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Secretary of Greed: How Larry Summers Championed Wall Street By Impoverishing the Mexican People
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Race
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| Contributor | Craverguy |
| Last Edited | Craverguy Nov 14, 2008 04:44pm |
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| Category | Profile |
| News Date | Friday, November 14, 2008 10:00:00 PM UTC0:0 |
| Description | Appointing Larry Summers our Treasury secretary would be a grave mistake, and a slap in the face to Mexico and those who struggle for economic justice on both sides of the border.
Summers, while serving as under secretary of the Treasury in 1995, engineered the destruction of Mexico's economy by increasing interest rates to unmanageable levels—business and farm loans went from 11% to 56%, credit card rates from 7% to 61%, home loans from 5% to 75%, car loans from 7% to 91%. The result was massive human suffering and the forced migration of millions of economic refugees to the United States.
Although Wall Street banks profited handsomely, the impact of 1995 loan interest rate increases in Mexico was more than millions of people and businesses could handle. Thousands of farms and businesses, both large and small, went bankrupt. In 1995 alone over 12,000 of Mexico's businesses filed for bankruptcy, and as economic activity came to a standstill and demand was cut, orders were canceled and plants operated at less than minimum levels. Idle capacity in many branches of the manufacturing sector increased to 70%. It became impossible for millions of workers to support their families by earning paychecks in their own country. Unable to earn enough to support their families, many of them migrated to the United States to find family wage work. |
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