venerdì 4 marzo 2011

Next world war would be between the banks and the people

Global Financial Fraud, Global Hope
The world financial system is one gargantuan Ponzi scheme...

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Global Research, March 1, 2011
- 2011-02-28

An Address to the International UFO Congress, Fort McDowell Resort, Scottsdale, Arizona, Saturday, February 26, 2011 by Hon. Paul Hellyer, P.C. Former Canadian Minister of National Defence

The world financial system is a total fraud. It is one gargantuan Ponzi scheme, no better than the one Bernie Madoff used to swindle his friends and neighbors, and thousands of times worse if you add up the total number of victims it has ripped off over countless generations.

The principal difference between the two schemes is that Madoff was acting outside the law while the international banking cartel has persuaded generation after generation of monarchs, presidents and prime ministers to provide legislative protection for their larceny.

The banks Ponzi scheme is alarmingly simple. They lend the same money to several people or institutions at the same time and collect interest on it from each. What the banks really lend, however, is their credit, and what they take back in compensation for that privilege is a debt that must be repaid with interest.

The number of times they lend the same money is called leverage. The practice is as old as the hills but for our purposes we can start with the goldsmiths of Lombard Street in London, England, who accepted deposits for which they issued certificates redeemable on demand. They paid their depositors a nominal interest rate on the understanding that they could lend the money to their customers at higher interest rates. They soon found that they could lend more than they had in their vaults because only a few depositors came in to redeem their gold or silver at any one time. It was a scam. It was illegal. Nevertheless they got away with it for a long while and the scam was legitimized when the Bank of England was chartered to help King William finance his war. Rich people subscribed £1,200,000 in gold and silver, as capital, to found the bank, which then was lent to the government at 8 percent. To show his appreciation the King allowed the bank to print £1,200,000 in banknotes and lend them at high interest rates. In effect, the bank was allowed to lend the same money twice – once to the government and once to the people.

Over the years, due to the avarice of the banks and the complicity of the politicians, that ratio has increased dramatically. In the early days of the 20th century, federal chartered U.S. banks were required to keep gold reserves of 25 percent. That means they were allowed to lend the same money four times. I remember when Canadian banks were required to maintain a cash reserve of 8 percent. That means they were allowed to lend the same money 12½ times.


Today, thanks to Milton Friedman’s irrational flip-flop from being a proponent of 100% cash reserves to the opposite extreme of zero reserves, and the adoption of his ideas by the major central banks of the world in 1974, multiples have increased dramatically – in some cases to as much as 20 to 1 or more. Banks only keep enough cash to meet day-to-day demands for those few customers who go in and request it, and consequently the fraud is virtually total.

The system works this way. Suppose that you want to borrow $35,000 to buy a new car. You visit your friendly banker and ask for a loan. He or she will ask you for collateral – some stocks, bonds, a second mortgage on your house or cottage or, if you are unable to supply any of these, the co-signature of a well-to-do friend or relative. When the collateral requirement is satisfied you will be asked to sign a note for the principal amount with an agreed rate of interest.

When the paperwork is complete, and the note signed, your banker will make an entry on the bank’s computer and, presto, a $35,000 credit will appear in your account which you can use to buy your car. The important point is that seconds earlier that money did not exist. It was created out of thin air – so to speak.

The banking equation is a species of double-entry bookkeeping where your note becomes an asset on the bank’s books, and the new money that was deposited to your account is a liability. The profit for the bank comes from the difference between the low rate of interest, if any, you would be paid on your deposit if you didn’t spend the borrowed money immediately, and the much higher rate you would be obliged to pay on your note – the technical term is “the spread.”


At some point, however, you have to pay off your note and any interest owing. And not only you but everyone else who has borrowed “money” from banks – including governments which, by the way, own the right to print money but that have irresponsibly handed the right over to an elite group of private bankers. Anyone who defaults is in big trouble. Individuals who default will have the assets they pledged as collateral seized by the bank. A government that is in danger of defaulting, will be forced to borrow from the International Monetary Fund, which will then tell that government how to run its affairs including cutting back on services and selling off public assets to the international vulture capitalists.

In reality, then, the banks have turned the world into one humongous pawn shop. You hock your stocks, bonds, house, business, rich mother-in-law or country and the bank(s) will give you a loan based on the value of the collateral.

A world system where all the money is created as debt is a perpetual disaster in the making. It is like a giant balloon that the banks pump full of debt. The balloon gets larger and larger until the debt load becomes too heavy to carry, and then it is like a balloon with a pin stuck in it. The system crashes and thousands or sometimes millions of innocent people lose their jobs, homes, farms and businesses.


Almost any high school student should be able to see that any monetary system based on debt creation is totally insane. The total world debt, mathematically, is always tending toward infinity – and there is no possible way of paying it off. The real money (legal tender) to do so doesn’t exist. And the real economy that depends on cash to grow shifts into low gear whenever the supply of credit money dries up.

Not surprisingly, there have been 25 recessions and depressions in the United States since 1890. In several cases, including the Great Depression of the 1930s and the current Great Recession, the evidence indicates that the meltdown was anticipated by a few insiders who helped trigger the catastrophe.

In the wake of the Great Depression, the U.S. Senate Banking and Currency Committee Report that became widely known as the Pecora Report on the Practices of Stock Exchanges, indicated that there were insiders who benefitted from the crash. “Legal chicanery and pitch darkness were the banker’s stoutest allies,” Pecora wrote in his memoir. Similar allegations were evident in Charles Ferguson damning documentary “Inside Job,” relating to the 2007-2008 meltdown. These reports, and other historical evidence prove beyond any doubt that much of Wall Street is rotten to the core. It has become one gigantic millstone around the neck of both the American and world economies.

The collateral damage from the recent meltdown has been staggering. The U.S. Bureau of Labor estimated that 8.4 million jobs were lost in the U.S. alone. Most countries experienced similar dramatic losses. The reduction in asset values worldwide has been estimated at $20 trillion U.S. dollars, yet not a single one of the culprits is in jail. You would think that someone would have had the decency to launch a class action for at least $10 trillion against every individual and every organization that contributed to the catastrophe in any way.

It boggles the mind that a system so vulnerable to manipulation would ever have come into existence in the first place. The evolution did not happen by accident. It was not guided by the mythical invisible hand of Adam Smith. On the contrary, for more than a century-and-a-half, it was engineered by the barely visible hand of the Rothschild family and its allies, and since World War II by the Rockefeller family. The two dynasties combined forces to exercise influence on many fronts sheltered by the cloak of secrecy established by the Bilderberg Group.

The long term influence of the banking cartel is incalculable. Their biggest coup was the establishment of the Federal Reserve System in the United States. The big New York banks really didn’t like the idea of genuine competition, so a small group held a secret meeting at the private resort of J.P. Morgan on Jekyll Island, off the coast of Georgia. Their scheme, devised by Paul M. Warburg, and subsequently adopted by Congress, is a legal private monopoly of the U.S. money supply operated for the benefit of the few under the guise of protecting and promoting the public interest.

It is a tribute to the skill of the international bankers that they were able to draft a bill, revise it, change its name and make the few window dressing compromises necessary to get it adopted by Congress just before Christmas when quite a few Representatives must have been dreaming of sugar plum fairies instead of exercising due diligence. Only Charles Lindberg Sr. seemed to grasp the essence of what was going on.

To put it bluntly, the Congress transferred its sovereign constitutional right to create money to the sole custody of a group of private bankers. The magnitude of the hoist is unprecedented in the history of the world – the numbers now are in the high trillions.

Soon after the bill was passed the magnitude of the tragedy began to be recognized. William Jennings Bryan, who acted as Democrat whip, later said: “In my long political career, the one thing I genuinely regret is my part in getting the banking and currency legislation (Federal Reserve Act of 1913) enacted into law.” President Woodrow Wilson, just three years after passage of the Act, wrote: “A great industrial nation is controlled by its system of credit. Our system of credit is concentrated (in the Federal Reserve System). The growth of the nation, therefore, and all our activities are in the hands of a few men…. We have come to be one of the worst ruled, one of the most completely controlled and dominated governments in the civilized world.” But the bill was not repealed; almost 100 years later the sell-out is still the law. This makes you wonder what the people’s representatives have been doing to earn their salaries.

The people in charge of the original deception were very far-seeing. They realized that when future governments had to borrow from them they would need a constant income stream to pay the interest on the bonds. So they persuaded the government to introduce income taxes, first as a temporary measure, but later permanently, so it would be able to meet its obligations to the bondholders. In fiscal year 2005 total individual income taxes in the U.S. totalled $927 billion. Of that amount $352 billion, or 38%, was required just to pay interest on the federal debt. The figure would be higher now.

The banksters, as they were often called, then decided that an independent press might catch on to the chicanery. Oscar Callaway is reported in the Congressional Record of February 9, 1917 as follows.

“In March, 1915, the J.P. Morgan interests, the steel, shipbuilding, and powder interests, and their subsidiary organizations, got together 12 men high up in the newspaper world, and employed them to select the most influential newspapers in the United States and sufficient number of them to control generally the policy of the daily press of the United States… They found it was only necessary to purchase the control of 25 of the greatest papers. The 25 papers were agreed upon; emissaries were sent to purchase the policy, national and international, of these papers; … an editor was furnished for each paper to properly supervise and edit information regarding the questions of preparedness, militarism, financial policies, and other things of national and international nature considered vital to the interests of the purchasers [and to suppress] everything in opposition to the wishes of the interests served.”

It has been suggested that the Bilderberger Group may have taken a leaf from the Morgan precedent to protect their interests in the late 20th and early 21st centuries. That is impossible to prove because its members are sworn to secrecy, and the press won’t report on its meetings. Could it be mere coincidence that the monetary system, the downside of globalization and the decades-long cover-up of the extraterrestrial presence and technology (especially the clean energy sources that would impact the value of oil stocks), the three subjects of most direct beneficial interests of the banksters, are the three subjects that are avoided like the plague by the mainline press?

I am not willing to go so far as to say that the men behind the international banking system are evil men because their thoughts are private. But Sir Josiah, later Baron Stamp, a former director of the Bank of England, has given us a rare snapshot of the truth.

“Banking was conceived in iniquity and was born in sin. The Bankers own the earth. Take it away from them, but leave them the power to create money, and with a flick of the pen they will create enough money to buy it back again. However, take that power away from them and all the great fortunes like mine will disappear, and they ought to disappear, for this would be a happier and better world to live in. But if you wish to remain the slaves of Bankers, and pay the cost of your own slavery, let them continue to create money.”

In the latest meltdown of 2007-2008, the Fed acted quickly to prevent the Ponzi pyramid from collapsing completely. It printed trillions of dollars to bail out the banks and a few industries that were highly indebted to banks.

But what did the Fed do for the taxpayers whose money was so wildly diluted to save the banks? Nothing! They were left to fend for themselves. Millions of people lost their jobs, their farms, their houses, their hopes, and their dignity as a result of circumstances beyond their control. The taxpayers bailed out the banks, but got nothing in return.

The same is true of governments who came so quickly to the rescue. As a result of the meltdown their revenues were decreased so they were forced to incur or increase their deficits, as well as to start cutting back on essential services.

The Fed pretended to be helping stimulate the economy by reducing interest rates to near zero. It would be an interesting exercise to find out what happened to all of this low-cost money. It would be a good subject for Congressional attention. How much did the banks use to buy up domestic and foreign assets at fire-sale prices? Was any of it used by financial institutions to try to corner world food markets and raise prices at a time when millions are starving?

No doubt some taxpayers did take advantage of the low interest rates available but were they warned about the old bait and switch game? Anyone who acquires assets with cheap money runs the risk of losing their property when the Fed ultimately raises rates. It’s all part of the boom-bust cycle inherent in our infinitely silly monetary system.

The Economics Profession

What does all this have to say about the economics profession? What it really says isn’t fit to print. Someone once said that if you put 20 economists in a room you will get 21 opinions.

That is not my experience. If you get 20 economists together they are likely to give you one stock answer, or at most two. And if there is one dissenter he or she is likely to be drowned out by the 19, squawking like a flock of parrots the words memorized from what their professors taught them.

I have witnessed this herd-like mentality firsthand. When I was first elected to the House of Commons in 1949 there were only a handful of Keynesians in Ottawa. Twenty years later nearly everyone was a Keynesian including, I am told, Richard Nixon.

At that time there were only a few monetarists around. But they spread like mushrooms and soon dominated the economic landscape. It reached the stage when Keynes was anathema, and it was almost impossible to get a tenured position in a school of economics unless you were part of Milton Friedman’s monetarist revolution.

Apparently little if any thought was given to the possibility that neither Keynes nor Friedman had got it right. The former was a bit closer to reality than the latter, but both theories foundered on the rocks of one inescapable truth. Both assumed that the economic system is self-correcting, yet more than two centuries of experience has demonstrated clearly that it is not! Someone has to be at the tiller charged with steering clear of the shoals and rocks of economic disaster and that person has to be someone who is responsible to the people and not the self-serving boom-busters.

Global Warming

While bank reform is the most urgent problem facing the world today, it is global warming that has equally or even greater long term consequences. It is a total fraud to pretend that we have thirty, forty or fifty years to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. There are reputable scientists who think we may already have crossed the Rubicon. Even if that is true, we can’t roll the clock back; we can only influence the present and the future. Each of the past three decades has been the hottest on record, according to a report released in July 2010 by the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. The report pulled together data from ten climate change indicators, measured by 160 research groups in 48 countries.

The data shows sea levels are rising; snow cover in the Arctic melts earlier; the average air temperature is rising; ocean surface temperatures have also been rising; the summer sea ice cover is declining; sea air temperature has been rising; for 19 years glaciers have lost mass; land air temperature has been rising – a global trend.

All of this puts the lie to the propaganda of the oil industry aimed at creating doubt about the reliability of scientific data. Taking a leaf from the tobacco industry, which managed to create doubt about the safety of their products years after they privately knew the facts, the oil industry has been attempting to raise doubt about the urgency of replacing fossil fuels with clean energy, and with considerable success. In their case, however, the stakes are higher. It was a tragedy that so many people lost their lives through lack of sound information about the consequences of smoking. In the case of global warming, however, many times more people will have their lives put at risk.

Still the oil cartel is making plans as if nothing is going to change, and that we are going to be stuck with a fatal oil economy for decades until the damage is irreversible. It is too late to begin more offshore drilling. It is too late for new developments in the Alberta oil sands. It is too late for more noisy windmill farms. The transition must start now, with a 10-year deadline.

Is that possible? Of course it’s possible but only with the kind of mobilization essential to win a war for survival. One excuse for inaction has been the lack of money due to government deficits and debt. But that obstacle can be overcome in less than a year if governments and legislatures change the system and exercise their sovereign right to make what is physically possible financially possible. Heaven knows there are millions of unemployed workers worldwide waiting to rise to the challenge.

The other major obstacle has been a lack of consensus on the form of clean energy to use to replace fossil fuels. And that brings me, finally, to the subject of the day, the extraterrestrial presence and technology.

The Extraterrestrial Presence and Technology

It is a fraud for the U.S. government to pretend that it is not interested in UFOs. In fact, it has been a matter of high and probably pre-eminent interest for decades.

An early Canadian ufologist, Wilbert Smith, who was a senior employee at the Department of Transport, where I became minister not long after his retirement, wrote a top secret memorandum to the Controller of Communications dated November 21, 1950 asking permission to set up a group to study the geomagnetic aspects of UFOs propulsion systems.

As part of his memorandum Smith said that he had made discreet enquiries through the Canadian embassy staff in Washington where he obtained the following information.

(a) The matter is the most highly classified subject in the United States

Government, rating higher even than the H-bomb.

(b) Flying saucers exist.

(c) Their modus operandi is unknown but concentrated effort is being made by a small group, headed by Doctor Vannevar Bush.

(d) The entire matter is considered by the United States authorities to be of tremendous significance.

So, Dr. Vannevar Bush, one of America’s pre-eminent scientists, and a team of experts he had assembled, were already working on back-engineering by 1950. (Back-engineering is the combined art and science of analyzing an object, in this case parts of a crashed vehicle, in order to determine its characteristics for possible replication or adaptation.)

Many people who are interested in the subject of UFOs use one of the Roswell crashes of July 1947 as their starting line. Recent evidence, however, confirms that the U.S. Army Air Corps was in the crash retrieval business before that. Paola Harris, on July 5, 2010 interviewed two men, Jose Padilla and Reme Baca, aged 9 and 7 at the time, who witnessed a saucer crash on Padilla land near San Antonio, New Mexico, in August 1945. In her new book Exopolitics: Stargate to a New Reality, Paola gives the detailed account of what these men saw as children, the actual crash, the creatures’ appearance, the pieces of the craft they took, the military clean up, and an in-depth analysis of the significance of the case.

I had the opportunity to chat with Reme Baca by telephone recently and the thing that stuck in my mind was that when Sgt. Avila came to ask Mr. Padilla’s permission to enter his land to retrieve the “object,” he referred to it as “an experimental weather balloon.” That was exactly the same ruse that Brigadier General Roger Ramey used in reference to the Roswell incident two years later. Apparently there was a considerable lack of imagination on the Army’s part.

In later years the Air Force, that had succeeded the Army Air Corps, became much more sophisticated in its misinformation and disinformation techniques. These include having the Star Visitors portrayed in movies as sinister beings that we should be fearful of – probably without justification.

Another fascinating case that Paola brought to my attention not long ago was that of Charles Hall, the physicist and information technology professional, who worked as an airman meteorologist at the USAF bombing and gunnery range at Indian Springs, Nevada, in the 1960s.

Charles worked in close contact with Tall Whites, a species that I had been previously unfamiliar with. Over a period of months he learned to lose his fear of the aliens who lived, worked and played on Air Force property.

In a two-hour telephone conversation he gave me many of the characteristics of the Whites, described the scout ships in which they travelled and said most of them were assembled in the U.S. Furthermore, he talked about the mother ship arriving on the nights of the full moon and sliding into its hangar cut into the side of a mountain nearby.

It was all fascinating stuff that included the fact that the Tall Whites were working closely with the USAF and exchanging technology in the mid-1960s. So it is very difficult to imagine how much has been achieved in 60 years of back-engineering alien technology that was much more advanced than our own. There is no doubt that myriad scientists, technicians, and many of America’s most advanced aircraft and weapons corporations must have achieved what would have been classified as miracles just a few years ago.

It is alleged that the U.S. engineers working in one of the vast underground facilities have built vehicles that are virtually indistinguishable from those of other planets. If this is true, to what purpose will they be put, and will it be for good purposes or military purposes?

The area of discovery that is most relevant to this presentation, however, is the question of exotic energy sources. Years ago it was reported that both zero point and cold fusion energy had been developed. These are energy sources that could facilitate the 10-year target date and not only revolutionalize the world for the better, but help preserve it as a happy habitat for Earthlings.

In the unlikely event that these sources are not yet commercially viable, all we would have to do is ask one of the friendly species to help us and they would because they are deeply concerned about our stewardship. In the event that we are still treating them as enemy aliens, and doing our best to shoot them down, we would have to curb our lust of conflict and adopt an acceptable level of intergalactic civility.

Better People

The third essential change is for us as individuals. A just and peaceful world is not possible when it is riddled with graft, fraud and corruption of all kinds. Greed is king and mammon rules the world.

Institutions have to change too. For centuries major religions have been selling their alleged superiority or exclusiveness at the point of a sword, leading to the deaths of thousands of innocents. The three Abrahamic religions, for example, all claim the inside route to paradise. Mathematically that is impossible. It is far more probable, mathematically, that they are all wrong and that the truth is larger and more inclusive.

Ancient and modern history both suggest that there is no hope of a just and peaceful world unless all religions, and those with no religion, forget their differences and start working together to build the Kingdom of God on Earth. I define this as a world where every child can expect food to eat, clean water to drink, adequate clothing to wear, a roof overhead, access to medical support and enough education to be able to determine how best he or she can serve humankind positively, with dignity and self-fulfillment.

What a wonderful world that would be! But it would require a 180-degree change in policies and priorities and a serious effort to apply the Golden Rule that all religions claim as a common thread.

The application of the Golden Rule would mean an end to empire building, and the pursuit of military power and advantage. The U.S., for example, would have to stop being its own worst enemy. The declaration of the war on terror was the biggest strategic blunder I have seen.

On the 11th day of September 2001, following the attacks on the World Trade Center, the United States enjoyed the sympathy of the world, including Arab states and populations. The threat from al-Qaeda was limited and quite within the potential of police and intelligence operations to cope with.

The situation changed dramatically with the launch of a war on Iraq. The goodwill began to evaporate overnight. Soon, instead of a few dozens insurgents the numbers of young Muslims willing to die for their cause multiplied to thousands and a great chasm of hate and mistrust enveloped much of the world.

The U.S. has consistently refused to be even-handed in the Israeli-Palestinian dispute, and the Israelis deceive themselves, and the world, when they claim to be the victims. For a long while peace has been within their grasp if they could have agreed to a just settlement, and establishment of a vibrant Palestinian state. But a handful of fundamentalists have always succeeded in disrupting the peace process because they are not willing to accept the great Rabbi Hillel’s admonition. “So always treat others the way you would like them to treat you; that is the message of the Law and the Prophets.” Meanwhile the peace and stability of the world remains in jeopardy.

The world community must adopt principles and practices that override fundamentalists of any stripe whether they be Christian, Muslim, Jewish or Economic. In addition, religious people should pay more attention to their holy books. There is nothing in the Bible that would legitimize a preventive war, with its carpet bombing, or the launch of a drone or missile intended to kill one person when there is risk that innocent bystanders will also die. Similarly, there is nothing in the Qur’an that would justify suicide bombing that results in the random death of innocents.

Global Hope

If you get the impression that the world is going to hell in a hand basket you have heard me correctly. But it doesn’t need to be so. There are remedies but they involve massive change in the areas discussed – none of which are even on the political radar at present. There is light at the end of the tunnel but, as Sir John Quinton, a former chairman of Barclay’s Bank said, “Bankers sometimes look on politicians as people who, when they see light at the end of the tunnel, order more tunnel.”

What we are really talking about is restoring democracy to countries that not only claim they have it, but also take pride in trying to export it, even though they don’t really qualify as democratic as defined in the dictionary. In Webster’s it is: “government in which supreme power is vested in the people and exercised by them or their elected representatives.” To begin, Wall Street has been the dominant power in the U.S. for decades, and still is. Add to that the fact that the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces, the President of the United States, does not have the security clearance for a number of projects controlled by troops under his command, and you have to conclude that the U.S. is not really a democracy.

The same can be said about Canada, the United Kingdom, Germany and myriad countries that are really puppets of the International Financial System. In each case the real interests of citizen voters is subjugated to the demands of international finance.

There is a sad irony in reading U.S. history of the pre-revolutionary and revolutionary days. Historians often attribute the revolution to the tax on tea. On the other hand, “[Benjamin] Franklin cited restrictions upon paper money as one of the main reasons for the alienation of the American provinces from the mother country.” The U.S. won the revolutionary war but then lost the next critical one when it adopted the British banking system instead of pursuing the better model their provinces had been experimenting with.

For the U.S. now to inflict the British practice on countries around the world, using the International Monetary Fund and World Bank as enforcers, is comparable to the King’s edict that gave birth to the United States. So the financial chains of oppression have to be broken and freedom restored to citizens everywhere.

It’s time to forget the tea party and address the critically important issues facing the U.S. and the world. All of these issues are non-partisan by definition and deserve the attention and support of all genuine patriots without distinction of race, color, religion or political affiliation – both in the U.S. and worldwide. We must unite to preserve and enhance the beautiful satellite that is our birthright.

An Agenda for Action

The first and most urgent project is to clip the wings of the bankers and democratize the money-creation function. In the U.S. the Federal Reserve System must be abolished and its alleged function of regulating the money supply be assumed by the federal government or an agency under its direct control. The most powerful and valuable tool in the economic arsenal must be available to the representatives of the people who can be held responsible for their success or failure.

Some monetary reformers recommend that governments create 100% of new money in a debt free form, greenbacks or equivalent. In the interests of a fast and smooth transition I am suggesting that a ratio of 34% government-created money to 66% bank-created money would work satisfactorily. Banks would be required to maintain 34% cash reserves against their deposits.

The important thing is that governments must immediately create the large sums necessary to balance their budgets and get their economies running at maximum output again. I am talking about an infusion of perhaps $10 trillion U.S. dollar equivalent to start and more if needed to get economies up to speed and to reduce unemployment worldwide by at least half, with the creation of millions of new jobs.

Is this likely to cause massive inflation, as the financial cartel will immediately allege, because it is one of its longest running and most successful bugbears? The answer to their phony phonetics is a resounding “no.” As any economist should know, it is the amount of money that is created that influences prices, and not who prints it. So as long as governments limit what economists call “the multiplier effect” there will be no problem.

Certainly the present system has been inflationary. A 1950 U.S. dollar is only worth 7.5 cents today. A common sense monetary system should produce better results than that. So there is no reason why the banking system should not be fundamentally reformed – at once!

There are four other actions that I think we, the people of the world should demand of our politicians.

1. A law must be passed at once to prohibit all politicians, candidates for political office and political parties from accepting money from any financial institution as well as make it a criminal offense for any such institution either directly or indirectly to offer it.

2. World leaders must adopt a 10-year time frame to reduce greenhouse emissions by 90 percent.

3. That will only be possible if the U.S. discloses its knowledge of the ET presence and technology, and what has been accomplished in 60 years of back-engineering.

4. The U.N. should declare 2012 the year of forgiveness and reconciliation – a new era of cooperation and (agape) love between races, tribes, religions, nations, and regions both mondial and intergalactic. We have so much to learn from our star visitors in many areas including medicine and food production.

So the U.S. must relinquish its privileged position as the center of “the loop” as part of a new kind of leadership in creating the better world we all dream of.

International Finance vs. The People of the World

None of this vision of a just and peaceful world will be possible unless the all-pervasive power of the international banks has been broken. In 1999 I wrote a book in which I said the next world war would be between the banks and the people of the world. There have been skirmishes for centuries and, so far, the banks have always come out on top. They are now taking advantage of the recent meltdown, and the resulting sovereign debt crisis to line up their heavy artillery including the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank, the Federal Reserve System and the Bank for International Settlements for a final conclusive battle.

As always the aim of the game is to rob the people of the world of their sovereign right to govern their own affairs, and to entrench the power of the international banks, their elite industrial allies and a small cabal of military insiders who run the world as their private fiefdom. The word “unjust” is too small a word by far to describe what they are up to.


If any skeptics think I am overstating the case don’t take my word for it. Go to www.victoryfortheworld.net and read some of the books that can be used as references. A hundred pages of The Web of Debt, for example, setting out the history of money, will probably be enough to make you sick at your stomach. I stopped reading it at night because if often made me so angry I couldn’t sleep.

I entered politics more than 60 years ago because I thought recessions were quite unnecessary. They were monetary phenomena with a relatively easy fix. I have made hundreds of speeches on the subject and convinced a few thousand people. But never the movers and shakers. And the mainline press were less than helpful. They were so jaundiced that they were not interested in a maverick speaking truth to power. So it was always a case of David vs. Goliath, to use a Biblical analogy.

Now, for the first time, the power exists to turn the tables and go for the jugular. The internet is providing power to the people that they have never enjoyed before. The young people of the world, in concert with the thousands of their parents and others who care about the state of the world can use the power of social networking to effect a miracle on their own behalf and that of succeeding generations.

The valiant people of Tunisia and Egypt have shown the way by achieving what was believed to be impossible. We share their euphoria. At the same time they, and we, must acknowledge that it is only the beginning. Real freedom will only be possible when they have escaped from the tyranny of international banks, and Wall Street is no longer able to manipulate the price of their daily bread.

A good start might be to distribute a million copies of this speech and translate it into a number of languages.

Then the rising generation can bombard the barricades through their social networks.

Regime change is not necessary except for leaders who refuse to see the light. But concerned citizens of the world should band together and rattle the cages of all federal politicians. Tell them bluntly that they must vigorously support the above agenda or face inevitable defeat at the next election. It is a simple message, but the only one they understand.

At a press conference on March 29, 2001 announcing the U.S. was backing out of the Kyoto Protocol, President George W. Bush said, “A friend is someone who tells you the truth.” That is what I have been doing today. It is a message of global hope for every race, color, religion and nationality in the world and of peaceful relations with visitors from other realms.

Paul Hellyer, P.C. is a distinguished author and former Canadian Minister of National Defence

Trichet: possibile aumento dei tassi

ECONOMIA E FINANZA

La tua pubblicità

BCE:"OCCORRONO SANZIONI PIÙ SEVERE CONTRO PAESI INDEBITATI"

Trichet:"Da aprile possibile aumento dei tassi d'interesse"

Il banchiere nega l'aumento del costo del denaro

Trichet:'Da aprile possibile aumento dei tassi d'interesse'

03/03/2011, ore 21:52 -

Dopo aver mantenuto stabili i tassi d'interesse tenendo fede ad una sorta di promessa basata sul buon senso, durante la tradizionale conferenza stampa che segue tutte le decisioni in ambito di politica monetaria, il presidente della Bce Jean Claude Trichet, ha dichiarato:"Nel breve periodo, ci sono segni di una pressione per la crescita dell'inflazione, soprattutto a causa delle quotazioni dell'energia e delle commodity".
Immediatamente dopo, la precisazione:"Sul medio-lungo periodo i prezzi al consumo dovrebbero rimanere sotto, o vicini, al 2 per cento". Tuttavia, ha ammesso, "è possibile, seppure non certo, che già in aprile" si registri un sensibile ritocco verso l'alto dei tassi d'interesse (leggasi del prezzo del denaro). Sempre Trichet, però, ci ha tenuto a far presente che "sarebbe comunque sbagliato interpretare le mie parole come l'inizio di una serie di aumenti del costo del denaro".
In altri termini e sforzandosi di non farsi ubriacare dalle finte e contro-finte dialettiche del presidente della Bce, è possibile che nel breve periodo l'inflazione porterà ad un aumento generalizzato del costo della carta moneta; in piena linea con l'incremento dei prezzi del carburante, la crisi del Nord Africa e la galoppata verso i mercati emergenti. Volendo parafrasare ulteriormente le parole del potente banchiere e dando adito a certe teorie inoppurtunamente etichettate come fantasiose e complottiste, per i prossimi mesi è previsto un aumento considerevole del peso del signoraggio bancario.
Non è un caso, forse, che sul Sole 24 ore l'articolo che affronta il tema in analisi sembra scritto appositamente per non essere compreso, o meglio, per essere compreso solo tra gli addetti ai lavori. In verità, le parole di Trichet, possono essere lette in un unico modo: a partire da aprile, per chi ha stipulato un mutuo a tasso variabile o per chi vorrà accenderne uno, la situazione debitoria potrebbe complicarsi non poco. Parimenti e non casualmente, dalla Bce si alza nuovamente la voce contro gli stati che patiscono un debito pubblico ed un deficit elevati e si richiedono sanzioni più rapide e severe per chi non riesce a restituire i prestiti forniti dalle banche.
La potentissima e per nulla lungimirante lobby degli istituti di credito, si spinge addirittura a proporre all'Unione Europea l'adozione di un nuovo sistema di governance dato che, quello attuale, "non è stato recepito a fondo dai vari governi" dell'eurozona; evidentemente ancora troppo poco schiavizzati dal debito verso le banche:"Bisogna avere una maggiore automaticità delle sanzioni contro i paesi con eccesso di deficit e debito. Contiamo sul Parlamento europeo - ha difatti concluso Trichet -, perchè aiuti l'Europa a far tesoro della lezione della crisi finanziaria".
Ricapitalando, quindi, dalla Bce si prospetta la possibilità di un'impennata dei tassi d'interesse e, parimenti, si richiede il pugno di ferro verso chi questi interessi non può pagarli per ovvi motivi. Un'autentica follia che punta ad aggiungere debiti ad altri debiti e ad incatenare ad interessi meramente speculativi intere economie nazionali. Ma quanto potranno essere spremute le già depauperate casse degli stati europei? E quanto ancora potranno resistere i consumatori-debitori che abitano l'occidente? Trichet ed i suoi colleghi non sembrano preoccuparsene; nel delirio contemporaneo della massificazione cieca ed ossessiva del profitto.
A tal proposito, sempre dalla Bce, arrivano notizie positive riguardo l'altro grande fantasma dell'epoca capitalista: la crescita del Pil. Le previsioni parlando infatti di un incremento lievemente superiore rispetto a quanto ci si aspettava tra la fine del 2010 e l'inizio del 2011. Ma se le tasse sono aumentate in tutta l'eurozona, come si può credere alle previsioni che sottolineano un incremento dello sviluppo?
Appare evidente, dunque, che i vecchi volponi della finanza globale, prevedendo un possibile quanto vicino crack totale del sistema capitalista, stiano assecondando la propria avidità compulsiva tentando di far cassa prima della definitiva banca rotta. Il tutto, naturalmente, a spese totali e mai rimborsate del resto della popolazione ed in particolare delle classi meno abbienti.
di Germano Milite

Alfonso Luigi Marra ospite a Brontolo per parlare del signoraggio

Alfonso Luigi Marra ospite a Brontolo per parlare del signoraggio bancario

Pubblicato da Valentina Proietti il 04/03/2011 in: In evidenza, RaiTre

Alfonso Luigi Marra ospite a Brontolo per parlare del signoraggio bancario

E’ uno dei personaggi più in voga del momento, Alfonso Luigi Marra. Volente o nolente, tutti, ma proprio tutti, hanno visto almeno uno spot del suo ‘Il labirinto femminile, a partire da quello con Manuela Arcuri. Qualche giorno fa il lanciatissimo scrittore era ospite di ‘Brontolo’, programma settimanale di RaiTre che approfondisce tematiche sociali o affronta questioni di attualità nostrana. Nella puntata che ha visto in studio l’avvocato Marra si è parlato di prostituzione e quindi come non mostrare lo spot de ‘Il labirinto femminile’ con protagonista Ruby, l’ultimo partorito dalla mente dell’autore. Nonostante l’attenzione venga catalizzata sulla pubblicità e sulla sua testimonial, Marra cerca di portare la discussione verso altri lidi: quello che a lui interessa è il signoraggio bancario, quello primario e secondario, come scandisce la giovane marocchina nello spot. Sì, perché, fra le altre cose, Marra è anche uno strenuo difensore dei diritti dei cittadini contro i soprusi messi in atto dal sistema bancario.

Marra è scandalizzato dal fatto che nessuna trasmissione voglia parlare di questo tema, dell’anatocismo e dell’arricchimento delle banche a spese dei risparmiatori. E’ scandalizzato anche dal fatto che non si voglia mandare in onda lo spot con Ruby e qui se la prende con Bianca Berlinguer, che ha espressamente vietato la trasmissione di quella pubblicità prima del suo Tg3.

Quando il conduttore Oliviero Beha mostra il discusso messaggio promozionale, la discussione assume contorni molto confusi. L’avvocato-scrittore continua a parlare dello strapotere creditizio, mentre l’altra ospite in studio, la deputata del FLI Flavia Perina, si concentra sull’orrore delle immagini appena viste:

‘A me non frega nulla del signoraggio bancario, voglio solo dire che questa pubblicità è la più disgustosa mai vista. E’ la metafora di uno stupro, c’è un uomo mascherato che spoglia una diciottenne, è vergognoso e diseducativo.’

L’autore però non si scompone:

‘Quello spot è bellissimo, è la metafora del sistema bancario che spoglia la società. Chi vuol capire capisca.’

Beha ci mette del suo e ne nasce un imperdibile botta e risposta:

- Lei Marra è furbo, molto furbo.
- Io sono intelligente.


-Guardi, non ho mai sentito un intelligente autodefinirsi ‘intelligente’.
- E allora è la prima volta.

Poi il buon paladino della giustizia intraprende un monologo sulle sue teorie ed è l’apoteosi. Ne nascono delle chicche come ‘la dialogicità, che è il contrario dello strategismo’ e la ‘genitalizzazione della sessualità’.

Marra annuncia anche, tra l’orrore dei presenti, che presto sarà disponibile un nuovo filmato con la protagonista del caso Ruby, sempre in 9 lingue e della durata di ben 8 minuti. Il video sarà interamente incentrato sul signoraggio bancario, almeno così dice lui. Non vediamo l’ora di trovarci davanti la provocante marocchina che, in reggiseno e perizoma, ammicca alla ‘genitalizzazione sessuale’.

giovedì 3 marzo 2011

Too late to jail bank CEOs

Paul B. Farrell

Paul B. Farrell

March 1, 2011, 12:01 a.m. EST

Four time bombs that will blow up Wall Street

Commentary: Too late to jail bank CEOs; only revolution will succeed







By Paul B. Farrell, MarketWatch

SAN LUIS OBISPO, Calif. (MarketWatch) — Put Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein in jail for six months, and all this will stop, all over Wall Street and America, a former congressional aide tells Matt Taibbi in his latest Rolling Stone attack, “Why Isn’t Wall Street in Jail? Financial crooks brought down the world’s economy — but the feds are doing more to protect them than to prosecute them.”

Taibbi’s right, everyone knows Wall Street’s run by a bunch of dictators who are doing more damage to democracy and capitalism than North Africa’s dictators. But jail the CEOs of Goldman, Citi, B. of A. or my old firm Morgan Stanley? Too late.

Berkshire contemplates acquisitions

Jamie Heller and Erik Holm discuss the implications of the newly released letter to Berkshire Hathaway shareholders from billionaire investor Warren Buffett.

Only a revolution will stop Wall Street’s self-destructive capitalism. And watching the people revolt against dictators like Mubarak and Gadhafi reminds us of the spirit that sparked America’s revolution in 1776. But today we need a 1930s-style revolution.

During the S&L crisis two decades ago America had a backbone, indicted 3,800 executives and bankers. Today’s leaders have no backbone. Besides jail time won’t reform the darkness consuming Wall Street’s soul. We’re all asleep, in denial about the moral crisis facing America. Yes, we need a new revolution.

Jail time? We’ve heard that many times before. Journalists have been beating that dead horse for three years. Jailing CEOs made sense in early 2009. But our naïve president missed that opportunity, instead surrounded himself with Wall Street insiders as Bush did with Blankfein’s predecessor. Trojan Horses manipulating a Congress filled with clueless Dems mismanaging tired Keynesian theories.

Taibbi got it right: Washington’s error was in protecting Wall Street’s billion-dollar crooks when they should have been prosecuting CEOs for criminal behavior in getting us into the 2008 mess. So today, the political statute-of-limitations has run. Jail solution is wishful thinking, like praying to the tooth fairy for a miracle. Time for action. Time for a revolution on Wall Street.

Jail Wall Street? Old news. They got away with it. We chickened out

“Jail Bank CEOs” makes a great sound bite in the cable pundits’ echo chamber. Remember Taibbi’s earlier indictment of Goldman Sachs: the “world’s most powerful investment bank is a great vampire squid wrapped around the face of humanity, relentlessly jamming its blood funnel into anything that smells like money.”

But so what? Just three years after Wall Street’s crooks “brought down the world’s economy” Goldman’s Blankfein and his buddies are paying record bonuses, and laughing at us.

Seriously, think about it folks: Since the 2008 meltdown magazines and newspapers have analyzed the 2008 crash to death. It really is old news, history. Journalists churned out book after book: “Greenspan’s Bubbles,” “House of Cards,” “Trillion Dollar Meltdown,” “13 Bankers,” “Dumb Money,” “Bailout Nation,” “All the Devils Are Here,” “The Big Short,” “Too Big to Fail,” “The Failure of Capitalism,” “This Time is Different,” “And Then the Roof Caved In,” on and on, ad nauseum. All talk, no action, and no effect.

Get it? With every book, every editorial, every expose the past three years, Wall Street bankers actually grew stronger, got richer, more arrogant, bolder on bonuses, impervious to attacks, even taunting us, like the dictators Mubarak, Ben Ali and Gadhafi, confident they could do no wrong, confident no one would rebel. Jail? Our moment to act is long past. We blinked.

Yes folks, Wall Street is the “Comeback Kid” story of the 21st century. Like a terrorist in a horror film, Wall Street thrives on threats. Three short years ago, Wall Street was virtually bankrupt, a ward of the state. We could have jailed “just one” of them back then, when they were down for the count. Instead, we bailed them out! Made them richer. Gave them $13.7 trillion, loans, credits, cash, asset buyouts. Gave them keys to the Treasury. They didn’t just recover, they “ran the tables,” to use a blackjack/pool metaphor. Now Wall Street dictators have absolute power, ruling Washington, America, you and me.

Yes, America’s bankrupt, but the rich just do not care

Admit it, we lost the opportunity. Jail a bank CEO and Wall Street will miraculously reform? You’re joking, right? Wall Street got away with a “legal” bank heist. Today the should-be/would-be inmates are running the prison.

Wall Street’s corrupt banks have lost their moral compass … their insatiable greed has become a deadly virus destroying its host nation … their campaign billions buy senate votes, stop regulators’ actions, manipulate presidential decisions. Wall Street money controls voters, runs America, both parties. Yes, Wall Street is bankrupting America.

Wake up America, listen:

  • “Our country is bankrupt. It’s not bankrupt in 30 years or five years,” warns economist Larry Kotlikoff, “it’s bankrupt today.”

  • Economist Peter Morici: “Capitalism is broken, America’s government is two bankrupt political parties bankrupting the country.”

  • David Stockman, Reagan’s budget director: “If there were such a thing as Chapter 11 for politicians” the “tax cuts would amount to a bankruptcy filing.”

  • BusinessWeek recently asked analyst Mary Meeker to run the numbers. How bad is it? America really is bankrupt, with a “net worth of a negative $44 trillion.” Bankrupt.

And it will get worse. Unfortunately, nothing can stop America’s self-destructive Wall Street bankers. They simply do not care that their “doomsday capitalism” is destroying themselves from within, and is bankrupting America too.

One mega-millionaire sent me an email after reading my Jan. 4 column, “America’s worst 10 years start now.”

“Paul, you may well be right about the coming decade, but the rich exist in a different world from the one you write about. They live privileged lives in gated communities. Meet for holidays at the world’s elite resorts. The richest just aren’t worried about today’s economy like your readers. Their issues revolve around who’s the best masseuse, best Pilates teacher, best concierge medical doctor, which private school to choose, what investments they are making at this time, etc. Folks at the top are not concerned with the underlying deterioration of America, except in the abstract, because they aren’t directly affected. That’s why no amount of information from you will ever change things. To them, it’s irrelevant. Best wishes, always enjoy your stuff.”

4 ticking time bombs that will ignite the Wall Street revolution

Yes, the rich live in a different world. And no, information won’t change them. But a revolution will. Revolutions build slowly over a long time. Then, suddenly, a critical mass, a flash point, something totally unexpected ignites the ticking bomb.

It happened recently in a remote Tunisian village. Mohamed Bouazizi, a 26-year-old college graduate, unable to pay bribes, set himself on fire to protest police confiscation of his unlicensed vegetable cart. That triggered a revolution. And his death rapidly led to the collapse of a 24-year dictatorship.

Today we have four hot time bombs, tick-ticking, soon to make history; any one can easily accelerate the revolution that’s already killing Wall Street from within.

1. Wealth gap: Super-Rich vs class wars, death of democracy

The gap: In one generation, America’s wealthiest 1% has exploded from 9% to 23% of America’s income, while middle-class income has stagnated. Even Buffett admits: “There’s class warfare, all right, but it’s my class, the rich class, that’s making war, and winning.”

But my rich friend tells the real story, of their social disconnect. The rich just don’t care. They live in a different world, live by a self-centered code lacking a moral compass. The public welfare is honored only if supported by tax benefits.

The wealth gap is widening and soon something unpredictable will ignite a Wall Street revolution.

2. Wall Street’s doomsday capitalism vs rule by anarchy

A key Supreme Court decision accelerated and codified Wall Street’s ability to use billions stolen from taxpayers to lobby Washington and solidify its power, all for its own self-interest, through campaign payola, senators’ votes, presidential access, manipulation of regulators, grabbing tax benefits, etc. And it’s every man and woman for themselves.

Don’t believe it? Know this, democracy is dead and you’re in denial. Wall Street CEOs and Forbes 400 billionaires are either engaged in a secret conspiracy, or a classic anarchy picking apart America, oblivious of the fact they are setting up the next big revolution.

3. Pentagon’s perpetual war machine vs America’s budget time bomb

The mathematics of our $75 trillion Social Security and Medicare deficits often seem insurmountable, but can be recalibrated. However, the war-loving mindset of America’s neocons — fueled by China’s military actions, the insatiable expansion of our military spending and a Pentagon prediction that global population growth — is putting more and more pressure on the world’s scarce resources, and will, in turn, increase global wars and the demand for more war spending, increasing the risk of sudden revolutions everywhere.

4. Global population explosion vs resources, jobs, better lifestyles

As the world population explodes from 7 billion to 10 billion in the next generation, the demand for more jobs and the pressure on scarce resources will increase, while expectations will fall as the ratio of haves to have-nots increases, making the world all around Wall Street a burning powder keg setting up a revolution.

Bottom line: Forget jailing Wall Street’s dictators. It’s naïve and too late. We missed that opportunity. But a revolution will do the trick, give us a second chance to jail the crooks.

Until then, remember, these four factors are building to a head, merging into a critical mass that will accelerate into a revolution and destroy Wall Street from within: The widening wealth gap, capitalism’s new rule-by-anarchy, the high cost of feeding the Pentagon’s costly war machine, and the huge global population explosion.

Napoléon et l'argent

napoleon.org

INTERVIEW

Pierre Branda : Napoléon et l'argent (2007)

(Interview de PAPOT Emmanuelle )

Historiens : BRANDA, Pierre

Informations

Après des études d'économie et de gestion à l'université de Montpellier (maîtrise d'économie) et à l'I.A.E. de Nice (D.E.A. de Gestion des organisations), Pierre Branda (né en 1966) est devenu chef d'entreprise en 1990. Membre correspondant de la Fondation Napoléon depuis 2002, il a publié de nombreux articles sur les finances impériales dont notamment « Les finances et le budget de la France napoléonienne" et "Le testament de Napoléon : une affaire d'argent avant tout ». Il a participé à l'ouvrage collectif Napoléon et l'Europe aux éditions Fayard avec « La guerre a-t-elle payé la guerre ? ». En 2006, il a co-signé avec Thierry Lentz, Napoléon, l'esclavage et les colonies également chez Fayard. 2007 voit paraître son dernier ouvrage amené à devenir un classique et une référence : Le Prix de la Gloire. Napoléon et l'argent (Fayard).


Vous êtes déjà l'auteur de plusieurs articles sur ce thème, pourquoi s'être intéressé à Napoléon sous l'angle de l'argent ?


Ma formation universitaire initiale (économie et gestion) m'y a bien entendu incité. Mais pas seulement. Je m'y suis intéressé car Napoléon s'y intéressait lui- même beaucoup. Les finances de l'Etat ou les sujets économiques occupent en effet une large part dans la correspondance de Napoléon. S'il a travaillé sans relâche ces questions, il m'a semblé essentiel d'approfondir cet aspect des choses pour apprécier à sa juste mesure l'action de Napoléon. En outre, l'argent fut un compagnon de route de la carrière de l'empereur des Français, de même qu'il fut omniprésent dans la vie politique de son temps. Il ne faut pas oublier que des expéditions militaires décidées ou conduites par Bonaparte (Italie ou Saint-Domingue) l'ont été pour des raisons économiques ou ont échoué en partie à cause d'une cruelle insuffisance de moyens (Egypte). D'autre part, comment ne pas s'interroger sur l'incroyable défi relevé par Napoléon : financer quinze années de guerre sans entraîner la faillite de l'État alors que 20 ans plus tôt, la guerre d'Indépendance américaine, pourtant modeste sur le plan militaire, avait suffi à mettre à genoux une monarchie millénaire ? Ces sujets sont notamment au coeur de mes travaux et plus particulièrement de mon dernier livre, « Le prix de la gloire – Napoléon et l'argent ».




Que représentait « l'argent » pour Napoléon : une force, un moyen d'arriver à ses fins ?


L'argent fut un allié de poids pour Napoléon. A plusieurs reprises, il a forcé son destin en l'utilisant. Je ne prendrais qu'un seul exemple : le paiement de la solde de l'armée d'Italie en pièces d'or et d'argent en mai 1796. La campagne d'Italie avait été décidée en grande partie pour des raisons financières. Le Directoire, à court d'argent avec la fin du papier monnaie, lorgnait avec envie sur la riche péninsule. Il y envoya le général Bonaparte, sans expérience puisqu'il n'avait conduit aucune armée au feu, pour tenter de renflouer ses caisses. Les premiers résultats furent très encourageants, Bonaparte envoya très vite plusieurs millions à Paris. Mais son armée restait assez misérable et, en dehors des pillages, le « butin » n'était pas pour la troupe. Contre toute attente, à Milan, Bonaparte paya son armée en espèces malgré l'avis contraire du Directoire. Cette mesure était « révolutionnaire » pour l'époque car toutes les armées républicaines ne recevaient que du papier déprécié, les assignats. Ce faisant, il fidélisa son armée et assura son maintien à la tête de celle-ci. D'autres généraux, tel Moreau, voulurent l'imiter mais en soldat respectueux de l'autorité, ils ne surent pas passer outre aux consignes de leur gouvernement. Il y a bien d'autres exemples, je montre ainsi que sous l'Empire les dépenses de l'Etat destinées aux dignitaires du régime étaient plus importantes que celles que consacrait Louis XVI à sa propre cour.




Napoléon avait-il une véritable politique financière sous l'Empire ou bien a-t-il composé avec les événements ?


Il faut d'abord souligner le véritable tour de force réussi par le régime consulaire dans le domaine financier. Le Directoire n'avait pourtant pas démérité pour essayer de redresser la situation. Mais Bonaparte et son équipe ont su faire primer l'intérêt public et construire un système financier capable d'assurer à l'Etat un « minimum vital J'analyse dans mon livre les recettes employées pour parvenir à un tel résultat. Il faut également remarquer que sa politique financière faisait clairement partie d'un tout. Napoléon Bonaparte était avant tout un homme politique. Aussi, si une mesure fiscale risquait de nuire à la popularité de son régime, il n'hésitait pas à la différer. Les taxes sur le tabac, le sel ou l'alcool par exemple, ne furent réintroduites qu'à partir de 1806, une fois son pouvoir solidement installé. En agissant ainsi, le financement de l'Etat fut effectivement soumis aux événements, surtout dans les premières années. Sans la vente de la Louisiane en 1803 et les subsides espagnols, par exemple, il aurait été impossible de financer la construction du camp de Boulogne ou l'effort maritime, entrepris dans le but d'envahir l'Angleterre. Avec des ressources aussi aléatoires, l'Etat manqua de sombrer lors de l'affaire des Négociants réunis. Cet épisode malheureux, longtemps perçu comme un « scandale », montra plutôt combien le « nerf de la guerre » fit cruellement défaut à Napoléon en pleine campagne d'Austerlitz. Après 1806, tout changea. Les considérations politiques cédèrent le pas aux impératifs financiers du Grand Empire. Napoléon tenta ainsi de dominer l'argent partout où il le pouvait, dans son Empire ou dans des pays satellites comme l'Italie, la Westphalie, Naples, ou la Hollande. Il créa également des structures capables de gérer au mieux les produits des conquêtes avec le Domaine extraordinaire notamment. Je consacre une partie importante du livre à cette tentative de canaliser l'argent dans toute l'Europe au profit de sa politique. Mais ce faisant, il devint en quelque sorte le percepteur du vieux continent, ce qui fragilisa sans nul doute la présence française.




Sans dévoiler votre livre, quel est votre bilan financier de la France napoléonienne ?


Même s'il existe un bilan final dans le livre, l'important n'est pas là. Le seul bilan qui compte historiquement, c'est celui de la confrontation entre les deux ennemis de toujours : la France et l'Angleterre. Et malheureusement pour Napoléon, l'avantage resta à son adversaire. La « seconde guerre de Cent ans » se termina par une triomphe de « l'argent contre Napoléon ». L'Angleterre a su investir là ou il le fallait et de manière massive (deux à trois fois tout l'or du monde existant à cette période). D'où venait l'argent alors que l'Empereur régnait sur toutes les anciennes places financières qui comptaient avant la Révolution (Paris, Gênes, Venise, Genève, Amsterdam ou Francfort) ? J'essaie de montrer comment, grâce à la confiance des négociants internationaux, des industriels, des propriétaires, des colons, des princes ennemis de Napoléon, de grandes banques (comme la Baring) ou de spéculateurs (comme les Rothschild), Albion triompha, sans perfidies.




Vous montrez donc dans ce livre toute l'importance que prenait la question financière dans l'histoire de la période. Comment expliquez-vous que cette question primordiale ait été délaissée jusqu'ici par l'historiographie classique ?


Je n'ai pas la prétention d'être un précurseur en la matière. Des ouvrages majeurs ont précédé le mien. Chez les « généralistes », Jean Tulard, Louis Bergeron ou Thierry Lentz ont accordé une large place aux questions d'argent. Chez les spécialistes d'histoire économique et financière, les études de François Crouzet, Michel Bruguière, Guy Thuillier ou Pierre-François, Pinaud ont défriché un terrain difficile. Sur la question des subsides anglais, l'étude américaine de John M. Sherwig est tout aussi fondamentale. Il manquait sans doute une étude qui envisage la question dans son ensemble. Les sujets économiques sont aujourd'hui au coeur des débats de notre société, pourquoi ne serait-ce pas le cas en histoire alors que les problématiques sont identiques ? Le tout est d'exposer le plus clairement possible les enjeux. C'est ce que j'ai tenté de faire. Le lecteur pourra alors juger si cette « guerre invisible » que mena Napoléon avec ou contre l'argent mérite de figurer à côté des campagnes prestigieuses que nous avons tous en mémoire.

The Alternative Market Project Has Been Launched!

Guest Post: The Alternative Market Project Has Been Launched!

Tyler Durden's picture

Submitted by Giordano Bruno of Neithercorp Press

The Alternative Market Project Has Been Launched!

Why choose to participate in a system that doesn’t work? A system that is designed to drain the people of wealth instead of enriching them and their lives? A system that is constructed upon irrational principles, faulty laws, and unstable values? A system on the verge of collapse?

This is the question that the Alternative Market Movement (AMM) poses to the American citizen. Why continue living under an economic structure that is poised to erupt, threatening you, your family, and your ability to provide a meaningful future for them? Would anyone voluntarily choose to live under the barrel of a gun their entire lives?

The only plausible answer is that most people participate in our current destructive financial system because they feel there are no other options. AMM plans to change this by offering a new choice, one which presents a solid foundation, an honest and legitimate sense of community, self sufficiency, and sound trade backed by tangible commodities instead of unsustainable debts. We will work to help each and every individual achieve greater independence and to connect with other like-minded participants in a newer, liberty based market. This market will be facilitated and administrated by communities themselves, away from bureaucracy, corporate influence, and overt regulation. It will serve the interests of the average man and woman, and not the interests of globalism and elitist hierarchy.

We believe wholeheartedly in the framework of Constitutional Law, and that no government or supranational entity has the right to overstep Constitutional boundaries for any reason, regardless of supposed intentions or mandates. We do not recognize the self proclaimed authority of corporately created and managed entities such as the Federal Reserve, the IMF, or the World Bank. We are fully opposed to the practice of fractional reserve banking, fiat currency, central banking, and other fraudulent financial Ponzi schemes. We stand against the forced centralization of countries and cultures and the erasure of national sovereignty. We believe that the first step in defending against such economic and political manipulation is to create an alternative system that safeguards the values of free markets and free peoples. We are a natural extension of the Liberty Movement which is already making great headway in American society today.

Our goal is not to centralize authority in this movement, but to encourage individual awareness, and individual action. We hope to provide the knowledge and tools necessary to make it possible for anyone, from the average working American, to the successful private business owner, to become their own leader, taking actions in their own neighborhoods and towns with the purpose of forming viable trade networks, eventually decoupling and shielding themselves from the diseased economy currently in place.

The root ideology of our mission could be expressed as follows:

Provide for yourself and others those human necessities which the corrupt establishment cannot or will not.

Through this, you make the damaging system unneeded and obsolete. Eventually, the establishment will have to come after you, openly exposing its tyrannical nature, or it will have to conform to you. In either case, you benefit.

To help Americans forward with this strategy of self determinism and economic independence, we are launching the Alt-Market website. We hope it will become a useful medium for the expansion of trade networks as well as a source of in-depth knowledge on numerous practical skills which are valued in a poor economic environment. Ultimately, we plan to move our efforts away from the internet and into cities across the country, where we will hold workshops and conventions designed to give people hands on training, as well as a forum to meet other like-minded free market proponents face to face.

Visit us at Alt-Market, and set a higher economic standard for yourself, your town, your state, and your country. It all begins when our participation in rigged establishment system ends…

http://www.alt-market.com/

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