THE DEBT CRISIS IN HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE/79components of the Brady method. The method has won over the
IMF and World Bank, who have since applied it the world over.
Indebted countries pay back debts by selling off entire sections of
their industrial apparatus, communication firms (telecommuni
cations, airlines, ports, and so on) and banking system.
Apparently never one to be lacking in chutzpah, Brady threw in
a further twist in the case of Mexican debt. The Mexican authorities
were forced to buy US Treasury bonds as a guarantee for new loans
from private banks in the North and from the IMF and World Bank.
In other words, among other methods for financing its gargantuan
debt, the US obliges Mexicans to loan it money through the
purchase of US Treasury bonds. Thanks to this loan to the United
States, the Mexicans are authorised to borrow on international
markets to finance debt repayment! Through it all, the Mexican
debt has risen from S95 billion in 1982 to nearly SI30 billion in
1994 and more than SI 70 billion in 1997.
Meanwhile, members of the Mexican ruling elite have not failed
to cash in on all the myriad financial transactions and privatisa
tion sell-offs. Indeed, by 1996, 24 Mexican families had joined the
ranks of the world's 100 wealthiest families, breaking all records
of speed - and greed. These 24 families own the means of
production responsible for creating 14 per cent of the country's
GDP. At the same time, some 3 5 million Mexicans live on less than
SI per day. Not for them, retirement to a dream home on the
Cayman Islands!
The 1997 UNDP annual report reveals that the richest Mexican
owns more wealth than the total annual wages of the poorest 17
million Mexicans taken together.
Source: Financial Times and research carried out by Michel Chossudovsky
and Eric Toussaint.