5/30/2004
Life and Debt
George Monbiot's "Manifesto for a New World Order"
(pp.156-7):
"Between 1980 and 1996, the nations of sub-Saharan African paid twice
the
sum of their total debt in the form of interest, but they still owed
three
times more in 1996 than they did in 1980. ...
"... As the Native American leader Guaicaipuro Cuautemoc has pointed
out,
between 1503 and 1660, 185,000 kilogrammes of gold and 16 million
kilogrammes of silver were shipped from Latin America for Europoe.
Cuautemoc argues that his people should see this transfer not as a war
crime, but as 'the first several friendly loans, granted by America for
Europe's development'. Were the indigenous people of Latin America to
charge compound interest on this loan, at the modest rate of ten per
cent,
Europe would owe them a volume of gold and silver which exceeded the
weight of the planet."
(pp.156-7):
"Between 1980 and 1996, the nations of sub-Saharan African paid twice
the
sum of their total debt in the form of interest, but they still owed
three
times more in 1996 than they did in 1980. ...
"... As the Native American leader Guaicaipuro Cuautemoc has pointed
out,
between 1503 and 1660, 185,000 kilogrammes of gold and 16 million
kilogrammes of silver were shipped from Latin America for Europoe.
Cuautemoc argues that his people should see this transfer not as a war
crime, but as 'the first several friendly loans, granted by America for
Europe's development'. Were the indigenous people of Latin America to
charge compound interest on this loan, at the modest rate of ten per
cent,
Europe would owe them a volume of gold and silver which exceeded the
weight of the planet."
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While for black and Hispanic households it is $105,675 ($33,170).
