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Showing posts with label Loans. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Loans. Show all posts

Saturday, August 16, 2014

Money is at the root of our current social and economic crisis.

Published on 30 Apr 2012 | 97% Owned by private bankers - Positive Money Cut

To join the campaign to democratise money.
see http://www.positivemoney.org.uk/97per...

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?

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.

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.





Sunday, February 9, 2014

Fascism - where Banksters make better money!


The JP Morgan vision for Europe


In May 2013 the US financial giant JP Morgan released 
a progress report outlining their take on what they call the "Eurozone Adjustment".


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 Great Neoliberal Lie technique, 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:

"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)."

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.

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. 

Essentially what this document demonstrates is that JP Morgan see the decline of European fascism since the 1940s and its replacement with mixed-economy social democracies 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 Great Neoliberal Lie narrative to justify this pro-fascist agenda.

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.

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.

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 clientelism). 

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. 

Perhaps Nazi propaganda minister Joseph Goebells
would be proud to know that his big lie technique
is still being used to defend fascism to this day.

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.

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.

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, even providing direct assistance to Hitler's Nazi regime in the late 1930s. Chase and JP Morgan were the only two American banks which stayed open in France during the Nazi occupation there. 

JP Morgan has a proven history of collaboration with fascist regimes in Europe. 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?

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.

"Fascism should more appropriately be called Corporatism because it is a merger of state and corporate power."

 source  here>>


Friday, January 24, 2014

How The Petrodollar Trade Works For The U.S?

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.



Thursday, October 24, 2013

Hitman: Kill the Death Economy! | Interview with John Perkins

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.



Thursday, June 6, 2013

The IMF & NWO economy? - Usury Globalization

About the IMF :

Published on 6 Jun 2013 : With the world's economies so closely connected, having an organization to help countries prevent crises and resolve when they occur is more important than ever.



Thursday, April 18, 2013

Does High Public Debt Stifle Economic Growth?

Published on 18 Apr 2013 : New study refutes Reinhart and Rogoff analysis that underpins austerity policy around the world; shows no relation between debt and lack of growth


Friday, February 15, 2013

LIBOR Scandal More Than Fraud - Whole Game is Rigged

Published on 15 Feb 2013 : Costas Lapavitsas: From multimillion dollar losses by cities like Baltimore to pension fund losses and much more, the LIBOR interest rate scandal shows that such mechanisms must be taken out of the hands of banks and be run in public interest.



Monday, October 29, 2012

How Iceland pulls itself away from the financial abyss.

Iceland FM: We don't force people to bailout banks

Published on Oct 22, 2012 by RussiaToday : The Foreign Minister Ossur Skarphedinsson of Iceland tells RT's Marina Portnaya how his country managed to pull itself away from the financial abyss - and offers up a few pointers as to how the Eurozone can do the same.




Thursday, August 9, 2012

Why China's Growth Is Worse Than You Think

Published on Aug 8, 2012 by WSJDigitalNetwork : Gordon Chang, author of "The Coming Collapse of China" joins Simon Constable on The News Hub to discuss why growth in China is even slower than official statistics suggest and whether the fix is already in for the upcoming trial of Gu Kailai?

 
 
 

Sunday, June 3, 2012

Paul Krugman on austerity and cuts (on Newsnight, 30 May 2012).

Published on May 31, 2012 by leftfootforwardtv : Nobel laureate Paul Krugman takes down a fat cat Tory donor and a Tea Party Tory MP on BBC Newsnight, admonishing their austerity lust and cuts hunger.




Wednesday, May 16, 2012

Don't Look Now -- Banks Are Still Ruining America: 6 Harsh Lessons from the JP Morgan Fiasco


JP Morgan Chase is part of an entwined system of too-big-to-fail institutions that are ripping us off.

Photo Credit: ShutterStock.com
Now, we know this was all a sham.JP Morgan, the white knight of banking, supposedly weathered the 2008 crisis with little difficulty. It was not in danger of collapsing like Lehman Brothers and it did not really need bailouts in order to survive, or so it proudly proclaims. Furthermore, its CEO, Jamie Dimon, was known as “Obama’s banker,” a relatively liberal financier who cared both about his bank and his country.
The truth is that there are no good banks and bad banks among the giants of finance.That’s just a feel-good story that gives us false hope that individuals and individual institutions can fix a system that is rotten to the core.
JP Morgan Chase is no different than other big banks, except that it is the biggest. It is part of an entwined system of too-big-to-fail institutions that are ripping us off. Leading up to the 2008 crash, it was up to its eyeballs packaging and selling mortgage-backed securities that were designed to fail. It helped pump up the housing bubble, profited while it was inflating and profited again while it burst. It was forced to pay a $153 million fine last year for “misleading big investors about the riskiness of mortgage-related securities it was selling just as the home-loan market was melting down.”
JP Morgan helped to crash our system in 2008 and profited handsomely from the bailouts it claimed it really didn’t need (but thank you very much, we’ll take them anyway). And now it's back in the gambling business just like all the other big banks and hedge funds. And should another crash come, we’ll again be asked to pick up the tab -- it's still “too big to fail” according to the conventional wisdom.

Thursday, February 9, 2012

Obama's weird deal: settlement before a full investigation into the fraud?

Will Government Bank Mortgage Deal Help or Hinder Prosecutions?

Uploaded by TheRealNews on Feb 9, 2012 - Yves Smith: How can Obama Admin. settle before they have fully investigated the fraud.





Enough to address the US housing bubble anger?

US to require banks to pay $25bn in fines over faulty home foreclosures

Uploaded by AlJazeeraEnglish on Feb 9, 2012





Thursday, January 19, 2012

Eurocrisis is a Global Crisis?

Uploaded by TheRealNews on 18 Jan 2012 - Leo Panitch: People need to build their own political organizations that push for public banking and serious capital controls.



Monday, October 31, 2011

What is the IMF?

Uploaded by AlJazeeraEnglish on Aug 18, 2011 - Report from Empire - the IMF on trial.
 Producer Owen Fay



Tuesday, September 13, 2011

Sunday, February 6, 2011

Reaganomics Was Pro Business, Not Pro "Free Market"

TheRealNews - Yves Smith on Reagan Centenary:| February 05, 2011 - President Reagan broke unions and intervened in the market when big business required it.




Wednesday, January 12, 2011

Britain following America ... towards Bankers.


Lloyds' Eric Daniels in line for £2m bonus

Eric DanielsMr Daniels is stepping down as Lloyds boss in March
Lloyds Banking Group boss Eric Daniels is in line for a bonus of about £2m this year, the BBC has learned.
Mr Daniels, who steps down in March, has turned down a bonus in the past two years but will not do so again, sources told BBC business editor Robert Peston.
The government bailed out Lloyds after it took over HBOS in 2008, and still holds a 41% stake in the bank.
On Tuesday, Barclays boss Bob Diamond said he had not decided whether he would accept a bonus this year.

On top of the bonus, Mr Daniels could receive shares worth another £2m from a long-term incentive plan, according to our correspondent.
The announcement on the bonus will be made in February, he added.
The news of Mr Daniels' bonus came on the day that the Labour leader Ed Miliband accused Prime Minister David Cameron of "pathetic excuses" for breaking promises to limit bank bonuses.
BBC News  |  12 January 2010

Monday, December 13, 2010

FINANCE REFORM BILL HELPS 5 BIG BANKS.

TheRealNews | August, 2010 - Jane D'Arista:
1. Bill put some brakes on speculation but will strengthen monopolization of sector:
2. Bill does not take on the Federal Reserve.
3. No Public Option for Finance Reform?





Did the bank won? I think so with QE2!

Friday, December 10, 2010

Financial Crisis :: How it happens & why?

A close look at the devastating effects globally:



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