Debt hangs heavy for the bulk of the planet. In 1 970, when the Third World project was intact, the sixty states classified as "low-income" by the Eorld Bank owed commercial lenders and international agencies $25 billion. Three decades later, the debt of these states ballooned to $523 billion. An impoverished conversation on debt yields no agenda to combat this fundamental ailment for the former Third World. These are not "poor" countries. Over the course of these three decades, the sixty states paid $550 billion in principle and interest on loans worth $540 billion. Yet they still owe $523 billion. The alchemy of international usury binds the darker nations.