Sir, - Does anyone seriously believe the IMF gave loans to Russia to help the Russian economy? What nonsense. It was done to help the IMF, and the effect, in those wretched little kioski in every major city in Russia, was a huge increase in consumer spending on American cigarettes, Scotch whisky and Japanese videos.
Does anyone seriously believe that Yeltsin or any other leader would refuse a loan, for thus may the problem of today be postponed until the morrow?
Does anyone seriously believe we have a financial crisis in the international money markets? Those who have millions to invest actually like the markets to fluctuate, be the cause Russia or whatever. They sell and create a panic; so the prices fall; they then buy again; the markets do a "dead cat bungie" and these speculators make yet another fortune.
Does anyone seriously believe the Bible? The bankers of this world have changed the sin of usury into the apparent virtue of credit. So they win; and honest working folk, the "bedni narod" in Russia today, the poor in India and Brazil yesterday, and who knows who tomorrow, always lose.
More than anything else, Russia needs an economic policy of self-reliance, the equivalent, if you like, of the USA's original Homesteading Act. Any babushka in the villages, or just a look at her vegetable garden will tell you, the problems of Russia are of human origin. And may of these humans are from the West, more than ready to put Russia into debt, more than ready to devalue the rouble (for thus was lowered the net cost of Siberian oil and other resources), and more than responsible for the rise of Zhirinovsky and other extremists.
The answer, then, is first self-sufficiency; then, when there's food on the table and money in surplus, by all means have a little flutter and buy some bananas, or even a Merc.
And more than anything else, the world needs to reform the fiscal system so that money cannot earn money. In a word, outlaw the sin of usury. - Yours, etc., Peter Emerson,
Ballysillan Road,
Belfast 14.