This is the full, unabridged reading of Alex Gladstein’s work, “STRUCTURAL ADJUSTMENT: HOW THE IMF AND WORLD BANK REPRESS POOR COUNTRIES AND FUNNEL THEIR RESOURCES TO RICH ONES” published with Bitcoin Magazine. Link to the original read for the plethora of links and references to dig further into this incredible story. https://bitcoinmagazine.com/culture/imf-world-bank-repress-poor-countries Don’t forget to…

“Research from Mexico — a typical country in terms of consistent involvement historically from the Bank and Fund — shows that for every 2% decrease in GDP, the mortality rate increased by 1%. Now consider that as a result of structural adjustment, the GDP of dozens of countries in the Third World between the 1960s…

“The “generosity” of the West enabled unaccountable leaders to plunge their nations into debt deeper than ever before. The system was, as Payer writes in “Lent And Lost,” a straightforward Ponzi scheme: the new loans went straight to paying for the old loans. The system needed to grow to avoid collapse.” – Alex Gladstein WERE…

“Far from playing the role of good samaritan, the Fund does not even follow the timeless human tradition, established more than 4,000 years ago by Hammurabi in ancient Babylon, of forgiving interest after natural disasters. In 1985, a devastating earthquake hit Mexico City, killing more than 5,000 people and causing $5 billion of damage. Fund…

“To give an example of what this might look like in a given year, in 2012 developing countries received $1.3 trillion, including all income, aid and investment. But that same year, more than $3.3 trillion flowed out. In other words, according to anthropologist Jason Hickel, “developing countries sent $2 trillion more to the rest of…

“A 2014 analysis showed that the IMF had attached, on average, 20 conditions to each loan it gave out in the previous two years, a historic increase. Countries like Jamaica, Greece and Cyprus have borrowed in recent years with an average of 35 conditions each. It is worth noting that Bank and Fund conditions have…

There are about a million claims out there as to what blockchains are going to fix, and how NFTs are going to be used to unlock your house, and how DAOs will be used to enforce and decide laws, but what truth is there to this really? And more importantly, does a blockchain really solve…

“A data-driven exploration proving that Lightning scales bitcoin payments beyond Visa and that second-layer innovation is the way.” – Stanislov Kozlovski Check out the original article at: https://bitcoinmagazine.com/technical/lighting-network-makes-bitcoin-scalable Boost Bitcoin Audible on Fountain to get the best Bitcoin podcast to the top of the leaderboards 😘 Don’t forget to check out our amazing sponsors: •…

“They just freelanced it,” is how one former employee characterized the decision. “Hacking was the excuse, but within a few hours, pretty much everyone realized that wasn’t going to hold. But no one had the guts to reverse it.” – Matt Taibbi Didn’t have time to read that whole thread on the censorship of Twitter…

“We believe the core of the cultural fissure between crypto and bitcoin comes down to financialization. While the ethos of bitcoin is to definancialize, the ethos of crypto is to financialize. We repeat our characterization of this tendency from above: DeFi engages in arbitrary and automatable combinations of seigniorage, securitization, rehypothecation, and leverage. It is…