World Financial Crisis (and fallout) Part 4

thanks wrote:

states in the US and Europe may be in great debt, but the private bankers are collectively in hundreds of trillions of debt.   That is the figure -six hundred trillion-

That's insane.  $600 trillion?

thanks wrote:

Currently no civil society groups in Canada except the Committee on Monetary and Economic Reform are actively promoting public/community finance instead of banker rule.  (unless one counts alternative media as 'active civil society'.

 thanks,  is their a consensus among COMER as to what percentage of GCM vs BCM there should be? Should we go back to the way it was between 1938 and 1974 with about one-quarter of the money supply coming from the feds? I noticed COMER and the CAP were somewhat excited when Jack Layton mentioned during the 2004 election campaign that there are better uses for the Bank of Canada. The NDP has tried to get people interested in the banking and finance ripoff in this country and especially since 1991, but I've noticed that very many progressives here don't seem to be interested. GCM was mainly how we used to finance social programs and infrastructure across Canada. And today we have hundred billion dollar infrastructure deficits and private enterprise wanting pieces of the common good hacked off and thrown their way.

If we did have some larger percentage of the money supply as GCM, would kids still be able to finance their expensive sports cars, and would people still be able to mega-borrow for mini mansions and homes costing an arm and a leg to heat and electrify? Canada used to afford a national housing strategy, but it was scrapped in the 1990s. And ever since money creation was fully privatized in Canada, homelessness and lack of affordable housing has become a problem. Markets do not fill the bill for all Canadians. Is there something that runs even deeper and more wrong with our neoliberalized economy and society than most care to admit?

thanks:

"I really wish more progressives would advocate use of public/community finance. "

Right on, thanks. We would have to create some means of doing this, and financial vehicles, say public pension funds at the provincial level. Otherwise the average masses will see it only as a "cost"...and finance capital will be right there to assure them that it is. New Democrats must expand on their chatter about expanding public pensions.

And may I say how re-assuring it is to see advocacy of financial action...something beyond bricks.

The Worst Money Supply Plunge Since the Depression

http://www.businessinsider.com/money-supply-double-dip-2010-5

"The negative take is that this crashing money supply will lead to both deflation and a double dip recession"

The Eco-Socialist Alternative:

quote:
But despite the dominance of the development ideology, it is fair to say that there have been some significant achievements in the fight to get rid of the legitimating myths of capitalist modernity and lay the foundations for a truly alternative political paradigm. An example is the principle of Good Living, which underlies the constitutions of Bolivia and Ecuador. Good Living or Sumak Kawsay, in Quechua, is a concept from the worldview of the native peoples of the Andes and the Amazon, which refers to community life in harmony with nature and culture or wisdom of the ancestors. It has nothing to do with modern anxiety for “better,” nor with the ideology of unlimited growth and progress. It responds to a world view totally different from the capitalist ethic which encourages us to compete with others to produce and consume more, regardless of why our fellows have to “live evil.” As Leonardo Boff says:

    “On the contrary, Good Living Ethics points toward having enough for the whole community, not just for the individual. Good Living is a holistic and integrated human being, immersed in the great earth, which also includes humans, air, water, soils, mountains, trees and animals (...) in deep communion with Mother Earth." [3]

The Good Life is one of the most original conceptions inspiring revolutionary processes taking place in Latin America. Based on this philosophy, it is possible to characterize the fundamental force lines of the transition that will allow us to save civilization from the devastation of capitalism and contribute to the flourishing eco-socialist societies of the XXI Century.

http://venezuelanalysis.com/analysis/5394

Euro Zone has Failed says Czech President

... in a country that has banned the Communist Youth organization despite having Communists in their Parliament.

Say what you want about where he gets published, Vaclav Klaus is no dummy:

Quote:

It is evident that the euro-the European single currency-and the currently proposed measures to save the euro do not represent any "salvation" for the European economy. In the long run, it can be saved only by a radical restructuring of the European economic and social system. My country had a velvet revolution and made a radical transformation of its political, economic and social structures. Fifteen years ago, I sometimes joked that after entering the EU we should start a velvet revolution there as well. Unfortunately, this ceases to be a joke now.

What Happened To the 'Death of the Dollar'? by William Engdahl (2 parts)

http://www.therealnews.com/t2/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=...

Dow Jones is tanking again today already down 230 points to 10,025!

At its peak the DJIA was at 14,198 on October 11, 2007, so that's a drop of 4,173 or down 29.4% 

They are all being hired for security in TO. ;)

DJI now trading below 10,000 droping over 260 points so far today.

I sense a buying opportunity soon.

Spanish workers strike over cuts

Spanish public sector trade unions are holding strikes around the country in protest against government austerity measures.

Tens of thousands of workers stayed away from work on Tuesday following government plans last month to cut public sector workers' wages by five per cent to reduce the country's large state deficit.

Spain's two largest unions said they believed three-quarters of public sector workers were staying at home, leaving state schools, hospitals and emergency services with minimum staff....

http://english.aljazeera.net/news/europe/2010/06/20106842521933136.html

Markets About to Turn Nasty, 'Buy Barbed Wire and Guns'

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article25649.htm

"Look at the current situation. You have Greece, now you have Hungary and huge issues surrounding Spain and Portugal...I don't want to scare anyone but I am considering investing in barbed wire and guns, things are not looking good and rates are heading higher.."

THANKS: You might be interested in a copyable PDF going into some detail about what bank-created money has meant to Canada over the last 30 years - in the larger context, allowing private banks to create our money, with no realistic reguation, has been the cause of every economic problem we have seen in the last 150 years and longer. What Happened? http://www.rudemacedon.ca/what-happened.html

thanks siamdave for the link.  i'll try to check it out.

It's difficult to understand the options floating around:

Carney and G20 leaders/finance ministers seem to recommending steps like increasing capital reserve requirements, limits to leverage, etc. which progressives have advocated in the past.  The approach, though, is a wishy-washy meandering affair largely determined by private financiers who run central banks, as summarized by Kohn, Chair of the BIS Committee on the Global Financial System and Vice-Chair of the Board of the private US Federal Reserve http://www.bis.org/publ/cgfs38.pdf?noframes=1 .

Some banking lobby groups oppose these requirements. http://www.cbc.ca/fp/story/2010/06/10/3136028.html  Reflexive, maybe a negotiating style, certainly short-sighted.

BIS/G20 measures, which might have helped a decade ago, now seem as effective as arranging deck chairs on the Titanic; the tinkering  ignores the main problem/s of a system wherein every creature on the planet feeds a few lousy bankers.  The human population is bizarrely and increasingly chained to same bankers through pension funds, public-private partnerships, and the rest of it.  The entire ship is sinking in unfathomable debt and G20 leaders and central/bankers seem completely incapable of dealing with reality.

The reality is that the publics of the world cannot be squeezed any more.

A comment yesterday at CBC on Carney's speech http://www.cbc.ca/money/story/2010/06/10/carney-risk-reform.html implied that customer deposits were all that made up capital reserves.  Rather, capital reserves can be composed of any income a financier makes-including interest paid by governments on loans. So maybe banking lobbyists are just faking their opposition- you'd think they'd welcome having more money in the pot.  Guess they can make more short-term cash with low reserves, and lots of derivatives spinning.  They can exit quickly if need be with more in pocket.

I'm just not sure how much is game and how much financiers are really dependent upon states like Greece not defaulting. What's the worst that can happen with defaults?  If all states have to massacre public space and the planet, or default, then its obvious a new financial system is needed, not just an increased capital reserve here or a leverage limit there determined by bankers themselves, even with G20-harmonized direction. 

G20 leaders in cahoots with bankers are resisting public/ community control of finance, even a minor tax.   They are in denial regarding the capacity of peoples and the earth to continue propping up the status quo. 

All nations and Indigenous communities, civil society and local communities need to participate in developing a system that deals fairly with their funds and the earth.

Euro: the Worst Case Scenario

http://www.voltairenet.org/article165569.html

"The Greek budgetary crisis, which has become a crisis of the euro, is not the inevitable result of market self-regulation, but rather the consequence of a deliberate attack. According to Jean-Michel-Vernochet, the crisis was provoked by an economic offensive directed from Washington and London that followed similiar principles to those of contemporary military warfare, employing game theory and a strategy of 'constructive chaos'.."

That's just like the old DDR (East Germany). The DDR had a huge surveillance apparatus whose sheer cost helped topple the Honnecker regime. In California, it's about cutting taxes for the rich and damn the torpedoes.

"Josef Ackermann, head of Deutsche Bank, warned last week that it would be "very dangerous" to publish the results of each bank"

This statement alludes to the fact that banks are bankrupt, including US-based banks, which are completely dependent upon public money.

That dependence includes interest from governments on loans - loans which were unnecessary as governments could simply have created loans to themselves at no interest, or spent directly.   The author of a sixties' US history book named the practice of government loaning from banks as a subsidy: " It [government] sweetens the disposition of bankers by allowing them to create the credit which it borrows, actually a subsidy." Survey of American History, 2nd Ed., Baldwin-Kelley, American Book Company, 1967, p381. 

Banker-dependence also includes the myriad of public subsidies based on tax breaks, exploitation of people and resources, control of exchanges, etc.

The G20 people's summit hosted a forum noted at http://www.comer.org/hellyerg20.htm, wherein one of the presenters advocated only one third government-created money to two-thirds banker-created money, along with provisions like statutory reserves which would theoretically help control the two thirds power.

Many labour and allied groups are advocating for a Robin Hood tax to curb speculation.

Reserves and financial transaction taxes could be useful, but what if bankers are so indebted that these reserves and taxes will only be squeezed from more public austerity?

Governments, having stupidly given away their power to create money need to reclaim that power, and the entire debt-based global financial system needs to be scrapped. 

I don't understand why unions and other groups, even COMER now, fail to articulate these options. 

Well, maybe i do.  It's because there are still not enough people who know about the possibilities of reclaiming public/community money-creation.  Movements are already established for a transaction/Robin Hood tax, which would at least help the public access the 'very dangerous' information of bankers' books and provide an informed base for scrapping inequities.

COMER's Bank of Canada tutorial and other resources are useful, of course.  And they're dead right on the fact that monetary reform history has been removed from texts in the last few decades- the standard Western Civilization text by Burns, updated by Lerner and Meacham, has no record of monetary policy changes in the last century at all.

"Very dangerous" indeed.

Australian government targets diabetes sufferers to cut health costs
By John Mackay
23 June 2010

Nearly three months ago, as part of its cost-cutting health “reform” agenda, the Australian government announced a plan to shift diabetes patients onto a “managed care” system. There are concerns among doctors that diabetes sufferers are being made a test case for a new scheme to ration access to medical care.

In effect, Prime Minister Kevin Rudd’s diabetes plan is a trial for broader steps to erode the 35-year-old Medicare public insurance system, under which patients are meant to be able to see General Practitioners (GPs) without charge, and with no limit on the number of visits. By signing up to “personalised care plans” with GPs, however, diabetes patients will only receive care within a capped annual budget....

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2010/jun2010/diab-j23.shtml

as noted here

http://www.rabble.ca/babble/international-news-and-politics/self-determi...

US private bankers and the US dollar rule, and the G8/G20 are complicit through the Financial Stability Board.

Following US House/Senate meetings that concluded Thursday, Obama announced that,

"We’ll make our financial system more transparent by bringing the kinds of complex deals that help trigger this crisis, like trades in a $600 trillion derivatives market, into the light of day.  We’ll enact the Volcker Rule to make sure that banks protected by the safety net of the FDIC can’t engage in risky trades for their own profit...No longer will we have companies that are “too big to fail”.  " http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2010/06/25/president-commends-congress-fi...

The reason there will be no companies "too big to fail" is because competitors will be wound down and the toxic gaming of remaining large private Federal Reserve banks will remain.  An 'emergency lending program or facility' will support financiers.

At babble earlier the loan bailout program was described in the Senate bill at section 1155.  The side-by-side comparison with the House bill states that Senate section 1155 is opposite House Title 1, B, Section 1109 which is found on page 117 at

http://financialservices.house.gov/Key_Issues/Financial_Regulatory_Refor... .

Public loan bailouts are available, for those the Federal Reserve bankers self-determine are 'solvent', but the private Federal Reserve banks get their money by loaning to government, (remember the bank-created money scheme vs. government-created money) so the public will actually pay twice - on past bailouts which now prop up the private banks which make up the FDIC, and again through loan facilities.  The intravenous flow of blood from donor to recipient is made permanent, until the donor public dies.

The toxic derivatives gaming of private Federal Reserve banks is not deemed risky because 'supervisors' will receive reports "regarding covered transactions upon the release of the information regarding such covered transactions by the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System as provided by Section 11(s) of the Federal Reserve Act."

http://financialservices.house.gov/Key_Issues/Financial_Regulatory_Refor... (related House amendment offers. Other amendments at http://financialservices.house.gov/Key_Issues/Financial_Regulatory_Refor...).

Reports are produced by the Federal Reserve banks, regarding their own 'stability', using general summaries of asset or collateral positions, but transaction records themselves are to be kept confidential (p.7 line 7 of House pdf above) unless determined by said Federal Reserve that it's ok to release details.  Circular secrecy.

The G8/G20 and the global public can only be sure that the private banks of the US Federal Reserve will continue with derivatives trading, the specific transactions will remain private (unless the G20 implement a Robin Hood tax), and the public will give transfusions until it passes out.

Continuing on this path, all states will be required to squeeze residents dry through austerity. 

The system is crashed already, the bankers are simply trying to get the last few dregs of public juice before the entire structure is revamped.

The fences at the G Summits are banker safety nets.

Doug wrote:

epaulo13 wrote:

In effect, Prime Minister Kevin Rudd’s diabetes plan is a trial for broader steps to erode the 35-year-old Medicare public insurance system, under which patients are meant to be able to see General Practitioners (GPs) without charge, and with no limit on the number of visits. By signing up to “personalised care plans” with GPs, however, diabetes patients will only receive care within a capped annual budget....

 

Rudd is no more.   Australian Labour has caved on  the question of heavy taxation of natural resources.  Rudd is terminated. Unions demand that the heavy taxation of mining exports be dropped, and Rudd's attempt to require the mining industry to pay for environmental costs is dropped.   Labour again  undermines attempts to bring environmental demands to the fore.  The 70s re-visited ( de-javu all over again.).

 

Sounds to me like they're moving from a pay-per-service model to a capitation model for health care - that's a good thing.