How the IMF loan-sharks the global south

With surcharges, the cruelty is the point.

Cory Doctorow

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A cell in a debtors’ prison, captioned ‘Pray remember the poor debtors having no allowance,’ behind the bars is a map centered on South America, Asia and Africa. Image: Sbw01f (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Developed_and_developing_countries.PNG CC BY: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/deed.en

When you take out a loan or get a credit card, the headline figure is the “APR” — the annual percentage rate of interest. But anyone who’s ever borrowed because they were poor and needed money has learned the hard way that APRs are pure fiction.

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