Vulture hedge funds build their wealth by betting on the economic failure of nations around the world, a practice that leaves behind a trail of destabilized communities, destroyed families, and starved nations. These predatory practices are catastrophic — sometimes even deadly —  for nations, leaving them little to no means to fund necessary hospitals, schools, public transportation, pensions, or public housing.  

By making exploitation, greed, and profit the core of their business, vulture hedge funds make billions when places like Puerto Rico, Nigeria, Argentina, and the Republic of Congo experience debt crises. These hedge funds swoop in when they know the debt is no longer sustainable, purchase it at a discounted price, and then demand full repayment — raking in huge profits knowing full well that their short-term profits come at the expense of a nation’s future.

These predatory practices have pushed many of these nations to implement austerity measures to pay wealthy vultures. For the people of these nations, this has meant job losses, school closings, hospital closings, the deterioration of labor rights and pension funds, a crumbling infrastructure, and sometimes even famine. In Puerto Rico, the unelected fiscal control board has pushed austerity measures for the last 10 years which has caused the closure of over 250 schools, the deterioration of labor rights, and the decay of infrastructure to the point of collapse — all of which have caused the island to lose more than 10% of its population.  

Because approximately half of the sovereign debt contracts are governed by New York law, New York can stop vulture funds’ profiteering off the debt crises of countries around the world. It’s NOT A GAME, it’s people! New York has the power!

Around half of the sovereign debt contracts are governed by New York law. When hedge funds buy debt at a steep discount and then demand countries do whatever is necessary to pay them back, this leads to austerity measures that devastate these countries’ populations. Vulture hedge funds have already profiteered from financial crises in places like Puerto Rico, Argentina, Vietnam, the Republic of the Congo, Brazil, Ecuador, and more. The ‘Not a Game, It’s People’ campaign was created by a coalition of New York and diaspora organizations to pass New York State legislation that curbs and prevents vulture hedge funds from continuing these predatory practices.

Puerto Rico is just one example of the type of devastation that can happen when vulture funds are allowed to run rampant. And because of the deep ties between New York and the island — New York now houses the second largest population of Puerto Ricans — we see a lot of personal ties between the campaign and Puerto Rico. But this is an international humanitarian crisis and we can see examples of the devastation throughout the world — Argentina, Greece, the Republic of the Congo, Venezuela, etc. Vulture funds’ predatory practices harm millions around the globe and will continue wreaking havoc in Puerto Rico, cities across the United States, and other countries if we don’t intervene. New York State is home to more than a million directly-impacted Puerto Ricans and millions more immigrants whose home countries have been ravaged by debt crises. New York State has legislative tools at its disposal to curtail vulture fund practices as the financial capital of the world.