No potential customers for the IMF's new lending facility have yet been named, but as Italy and Spain continue to struggle with their cost of borrowing they would seem like ideal candidates. The IMF has said it will work with countries that have "relatively strong policies and fundamentals," which seems likely to rule out Greece. – UK Telegraph
Dominant Social Theme: These suffering countries need help and the IMF will provide it.
Free-Market Analysis: Again, the mission creep. It's no coincidence. The Anglosphere power elite regards every (self-created) disaster as an opportunity to extend its nascent world government.
It's a kind of dominant social theme. The standing global economic armament has to get stronger and bulkier. Otherwise, disaster will strike. And so … because the European Union's PIGS need funds, the IMF's leverage will be expanded.
It's a pretty transparent ploy, however. Even with leverage, the amount of money that the IMF can extend to Italy and Spain is not so much. It's not enough to really make a difference.
Those countries owe far more to the banks than the IMF can provide. Heck, EU honchos are going hat-in-hand to Asia, and China in particular. The figures, according to the article (excerpted above) are some US$60 billion and US$30 billion for Spain and Italy, respectively.
Peanuts, given the scope of the crisis … So why bother? Simply to expand the IMF's sway, is all. This is about increasing control in any way possible. Expanding the IMF's financial clout is just part of the process.
The International Monetary Fund is supposedly being positioned (in our view) as the world's central bank. Its SDR "currency" is intended to become, eventually, some kind of global money. So it's not surprising that the elites who created the IMF are pushing their brief forward. Here's some more from the article (excerpted above):
The fund would allow a country to borrow up to five times the value of the country's IMF quota, or permanent contribution, over six months. Based on its IMF quota, Rome could potentially tap the new IMF fund for some €45.5 billion, while Spain could get €23.3 billion …
According to a statement released this afternoon the new tool will be used to aid countries with "relatively strong policies and fundamentals" but whose economies are endangered "during periods of heightened economic or market stress".
IMF managing director Christine Lagarde said: "The Fund has been asked to enhance its lending toolkit to help the membership cope with crises. We have acted quickly, and the new tools will enable us to respond more rapidly and effectively for the benefit of the whole membership."
The reform enhances the Fund's ability to provide financing for crisis prevention and resolution. This is another step toward creating an effective global financial safety net to deal with increased global interconnectedness.
The last sentence says it all: "This is another step toward creating an effective global financial safety net to deal with increased global interconnectedness." Of course, there is no global interconnectedness other than what the financial elites themselves manufacture.
It's all just more hype. Build a central banking economy and make sure through regulations that all the economies in the world act roughly the same way at the same time … and you're kinda asking for trouble – don't you think?
It's the old bugaboo, "contagion" at work. The article spells that out, too: "More on the IMF's new lending facility, which is aimed at helping 'bystander' countries protect themselves from contagion."
So now we have yet another phrase to deal with – "bystander countries." Always a new word of phrase to describe this sorcery of a system. We wonder how many more iterations it has left before people simply cease to believe.