Tuesday, October 29, 2013
The Shock Doctrine - Naomi Klein on the Rise of Disaster Capitalism
http://www.youtube.com/v/jqxwMKyhPdI?autohide=1&version=3&attribution_tag=7qnC9GgXYIB-o1JltPg-rA&feature=share&autoplay=1&showinfo=1&autohide=1
Thursday, October 24, 2013
Tuesday, October 22, 2013
Tuesday, October 15, 2013
Love Perpetual War and Debt? Read The Economist and Follow Their Dogma
After many years of reading the Economist I stopped in 2008. The economic world I knew blew up and neither the Federal Reserve, nor CNBC, nor the Economist had been any help at all. In fact, quite the opposite. They had lead me astray. They distorted the truth. But I didn't know that then.
5 years later while sipping a lousy coffee at Starbucks I took advantage of the free AT&T wi-fi and this article caught my eye.
Now, I am completely on the opposite side of trade liberalization. Exposure to the way things really work from the Anglo-American Establishment to the Council on Foreign Relations and their British cousin the Royal Institute of International Affairs. From the Federal Reserve System to the International Monetary Fund, World Bank, Bank of International Settlements, and their interlocking directorates with BigOil and BigBanks. From the CIA to the Mossad, MI5, MI6 to the National Security Council and NATO and the United Nations. From the World Trade Organization to the G20, Bilderberg, and the Trilateral Commission. And lastly from Foreign Affairs, the New York Times, the Washington Post, and the Economist back to the Council on Foreign Relations.
We have been lied to by all of these organizations and institutions and they work specifically to undermine every nation on Earth for their gain. Their trendy well polished neoliberal materials are extremely deceptive. They are meant to influence their audience into accepting a corporatized world of free trade and globalization where short term convenience and easy finance lure unsuspecting adults into a world of finance, debt,
5 years later while sipping a lousy coffee at Starbucks I took advantage of the free AT&T wi-fi and this article caught my eye.
The gated globe
Governments are putting up impediments to globalisation. It is time for a fresh wave of liberalisation
This week's cover preview: The gated globe. October 12th - 18th 2013 pic.twitter.com/dXMmESLwPD
— The Economist (@TheEconomist) October 10, 2013
Now, I am completely on the opposite side of trade liberalization. Exposure to the way things really work from the Anglo-American Establishment to the Council on Foreign Relations and their British cousin the Royal Institute of International Affairs. From the Federal Reserve System to the International Monetary Fund, World Bank, Bank of International Settlements, and their interlocking directorates with BigOil and BigBanks. From the CIA to the Mossad, MI5, MI6 to the National Security Council and NATO and the United Nations. From the World Trade Organization to the G20, Bilderberg, and the Trilateral Commission. And lastly from Foreign Affairs, the New York Times, the Washington Post, and the Economist back to the Council on Foreign Relations.
We have been lied to by all of these organizations and institutions and they work specifically to undermine every nation on Earth for their gain. Their trendy well polished neoliberal materials are extremely deceptive. They are meant to influence their audience into accepting a corporatized world of free trade and globalization where short term convenience and easy finance lure unsuspecting adults into a world of finance, debt,
Monday, October 14, 2013
Sunday, October 13, 2013
Peace Revolution episode 066: How Central Bankers Harness and Manipulate Human Resources
Peace Revolution episode 066: How Central Bankers Harness and Manipulate Human Resources
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Click here to download this episode, or use the download link at the bottom of the notes for this episode.
Notes, References, and Links for further study:
Invitation to the Tragedy and Hope online community (link expires monthly)
Log in page for the Tragedy and Hope online community
Peace Revolution primary site (2009-2012)*
Peace Revolution backup stream (2006-2012)*
Includes the 9/11 Synchronicity Podcast (predecessor to Peace Revolution)
*These 2 podcasts and lectures amount to 400+ hours of commercial-free educational content, which formulate a comprehensive and conscious curriculum.
The Ultimate History Lesson dot com (the film, notes, references, transcript, etc.)
The Ultimate History Lesson Official Playlist (on YouTube)
UHL Research Bonus Pack and Gatto Fundraiser Pack(fundraiser for media partners and JTG)
Partner Coupon Codes (MUST BE IN ALL CAPS):
GNOSTICMEDIA
CORBETTREPORT
MEDIAMONARCHY
REDICERADIO
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FREEDOMSPHOENIX
FTL (for FreeTalkLive)
Reference Map to Episode 066:
(0m-3m) sample from “My Dinner with Andre” (on YouTube)
(3m-6m) Nixon ends the Bretton Woods International Monetary system (on YouTube)
(6m-8m) CNBC admits we’re all slaves to Central Bankers (on YouTube)
(8m-10m) sample from Joan Veon “When Central Banks Rule the World” (on YouTube)
(10m-14m) Sir Evelyn de Rothschild on CNBC December 10, 2008 (on YouTube)
(13m-15m) sample from Joan Veon “When Central Banks Rule the World” (on YouTube)
(15m-17m) sample from “The Creature from Jeckyll Island” lecture by G. Edward Griffin (on YouTube)
(17m-19m) Jacob Rothschild confronted by We Are Change (on YouTube)
(19m-20m) sample from “The Capitalist Conspiracy” (on YouTube)
(20m-23m) sample from Joan Veon “When Central Banks Rule the World” (on YouTube)
(23m-26m) “Burn your money, or maybe just put it away” by Lee Camp (on YouTube)
(26m-35m) Richard’s introductory monologue
(35m-1h20m) “The Capitalist Conspiracy” by G. Edward Griffin 1969 (on YouTube)
(1h20m-3h06m) “The Creature from Jeckyll Island” by G. Edward Griffin (on YouTube)
(3h06m-4h33m) “When Central Banks Rule the World” by the late Joan Veon (on YouTube)
(4h33m-5h) “The American Dream” animated story of Central Bankers (on YouTube)
(5h-5h04) “Sheep” by Mark Edward from his 2011 album “Eddie in Exile”
See Also: Peace Revolution episodes: 009, 022, 027, 037, 041, 042, 043, 044, 046,048, 049, 051, 059, 061, 063, 064, 065
___________________________________________________________________________________________________
Would You Like To Know More? Dig in to Peace Revolution's partner podcasts:
Other productions by members of the T&H network:
The Ultimate History Lesson: A Weekend with John Taylor Gatto (2012) a journey into the dark heart of public schooling, revealing how America became incoherent, one student at a time.
Navigating Netflix (2011) our video series wherein we conduct a critical analysis of films you might have missed; Navigating Netflix is available for free on YouTube.
"Memories of a Political Prisoner", an interview with Professor Chengiah Ragaven, graduate of Oxford, Cambridge, and Sussex; AFTER he was a political prisoner, who was exiled from South Africa, during Apartheid. (2011)
What You've Been Missing! (2011) is our video series focusing in on the history of corruption in our public education system.
Top Documentary Films dot com: Hijacking Humanity by Paul Verge (2006)
Top Documentary Films dot com: Exposing the Noble Lie (2010)
Top Documentary Films dot com: The Pharmacratic Inquisition by Jan Irvin (2007)
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Saturday, October 12, 2013
Friday, October 11, 2013
Thursday, October 10, 2013
Wednesday, October 9, 2013
Sunday, October 6, 2013
WallStreet Blackmails America; DebtCeiling vs. GlassSteagall
Remember reading this a few days ago?
Now read this email to subscribers of LaRouche PAC dated October 5th, 2013
There have been only 2 issues which have plagued this country since the very early days of the colonies. Slavery and the control of the money supply. This is it. This is the true face of Wall Street and the globalist bankers. They threaten global economic collapse because they can. Because they control an immense portion of the worlds assets. Through interlocking directorates, the big banks, their oil companies, and their organized crime syndicates, these criminals are repeating the very same tricks that got the US into World War I and World War II, and now we are on the verge of World War III involving Syria, Iran, Russia, China, and Israel.
A wise man once said:
He should know. He fought the very same banking cartels in his time. Some things never change.
Blankfein Says Finance CEOs Urge Action on Debt Limit
By Phil Mattingly and Roger Runningen October 02, 2013
Goldman Sachs Group Inc. Chief Executive Officer Lloyd Blankfein left a White House meeting with President Barack Obama and said lawmakers are risking the economic recovery if they don’t raise the federal debt ceiling.Does any of this sound familiar? Remember 2008 when Henry Paulson, former Goldman Sachs CEO, and then Secretary of the Treasury told member of Congress there would be martial law and a complete breakdown of the global financial system if they didn't approve of a bailout.
Blankfein was among a group of financial-industry executives including JPMorgan Chase & Co. (JPM) CEO Jamie Dimon and Brian Moynihan, CEO of Bank of America Corp., who met with the president today, the second day of a partial government shutdown. Democrats and Republicans are deadlocked on spending legislation and already are battling over raising the U.S. debt limit, which is required by later this month to avoid a default.
Now read this email to subscribers of LaRouche PAC dated October 5th, 2013
Wall Street had demanded that President Barack Obama stop the reinstatement of Glass Steagall at all costs and instead move ahead with more bailouts and bail-in looting of the American people to preserve their thoroughly bankrupt system. The Wall Street policy means an acceleration of crippling hyperinflation, devastating austerity and, ultimately, mass murder of the nation's most vulnerable citizens.Now we are getting somewhere. There have been several proposals for a Wall Street Sales Tax, and 2 separate bills in the House and Senate calling for Glass-Steagall to be reinstated. There is widespread popular support across the political spectrum for financial reform, and yet the power and money of the banking system stands in our way once again.
Several highly qualified Washington sources have confirmed that this was the ultimatum delivered by the Wall Street delegation that met privately with Obama on Wednesday afternoon Oct. 2 at the White House. The delegation was organized by the Financial Services Forum, a coalition of the nation's 19 biggest banks and insurance companies, and included Jamie Dimon, CEO of JPMorgan Chase; Lloyd Blankfein, CEO of Goldman Sachs; Brian Moynihan, CEO of Bank of America; Michael Corbat, CEO of Citibank; and Anshu Jain, CEO of Deutsche Bank.
IMF Managing Director Christine Lagarde delivered the same message in an interview with the Financial Times on Oct. 4, in which she demanded that the Federal Reserve maintain the $85 billion a month quantitative easing bailout of the top Wall Street and Europe banks indefinitely. And Treasury Secretary Jack Lew, speaking for Obama, threatened that any U.S. default will trigger a financial crisis far worse than the September 2008 meltdown.
The reality, as bluntly stated by Lyndon LaRouche today, is that the ongoing government shutdown and threatened default on U.S. sovereign debt on Oct. 17 is nothing more than an orchestrated swindle, aimed at conditioning the American people for the murderous policies that have already been accepted by Obama and by leading Congressional Republicans.
LaRouche warned: "Unless Glass Steagall is passed into law immediately, Obama and Wall Street plan to unleash the worst mass murder austerity and looting of the American people ever. The total separation of commercial banking from all the gambling activities under Glass Steagall is the only remedy. Bankrupt Wall Street now, before they can unleash their genocidal schemes full-force. President Obama is nothing but a tool of these Wall Street interests, as evidenced by his slavish commitment to maintain the bailout/bail-in program and stop Glass Steagall."
LaRouche continued: "In a matter of days or weeks, Obama and his Congressional Republican cohorts, on orders from Wall Street, are going to unleash absolute Hell on the American public through even deeper killer austerity cuts than the sequestration of the past months. The government shutdown is the biggest dog and pony show ever, intended to prepare the population to accept more hyperinflation, more bailouts and bail-ins, and worsening conditions so that Wall Street can survive a bit longer while honest, hard-working Americans die in ever greater numbers.
"It is time for Congress to break from Wall Street and the bankers stooge in the White House, and do the only thing that can set the United States back on a course of genuine prosperity: Pass Glass Steagall by a veto-proof majority this week."
... Pass Glass Steagall, wipe out the power of Wall Street and their European allies, and get on with the business of reviving this nation and the world around a plan of genuine development..."
There have been only 2 issues which have plagued this country since the very early days of the colonies. Slavery and the control of the money supply. This is it. This is the true face of Wall Street and the globalist bankers. They threaten global economic collapse because they can. Because they control an immense portion of the worlds assets. Through interlocking directorates, the big banks, their oil companies, and their organized crime syndicates, these criminals are repeating the very same tricks that got the US into World War I and World War II, and now we are on the verge of World War III involving Syria, Iran, Russia, China, and Israel.
A wise man once said:
"If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of their currency, first by inflation, then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around them will deprive the people of all property until their children wake up homeless on the continent their Fathers conquered...I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies... The issuing power should be taken from the banks and restored to the people, to whom it properly belongs." Thomas Jefferson
He should know. He fought the very same banking cartels in his time. Some things never change.
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Friday, October 4, 2013
Thursday, October 3, 2013
Top 5 Reasons You Should STOP Banking with JP Morgan CHASE $JPM $Fraud #TBTF #GlassSteagall
Submitted to Zerohedge by Michael Krieger of Liberty Blitzkrieg blog,
The top definition of presstitute according to Urban Dictionary is:
1. presstitute
A member of the media who will alter their story and reporting based on financial interests or other ties with usually partisan individuals or groups.
A member of the media who will alter their story and reporting based on financial interests or other ties with usually partisan individuals or groups.
It has become abundantly clear in recent years that the mainstream media can not be identified as anything other that a collective of mediocre, corporate/government ass-kissing presstitutes. Different media outlets cater to different special interests, but the end result is all the same. MSNBC for example is essentially a straight up PR outlet for the Democratic Party, while Fox News represents the neo-con arm of the Republican Party and the military-industrial complex generally.
CNBC has a special position in the presstitute media hierarchy. They basically defend Wall Street at all costs. The station represents the most important media gatekeeper for the financial oligarch, crony class.The following video is an interview on the daily political talk show Majority Report, hosted by Sam Seder. In this episode, he discusses with Matt Taibbi the recent appearance of Salon’s Alex Pareene on CNBC in which Maria Bartiromo unabashedly presstitutes herself out for Jaime Dimon and JP Morgan in an utterly embarrassing manner.
The clip is a little over 16 minutes, but well worth your time. Sam Seder is pretty hilarious and his rapport with Taibbi is excellent.
@mTaibbi On CNBC "Presstitutes and Crimes of JP Morgan Chase | http://t.co/D6fYzTabYT ) $JPM $Fraud #TBTF #GlassSteagall
— Get your #DailyDose (@TwistedPolitix) October 3, 2013
Tweets about "$JPM $Fraud #TBTF #GlassSteagall"
Are insurance rates going up because of Dodd-Frank? Maybe #GlassSteagall Can Help Again. #OrderlyLiquidation
Under Dodd-Frank, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) is allowed to charge assessments to about 60 bank-holding and insurance companies with $50 billion or more in assets to fund what is called an “orderly liquidation fund.” Really, it’s just a bailout fund allowing the government to take over systemically risky institutions, recapitalize them, and allow them to reenter the market under new management.Who are the 60 bank-holding and insurance companies that are being taxed to fund the next round of bailouts? If that fair business? The government passes laws to tax one set of companies, in order to bailout another? So the government that is in charge at the time of the next collapse will be responsible for choosing winners or losers in the banking and insurance industries? Let me guess. The usual suspects will get bailed out and the honest but overextended players in the market will get crushed. Now that's a competitive market where the rules are really twisted, manipulated, unnatural, unfair, and unpublished. That's a game for which the rules are written to be broken.
Read more at NetRightDaily.com: http://netrightdaily.com/2013/03/how-the-government-will-steal-your-savings-under-dodd-frank/#ixzz2agcI9Gkk
So the Glass-Steagall Act of 1933 was essentially overwritten or repealed with the Gramm Leach Bliley Act of 1999 that was signed into law by President Bill Clinton, while Alan Greenspan was Chairman of the Federal Reserve. It is that very act that many consider the tipping point for deregulation, centralization, and globalization of the world markets. It is also consider the act which gave birth to the tech bubble of 2001 and the housing bubble of 2007, which was followed by the financial market crash of 2008.
The Federal Reserve System is made up of its privately held, top secret charter members. The Federal Reserve is not only a central bank that controls the money supply, it is the next higher tier in the evolution of entities. It's ownership is secret and their decisions affect the lives of millions of Americans, as well as billions of people abroad through its network of affiliates. Nearly every central bank in the world has been infected with the control of the same club of interlocking directorates. Many of them passing through the revolving door of the military industrial complex, including the NSA, FBI, CIA, DEA, ICE, ATF, IRS, and IBM. And now Facebook, Yahoo, Google, and Apple have been implicated. And hey, look, their stock is doing GREAT! War and unemployment at all time highs all over the world but there is money for advertising. Friends in the media?
The Federal Reserve System charter members are run and controlled by dynasties. Those dynasties are the oligarchy that heavily affect world markets. (They don't call them market makers for nothing, even though they should be called market breakers as well.) Their combined power is matched only by our government. In fact, they control our government, and many others around the world, if not by financial means, then by the threat of physical force. Which government is surrounded by scandals right now for policies and actions taken as much as 110 years ago? What if I told you the same dynasties, the same oligarchy is playing games with the global economy right now, 3 generations later and the consequences of failure could mean the outbreak of World War 3?
That may sound extreme. It may sound impossible. It may sound like a conspiracy theory. But it's exactly what happened the last dozen times we have gone to war. Think about it.
Why did we get into World War 1? The Lusitania. What year was that? 1915. Less than 2 years later we declared war. Who owned the ship? Who shot it down? Learn more on Wikipedia. Then be sure to research the Wall Street, London, and German banking families that were involved. Understand what power changed hands from Royal family to banking families, etc. Pay attention to the new money masters.
Why did we declare war on Germany in
When you finish doing your research the opportunity of a lifetime may have passed. The opportunity to force on the bankers, what they have forced on us for so long. The Federal Reserve System and its charter members will be CRUSHED by reinstating Glass-Steagall, and insurance companies won't be affected so your insurance rates won't go up again.
At the same time, public banking is being debated all over the country. When the guilty bastards that have manipulated our economy for at least the last 20 years are exposed for their financial war games, the gig will be up and we can go back to economies without so much debt and usury. Life won't be perfect but at least we won't be forced to pay taxes for everything under the sun.
The hardest part of winning this game is avoiding war.
Wednesday, October 2, 2013
#1 Reason to LOVE #Shutdown: Over 6000 NSA Workers Furloughed
#1 Reason to LOVE #Shutdown: Over 6000 NSA Workers Furloughed | Zero Hedge" ( http://t.co/jeN1yVhZsw )
— Get your #DailyDose (@TwistedPolitix) October 3, 2013
From zeroHedge:
First, the good news. During a Senate hearing earlier today, Gen. Keith Alexander (in charge of America's Secret Cyber Army) said: "We have over 960 Ph.D.s, over 4,000 computer scientists, over a thousand mathematicians. They are furloughed. Our nation needs people like this."
Now the bad news. While the number of NSA employees is officially classified, in 2012 theNSA said more than 30,000 employees work at Ft. Meade and other facilities. In 2012 John C. Inglis, the deputy director, said that the total number of NSA employees is "somewhere between 37,000 and one billion" as a joke, and stated that the agency is "probably the biggest employer of introverts." In 2013 Der Spiegel, likely using source data from Edward Snowden, said that the NSA had 40,000 employees.
More from The Hill:
A government official familiar with the military's plans told The Hill last week thatthe shutdown would be unlikely to affect "core" National Security Agency operations.According to the Defense Department's shutdown plan, intelligence and surveillance activities necessary for national security are excepted from the shutdown. But the document notes that "general political and economic intelligence unrelated to ongoing or contingency military operations" are not excepted.
So, the bottom line, the NSA has publicly furloughed about 6,000 people. It has about 34,000 more. We wonder: are the "introverted" NSA workers that spy on Americans (not to mention on their significant others using every method known to man), aka the truly "essential" ones among the 6,000 currently playing Call of Duty or downloading porn at home, or more likely, still in the comfortable and ultra secret confines of their Fort Meade headquarters?
Well, too bad the #Shutdown didn't start earlier and last longer. They are already engaged in cyberespionage right here in America - hacking into private corporate networks, stealing their data, to add to their own telephone records.
Well, too bad the #Shutdown didn't start earlier and last longer. They are already engaged in cyberespionage right here in America - hacking into private corporate networks, stealing their data, to add to their own telephone records.
MT @Asylum4Snowden The #NSA Hacked #Google and #Yahoo's Private Networks http://t.co/PirQqYLmBs #Snowden #A4S #OSFhttp://publicbanking-publicbanking.nationbuilder.com/
— #OccupySF (@sf99er) October 31, 2013
Tuesday, October 1, 2013
TwistedEconomix: #EndGame #SYRIA #Shutdown Why I Support #GlassSteagall and #PublicBanking (and #AuditTheFed)
Wall Street’s Secret “Economic Endgame”: Making the World Safe for Banksters, Syria in the Cross-hairs
Iraq and Libya have been taken out, and Iran has been heavily boycotted. Syria is now in the cross-hairs. Why? Here is one overlooked scenario . . .
In an August 2013 article titled “Larry Summers and the Secret ‘End-game’ Memo,” Greg Palast posted evidence of a secret late-1990s plan devised by Wall Street and U.S. Treasury officials to open banking to the lucrative derivatives business. To pull this off required the relaxation of banking regulations not just in the US but globally. The vehicle to be used was the Financial Services Agreement of the World Trade Organization.
The “end-game” would require not just coercing support among WTO members but taking down those countries refusing to join. Some key countries remained holdouts from the WTO, including Iraq, Libya, Iran and Syria. In these Islamic countries, banks are largely state-owned; and “usury” – charging rent for the “use” of money – is viewed as a sin, if not a crime.That puts them at odds with the Western model of rent extraction by private middlemen. Publicly-owned banks are also a threat to the mushrooming derivatives business, since governments with their own banks don’t need interest rate swaps, credit default swaps, or investment-grade ratings by private rating agencies in order to finance their operations.
Bank deregulation proceeded according to plan, and the government-sanctioned and -nurtured derivatives business mushroomed into a $700-plus trillion pyramid scheme. Highly leveraged, completely unregulated, and dangerously unsustainable, it collapsed in 2008 when investment bank Lehman Brothers went bankrupt, taking a large segment of the global economy with it. The countries that managed to escape were those sustained by public banking models outside the international banking net.
These countries were not all Islamic. Forty percent of banks globally are publicly-owned. They are largely in the BRIC countries—Brazil, Russia, India and China—which house forty percent of the global population. They also escaped the 2008 credit crisis, but they at least made a show of conforming to Western banking rules. This was not true of the “rogue” Islamic nations, where usury was forbidden by Islamic teaching. To make the world safe for usury, these rogue states had to be silenced by other means. Having failed to succumb to economic coercion, they wound up in the crosshairs of the powerful US military.
Here is some data in support of that thesis.
The End-game Memo
In his August 22nd article, Greg Palast posted a screenshot of a 1997 memo from Timothy Geithner, then Assistant Secretary of International Affairs under Robert Rubin, to Larry Summers, then Deputy Secretary of the Treasury. Geithner referred in the memo to the “end-game of WTO financial services negotiations” and urged Summers to touch base with the CEOs of Goldman Sachs, Merrill Lynch, Bank of America, Citibank, and Chase Manhattan Bank, for whom private phone numbers were provided.
The game then in play was the deregulation of banks so that they could gamble in the lucrative new field of derivatives. To pull this off required, first, the repeal of Glass-Steagall, the 1933 Act that imposed a firewall between investment banking and depository banking in order to protect depositors’ funds from bank gambling. But the plan required more than just deregulating US banks. Banking controls had to be eliminated globally so that money would not flee to nations with safer banking laws. The “endgame” was to achieve this global deregulation through an obscure addendum to the international trade agreements policed by the World Trade Organization, called the Financial Services Agreement. Palast wrote:
Until the bankers began their play, the WTO agreements dealt simply with trade in goods–that is, my cars for your bananas. The new rules ginned-up by Summers and the banks would force all nations to accept trade in “bads” – toxic assets like financial derivatives.Until the bankers’ re-draft of the FSA, each nation controlled and chartered the banks within their own borders. The new rules of the game would force every nation to open their markets to Citibank, JP Morgan and their derivatives “products.”And all 156 nations in the WTO would have to smash down their own Glass-Steagall divisions between commercial savings banks and the investment banks that gamble with derivatives.The job of turning the FSA into the bankers’ battering ram was given to Geithner, who was named Ambassador to the World Trade Organization.
WTO members were induced to sign the agreement by threatening their access to global markets if they refused; and they all did sign, except Brazil. Brazil was then threatened with an embargo; but its resistance paid off, since it alone among Western nations survived and thrived during the 2007-2009 crisis. As for the others:
The new FSA pulled the lid off the Pandora’s box of worldwide derivatives trade. Among the notorious transactions legalized: Goldman Sachs (where Treasury Secretary Rubin had been Co-Chairman) worked a secret euro-derivatives swap with Greece which, ultimately, destroyed that nation. Ecuador, its own banking sector de-regulated and demolished, exploded into riots. Argentina had to sell off its oil companies (to the Spanish) and water systems (to Enron) while its teachers hunted for food in garbage cans. Then, Bankers Gone Wild in the Eurozone dove head-first into derivatives pools without knowing how to swim–and the continent is now being sold off in tiny, cheap pieces to Germany.
The Holdouts
That was the fate of countries in the WTO, but Palast did not discuss those that were not in that organization at all, including Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, and Iran. These seven countries were named by U.S. General Wesley Clark (Ret.) in a 2007 “Democracy Now” interview as the new “rogue states” being targeted for take down after September 11, 2001. He said that about 10 days after 9-11, he was told by a general that the decision had been made to go to war with Iraq. Later, the same general said they planned to take out seven countries in five years: Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, and Iran.
What did these countries have in common? Besides being Islamic, they were not members either of the WTO or of the Bank for International Settlements (BIS). That left them outside the long regulatory arm of the central bankers’ central bank in Switzerland. Other countries later identified as “rogue states” that were also not members of the BIS included North Korea, Cuba, and Afghanistan.
The body regulating banks today is called the Financial Stability Board (FSB), and it is housed in the BIS in Switzerland. In 2009, the heads of the G20 nations agreed to be bound by rules imposed by the FSB, ostensibly to prevent another global banking crisis. Its regulations are not merely advisory but are binding, and they can make or break not just banks but whole nations. This was first demonstrated in 1989, when the Basel I Accord raised capital requirements a mere 2%, from 6% to 8%. The result was to force a drastic reduction in lending by major Japanese banks, which were then the world’s largest and most powerful creditors. They were undercapitalized, however, relative to other banks. The Japanese economy sank along with its banks and has yet to fully recover.
Among other game-changing regulations in play under the FSB are Basel III and the new bail-in rules. Basel III is slated to impose crippling capital requirements on public, cooperative and community banks, coercing their sale to large multinational banks.
The “bail-in” template was first tested in Cyprus and follows regulations imposed by the FSB in 2011. Too-big-to-fail banks are required to draft “living wills” setting forth how they will avoid insolvency in the absence of government bailouts. The FSB solution is to “bail in” creditors – including depositors – turning deposits into bank stock, effectively confiscating them.
The Public Bank Alternative
Countries laboring under the yoke of an extractive private banking system are being forced into “structural adjustment” and austerity by their unrepayable debt. But some countries have managed to escape. In the Middle East, these are the targeted “rogue nations.” Their state-owned banks can issue the credit of the state on behalf of the state, leveraging public funds for public use without paying a massive tribute to private middlemen. Generous state funding allows them to provide generously for their people.
Like Libya and Iraq before they were embroiled in war, Syria provides free education at all levels and free medical care. It also provides subsidized housing for everyone (although some of this has been compromised by adoption of an IMF structural adjustment program in 2006 and the presence of about 2 million Iraqi and Palestinian refugees). Iran too provides nearly free higher education and primary health care.
Like Libya and Iraq before takedown, Syria and Iran have state-owned central banks that issue the national currency and are under government control. Whether these countries will succeed in maintaining their financial sovereignty in the face of enormous economic, political and military pressure remains to be seen.
As for Larry Summers, after proceeding through the revolving door to head Citigroup, he became State Senator Barack Obama’s key campaign benefactor. He played a key role in the banking deregulation that brought on the current crisis, causing millions of US citizens to lose their jobs and their homes. Yet Summers is President Obama’s first choice to replace Ben Bernanke as Federal Reserve Chairman. Why? He has proven he can manipulate the system to make the world safe for Wall Street; and in an upside-down world in which bankers rule, that seems to be the name of the game.
Ellen Brown is an attorney, president of the Public Banking Institute, and author of twelve books including the best-selling Web of Debt. In The Public Bank Solution, her latest book, she explores successful public banking models historically and globally. Her websites arehttp://WebofDebt.com, http://PublicBankSolution.com, and http://PublicBankingInstitute.org.
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