What's clear from the behavior of European financial markets over the past two weeks is that the dramatic stories of financial meltdown and panic are deliberately being used by certain influential factions in and outside the EU to shape the future face of global banking in the wake of the US sub-prime and Asset-Backed Security (ABS) debacle. The most interesting development in recent days has been the unified and strong position of the German Chancellor, Finance Minister, Bundesbank and coalition Government, all opposing an American-style EU Superfund bank bailout. Meanwhile Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson pursues his Crony Capitalism to the detriment of the nation and benefit of his cronies in the financial world.
videre:
There is serious ground to believe that US Goldman Sachs ex CEO Henry Paulson, as Treasury Secretary, is not stupid. There is also serious ground to believe that he is actually moving according to a well-thought-out long-term strategy. Events as they are now unfolding in the EU tend to confirm that. As one senior European banker put it to me in private discussion, ‘There is an all-out war going on between the United States and the EU to define the future face of European banking.'
In this banker's view, the ongoing attempt of Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi and France's Nicholas Sarkosy to get an EU common ‘fund', with perhaps upwards of $300 billion to rescue troubled banks, would de facto play directly into Paulson and the US establishment's long-term strategy, by in effect weakening the banks and repaying US-originated Asset Backed Securities held by EU banks.
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The Paulson plan is now clearly part of a project to create three colossal global financial giants—Citigroup, JP MorganChase and, of course, Paulson's own Goldman Sachs, now conveniently enough a bank. Having successfully used fear and panic to wrestle a $700 billion bailout from the US taxpayers, now the big three will try to use their unprecedented muscle to ravage European banks in the years ahead. So long as the world's largest financial credit rating agencies—Moody's and Standard & Poors—are untouched by the scandals and Congressional hearings, the reorganized US financial power of Goldman Sachs, Citigroup and JP Morgan Chase could potentially regroup and advance their global agenda over the coming several years, walking over the ashes of a bankrupt American economy made bankrupt by their follies.
Det er god grunn til å ta Engdahl med et par klyper salt; han er profesjonell konspirasjonsteoretiker... Men at den amerikanske staten er blitt stadig mer uthulet og kapret av lobbyister for diverse amerikanske oligarker er etterhvert åpenbart for den som gidder pirke litt i lakken (og ikke lar seg hypnotisere av snakkehodene på TV). J. K. Galbraith beskriver det slik:
The Predator State is an economic system wherein entire sectors have been built up to feast on public systems built originally for public purposes and largely serving the middle class. On a day-to-day basis, the business of its leadership is to deliver favors to their clients. These range from coal companies to sweatshop operators to military contractors. [...] They include the privatizers of social security and those who put the drug companies in position to profit from Medicare. Everywhere you look, regulatory functions have been turned over to lobbyists. Everywhere you look, public decisions yield gains to specific private persons. Everywhere you look, the public decision is made by the agent of a private party for the purpose of delivering private gain. This is not an accident: it is a system.
DN intervjuet en eller annen finanskjendis i sommer, og spurte hvem som kom til å vinne presidentvalget... svaret kom kontant: "Obama, for han har mest penger. Det er sånn det fungerer i USA". Tanken at Bernanke, som Greenspan, og Geithner, som Paulson, først og fremst tjener bank/pengeinteresser skjult i kulissene er svært nærliggende. Men disse interessene er skjult... The Fed er et privat selskap(!) med ukjente eiere... det eneste som er "kjent" er at eierne er et konsortium av banker/bankierer. Det er ikke klart at et slikt skulle ha noen interesse av (for å returnere til postens hovedtema) å foretrekke amerikanske bankers makt på bekostning av europeiske. Men på den annen side, den amerikanske staten har vel fortsatt en egen vilje og en selvoppholdelsesdrift...
...som bringer meg til den umiddelbare impulsen for denne posten. MSM har et ekstremt amerikansk bias; så også bloggosfæren... det er sjelden å finne eurosentriske kvaltitetssynsere. Men så snublet jeg over denne fra franske GEAB/leap2020. Jeg vet ingenting om dem; men det er interessant at de sier mer eller mindre det samme som Engdahl sa i oktober, nemlig at det er en pågående finansiell krig mellom USA og EU... det siste angrepet mener de er ryktet om en kjempemessig europeisk banksmell med utgangspunkt i ØstEuropa:
[We] decided to study carefully in the present public announcement the reality of this so-called “Eastern European banking bomb” which has invaded the media in the last month.
If we found this a relevant theme, it is because it represents in our opinion a deliberate attempt on the part of Wall Street and the City (2) to make the world believe in some rupture within the EU and to instil the idea that some « deadly » risk is weighing on the Eurozone, by endlessly conveying phony news on a “banking risk coming from Eastern Europe” and by stigmatizing a “cold-feeted” Eurozone as opposed to the “voluntarist” actions initiated by the Americans and the Bristish. One aim is also to divert the attention from the increasing financial problems encountered in New York and London, and to weaken the Europe position on the eve of the G20 summit.
The idea is brilliant: pick up a current and “in the news” theme to ensure interest, add one or two striking analogies to guarantee that the media and internet are eager to circulate the information; then call on a few devoted men and organisations, always available to tell one more lie. With this kind of a cocktail, you can even make people believe for a while that the war in Iraq is a great success, that the subprime crisis will not affect the financial sector, that the financial crisis will not affect real economy, that the crisis is not really severe, and that, if it is, everything is under control!
In the present case, the theme is a classic; it is about the separation between the « Old Europe » and the « New Europe », between a rich and selfish Europe and a poor and hopeful Europe. From Rumsfeld on Iraq to the United Kingdom on EU enlargement, this is a common theme repeated endlessly over the past ten years by the Anglo-Saxon and related media, and on which some British media in particular have become specialists.
(EDIT/postscriptum: Se Europa advarer mod USAs krisekurs (Berlingske Tidende)... Kontinental-EU med Tyskland i spissen mot USA/Storbritannia. Tyskland framstår (ironisk nok) mer og mer som demokratiets siste bastion... Go, Angela! Don't just do something, stand there!)
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