EDITORIAL
At Least One State Will Be Transformed by the New Paradigm, but It’s Still Being Blacked Out in U.S.
Nov. 22 (EIRNS)—The U.S. President may pardon a turkey at Thanksgiving, but no one can pardon the turkeys of the U.S. media, who are denying Americans any knowledge of what their President encountered and accomplished in his summit meetings in Asia, and with President Putin of Russia.
China is spreading a new economic paradigm in the world, and with the trade and investment agreements President Trump struck there, the economy of at least one state—West Virginia—is going to be transformed for the better and for the long term. It is not giving away tax breaks and asset ownership, as states so often do when as desperate for economic progress as West Virginia is; and it is getting investments in power plants, energy and chemical production technologies, skilled employment—perhaps more than $80 billion over 20 years.
One West Virginia trade unionist said, “We really have no influence or power here, so that is interesting to me that he [Trump] still kept his promise to us, something I suspect he will likely get little credit for in the national news.”
In fact, not only has President Trump gotten no coverage, but this investment—and the one which will probably save GE, and the others going into other U.S. states—are scarcely being mentioned in the media. An investment in West Virginia triple the size of the total budget of the U.S. Department of Energy is going unreported or scanted—for the most part even in West Virginia media.
The President’s Asia trip engaged him with the vast economic infrastructure initiatives coming from China, seconded by Russia and increasingly even in competition/collaboration with Japan. He has followed it by declaring his intention to remain fully engaged with Russian President Putin on Syria, North Korea, and the fight against terrorism in the Mideast as a whole.
President Trump is making clear that he intends to pursue reasonable great-power diplomacy no matter what the “Russiagators” say or do. America is the great gainer from this, as is the prospect of peace after an era of “perpetual war.” To quote Helga Zepp-LaRouche on this determination for better U.S.-Russia relations in particular, “This is promising, but not yet accomplished.”
The United States would gain more if the President joins in China’s Belt and Road Initiative of great infrastructure projects.
And far more if the United States adopts the economic transformation as a whole promised by Lyndon LaRouche’s “Four Laws To Save the Nation”—a crash program at last for fusion power and a return to the great enterprises of space exploration, just as much as a return to the Glass-Steagall Act.
Immediately, there is a blackout to be broken: Americans should know what the new paradigm is, that President Trump encountered in Asia—and what he is, so far, doing about it.
U.S. POLITICAL AND ECONOMIC
Trump Phone Call with Putin Is a Strong Assertion
Nov. 22 (EIRNS)—President Donald Trump’s comments to journalists after his phone call Nov. 21 with Russian President Vladimir Putin constituted another assertion of his intent to conduct a reasonable great-power foreign policy, and damn the Russiagate torpedoes. This is particularly true when combined with Putin’s simultaneous multiple initiatives to move Syria toward economic reconstruction and national elections, for which he clearly counts on American cooperation.
Leaving the White House, Trump said, “President Putin and I had a great call regarding Syria, North Korea and other things, it lasted for almost one and a half hours.” This makes it nearly the summit meeting which they were blocked by advisors and “pencil-pushers” from having at the APEC summit in Da Nang on Nov. 11.
“It was a great call,” Trump repeated. “We’re talking very strongly about bringing peace to Syria, very strongly about North Korea, and about Ukraine.”
Interestingly, Sen. Ben Cardin (D-MD), one of the most rabid anti-Russian sanctioners of the Congress, told CNN later Nov. 21, “I think we have to have communications between the President of Russia and the United States. So that’s fine. I don’t mind the conversation.” While the Senator was not doing world peace any favors, he was acknowledging a reality being asserted by President Trump.
RT reported that Putin briefed Trump on his offer and attempt to organize a Syrian Congress of National Dialogue in Sochi. “Putin again spoke of normalizing bilateral [U.S.-Russia] relations, especially when it comes to fighting terrorism.”
Did Fusion GPS Pay Journalists To Spread MI6’s Lying Dossier against Trump?
Nov. 22 (EIRNS)—Lawyers for Republicans on the House Intelligence Committee suspect so, and seek to prove it. According to the Washington Examiner today, a document filed with the court by the Committee seeks details on Fusion GPS’s transactions with three specific reporters whom Fusion GPS documents show received payments from the firm between June 2016 and February 2017, “each of whom have reported on and/or been quoted in articles regarding topics related to the Committee’s investigation [into the Steele dossier], some of which were published as recently as October 2017.”
The implication is that Fusion GPS was not paying journalists for research, as Fusion GPS lawyers insist, but to write articles promoting the MI6-prepared dossier itself.
A related filing by House lawyers asserts that “that Fusion GPS brokered meetings for dossier author Christopher Steele with at least five major media outlets in September 2016, including Yahoo news.” All names of journalists involved are still redacted.
Clearly not bowed by his indictment, Carter Page, a target of Special Counsel Robert Mueller, sent an email to the Washington Examiner praising the committee for sticking to its guns. “While many politicians and bureaucrats in the U.S. Congress remain distracted by irrelevant sideshows such as the minuscule amounts of money spent on Facebook ads that no one paid attention to last year or how various perverted members might have once amused themselves, the determined leaders and hard working staff with the House Intelligence Committee have once again remained on the tip of the spear as they drive toward essential answers regarding the real government interference in the 2016 election.”
THE NEW GLOBAL ECONOMIC ORDER
Presidents of Russia, Turkey and Iran Commit Themselves To Reconstruct Syria
Nov. 22 (EIRNS)—Russian President Vladimir Putin, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, and Iranian President Hassan Rouhani issued a joint declaration, today, further cementing their cooperation on bringing peace to Syria. “The document defines priorities for further cooperation of Russia, Turkey and Iran, which have the upper hand in Syrian issues, and sets concrete tasks for the future,” Putin said afterwards, reports TASS. One of those tasks is the organization of a Syrian National Dialogue Congress to be held in the near future in Sochi. “I can state with satisfaction that the Presidents of Iran and Turkey welcomed the idea of convening a pan-Syrian forum—a Syrian National Dialogue Congress. It has been agreed to arrange for this most important event at the proper level and to ensure participation in it of the wide strata of Syrian society. The foreign ministries, special services and defense ministries were instructed to work on a date and composition of the Congress to be held here in Sochi,” Putin said.
The Kremlin transcript reports Putin telling the press conference, “It is obvious that the process of reform will be difficult, will require compromises and concessions from all its participants, including, of course, the government of Syria.”
Putin suggested in opening the summit that the three Presidents, whose countries are guarantors for the Astana peace process for Syria, should think about jointly developing a comprehensive plan to reconstruct Syria. “At today’s talks we did not leave out an issue of Syria’s economic and social restoration. Loads of work should be done. Actually, the Syrians should be helped to rebuild infrastructure, to revive the industry, agriculture and trade and to reopen vital facilities—hospitals, schools and kindergartens,” Putin said.
Rouhani devoted the bulk of his remarks to condemning the foreign intervention in Syria that intensified the war. But he also called for the full international support for the reconstruction and economic development of Syria. He said, “The role of the international community in the future of Syria should, of course, be aimed at helping the people of this country to achieve stability, to eliminate the suffering of this people, and to put an end to foreign interference and the imposition of another’s opinion on the people of Syria.”
President Erdogan described the summit as aiming to end the long-running tragedy in Syria. “This trilateral summit is highly important for completely ending the bloodshed and tragedy that has been going on for years in Syria,” Erdogan said. “The world has witnessed the positive results of establishing a close working environment between Turkey, Russia, and Iran on the Syrian issue. Astana [peace negotiations] is the best example of that.” Afterwards, reports Hurriyet, he said that the stance of the Syrian government and the opposition will play a key role in the future of the political process.
Japan’s Prime Minister Abe Vows To Continue Developing Ties with Russia
Nov. 22 (EIRNS)—Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe told the Diet, the national legislature, Nov. 20 that Japan was committed to continuing the development of relations with the Russian Federation. “During the next year, declared the Year of Japan and Russia in our countries, we intend to continue actively developing ties with Russia in various domains,” he said. “This applies to intensive negotiations on the issue of sovereignty over the four northern islands [which Russia calls the Southern Kurils], and on signing of a peace treaty,” ending World War II between them.
Abe also referred to developing joint Russian-Japanese business activities on Southern Kurils. These were issues taken up by Abe with Russian President Vladimir Putin at their meeting at the Eastern Economic Forum in Vladivostok on Sept. 7.
Arab News Op-Ed Pushes Gulf Countries To Step Up Work with Belt and Road
Nov. 22 (EIRNS)—Arab News, Saudi Arabia’s first English-language daily, published an op-ed today, “China’s BRI Might Reshape the GCC’s Geostrategic Environment,” which reflects how President Trump’s successful visit to China is registering around the world.
Frequent columnist Kerry Boyd Anderson, a U.S.-based political risk consultant and writer, keys off President Trump’s trip to China, where he and Xi, she wrote, “discussed potential American cooperation with China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), designed to develop the country’s economic links with countries across Asia and potentially beyond.”
Thus, she argues, the BRI “has the potential to reshape multiple global and regional trade flows, which means it will have global geostrategic implications, not purely economic effects.” All the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries have expressed support for the BRI, but to date, the BRI land routes “completely bypass the GCC,” although the maritime routes may be more “relevant,” she wrote. So, “while Beijing takes a broader view of the BRI than simply routes plotted on a map, the GCC faces some risk of being sidelined as China’s expanding economic relationships and emerging trade flows develop elsewhere.”
Anderson cites, in particular, opportunities for the GCC to come in to support Belt and Road projects in countries with which they have good relations, such as Pakistan, Egypt, Kazakhstan, Malaysia.
COLLAPSING WESTERN FINANCIAL SYSTEM
Glass-Steagall Key to China’s New Financial Regulations
Nov. 22 (EIRNS)—Two “major” financial regulatory changes in China since the Oct. 18-24 19th Communist Party Congress are related to China’s maintenance of bank separation on the Glass-Steagall principle, and its superior position in front of a coming global debt crash, while having issued a vast amount of credit for infrastructure projects and production sectors since 2008.
China announced on Nov. 10 that foreign financial firms would be allowed to own majority shares in Chinese financial firms. But as the Wall Street Journal reported the same day, “Most banks in China are owned by local governments or the central government, and are unlikely to be sold…. The securities business is another story. China maintains a Glass-Steagall-like separation of commercial and investment banking, which [latter] is where foreigners have long played. Banks including Goldman Sachs (GS), Morgan Stanley, UBS and Credit Suisse own stakes in Chinese securities joint ventures ranging from 25% to 49%.” City of London and Wall Street banks will not be able to introduce speculative securities and derivatives plays into China’s lending banks.
China also announced, on Nov. 17, a crackdown on speculative financial products being sold by “non-banks” to investors and funds—products typified by the equivalent of money-market mutual funds and index derivatives. Bloomberg on Nov. 19 spoke of $15 trillion in funds under management there, and wrote “The draft rules, set to take effect in 2019 after a consultation period, mark the beginning of a new era in Chinese financial supervision, according to Citic Securities Co.”
Bloomberg stressed that for the first time, “Uniform guidelines for banks, trusts, insurers, fund managers and brokerages will help prevent regulatory arbitrage.”
Ironically, these kinds of “investment products” are again proliferating in U.S. and European financial markets, and are encouraged by regulators because they are being sold by the biggest commercial banks, which have the huge deposit bases to “back” them. China’s big commercial banks, because of Glass-Steagall, cannot sell these products.
Bloomberg quoted one analyst, Becky Liu at Standard Chartered Bank, “The rules … have turned out to be tighter than a version leaked earlier this year…. They will materially curb asset managers’ ability to increase leverage, both market and structural, in the long-term. In the medium term, due to limitations on non-standard products and leverage, demand for standardized products such as bonds and equities will increase, while that for non-standard products will decrease.”
Lawsuit Shows How Wall Street Rigged the Treasury Market
Nov. 22 (EIRNS)—The markets for United States Treasury Securities was rigged for a number of years until 2015 by traders at Wall Street banks, according to a lawsuit just refiled in New York Federal Court.
The New York Post reported Nov. 16 that a massive class-action lawsuit, underway for more than two years, has just been refiled, and a civil investigation by Federal regulators has been conducted for the past 18 months. The biggest banks—at least Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, RBS, BNP Paribas, and UBS—are charged with rigging this most important market. The banks’ traders allegedly shared, across the whole cartel, their clients’ offered bids for Treasuries—by law these bids are client-broker secret communications. Breaking the law enabling them to both manipulate the actual Treasury bond prices higher after the auctions, and to get more Treasuries than other primary dealer banks not in on the scheme.
“Wall Street banks secretly shared client information in online chat rooms in order to rig auctions for the $14 trillion U.S. Treasurys market, according to an explosive lawsuit filed in Manhattan federal court on Wednesday,” Nov. 15, the Post reported.
“The move wrongly fattened the banks’ profits and picked profits from clients, the suit claims.
“The new accusations, leveled by several pension funds and wealthy individual investors, are contained in an expanded class-action suit originally filed in July 2015, and include an unusual twist: Some of the evidence came from confidential informants and one of the banks sued in the earlier action. That bank is now cooperating with the plaintiffs in the massive civil action, and is providing an in-depth look into how Wall Street allegedly conspired to rig Treasury bond trades.”
STRATEGIC WAR DANGER
Turkey Expects To Receive First Russian S-400 System In 2019
Nov. 22 (EIRNS)—Defense Minister Nurettin Canikli told the Turkish Parliament’s Budget Committee, today, that Turkey expects to receive its first Russian-made S-400 air/missile defense system in 2019. The deal has been under negotiation between Ankara and Moscow for about a year but this is the first time a timeline on deliveries has been publicly reported.
“Once these systems are received, our country will have secured an important air defense capability. This solution aimed at meeting an urgent need will not hinder our commitment to developing our own systems,” Canikli said, reported Reuters.
Turkey’s plans to buy the S-400 have caused considerable heartburn with its NATO allies, ostensibly because the Russian system won’t be compatible with NATO’s air and missile defense network. The deal is also another sign, however, of Turkey’s strategic shift away from the bankrupt Anglo-American world of geopolitics towards the new paradigm defined by Russia and China.
‘Maidan Snipers Speak’ on Who Ran Neo-Nazi Coup in Ukraine
Nov. 22 (EIRNS)—The report released last week by the Italian TV program “Occhi della Guerra” (“Eyes on War”), on “Ukraine, The Hidden Truth: Maidan Snipers Speak,” is considered a “bombshell” by the leading outside forensic investigator of the Maidan sniper shootings in February 2014 which led to the final overthrow of President Viktor Yanukovych, Russian Prof. Ivan Katchanovski.
The broadcast, centered on interviews with three snipers involved in that Maidan massacre, proves, as EIR charged from the beginning, that the sniper fire was not ordered by Yanukovych or his government, but by the neo-Nazi forces brought to power by the Obama administration with NATO backing.
The snipers were all Georgians, working under the direction of the former President of Georgia Mikheil Saakashvili, who, after being brought to power in 2004 by George Soros, set out to launch a war against Russia on behalf of NATO, U.K. and the Bush administration. As ex-President, Saakashvili was so central to the Ukraine coup that he was given Ukraine citizenship and appointed Governor of Odessa in 2015 by Victoria Nuland’s “Yats” Yatsenyuk government brought to power by the Maidan uprising.
The snipers recount that they were recruited by Saakashvili’s chief military advisor, Mamuka Mamulashvili, who later formed a “Georgian Legion” to fight in Donbas. Working for Mamulashvili was an American, a former 101st Airborne officer and sniper, Brian Christopher Boyenger, who gave the snipers their orders. He, too, then joined the Georgian Legion in the Donbas.
Serhiy Pashynsky, the Maidan uprising leader—who was later a head of Ukraine’s Supreme Rada, the parliament—distributed the weapons to the recruited snipers, along with Volodymir Parasyuk, another Maidan leader. The snipers in the Conservatory building were given orders on Feb. 20, 2014, to start firing. “Only Pashynsky said anything…. He was the one giving orders,” one recounted. Another sniper recalls, that the leaders of the Maidan revolt ordered them to “shoot to create chaos and confusion. We shouldn’t stop. It did not matter if we fired at a tree, a barricade, or someone throwing a Molotov cocktail. The important thing was to sow chaos.
“Everyone started shooting two or three shots at a time. We did not have much choice. We were ordered to shoot both the Berkut [Interior Ministry police], the police, and the demonstrators, it didn’t matter which. I was aghast. It went on for 15 minutes … maybe 20. I was beside myself, agitated, stressed out, I didn’t understand anything. Then suddenly after 15, 20 minutes, the shooting stopped and everyone put down their weapons.”
Excerpts of the program and a summary of its story are available on the website for “Occhi della Guerra.”
SCIENCE AND INFRASTRUCTURE
Despite High Economic Benefit, Infrastructure Funding Still AWOL
Nov. 22 (EIRNS)—President Trump told his Monday, Nov. 20 Cabinet meeting, “We’ll be submitting plans on infrastructure to Congress, soon after taxes.” The Hill reported Nov. 21 that the administration has been sending short memos to Rep. Sam Graves, head of a subcommittee of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee. The White House says a “detailed, 70-page memo of infrastructure principles,” is to be sent to Congress supposedly in early December.
GOP tax reform folly is clearly impedes this. Rep. Shelley Moore Capito (R-WV] said of infrastructure legislation on Nov. 20, “The pay-for [funding] is where I think we’ll stumble. I don’t believe a gas tax will be in there. I don’t see us doing that. And the repatriation dollar is getting scooped up into tax reform, so I don’t think that will be available as a source.”
The Administration is apparently going to propose a 7 cents/gallon Federal gas tax increase in its legislative memo; but here again, GOP top-down stupidity intrudes. The staff of Financial Services Committee, chaired by Jeb Hensarling (R-TX), want “no additional Federal guarantees” for new infrastructure investments, and that apparently means no new Federal funds. Where does that leave Texas, Hensarling’s state, which is urgently demanding new dams, reservoirs, and sea walls after Hurricane Harvey?
AECOM, a multinational engineering firm headquartered in Los Angeles, wrote a report for the Treasury on infrastructure projects, called the Build America Investment Initiative study (which is a pre-existing program from the Obama Administration). It found that “The 40 projects identified in this study would generate an estimated $800 billion (midpoint) of net economic benefits across the nation if they were completed and available for use. This represents a range of $700 billion to $1.3 trillion in total benefits, less capital costs over $200 billion in net present value terms.” And “The major roadblock in starting work on or completing these projects is funding.”
The AECOM report’s projects are roads, rail corridors, waterways/locks/dams, ports, and airports. None of the projects are assessed a benefit/cost ratio of less than 2-4 to 1; some 15 of the projects are assessed at benefit/cost of 7-10 to 1.
