The Strategy of the International Banker

It is no secret that the international bankers profiteer from sovereign state debt.
The New York banks have found important profit centers in the lending to countries plunged into debt by Socialist regimes. Under socialist regimes, countries go deeper and deeper into debt because socialism as an economic system does not work. International bankers are sophisticated enough to understand this phenomenon and they are sophisticated enough to profit from it.
Because the public debt is sovereign debt, the bankers have calculated that they will always be able to collect. If there is too much risk in the private debt side, it is a simple matter to get Socialist governments to nationalize banks, private enterprises, and agricultural holdings. In this way, private debt is converted to sovereign debt which the bankers have believed will always be collectable.
The New York banks find the profit from the interest on this sovereign debt to be critical to their balance sheets. Up until very recently, this has been an essentially riskless game for the banks because the IMF and World Bank have stood ready to bail the banks out with our taxpayer money.

Senator Jesse Helms - 1987