tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-38610390461035274052024-02-19T04:44:34.598-08:00Political EconomyStandard & Living Conditionsabe ma6 - anakmatlesenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14267755917075009170noreply@blogger.comBlogger244125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3861039046103527405.post-26139190631909862092017-02-12T08:54:00.001-08:002017-02-12T08:54:47.886-08:00Exposing the Myths of Neoliberal Capitalism:<div style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 14.85px; text-align: justify;">
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<span style="font-size: medium;">AN INTERVIEW WITH HA-JOON CHANG</span></h2>
<span class="itemDateCreated" style="color: #999999; font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", Times, serif; font-size: 11px; text-align: start;">Wednesday, February 08, 2017</span><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", Times, serif; font-size: 17px; text-align: start;"></span><span class="itemAuthor" style="color: #9c162e; display: block; font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", Times, serif; font-size: 13px; font-style: italic; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-align: start;">By <a href="http://www.truth-out.org/author/itemlist/user/45668" style="color: #9c162e; outline: none; text-decoration: none;">C.J. Polychroniou</a>, Truthout | Interview</span><br /><br /><img alt="Author and economics professor Ha-Joon Chang. (Photo: New America; Edited: LW / TO)" src="http://www.truth-out.org/images/Images_2017_02/2017_0208chang.jpg" width="530" /></div>
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<span class="wf_caption" style="display: block; line-height: 1.2; max-width: 540px; width: 538px;"><span style="display: block; margin-top: 3px; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">Author and economics professor Ha-Joon Chang. (Photo: <a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/newamerica/15157954060/in/photolist-9unYAx-9unYCp-ewxuTG-pnXo6i-pkVmPN-pkVmEu-pnF6Qv-p6stDw-o42iyK-46Z78c-pnXp9v-PELtqJ-pnF72x-PHvJkp-fXnEDy-fJnKNa-fJnB28" style="color: #9c162e; outline: none; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">New America</a>; Edited: LW / TO)</span></span></span></div>
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For the part 40 years or so, neoliberalism has reigned supreme over much of the western capitalist world, producing unparalleled wealth accumulation levels for a handful of individuals and global corporations while the rest of society has been asked to swallow austerity, stagnating incomes and a shrinking welfare state. But just when we all thought that the contradictions of neoliberal capitalism had reached their penultimate point, culminating in mass discontent and opposition to global neoliberalism, the outcome of the 2016 US presidential election brought to power a megalomaniac individual who subscribes to neoliberal capitalist economics while opposing much of its global dimension.</div>
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What exactly then is neoliberalism? What does it stand for? And what should we make of Donald Trump's economic pronouncements? In this exclusive interview, world-renowned Cambridge University Professor of Economics Ha-Joon Chang responds to these urgent questions, emphasizing that despite Donald Trump's advocacy of "infrastructure spending" and his opposition to "free trade" agreements, we should be deeply concerned about his economic policies, his embrace of neoliberalism and his fervent loyalty to the rich.</div>
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<strong>C. J. Polychroniou: For the past 40 or so years, the ideology and policies of "free-market" capitalism have reigned supreme in much of the advanced industrialized world. Yet, much of what passes as "free-market" capitalism are actually measures designed and promoted by the capitalist state on behalf of the dominant factions of capital. What other myths and lies about "actually existing capitalism" are worth pointing out?</strong></div>
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<strong>Ha-Joon Chang:</strong> Gore Vidal, the American writer, once famously said that the American economic system is "free enterprise for the poor and socialism for the rich." I think this statement very well sums up what has passed for 'free-market capitalism' in the last few decades, especially but not only in the US. In the last few decades, the rich have been increasingly protected from the market forces, while the poor have been more and more exposed to them.</div>
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For the rich, the last few decades have been "heads I win, tails you lose." Top managers, especially in the US, sign on pay packages that give them hundreds of millions of dollars for failing -- and many times more for doing a decent job. Corporations are subsidised on a massive scale with few conditions -- sometimes directly but often indirectly through government procurement programs (especially in defense) with inflated price tags and free technologies produced by government-funded research programs. After every financial crisis, ranging from the 1982 Chilean banking crisis through the Asian financial crisis of 1997 to the 2008 global financial crisis, banks have been bailed out with hundreds of trillions of dollars of taxpayers' money and few top bankers have gone to prison. In the last decade, the asset-owning classes in the rich countries have also been kept afloat by historically low rates of interests.</div>
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In contrast, poor people have been increasingly subject to market forces.</div>
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In the name of increasing "labor market flexibility," the poor have been increasingly deprived of their rights as workers. This trend has reached a new level with the emergence of the so-called "gig economy," in which workers are bogusly hired as "self-employed" (without the control over their work that the truly self-employed exercise) and deprived of even the most basic rights (e.g., sick leave, paid holiday). With their rights weakened, the workers have to engage in a race to the bottom in which they compete by accepting increasingly lower wages and increasingly poor working conditions.</div>
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In the area of consumption, increasing privatization and deregulation of industries supplying basic services on which the poor are relatively more reliant upon -- like water, electricity, public transport, postal services, basic health care and basic education -- have meant that the poor have seen a disproportionate increase in the exposure of their consumption to the logic of the market. In the last several years since the 2008 financial crisis, welfare entitlements have been reduced in many countries and the terms of their access (e.g., increasingly ungenerous "fitness for work tests" for the disabled, the mandatory training for CV-making for those receiving unemployment benefits) have become less generous, driving more and more poor people into labor markets they are not fit to compete in.</div>
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As for the other myths and lies about capitalism, the most important in my view is the myth that there is an objective domain of the economy into which political logic should not intrude. Once you accept the existence of this exclusive domain of the economy, as most people have done, you get to accept the authority of the economic experts, as interlocutors of some scientific truths about the economy, who will then dictate the way your economy is run.</div>
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However, there is no objective way to determine the boundary of the economy because the market itself is a political construct, as shown by the fact that it is illegal today in the rich countries to buy and sell a lot of things that used to be freely bought and sold -- such as slaves and the labor service of children.</div>
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In turn, if there is no objective way to draw the boundary around the economy, when people argue against the intrusion of political logic into the economy, they are in fact only asserting that their own 'political' view of what belongs in the domain of the market is somehow the correct one.</div>
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It is very important to reject the myth of [an] inviolable boundary of the economy, because that is the starting point of challenging the status quo. If you accept that the welfare state should be shrunk, labor rights have to be weakened, plant closures have to be accepted, and so on because of some objective economic logic (or "market forces," as it is often called), it becomes virtually impossible to modify the status quo.</div>
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<strong>Austerity has become the prevailing dogma throughout Europe, and it is high on the Republican agenda. If austerity is also based on lies, what is its actual objective?</strong></div>
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A lot of people -- Joseph Stiglitz, Paul Krugman, Mark Blyth and Yanis Varoufakis, to name some prominent names -- have written that austerity does not work, especially in the middle of an economic downturn (as it was practised in many developing countries under the World Bank-IMF Structural Adjustment Programs in the 1980s and the 1990s and more recently in Greece, Spain and other Eurozone countries).</div>
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Many of those who push for austerity do so because they genuinely (albeit mistakenly) believe that it works, but those who are smart enough to know that it doesn't still would use it because it is a very good way of shrinking the state (and thus giving more power to the corporate sector, including the foreign one) and changing the nature of state activities into a pro-corporate one (e.g., it is almost always welfare spending that goes first).</div>
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In other words, austerity is a very good way of pushing through a regressive political agenda without appearing to do so. You say you are cutting spending because you have to balance the books and put the house in order, when you are actually launching an attack on the working class and the poor. This is, for example, what the Conservative-Liberal Democrats coalition government in the UK said when it launched a very severe austerity program upon assuming power in 2010 -- the country's public finance at the time was such that it did not need such a severe austerity program, even by the standards of orthodox economics.</div>
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<strong>What do you make of all the talk about the dangers of public debt? How much public debt is too much?</strong></div>
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Whether public debt is good or bad depends on when the money was borrowed (better if it were during an economic downturn), how the borrowed money was used (better if it was used for investment in infrastructure, research, education, or health than military expenditure or building useless monuments), and who holds the bonds (better if your own nationals do, as it will reduce the danger of a "run" on your country -- for example, one reason why Japan can sustain very high levels of public debt is that the vast majority of its public debts are held by the Japanese nationals).</div>
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Of course, excessively high public debt can be a problem, but what is excessively high depends on the country and the circumstances. So, for example, according to the IMF data, as of 2015, Japan has public debt equivalent to 248 percent of GDP but no one talks of the danger of it. People may say Japan is special and point out that in the same year the US had public debt equivalent to 105 percent of GDP, which is much higher than that of, say,South Korea (38 percent), Sweden (43 percent), or even Germany (71 percent), but they may be surprised to hear that Singapore also has public debt equivalent to 105 percent of GDP, even though we hardly hear any worry about public debt of Singapore.</div>
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<strong>A number of well-respected economists are arguing that the era of economic growth has ended. Do you concur with this view?</strong></div>
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A lot of people now talk of a "new normal" and a "secular stagnation" in which high inequality, aging population, and deleveraging (reduction in debt) by the private sector lead to chronically low economic growth, which can only be temporarily boosted by financial bubbles that are unsustainable in the long run.</div>
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Given that these causes can be countered by policy measures, secular stagnation is not inevitable. Aging can be countered by policy changes that make work and child-rearing more compatible (e.g., cheaper and better childcare, flexible working hours, career compensation for childcare) and by increased immigration. Inequality can be countered by more aggressive tax-and-transfer policy and by better protection for the weak (e.g., urban planning protecting small shops, supports for SMEs). Deleveraging by the private sector can be countered by increased government spending, as the Japanese experience of the last quarter century shows.</div>
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Of course, saying that secular stagnation <em>can</em> be countered is different from saying that it <em>will</em> be countered. For example, the quickest policy that can counter ageing -- that is, increased immigration -- is politically unpopular. In many rich countries, the alignment of political and economic forces is such that it will be difficult to reduce inequality significantly in the short- to medium-run. The current fiscal dogma is such that fiscal expansion seems unlikely in most countries in the near future.</div>
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Thus, in the short- to medium-run, low growth seems very likely. However, this does not mean that this will forever be the case. In the longer run, the changes in politics and thus, economic policies may change policies in such a way that the causes of "secular stagnation" are countered to a significant extent. This highlights how important the political struggle to change economic policies is.</div>
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<strong>What is your professional opinion of Donald Trump's proposed economic policies, which clearly embrace neoliberalism and all sort of shenanigans for the rich but oppose global "free-trade" agreements, and what do you expect to happen when they collide with Ryan's austerity budget?</strong></div>
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Mr. Trump's plan for American economic revival is still vague, but, as far as I can tell, it has two main planks -- making American corporations create more jobs [at] home and increasing infrastructural investments.</div>
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The first plank seems rather fanciful. He says that he will do it mainly by engaging in greater protectionism, but it won't work because of two reasons.</div>
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First, the US is bound by all sorts of international trade agreements -- the WTO, the NAFTA, and various bilateral free-trade agreements (with Korea, Australia, Singapore, etc.). Although you can push things in the protectionist direction on the margin even within this framework, it will be difficult for the US to slap extra tariffs that are big enough to bring American jobs back under the rules of these agreements. Mr. Trump's team says they will renegotiate these agreements, but that will take years, not months, and won't produce any visible result at least during the first term of Mr. Trump's presidency.</div>
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Second, even if large extra tariffs can somehow be imposed against international agreements, the structure of the US economy today is such that there will be huge resistance against these protectionist measures within the US. Many imports from countries like China and Mexico are things that are produced by -- or at least produced for -- American companies. When the price of iPhone and Nike trainers made in China or GM cars made in Mexico go up by 20 percent, 35 percent, not only American consumers but companies like Apple, Nike and GM will be intensely unhappy. But would this result in Apple or GM moving production back to the US? No, they will probably move it to Vietnam or Thailand, which is not hit by those tariffs.</div>
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The point is that, the hollowing out of American manufacturing industry has progressed in the contexts of (US-led) globalization of production and restructuring of the international trade system and cannot be reversed with simple protectionist measures. It will require a total rewriting of global trade rules and restructuring of the so-called global value chain.</div>
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Even at the domestic level, American economic revival will require far more radical measures than what the Trump administration is contemplating. It will require a systematic industrial policy that rebuilds the depleted productive capabilities of the US economy, ranging from worker skills, managerial competences, industrial research base and modernised infrastructure. To be successful, such industrial policy will have to be backed up by a radical redesigning of the financial system, so that more "patient capital" is made available for long-term-oriented investments and more talented people come to work in the industrial sector, rather than going into investment banking or foreign exchange trading.</div>
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The second plank of Mr. Trump's strategy for the revival of the US economy is investment in infrastructure.</div>
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As mentioned above, the improvement in infrastructure is an ingredient in a genuine strategy of American economic renewal. However, as you suggest in your question, this may meet resistance from fiscal conservatives in the Republican-dominated Congress. It will be interesting to watch how this pans out, but my bigger worry is that Mr. Trump is likely to encourage "wrong" kinds of infrastructural investments -- that is, those related to real estate (his natural territory), rather than those related to industrial development. This not only will fail to contribute to the renewal of the US economy but it may also contribute to creating real estate bubbles, which were an important cause behind the 2008 global financial crisis.</div>
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<a href="http://www.truth-out.org/author/itemlist/user/45668" style="color: #9c162e; outline: none; text-decoration: none;">C.J. POLYCHRONIOU</a></h2>
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<span lang="EN-US">C.J. Polychroniou is a political economist/political scientist who has taught and worked in universities and research centers in Europe and the United States. His main research interests are in European economic integration, globalization, the political economy of the United States and the deconstruction of neoliberalism's politico-economic project. He is a regular contributor to Truthout as well as a member of Truthout's Public Intellectual Project. He has published several books and his articles have appeared in a variety of journals, magazines, newspapers and popular news websites. Many of his publications have been translated into several foreign languages, including Croatian, French, Greek, Italian, Portuguese, Spanish and Turkish.</span></div>
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abe ma6 - anakmatlesenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14267755917075009170noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3861039046103527405.post-71122432774623373712015-03-13T08:01:00.001-07:002015-03-13T08:01:36.121-07:00Iran Is Ditching The Dollar<div class="entry-content story" style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.5em; overflow-x: hidden;">
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Russia’s President Vladimir Putin (R) shakes hands with his Iranian counterpart Hassan Rouhani at the welcoming ceremony during a summit of Caspian Sea regional leaders in the southern city of Astrakhan, September 29, 2014.</div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; line-height: 1.5em;">Iran reportedly is no longer using the US dollar in foreign trade transactions and is replacing it with other currencies, t</span><span style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; line-height: 1.5em;">he deputy governor at the Iranian Central Bank Gholami Kamyab said, according to </span><a href="http://sputniknews.com/middleeast/20150124/1017299147.html" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; box-sizing: border-box; color: #428bca; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; line-height: 1.5em; text-decoration: none;">Sputnik News</a><span style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; line-height: 1.5em;">.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">“In trade exchanges with the foreign countries, Iran uses other currencies including Chinese yuan, euro, Turkish lira, Russian ruble, and South Korean won,” <span style="box-sizing: border-box;">Kamyab reportedly said.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;">He also reportedly added that Iran was considering bilateral currency swap agreements, which would allow partners to exchange one foreign currency for the equivalent in the other currency. He did not explicitly name partners, however.</span><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"> </span><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"> </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;">Although nuclear sanctions imposed on Iran over years are meant to deter the state from building up its nuclear arms program, they could also be the catalyst that is pushing Iran to look for new economic partners. <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/weaponization-of-finance-eurasia-group-2015-1" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; box-sizing: border-box; color: #428bca; text-decoration: none;">A</a></span><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/weaponization-of-finance-eurasia-group-2015-1" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; box-sizing: border-box; color: #428bca; text-decoration: none;">s Ian Bremmer noted</a>, the glaring drawback of using coercive sanctions (and other weaponizations of finance), is that the targeted countries can and will increasingly diversify away from the dollar.</span></span></div>
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<span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">And over the past few years, Iran has been strengthening economic and military ties with others countries (including China and Russia) in an effort to circumvent the Western-imposed sanctions.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;">Turkey ran an extensive gas-for-gold scheme with Iran, which ran from about </span><span style="box-sizing: border-box;">March 2012 to the fall of 2013 and yielded Iran more than $13 billion dollars amid crippling sanctions implemented by the U.S. over the country’s perceived nuclear program.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;">“It’s a huge amount of money,” Jonathan Schanzer, <span style="box-sizing: border-box;">a former terrorism finance analyst at the U.S. Department of the Treasury</span><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"> </span>who <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/%20%22It's%20a%20huge%20amount%20of%20money,%22%20Schanzer,%20who%20detailed%20the%20scheme%20in%20Foreign%20Policy,%20The%20Turks%20initially%20said%20that%20they%20were%20doing%20it%20legally%20because%20they%20weren't%20working%20directly%20with%20the%20govt%20with%20Iran%20but%20rather%20with%20individuals.%20The%20sanctions%20loophole%20was%20closed%20in%20January%20%5B2013%5D%20...%20and%20the%20U.S.%20gave%20the%20Turks%20an%20additional%206%20month%20runway%20to%20continue%20this%20which%20makes%20o%20sense%20to%20me%20whatsoever.%22" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; box-sizing: border-box; color: #428bca; text-decoration: none;">detailed the arrangement in Foreign Policy</a>, said. </span><span style="box-sizing: border-box;">“You can’t ignore the fact that the Turks helped Iran with a massive sanctions-busting scheme.”</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;">Russia and Iran recently signed a deal to </span><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/russia-to-build-more-nuclear-reactors-in-iran-2014-11" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; box-sizing: border-box; color: #428bca; text-decoration: none;">build more nuclear reactors</a><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"> in Iran (after already pledging </span><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/r-russia-may-build-eight-nuclear-reactors-for-iran-2014-22" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; box-sizing: border-box; color: #428bca; text-decoration: none;">eight in May</a><span style="box-sizing: border-box;">), signed a military deal for </span><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/russia-iran-signed-military-cooperation-2015-1" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; box-sizing: border-box; color: #428bca; text-decoration: none;">increased cooperation in the Middle East</a> (both countries staunchly back the Syrian regime of Bashar al-Assad),<span style="box-sizing: border-box;"> and are forming an “</span><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/john-schindler-syria-brought-russia-and-iran-closer-2014-10" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; box-sizing: border-box; color: #428bca; text-decoration: none;">espionage alliance</a>.<span style="box-sizing: border-box;">“</span></span></div>
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<span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">In August, Russia and Iran <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/reports-that-russia-and-iran-signed-oil-deal-2014-8" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; box-sizing: border-box; color: #428bca; text-decoration: none;">may have signed</a> a $20 billion oil deal, in which Russia would buy Iranian oil in exchange for Russian goods and equipment, although the exact terms of the deal (and whether or not it actually went through) are pretty hazy.</span></span></div>
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<span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/r-iran-russia-working-to-seal-20-billion-oil-for-goods-deal-sources-2014-02#ixzz3Pz6evIld" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; box-sizing: border-box; color: #428bca; text-decoration: none;">The White House previously said</a> that such a deal would raise “serious concerns” and would be inconsistent with the nuclear talks between world powers and Iran.</span></span></div>
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<span style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">China has also expressed interested in <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/r-china-says-wants-closer-military-ties-with-iran-2014-10" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; box-sizing: border-box; color: #428bca; text-decoration: none;">having closer military ties with Iran</a>, and has on <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/china-sold-iran-9-million-in-ibm-equipment-2012-4" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; box-sizing: border-box; color: #428bca; text-decoration: none;">occasion</a> <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/iran-china-oil-barter-2011-07" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; box-sizing: border-box; color: #428bca; text-decoration: none;">circumvented</a> the sanctions imposed on Iran in the past few years.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;">The bigger picture of what’s going on is that over the past several months several non-Western countries — including </span><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/north-korea-is-accepting-rubles-now-2015-1" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; box-sizing: border-box; color: #428bca; text-decoration: none;">Russia</a><span style="box-sizing: border-box;">, </span><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/russia-and-china-sign-billion-gas-pipeline-mega-deal-2014-5" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; box-sizing: border-box; color: #428bca; text-decoration: none;">China</a><span style="box-sizing: border-box;">, </span><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/putin-modi-india-new-deals-2014-12" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; box-sizing: border-box; color: #428bca; text-decoration: none;">India</a><span style="box-sizing: border-box;">, and </span><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/r-putin-backs-deeper-ties-with-north-korea-after-meeting-kim-envoy-2014-11" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; box-sizing: border-box; color: #428bca; text-decoration: none;">North Korea</a><span style="box-sizing: border-box;"> — have been strengthening their military, energy, and economic relationships with each other.</span></span></div>
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<span class="s1" style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">So bottom line: Iran’s diversification away from the dollar could be another snippet in that larger trend.</span></span></div>
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<a href="http://www.businessinsider.my/iran-is-ditching-the-dollar-in-foreign-trade-2015-1/#lZ38x6PWoQsfpdBz.99" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;" target="_blank">Read more</a><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"> </span></div>
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</span></span></span>abe ma6 - anakmatlesenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14267755917075009170noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3861039046103527405.post-81991974867990746482015-02-02T01:00:00.003-08:002015-02-02T01:00:44.638-08:00Wealth accumulation - Is the global system rigged to their advantage?<div id="watch-uploader-info" style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 17px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><strong class="watch-time-text" style="background: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: middle;">Published on 26 Jan 2015 | </strong><span style="background-color: transparent;">One percent already has half the world’s wealth under its thumb and at this rate is set to accumulate even more. As much of the world slowly recovers from severe recession, the rich are prospering and greatly so.</span></span></div>
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abe ma6 - anakmatlesenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14267755917075009170noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3861039046103527405.post-71661355411040521952015-01-07T10:48:00.001-08:002015-01-07T10:48:26.353-08:00Why don't Economists understand money? (Conference 2013)<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Published on 6 Mar 2013 | Prof Victoria Chick, Emeritus Professor of Economics, University College London, addressed the question: "Why Don't Academics Understand Money?" at the Positive Money conference in January 2013. She said there has been a regression in the way economics has been taught. This 18 mins video gives some very interesting insights.</span></div>
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abe ma6 - anakmatlesenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14267755917075009170noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3861039046103527405.post-44246064243347521392014-08-16T07:43:00.002-07:002014-08-16T07:58:37.074-07:00Money is at the root of our current social and economic crisis.<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Published on 30 Apr 2012 | </span><span style="color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; text-align: start;">97% Owned by private bankers - Positive Money Cut</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">To join the campaign to democratise money.
<br />see http://www.positivemoney.org.uk/97per...
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">When money drives almost all activity on the planet, it's essential that we understand it. Yet simple questions often get overlooked - questions like: where does money come from? Who creates it? Who decides how it gets used? And what does that mean for the millions of ordinary people who suffer when money and finance breaks down?
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">97% Owned is a new documentary that reveals how money is at the root of our current social and economic crisis. Featuring frank interviews and commentary from economists, campaigners and former bankers, it exposes the privatised, debt-based monetary system that gives banks the power to create money, shape the economy, cause crises and push house prices out of reach. Fact-based and clearly explained, in just 60 minutes it shows how the power to create money is the piece of the puzzle that economists were missing when they failed to predict the crisis.
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Produced by Queuepolitely and featuring Ben Dyson of Positive Money, Josh Ryan-Collins of The New Economics Foundation, Ann Pettifor, the "HBOS Whistleblower" Paul Moore, Simon Dixon of Bank to the Future and Nick Dearden from the Jubliee Debt Campaign, this is the first documentary to tackle this issue from a UK-perspective, and can be watched online now.</span></div>
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<br />abe ma6 - anakmatlesenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14267755917075009170noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3861039046103527405.post-72570415859603333962014-07-20T11:43:00.000-07:002014-07-20T11:43:01.586-07:00BRICS - alternative or complementary to IMF & World bank (Bretton woods institutions)?<b>BRICS: Progressive Rhetoric, Neoliberal Practice. </b><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Published on 19 Jul 2014 | Patrick Bond: All the governments behind the New Development Bank practice intense neoliberalism.</span></div>
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abe ma6 - anakmatlesenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14267755917075009170noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3861039046103527405.post-63308589201499712562014-03-06T01:19:00.002-08:002014-03-06T01:19:21.038-08:00China Starts Dumping US. Treasurys!<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Published on 18 Feb 2014 | The Fabian Calvo Podcast - Enlightenment - Education - Entrepreneurship. China Sold Second-Largest Amount Ever Of US Treasurys In December: And Guess Who Comes To The Rescue?</span></div>
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<br />abe ma6 - anakmatlesenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14267755917075009170noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3861039046103527405.post-48513900134356767582014-02-17T11:46:00.001-08:002014-02-17T11:46:20.245-08:00Timeline - USD from fiat money to a possible zero value?<div id="watch-uploader-info" style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 17px; padding: 0px; text-align: justify;">
<strong style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Published on <span class="watch-video-date" id="eow-date" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">16 Feb 2014 | </span></strong><span style="background-color: transparent;">a short history of USD from - after value based on Gold into one that is based on demand today and major events that had determine its present position...</span></div>
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<br />abe ma6 - anakmatlesenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14267755917075009170noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3861039046103527405.post-10664365475659096952014-02-14T04:03:00.003-08:002014-02-14T04:03:59.268-08:00When will the USD collapse?<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><b>The SHOCKING Truth About the U.S. Dollar: What The Media Never Told You.</b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Listen as Follow the Money Weekly Radio show host, Jerry Robinson, explains the shocking truth about the coming collapse of the U.S. Dollar. In this video, Jerry Robinson explains the Petrodollar System and how it's collapse will destroy the dollar through hyperinflation.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Jerry Robinson is a popular economist and best-selling author of the book "Bankruptcy of our Nation"</span>.
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<br />abe ma6 - anakmatlesenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14267755917075009170noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3861039046103527405.post-27999392496266341812014-02-09T13:23:00.001-08:002014-02-09T13:23:28.812-08:00Fascism - where Banksters make better money!<br />
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<span style="background-color: #b8d4d8; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 22px;">The JP Morgan vision for Europe</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18.479999542236328px;"><br />In May 2013 the US financial giant JP Morgan released </span><a href="http://culturaliberta.files.wordpress.com/2013/06/jpm-the-euro-area-adjustment-about-halfway-there.pdf" style="background-color: white; color: #5421bb; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18.479999542236328px; text-decoration: none;"><span style="color: #274e13;">a progress report</span></a><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18.479999542236328px;"> </span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18.479999542236328px;">outlining their take on what they call the "Eurozone Adjustment".</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The standout passage of this document can be found on page 12, where they explain what they think is wrong with Europe (quoted below). Note there is absolutely no mention of financial instability caused by countless recklessly over-leveraged financial institutions gambling on crap like Spanish property, Irish bank bonds and Greek sovereign debt, and absolutely no talk of financial sector reform either. The JP Morgan narrative adheres very closely to the</span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> </span><a href="http://anotherangryvoice.blogspot.com/2011/09/great-neoliberal-lie-austerity.html" style="color: #5421bb; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; text-decoration: none;">Great Neoliberal Lie technique</a><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">, where the real causes of the financial crisis are played down or ignored completely in favour of the misleading narrative that social welfare spending caused the crisis. Here's the section in question:</span></div>
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<blockquote class="tr_bq" style="font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18.479999542236328px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: #444444;"><span style="background-color: white; font-size: medium;">"The political systems in the periphery [of the Eurozone] were established in the aftermath of dictatorship, and were defined by that experience. Constitutions tend to show a strong socialist influence, reflecting the political strength that left wing parties gained after the defeat of fascism. Political systems around the periphery typically display several of the following features: weak executives; weak central states relative to regions; constitutional protection of labor rights; consensus building systems which foster political clientalism; and the right to protest if unwelcome changes are made to the political status quo. The shortcomings of this political legacy have been revealed by the crisis. Countries around the periphery have only been partially successful in producing fiscal and economic reform agendas, with governments constrained by constitutions (Portugal), powerful regions (Spain), and the rise of populist parties (Italy and Greece)."</span></span></span></blockquote>
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<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18.479999542236328px;">So, the problems that JP Morgan have identified in Europe are strong legislatures (or "weak executives" as they put it) strong regional representation, protected labour rights, strong constitutions and political systems that rely in part upon consensus building instead of dictatorship. They also identify the rise of democratic populist parties and the public right to political protest as major impediments to their "Eurozone Adjustment" objectives.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">JP Morgan make it absolutely clear that they would like to see European states remodeled with much more powerful, dictatorial and centralised executives, they want to see the destruction of labour rights and they are certainly not keen to allow populist anti-austerity parties or public protest to get in the way of this agenda.</span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Essentially what this document demonstrates is that JP Morgan see the decline of European fascism since the 1940s and its replacement with</span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> </span><a href="http://anotherangryvoice.blogspot.com/2011/09/mixed-economy-vs-neoliberalism-uk.html" style="color: #5421bb; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; text-decoration: none;">mixed-economy social democracies</a><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">as a great disappointment, that they are determined to steer Europe back towards fascism and that they are intent on using the financial sector meltdown as an excuse to use the utterly false</span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> </span><a href="http://anotherangryvoice.blogspot.com/2011/09/great-neoliberal-lie-austerity.html" style="color: #5421bb; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; text-decoration: none;">Great Neoliberal Lie</a><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">narrative to justify this pro-fascist agenda.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The motivation for a major financial organisation like JP Morgan to promote the fascistic remodeling of Europe should be absolutely obvious. States administered by powerful centralised and dictatorial executives are far more easily influenced by corporate interests than governments constrained by strong legislatures, fair judicial systems, strong regional representation, robust organised labour and popular freedom of protest, all enshrined by a durable constitution.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">To put it more simply, a state with a centralised and dictatorial government is far more malleable than a state in which the government must balance the interests of corporate interests with those of organised labour, regional interests and the public at large. If labour rights are eroded, local government weakened and the right to popular protest is curtailed, the enforcement of corporate interests becomes much easier. All the corporations need do is financially coerce (or economically straitjacket) the cetralised executive branch of government in order to gain almost complete power over whole national economies.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Returning to the quoted section of the JP Morgan report, we can clearly see that they do not like consensus building governments that abide by their constitutions and protect civil liberties, in fact they disparage this kind of co-operative approach as "clientalism" [sic] (err I believe they meant</span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> </span><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clientelism" style="color: #5421bb; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; text-decoration: none;"><span style="color: #274e13;">clientelism</span></a><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">).</span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In reality, the general concept of clientelism isn't the problem to JP Morgan at all. The problem is that under the social democratic model, government "clientelism" towards corporate interests is curtailed. The corporate lobby don't want the states of Europe to function as the clients of the general public through strong local democratic government (and the checks and balances offered by a robust legislature), through strong labour organisation, or through the liberty to protest. JP Morgan seem to want the states of Europe to act as exclusive clients of the corporatist agenda.</span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> </span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi6fK2Vqko6ohZhxyY2dhgYii-9JfDU-N2uYEgbtl2IFniCp3GRB77ACGXqNgWk09IypXvc6znMCxRFwxIBYGmrKveJ4S5yr49fu9f6JVLZlIMRbdFkiWzzmYTFfpwdvm4F1XLrkYXJlcE/s610/Joseph-Goebbels.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; color: #5421bb; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-decoration: none;"><img border="0" height="500" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi6fK2Vqko6ohZhxyY2dhgYii-9JfDU-N2uYEgbtl2IFniCp3GRB77ACGXqNgWk09IypXvc6znMCxRFwxIBYGmrKveJ4S5yr49fu9f6JVLZlIMRbdFkiWzzmYTFfpwdvm4F1XLrkYXJlcE/s400/Joseph-Goebbels.jpg" style="-webkit-box-shadow: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.0980392) 0px 0px 0px; background-color: transparent; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; border: none; box-shadow: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.0980392) 0px 0px 0px; padding: 0px; position: relative;" width="325" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="font-size: 11px; text-align: center;">Perhaps Nazi propaganda minister Joseph Goebells<br />would be proud to know that his big lie technique<br />is still being used to defend fascism to this day.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: white;">In effect, the JP Morgan complaint isn't about clientelism at all, it is a complaint of "wrong-clientelism". It is a complaint that in their view, the states of Europe must not be allowed to act as the client of the public by allowing citizens involvement in economic policy making (through democratic processes, strong labour representation or liberty to protest) because this kind of public interference acts as an impediment to their beloved corporate agenda. JP Morgan would prefer to see the states of Europe act exclusively in the interests of the corporate lobby, and imposing illiberal, anti-democratic or even fascistic socio-economic reforms is an agenda they seem to fully endorse.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18.479999542236328px;"><br /></span></div>
<span style="background-color: white;"><div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18.479999542236328px;">It is absolutely obvious why corporate interests like JP Morgan would dearly love to see the rights to to protest and organise labour severely curtailed. By pushing for the the dismantlement of the means of resistance, they can minimalise and marginalise social opposition to the corporatist agenda they wish to see enforced by these corporate client states, no matter how socially or economically harmful or unpopular the corporatist agenda may be to the state in question.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18.479999542236328px;"></span></span><span style="background-color: #b8d4d8; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18.479999542236328px;"><br /><div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: white;">Just in case you think it sounds utterly far fetched that an American financial institution may be attempting to undermine democracy and liberty in Europe in order to impose fascistic regimes more favourable to their commercial interests, just consider the history of JP Morgan themselves. Not only did JP Morgan actively invest in Nazi industry (through the automotive company Opel and other subsidiaries) well into the Second World War, they were also compensated for their losses by the American taxpayer when they were forced to divest (several other American corporations such as Standard Oil maintained their investments in Nazi Germany for several years after the US joined the war against Germany!). Chase Bank (which merged with JP Morgan in 2000) were one of Wall Street's most enthusiastic investors in the Nazi economy,</span><span style="background-color: white;"> </span><a href="http://www.businesspundit.com/10-global-businesses-that-worked-with-the-nazis/" style="color: #5421bb; text-decoration: none;"><span style="color: #274e13;">even providing direct assistance to Hitler's Nazi regime in the late 1930s</span></a><span style="background-color: white;">. Chase and JP Morgan were the only two American banks which stayed open in France during the Nazi occupation there.</span><span style="background-color: white;"> </span></div>
</span><span style="font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18.479999542236328px;"></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18.479999542236328px;"><br /><div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: white;">JP Morgan has a proven</span><span style="background-color: white;"> </span><a href="http://www.thehiddenevil.com/nazis.asp" style="color: #5421bb; text-decoration: none;"><span style="color: #274e13;">history of collaboration with fascist regimes in Europe</span></a><span style="background-color: white;">. If JP Morgan supported and profited from the rise of the Nazi party in Germany, and suffered no adverse financial consequences for it (even getting a US taxpayer funded tax rebate to cover their losses when they were forced to divest their Nazi assets and first dibs to reacquire their Nazi assets after the war was over), is it any surprise that they favour the imposition of an illiberal and fascistic political agenda on the states of Europe once again?</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Since I've strayed onto the topic of the Second World War, I'll finish with a quote often attributed to one of the fascist dictators that JP Morgan seem to be getting nostalgic about; Benito Mussolini.</span></div>
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<blockquote class="tr_bq" style="font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18.479999542236328px;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: #444444;"><span style="background-color: white; font-size: medium;">"Fascism should more appropriately be called Corporatism because it is a merger of state and corporate power."</span></span></span></blockquote>
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<span style="background-color: white;"><a href="http://anotherangryvoice.blogspot.co.uk/2013/06/the-jp-morgan-plan-for-europe.html" target="_blank"> source here>></a></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white;"><br /></span>abe ma6 - anakmatlesenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14267755917075009170noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3861039046103527405.post-49135657496234683422014-02-09T13:12:00.001-08:002014-02-09T13:12:13.973-08:00Financial crisis for many, bonanza for the few<div style="background-color: white; line-height: 1.4em; margin-bottom: 15px; padding: 0px; text-align: justify; vertical-align: baseline;">
<img alt="Reuters/Kacper Pempel" height="223" src="http://cdn.rt.com/files/opinionpost/22/13/a0/00/financial-crisis-many-bonanza-few.si.jpg" width="400" /><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /><br />Despite what the UK's ruling politicians or statisticians from palm-greased think tanks may say, the UK’s economic “recovery” is visible nowhere on the country’s streets.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">The opiate of Quantitative Easing (QE) or Printing Money, the £375 billion fraudulently spirited up so far, is making some of the figures look good, but it is killing the patient.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">The effect of QE is to propel the nest eggs of the rich from prudent <em style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">“savings accounts,”</em> where interest rates are at an all-time low, into capricious stock and bond markets to be managed by hedge funds and other pushy players. Meanwhile, everything with half a brain that moves, including the Parliamentary Commission on Banking, chaired by Conservative MP Andrew Tyrie, is demanding to see clear blue water between public-facing banks and the casino economy. However, precisely the opposite is happening, as billions of savings leaves the safe ground in search of higher returns.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><a href="http://rt.com/op-edge/financial-crisis-many-bonanza-few-578/" target="_blank">more here</a> >><br /><br /></span></div>
abe ma6 - anakmatlesenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14267755917075009170noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3861039046103527405.post-79793928535973919072014-01-30T12:43:00.001-08:002014-01-30T12:45:07.786-08:001-Feb- 2014 : Janet Yellen replaces Ben Bernanke as Federal Reserve Chairman <div class="watermark" style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, 'Arial Unicode MS', sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 17px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">
<a href="http://gdb.voanews.com/988CF3B4-1B56-487A-90C9-4F54E1B7FCF6_mw1024_n_s.jpg" rel="ibox" style="color: #132fbe; text-decoration: none;" title="FILE - Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke at the Federal Reserve Board of Governors, Washington, Dec. 2, 2013."><img alt="FILE - Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke at the Federal Reserve Board of Governors, Washington, Dec. 2, 2013." border="0" class="photo" src="http://gdb.voanews.com/988CF3B4-1B56-487A-90C9-4F54E1B7FCF6_w520_r1_s_cx0_cy14_cw0.jpg" style="border: 0px none; display: block; margin: 10px 0px;" /></a></div>
<span class="imageCaption" style="background-color: white; clear: both; color: #666666; display: block; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, 'Arial Unicode MS', sans-serif; font-size: 10px; line-height: 13px; margin-top: -6px; padding-bottom: 12px; padding-top: 0px;">Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke at the Federal Reserve Board of Governors, Washington, Dec. 2, 2013.</span><span class="imageCaption" style="background-color: white; clear: both; color: #666666; display: block; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, 'Arial Unicode MS', sans-serif; font-size: 10px; line-height: 13px; margin-top: -6px; padding-bottom: 12px; padding-top: 0px;"><a href="http://www.voanews.com/content/bernanke-steps-down-after-eight-difficult-years/1841007.html" style="background-color: transparent;" target="_blank">Read here</a></span><br />
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replaced by:: Janet Yellen<br />
<img src="http://b-i.forbesimg.com/briansolomon/files/2014/01/620x434.jpg" height="364" width="520" /><br />
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<a href="http://www.forbes.com/sites/briansolomon/2014/01/06/janet-yellen-confirmed-as-federal-reserve-chair/" target="_blank">more here </a><br />
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<br />abe ma6 - anakmatlesenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14267755917075009170noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3861039046103527405.post-30081799987622361552014-01-30T11:49:00.002-08:002014-01-30T11:49:32.600-08:00Don't mess with the Petrodollar!<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">3 Jan 2014 : Petrodollar Scam Breaking Down</span><br />
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<br />abe ma6 - anakmatlesenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14267755917075009170noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3861039046103527405.post-38781544949761789402014-01-25T00:10:00.001-08:002014-01-25T00:10:33.981-08:00Yuan Passes Euro as 2nd-Most Used Trade-Finance Currency<div style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #2d2b2c; line-height: 1.3125em; margin-bottom: 28px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="color: #444444; font-family: akzidenz-grotesk-std-bloom; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21.599998474121094px; text-align: start;"> </span><span bgdatestamp="mmm d, yyyy h:MM TT Z" bglocalize="true" class="date" epoch="1386084895000" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #444444; display: inline-block; font-family: akzidenz-grotesk-std-bloom; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21.599998474121094px; text-align: start; width: auto;">Dec 3, 2013 | </span><a density="full" href="http://topics.bloomberg.com/china/" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #003399; cursor: pointer; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-weight: 700; line-height: 1.3125em; outline: none; text-decoration: none;">China</a><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; line-height: 1.3125em;">’s </span><a density="sparse" href="http://topics.bloomberg.com/yuan/" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #003399; cursor: pointer; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-weight: 700; line-height: 1.3125em; outline: none; text-decoration: none;">yuan</a><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; line-height: 1.3125em;"> overtook the euro to become the second-most used currency in global trade finance after the dollar this year, according to the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">The currency had an 8.66 percent share of letters of credit and collections in October, compared with 6.64 percent for the euro,<a density="full" href="http://www.swift.com/index.page?lang=en" rel="external" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #003399; cursor: pointer; font-weight: 700; outline: none; text-decoration: none;" title="Open Web Site">Swift</a> said in a statement today. China, Hong Kong, <a density="full" href="http://topics.bloomberg.com/singapore/" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #003399; cursor: pointer; font-weight: 700; outline: none; text-decoration: none;">Singapore</a>, Germany and Australia were the top users of yuan in trade finance, according to the Belgium-based financial-messaging platform.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">The yuan had the fourth-largest share of global trade finance in January 2012 with 1.89 percent, while the euro’s was the second-biggest at 7.87 percent, Swift said.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">“It’s true that overseas exporters are using the <a density="full" href="http://topics.bloomberg.com/renminbi/" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #003399; cursor: pointer; font-weight: 700; outline: none; text-decoration: none;">renminbi</a> more as the contract currency to increase the attractiveness and competitiveness of goods or services sold to China,” said Cynthia Wong, the Hong Kong-based head of emerging-market trading for Singapore and<a density="sparse" href="http://topics.bloomberg.com/hong-kong/" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #003399; cursor: pointer; font-weight: 700; outline: none; text-decoration: none;">Hong Kong</a> at Societe Generale SA.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">The <a density="full" href="http://topics.bloomberg.com/u.s.-dollar/" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #003399; cursor: pointer; font-weight: 700; outline: none; text-decoration: none;">U.S. dollar</a> led all currencies with an 81.08 percent share of letters of credit and collections in October, down from 84.96 percent in January 2012, according to data compiled by Swift. The yen slipped from the third-most used global currency to fourth over the same period, declining from a 1.94 percent share to 1.36 percent.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: small;">Yuan Deposits</span></h2>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">China is seeking a greater role for its currency in global trade and investment as the state loosens controls on the exchange rate and borrowing costs in the world’s second-largest economy. People’s Bank of China Deputy Governor <a density="sparse" href="http://topics.bloomberg.com/yi-gang/" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #003399; cursor: pointer; font-weight: 700; outline: none; text-decoration: none;">Yi Gang</a> said Nov. 20 it is no longer in the nation’s interest to keep building up its foreign-exchange reserves, which totaled a record $3.66 trillion at the end of September.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><a class="web_ticker" density="full" href="http://www.bloomberg.com/quote/HKRDTTL:IND" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #003399; cursor: pointer; font-weight: 700; outline: none; text-decoration: none;" title="Get Quote">Yuan deposits</a> in Hong Kong, the largest pool outside China, rose the most since April 2011 to a record 782 billion yuan ($128 billion) in October. Agreements were announced this quarter to start direct<a density="full" href="http://topics.bloomberg.com/currency-trading/" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #003399; cursor: pointer; font-weight: 700; outline: none; text-decoration: none;">currency trading</a> between the yuan and both the British pound and <a density="full" href="http://topics.bloomberg.com/singapore-dollar/" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #003399; cursor: pointer; font-weight: 700; outline: none; text-decoration: none;">Singapore dollar</a>.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">“The renminbi is clearly a top currency for trade finance globally and even more so in <a density="full" href="http://topics.bloomberg.com/asia/" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #003399; cursor: pointer; font-weight: 700; outline: none; text-decoration: none;">Asia</a>,” Franck de Praetere, Swift’s Singapore-based head of payments and trade markets for Asia Pacific, said in the statement.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">The Chinese currency ranked No. 12 for transactions in the global payments system in October, unchanged from the previous month, according to Swift figures. Payment value for the currency rose 1.5 percent that month, less than the 4.6 percent growth for all currencies, the Swift data showed. That saw the yuan’s market share drop to 0.84 percent from 0.86 percent in September.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: small;">Trading Volume</span></h2>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Daily yuan transactions surged to $120 billion in April from $34 billion in 2010, making it the ninth most-traded currency in the world, according to a September report by the <a density="sparse" href="http://topics.bloomberg.com/bank-for-international-settlements/" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #003399; cursor: pointer; font-weight: 700; outline: none; text-decoration: none;">Bank for International Settlements</a> in <a density="full" href="http://topics.bloomberg.com/basel/" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #003399; cursor: pointer; font-weight: 700; outline: none; text-decoration: none;">Basel</a>, <a density="full" href="http://topics.bloomberg.com/switzerland/" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #003399; cursor: pointer; font-weight: 700; outline: none; text-decoration: none;">Switzerland</a>.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">The yuan has appreciated 2.3 percent against the greenback this year, the best performance in Asia, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. The currency closed at 6.0924 per dollar today in<a density="full" href="http://topics.bloomberg.com/shanghai/" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #003399; cursor: pointer; font-weight: 700; outline: none; text-decoration: none;">Shanghai</a>, little changed from yesterday.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">China accounted for 59 percent of the trade finance denominated in yuan in October and Hong Kong’s share was 21 percent, Swift data showed. Singapore had 12 percent with Germany and Australia having 2 percent each.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">“I’m not surprised as cross-border trades between China and Hong Kong have been quite dominantly denominated in yuan,” Raymond Yeung, a Hong Kong-based senior economist at Australia & New Zealand Banking Group Ltd., said by phone today. “Yuan trades usually increase when there are strong expectations for yuan appreciation.”</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: small;">Wider Usage</span></h2>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">International use of the yuan is increasing as China opens up its <a density="full" href="http://topics.bloomberg.com/capital-markets/" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #003399; cursor: pointer; font-weight: 700; outline: none; text-decoration: none;">capital markets</a>. In the first nine months of this year, about 17 percent of China’s global trade was settled in the currency, compared with less than 1 percent in 2009, according to Deutsche Bank AG.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">China and the U.K. will begin direct trading between the yuan and the British pound, Chancellor of the Exchequer <a density="sparse" href="http://topics.bloomberg.com/george-osborne/" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #003399; cursor: pointer; font-weight: 700; outline: none; text-decoration: none;">George Osborne</a> said on Oct. 15. China also approved an 80 billion yuan quota allowing investors in London to buy onshore assets. Singapore inked a similar agreement with China a week later. Direct trading between the currencies of Japan and Australia started in the past two years.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">The <a density="full" href="http://topics.bloomberg.com/european-central-bank/" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #003399; cursor: pointer; font-weight: 700; outline: none; text-decoration: none;">European Central Bank</a> and the People’s Bank of China agreed to establish a bilateral currency swap line of as much as 350 billion yuan, the Frankfurt-based central bank said in October.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: small;">Trading Restrictions</span></h2>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">The Chinese central bank limits the yuan spot rate’s daily moves to 1 percent on either side of a fixing it sets every day. The trading band was widened in April 2012, after being expanded from 0.3 percent in May 2007. The yuan in Shanghai has traded 0.7 percent <a class="web_ticker" density="full" href="http://www.bloomberg.com/quote/.CNYREF:IND" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #003399; cursor: pointer; font-weight: 700; outline: none; text-decoration: none;" title="Get Quote">stronger than</a> the fixing on average this quarter, down from 0.8 percent in the first nine months of the year, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">The People’s Bank of China will “basically” end normal intervention in the foreign-exchange market and broaden the yuan’s daily trading limit, Governor <a density="sparse" href="http://topics.bloomberg.com/zhou-xiaochuan/" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #003399; cursor: pointer; font-weight: 700; outline: none; text-decoration: none;">Zhou Xiaochuan</a> wrote in an article in a guidebook explaining reforms outlined following a Communist Party meeting that ended Nov. 12.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">source<a href="http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-12-03/yuan-passes-euro-to-be-second-most-used-trade-finance-currency.html" target="_blank"> bloomberg </a></span></div>
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abe ma6 - anakmatlesenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14267755917075009170noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3861039046103527405.post-5506196761668761892014-01-24T23:58:00.001-08:002014-01-24T23:58:27.141-08:00Chinese Yuan world's second widely used currency <span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Chinese Yuan had overtaken Euro:
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<br />abe ma6 - anakmatlesenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14267755917075009170noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3861039046103527405.post-23260444874603928552014-01-24T23:51:00.000-08:002014-01-24T23:51:55.878-08:00 MIT's prophesy : Next Great Depression?<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><b>MIT study predicting ‘global economic collapse’ by 2030 still on track.</b>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">A renowned Australian research scientist says a study from researchers at MIT claiming the world could suffer from a "global economic collapse" and "precipitous population decline" if people continue to consume the world's resources at the current pace is still on track, nearly 40 years after it was first produced.
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">The Smithsonian Magazine writes that Australian physicist Graham Turner says "the world is on track for disaster" and that current research from Turner coincides with a famous, and in some quarters, infamous, academic report from 1972 entitled, "The Limits to Growth." Turner's research is not affiliated with MIT or The Club for Rome.
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Produced for a group called The Club of Rome, the study's researchers created a computing model to forecast different scenarios based on the current models of population growth and global resource consumption. The study also took into account different levels of agricultural productivity, birth control and environmental protection efforts. Twelve million copies of the report were produced and distributed in 37 different languages.
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Most of the computer scenarios found population and economic growth continuing at a steady rate until about 2030. But without "drastic measures for environmental protection," the scenarios predict the likelihood of a population and economic crash.
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">However, the study said "unlimited economic growth" is still possible if world governments enact policies and invest in green technologies that help limit the expansion of our ecological footprint.
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">The Smithsonian notes that several experts strongly objected to "The Limit of Growth's" findings, including the late Yale economist Henry Wallich, who for 12 years served as a governor of the Federal Research Board and was its chief international economics expert. At the time, Wallich said attempting to regulate economic growth would be equal to "consigning billions to permanent poverty."
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Turner says that perhaps the most startling find from the study is that the results of the computer scenarios were nearly identical to those predicted in similar computer scenarios used as the basis for "The Limits to Growth."
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">"There is a very clear warning bell being rung here," Turner said. "We are not on a sustainable trajectory."
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Correction: This post has been edited to reflect that MIT has not updated its research from the original 1972 study.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><a href="http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/sideshow/next-great-depression-mit-researchers-predict-global-economic-190352944.html" target="_blank">original here</a> >><br /><br /></span></div>
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abe ma6 - anakmatlesenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14267755917075009170noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3861039046103527405.post-67790306832040329012014-01-24T18:21:00.001-08:002014-01-24T18:21:16.402-08:00How The Petrodollar Trade Works For The U.S?<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Published on 21 Sep 2012 | Discover why the Federal Reserve can keep increasing the money supply and yet inflation is never a problem. Find out why countries keep buying U.S. debt.</span></div>
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<br />abe ma6 - anakmatlesenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14267755917075009170noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3861039046103527405.post-13165418184030582422014-01-24T17:54:00.000-08:002014-01-24T18:22:34.455-08:00The prediction of the USD collapse. (a decade old, now?)<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Published on 6 Sep 2012 | (the vid claims)This is exactly how the US dollar will collapse. </span><br />
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<br />abe ma6 - anakmatlesenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14267755917075009170noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3861039046103527405.post-78636070919223758972013-10-24T16:14:00.000-07:002013-10-24T16:14:10.507-07:00Hitman: Kill the Death Economy! | Interview with John Perkins<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Published on 18 Oct 2013 | Abby Martin speaks with John Perkins, best-selling author of 'Confessions of an Economic Hitman' & 'Hoodwinked', about the corporate takeover of world governments and the need to eradicate the death economy</span>.</div>
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<br />abe ma6 - anakmatlesenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14267755917075009170noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3861039046103527405.post-71752683539811615112013-10-17T03:59:00.002-07:002013-10-17T03:59:12.398-07:00What Needs To Be Done To Fix The Global Economy<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Published on 22 Sep 2013 | Patrick Bond: For a recovery to occur, national governments must assert economy sovereignty.</span><br />
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<br />abe ma6 - anakmatlesenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14267755917075009170noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3861039046103527405.post-8382326796169875792013-10-17T03:55:00.003-07:002013-10-17T03:55:35.141-07:00BRICS Countries Beset By Economic Problems<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Published on 22 Sep 2013 | Patrick Bond: Slow growth and inflation are taking a toll in developing countries
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">See more videos: http://therealnews.com</span></div>
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<br />abe ma6 - anakmatlesenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14267755917075009170noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3861039046103527405.post-56539727976934466802013-09-29T18:49:00.000-07:002013-09-29T18:49:08.076-07:00Syria free from Rothchild's Central Banking system?Published on Sep 29, 2013 | Bank of International Settlement and IMF<br />
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<br />abe ma6 - anakmatlesenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14267755917075009170noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3861039046103527405.post-56581595115660028502013-09-18T12:10:00.001-07:002013-09-18T12:11:05.796-07:00Canadian billionaire businessman Ned Goodman predicts the end of the U.S. Dollar as the world's reserve currency.<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Published on 15 Sep 2013 | He predicts the transition out of the U.S. Dollar will become, "...quite ugly." He delivered the lecture at Cambridge House's Toronto Resource Investment Conference 2013 on Thursday, September 12, 2013.</span></div>
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<br />abe ma6 - anakmatlesenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14267755917075009170noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3861039046103527405.post-77225220736009283522013-09-16T01:32:00.003-07:002013-09-16T01:32:53.510-07:0025 Fast Facts About The Federal Reserve<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><b>September 15, 2013 | Source: Michael Snyder, Guest Post</b></span>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">As we approach the 100 year anniversary of the creation of the Federal Reserve, it is absolutely imperative that we get the American people to understand that the Fed is at the very heart of our economic problems. It is a system of money that was created by the bankers and that operates for the benefit of the bankers. The American people like to think that we have a "democratic system", but there is nothing "democratic" about the Federal Reserve. Unelected, unaccountable central planners from a private central bank run our financial system and manage our economy. There is a reason why financial markets respond with a yawn when Barack Obama says something about the economy, but they swing wildly whenever Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke opens his mouth. The Federal Reserve has far more power over the U.S. economy than anyone else does by a huge margin. The Fed is the biggest Ponzi scheme in the history of the world, and if the American people truly understood how it really works, they would be screaming for it to be abolished immediately. The following are 25 fast facts about the Federal Reserve that everyone should know...
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">#1 The greatest period of economic growth in U.S. history was when there was no central bank.
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">#2 The United States never had a persistent, ongoing problem with inflation until the Federal Reserve was created. In the century before the Federal Reserve was created, the average annual rate of inflation was about half a percent. In the century since the Federal Reserve was created, the average annual rate of inflation has been about 3.5 percent, and it would be even higher than that if the inflation numbers were not being so grossly manipulated.
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">#3 Even using the official numbers, the value of the U.S. dollar has declined by more than 95 percent since the Federal Reserve was created nearly 100 years ago.
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">#4 The secret November 1910 gathering at Jekyll Island, Georgia during which the plan for the Federal Reserve was hatched was attended by U.S. Senator Nelson W. Aldrich, Assistant Secretary of the Treasury Department A.P. Andrews and a whole host of representatives from the upper crust of the Wall Street banking establishment.
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">#5 In 1913, Congress was promised that if the Federal Reserve Act was passed that it would eliminate the business cycle.
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">#6 The following comes directly from the Fed's official mission statement: "To provide the nation with a safer, more flexible, and more stable monetary and financial system. Over the years, its role in banking and the economy has expanded."
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">#7 It was not an accident that a permanent income tax was also introduced the same year when the Federal Reserve system was established. The whole idea was to transfer wealth from our pockets to the federal government and from the federal government to the bankers.
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">#8 Within 20 years of the creation of the Federal Reserve, the U.S. economy was plunged into the Great Depression.
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">#9 If you can believe it, there have been 10 different economic recessions since 1950. The Federal Reserve created the "dotcom bubble", the Federal Reserve created the "housing bubble" and now it has created the largest bond bubble in the history of the planet.
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">#10 According to an official government report, the Federal Reserve made 16.1 trillion dollars in secret loans to the big banks during the last financial crisis. The following is a list of loan recipients that was taken directly from page 131 of the report...
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Citigroup - $2.513 trillion
Morgan Stanley - $2.041 trillion
Merrill Lynch - $1.949 trillion
Bank of America - $1.344 trillion
Barclays PLC - $868 billion
Bear Sterns - $853 billion
Goldman Sachs - $814 billion
Royal Bank of Scotland - $541 billion
JP Morgan Chase - $391 billion
Deutsche Bank - $354 billion
UBS - $287 billion
Credit Suisse - $262 billion
Lehman Brothers - $183 billion
Bank of Scotland - $181 billion
BNP Paribas - $175 billion
Wells Fargo - $159 billion
Dexia - $159 billion
Wachovia - $142 billion
Dresdner Bank - $135 billion
Societe Generale - $124 billion
"All Other Borrowers" - $2.639 trillion
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">#11 The Federal Reserve also paid those big banks $659.4 million in fees to help "administer" those secret loans.
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">#12 The Federal Reserve has created approximately 2.75 trillion dollars out of thin air and injected it into the financial system over the past five years. This has allowed the stock market to soar to unprecedented heights, but it has also caused our financial system to become extremely unstable.
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">#13 We were told that the purpose of quantitative easing is to help "stimulate the economy", but today the Federal Reserve is actually paying the big banks not to lend out 1.8 trillion dollars in "excess reserves" that they have parked at the Fed.
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">#14 Quantitative easing overwhelming benefits those that own stocks and other financial investments. In other words, quantitative easing overwhelmingly favors the very wealthy. Even Barack Obama has admitted that 95 percent of the income gains since he has been president have gone to the top one percent of income earners.
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">#15 The gap between the top one percent and the rest of the country is now the greatest that it has been since the 1920s.
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">#16 The Federal Reserve has argued vehemently in federal court that it is "not an agency" of the federal government and therefore not subject to the Freedom of Information Act.
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">#17 The Federal Reserve openly admits that the 12 regional Federal Reserve banks are organized "much like private corporations".
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">#18 The regional Federal Reserve banks issue shares of stock to the "member banks" that own them.
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">#19 The Federal Reserve system greatly favors the biggest banks. Back in 1970, the five largest U.S. banks held 17 percent of all U.S. banking industry assets. Today, the five largest U.S. banks hold 52 percent of all U.S. banking industry assets.
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">#20 The Federal Reserve is supposed to "regulate" the big banks, but it has done nothing to stop a 441 trillion dollar interest rate derivatives bubble from inflating which could absolutely devastate our entire financial system.
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">#21 The Federal Reserve was designed to be a perpetual debt machine. The bankers that designed it intended to trap the U.S. government in a perpetual debt spiral from which it could never possibly escape. Since the Federal Reserve was established nearly 100 years ago, the U.S. national debt has gotten more than 5000 times larger.
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">#22 The U.S. government will spend more than 400 billion dollars just on interest on the national debt this year.
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">#23 If the average rate of interest on U.S. government debt rises to just 6 percent (and it has been much higher than that in the past), we will be paying out more than a trillion dollars a year just in interest on the national debt.
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">#24 According to Article I, Section 8 of the U.S. Constitution, the U.S. Congress is the one that is supposed to have the authority to "coin Money, regulate the Value thereof, and of foreign Coin, and fix the Standard of Weights and Measures". So exactly why is the Federal Reserve doing it?
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">#25 There are plenty of possible alternative financial systems, but at this point all 187 nations that belong to the IMF have a central bank. Are we supposed to believe that this is just some sort of a bizarre coincidence?
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abe ma6 - anakmatlesenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14267755917075009170noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3861039046103527405.post-85658956683628854122013-08-20T06:03:00.002-07:002013-08-20T06:03:26.078-07:00Siapa pengawal duit kita di bank?<table style="background-color: white; border-collapse: collapse; border-spacing: 0px; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 15.5938px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; text-align: left; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;"><tbody>
<tr nowrap="nowrap"><td style="color: #999999; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span class="createdby">Mohammad Faizal Che Yusof,</span></span></span></td><td style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 0px 10px;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span class="createdate" style="color: #999999; display: block;">13 Ogs 2013</span></span></span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">SETELAH beberapa hari berlalunya Syawal, kanak-kanaklah antara mereka yang paling gembira. Apa tidaknya. Syawal yang telah memasuki hari keenam pada hari ini tentunya mendatangkan rasa riang kepada mereka bila duit raya yang diperolehi dikira berulang kali menandakan senangnya rasa hati.<br /><br />Kini anak-anak berkira-kira pula untuk membeli itu dan ini dan tidak kurang juga memujuk ibu ayah membawa mereka ke mana-mana institusi kewangan untuk mereka sendiri pergi menambah tabungan yang sedia ada. Nah, biarpun berulang kali masuk dan keluar bank, tentu ramai dari kita tidak pernah terfikir rahsia di sebalik duit tunai yang disimpan di bank-bank atau mana-mana institusi kewangan. Apa yang difahami umum, kita akan menyimpan bila ada lebihan dan mengeluarkannya bila ada keperluan.<br /><br />Dalam sistem kewangan dan perbankan hari ini, mana-mana negara termasuklah Malaysia tertakluk pada satu dasar kewangan dan perbankan yang telah dipersetujui seluruh dunia. Timbullah persoalan, adakah Tabung Kewangan Antarabangsa (IMF) atau Bank Dunia itu merupakan pembuat dasar sebenar kewangan di peringkat antarabangsa? Dengan kata-kata lain, adakah kedua-dua ini bersifat bank pusat kepada dunia?<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><br /><br />Sering kali kita dengar bahawa apa saja projek mega, dua institusi diatasl akan menjadi buah bicara sebagai pembiaya. Projek itu dibiaya IMF, projek ini dibiaya oleh Bank Dunia dan ada juga kata-kata "kita terhimpit atau dianiayai dengan dasar kewangan dan perbankan oleh kedua-dua institusi ini".<br /><br />Dakwaan-dakwaan terbabit seterusnya mendorong kepada kefahaman bahawa IMF dan Bank Dunia adalah bank pusat kepada dunia.</span></span></div>
<a name='more'></a><span style="font-size: small;"><br />Bukan tiada projek atau program-program kemanusiaan yang dibiayai oleh IMF atau Bank Dunia. Apa yang perlu difahami, masyhurnya kedua-dua badan ini bukanlah menjadikan kedua-duanya sebagai ibu kepada seluruh bank-bank pusat global.<br /><br />Jika IMF atau Bank Dunia bukanlah antiti yang mengawal selia bank-bank dunia, siapakah bank utama kepada dunia? Dengan maksud lain, siapakah penjaga kepada bank-bank pusat di pelbagai negara di peringkat antarabangsa?<br /><br />Jawapan kepada persalan tersebut ialah Bank Of International Settlement atau ringkasnya disebut sebagai BIS. BIS telah ditubuhkan pada 17 Mei 1930 sebagai salah satu unit-unit Neo-Collonism moden selain Pertubuhan Bangsa-bangsa Bersatu dan World Bank.<br /><br />BIS mempunyai pejabat utama di Basel, Switzerland dan mempunyai wakil di pelbagai tempat mengikut rantau.<br /><br />Bagi Asia dan Pasifik, wakilnya adalah di International Finance Centre, Hongkong. Manakala bagi benua China, sebuah pentadbiran khusus telah diwujudkan di benua tersebut. BIS turut mempunyai wakilnya di benua Amerika iaitu di Del. Miguel Hidalgo, Mexico.<br /><br />Adakah BIS menerima deposit atau wang simpanan dari mana-mana individu mahupun institusi?<br /><br />BIS tidak sekali-kali menerima wang simpanan atau deposit sama ada dari institusi-institusi termasuk bank-bank pusat dari mana-mana negara, apatah lagi dari mana-mana individu.<br /><br />Fungsi utama BIS adalah mengawalselia dasar dan perjalanan perbankan dan kewangan di dunia melalui bank-bank pusat di negara masing-masing. Ia termasuklah struktur agihan kepada modal dan pelaburan atas setiap deposit dalam negara dan peraturan berkaitan kawalan kredit. Malaysia dan sistem kewangan Islam tidak terkecuali dikawal selia oleh BIS selagi dilesenkan di bawah peraturan-peraturan berkaitan perbankan.<br /><br />Apa yang menarik tahun-tahun mutakhir ini, BIS turut melihat kesan kenaikan harga minyak mentah yang pastinya akan memberi kesan kepada kos kewangan dan pengurusan kredit di serata dunia.<br /><br />Satu hal yang perlu kita ketahui, kewujudan BIS adalah amat perlu kepada kelompok-kelompok percaturan pasaran kewangan global bagi menjustifikasikan setiap kehendak dan nafsu mereka dalam memastikan objektif neo-collonism mereka berjaya. Keserakahan mereka terhadap kemewahan dan menjadikan dunia termasuklah dunia Islam berada dalam kawalan mereka dapat dilihat melalui satu lagi antiti penuh sentimental iaitu Federal Reserve.<br /><br />Bermula dari Federal Reservelah segala macam istilah seperti rezab pusat, bunga, faedah dan pelbagai lagi instrumen dicipta bagi mengembangkan pengaruh kelompok neo-collonism ini agar diterima secara sah di seluruh dunia. Nyatanya BIS adalah pada masa kini Berjaya melaksanakan tanggungjawab yang diberikan.<br /><br />Kita akan membicarakan perihal Federal Reserve secara lebih terperinci pada kesempatan lain. Apa yang penting, seluruh pendokong dan pencinta Islam tidak lagi ada masa untuk sekadar berpeluk tubuh, menyaksikan dunia diratah oleh entiti-entiti moden yang menampilkan diri mereka dalam pelbagai rupa bentuk eksklusif. Tidak perlu kita bertindak sebagai anti-establishment atau menolak pemodenan dan pembangunan.<br /><br />Meningkatkan upaya berasaskan pengetahuan, mengambil manfaat atas setiap manipulasi dan membina kekuatan sendiri adalah antara langkah perlu yang mesti dilaksanakan. Peka dan faham setiap gerak geri pemain-pemain dunia dalam mengawal dunia. Perjanjian Perkongsian Trans-Pasifik atau TPPA misalnya merupakan satu lagi kaedah menghalalkan matlamat yang pernah disebut oleh seorang tokoh Amerika Syarikat, Henry Kissinger.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><br /><br />Sesungguhnya kita perlu ada percaturan sendiri bagi mendepani suasana semasa agar kita mampu meletakkan negara pada kedudukan yang mampu mempertahankan kepentingan semua rakyat.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><a href="http://bm.harakahdaily.net/index.php/headline/21331-siapa-pengawal-duit-kita-di-bank" target="_blank">sumber asal</a> >>><br /><br /> </span></span></div>
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