I thought that Life and Debt was an incredibly unsettling documentary, as it clearly outlined the role of western nations in subjugating less powerful one. I thought that this documentary took world system theory a step further by showing how powerful nations not only exploit less powerful ones for their physical resources (oil or minerals), but even for tourism, and labor. It also demonstrated how Jamaica was essentially forced into so much debt to reinforce these antiquated values.
There seems to be a necessity for a neutral lender for nations. It seemed as though this was the original intention of the World Bank and the IMF, and micro-loans may be available for a small number of people, but on a country wide level, there seems to be no such system in place. What do you guys think about a neutral lender in the world marketplace as a potential solution to these types of issues? Would it require a rethinking of world trade, and potentially for nations to close their borders in order to focus on self development? How would this affect the world marketplace?
Globalization and Sustainability 
I believe that a neutral lender is intact necessary and plays as a crucial potential solution for these debt issues. The IFI’s were definitely put in place to target poor countries, offering this idea of “development” and “up scaling”. This ultimately made these countries believe that they could provide for their people, and in fact become stronger when it fact the opposite happened. They were trapped and on top of that interests increased which made them take out loans to cover other loans, ultimately digging them into a deeper hole. Another issue is the fact that there became a dependency on these financial institutions, and the help they offered. I’m not sure if closing their borders would do any justice for them at this point, because a lot of the money they make now is from tourists visiting and buying their merchandise and things of that nature. Self development is easy to talk about, but harder to do because once your economy has been driven into the ground your only means of survival is to depend on others (dependent on help from outside forces). I agree with your post. However Jamaica was not forced, instead they were tricked into debt. Just like we’re being tricked now in school LOL! HOPEFULLY once we graduate we get the job we went to school for, and that job helps pay our loans off before the interest kills us.
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