Singer v Argentina: financial crimes against humanity

Paul Singer's immoral campaign to extort unearned wealth from the people of Argentina has hit the wall.

Bankruptcy is a funny thing. I remember a real estate broker in Guelph who had survived three bankruptcies. He kept his fine home and his fancy cars throughout, and if his financial history impacted his standing in the business community, it didn't show.

On the occasion of my own bankruptcy, I recall my elderly mafioso neighbour imparting some words of wisdom; "things happen, son; sometimes you just gotta tip it and move on."

Business folks large and small routinely shift their "non-performing assets," i.e mistakes, into their weakest holding company, pull the plug, and carry on as though nothing had happened.

None of the Reichman brothers had to move house or skimp on meals when their Olympia and York flamed out in what was at the time the biggest bankruptcy in Canadian history.

However, if you hear Paul Singer tell the tale, bankruptcy by a nation state is an affront to God, and he is doing God's work when he uses the courts to put the squeeze on already-crippled national economies.

It's not that Singer lent those countries money and wants it back. The Singer M.O. is to wait till a country defaults, buy up their bonds at pennies on the dollar, and then use his vast resources and political influence to extort face value plus interest on that discounted debt.

The reason this works with a nation state and not with an individual or corporate debtor is because in theory, a nation state could amortize those debts so far into the future that eventually they would be paid. In the meanwhile, the citizens of that country will have to forgo a few frills like education and health care, but at least they're confirming Singer's idea of the rule of law.

Thus, when the people of Peru or Congo or Argentina have to do without so that Paul Singer's vulture funds can make a few un-earned billions, all is well with the world.

That's the American way!

How American bullying alienates allies and invites blowback

The Paul Singer v Argentina case is much in the news these days.

Singer runs Elliot Capital, the hedge fund spear-heading the drive to to get Argentina to pay out face value plus interest on the government bonds they bought for pennies on the dollar after the Argentina default of 2001.

Singer's strategy has been to use the US legal system to violate Argentine sovereignty, and thus far the US legal system has been all too happy to play along.

"This is how a hedge funder brings an entire country to its knees" gloats the headline at Business Insider. 

What's wrong with that picture?

How is it acceptable for an American vulture fund to bring an entire economy to its knees? Singer brings nothing to the economy aside from opportunistic exploitation of the misfortune of others. His vulture fund doesn't further the common good, doesn't create jobs, does nothing aside from enrich a few already-rich people by punishing an entire society.

Is this what America is about on the world stage today?

Here's another gloating headline about the American judicial system screwing over BNP Paribas to the tune of nine billions. The French bank is guilty of violating US sanctions against Iran, Sudan, and Cuba.

What up here? It's a FRENCH bank. What should be on trial is the legality and morality of US sanctions on Iran, Sudan, and Cuba, not a foreign bank that helps those countries get around the illegal American sanctions.

But, America gets away with this bullying because it can!

These are manifestations of an American superiority/American exceptionalism complex that will eventually come back to bite America hard.

Vultures v. Argentina gets a second wind

Here at Falling Downs we've been pontificating forever about the sordid spectacle of rich-world hedge funds fucking over the poor people in the so-called developing world.

Paul Singer is one of the leading architects of this brilliant scheme to make the richest people in the world richer at the expense of the poor people of the world.

His brazen pursuit of the government of Argentina through whatever court system he deems most sympathetic to his cause has already cost many millions of dollars.

Paul Singer can afford to keep doing this because the legal system in the world he lives in puts his interests ahead of those millions of people who will be paying the tab should he prevail in this matter.

And even if he loses, his legal costs will be tax-deductible.