Argentine president insists the world needs more equality

Argentine president insists the world needs more equality

“The global financial architecture only serves to concentrate income and to marginalize vast regions of the world,” Fernández said

In his last appearance before the United Nations General Assembly, Argentine President Alberto Fernández, who will be leaving office comes Dec. 10, Tuesday called for a change in the International Monetary Fund’s (IMF) by-laws and and urged greater global equality.

“We must stop worrying and do what needs to be done so that there are no poor people” in the world, said Fernández before an audience that included IMF Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva.

Participating in the forum “Towards a fair international financial architecture,” chaired by Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez, the Argentine head of state criticized the “lack of alternatives” that this lending organization offers to over-indebted countries like Argentina.

“If we look at the IMF, there are few alternatives. Despite the climate crisis, there has been no debt relief because the Fund’s statutes forbid it, and we are still treated as if Argentina were completely indebted, which it is not,” Fernández stressed.

He also recalled that Argentina’s current debt with the IMF was borrowed “irresponsibly” by the Mauricio Macri administration and that the organization granted the loan “to help a political party,” namely Macri’s Juntos por el Cambio (JxC).

Fernández also stressed that “the interest on the debt grows at the same rate as the US FED, which does it to contain domestic inflation, but which has repercussions for Argentina as a debtor to the Fund.” He also pointed out that the “Special Drawing Rights” remaining in the pockets of those who do not need them “does not make any sense” and asked for the spotlight to be drawn onto Middle Income countries that “concentrate 60% of the world’s poor and are in a limbo.”

“Only in Manhattan more electricity is used than in Africa. If we are not ashamed of that fact, let’s not argue anymore. The world is deeply unfair, stop worrying and do what needs to be done so that there are no poor people,” Fernández underlined while warning that those who speculate with food prices were “speculating with the hunger of humanity.”

Fernández focused chiefly on those unwilling to seek equality and only want “to impose the same orthodox policies that have deepened inequality and misery in the world.”

“The global financial architecture only serves to concentrate income and to marginalize vast regions of the world. They bet on speculation rather than development. They favor cheap labor rather than the dignity of work,” he stressed.