By monét cooper | Jubilee Staff
The New York Post reported last week that Rudy Giuliani, a Republican candidate in the 2008 presidential race, has ties to a vulture fund. Reports the Post:
Billionaire hedge fund manager Paul Singer - founder of the $7 billion investment fund Elliott Associates - serves as Giuliani's Northeast finance chairman. He has helped raise millions of dollars for Giuliani through his business contacts and interests, and has allowed the candidate to rent planes through his leasing entity, Elliott Asset Management.
The article isn't so much about Rudy's ties as it is about Paul Singer and his dealings in the vulture fund industry.
The Post goes on to write:
"Vulture funds were first introduced by the billionaire Paul Singer, who in 1996 paid $11 million for discounted Peruvian debt and then threatened to bankrupt the country unless they paid him $58 million in order to keep good standing in international financial markets," said the group TransAfrica Forum.
Neil Watkins, Jubilee USA's national coordinator weighs in responding:
"We don't think that it's ethical for vulture funds like Singer's to make profits off the poorest people in the world."
Singer rounds out the end of the article, saying:
"Debt-relief advocates should recognize that the beneficiaries of debt relief are often corrupt or incompetent regimes that squander their nation's assets and then cry poverty to avoid legitimate debts," Singer told The Post, in response to written questions. "This cycle must be broken for countries to achieve economic development."
I don't know if Mr. Singer has checked out our website (or those of our partners), but we do realize that in many cases these regimes have been corrupt. We'd encourage him to download a few papers on corruption and transparency here and here and here. In addition, he should take a look at the Jubilee Act's clause on transparency and corruption and ask his friends in the House to support the legislation.
In fact, it is past corruption that has allowed Singer to sue quite successfully in Western courts of law and win back those millions and millions of dollars that line his pockets and enable him to give such generous donations to the candidates of his choice.
Singer's highlighting of corruption in these impoverished countries ignores the role Western multinational corporations and World Bank/IMF officials have played in fostering an atmosphere of bribes and kickbacks.
In most cases, it isn't the corrupt officials who cry poverty. Indeed, these officials are far from impoverished what with offshore bank accounts filled with money from aid and loans from international financial institutions. It is the people who must suffer the cuts in government spending on education, health care and clean water. It is the people living in these impoverished countries who cry foul. And unlike the deposed dictators and government officials-turned-expatriates, they're telling the truth.
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