A Quote by Michael Hudson

Debtor countries may postpone the inevitable by borrowing from the IMF or U.S. Treasury to buy out bondholders. This saves the latter from taking a loss - leaving the debtor country with debts that are even harder to annul, because they are to foreign governments and international institutions.

Michael Hudson

Quote Topics

Because Borrowing Buy Countries Country Debts Even Foreign Governments Harder IMF Inevitable Institutions International International Institutions Latter Leaving Loss May Out Postpone Saves Taking Treasury

Quote Author

Michael Hudson
American - Professor
Born: 1939

The IMF acts as the collection agent for global bondholders. Its projections begin by assuming that all debts can be paid, if economies will cut wages and wiping out pension funds so as to pay banks and bondholders.

Michael Hudson

Debt vultures are really the scum at the bottom of the pond. These are guys who buy up the debts of the world's poorest countries on the secondary market. You can go buy debts of a country like Peru, for example, at a real discount. Why? Because people think that the debts won't be repaid.

Noreena Hertz

America has tremendous problems. We're a debtor nation. We're a serious debtor nation. And we have a country that needs new roads, new tunnels, new bridges, new airports, new schools, new hospitals.

Donald Trump

The IMF is a more complicated issue. I think there is a broad sentiment among both the left and the right that the IMF may be doing more harm than good. On the right, there's the view that it represents a form of corporate welfare that is counter to the IMF's own ideology of markets. But anybody who has watched government from the inside recognizes that governments need institutions, need ways to respond to crises. If the IMF weren't there, it would probably be reinvented. So the issue is fundamentally reform.

Joseph Stiglitz

If the Lord should give you power to raise the dead, He would give much less than He does when he bestows suffering. By miracles you would make yourself debtor to Him, while by suffering He may become debtor to you. And even if sufferings had no other reward than being able to bear something for that God who loves you, is not this a great reward and a sufficient remuneration? Whoever loves, understands what I say.

Saint John Chrysostom

Conservatives believe that international institutions such as the United Nations are anti-American and anti-Israeli cabals. Progressives do not like the economic medicine that the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank force down the throats of developing countries.

Michael Ignatieff

Our country has tremendous problems. We're a debtor nation.

Donald Trump

That is what has happened to the United States in the international economic scene. We have deteriorated into a debtor status so that we are now dependent upon the kindness of strangers. That is not where the world's leading power should find itself.

Paul Sarbanes

Beijing's foreign investments can be coercive and exploitative - using Chinese laborers and contractors instead of local ones, saddling poorer countries with enormous debts, leaving behind shoddy workmanship and fueling corruption.

Antony Blinken

During the Cold War, the U.S. instituted a policy of sending money to governments in poor countries to buy their political loyalty. While studies show that sending aid to foreign governments creates allegiance, it does not lead to economic progress.

Iqbal Quadir

The lower interest rates fueled housing and consumption booms in countries such as Spain and Ireland. At the same time, Germany, struggling with the burdens of reunification, tightened its belt and became more competitive. All this led to a wide divergence in economic performance. Europe became divided into creditor and debtor countries.

George Soros

The problem is indeed that one party's debt finds its counterpart in some other party's savings. Not paying debts therefore involves annulling some other party's financial claims on the debtor.

Michael Hudson

We interpret our agreement with the IMF - our participation in the IMF's system of cooperation - as a borrowing agreement. The IMF sees it as an economic policy agreement. This is not in our interest.

Viktor Orban

We do have some assistance from the World Bank but not from the IMF. We are not borrowing yet, but we are considering, in the future, borrowing from the Kuwait Fund to support our infrastructure development.

Jose Ramos-Horta

I think that we are not in the position that we used to be. I think we were a very powerful, very wealthy country. And we're a poor country now. We're a debtor nation.

Donald Trump

International institutions are composed of governments. Governments control their own military forces and police.