From Bloomberg: As Turkey ’s
government seeks to rally support by identifying culprits behind the
unprecedented explosion of anger that erupted in recent weeks, one group has
featured on almost every list: bankers.
Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan began blaming a
so-called “interest-rates lobby” in the first week after anti-government
protests spread nationwide on May 31. Economy Minister Zafer Caglayan said
“blood-sucking” financiers, seeking to push Turkey ’s interest rates back up,
helped provoke the movement that ignited over a police crackdown against people
opposed to development plans.
The rhetoric resonates in a majority Muslim country where
many remember skyrocketing borrowing costs that undermined the economy in the
pre-Erdogan decade. In 2001, the year before his party came to power, the
government spent more on interest payments than it earned in tax income. In the
last two years the Islamist-rooted Erdogan, 59, and his ministers have frequently
accused a rates lobby of working to undermine the economy....
No comments:
Post a Comment