# Dems Want to Loan Instead of Grant Iraq 20 bil?? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [October 2, 2003, 3:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dems-want-to-loan-instead-of-grant-iraq-20-bil/205054 "2003-10-02T03:15:51Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 15\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![cmason32](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/51bf81/32.png) [@cmason32](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cmason32)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2003, 6:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dems-want-to-loan-instead-of-grant-iraq-20-bil/205054/41 "2003-10-11T06:19:03Z")
I don’t believe that either Columbia or Mexico is on the IMF HIPC list. You don’t think that countries like Rwanda deserve debt relief? ---
**Author:** ![adaher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dec6dc/32.png) [@adaher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/adaher)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2003, 6:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dems-want-to-loan-instead-of-grant-iraq-20-bil/205054/42 "2003-10-11T06:21:29Z")
\*\*Hhmm… but many of those South American debts were done by dictators and US cronies… Many of these loans were clearly going to get dilluted by heavy corruption. \*\* As I said, if it was incurred by a dictator, the debt should be forgiven. THe US should set the example. And one of the few things I agree with Noam Chomsky about is that we owe nations whose dictators we supported reparations. \*\*Many of my countrymen do complain about the national debt having being created more in the interest of the foreign banks than our national prosperity. Naturally the culprits were “our” politicians… but those banks should have been so generous to them in the first place. \*\* Well, the people want all these social services, but the government doesn’t have the money to provide them. So the government borrows. The people need to only allow the government to spend what it can afford. There is no free lunch. Things like free medical care are impossible when per capita income is $5000. A nation needs to develop at its own speed and that’s impossible when it’s borrowing to try to get a Western standard of living. ---
**Author:** ![Rashak\_Mani](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/ea666f/32.png) [@Rashak\_Mani](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rashak_Mani)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2003, 6:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dems-want-to-loan-instead-of-grant-iraq-20-bil/205054/43 "2003-10-11T06:30:34Z")
Naturally there are many veiled interests in those loans… those loans fueled imports and other benefits for the richer countries. As for governement spending it doesnt need to borrow always… it can just print more money and create inflation. Not that easy to control government spendthrifting. Look at the US running a huge deficit and people clapping. ---
**Author:** ![adaher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dec6dc/32.png) [@adaher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/adaher)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2003, 6:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dems-want-to-loan-instead-of-grant-iraq-20-bil/205054/44 "2003-10-11T06:39:35Z")
\*\*Naturally there are many veiled interests in those loans… those loans fueled imports and other benefits for the richer countries. \*\* Sure, but that’s natural. There are interests in taking loans, there are interests in receiving them. To expect the giver to be altruistic about it while the taker is not is unrealistic. **As for governement spending it doesnt need to borrow always… it can just print more money and create inflation. Not that easy to control government spendthrifting. Look at the US running a huge deficit and people clapping** Our deficits are big for us, but small compared to Third World debt. We can pay ours off or outgrow it. We also have a better record of controlling it when it starts to get out of hand, like we did in the 90s. Europe also did a good job for awhile of controlling debt, most of them run at 3-5% of GDP and were running surpluses recently. Canada is still running surpluses. A nation on weak economic footing like Brazil can’t afford a lot of debt. The current President is going to run that country into the ground in short order with all his spending plans that he has no money for. ---
**Author:** ![Rashak\_Mani](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/ea666f/32.png) [@Rashak\_Mani](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rashak_Mani)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2003, 6:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dems-want-to-loan-instead-of-grant-iraq-20-bil/205054/45 "2003-10-11T06:57:16Z")
hehe… Lula has a lot of plans for sure… but he is keeping a surplus actually. IMF deal mostly… but somehow he is avoiding spending \>4%. Not that I think that is good… creates recession and discontent. Government here is too fat and needs some trimming fast. Do remember that the US deficit is kept in balance with a lot of financial influx from asian countries… a sudden lack of confidence might mean a lot of withdrawl from the US economy and a possible breakdown in the system. ---
**Author:** ![elfkin477](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/a9a28c/32.png) [@elfkin477](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elfkin477)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2003, 7:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dems-want-to-loan-instead-of-grant-iraq-20-bil/205054/46 "2003-10-11T07:02:53Z")
I have a question for the more history savy here - I have been lead to believe that there are loans the US made to aide in reconstuction during WWII that have still not been repaid. Is this true? And if it is, why expect the loan to Iraq be repaid in the first place? If other debts aren’t collected on after all… ---
**Author:** ![adaher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dec6dc/32.png) [@adaher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/adaher)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2003, 7:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dems-want-to-loan-instead-of-grant-iraq-20-bil/205054/47 "2003-10-11T07:05:28Z")
\*\*Do remember that the US deficit is kept in balance with a lot of financial influx from asian countries… a sudden lack of confidence might mean a lot of withdrawl from the US economy and a possible breakdown in the system. \*\* Yep, that’s a problem, but we would survive it okay. We’d just have to ruthlessly cut spending and endure a recession or even a depression. \*\*I have a question for the more history savy here - I have been lead to believe that there are loans the US made to aide in reconstuction during WWII that have still not been repaid. Is this true? And if it is, why expect the loan to Iraq be repaid in the first place? If other debts aren’t collected on after all… \*\* That’s a great question that I’ve never heard the same answer from the same two sources. I wonder if Cecil would address this one in a future column? ---
**Author:** ![Rashak\_Mani](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/ea666f/32.png) [@Rashak\_Mani](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rashak_Mani)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2003, 7:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dems-want-to-loan-instead-of-grant-iraq-20-bil/205054/48 "2003-10-11T07:17:37Z")
The problem is that an American recession/depression means all the world’s economies will suffer too. Which in turn makes recovery of the US economy that much harder… spiralling into economic nightmares. All this to control a 25 million inhabitants country ? Its too much risk for nothing. (Nothing concrete… contracts and pork barrel will abound naturally.) ---
**Author:** ![Puce\_Strands\_of\_GlibberPuklasM](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/7993a0/32.png) [@Puce\_Strands\_of\_GlibberPuklasM](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Puce_Strands_of_GlibberPuklasM)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2003, 4:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dems-want-to-loan-instead-of-grant-iraq-20-bil/205054/49 "2003-10-11T16:52:30Z")
Hussein is our man in the first place. We put him in power there. And supplied him with the gas he used on the Kurds. Looking at it that way, I guess we do owe it to them. ---
**Author:** ![PatriotX](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/c4cdca/32.png) [@PatriotX](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PatriotX)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2003, 7:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dems-want-to-loan-instead-of-grant-iraq-20-bil/205054/50 "2003-10-11T19:57:01Z")
> [@](#): > > \*\*[Bean Counting in Baghdad: Debt, Reparations, Reconstruction, and Resources\*\*](http://www.ccc.nps.navy.mil/rsepResources/si/june03/middleEast.asp) > > The exact level of Iraq’s debt is controversial. A generally accepted figure is $383 billion (Barton and Crocker, 2003): $127 billion in loans, including $47 billion in accrued interest; $199 billion in reparations and $57 billion in contractual obligations. Assuming the Arab Monetary Fund’s (2002) population estimate of 22.81 million, this translates into a per capita debt of around $16,790. In perspective, this is about 10 times as great as Argentina’s at the time of that country’s economic meltdown in 2001. As another basis of comparison Germany’s World War I reparations totaled about twice its gross domestic product (GDP). These debts were never paid in full; they proved to be an impossible burden. Iraq’s debts amount to around 15 times its annual GDP (Francis, 2003). Iraq did not make any attempts at servicing the debt **in the 1990s** , but even if it had, **its entire annual oil revenues during this period would not have met the yearly _interest_ charges**. > > An optimistic estimate of the country’s likely oil revenues over the next decade or so is $22 billion per year, with a pessimistic forecast coming in at around $15 billion. Of this, around $11-$13 billion will be needed just to run the government and revitalize the oil industry. Restoring and revitalizing the oil industry through reconstructing its infrastructure and the development of new fields may run another $35 billion over the next 10 years (Powell, 2002; Alansrawi, 2001). > > Even if all the $22 billion were earmarked for debt servicing, the total amount of outstanding debt would be reduced by only around 5% per year. Accrued and on-going interest payments might reduce this figure to 1% or 2%. > > Contemplating the victorious allies at the Versailles peace conference in 1919, the famous English economist John Maynard Keynes observed that “reparation was their main excursion into the economic field, and they settled it as a problem of theology, of politics, of electoral chicane, from every point of view except that of the economic future of the states whose destiny they were handling” (quoted in Economist, May 17, 2003). Keynes rightly foresaw that this neglect would have disastrous consequences. ---
**Author:** ![PatriotX](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/c4cdca/32.png) [@PatriotX](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PatriotX)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2003, 8:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dems-want-to-loan-instead-of-grant-iraq-20-bil/205054/51 "2003-10-11T20:01:50Z")
I think that this part deserves special attention. The hamsters snatched it before I could append this. > [@](#): > > …“reparation was their main excursion into the economic field, and **they settled it as a problem of theology, of politics, of electoral chicane** , from every point of view except that of the economic future of the states whose destiny they were handling” (quoted in Economist, May 17, 2003). Keynes rightly foresaw that **this neglect would have disastrous consequences**. ---
**Author:** ![sailor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a587f6/32.png) [@sailor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sailor)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2003, 11:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dems-want-to-loan-instead-of-grant-iraq-20-bil/205054/52 "2003-10-11T23:20:17Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by adaher \* > As I said, if it was incurred by a dictator, the debt should be forgiven. THe US should set the example. So how can the USA impose a debt on Iraq? The USA has zero standing to obligate Iraq to indebt itself. ---
**Author:** ![adaher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dec6dc/32.png) [@adaher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/adaher)\ **Post date:** [October 12, 2003, 6:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dems-want-to-loan-instead-of-grant-iraq-20-bil/205054/53 "2003-10-12T06:31:53Z")
What do you mean? I don’t think the US should impose any debts on Iraq. Oh, and an earlier poster said we put Hussein in power. That Big Lie needs to be put to rest. Hussein was a Soviet client. He was our buddy during the Iran-Iraq war, which started well after he took power. As for the gas we gave him to gas the Kurds, that gas came from numerous sources. Yes, we did supply some of it, so did the Soviets, French, and Germans. ---
**Author:** ![rnaka](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/47e85d/32.png) [@rnaka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rnaka)\ **Post date:** [October 12, 2003, 10:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dems-want-to-loan-instead-of-grant-iraq-20-bil/205054/54 "2003-10-12T10:29:41Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by adaher \* > Oh, and an earlier poster said we put Hussein in power. That Big Lie needs to be put to rest. Hussein was a Soviet client. He was our buddy during the Iran-Iraq war, which started well after he took power. My apologies but this usage of the phrase big lie seems highly inaccurate as is your statement. I recalled this thread which discusses the issue with good supports: [http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=207620&highlight=coup+saddam+communist\*](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=207620&highlight=coup+saddam+communist%2A) I am sorry but you make statements, I think, without considering deeply. ---
**Author:** ![adaher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dec6dc/32.png) [@adaher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/adaher)\ **Post date:** [October 12, 2003, 11:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dems-want-to-loan-instead-of-grant-iraq-20-bil/205054/55 "2003-10-12T11:36:37Z")
Good supports? The evidence is slimmer than for Saddam’s support of Al Qaeda. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dems-want-to-loan-instead-of-grant-iraq-20-bil/205054.md?page=2)