Juan José Millás : Um canhão pelo cu

Este artigo incendiou a Espanha. Publicado a 14 de Agosto na secção de cultura de El Pais, em poucos dias tornou-se a peça mais lida de sempre naquele jornal e além disso teve milhares de acessos no Facebook. O autor é um escritor espanhol comprometido com os anseios do seu povo. Leia também a sua entrevista "Tornámo-nos uma colónia da Alemanha" em Dinheiro Vivo.

Se percebemos bem – e não é fácil, porque somos um bocado tontos –, a economia financeira está para a economia real assim como o senhor feudal está para o servo, como o amo está para o escravo, como a metrópole está para a colónia, como capitalista manchesteriano está para o operário superexplorado. A economia financeira é o inimigo de classe da economia real, com a qual brinca como um porco ocidental com corpo de uma criança num bordel asiático. Esse porco filho da puta pode, por exemplo, fazer com que a tua produção de trigo se valorize ou desvalorize dois anos antes de a teres semeado. Na verdade, pode comprar-te, sem que tu saibas da operação, uma colheita inexistente e vendê-la a um terceiro, que a venderá a um quarto e este a um quinto, e pode conseguir, de acordo com os seus interesses, que durante esse processo delirante o preço desse trigo quimérico dispare ou se afunde sem que tu ganhes mais caso suba, ainda que vás à merda se baixar. Se o baixar demasiado, talvez não te compense semear, mas ficarás endividado sem ter o que comer ou beber para o resto da tua vida e podes até ser preso ou condenado à forca por isso, dependendo da região geográfica em que tenhas caído, ainda que não haja nenhuma segura. É disso que trata a economia financeira.

Para exemplificar, estamos a falar da colheita de um indivíduo, mas o que o porco filho da puta geralmente compra é um país inteiro e ao preço da chuva, um país com todos os cidadãos dentro, digamos que com gente real que se levanta realmente às seis da manhã e se deita à meia-noite. Um país que, da perspectiva do terrorista financeiro, não é mais do que um tabuleiro de jogos no qual um conjunto de bonecos Playmobil andam de um lado para o outro como se movem os peões no Jogo da Glória.

A primeira operação do terrorista financeiro sobre a sua vítima é a do terrorista convencional: o tiro na nuca. Ou seja, retira-lhe todo o carácter de pessoa, coisifica-a. Uma vez convertida em coisa, pouco importa se tem filhos ou pais, se acordou com febre, se está a divorciar-se ou se não dormiu porque está a preparar-se para uma competição. Nada disso conta para a economia financeira ou para o terrorista económico que acaba de pôr o dedo sobre o mapa, sobre um país, este no caso, pouco importa, e diz "compro" ou diz "vendo" com a impunidade com que aquele que joga Monopólio compra ou vende propriedades imobiliárias a fingir.

Quando o terrorista financeiro compra ou vende, converte em irreal o trabalho genuíno de milhares ou milhões de pessoas que antes de irem para a labuta deixaram no infantário público, onde ainda existem, os seus filhos, também eles produto de consumo desse exército de cabrões protegidos pelos governos de meio mundo mas superprotegidos, é claro, por essa coisa a que temos chamado de Europa ou União Europeia ou, mais simplesmente, Alemanha, para cujos cofres são desviados neste preciso momento, enquanto lê estas linhas, milhares de milhões de euros que estavam nos nossos cofres.

E não são desviados num movimento racional, justo ou legítimo, desviam-se num movimento especulativo promovido por Merkel com a cumplicidade de todos os governos da chamada zona euro. Tu e eu, com a nossa febre, os nossos filhos sem infantário ou sem trabalho, o nosso pai doente e sem ajudas, com os nossos sofrimentos morais ou as nossas alegrias sentimentais, tu e eu já fomos coisificados por Draghi, por Lagarde, por Merkel, já não temos as qualidades humanas que nos tornam dignos da empatia dos nossos semelhantes. Somos agora mera mercadoria que pode ser expulsa do lar de idosos, do hospital, da escola pública, tornámo-nos algo desprezível, como esse pobre tipo a quem o terrorista, por antonomásia, está prestes a dar um tiro na nuca em nome de Deus ou da pátria.

A ti e a mim, estão a pôr nos carris do comboio uma bomba diária chamada prémio de risco, por exemplo, ou juros a sete anos, em nome da economia financeira. Avançamos com rupturas diárias, massacres diários, e há autores materiais desses atentados e responsáveis intelectuais dessas acções terroristas que passam impunes entre outras razões porque os terroristas vão a eleições e até ganham, e porque há atrás deles importantes grupos mediáticos que legitimam os movimentos especulativos de que somos vítimas.

A economia financeira, se começamos a perceber, significa que quem te comprou aquela colheita inexistente era um cabrão com os documentos certos. Terias tu liberdade para não vender? De forma alguma. Tê-la-ia comprado ao teu vizinho ou ao vizinho deste. A actividade principal da economia financeira consiste em alterar o preço das coisas, crime proibido quando acontece em pequena escala, mas encorajado pelas autoridades quando os valores são tamanhos que transbordam dos gráficos.

Aqui alteram o preço das nossas vidas a cada dia sem que ninguém resolva o problema, pior, enviando as forças da ordem contra quem tenta fazê-lo. E, por Deus, as forças da ordem empenham-se a fundo na protecção desse filho da puta que te vendeu, por meio de um roubo autorizado, um produto financeiro, ou seja, um objecto irreal no qual tu investiste as poupanças reais de toda a tua vida. O grande porco vendeu-lhe fumaça com o amparo das leis do Estado que são as leis da economia financeira, já que estão ao seu serviço.

Na economia real, para que uma alface nasça, há que semeá-la e cuidar dela e dar-lhe o tempo necessário para se desenvolver. Depois, há que a colher, claro, e embalar e distribuir e facturar a 30, 60 ou 90 dias. Uma quantidade imensa de tempo e de energia para obter uns cêntimos que terás de dividir com o Estado, através dos impostos, para pagar os serviços comuns que agora nos são retirados porque a economia financeira tropeçou e há que tirá-la do buraco. A economia financeira não se contenta com a mais-valia do capitalismo clássico, precisa também do nosso sangue e está nele, por isso brinca com a nossa saúde pública e com a nossa educação e com a nossa justiça da mesma forma que um terrorista doentio, passe a redundância, brinca enfiando o cano da sua pistola no rabo do seu sequestrado.

Há já quatro anos que nos metem esse cano pelo rabo. E com a cumplicidade dos nossos. O original encontra-se em http://cultura.elpais.com/cultura/2012/08/13/actualidad/1344875187_015708.html
e a tradução em http://www.dinheirovivo.pt/Economia/Artigo/CIECO056741.html?page=0
(foram efectuadas pequenas alterações)

Este artigo encontra-se em http://resistir.info/ .

How to Liberate America from Wall Street Rule

Open publication 

How to Liberate America from Wall Street Rule is a report of the New Economy Working Group produced in collaboration with the New Economy Network; it is an outcome of a series of conversations focused on building a policy agenda for transforming our money system. David Korten is the lead author; participating organizations include Business Alliance for Local Living Economies, Capital Institute, Democracy Collaborative, Green America, Institute for Policy Studies, Living Economies Forum, New Economy Network, New Rules Project, Institute for Local Self-Reliance, Public Banking Institute, RSF Social Finance, and YES! Magazine.

The report calls for building a money/banking/finance system of local financial institutions that are transparent, accountable, rooted in community and dedicated to funding activities that build community wealth and meet community needs. The proposed system will look quite similar to the one that existed in the United States before the wave of financial deregulation that began in the 1960s. The How to Liberate America from Wall Street Rule report briefly traces that history, outlines its devastating consequences, and presents an agenda for corrective action to change the system rules, structure, and culture.

The Bubble and Beyond : Fictitious Capital, Debt Deflation and Global Crisis

http://michael-hudson.com/2012/07/the-bubble-and-beyond

THE BUBBLE AND BEYOND describes how the fabulous expansive forces of industrial capitalism have been subverted by a predatory finance capitalism. What the FED hailed as “The Great Moderation” has left the middle class to take on a lifetime of bank debt to obtain access to housing, education to get a job, an auto to drive to it, and simply to maintain living standards that wages and salaries no longer support.

What has derailed the economy is the take-over of academic economics and politics by the financial sector in order to censor criticism and misrepresent statistics so as to give the impression that the economy can “borrow its way out of debt.” The reality is that income used to pay down today’s debt overhead is not available to be spent on goods and services. The result is debt deflation, followed by austerity and the the "fire sale" or decay of infrastructure at the national and local levels.

The most controversial claim by Prof. Hudson is that “Debts that can’t be paid, won’t be.” The question he poses is whether their non-payment will lead to worldwide foreclosures – including sell-offs of the public domain by debt-strapped local and national governments – or whether they will be written down in line with the ability to pay.

This is the economic issue that will dominate politics over the next generation. Illustrated with charts and exhibits that make it plain where money goes versus where it should go.

David Korten : Rio+20: A Defining Choice

David Korten

How can we create an economy that serves the health and well-being of both people and the planet? Follow the Earth’s lead.

Next week, 20 years after the 1992 UN Rio Earth Summit, representatives of the world’s governments will gather again in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil to frame a global response to the Earth’s environmental crisis. Debates leading up to Rio+20 are focusing attention on a foundational choice between two divergent paths to the human future.

The Money Path

For money path advocates, money is the defining measure of value. Profit and growth in financial assets are the bottom line measures by which they assess the performance of both the firm and the economy. They value natural wealth by the price it will fetch in the market and look to global financial markets as the preferred mechanism to organize our human relationships with one another and nature.

They propose that the best way to save nature is to price her assets and sell them to wealthy global investors to hold and manage as their private property. Privatization, commodification, monopolization, and financialization, they assure us, will drive up prices and thus create an incentive to provide for their proper care to maximize a perpetual flow of earnings.
The Life Path

For life path advocates, Earth is our living Mother, sacred and beyond price. Her health and vitality are essential to our well-being and are therefore a priority bottom line measure of economic performance. In return for Earth’s gifts, we have a sacred obligation to future generations to protect and restore to full health the wondrous generative systems by which she replenishes her air, water, fertile soils, fish, forests, and grasslands, and maintains the stable climate on which our health and well-being depend.

Because we receive Earth’s abundance as a gift, we must assure it is shared to meet the needs of all. None among us created this abundance and no one of us has a right to claim it for our exclusive personal benefit.

Money, which is basically a system of accounting, is only a tool useful in facilitating human exchanges beneficial to people and nature. To use financial results as the bottom line indicator of economic performance makes no sense and leads to disastrous results.
Illusions of the Money World

Ignoring the reality that money in itself is nothing but a number, the institutions of money have created a fantasy world economy grounded in a grand illusion that money is real wealth and that making money creates real wealth to the benefit of all.

Since financial logic favors current returns over future returns and values natural systems only for the financial return they generate, it can lead to dangerously myopic short-term thinking. Here are three examples:

1. Money in the bank is more valuable than trees in the ground. Some years ago the minister who managed Malaysia’s forests explained to me why Malaysia should clear cut its forests and sell the timber. The interest from the sale would grow faster in the bank than the trees grow in the forest. I imagined a lifeless Malaysian landscape populated only by banks housing computers faithfully calculating the interest payments on Malaysia’s savings deposits.
2.  Financial bubbles create wealth. A 1996 article in Foreign Affairs, “Securities: The New World Wealth Machine argued that the key to wealth creation is no longer the production of real goods and services, but rather the inflation of financial bubbles based on securitized assets. The argument was so absurd I at first thought the article was a joke. It wasn’t. The article circulated widely on Wall Street and reportedly helped inspire the mortgage securitization frenzy that crashed the economy in 2008.
3. Your fishery collapsed? No problem. A 1997 article in the culinary section of The New York Times urged readers not to worry about the collapse of Atlantic fisheries, because abundant supplies of delicious fish were being flown in each day from Chile and Thailand and were even cheaper than local varieties because of cheap labor. No mention of a global decline in fish stocks as the number of hungry mouths in the world continues to grow. 

Read more :  http://www.yesmagazine.org/blogs/david-korten/rio-20-a-defining-choice

Vandana Shiva : "financeirização da economia está na raiz da crise"

http://www.vandanashiva.org/

Em entrevista à Carta Maior, a ativista indiana Vandana Shiva fala sobre suas expectativas em relação a Rio+20. Ela não acredita que a conferência da ONU consiga firmar compromissos de mudanças mais significativas em função da influência das grandes corporações. Neste cenário, defende, o papel da Cúpula dos Povos adquire maior importância. Para Vandana Shiva, a crise atual não poderá ser resolvida com mais financeirização e mais mercantilização.
Ana Paula Salviatti

Vandana Shiva, que participará da Rio+20 e da Cúpula dos Povos, é a autora do livro ‘The Violence of Green Revolution’ de 1991 (A Violência da Revolução Verde), uma leitura obrigatória para o debate sobre a produção agrícola alterada pela ‘Revolução Verde’; ‘revolução’ que trouxe para o plano agrícola a lógica que impôs o uso de pesticidas e sementes transgênicas, dentre muitas outras modificações, que Vandana explora profundamente em seu livro, infelizmente ainda sem tradução para o português.

Ela é defensora dos direitos humanos e do meio ambiente, os quais infelizmente muitas vezes são defendidos como causas separadas, mas que possuem intrínseca conexão pois os dois são explorados, cada um a sua forma, pela lógica econômica capitalista.

Vandana trabalha por uma economia verde sem dogmas e não foge ao debate sobre questões necessárias para barrar o avanço da situação que se encontram tanto trabalhadores, como natureza. A ativista também levanta a bandeira da situação das mulheres indianas, da segurança alimentar e da preservação dos povos e culturas locais. É fundadora da ONG indiana Navdanya, que, entre outras agendas, estimula a agricultura orgânica local.

Infelizmente seu livro "The Violence of Green Revolution" não foi traduzido para o português até hoje. Você poderia trazer ao nosso leitor uma exposição dá época em que ele foi escrito juntamente de uma análise dos desdobramentos que se deram dos anos 80 prá cá em relação as perdas da agricultura, não só na Índia como nos outros países.

Comecei a fazer a pesquisa sobre a violência da Revolução Verde em 1984, ano da violência no Punjab, onde a Revolução Verde foi implementada pela primeira vez em 1965. A Revolução Verde teve um Prêmio Nobel da Paz, mas em 1984, Punjab era uma terra de guerra. 30.000 pessoas foram mortas pela violência em Punjab, que é um número 6 vezes maior do que os mortos na tragédia do 11/9. O ano de 1984 foi também o ano do desastre de Bhopal, onde uma fábrica de pesticidas, da ‘Union Carbide’ (hoje Dow), vazou e matou 3.000 pessoas. Desde então, 30.000 pessoas morreram.. Hoje a Índia é a capital da fome e dos suicídios de agricultores. Desde 1997, 250.000 agricultores foram presos por dívidas e tiraram suas vidas.

A senhora traçaria um paralelo entre o modo de produção voltado ao abastecimento e especulação do mercado, as reservas naturais e as condições que se encontram a mão de obra trabalhadora no seu país? Outras regiões do mundo trariam condições semelhantes?

O modelo econômico dominante desperdiça recursos e pessoas. Apesar destes resíduos serem chamados de "eficiente" e "produtivo". Ele substituiu a produção com a especulação do capital financeiro, e do consumismo para as pessoas. Este modelo é: destruir a natureza e a sociedade em si.

Reformas ou Revolução? O que e o porque a senhora acredita ser necessário para impedir o avanço da situação de degradação das condições tanto humanas quanto naturais contemporâneas?

Duas coisas são necessárias para acabar com essa deterioração. Em primeiro lugar, uma mudança de paradigma e visão de mundo. Em segundo lugar, as pessoas levantarem-se coletivamente e dizer "Basta". Chega.

A senhora terá a oportunidade de participar da Rio+20 e da Cúpula dos Povos. Quais seriam na sua opinião, as limitações e as contribuições que cada uma delas poderão nos trazer?

A Rio+20 será limitada em firmar compromissos em função da influência das grandes corporações. Essas contribuições podem ser significativas, se reconhecerem a necessidade de restabelecer a harmonia com a natureza - objeto de uma sessão da Assembleia Geral das Nações Unidas no ano passado - e se reconhecerem que a agricultura ecológica é o caminho para a proteção do planeta e da Segurança Alimentar. A Cúpula dos Povos, os Direitos da Mãe Terra, e o compromisso para uma transformação serão vitais.

Não haveria uma lógica comum entre os mecanismos financeiros criados em torno da questão ambiental e ativos financeiros comuns? Esta mesma lógica é capaz de lidar com problemas ambientais, criados muitas vezes por ela própria? O que a senhora poderia falar sobre este assunto?

Há um provérbio africano que diz: "Você não pode colocar um bezerro dentro de uma vaca bezuntando-o com lama". A financeirização da economia e a consequente redução da economia a um casino, e os recursos do planeta e processos em mercadorias privatizadas, são a a raiz das crises ecológicas e econômicas. Estas crises não podem ser resolvidas por mais financeirização e mercantilização.

Fonte : http://www.cartamaior.com.br/templates/materiaMostrar.cfm?materia_id=20276

The End Game

The End Game

Predator Nation : Corporate Criminals, Political Corruption, and the Hijacking of America

http://www.randomhouse.com/book/213722/predator-nation-by-charles-h-ferguson

Charles H. Ferguson, who electrified the world with his Oscar-winning documentary Inside Job, now explains how a predator elite took over the country, step by step, and he exposes the networks of academic, financial, and political influence, in all recent administrations, that prepared the predators’ path to conquest.
Over the last several decades, the United States has undergone one of the most radical social and economic transformations in its history.

· Finance has become America’s dominant industry, while manufacturing, even for high technology industries, has nearly disappeared.

· The financial sector has become increasingly criminalized, with the widespread fraud that caused the housing bubble going completely unpunished.

· Federal tax collections as a share of GDP are at their lowest level in sixty years, with the wealthy and highly profitable corporations enjoying the greatest tax reductions.

· Most shockingly, the United States, so long the beacon of opportunity for the ambitious poor, has become one of the world’s most unequal and unfair societies.

If you’re smart and a hard worker, but your parents aren’t rich, you’re now better off being born in Munich, Germany or in Singapore than in Cleveland, Ohio or New York.
This radical shift did not happen by accident.

Ferguson shows how, since the Reagan administration in the 1980s, both major political parties have become captives of the moneyed elite. It was the Clinton administration that dismantled the regulatory controls that protected the average citizen from avaricious financiers. It was the Bush team that destroyed the federal revenue base with its grotesquely skewed tax cuts for the rich. And it is the Obama White House that has allowed financial criminals to continue to operate unchecked, even after supposed “reforms” installed after the collapse of 2008.

Predator Nation reveals how once-revered figures like Alan Greenspan and Larry Summers became mere courtiers to the elite. Based on many newly released court filings, it details the extent of the crimes—there is no other word—committed in the frenzied chase for wealth that caused the financial crisis. And, finally, it lays out a plan of action for how we might take back our country and the American dream.

Texte de l’article 123 du traité de Lisbonne

http://engagement2012.files.wordpress.com/2011/01/dette.jpg

« Il est interdit à la Banque Centrale Européenne (BCE) et aux banques centrales des États membres, ci-après dénommées “banques centrales nationales”, d’accorder des découverts ou tout autre type de crédits aux institutions ou organes de la Communauté, aux administrations centrales, aux autorités régionales ou locales, aux autres autorités publiques, aux autres organismes ou entreprises publics des États membres; l’acquisition directe, auprès d’eux, par la BCE ou les banques centrales nationales, des instruments de leur dette est également interdite. »

En clair: les États de la zone euro ne peuvent plus créer leur monnaie, même pour raisons justifiées. Ils sont asservis. Ils l’empruntent dès le premier euro à des fonds de pension, des gestionnaires d’assurance vie ou de placement de valeurs monétaire, monnaie toujours créée à l’origine par les banques commerciales privées, rendues de ce fait souveraines. Une dette publique artificielle (en France, elle n’existait pas avant janvier 1973) apparaît. Aujourd’hui de 1600 milliards d’euros, elle enfle sans fin par le cumul des intérêts qu’il faut chaque année emprunter; plus de 1340 milliards d’euros depuis 1980. Les intérêts qui créent la plus grande partie de nos déficits publics diminuent nos capacités d’investissements. Les services publics sont progressivement asphyxiés et notre patrimoine collectif vendu à vil prix.

Si nous ne mettons pas un terme à cette confiscation de démocratie économique, nous rejoindrons les pays pauvres d’ici peu.
Source : http://engagement2012.wordpress.com/

Philip Coggan - Paper Promises : Debt, Money and the New World Order

http://www.publicaffairsbooks.com/publicaffairsbooks

From the Economist's award-winning Buttonwood columnist comes a timely and incisive analysis of debt: the defining feature of our financial era

For the past forty years western economies have splurged on debt. Now, as the reality dawns that many debts cannot be repaid, we fi nd ourselves again in crisis. But the oncoming defaults have a time-worn place in our economic history. As with the crises in the 1930s and 1970s, governments will fall, currencies will lose their value, and new systems will emerge. Just as Britain set the terms of the international system in the nineteenth century, and America in the twentieth century, a new system will be set by today's creditors in China and the Middle East. In the process, rich will be pitted against poor, young against old, public sector workers against taxpayers and one country against another.

In Paper Promises, Economist columnist Philip Coggan helps us to understand the origins of this mess and how it will affect the new global economy by explaining how our attitudes towards debt have changed throughout history, and how they may be about to change again.

Philip Coggan is the Buttonwood columnist of the Economist. Previously, he worked for the Financial Times for twenty years, most recently as investment editor. Among his books are The Money Machine, a guide to the city of London that is still in print in the UK after twenty-five years, and The Economist Guide to Hedge Funds.

A quem pertence o Banco Central Europeu?

O Banco Central Europeu, ou BCE, pouco o nada tem a ver com a União Europeia.

Ao juntar os termos "Central" e "Europeu", a ideia era transmitir a sensação de que este fosse o banco da União.

E a ideia passou, pois muitos confundem as duas coisas.
Mas a verdade é bem diferente.

Se ainda existirem dúvidas acerca da total independência do BCE, é bom ler o Artigo 130 (ex-artigo 108 do TCE):

No exercício dos poderes e no cumprimento das tarefas e deveres que lhes são conferidos pelos Tratados e pelos Estatutos do SEBC e do BCE, nem o Banco Central Europeu, nem os bancos centrais nacionais, nem qualquer membro dos respectivos órgãos de decisão podem solicitar ou receber instruções das instituições, órgãos ou agências da União, dos governos dos Estados-Membros ou de qualquer outra entidade.

Instituições, órgãos e agências da União e os governos dos Estados-membros se comprometem a respeitar este princípio e a não tentar influenciar os órgãos de decisão do Banco Central Europeu ou dos bancos centrais nacionais no exercício das suas funções.

No documento de 18 de Dezembro de 2003, "Das percentagens detidas pelos bancos centrais europeus no esquema de subscrição dos capitais do Banco Central Europeu", assinado pelo Presidente Jean-Claude Trichet e publicado na Gazeta Oficial da União Europeia (15.1.2004 L 9/28), é possível observar a quem pertença, de facto, a mesma BCE.

Eis as percentagens detidas pelas várias instituições financeiras:

Nationale Bank van België/Banque Nationale de Belgique 2,8297 %
Danmarks Nationalbank 1,7216 %
Deutsche Bundesbank 23,4040 %
Bank of Greece 2,1614 %
Banco de España 8,7801 %
Banque de France 16,5175 %
Central Bank and Financial Services Authority of Ireland 1,0254 %
Banca d'Italia 14,5726 %
Banque centrale du Luxembourg 0,1708 %
De Nederlandsche Bank 4,4323 %
Oesterreichische Nationalbank 2,3019 %
Banco de Portugal 2,0129 %
Suomen Pankki 1,4298 %
Sveriges Riksbank 2,6636 %
Bank of England 15,9764 %

Duas coisas bastantes interessantes: a presença da Bank of England, isso é, do banco central dum País que ainda não adoptou o Euro como moeda oficial, e o facto do documento falar de forma explicita de senhoriagem:

O mesmo princípio aplica-se à repartição dos proveitos monetários dos BCN [bancos centrais nacionais, NDT] em conformidade com o artigo 32.1 do Estatuto, à distribuição da receita de senhoriagem, à remuneração dos créditos dos BCN iguais aos activos de reserva transferidos para o BCE [...]

Um assunto particularmente complexo este último, mas que cedo ou tarde terá de ser enfrentado dada a importância.

A quem pertencem os bancos nacionais?

Mas agora vamos em frente na nossa viagem.
Estabelecido o facto da BCE pertencer aos vários bancos centrais, a próxima pergunta que segue é: a quem pertencem os bancos centrais dos vários Países?

Também neste caso a resposta pode parecer óbvia: tal como o Banco Central Europeu deveria pertencer à União Europeia, assim os bancos centrais nacionais deveriam pertencer aos vários Estados nacionais.
Deveria, mas não é.

Descobrir os verdadeiros donos é muito difícil: os bancos centrais não gostam de divulgar este tipo de noticia. Mas temos sorte.
O banco central italiano, a Banca d'Italia, publica na internet a lista das instituições que detêm as quotas de participação e que têm direito de voto.
Eis a lista completa:

Participante Quota participação/número de votos

Intesa Sanpaolo S.p.A. 91.035/50
UniCredit S.p.A. 66.342/50
Assicurazioni Generali S.p.A. 19.000/42
Cassa di Risparmio in Bologna S.p.A. 18.602/41
INPS 15.000/34
Banca Carige S.p.A. - Cassa di Risparmio di Genova e Imperia 11.869/27
Banca Nazionale del Lavoro S.p.A. 8.500/21
Banca Monte dei Paschi di Siena S.p.A. 7.500/19
Cassa di Risparmio di Biella e Vercelli S.p.A. 6.300/16
Cassa di Risparmio di Parma e Piacenza S.p.A. 6.094/16
Cassa di Risparmio di Firenze S.p.A. 5.656/15
Fondiaria - SAI S.p.A. 4.000/12
Allianz Società per Azioni 4.000/12
Cassa di Risparmio di Lucca Pisa Livorno S.p.A. 3.668/11
Cassa di Risparmio del Veneto S.p.A. 3.610/11
Cassa di Risparmio di Asti S.p.A. 2.800/9
Cassa di Risparmio di Venezia S.p.A. 2.626/9
Banca delle Marche S.p.A. 2.459/8
INAIL 2.000/8
Milano Assicurazioni 2.000/8
Cassa di Risparmio del Friuli Venezia Giulia S.p.A. (CARIFVG S.P.A.) 1.869/7
Cassa di Risparmio di Pistoia e Pescia S.p.A. 1.126/6
Cassa di Risparmio di Ferrara S.p.A. 949/5
Cassa di Risparmio di Alessandria S.p.A. 873/5
Cassa di Risparmio di Ravenna S.p.A. 769/5
Banca Regionale Europea S.p.A. 759/5
Cassa di Risparmio di Fossano S.p.A. 750/5
Cassa di Risparmio di Prato S.p.A. 687/5
Unibanca S.p.A. 675/5
Cassa di Risparmio di Ascoli Piceno S.p.A. 653/5
Cassa di Risparmio di S. Miniato S.p.A. 652/5
Cassa dei Risparmi di Forlì e della Romagna S.p.A. 605/5
Banca Carime S.p.A. 500/5
Società Reale Mutua Assicurazioni 500/5
Cassa di Risparmio di Fabriano e Cupramontana S.p.A. 480/4
Cassa di Risparmio di Terni e Narni S.p.A. 463/4
Cassa di Risparmio di Rimini S.p.A. - CARIM 393/3
Cassa di Risparmio di Bolzano S.p.A. 377/3
Cassa di Risparmio di Bra S.p.A. 329/3
Cassa di Risparmio di Foligno S.p.A. 315/3
Cassa di Risparmio di Cento S.p.A. 311/3
CARISPAQ - Cassa di Risparmio della Provincia dell'Aquila S.p.A. 300/3
Cassa di Risparmio della Spezia S.p.A. 266/2
Cassa di Risparmio della Provincia di Viterbo S.p.A. 251/2
Cassa di Risparmio di Orvieto S.p.A. 237/2
Cassa di Risparmio di Città di Castello S.p.A. 228/2
Banca Cassa di Risparmio di Savigliano S.p.A. 200/2
Cassa di Risparmio di Volterra S.p.A. 194/1
Cassa di Risparmio della Provincia di Chieti S.p.A. 151/1
Banca CRV Cassa di Risparmio di Vignola S.p.A. 130/1
Cassa di Risparmio di Fermo S.p.A. 130/1
Cassa di Risparmio di Savona S.p.A. 23/1
TERCAS - Cassa di Risparmio della Provincia di Teramo S.p.A. 115/1
Cassa di Risparmio di Civitavecchia S.p.A. 111/1
CARIFANO - Cassa di Risparmio di Fano S.p.A. 101/1
Cassa di Risparmio di Carrara S.p.A. 101/1
CARILO - Cassa di Risparmio di Loreto S.p.A. 100/1
Cassa di Risparmio di Spoleto S.p.A. 100/1
Cassa di Risparmio della Repubblica di S. Marino S.p.A. 36/ -
Banca CARIPE S.p.A. 8/ -
Banca Monte Parma S.p.A. 8/ -
Cassa di Risparmio di Rieti S.p.A. 8/ -
Cassa di Risparmio di Saluzzo S.p.A. 4/ -
Banca del Monte di Lucca S.p.A. 2/ -

Total quotas: 300.000 Total votos: 539

No meio desta floresta de bancos privados é possível encontrar duas participações do Estado Italiano: INPS, com 15.000 quotas e 34 votos, e INAIL, 2.000 quotas e 8 votos. Assim, no total. o Estado é representado no Banco Central Italiano com 42 votos, menos de 10%.

Para perceber a importância destes factos, é possível observar a "evolução" das antigas moedas italianas, hoje substituídas com o Euro. Neste caso a comparação é entre uma nota de 500 Lire (1974 - 1979) e uma de 1.000 Lire (1990 - 1998):

No primeiro caso, 500 Lire, temos uma nota do Estado Italiano. No segundo caso, uma nota dum banco privado.
É exactamente o que se passa com as notas dos Euros: se o Euro for da União Europeia, ao seria lógico encontrar a escrita "UE"?.
Mas em lado nenhum podem encontrar "União Europeia", apenas "BCE".

Uma ligeira diferença...

A quem pertencem os bancos privados? (o caos intencional)

Este esquema repete-se na maior dos bancos centrais nacionais que, de facto, são privados.
Mas a quem pertencem os bancos privados?

Aqui entramos no sancta sanctorum, uma espécie de caixa de Pandora na qual é difícil orientar-se.
Os bancos não pertencem a uma pessoa mas a conjuntos de accionistas que, por suas vezes, pertencem a outros accionistas.

O Banco Unicredit, por exemplo, conta entre os próprios accionistas um banco líbio, o grupo Allianz (Alemanha), um banco inglès com um cadastro assustador (Barclays: ajuda ao governo do Zimbabwe, acusações de reciclagem de dinheiro, envolvimento no comércio de armas...), uma sociedade americana (BlackRock) com participação inglesa (Merlin Entertainments), a Autoridade de Investimentos da Líbia.

O Monte dei Paschi di Siena vê a participação do grupo francês Axa e da JP Morgan (!!!).

Resumo: o BCE é privado

Uma super-Matryoshka que constitui a melhor forma de protecção: uma maneira para afastar os curiosos e para tornar o esquema incompreensível, pois tudo perde-se num jogo de percentagens de empresas espalhadas pelo globo.

O que pode ser afirmado com certeza é que os bancos centrais nacionais não pertencem aos Estados (há muitas poucas excepções neste sentido) mas aos privados.

Agora, se o BCE é independente da União Europeia e de propriedade dos bancos nacionais, que são privados, o mesmo BCE não passa dum banco privado.

RESUMO: a economia da União Europeia está nas mãos dos interesses privados.
O que não é uma novidade: também a Federal Reserve é um banco privado...

Fonte : http://www.zeitgeistportugal.org/capitulo/index.php?option=com_kunena&func=view&catid=22&id=9567&Itemid=56

Derivatives : The Unregulated Global Casino for Banks

http://demonocracy.info/

SHORT STORY: Pick something of value, make bets on the future value of "something", add contract & you have a derivative.
Banks make massive profits on derivatives, and when the bubble bursts chances are the tax payer will end up with the bill.
This visualizes the total coverage for derivatives (notional). Similar to insurance company's total coverage for all cars.

LONG STORY: A derivative is a legal bet (contract) that derives its value from another asset, such as the future or current value of oil, government bonds or anything else. Ex- A derivative buys you the option (but not obligation) to buy oil in 6 months for today's price/any agreed price, hoping that oil will cost more in future. (I'll bet you it'll cost more in 6 months). Derivative can also be used as insurance, betting that a loan will or won't default before a given date. So its a big betting system, like a Casino, but instead of betting on cards and roulette, you bet on future values and performance of practically anything that holds value. The system is not regulated what-so-ever, and you can buy a derivative on an existing derivative.
Most large banks try to prevent smaller investors from gaining access to the derivative market on the basis of there being too much risk. Deriv. market has blown a galactic bubble, just like the real estate bubble or stock market bubble (that's going on right now). Since there is literally no economist in the world that knows exactly how the derivative money flows or how the system works, while derivatives are traded in microseconds by computers, we really don't know what will trigger the crash, or when it will happen, but considering the global financial crisis this system is in for tough times, that will be catastrophic for the world financial system since the 9 largest banks shown below hold a total of $228.72 trillion in Derivatives - Approximately 3 times the entire world economy. No government in world has money for this bailout. Lets take a look at what banks have the biggest Derivative Exposures and what scandals they've been lately involved in. Derivative Data Source: ZeroHedge.

Source : http://demonocracy.info/infographics/usa/derivatives/bank_exposure.html

James Robertson : Future Money Breakdown or breakthrough?

http://www.greenbooks.co.uk/Book/414/Future-Money.html

Future Money explains in plain language and convincing detail how our money system is propelling us toward the self-destruction of our species – and what we should do about it. Our present money system frustrates the well-meaning efforts of active citizens, NGOs and governments to deal with our present ills and problems – including worldwide poverty, environmental destruction, social injustice, economic inefficiency and political unrest and violence within and between nations. Failure to reform the world’s money system urgently and radically – that is, from its roots up – could bring disaster for human civilisation before the end of this century. Future Money shows clearly how our money system operates and how it could be reformed so that it acts for the benefit of people and society rather than the opposite, and describes the obstacles that currently prevent that reform.

The world’s financial experts and leaders in politics, government and business, and most mainstream academic and media commentators, have demonstrated that they are not yet able or willing to diagnose and treat the profound and pervasive problems that are directly caused by the money system. Future Money speaks explicitly to active, independent-minded citizens, including young people, with the hope that it will help them to understand why people committed to careers in almost every important walk of life today find it difficult to recognise the problem and grasp the nettle. It shows why we have to take the initiative now, and urgently, to get the issue on to mainstream agendas worldwide.

James Robertson grew up and went to schools in Scotland and Yorkshire during the war, and then studied classics, history and philosophy at Oxford. In the 1950s he worked in the Colonial Office in Whitehall, as the remaining British colonies came towards independence. Development plans for Mauritius and Seychelles introduced him to the UK Treasury and public policy-making on money. The highlight was travelling with Prime Minister Harold Macmillan on his 1960 ‘Wind of Change’ tour of Africa.

Three years in the Cabinet Office, working personally with the Cabinet Secretary and Head of the Civil Service, led to his first book, Reform of British Central Government (1971), and eventually to leaving the Civil Service for management consultancy and systems analysis. James then worked for nearly five years setting up and directing the Inter-Bank Research Organisation (IBRO) for the big banks. In 1973, with Alison Pritchard (later his wife), James started working independently. As a writer and adviser on future economic, social and ecological change, he combined his earlier experience and a new interest in ecology, feminism, futures studies and the ‘convivial society’ and ‘small is beautiful’ ideas of Ivan Illich and E. F. Schumacher. His book The Sane Alternative followed in 1978. Then in 1983 James and Alison helped Jonathon Porritt and Paul Ekins to set up The Other Economic Summit (TOES), later the New Economics Foundation (nef).

James has worked and lectured in many countries for many organisations and people, including the World Health Organisation, the European Commission and the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). He has written other books and many articles and papers on aspects of sustainable development, government and money. In 1998 Green Books published his Schumacher Briefing (No. 1), Transforming Economic Life. His new book, Future Money, is due out in 2012.

In 2003 James received a gold medal from the Pio Manzù Centre, an international institute for the in-depth study of the main economic and scientific aspects of the relationship between man and his environment. Its Scientific Committee, whose President is Mikhail Gorbachev, called James “an outstanding example of a modern thinker at the service of society”.

James and Alison live in Oxfordshire. Until recently they have kept hens and ducks. They still grow vegetables and fruit, and get a modest amount of hot water and electricity from solar panels and photovoltaic (PV) slates.
Source: http://www.greenbooks.co.uk/Book/414/Future-Money.html

Tax Havens: How Globalization Really Works

http://www.cornellpress.cornell.edu/book/?GCOI=80140100541250

Ronen Palan, Richard Murphy, Christian Chavagneux

 

From the Cayman Islands and the Isle of Man to the Principality of Liechtenstein and the state of Delaware, tax havens offer lower tax rates, less stringent regulations and enforcement, and promises of strict secrecy to individuals and corporations alike. In recent years government regulators, hoping to remedy economic crisis by diverting capital from hidden channels back into taxable view, have undertaken sustained and serious efforts to force tax havens into compliance.

In Tax Havens, Ronen Palan, Richard Murphy, and Christian Chavagneux provide an up-to-date evaluation of the role and function of tax havens in the global financial system—their history, inner workings, impact, extent, and enforcement. They make clear that while, individually, tax havens may appear insignificant, together they have a major impact on the global economy. Holding up to $13 trillion of personal wealth—the equivalent of the annual U.S. Gross National Product—and serving as the legal home of two million corporate entities and half of all international lending banks, tax havens also skew the distribution of globalization's costs and benefits to the detriment of developing economies.

The first comprehensive account of these entities, this book challenges much of the conventional wisdom about tax havens. The authors reveal that, rather than operating at the margins of the world economy, tax havens are integral to it. More than simple conduits for tax avoidance and evasion, tax havens actually belong to the broad world of finance, to the business of managing the monetary resources of individuals, organizations, and countries. They have become among the most powerful instruments of globalization, one of the principal causes of global financial instability, and one of the large political issues of our times.

Where Does Money Come From?

http://neweconomics.org/publications/where-does-money-come-from

What is money? How is it created? How does it enter into circulation? These are simple and vital questions it might seem, but the answers remain contested and often muddled.

There is widespread misunderstanding of how new money is created. Where Does Money Come From? examines the workings of the UK monetary system and concludes that the most useful description is that new money is created by commercial banks when they extend or create credit, either through making loans or buying existing assets. In creating credit, banks simultaneously create deposits in our bank accounts, which, to all intents and purposes, is money.

Many people would be surprised to learn that even among bankers, economists, and policymakers, there is no common understanding of how new money is created. This is a problem for two main reasons. First, in the absence of this understanding, attempts at banking reform are more likely to fail. Second, the creation of new money and the allocation of purchasing power are a vital economic function and highly profitable. This is therefore a matter of significant public interest and not an obscure technocratic debate. Greater clarity and transparency about this could improve both the democratic legitimacy of the banking system and our economic prospects.

Defining money is surprisingly difficult. We cut through the tangled historical and theoretical debate to identify that anything widely accepted as payment, particularly by the government as payment of tax, is, to all intents and purpose, money. This includes bank credit because although an IOU from a friend is not acceptable at the tax office or in the local shop, an IOU from a bank most definitely is.

We identify that the UK’s national currency exists in three main forms, the second two of which exist in electronic form:

1. Cash – banknotes and coins.
2. Central bank reserves – reserves held by commercial banks at the Bank of England.
3. Commercial bank money – bank deposits created either when commercial banks lend money, thereby crediting credit borrowers’ deposit accounts, make payments on behalf of customers using their overdraft facilities, or when they purchase assets from the private sector and make payments on their own account (such as salary or bonus payments).  

Only the Bank of England or the government can create the first two forms of money, which is referred to in this book as ‘central bank money’. Since central bank reserves do not actually circulate in the economy, we can further narrow down the money supply that is actually circulating as consisting of cash and commercial bank money.

Physical cash accounts for less than 3 per cent of the total stock of money in the economy. Commercial bank money – credit and coexistent deposits – makes up the remaining 97 per cent of the money supply.

There are several conflicting ways of describing what banks do. The simplest version is that banks take in money from savers, and lend this money out to borrowers. This is not at all how the process works. Banks do not need to wait for a customer to deposit money before they can make a new loan to someone else. In fact, it is exactly the opposite; the making of a loan creates a new deposit in the customer’s account.

More sophisticated versions bring in the concept of ‘fractional reserve banking’. This description recognises that banks can lend out many times more than the amount of cash and reserves they hold at the Bank of England. This is a more accurate picture, but is still incomplete and misleading. It implies a strong link between the amount of money that banks create and the amount that they hold at the central bank. It is also commonly assumed by this approach that the central bank has significant control over the amount of reserves banks hold with it.

We find that the most accurate description is that banks create new money whenever they extend credit, buy existing assets or make payments on their own account, which mostly involves expanding their assets, and that their ability to do this is only very weakly linked to the amount of reserves they hold at the central bank. At the time of the financial crisis, for example, banks held just £1.25 in reserves for every £100 issued as credit. Banks operate within an electronic clearing system that nets out multilateral payments at the end of each day, requiring them to hold only a tiny proportion of central bank money to meet their payment requirements.

The power of commercial banks to create new money has many important implications for economic prosperity and financial stability. We highlight four that are relevant to the reforms of the banking system under discussion at the time of writing:

1. Although useful in other ways, capital adequacy requirements have not and do not constrain money creation, and therefore do not necessarily serve to restrict the expansion of banks’ balance sheets in aggregate. In other words, they are mainly ineffective in preventing credit booms and their associated asset price bubbles.
2. Credit is rationed by banks, and the primary determinant of how much they lend is not interest rates, but confidence that the loan will be repaid and confidence in the liquidity and solvency of other banks and the system as a whole.
3. Banks decide where to allocate credit in the economy. The incentives that they face often lead them to favour lending against collateral, or assets, rather than lending for investment in production. As a result, new money is often more likely to be channelled into property and financial speculation than to small businesses and manufacturing, with profound economic consequences for society.
4. Fiscal policy does not in itself result in an expansion of the money supply. Indeed, the government has in practice no direct involvement in the money creation and allocation process. This is little known, but has an important impact on the effectiveness of fiscal policy and the role of the government in the economy.

The basic analysis of Where Does Money Come From? is neither radical nor new. In fact, central banks around the world support the same description of where new money comes from. And yet many naturally resist the notion that private banks can really create money by simply making an entry in a ledger. Economist J. K. Galbraith suggested why this might be:

The process by which banks create money is so simple that the mind is repelled. When something so important is involved, a deeper mystery seems only decent.

This book aims to firmly establish a common understanding that commercial banks create new money. There is no deeper mystery, and we must not allow our mind to be repelled. Only then can we properly address the much more significant question: Of all the possible alternative ways in which we could create new money and allocate purchasing power, is this really the best?
Download the Where Does Money Come From? Foreword and Overview for free

David Korten: Capitalism and the Common Good

 Audio as produced and broadcast by Alternative Radio

Inaugural Lecture, The Wayne Morse Center For Law And Politics 2011-2013 Inquiry on the theme “From Wall Street to Main Street:  Capitalism and the Common Good,” University Of Oregon, Eugene, Oregon, October 5, 2011

PDF Format

It is an honor and a privilege to be the inaugural speaker for this important and timely University of Oregon inquiry sponsored by the Wayne Morse Center for Law and Politics. The theme—“From Wall Street to Main Street: Capitalism and the Common Good” frames exactly the inquiry we must engage as a nation—and as a species at this defining historical moment.

As we meet, citizens are mobilizing all around American in support of the Occupy Wall Street protest that provides a focal point for coalescing public anger at Wall Street’s unrelenting and unrepentant greed and corruption into an agenda for sweeping economic transformation. The protest is still small, but growing fast with an energy that might be beyond the power of imperial institutions to contain.

My assignment tonight is to outline my thinking on the nature and substance of the needed transformation based on my work of the past thirty years. We have only 50 minutes to cover a great deal of ground, so I’ll be painting with broad strokes.

I’ll not take your time this evening assaulting you with the usual endless statistics documenting how grim our situation is. I assume you have come this evening because you are already quite aware that we are in deep trouble and your interest is in solutions.

A quick overview of the symptoms of system failure will suffice to frame the problem.

Continue reading ...

The network that runs the world

http://makewealthhistory.files.wordpress.com/2011/11/network.jpg

This image shows the connections between the 1,318 biggest companies in the world, mapped according to share ownership out of an original 43,000 companies. At the core are 147 super-connected companies, the ones in red. That group, less than one percent of the whole, effectively controls 40% of global revenue. No prizes for guessing which sector dominates that core group. At the top of the tree is Barclays, with JP Morgan Chase, UBS and Merrill Lynch all in the top ten.

This, says the New Scientist, gives credence to the Occupy movement’s claim that the world is run for the benefit of the richest one percent. According to this particular exercise in systems theory, that’s entirely correct.

If you want to check out the methodology, the study is online here (pdf).

Addicted to tax havens: The secret life of the FTSE 100

http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/datablog/2011/oct/11/ftse100-subsidiaries-tax-data

ActionAid have produced another fine report, this time about the use of tax havens by multinational corporations listed on the FTSE 100. The statistics are staggering: for example more than half of the financial sector's overseas subsidiaries are in tax havens. More precisely:

• The FTSE 100 largest groups registered on the London Stock Exchange comprise 34,216 subsidiary companies, joint ventures and associates.
• 38% (8,492) of their overseas companies are located in tax havens.
• 98 groups declared tax haven companies, with only two groups, Fresnillo and Hargreaves Landsdown, who did not.
• The banking sector makes heaviest use of tax havens, with a total of 1,649 tax haven companies between the ‘big four’ banks. They are by far the biggest users of the Cayman Islands, where Barclays alone has 174 companies.
• The biggest tax haven user overall is the advertising company WPP, which has 611 tax haven companies.
• The FTSE 100 companies make much more use of tax havens than their American equivalents.
• There are over 600 FTSE 100 subsidiary companies in Jersey (more than in the whole of China), 400 in the Cayman Islands and 300 in Luxembourg – all tiny tax havens.

Alongside the financial sector, oil and mining companies are also huge users: TJN recently noted that they are often headquartered in Canada, and ActionAid noted that

"BP and Shell have almost 1,000 tax haven companies between them, including more than 100 in the Caribbean (hardly a major source of oil)."

(Recently we noted the huge role that the Netherlands plays in hosting offshore subsidiaries of oil companies, and another report by Publish What You Pay Norway noted the huge role played by Delaware too.)

ActionAid points to the artificiality of it all:

"In locations such as Mauritius, Jersey and Delaware we have identified hundreds of subsidiaries owned by dozens of different multinationals that are registered at a handful of individual addresses, belonging to offshore law firms."

And to the crucial development angle:

Corporate tax avoidance, one of the main reasons companies use tax havens, has a massive impact on developing and developed countries alike. The lack of transparency makes it difficult for developing country tax authorities to identify and collect taxes owed by global companies operating in their countries.

All credit to ActionAid for this:

This research is based on information that had never been disclosed, let alone analysed, until this year.11 UK law compels companies to report all of their subsidiary companies, together with their country of registration. When we looked for this information in early 2011, we discovered that more than half of the FTSE 100 were not complying with this legal obligation. When enquiries to individual companies failed to persuade them to disclose the information, we submitted complaints to Companies House, forcing the disclosures as part of companies’ annual returns and sparking Business minister Vince Cable to announce an investigation.

The Guardian, reporting this, (and providing a listing of the FTSE 100 and their subsidiaries) notes that:

"There is no standard definition of what constitutes a tax haven."

Indeed. We use the terms 'tax haven' and 'secrecy jurisdiction' interchangeably, and recently produced a two-pager (as part of our Financial Secrecy Index) entitled What is a Secrecy jurisdicsion? which says exactly that, and explores ways to think about the phenomenon.

Also see The Independent reporting on this, along with the Press Association, and Metro.

Older reports, involving the use of companies in tax havens by Swiss, US, France, and the Netherlands, are here. Further information on Spain, is here.

Source: http://taxjustice.blogspot.com/

Black Tuesday, A Novel by Nomi Prins

http://www.nomiprins.com/black-tuesday

In this vivid tableau of New York on the cusp of the Great Stock Market Crash of 1929, Black Tuesday captures the romance and desperation of one of our most fascinating historical epochs. From the beleaguered immigrant community of the Lower East Side to the feral pit of Wall Street and the alluring glitter of Park Avenue, Nomi Prins reveals a world of fraud, obsession and economic devastation in a turbulent era that shines a revealing light on our current times. Black Tuesday is an epic saga that probes the complex intersections of class, family loyalty, passion, and the terrible consequences of deception, greed and power.
Click here for excerpt.

La doble cara de la moneda

Versión original con subtítulos en español.

La double face de la monnaie

Le pourquoi des monnaies complémentaires dans un monde où l’argent est roi.

L’argent est devenu la valeur centrale de nos sociétés. Comme une drogue, les individus, toujours à sa recherche, craignent d’en manquer. Beaucoup sont prêts à faire n’importe quoi pour s’en procurer. Depuis la fin des années 90, des systèmes d’échanges complémentaires sont mis en place par des citoyens un peu partout dans le monde. La monnaie redevient un outil social, au service de l’homme. Le Chiemgauer allemand, la Banque du temps anglaise et les Systèmes d’Echange Locaux (SEL) français, sont des preuves concrètes que la monnaie peut redevenir un sujet de débat dans la société occidentale.

Catherine Austin Fitts The Looting Of America

http://solari.com | Financial terrorism and the war on the middle class.

Former Assistant Secretary of Housing under George H.W. Bush Catherine Austin Fitts blows the whistle on how the financial terrorists have deliberately imploded the US economy and transferred gargantuan amounts of wealth offshore as a means of sacrificing the American middle class. Fitts documents how trillions of dollars went missing from government coffers in the 90′s and how she was personally targeted for exposing the fraud.