too much, because if they charge too much the United States with its military power won’t like that, and they will come in and change that government one way or the other.

(Our ruling class loves to buy products on the cheap.)

Sometimes the country does have an essential product, but it can’t charge more money for that product because there is a world surplus of that product.

For example, oil.

Venezuela has a lot of oil, but a few years ago,there was a world glut of oil.

It couldn’t raise the price of oil, so it was stuck with less money coming in than was going out; hence they had to print up a lot of money.

Thus inflation.

There are all sorts of forces that can cause a government to go broke.

In Sri Lanka just recently, the government’s decision to go green with their fertilizer (which caused a decrease yield in crops) plus the pandemic (which limited tourism and decreased foreign remittances in which workers overseas send money back to their native country – Sri Lanka) caused a shortfall in government money.

In response, the government printed a lot of money to keep their social programs going.

The result was inflation and unrest. The people got angry, rioted and overthrew the government.

Argentina today has massive problems with inflation.

Their recent bout with inflation is caused principally by drought. Massive drought has decreased the amount of agricultural products that Argentina exports to the world. Fewer exports equals fewer government revenues.

Fewer government revenues induces the government to print money to pay for its social and government services.

Or it can borrow money from the IMF which ultimately leads to an IMF debt trap because borrowing money doesn’t necessarily solve the underlying problems of the economy.

As the country, weakens, capital markets dry up, and the cost of borrowing becomes higher. This causes the country to fall even further into debt. More government money must be spent paying back the banks. This means less money for the people. This induces the government to print more money.

Inflation in Argentina is currently over 100%.

The new president, Javier Milei, is trying to attack this problem with austerity. He’s already being met with rebellion. He’s only been in power a week.

Will he succeed?

Probably not because the ruling class in Argentina and the world is only too happy to have Argentina limp along in poverty.

Keeping the world’s peoples poor has always been the goal of the ruling oligarchy whether it is Rome, Great Britain, or the United States.

This is how these people think.

Poor people in a weakend, desperate state of mind and body are less likely to rise up and challenge the system of feudalism and slavery under which they live.

Or so the oligarchy thinks.

That’s why United States creates one-sided trade agreements with the Third World.

Oh yes.

Michael Hudson has detailed how this is accomplished in his book Super Imperialism.

Argentina was set up by the Spanish as a feudal colony. It is still a feudal colony to this day, only the landlords now live in mansions in New York and London.

You can say much the same for any of the other developing (Third World) countries.

Colonialism may be dead, but feudalism is very much alive.

Sincerely,

Archer Crosley

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