Argentina's Economic Collapse 2001

[seemslikeadream]

http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=whVSw5X2pVU


Documentary on the events that led to the economic collapse of Argentina in 2001 which wiped out the middle class and raised the level of poverty to 57.5%. Central to the collapse was the implementation of neo-liberal policies which enabled the swindle of billions of dollars by foreign banks and corporations. Many of Argentina's assets and resources were shamefully plundered. Its financial system was even used for money laundering by Citibank, Credit Suisse, and JP Morgan. The net result was massive wealth transfers and the impoverishment of society which culminated in many deaths due to oppression and malnutrition.





But it can't happen here, right? Right?

[marmar]

1. Habla espanol? La historia se repeta.

Sounds all too familiar.....

:scared:

[seemslikeadream]

2. Timeline: Argentina

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/country_profiles/1196005.stm



Recession starts. CARLOS MENEM

Charismatic former president and free-market reformer
Profile: Carlos Menem
2004: Menem arrives on Argentine soil


2001: Watch Menem's second marriage

1999 - Fernando de la Rua of the centre-left Alianza opposition coalition wins the presidency, inherits 114 billion-dollar public debt.

2000 - Strikes and fuel tax protests. Beef exports slump after an outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease. Soya exports suffer from concerns over the use of genetically modified varieties. The IMF grants Argentina an aid package of nearly 40 billion dollars.

2001 February - Argentina recalls its ambassador to Cuba after President Castro accuses Argentina of 'licking the yankee boot'. Castro made the remarks in an apparent reference to Argentina's support for US condemnation of Cuba's record on human rights.

Argentina and the United Kingdom agree that Argentine private aircraft and vessels may now visit the Falkland Islands again.

2001 March - President de la Rua forms a government of national unity and appoints three finance ministers in as many weeks as cabinet resignations and protests greet planned austerity measures.

2001 July - Former president Carlos Menem is charged with heading an 'illicit organisation' that violated international arms embargoes against Croatia and Ecuador in the early 1990s. A court throws out all arms trafficking charges against Menem, freeing him after five months of house arrest.

2001 July - Much of the country is brought to a standstill by a general strike in protest against proposed government spending cuts. Country's credit ratings slip.


Return of the Peronists

2001 October - The opposition Peronists take control of both houses of parliament in Congressional elections. ECONOMIC COLLAPSE

Unemployed protesters took to the streets of Buenos Aires
2005: The day Argentina hit rock bottom
2004: Fresh hope after Argentine crisis
2003: Everyday fight for survival


July 2002: "Day of Rage" protests

2001 November - President de la Rua meets US President George W Bush in a last-ditch attempt to avoid an economic crash in Argentina. Share prices reach record lows.

2001 December - Economy Minister Cavallo announces sweeping restrictions to halt an exodus of bank deposits. The IMF stops $1.3bn in aid.

2001 13 December - A 24-hour general strike is held in protest at curbs on bank withdrawals, delayed pension payouts and other measures.

2001 20 December - President Fernando de la Rua resigns after at least 25 people die in street protests and rioting.

2001 23 December - Adolfo Rodriguez Saa named new interim president. He resigns on 30 December, citing a lack of support within his party.

2002 1 January - Congress elects Peronist Senator Eduardo Duhalde as caretaker president. Within days the government devalues the peso, ending 10 years of parity with the US dollar.


2002 April - Banking and foreign exchange activity suspended; Duhalde says the financial system could collapse.


2002 June - Two killed in anti-government and IMF protests in Buenos Aires. The protesters, known as 'piqueteros', are highly organised groups of unemployed who block the main road bridges into the capital.

2002 July - Duhalde calls early elections for March 2003, later put back to April, to try win public support for the government's handling of the economic crisis.

2002 November - Argentina defaults on an $800m debt repayment to the World Bank, having failed to re-secure IMF aid. The World Bank says it will not consider new loans for the country.

Kirchner sworn in

2003 May - Nestor Kirchner sworn in as president. Former President Carlos Menem gained most votes in first round of elections but pulled out before second round.
Iguazu falls in the north-east are surrounded by rainforest

2003 August - Congress, Senate vote to scrap laws protecting former military officers from prosecution over human rights abuses during military regime.

2003 September - After weeks of negotiations Argentina and IMF agree on debt-refinancing deal under which Buenos Aires will only pay interest on its loans.

2004 April - Judge issues international arrest warrant for former President Carlos Menem, over allegations of fraud.

2004 September - Court clears five men accused of involvement in 1994 bombing of Jewish centre in Buenos Aires.

2004 December - Former President Carlos Menem returns from self-imposed exile in Chile after two arrest warrants are cancelled.

188 people are killed and around 700 are injured in a fire at a Buenos Aires nightclub.

2005 March - President Kirchner declares the restructuring of the country's debt to be a success. Argentina offered to exchange more than $100bn in defaulted bonds.
Dispute over pulp mills soured Argentina-Uruguay relations


2006: River row divides former friends

2005 June - Supreme Court scraps an amnesty law protecting former military officers suspected of human rights abuses during military rule between 1976 and 1983.

2005 November - Argentina hosts the 34-nation Summit of the Americas, an event accompanied by sometimes-violent protests against free trade and US President Bush.

2006 January - Argentina repays its multi-billion-dollar debt to the IMF.

2006 May - Citing environmental concerns, Argentina files a complaint against the construction of two pulp mills in neighbouring Uruguay at the International Court of Justice in The Hague. The court rules in July that the project can continue.

2006 October - Violence mars the reburial of former President Juan Domingo Peron at a new mausoleum outside Buenos Aires.

2007 January - Spanish police arrest former President Isabel Peron in connection with an Argentine investigation into the activities of right-wing paramilitaries in the 1970s.

2007 October - Former Roman Catholic police chaplain Christian Von Wernich is convicted of collaborating in the murder and torture of prisoners during the 'Dirty War'.

Cristina Fernandez is elected president, having captured 45% of the vote.

2007 December - Cristina Fernandez is sworn in as

[leveymg]

3. uNCANNY

[peacetalksforall]

4. Don't forget the Taliban and the Bush admin - all connected.

This is just one section of an article on the Taliban-Bush-Bridas-fight for the pipeline in Afghanistan - part of a plan for sucking it out and transporting it.

The same Taliban that travelled to Texas to discuss the pipeline - was it the summer of 2001?

http://fourwinds10.com/siterun_data/government/fraud/911_attack/news.php?q=1216405258 - recommended.

"A Well-Timed Economic Collapse

In Argentina, executives of the old Bridas Group (now part of BP Amoco/Pan American Energy) must have viewed the US war in Afghanistan with more than a little interest. It was Bridas that pioneered exploration in Turkmenistan. It was Bridas that came up with the idea of a trans-Afghanistan pipeline. Before the Clinton administration had declared war on the Taliban, it was Bridas that was best positioned to build the pipeline.

But no Argentine was in a good position to entertain such thoughts. In the summer of 2001, the Argentine economy collapsed.

Argentina owed $132 billion to the IMF, foreign lenders, banks, pension funds and investors. In July 2001, riots and a general strike brought the country to a standstill.

With the approval of George W. Bush, the IMF cut off Argentina's $1.3 billion aid. Wall Street executives and analysts simply shook their heads, writing off Argentina as another case of "hopeless Third World bungling." Merrill Lynch, Deutsche Bank and Salomon Smith Barney were brought in to "restructure the country's international debt exchange."

Virtually unreported in the western media was evidence of a crippling flight of approximately $26 billion out of Argentina by foreign banks. Most of the money went to the United States.

Federal judges Norberto Oyarbide and Maria Servini de Cubria immediately launched investigations (which are still underway). Among the targets of these probes are Citibank (Citigroup), London-based Hong Kong Shanghai Bank, Bank of Boston, Fleet Boston and Banco Rio (Spain)—banks tied to money laundering and on whose boards sit prominent movers and shakers connected to the highest levels of US and world governments.

It is true that Argentina's problems were long in the making. After a decade of "free market reforms" begun under Carlos Menem (massive privatizations, deregulation, draconian austerity and restructuring measures), the nation was at the mercy of multilateral institutions (International Monetary Fund and the World Bank), and foreign banks and lenders.

Still, the timing of the capital flight, between August and November 2001, coincides with other unusual global financial activity over the same period: a global recession, a crashing US stock market, 9/11/ "war"-related disruptions, and Enron looting.

One investigator, Sherman Skolnick, postulates a direct connection between Argentina's plunder and the Afghanistan pipeline. "How do you wreck a pipeline deal for Afghanistan of a competitor group?" he writes. "Simple. You wreck Argentina's business interests."

[seemslikeadream]

5. Bridas

That is what Karl Schwartz was saying

[seemslikeadream]

6. and the only pipeline being built is by Argentina, ­ Bridas Corporation

[Selatius]

7. The only bright spot from the whole mess is that large labor co-ops have emerged in Argentina.

Often times, the workers would take over the failed firm and begin running the machinery themselves, splitting the profits however they decided among themselves. They became worker-owners. Sometimes they wouldn't wait for legal recognition; they'd simply take over the factory and run it themselves.

[earth mom]

8. Didn't the people there put a barter system in place? Guess we'll all have to have stuff

and/or services we can trade.

:yoiks: