Record Details

GLOBAL ECONOMIC CRISIS: A VIEW FROM SOUTH AFRICA

Journal of World-Systems Research

View Archive Info
 
 
Field Value
 
Title GLOBAL ECONOMIC CRISIS: A VIEW FROM SOUTH AFRICA
 
Creator Bond, Patrick
 
Description Any analysis of the erratic unfolding of global economic crisis is bound to be hotly contested. This is particularly so in mid-1999, amid claims from Washington that the past two years' dangers of financial meltdown and deflation were averted and finally extinguished through a combination of policy measures and good fortune: slightly looser Federal Reserve monetary policy adopted in September 1998, in the immediate wake of the successful public-private bailout of the Long Term Capital Management hedge fund; a new $90 billion International Monetary Fund (IMF) insurance scheme announced the following month; the convening of key countries in a Forum on Financial Stability; the lack of financial contagion (contrary to expectations) in the wake of Brazil's January 1999 currency meltdown; the long-awaited revival (however infirm) of the Japanese economy; new plans for somewhat more transparent budgetary and exchange rate systems in emerging markets; and a decision at the G-8 Cologne meeting in June 1999 to sell 10% of the IMF's gold to fund partial debt relief for the poorest Third World countries. Indeed many observers were surprised at IMF Managing Director Michel Camdessus's success at turning the debt relief strategy into a vehicle for tougher "Enhanced Structural Adjustment Facility" conditions, just months after the IMF was criticised to the point of ridicule for its East Asian, Russian and Brazilian mishaps (effectively, granting $200 billion in bad loans over 15 months, in exchange for the application of inappropriate austerity measures).
 
Publisher University Library System, University of Pittsburgh
 
Date 1999-08-26
 
Type info:eu-repo/semantics/article
info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersion
—
 
Format application/pdf
 
Identifier http://jwsr.pitt.edu/ojs/index.php/jwsr/article/view/138
10.5195/jwsr.1999.138
 
Source Journal of World-Systems Research; Volume 5, Issue 2, 1999; 412-455
1076-156X
 
Language eng
 
Relation http://jwsr.pitt.edu/ojs/index.php/jwsr/article/view/138/150
 
Rights Copyright (c) 2015 Patrick Bond
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0