#Foreign debt

[infocrazebyrepwoop]

Bangladesh's External Debt Crosses $100 Billion Mark, Experts Express Concerns

Bangladesh’s external debt has surged beyond $100 billion, reaching $100.64 billion by December’s end, as per Bangladesh Bank’s recent disclosure. This slight uptick from approximately $99 billion six months earlier underscores a marginal rise of $1 billion in foreign debt within this period. Despite this escalation, authorities maintain optimism, citing ample room for further borrowing. Md…

[corepaedianews]

The whole world is facing a debt crisis – but richer countries can afford to stop it

Shutterstock/Immersion Imagery Patrick E. Shea, University of Glasgow Countries across the world are drifting towards a debt crisis. Economic slowdowns and rising inflation have increased demands on spending, making it almost impossible for many governments to pay back the money they owe. In normal times, those countries could simply take on new debt to replace the old debt. But international…

[samvadprakriya]

भारत के विदेशी ऋण 2021-22 के बारे में स्थिति रिपोर्ट का 28वां संस्करण जारी किया गया

भारत के विदेशी ऋण 2021-22 के बारे में स्थिति रिपोर्ट का 28वां संस्करण जारी किया गया

वित्त मंत्रालय के आर्थिक मामलों के विभाग की विदेशी ऋण प्रबंधन इकाई (ईडीएमयू) ने भारत के विदेशी ऋण 2021-22 पर स्थिति रिपोर्ट का 28वां संस्करण जारी किया है। मार्च 2022 के अंत में भारत का विदेशी ऋण 620.7 बिलियन अमेरिकी डॉलर था, जो मार्च 2021 के अंत में रहे 573.7 बिलियन अमेरिकी डॉलर के ऋण से 8.2 प्रतिशत अधिक था। जबकि इसका 53.2 प्रतिशत अमेरिकी डॉलर के मूल्‍य वर्ग में था, भारतीय रुपये के मूल्य वर्ग का…

[premimtimes]

Abdullahi Adamu’s debt blunder and Nigeria’s moment of truth, By Phrank Shaibu

Abdullahi Adamu’s debt blunder and Nigeria’s moment of truth, By Phrank Shaibu

…all men of goodwill must prevail on Buhari to apply the brakes. It is not rocket science to know that a country that does not produce anything tangible for the international market other than crude oil must be prudent. Spending 90% of revenue on debt servicing is certainly not sustainable; it leaves next to nothing for capital projects other than paying workers’ salaries− this is O’ Level…

[globalcourant]

The powerful family in the middle of Sri Lanka's economic crisis

The powerful family in the middle of Sri Lanka’s economic crisis

Who are the Rajapaksas, and why do analysts say the powerful political family is to blame for Sri Lanka’s economic mess? In July 2022, Sri Lankan citizens stormed and occupied the republic’s presidential palace after months of demonstrations. The protesters had one main demand: for the country’s then-president Gotabaya Rajapaksa to resign. The protests came off the back of a crippling economic…

[don-lichterman]

EXPLAINER: What's the impact of a Russian debt default? | Business News

EXPLAINER: What’s the impact of a Russian debt default? | Business News

If you know of local business openings or closings, please notify us here. PREVIOUS OPENINGS AND CLOSINGS · Coal Winery and Kitchen at 81 Broad St., Bethlehem, has closed as its owner searches for a new location for the business, according to its Facebook page.  · Lowhill Township supervisors approved a 312,120-square-foot commercial warehouse and distribution center on a 43.4-acre tract on the…

[workersolidarity]

🇺🇸 🚨 THE US FOREIGN AID AND DEFENSE SPENDING RACKET EXPLAINED IN THREE GRAPHS

In three graphs, why the United States is clearly in extreme, rapid decline, and the evidence for why ordinary Americans will pay the price for the decades of perpetual-war policies in their own standard of living.

There's a reason why the minimum wage hasn't been raised since 2009. Why there's no money for schools, why our hospitals and doctors are a mess, why theres homeless people on every city's streets, including the mentally ill, the drug addicted, and veterans, no money to deal with out of control crime in American cities, the waves of constant immigration meant to destroy your wages... There's only ever money for more federal law enforcement, more war, more "foreign aid" aka corruption rackets for US vassal states.

During the very years we watched this decline take place, spending on foreign aid and defense spending have gone constantly upwards while wages declined and income Inequality skyrocketed.

The evidence for the betrayal of the American people by their corrupt elite is everywhere, and the debt we will be saddled with for generations is unimaginably large: $34.209 trillion at the time of writing this.

Every American will suffer the consequences for the imperialism of their elites, and in fact already are as displayed clearly by the flattening of US wage growth simultaneously alongside the increase in foreign aid and defense spending.

It's elites taking money out of your pocket, out of your retirement, your children's college education, your family's healthcare, your wages, your life, and putting it into the same super wealthy, billionaire elites who've wanted to kill social security and Medicare and use the US Military to enforce a system of control, impoverishment and censorship on all of us across the world. Or fund genocides, you know, whatever's profitable. 🇵🇸

It is nothing more than an old fashioned racket, an upward transfer of wealth, and it always has been.

@WorkerSolidartyNews

[stirdrawsandreblaws]

screaming crying coughing up blood every time i have to fucking defend genocide joe bc ppl wanna lie and say he isn't responsible for most of the best domestic policy we've seen in decades

his foreign policy is dogshit, yes, and he should rightly be called on it and primaried out, but we can criticize the shit he's actually done wrong instead of making shit up about him ~not doing anything good~

[progressivemillennial]

[officialyourdailyinspiration]

The Seventh Year

At the end of every seven years you must cancel debts. This is the manner of remission: Every creditor shall cancel what he has loaned to his neighbor. He is not to collect anything from his neighbor or brother, because the LORD’s time of release has been proclaimed. You may collect something from a foreigner, but you must forgive whatever your brother owes you. — Deuteronomy 15:1-3 | The Reader’s Bible (BRB) The Reader’s Bible © 2020 by Bible Hub and Berean.Bible. All rights Reserved. Cross References: Deuteronomy 15:9; Deuteronomy 23:20; Deuteronomy 31:10; Nehemiah 10:31

[canadiandutchiefangirl]

Had a thought today

[randomberlinchick]

The People's Republic of China | United States Trade Representative

Not even taking into account how much US debt China holds (currently 870 billion dollars) and concentrating strictly on trade, I'm not sure why some politicians are so comfortable with the "enemy" rhetoric. Pay off the debt and manufacture/assemble your own products, then you can talk shit. Or as my mom used to say, "Don't let your mouth write a check your ass can't cash."

But we all know how this story will play out: the debt ceiling will likely be raised, as the alternative would create havoc in global financial markets. For more see this article in Foreign Policy.

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

May 30, 2023

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

MAY 30, 2023

“[O]ne of the things that I hear some of you guys saying is, ‘Why doesn’t Biden say what a good deal it is?’” President Joe Biden said to reporters yesterday afternoon before leaving the White House on the Marine One helicopter. “Why would Biden say what a good deal it is before the vote? You think that’s going to help me get it passed? No. That’s why you guys don’t bargain very well.”

Biden’s unusually revealing comment about the budget negotiations was actually a statement about his presidency. Unlike his Republican opponents, he has refused to try to win points by playing the media and instead has worked behind the scenes to govern, sometimes staying out of negotiations, sometimes being central to them.

The result has been, as Daily Beast columnist David Rothkopf summarized today, historic. Biden has worked to replace 40 years of supply-side economics with policies to rebuild the nation’s economy and infrastructure by supporting ordinary Americans. The American Rescue Plan gave the United States a faster economic recovery from the COVID pandemic than any other major economy. The Bipartisan Infrastructure Law has already funded more than 32,000 projects in more than 4,500 communities in all 50 states, Washington D.C., and U.S. territories.

The Inflation Reduction Act made the biggest investment in addressing climate change in our history, and according to University of Washington transportation analyst Jack Conness, it and the CHIPS and Science Act have already attracted over $220 billion in private investment, much of it going to Republican-dominated states: Tennessee, Nevada, North Carolina, and Oklahoma have each attracted more than $4 billion; Ohio, more than $6 billion; Arizona, more than $7 billion; South Carolina, more than $9 billion; and Georgia, more than $13 billion.

Victoria Guida in Politico yesterday reported that the reordering of the economy under Biden and the Democrats has reversed the widening income gap between wage workers and upper-income professionals that has been growing for the past 40 years. The pay of those making an average of $12.50 an hour grew by almost 6% from 2020 to 2022, even after inflation.

Those gains are now at risk as pandemic measures end and the Fed raises interest rates to bring down inflation, although the wage increases are only a piece of the inflation puzzle: Talmon Joseph Smith and Joe Rennison of the New York Times today reported that companies raising their prices to “protect…profits” are “adding to inflation.” In other words, companies pushed prices beyond normal profit margins during the pandemic and the economic recovery, then maintained those higher profit margins with the Russian invasion of Ukraine, and continue to maintain them now.

The fight over the debt ceiling is both an example of the different approaches to negotiation on the part of Biden and Republicans like House speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA), and part of the larger question about the direction of the country.

On January 13, 2023, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen warned McCarthy that the Treasury was about to hit the borrowing limit established by Congress and that she would have to resort to extraordinary measures in order to meet obligations until Congress raised the debt ceiling.

On March 9, as part of the usual budget process, Biden produced a detailed budget, which was a wish list of programs that would continue to build the country from the bottom up. He told McCarthy he would meet with the speaker as soon as he produced his own budget, which McCarthy could not do because the far-right House Freedom Caucus (these days being abbreviated as HFC) wanted extreme cuts to which other Republicans would never agree.

On April 26 the House Republicans passed a bill that would require $4.8 trillion in cuts but was quite vague about how it would do so apart from getting rid of much of the legislation the Democrats had just passed. HFC members said they would not raise the debt ceiling until the Senate passed their bill. That is, they would drive the United States into default, crashing the U.S. and the global economy, until the president and the Democrats agreed to their policies. Even then, they would raise it only until next spring, with the expectation that it would then become a key factor in the 2024 election.

Biden insisted all along that he would not negotiate over the debt ceiling, which pays for money already appropriated under the normal process of Congress and which Congress raised three times under former president Trump even as he added $7.8 trillion to the national debt. Biden said he would happily negotiate over the budget. McCarthy, meanwhile, was out in front of the cameras and on social media insulting Biden and insisting that it was Biden’s fault that talks took so long to get started.

Late Saturday, the two sides announced an agreement “in principle” to raise the debt ceiling for two years—clearing the presidential election. As the Washington Post’s Catherine Rampell noted, it protects current spending on Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid; keeps tax rates as they are; increases spending on defense and veterans’ programs; leaves most other domestic spending the same; cuts a little from the expanded funding of the Internal Revenue Service; and tweaks both the permitting process for energy projects and the existing work requirements in the food assistance program.

As Rampell points out, “this much-ballyhooed ‘deal’ doesn’t seem terribly different from whatever budget agreement would have materialized anyway later this year, during the usual annual appropriations process, under divided government. To President Biden’s credit, the most objectionable ransoms that Republicans had been demanding are all gone.”

Now the measure has to get through both parties, with congressmembers back in Washington today after the holiday weekend. Freedom Caucus members are howling at the deal. Representative Chip Roy (R-TX) is threatening to bottle the measure up in the House Rules Committee, which decides what bills make it to the floor. The Freedom Caucus forced McCarthy to stack that committee with far-right extremists as part of his deal for the speakership (it has nine Republicans but only four Democrats on it). But Josh Marshall of Talking Points Memo suggests that McCarthy’s alliance with Representatives Jim Jordan (R-OH) and Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) might pay off here, since the two have thrown their weight behind the measure.

Even if the measure does pass before the June 5 deadline when the Treasury runs out of money, it has had an important effect. As Rampell noted, it has weakened the United States. It has enabled both China and Russia to portray the U.S. as unstable and an unreliable partner. As if to prove that criticism, Biden had to cancel a trip to Australia and Papua New Guinea, where he was strengthening the Indo-Pacific alliances designed to weaken Chinese dominance of the region. (And Russia continues to involve itself in U.S. politics: today Tara Reade, the woman who in 2020 accused Biden of sexually assaulting her, appeared on Russian television next to alleged spy Maria Butina to say she has fled to Russia out of fear for her life in the U.S.)

Writing in Foreign Policy, Howard W. French sees a more sweeping problem with the debt ceiling fight: it “highlights America’s warped priorities.” “[W]hen a rich and powerful country finds it easier to cut back on the way that it invests in its people, in education, in science, and in making sure that the weakest among them are not completely left behind than to curtail useless and profligate weapons spending,” he said, “there are reasons to worry about the foundations of its power.”

—

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

[chanswifey]

gonna need to find a sugar daddy for agust d tickets

[swamyworld]

Maldives buying TB-2 drone from Turkiye and seeking debt relief from India defense expert Brahma Chellaney

Maldives Drone Deal: Another nefarious move of Maldives President Mohammed Muizzu, who is acting at the behest of China, has been exposed. Maldives, a country which spews venom against India on every issue, is seeking debt relief from India. Maldivian Foreign Minister Musa Zameer, who recently visited Delhi, has demanded additional time from India to repay the loan. On the other hand, Maldives is…