Those who obtain or inherit predatory wealth and privilege realize the ultimate means of imposing austerity and demolishing the power of democracies … - Michael Hudson

It is worthwhile to note that our global imposition of the mythical “efficiencies” of forcing Latin American countries to become plantations for export crops like coffee and bananas rather than growing their own wheat and corn has failed catastrophically to deliver better lives, especially...in Central America.... witness the caravans and refugees across Mexico. Of course, our backing of the most brutal military dictators and crime lords has not helped either. Likewise, the IMF has been forced to admit that its basic guidelines were fictitious from the beginning...It is as if the IMF now operates out of a small room in the basement of the Pentagon in Washington... It’s now out in the open...

The most serious problems lie in the financial sphere, where the economy’s debt overhead has grown more rapidly than the ‘real’ economy’s ability to carry this debt. … The essence of the global financial bubble is that savings are diverted to inflate the stock market, bond market and real estate prices rather than to build new factories and employ more labor.

One way or another, today's debts will not be paid.... As long as savings mainly by the 1% takes the form of debt claims on the rest of society, they will grow exponentially to hold the 99% in deepening debt...