The Jubilee Blog

Guinea Receives Needed Debt Relief

By: Gianna Rendano

This week, the IMF, World Bank and other governments approved $2.1 billion in debt relief for Guinea – cancelling roughly two-thirds of this West African nation’s external debt.  This will put Guinea on the right path to invest in needed social sectors such as infrastructure, health, education, rural development and governance.

Delaware: The New Cayman Islands?

Viktor Bout, a Russian arms dealer was sentenced to 25 years in prison for illegal dealings that he carried out under his business addressed in Delaware.

By: Amber Przybysz

You might have heard of shell companies located in exotic locations like the Cayman Islands, but one of the largest playgrounds for such untraceable companies is actually the United States.  In fact, Delaware is a well known place for giant companies such as American Airlines, Apple, Bank of America, Berkshire Hathaway, Cargill, Coca-Cola, Ford, General Electric, Google, JPMorgan Chase and Wal-Mart to find lax regulations and minimize taxes.[i]  And creating these shell companies in the U.S. takes little time and effort - it is actually easier to set up an anonymous shell corporation than it is to obtain a driver’s license.[ii]

The 21st Century Robin Hood: The Financial Transaction Tax

Across the globe, groups of green suited Merry Men, in the style of Robin Hood, can be found calling upon governments to instate (and in many cases, like the US, reinstate) a Financial Transactions Tax (FTT).

The Robin Hood Tax, as it’s been dubbed, is a small tax on the sale of stocks, bonds, derivatives and the like that would be two fold in its benefit: (1) Create revenue for countries, and (2) Slow the high-speed, high-risk trading that has no real social value and can make markets more volatile.

Thanking Chairman Barney Frank: A Champion for Debt Relief

By: Jennifer Tong

Chairman Barney Frank has been a champion for international debt relief and responsible lending and borrowing since the late 1990s, making him one of the major political actors of the global Jubilee movement. His leadership has resulted in winning more than 120 billion dollars in debt relief for the world’s poorest people, allowing those dollars to be invested in development, education and healthcare initiatives. These victories have allowed millions to attend school and receive life-saving vaccinations.

Norway: Championing Economic Justice

By: Gianna Rendano

Norway is setting the precedent as the first country to conduct an official debt audit owed by developing countries. This includes determining the legitimacy of those debts and also “establish[ing] binding guidelines for responsible lending.”[1] Conducting this audit will increase transparency and is an exciting step forward not only for Norway but also for the world.

Egypt: Solutions for a Sustainable Future; Part 2

Egyptian President Mohamed Mursi 

By: Amber Przybysz 

Only weeks after the U.S. supported a $4.8 billion loan to Egypt from the IMF, reports have surfaced that negotiations for $1 billion in debt relief from the U.S. are nearing completion.[i] In total, Egypt owes over $3 billion to the U.S., most of which came from the USAID Food for Peace program dating back to 1978.[ii] The White House has not released an official statement on the matter, but a team of State Department economic officials have been in Cairo for a week working on the terms of the aid package, which was first announced over one year ago.[iii] The funding has previously been stalled due to disagreements over use and allocation,[iv] as well as Egypt’s political turmoil.[v]

LIBOR: The Underreported Banking Scandal Everyone Should Know About

By: Amber Przybysz

You may not have heard much about LIBOR (London Interbank Offered Rate), but that is not because it is a small, insignificant topic; on the contrary, the LIBOR scandal is one of the largest banking scandals of our time, but ABC’s World News and NBC’s Nightly News have ignored the scandal for over one month now. The LIBOR, a critical interest rate calculated by averaging inter-bank lending rates of the largest London-based banks, is used as a benchmark for nearly all other short-term interest rates globally.  Its manipulation affects payments for more than $800 trillion of financial instruments,[i] affecting 99 percent of all commercial products including mortgages, credit cards and pensions.[ii]

Because of the breadth of the LIBOR’s effects, this scandal will touch people across all income levels – and will likely affect your daily life. While the exact extent is not yet known, it is clear that the rigged LIBOR will affect private student loans, adjustable-rate mortgages, money-market funds and bank-loan funds.[iii] Banks are accused of suppressing LIBOR during the U.S. financial crisis of 2008, but the issue could easily have spread further than that.