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THE GLOBAL FINANCIAL MELTDOWN
THE OLIGARCHY'S 'SOLUTION' FOR THE EURO : WORLD WAR WAR III
Helga Zepp-LaRouche

http://www.larouchepub.com


The only and absolute priority for any person capable of thinking clearly is the existential question: how to prevent the danger of global thermonuclear war, at this very advanced stage. The problem in Germany, and most other Western nations, is that the media are reporting next to nothing about the acute danger at hand, and that neither Chancellor Angela Merkel nor any of the speakers in the ensuing parliamentary debate Dec. 2 said even a single word about the danger. And therefore, the majority of the populace is totally in the dark. World War could break out at any time—that's how close we are to the edge!



Neither the actions taken by the Syrian government in certain cities against the foreign-encouraged and in part foreign-instigated rebellion, nor the supposed construction of nuclear rockets by the Iranian government are the spark plugs for the acute war danger, but rather, the fact that the trans-Atlantic financial system—including the Euro-experiment—is disintegrating. Of course, the forces flooding the markets with liquidity, in order to delay further Lehman-style bankruptcies of the big banks (see Economics lead), know very well that such hyperinflationary measures can have but a short-lived effect.



For this reason, on the level of the oligarchical elite, the decision has been made for some time, to solve the problem with the time-tested method of previous collapsing empires: a war into which a "coalition of the willing" at last draws in the unwilling as well. An old method. Only this time, the price would be World War III.



Russia and China Know

The myriad puppets in the media and in politics, now engaged in the propaganda campaign against Syria and Iran, have apparently neglected to adequately take into account the rather hard-to-miss fact, which Russia and China have long realized, that it is they themselves, not Syria or Iran, which are the actual targets in this confrontation.



Thus, both nations have drawn a clear red line around Syria and Iran, which dare not be crossed, if an escalation leading to World War III is to be prevented. Maj. Gen. Zhang Zhaozhong of the National Defense University in Beijing chose exactly this formulation, as reported by Chinese television broadcasts, in warning that China would not hesitate to defend Iran, even if this meant World War III.



Further warnings were published in China Daily, which wrote that a military intervention against Syria, whereby the United States and its NATO partners employ the model of the Libyan War, is becoming ever more possible, as seen against the backdrop of open threats of violence against Syria from Washington and Paris, as well as the positioning of a U.S. aircraft carrier off the Syrian coast (see Strategy). Were Syria to be attacked, the article reads, then retaliatory attacks by Syria's ally Iran could not be ruled out, and Syria, thus driven into a corner, would probably react with an attack on Israel, which would threaten to lead to a further escalation of conflict in the region.



It is because of these same threatened consequences, that the attempted heavy sanctioning, and the indictment of Syria at the International Criminal Court, which was debated in an emergency session of the UN Human Rights Council, was denounced as an unacceptable pretext for military intervention by both Russia and China.



Russia has sent warships to the Syrian port of Tartus; the aircraft carrier Admiral Kuznetsov is on its way to Syrian waters (and thus, in the direct vicinity of the U.S. deployments in the area), and has also helped Syria install supersonic Yachont rockets, which would be used in defense of the Syrian coastline. All of these elements together are a clear message from the Russians, that a military intervention against Syria will not go unanswered, in what is an unmistakeable attempt on their part to avoid war.



Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov laid out the Russian position at a meeting with ambassadors of Arab nations, and accused some of Syria's neighbors of providing weapons to the rebels, and aiming these at the Syrian armed forces. In addition, Russian media are reporting on scenarios, whereby an attack against Syria is being prepared from Saudi territory.



War Has Already Begun

In reality, the war on Iran has already begun. One example is the explosion in the city of Isfahan, where a factory producing uranium fluoride gas appears to have been blown up. This gas is used in centrifuges to enrich uranium. The Iranian government has denied that the explosion took place, but the Times of London reported that video recordings and witness accounts confirm that the second such explosion in the space of a month has taken place. This has fed speculation that Iranian military and nuclear facilities are already being attacked by foreign agents.



Just two weeks ago, a bomb explosion near Tehran killed 30 members of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Command, including the head of Iran's missile research program, Gen. Hassan Moghadam. These events—ignored by the Western media—are the context for the storming of the British Embassy in Tehran, by Iranian students. In Germany, only the weekly news magazine Stern has warned that the West's playing with fire could lead to war.



Considering, in the context of the installation of the European Missile Defense System in Eastern Europe, that Russian President Dmitri Medvedev has activated missile warning systems in Kaliningrad; the stance China has taken in reaction to the "stark strategy of confrontation" displayed by President Obama during his recent trip to Asia; and the statement by Chinese military officers, that China would militarily repulse any attempt to impinge upon its vital interests—then it should be clear to everyone how explosive the situation is.



And, as U.S. Gen. Wesley Clark (ret.) explains in his book Winning Modern Wars, the strategy against Libya, Syria, and Iran is the product of plans the Pentagon has had in place since the 1990s, and therefore has nothing to do with today's "rebels."



The world today stands on the edge of World War III, which, very likely, no one would survive to investigate afterwards how it came about. One thing is definitely clear: Europe cannot afford to be drawn into another farce such as the "humanitarian" intervention in Libya. Were an attack on Syria or Iran to eventuate, the bells would definitely begin to toll for the death of civilization.



Addressing the Real Crisis

The acute danger of war can only be overcome, if the actual reason for it—the breakdown-crisis of the trans-Atlantic financial system—is dealt with. When the point has been reached at which the only way the central banks can prevent new Lehman-style bankruptcies, is by flooding the markets with massive amounts of liquidity—just to set off a day of euphoria, as happened last week—then clearly the end of the road has been reached.



The Eurozone is falling apart, and unfortunately, all the scenarios being officially circulated totally fail to get to the root of the problem. Chancellor Merkel has stated her intent to use the EU summit on Dec. 9 to establish a fiscal union, including "the right to impose drastic measures" against budgetary sinners. This would be an act of suicide, intended to sacrifice the real economy and living standards to the advantage of an overwhelmingly virtual banking system.



Whatever Merkel and French President Nicolas Sarkozy end up thrashing out between them at their meeting Dec. 5, the smaller Euro member-states already view the "Merkozy" duo with distrust. And the banks are threatening in advance, that either a comprehensive fiscal union is established, or else there will be a real bank run after Dec. 9.



Meanwhile, banks, regulators, and export firms, such as travel host TUI, the Swiss firm Roche, and the world's largest electronic derivatives trading platform ICAP, have announced that they have been running scenarios for months, for the seamless transition of trading in euros and dollars, to the Greek drachma and other national currencies.



Unfortunately, one cannot expect that those at the EU summit will have the intelligence to carry out the only possible solution. But here it is nonetheless:



It must be conceded: The euro was a faulty construct from the very beginning, because it was created to fulfill the ideological aim of forcing a reunited Germany into the straitjacket of EU integration, and thereby weaken it economically, which it has succeeded in doing. The German economy did not gain from the euro, but only the multinational export companies which profited, while the internal market—i.e., the buying power and the social safety net of the Mittelstand (small and medium-size) firms—suffered under it.



Economic booms in the weaker countries turned out to be monetarist bubbles, and their bursting has led to unemployment rates among youth of up to 50%. The attempt to force all of Europe into a "debt brake" (zero deficit) and "drastic measures" to impose austerity, would be to repeat the errors of the austerity undertaken by German Chancellor Brüning in the early 1930s, and the effects would be just as catastrophic. General poverty, frustration, and social upheaval would be the mildest consequences. And nothing would be offered to counter the danger of war.



So governments must revoke the euro, in favor of returning currency and budget policy to the sovereign control of the relevant governments. Further bailouts for "systemic" banks are a way to perpetuate high-risk speculation; therefore, a Glass-Steagall-style separation of banks must be introduced, under which only commercial banks enjoy guarantees by the government. Investment banks and the various assortment of other vehicles must do without any access to the deposit accounts of average citizens, and undergo bankruptcy proceedings if necessary.



A new credit system must issue comprehensive lines of credit for investment in projects that increase the productivity of the real economy, as set forth in the principles of physical economy, and thereby create productive full employment. This is the only way to create the kind of wealth in society, with which pensions, savings accounts, and other legitimate obligations in the financial system can be serviced. Were the currently threatened hyperinflation to take hold, all these categories of assets would be lost.



A new credit system has to be established, in order to realize multi-national projects amongst sovereign republics over timespans of 50-100 years, which include a Marshall Plan for the development of the southern European nations; industrialization of Africa; and the expansion of the Eurasian Land-Bridge.



The nations of Europe would present this concept to the United States, Russia, China, India, and other nations as a statement of intent to cooperate for real peace in the 21st Century.



Therefore, an alternative does exist! Do your part to make it reality!



  

FORGET THE EURO:

Germany Needs a Two-Tier  Bank System and New D-Mark

Helga Zepp-LaRouche
http://www.larouchepub.com/





The European Union summit on Dec. 8-9 has produced an even more abominable monstrosity than EU policy was already: It did nothing to diminish the risk of collapse of the euro and of bank failures. A debt brake,[1] budget control by the European Commission, tougher sanctions against deficit violators, "more Europe," loss of sovereignty and democracy, economic hardship, and a future without hope for millions of people: That is the ghastly result of the "Merkozy" strategy. The threat of collapse of the trans-Atlantic financial system remains acute.



The only chance for the nations and peoples of Europe is the immediate introduction of a two-tier banking system, in conjunction with the restoration of sovereignty over national currencies and economies. Following the example of Franklin D. Roosevelt's Glass-Steagall Act, commercial banks and investment banks must be separated. The commercial banks must be placed under state protection and provided with new lines of credit, while the portion of the debt that comes from bailout packages for the banks, derivatives trading, investment banks, hedge funds, special purpose entities, and shadow banks, is either canceled or suspended.



The argument that this measure would cause many investors to lose their claims to the entire palette of "creative financial products," must be rejected, because this money is already lost: The system is bankrupt. If the institutions in which these securities are deposited are insolvent, then those securities are already worthless, and the attempt to postpone the reckoning by more tricks, such as the "leveraging" of fund deposits or other methods of the miraculous multiplication of money, will only mean that hyperinflation will destroy the life savings of the population throughout Europe. A social catastrophe and chaos would be the inevitable consequences.



Brüning-Style Austerity

The intention behind the line that bankers and supporters of the European Union have been circulating for some time—that all this has nothing to do with a banking crisis, but with a sovereign debt crisis—is an attempt not only to divert attention from the fact that the bailouts, and the whole policy based on monetarist maximum profit, are to blame for the sovereign debts; the line is also used as a rationalization for why high-risk speculation has to be maintained. The prescribed medicine—reducing the budget deficit and enshrining a debt brake in the Constitution—is best suited to kill the patient as quickly as possible. Chancellor Brüning's austerity policies created the well-known social conditions under which the Nazis were able to seize power.



The unfortunate case of Greece shows the consequences of the brutal austerity policies of the Troika (the International Monetary Fund, the European Central Bank, and the EU Commission): Pharmaceutical companies have stopped providing medicines for the seriously ill, because hospitals cannot pay the bills, and parents are turning their children over to SOS Children's Villages, because they can no longer feed them. Millions of people, and especially many millions of young people in the southern countries of Europe, are unemployed and lack any hope of a future.



It is also incomprehensible where "Merkozy" finds the optimism to believe that the old Stability Pact could now be adhered to in a much worse economic situation, given that it hasalready bankrupted almost all Europe's governments. The handover of Parliament's right to legislate the budget to a soulless EU Commission, which is now supposed to have the right to review budget proposals and to correct them—i.e., to cut them—tends to make elections unnecessary, because economic policy is no longer to be decided by the distribution of seats in Parliament, but by non-transparent EU technocrats whom no one has elected, and who are accountable to none. Automatic sanctions for violators and punishments by the European Court of Justice will create a climate in Europe in which the now already considerable enmity and bitterness knows no bounds.



And how are citizens supposed to have any confidence in governments which incessantly flout the rules they themselves have made—governments which axiomatically believe that treaties can only be put through behind their own citizens' backs, and who invent the most exotic legal sophistries, all in order to shore up a system in which all is permitted, so long as the oh-so-sensitive markets don't "get nervous"?



Since the Lisbon Treaty can only be revised jointly by all members, but Great Britain has now taken its leave, it was hastily agreed to draw up a new inter-governmental treaty which operates "outside" the existing treaty, and which changes Article 126 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union, without changing the Lisbon Treaty itself.



The Euro Was Rotten from the Start

Which brings us to the one positive outcome of the EU summit: British Prime Minister David Cameron's refusal to submit to the EU Commission's diktat, and his rejection of a transaction tax and the Basel III[2] requirements, has now seriously opened up the possibility that Great Britain will accede to the Euro-critics' pressure, and will quit the EU altogether. The real reason for Cameron's move, of course, was the City of London's desire to distance itself as far as possible from the Continent, in view of the euro's impending collapse. But despite that, the departure of "perfidious Albion" would be a correction of Pompidou's error[3]—an error for which continental Europe has paid dearly ever since. And once one country has turned its back on the EU monster, the dam will have been breached, and other nations will find courage to draw their own conclusions from the fact that their populations' vital interests can no longer be protected if they remain within the EU.



The first step must be to recognize that the euro was a faulty construct from the very outset, one which could not possibly function, and which has now collapsed irrevocably. A two-tier banking system must thus be instituted, in conjunction with a return to national currencies, because only each country's sovereignty over its own economic policy will permit measures to be taken that are right for that country. Fixed rates of exchange must be established among the various currencies, so that long-term cooperation on international projects can be protected, and speculation against currencies forbidden.



Germany's Foreign Policy

Instead of joining in a highly volatile game of encirclement against Russia and China, such as NATO and the EU have been playing since the collapse of the Soviet Union, and instead of remaining hysterically silent about the obvious war plans against Syria and Iran, whose apocalyptic consequences surely must be clear to everyone, Germany should decide upon a sovereign foreign policy which is in its own interests.



As long as Russia, China, India, and other Asian nations remain relatively stable economically, and are not swept up into the effects of the global collapse crisis, these countries represent huge markets for Germany and for other sovereign European nations, and a 50- to 100-year development perspective offers huge opportunities, especially for our Mittelstand, our private small and medium-sized industrial firms. Germany must simply return to the industrial policy it had during its post-1945 reconstruction era, a policy oriented toward scientific and technological progress, and high energy-flux densities.



Instead of passively tolerating the obvious attempts to destabilize Russian Prime Minister Putin's upcoming Presidency by means of an "orange revolution," à la George Soros and Mikhail Gorbachov, thereby helping to create an enemy image for World War III, Germany should look to its own raw materials and energy security, and should cooperate with the nations of Asia in jointly opening up the Far East and the Arctic region.



The German Mittelstand's technological capabilities are urgently needed for developing Russia's Far East and China's interior regions, as well as for conquering the scandalous poverty in which 70% of the Indian population lives.



These nations, for their part, have launched into manned spaceflight with the same pioneering spirit which we Germans once had, and into making scientific breakthroughs in order to better and more profoundly understand and master the laws of the universe.



It is high time that we jointly address ourselves to humanity's great unifying issues. An imperial structure such as the current EU has become—one which people increasingly perceive as a mechanism of oppression, which has contributed not to peace in Europe, but instead to enmity among peoples, and to hostility toward Germany—such a structure must be abolished.



The envisaged European fiscal union is already in violation of the principles set forth in the German Constitutional Court's so-called Lisbon Ruling. Therefore, we demand that a referendum be held on whether Germany should remain within, or leave the EU and the euro, and also on whether to introduce a new D-mark.



Time is very short. The danger of a banking collapse, and of war, requires that we act quickly. If Europe is to be spared an existential catastrophe, it is essential that a two-tier banking system be immediately set in place, and that sovereignty be attained over our currency and our economy. We must, right now, mobilize the spiritual and cultural powers that will enable us to become again a people of thinkers, poets, and inventors.



The author is the chairman of the Civil Rights Solidarity Movement (BüSo), a German political party.



  

WORLD WAR III OR THE ONSET OF THE AGE OF REASON?

Helga Zepp-LaRouche



Christine Lagarde, the head of the IMF, recently painted a grim picture of the world economy, comparing it to the Great Depression on the eve of the Second World War. All the economic data are worse than expected, she said; growth is lower, the deficits are bigger, the national debts are higher. And what is her proposed solution to this dire situation? More of the same incompetent policies that caused this crisis in the first place, as long as we "act together."



What is urgently needed instead is an uncompromising analysis of the flawed assumptions of the political and economic elites of the trans-Atlantic region, which have made them so blind to the consequences of their policies, that the world today has once again reached a point where a "crash of the world economy" threatens, as well as a new world war that would be a thermonuclear world war this time.



The fact is that every member of the governments in Europe and the United States knows full well that we are heading into such a war at breakneck speed, as the logical consequence of the policies of Obama, NATO, and the EU, continuing the policies of George W. Bush and Tony Blair, today against Russia and China. Both the missile-defense system that is currently being built by NATO in Eastern Europe, and oriented against Russia, and the current gigantic military buildup in the Indian Ocean, the Persian Gulf, and the Eastern Mediterranean, can be interpreted only as preparations for world war. With four aircraft carriers and a large number of destroyers and frigates deployed, ostensibly because of the situations in Syria and Iran, all the weapon systems have actually been put in place that are necessary for a large war.



Silence Reigns

And why is no one in these governments saying anything about the imminent danger, which is so much greater than that in 2003 before the Iraq War, when then-Chancellor Gerhard Schröder and former President Jacques Chirac refused to allow Germany and France to participate in that war? Why is it that so far only Danish Foreign Minister Villy Søvndal has publicly declared that Denmark will absolutely not participate in any way in a war against Syria or Iran?



Why does the German government not respond to the statement by the Russian Chief of the General Staff, Gen. Nikolai Makarov, that there could be a regional war in Central Europe in which nuclear weapons could be used[1]—and especially, what the German government intends to do to prevent such a war?



The head of Russia's National Security Council, Nikolai Patrushev, wrote on Dec. 14 in the newspaper Argumenti i Fakti, that the American and NATO missile-defense systems in Europe are directed, from Moscow's point of view, against Russia and China: "Very convincing calculations by our experts make it clear that the American arguments about a threat from Iran or North Korea are inventions. At the same time, it is obvious that the American ABM systems are directed against Russia and China. But more than that: With the planned development of the system, ship-based anti-missile systems will be in close proximity to the Russian coastline, in addition to the deployment of ABM radar systems near our borders."



Or, what does the German federal government say about the statement of a professor of the Chinese National Defense University, that China should not hesitate to protect Iran, even if it means launching World War III?



The Bankrupt Euro

Financial Times columnist Wolfgang Münchau has now come to the conclusion that the euro is a hopeless case, and he writes in Der Spiegel that it is impossible to rescue the euro, because the internal dynamic of the crisis is now so powerful that a little spark would suffice, "and the euro area would explode." But why were the governments of Europe so blind as not to have foreseen this when, for example, this author warned, long before the introduction of the euro, that this flawed design could not work? Since it was introduced, I have also written dozens of articles, almost non-stop, about how to get out of this dead end, so the information was definitely there, for anyone with economic competence to anticipate what would happen.



And why are the governments of the trans-Atlantic region so totally irresponsible as to have thrown one "bailout package" after another at this hopelessly bankrupt "common currency," destroying the European community and splitting it into hostile camps? They must certainly know that this will quickly lead to hyperinflation like that in Germany in 1923, only this time not in just one country, but proceeding from Europe and the United States to the entire world. The government of the Weimar Republic had the excuse for its money printing, that this policy was forced on it by the Versailles Treaty; but what excuse is there when the trans-Atlantic governments today repeat the same mistake of hyperinflation, the most brutal form of looting of the population?



What is the mentality of these governments and parliamentarians who support this policy and have learned nothing from the mistakes of the past, who have access to all the information about the bankruptcy of the financial system and the threat of war, and yet continue a policy that can lead to the extinction of humanity? And why do these governments not introduce a two-tier banking system, which, surprisingly, Social Democratic Party head Sigmar Gabriel and Finance Minister Wolfgang Schäuble recently suddenly endorsed? Whose dictates are they submitting themselves to this time?



The Euro Would Never Have Worked

The fact is, the design flaws of the euro could never be solved, for the simple reason that there cannot be a single European state. Europe is not a nation, not in any way, shape, or form. What do Germans know about France, not to mention Slovenia or Estonia? There is no common political venue for discourse, no common cultural identity. And the explanation that the EU Commission had not realized that what was then the Greek government had falsified its financial statements to allow entry into the Eurozone, has now been supplied with the argument that the EU bureaucrats did not speak Greek well enough to be able to read the Greek newspapers.



Instead of ensuring peace in Europe forever, the euro, since the signing of the EU's Maastricht Treaty in 1992, has taken nations that were living together relatively peacefully, and set them against each other, spurred by the interests of the British Empire and its "Fourth Reich" campaign against Germany, and irresponsible media that have spread caricatures about "lazy Greeks," "ugly Germans," "Italians who can't cope," or the "hedonistic French."



"If the euro fails, then Europe fails," Chancellor Merkel has repeated over and over again, as if such a mantra could finally drum the wisdom of such a statement into the heads of the annoying euro-critics. Exactly the opposite is true: Europe only has a chance if we stop the imperial design of the euro, restore sovereignty over our own currencies and economies, renounce the EU treaties from Maastricht to Lisbon, introduce a two-tier banking system, adopt fixed exchange rates among sovereign governments, and agree on a new credit system for long-term cooperative projects, like a Marshall Plan for Southern Europe and Africa through the expansion of the World Land-Bridge.



And instead of meekly watching as the eastward expansion of NATO and the EU, with their openly aggressive projects, provokes a war with Russia and China, Germany should launch long-term economic cooperation with the Asian countries.



Who asked or authorized EU Commissioner Neelie Kroes and Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg[2] to initiate the "No Disconnect" strategy project, by which Internet users in states ruled by authoritarian regimes are supposed to be helped to have free access to the Internet—but on closer inspection, is intended to bring about an "Arab Spring," i.e., regime change, and indeed all over the world, as Kroes said—obviously also in Russia and China? The Internet-savvy zu Guttenberg wants to use his military contacts to promote this project, and it is also supposed to help the intelligence agencies to obtain information on-location, so that the "extent of suppression" can be ascertained. Asked what exactly this project means, Kroes did not answer, saying that would be far too dangerous, since they do not want to endanger the "activists."



With an EU whose Commissioner for Digital Agenda is so obviously involved in the destabilization of other sovereign states, and this in the context described above of financial collapse and world war danger, primarily against Russia and China, this is another, very urgent reason to leave this alliance—a possibility envisaged by the Lisbon Treaty and explicitly justified under international law anyway.



Germany must make a policy for its citizens, rather than in the interests of the banks and their imperial supranational apparatus. This EU not only has the oft-cited "democracy deficit," but democracy itself and Germany's Basic Law are at the greatest risk.



We therefore call for an immediate referendum on whether to stay with or leave the euro and the EU; on the recovery of sovereignty by means of a new D-mark; and on the question of whether Germany should participate in institutions whose policy amounts to a third world war.



Use the time between Christmas and New Year to think through what is wrong with the axiomatic assumptions of governments and parliamentarians, such that we could have reached this point. And join our mobilization for a real alternative!





$29 TRILLION AND COUNTING  

John Hoefle
December 23, 2011 issue of Executive Intelligence Review.





In July 2009, the Special Inspector General of the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) caused a furor by reporting that the bailout of financial institutions by the U.S. government and the Federal Reserve stood at $23.7 trillion. Since that time we have seen a flurry of duelling claims, ranging from the Ministry of Bailouts's absurd claims that the bailouts cost taxpayers virtually nothing, and may have even turned a profit, to the recently released study by the Levy Institute,[1] which puts the total at $29 trillion.



The Levy study, along with those by Bloomberg News and the Government Accountability Office, have shed considerable light on how much money the various bailout facilities have spent, lent, or promised, and who got the money. The sums involved are staggering, as is the extent to which U.S. taxpayer money was used to bail out foreign-based banks. The Treasury and the Fed have a lot of explaining to do, preferably in criminal court.



As measures of the true cost of the bailout, however, all of these studies fall short. The least of their problems is that they all rely on the official figures released by the Treasury and the Fed, two notorious liars. But since what they admit is damning enough, it will do. The more significant problems with these studies are: 1) They do not measure other ways in which regulatory policy, and the economy as a whole, are being manipulated to facilitate the looting of the public by the financial system; and 2) They do not measure the effects upon the present and future, of policies which destroy people in favor of saving financial claims.



What, after all, is the true cost of a financial policy which is being used to usher in genocide against the human race? How do you measure that in mere dollar terms?



Saving the Empire

Those with a penchant for remembering the propaganda which has spewed forth from Wall Street and Washington in recent years, will recall being told that the bailout was being done reluctantly, that saving Wall Street, as unpleasant as it may be, was necessary to save Main Street. We're doing this for you, said the thieves.



We said they were lying at the time, and these reports on the bailout bear that out in spades. They were not saving America, but sacrificing America to save the British Empire! That's not only criminal, but treasonous!



The Levy report, for example, breaks the bailout programs down into two categories, one consisting of funds provided by the Fed to other central banks through the Central Bank Liquidity Swap (CBLS) program, and the other consisting of the multitude of other facilities created to shovel money into the financial system, known by acronyms such as TAF, TALF, TSLF, PCDF, etc. Taken together, these programs lent a total of $29.6 trillion, according to Fed data.



Under the CBLS program, just over $10 trillion was provided by the Fed to foreign central banks between December 2007 and September 2011. The vast majority of that money, $8 trillion, went to the European Central Bank, while another $918 billion went to the Bank of England. The remaining $1 trillion or so was divvied up among the central banks of Switzerland, Japan, Denmark, Sweden, Australia, South Korea, Norway, and Mexico. These swaps were all in the form of loans, and all the loans made during the period covered by the study have supposedly been paid back. However, the program is still active, with $54 billion in loans outstanding as of Dec. 14.



In the second category, some $19.6 trillion in support was provided through an alphabet soup list of programs. The Primary Dealer Credit Facility (PDCF), created to lend money to investment banks, was the largest, at $9 trillion, followed by the Term Auction Facility (TAF), which lend money to commercial banks, at $3.8 trillion.



Where it really gets interesting is when you look at the recipients of these funds. Two of the top three borrowers under the TAF were British banks, Barclays and the Inter-Alpha Group's Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS). The top five borrowers in the Single Tranche Open Market Operations (ST OMO) program were all foreign-based: Switzerland-based Credit Suisse, Germany's Deutsche Bank, France's BNP Paribas, RBS, and Barclays.



RBS, Deutsche Bank, and Credit Suisse were also among the top five borrowers in the TSLF and TOP programs. UBS of Switzerland was the largest borrower in the Commercial Paper Funding Facility (CPFF), although Barclays got the single-largest loan under the program; Dexia, RBS, and Fortis also made the top ten under the program. Deutsche Bank and Credit Suisse were the top two sellers of mortgage-backed securities to the Fed.



Excluding the CBLS, where the recipients have not been identified, the Levy study found that 84% of the bailout funds went to just 14 institutions, including $4.6 trillion to six foreign banks. And presumably those same foreign banks got a good chunk of the $8 trillion handed out through the European Central Bank under the CBLS.



Why was so much money given to foreign banks? The answer is simple: The purpose of the bailout was not to save the U.S. economy, but to save the British Empire. The banks that got the majority of the funds are all top players in the derivatives markets: JP Morgan Chase, Bank of America/Merrill Lynch, Citigroup, Goldman Sachs, and Morgan Stanley, Barclays and RBS in the U.K., and BNP Paribas, UBS, and Credit Suisse in continental Europe. The overriding characteristic of the bailout was, and remains, the support of the London-centered global derivatives market, the biggest financial looting operation on the planet.



While these banks are usually described as creatures of the nations in which they are based, the truth is that they are all global banks—more precisely, imperial banks. They are creatures of the British Empire, which sit like parasites in the nations where they are based—not "American" or "German" or "French," but imperial, looting both the people and the governments of their "home" nations. This system is what the Federal Reserve and U.S. Treasury chose to bail out, while letting the American economy collapse.



The Lying Fed

The Fed fought hard to prevent these details from ever seeing the light of day, but was finally forced by Congress to allow a limited GAO audit, and was forced by the courts to release information to Bloomberg under the Freedom of Information Act. The Fed much prefers to hide behind the American flag, while it steals us blind.



In early December, after some of these details came to public attention, Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke went on an arrogance offensive, claiming that news reports of these revelations contained "a variety of egregious errors and mistakes," and shamelessly lied that all "the disclosure issues raised in these articles have already been discussed and settled, first by the Federal Reserve through a variety of reports and public postings, and then by Congress after a public debate."



Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner has exhibited similar arrogance with his suggestions that the government has actually turned a profit on the bailout. The sleight of hand here involves defining the bailout as the TARP—when in reality the TARP is just a small part of it—and then claiming that the banks have repaid their TARP funds. The $45 billion each in TARP funds provided to Citigroup and Bank of America, for example, pale in comparison to the $2.6 trillion in support the Fed provided to Citi, and the $3.5 trillion it provided to Bank of America and its Merrill Lynch subsidiary. While the big banks have been able to pay back the TARP in this manner, the Special Inspector General of the TARP noted in October that, of the 707 banks which received TARP money, some 400 banks were still in the program, and that nearly half of them were not making their TARP dividend payments.



More than Money

As we said in the beginning, reality is much worse than these bailout figures suggest. The British Empire-run international financial system is, by intent, a criminal operation designed to loot the rest of the world. The corruption of individual institutions within that system is a reflection of the corruption of the system itself, not the other way around. The Federal government's decision to protect, rather than halt, this criminal activity inside the United States was a grave mistake. Millions of people who should have been protected have lost their jobs, their homes, their access to health care, and even to food, because the Federal government chose to protect the criminals over the victims.



We cannot quantify these costs, nor can they be measured in dollars alone, but they are all costs of the bailout policy. We are also witnessing the steady looting of our remaining savings, through interest-rate policies, understating the rate of inflation, market manipulations, and related actions. The value of our dollar itself, is being destroyed by these policies.



What is being destroyed, are not just the lives of current generations, but the lives of future generations. We are losing America to fascism, led by a fascist President and Congress, funded by fascist bankers, working for a system dedicated to enslaving humanity and reducing our population to less than 1 billion people.



What is being done is monstrous, but so is what is not being done. The future of mankind is being sacrificed, for a system that is going to fail anyway.





 

   



    

  

  

    
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THE GLOBAL FINANCIAL MELTDOWN - by moeenyaseen - 08-27-2006, 09:59 AM

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