The Editor of Expresso in Portugal wanted my take on the recent G-20 communique. Here is my “translation” of the official statement:
1. Now that the growth of debt and derivatives bubbles has stalled, we are committed to using governmental-central bank mechanisms to cover the positions of any of the large private financial institutions whose profits are at risk due to their management of these bubbles and who can use this opportunity to squeeze and acquire smaller rivals at low cost.
2. Our commitment to use derivatives and market interventions to shift investment from the real economy and commodities into a paper economy is firm. We will continue to use centralized governmental mechanisms to subsidize and manage this process.
3. All of the organizations and players who reaped a fortune engineering the debt and derivatives bubbles will be allowed to keep their winnings.
4. We will use this period of consolidation to further centralize the global financial system by enforcing greater centralization of the standards, practices and control of enforcement and regulatory bureaucracies. This increased governmental centralization will be presented as the “fix” for our “problems.”
5. We will continue the move toward one world government and one world currency.
6. We are prepared to use coordinated inflation of global money supplies and fiscal stimulus to protect our control and positions.
7. We are committed to the Slow Burn (see my blog post on this subject).
8. This process will continue to be managed to protect large insurance and risk positions.
9. The net result will be to continue to exercise growing control over the real economy by a handful of private families and institutions designed to protect and grow intergenerational wealth.
G-20 are silent on the military and covert action that will be required to make this stick. They are also silent on how they are going to manage this much inflation. For example, the most recent figures from the St. Louis Fed indicate that the aggregate monetary base is growing at an annualized rate of almost 800%.
Watch for a new focus on “green investing” as the trick in all of this will be how to create new productivity when the absence of real prices mean there is no market to provide the necessary signals and financial incentives.
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Video clip: Catherine Austin Fitts discusses Housing Bubble fraud in 2008: Live from San Francisco
Following a successful career on Wall Street, Catherine Austin Fitts was appointed U.S. Assistant Secretary of Housing / Federal Housing Commissioner in the first Bush administration. Catherine’s story is chronicled here: dunwalke.com.
Catherine: I wish you whould start a running series of brief translations of major policies and announcements. Granted, this whole site is a translation, but for certain issues, just your back of the envelope length summary would be incredibly useful for allowing local folks to understand, discuss, lobby, change behaviour. Just a thought.
Much peace.
h&f
Going forward in time you will see Fiscal Conservatism coming back into the world. Companies and individuals will expand using retained earnings vs borrowed money. Make sense?
Ironically, the new presidential administration is very leberal and liberal regarding money as well.
Look for the stock market to bottom in the middle of December and rally hard into June 2009. Do not be fooled. The economy will not stagger to it’s feet until 2011. More to come.
Let’s bring some definition of terms into this rambunctious dialog. Property, in our complex society, is always socially-created, not individually-created. Franklin called it a “creature of convention.” So, if we honestly recognize that property is in fact socially-created–as within and by a family– why can’t we be good family members and democratically regulate that property? Or is someone against democracy?
I do not advocate state-ownership by some oligarchy, capitalist or otherwise, but that is what we will get if we rest content with the present bailouts. I advocate going farther, and recognizing that property– because it is creature of society– be regulated and controlled by those members of the community most knowledgeable and able to control it, namely, by the people on the job; and let them control it democratically, because everybody likes democracy–or am I wrong about that?
Do you want a realistic, admirable and contemporary example of on-the-job democracy? Well, the best example I can offer is the internationally admired Semco Corporation in Sao Paolo, Brazil, a manufacturer of pumps. See Ricardo Semler’s “Maverick.” The company is highly productive, and has shown great creativity by the workers in resolving production problems. Everybody is happy at Semco.
But is our present economy a happy one? Not very. Aren’t we tired of the criminal conduct of Wall Street, and of various CEOs who bankrupt companies, get golden parachutes, and leave entire communities in unemployed tatters? Don’t we want something that works? Well, then, let’s not settle for any form of state-ownership. Or bumbling bureaucratic control. Let’s shorten the distance between producer and consumer. Who’s your banker? Who’s your farmer? Who’s your car-maker? asks Catherine. And the answer Catherine has been advocating, is that these folks should be the guy/gal next door. Someone in your community. Someone with a face. A competent person, of course. But someone you know, or can know. A neighbor, a friend, maybe a family member. Someone who works hard to be responsible, who strives to produce a reliable product or service. Someone like you or me.
What’s wrong with that?
Unbelievable. I knew the G-20 meeting was massively important, regardless of Bush and the MSM spinning it as a minor event. But, never, ever in my wildest dreams would I imagine a declaration of war against the citizens of the world.
This “communiqué” can be read as nothing less.
Dear Mike Montagne: Thank you for the story and equally important the two web-sites readers can go to to read the truth.
Abe Lincoln
As part of 2 [move to paper economy], all needy families over the holidays will be supplied with pictures of a roasted turkey, as well as pictures of stuffing, mashed potatoes, cranberry sauce, green beans, etc. Pictures of sparkling wine available in some areas. Enjoy.
See My Letter to America: http://www.JoeSixPack.me
To Dogismyth, who says:
“Why don’t you and your rich friends do something about this since you have far more power than any of us? All WE get is the same story…that its getting worse and no one can do anything. Yada yada yada.
I’m tired of reading the same old thing, over and over. WHAT ARE YOU GOING TO DO ABOUT IT LEADER???? Create another blog…?”
I have known Catherine for 13 years, I think. My favorite Catherinism is “The good news is we are the leaders. The bad news is we are the leaders.” I believe one gets real power by exercising it. That is the only sense in which Catherine has power, because, as you would know if you had read *Dillon Read and the Aristocracy of Prison Profits,* Catherine was relieved of her worldly tangible and financial assets by a US government and its puppeteers bent on maintaining the status quo and preventing reform. As long as the so called “powerless” people continue to vote with their money for the likes of JP Morgan Chase, GOldman Sachs, Bank of America and all the other thieves, listen to the lies the media tells, eat the adulterated food that numbs their minds and causes physical ailments and fail to insist on meaningful election reform, our elected officials will be owned lock, stock and barrel by crooks and the few true, good-hearted and honest leaders who nevertheless ARE elected will have no air cover and no mandate from the people to institute change. This is why, even if Barack Obama were a saint, he could do very little to fix the predicament we have gotten ourselves into. He certainly would be risking his life were he to try to without a mandate for change, and he has no real mandate for change.