Why 3 Billion People Are Trapped in Debt | Lena Lavinas
June 25, 2026
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1:17:28Now PlayingWhy 3 Billion People Are Trapped in Debt | Lena Lavinas
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as posted by the channelGlobal public debt has quadrupled in fifteen years to over 32 trillion dollars, and the Global South now pays more to service debt than it receives in new financing. Public and Private debt are profoundly intertwined. Economist Lena Lavinas joins Clara Mattei to explain how anti-poverty programs and "financial inclusion" pull billions of people into permanent debt that funds bank profits.
Lavinas traces how cash transfers and safety nets, built to reach the world's poorest, became the collateral that brings them into the banking system. Once a household receives a guaranteed income from the state, banks gain a low-risk borrower, governments share recipient data, and families take on loans to cover food, housing, water, and electricity that privatization has made unaffordable. In Brazil, OVER 78 percent of households carry debt, and most of the banking sector's profit now comes from lending to the poor.
The conversation covers the global debt crisis, the financialization of social policy, austerity, the privatization of public services, Brazil's Desenrola debt renegotiation programs, the PIX instant payment system, and parallel dynamics across South Africa, India, Argentina, and Chile. Lavinas and Mattei examine how the state de-risks finance, why women carry a disproportionate share of household debt, how climate and nature are becoming new asset classes for firms like BlackRock and Vanguard, and what a different model built on public investment and financial regulation could look like.
Lena Lavinas is professor of economics at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro and senior researcher at Brazil's National Research Council. She is the author of The Takeover of Social Policy by Financialization: The Brazilian Paradox.
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#economics #debt #financialization #ClaraMattei #politicaleconomy #GlobalSouth #austerity #Brazil
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