(busy …)
Your news & views …
Back to Main
April 2, 2014
Open Thread 2014-09
Comments
Posted by: james | Apr 5, 2014 9:14:18 PM | 197
It is not true what she says about banking.
1 The US federal reserve is independent of government but not privately owned.
2. What she describes as the reason Putin is supposed to be hated by Western bankers is very much the German system – lots of state owned, municipal, cooperative banks over here and yes there is a German development bank state sponsoring investment.
Banks have to be independent from the state if people want to be sure that their money values any goods. Governments are always tempted to just print money.
My guess is that some Western people do like Putin as he is a good pretext to start a new cold war and get financing for the “defense” industry.
What the “West” does not like about Putin is
– the planned Eurasian Union forms a New Silk Road from Europe to China connecting Germany with Chinese factories
– he backs his plans with rising military spending and an efficient, authoritarian state
– he controls a large part of Europe’s energy market including pipelines and uses this power politically
Posted by: somebody | Apr 6 2014 6:20 utc | 202
add to 202
But yes, the efforts to “thwart the Eurasian Union” were made public by Hillary Clinton in 2012
“But let’s make no mistake about it. We know what the goal is and we are trying to figure out effective ways to slow down or prevent it.”
Now this is a demented strategy. Hillary Clinton basically stated that the US is fighting an integration process without any plan to gain anything just “slow down, prevent”.
It is the perfect definition of lose/lose except for defense industry connected contractors.
It is such a negative strategy that the US now is in the progress of being hated by the European left, right and the business backed center.
Posted by: somebody | Apr 6 2014 6:32 utc | 203
Posted by: Massinissa | Apr 5, 2014 7:25:32 PM | 195
Actually, I am sure it is enough to murder 1 percent to be considered criminal.
Yep, the way the spin avoids to talk about the crimes committed in Ukraine, by whom and why is breathtaking in its hypocrisy.
That official “suicide” info on the coordinator of Pravy Sektor seems to have closed the discussion on that subject. I am sure, the guy was a pest, but to be able to “suicide” one side also means you are able to “suicide” any side.
But the Ukrainian Security Service seems to survive with some members now being in Crimea. Just the Special Police was dissolved in Kyiv. Which somehow makes me wonder what they are doing now with their spare time in the South East of Ukraine.
Anyway, economic reality is sinking in now, so brace yourself for the second round.
Has the US State Department any money left?
Posted by: somebody | Apr 6 2014 7:35 utc | 204
a very good report on the situation of Crimean Tatars – beyond the spin
Posted by: somebody | Apr 6 2014 8:16 utc | 205
The New York Times is introducing unsourced new fact into the Maidan narrative – you are not really supposed to do this as a journalist –
When the smoke had cleared at dawn, Mr. Marchuk said, he was struck by the realization that “there were critically few people on Maidan.” At night, he said, the Berkut had been like “blind cats,” lashing out because they could not see their exact targets. In daylight, he said, “it was really, really scary” because the Berkut could overwhelm the protesters.
Carefully skirting questions about the arrival of guns stolen from a government depot in the western Ukraine city of Lviv, he said the Maidan was saved because hundreds of new volunteers from three cities in western Ukraine got around roadblocks and arrived by bus. At the time, organizers in Lviv said they alone were sending 600 people a day to Kiev. That enabled exhausted defenders to eat and sleep while new arrivals built barricades and then, early on Feb. 20, thrust toward the Berkut positions.
Posted by: somebody | Apr 6 2014 9:01 utc | 206
guest77 | Apr 5, 2014 9:10:09 PM | 196
Consider “being anti-russian” is what ukrainian reason of state and nationalism was all about since 1991. To the effect, that ukrainian nationalism was as weak and meaningless as to allow for all kind of authoritaranism, hence little resistance of the workforce to oligarch takeover and increasing role of localism.
At least that is the impression I got of the three personal contacts with ukrainians in Germany since.
(And this is not a plead for an “”authentic” nationalism!)
guest77 | Apr 5, 2014 9:10:09 PM | 196
Consider “being anti-russian” is what ukrainian reason of state is all about since 1991, to the effect that there was little resistance of the workforce to oligarch takeover and localism was flourishing.
List of Maidan killed who got identified
These were the first victims to die in demonstrations in Ukraine since gaining national independence in 1991.
Video analyzing sniper shots from Hotel Ukraine
into the back of protesters
I do not see how the EU can avoid this issue.
Posted by: somebody | Apr 6 2014 10:15 utc | 209
“Banks have to be independent from the state if people want to be sure that their money values any goods.”
Not central banks. Because currency is identical to sovereign dept but private banks have the means to multiply debt by lending money on all kind of “securities” that are essentially “futures” – future sells and trade, future interest, future income or profits that may come about or may not. Hence private owned central banks inevitably would take over any dept within the ambit of a national currency, including sovereign dept, and then any issuing of sovereign dept in order to cover sovereign needs would 1 to 1 translate into inflation. It is inevitable, because in capitalistic economy growth is bound to come in circles of prosperity and depression.
There is only one way to prevent ambit breakdown of a national currency if there is to much private banks clout in it:
make it international, impose it on other nations as world – currency.
That was done by the british empire when it combined their most mighty financial assets (the usual suspects, Rothschild & Co.) with the prosperity of North American industrialization. That meant combining the robbing powers of the mightiest colonial empire left with the potential of a settler state, that took over the static accumulation based on slave labor into the dynamics of unfettered expansion of wage-labor.
The physical base of this combination on the field of finance was accumulation of gold and silver treasure. But the declining british colonial power, accelerated by the “World wars”, drained the british treasure towards the US, and the tipping point of this drain was the Suez Crisis, when the Fed revoked its credit to London and forced GB to use its treasure. By then, the UK and part of its “Commonwealth” were turned into bridgeheads of the US-Empire.
“Governments are always tempted to just print money.”
Bullshit. They are not “tempted”, but they print money all the time. But this is more or less meticulously attuned to growth on national and international markets and to the extent, global markets depend on the stability of a national currency, that is to say on the sovereign debt of a country. And the US-Empire since WWII has got, and systematically completed the might, to impose dependency of the dollar by military means on any other country. The last case of doing so in a direct way was somalizising Libya, robbing its financial assets and gold treasure.
(btw: I have to apologize to “somebody”. I paid propagandist wouldn#t have indulged in spreading stuff unnumbed by knowledge. So his mission seems to be private)
Posted by: TomGard | Apr 6, 2014 6:20:54 AM | 210
This here is Guidelines for the Single State Monetary Policy in 2014 and for 2015 and 2016 of the Russian Central Bank approved by Bank of Russia Board of Directors
– not by Putin, the Russian parliament or Gazprom
There is no central bank that is not independent of the state in today’s world.
Ukraine standards
Presumably now, after Euromaidan, we are all in ‘new Ukraine’, and we all know it’s an absolute disaster. So perhaps some comfort there’s a few things which look a lot like ‘old Ukraine’. From Odessa last night – some Ukraine standards
Posted by: somebody | Apr 6 2014 10:40 utc | 212
Somebody 212
Somebody, “Independence” in that case (I didn’t read the paper) is definitely not a case of “state owned” and “private owned”, but administrative division of powers or “checks and balances”. And that is just the means to accout for the necessity I mentioned above:
“meticulously attune (sovereign debt and money printing) to growth on national and international markets and to the extent, global markets depend on the stability of a national currency”
This job has to be parted of (?), secured from the personal ambitions of Finance Ministry personnel, that of cource tries to extend its grasp of money and debt to the maximum – because that’s their mandate within a government.
Thats a different pair of shoes 🙂
Posted by: TomGard | Apr 6, 2014 6:58:13 AM | 213
I was referring to the paper.
Posted by: somebody | Apr 6 2014 11:07 utc | 214
re:Posted by: james | Apr 5, 2014 9:14:18 PM | 197
“It is not true what she says about banking.” “The US federal reserve is independent of government but not privately owned.” Posted by: somebody | Apr 6, 2014 2:20:13 AM | 202
This is misleading semantics, by both Somebody and the Federal Reserve Info site. Also misleading is the very name of the ‘Federal Reserve.’
“Banks have to be independent from the state if people want to be sure that their money values any goods. Governments are always tempted to just print money.”
This is in effect the same as saying that the private individuals influencing or controlling private banks are always more sensible and socially responsible than publicly elected or publicly hired individuals controlling banks. Oh really?
The court case Lewis vs. the United States, 1982, held that the Federal Reserve is an independent, privately owned corporation.
From that decision: “Federal reserve banks are not federal instrumentalities for purposes of a Federal Tort Claims Act, but are independent, privately owned and locally controlled corporations in light of fact that direct supervision and control of each bank is exercised by board of directors, federal reserve banks, though heavily regulated, are locally controlled by their member banks, banks are listed neither as “wholly owned” government corporations nor as “mixed ownership” corporations; federal reserve banks receive no appropriated funds from Congress and the banks are empowered to sue and be sued in their own names.”
“The Federal Reserve Bank of New York holds the majority of shares in the Federal Reserve System. The largest shareholders of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York are the largest commercial banks in the district of New York.” Ellen Brown, p. 127, Web of Debt.
The critical question is: what happens in the real world? In the real world most ‘money’ is created by issuance of credit (which is debt) by private corporations.
The alternative approach in very general terms is a money system which is in effect structured as a public utility.
The author of the piece linked to by James has very important things to say.
Posted by: Robert Snefjella | Apr 6 2014 12:10 utc | 215
Okay, I have to confess, I didn’t read this either. I’m kind of fed up with your stuff – and this is an example for it.
Yes, it is correct, the Federal Reserve is not privatly owned in the way any genuin private bank is, because the owners are prevented from disposing of it and their institutions the way they could do with normal privat ownership. Congress is holding prerogatives that I don’t know in detail. But that means simply, that big owners and corporates in the US are invited ant thus by means of competition to a degree forced to join in, rendering the Federal Reserve a genuin corporative institution – and to buy themselves into Congress also. This is an example of the extent, the Union State altogether is a corporate institution to a great extent – in contrast to the federal states. This characteristics is partly curtailed by other elitist influences – especially those of the military. (Being one of the origins of the split of US government in factions, that are nor longer competing, but fighting each other)
Insofar calling the Fed “private owned” is not false, while it is not entirely correct. Roughly the same is valid for a private bank like Sberbank, with the Russian State holding 51% of it. It is a private bank in which the state holds prerogatives.
Posted by: Robert Snefjella | Apr 6, 2014 8:10:12 AM | 215
What I am saying is that banking is a world wide system a government can only opt out of to their own peril ie the national currency losing all value. Russia does not opt out of the system. This is not the reason Putin gets attacked.
Posted by: somebody | Apr 6 2014 12:44 utc | 217
Ukrainian Defense News Network
about an hour ago · Edited
BREAKING NEWS:
According to the reports, since yesterday (April 5) the delegation of the “Yuzhmash” company (the leading state-owned Ukrainian manufacturer of space rockets and satellites located in Dnepropetrovsk and technologically interlaced with a number of Russian military plants – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yuzhmash) is holding secret talks “with interested parties” in Turkey proposing full technical documentation for SS-18 “Satan Mod.2” (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SS-18) – the heavy Russian intercontinental nuclear ballistic missile complex.
In case the “deal’ is concluded, the buyer would obtain a cut edge techology able to penetrate the US and Russian nuclear shields. The counterparts at talks are believed to be Turkish, Saudi and Qatar intelligence officials.
Source: http://stbcaptain.livejournal.com/95303.html
MAX REPOST REQUIRED.
Posted by: brian | Apr 6 2014 12:47 utc | 218
What the “West” does not like about Putin is
– the planned Eurasian Union forms a New Silk Road from Europe to China connecting Germany with Chinese factories
– he backs his plans with rising military spending and an efficient, authoritarian state
– he controls a large part of Europe’s energy market including pipelines and uses this power politically
Posted by: somebody | Apr 6, 2014 2:20:13 AM | 202
————-
what utter bullshit….surely by now its penetrated your mind that EU is AUTHORITARIAN…..and that russia is not…who is the one pressing nits military forces on another state…not russia but EU in the form of NATO…who ignores its people EU,as the people of EU as polls show, support Putin….yet the EU leaders ignore their own people…thatws authoriatianism/autocracy…that the west hates authoritarianism is bogus as who supported Pinochet, saddam, saudi arabia qatar etc etc
US friendly dictators
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article2844.htm
seriously, you need to do more research…dont regurgitate the western propaganda…not here!
Posted by: brian | Apr 6 2014 12:55 utc | 219
Posted by: somebody | Apr 6, 2014 4:16:54 AM | 205
Vice? the name itself is not promising,..they are also pro Kiev
Posted by: brian | Apr 6 2014 12:57 utc | 220
Links to Vice, somebody? Really?
I assume their embedding with Pussy Riot should be taken seriously, too?
Posted by: L Bean | Apr 6 2014 13:04 utc | 221
brian, not being at the end of the authoritarian scale still means authoritarian, just like not being on the end of the democratic scale still means democratic.
One indicator would be press freedom. That the institutions critizising Russia on press freedom have a political agenda of their own, does not mean there is press freedom in Russia. Can you follow the logic?
If you doubt, that Russia is within the global banking system, you can check the historical Dollar-Rubel rates.
It is business as everywhere.
Posted by: somebody | Apr 6 2014 13:07 utc | 222
Livestream, Kharkov, Ukraine
http://www.ustream.tv/channel/kharkov-antimaidan
Posted by: brian | Apr 6 2014 13:12 utc | 223
One indicator would be press freedom. That the institutions critizising Russia on press freedom have a political agenda of their own, does not mean there is press freedom in Russia. Can you follow the logic?
.Posted by: somebody | Apr 6, 2014 9:07:44 AM | 222
When Germany and most of europe get a free press then you can criticise russia, until then pls stop being such an astounding hypocrite
Try publishing anything critically evaluating the holocaust and questioning any aspect of its mythos and you risk several years in gaol.
Same is true of most eu countries.
Fix that first before you criticise anyone else you cheap little propagandist
Posted by: brb | Apr 6 2014 13:56 utc | 224
Posted by: brian | Apr 6, 2014 9:12:51 AM | 223
theres no point pounding me with the word ‘freedom’, as it has no meaning…
theres no press ‘freedom’ anywhere because there are professional rules of conduct….you know: tell the truth, dont engage in libel, dont expose state secrets etc etc
your idea that russia is authoritian goes with the equally bogus one that US and EU are not…but who has just heeded a referendum and who opposed it?
Posted by: brian | Apr 6 2014 14:09 utc | 225
“What I am saying is that banking is a world wide system a government can only opt out of to their own peril ie the national currency losing all value. Russia does not opt out of the system. This is not the reason Putin gets attacked.”
Posted by: somebody | Apr 6, 2014 8:44:20 AM | 217
Gaddafi’s attempt to set up a pan African banking alternative to the prevailing System was indeed perilous.
But “somebody” is posing a false dichotomy: there is far more in the way of possible alternatives than the cartoonesque choice between ‘opting in’ and ‘opting out.’
Furthermore, there are many reasons why Putin is being attacked. His independent-mindedness and concern for the well being of the Russian people, as opposed to being a lackey, marks him as an enemy of money system hegemony. The incredible reduction of Russian debt under Putin’s leadership, are at odds with the results elsewhere from the “world wide system.”
And for example, Putin’s leadership increases the capacity for BRICS to move towards alternative ways and means of financial transactions, ‘rogue’ in so far as WB and IMF and BIS and City of London and Wall Street are concerned. This is a potentially mortal threat to the hitherto dominant geo-political depravity and global plantation and enslavement system.
Posted by: Robert Snefjella | Apr 6 2014 14:28 utc | 226
robert snefjella – thanks.
somebody. i disagree with your viewpoint on the nature of international banking and other things you are saying. you might enjoy a great book to read on the federal reserve “the creature from jeykll island”. although the appearance is that these central banks are tools for the government, they are still controlled by private interests that have nothing to do with benefiting the countries were they are. they are tools for the private banking system that is fairly complex and difficult to understand. putin seems to have done what andrew jackson tried doing back in the 1800’s. i think that article i linked at 197 is quite good at explaining why ”’the west”’ is pissed off at him and want to remove him from power and dismantle what he has done. they don’t like the competition!
Posted by: james | Apr 6 2014 16:19 utc | 227
But “somebody” is posing a false dichotomy:
Posted by: Robert Snefjella | Apr 6, 2014 10:28:00 AM | 226
I’m SHOCKED, shocked to find that ‘somebody’ is posing false dichotomies in here!
Posted by: brb | Apr 6 2014 17:28 utc | 228
Interesting conference for those interested in that kind of thing.
Criticisms/opinions on Chossudovsky? I’ve been listening to him quite a bit lately. Interesting background, lays out the big picture quite well, and seems to have followed the history of neoliberalism from its inception under the Chilean Fascism.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TH2kq3k6u94
Index in English – just jump to your favorite language:
9 min. 39 sec. into video:
(First German) Lectures: Manifestation against imperialist wars
(1914-2014: European Policy of the German Capital then and now.)
12 min. 26 sec. into video:
(in German) Jörg Kronauer (Social scientist and freelance journalist).
On behalf of the ruling class
46 min. 46 sec. into video:
(in English) Anders Kaergaard (Danish whistleblower and secret service quitter)
Africa as target of neo-colonial wars of order
1 hour 46 min. 53 sec. into video:
(in English) Dennis Goldberg (South African civil rights activist and Nelson Mandea companion)
2 hours 38 min. 24 sec. into video:
Panel Discussion 1
The Fourth Estate and Home Front: How the media makes wars possible
2 hours 42 min. 15 sec. into video:
(in German) Karin Leukefeld (jungeWelt-author)
2 hours 56 min. 22 sec. into video:
(in English) Anders Kaergaard (Danish whistleblower and secret service quitter)
3 hours 04 min. 16 sec. into video:
(in English) Freja Wedenborg (editor of the Danish newspaper Arbejderen)
3 hour. 17 min. 38 sec. into video:
(in German) Rainer Rupp (former employee at NATO Headquarters, today jungeWelt-author)
(in German) Moderator: Rüdiger Göbel (Deputy jungeWelt-Chief Editor)
3 hours 47 min. 47 sec. into video:
(in German) Cuba 5 – Silidarity, Harri Grünberg
From Belgrade to Damascus – from war to war
3 hours 59 min. 40 sec. into video:
(in English) Zivadin Jovanovic (former Foreign Minister of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia)
4 hours 24 min. 50 sec. into video:
(in English) Tue Magnussen, free lance Danish journalist addresses critical questions to Jovanovic.
4 hours 40 min. 22 sec. into video:
Objectives of imperialist wars globally and locally
4 hours 50 min. 9 sec. into video:
(in English) Michel Chossudovsky (Canadian professor of economics)
5 hours 30 min. 13 sec. into video:
(in English) US Army Anti-War Veteran Troels Schmidt living in Denmak asks Chossudovsky to expand his criticism of Amy Goodman, Democracy Now. Another critical American joins in.
5 hours 38 min. 5 sec. into video:
(in English) Jamal Hart, the son of Mumia Abu-Jamal, conveys message to the conference from his father.
6 hours 34 min. 12 sec. into video:
Panel Discussion 2
How can the struggle against fascism, against war and against social cutbacks be transformed into a common cause?
6 hours 36 min. into video:
(in German) Chair: Arnold Schölzel (jungeWelt-editor in chief)
6 hours 42 min. 12 sec. into video:
(in Portuguese) Maria do Socorro Gomes Coelho (President of World Peace Council) Fighters, FIR).
6 hours 52 min. 47 sec. into video:
(in German) Bernd Riexinger (Chairman of the Left Party)
6 hours 59 min. 5 sec. into video:
(in German) Ulrich Schneider (General Secretary of the International Federation of Resistance
7 hours 10 min. 7 sec. into video:
(in German) Monty Schädel (Political Managing Director of The German Peace Society and United War Resistance Veterans)
Posted by: guest77 | Apr 8 2014 5:19 utc | 229