The Financial Collapse is Here! LaRouche Was Right: End Wall Street Now!
LaRouche Was Right: End Wall Street Now!
Clear steps must be taken to end the accelerating demise of the trans-Atlantic financial system now, before the sheer power of the ensuing chaos and hysteria drag the U.S. into war, even nuclear war with Russia and China. Hillary Clinton’s refusal to support the Glass-Steagall policy, equivalent to the Glass-Steagall program of Franklin Roosevelt, plus her support for the Obama and neocon war agenda exposes the absence of any sufficient American political leadership at a moment of severe economic and political bankruptcy. Something must give, and will give soon, and the only sane response is a return to the Hamiltonian legacy of American policy, as Lyndon LaRouche has uniquely stated for the last 50 years.
The Bank for International Settlements has just prepared a paper for the upcoming G-20 heads of state summit in China, warning that a blowout of the derivatives market could happen at any moment, and the clearinghouse system is totally unprepared to handle such a shock. Remember, it is Deutsche Bank which has the biggest derivatives exposure of any bank in the world, and it has counter-party contracts with almost every “Too Big To Fail” bank in the United States, Europe and Japan—and, it is Deutsche Bank which has been correctly described as a “dead bank walking!” Best estimates are that the global derivatives trade is still well over one quadrillion dollars, even after losses this year that have already piled up.
Add to this, interest rate yields are at their lowest level in over 500 years, echoing the banking blowout that ushered in the European Dark Age in the 1300s. Over 30% of global government debt, approximately $10 trillion, is now at negative interest rates and decreasing. Meanwhile, Quantitative Easing—central bank purchases of junk debt as well as stocks specifically to elevate stock indices—is now at a global level of $180 billion per month, greater than even just after the 2008 crash. This is by far the most unprecedented financial breakdown in modern European history, the very same scenario Lyndon LaRouche warned of in New York City during the 1960s if the then-current policies, the same as today but now more insane, were not altered according to Alexander Hamilton’s program.
Now at this late moment, there is only one option for the thoroughly bankrupt trans-Atlantic system: Reinstate Glass-Steagall, cancel all of the derivatives contracts, go back to a Bretton Woods–type fixed exchange rate system, and launch a massive capital investment in projects that boost real productivity through Hamiltonian national banking methods, including a crash effort to achieve fusion power. This is the heart of Lyndon LaRouche’s Four Cardinal Laws for the New Presidency. (See lpac.co/four-laws)
The West must abandon the dead British System and join the new Eurasia-centered system that is rapidly coming into being, under the political leadership of Russian President Vladimir Putin and through the realization of China’s One Belt, One Road program (OBOR). It is this OBOR program, with an investment already exceeding $100 billion in project loans, which will dominate the discussion during the upcoming G-20 summit in Hangzhou, China, as the trans-Atlantic refuses to end its own bankrupt policies.
In this context, in discussions with European colleagues on Aug. 15, Lyndon LaRouche declared that we, the political forces dedicated to mankind’s long-term development, are on the edge of a great victory for mankind. The nations of Eurasia are establishing a grouping, centered on leading Asia-Pacific nations that are growing rapidly, in stark contrast to other areas of the world which are sick and are dying economically. South America has been taken over by rapists, France is a failure, and Spain is a catastrophe. The focus must be on those leading nations that have taken the initiative in this development process. Putin, LaRouche continued, has emerged as a driving force in this Eurasian alliance. There are forces moving inside the United States, particularly in Manhattan, who can join in the Eurasian-led effort to crush the British System, which has been the enemy of mankind for the past centuries. Germany, if it is to survive, must join this Eurasian development, which means dumping all of the policies associated with Merkel and Schäuble.
Russian President Putin, over the past several years, has played a pivotal role in organizing a force of nations, largely centered in Eurasia, which are taking on the characteristics of a military force that can change everything, and can win the war for peace.
It is now time to heed the words of Lyndon LaRouche, and achieve a real victory for mankind in the near term.
In the coming weeks, the emerging Eurasian alliance will be at the center of a series of historic meetings: The Eastern Economic Forum in Vladivostok, Russia; the G-20 heads of state meeting in Hangzhou, China with Putin as special guest; the China-ASEAN heads of state meeting in Laos; the United Nations General Assembly session in New York City; and the BRICS heads of state meeting in India in early October. This density of activity, between now and the middle of October, provides a unique opportunity for us to set the course of history, and put Wall St. out of its misery.
Wall Street Bets Silver Stampede Leaves National Physical Silver Shortage, Dealers Halt Orders
LAROUCHE ON HAMILTONIAN ECONOMICS:
Cancel Wall Street! Bring Back Glass-Steagall!
[PDF version of this transcript]
At the start of his Friday webcast Aug. 2, Lyndon LaRouche was asked, and responded to a question from a regional Building Trades Council leader from the Mid-Atlantic area. Here is the exchange.
Q: Mr. LaRouche, I’m extremely upset about the rapidly diminishing economic and political strength of the labor movement in this country. With the collapse of the economy, and the alarming weakness of the unions, the quality and quantity of full-time, productive family-sustaining jobs are rapidly disappearing. The latest disgusting trend toward part-time workers, as a means of avoiding paying for workers’ health care, represents another body-blow to the standard of living and general health of the American worker and his or her family.
What we’re seeing in Detroit is that Wall Street is looting the health care, pensions, and other benefits that unionized workers negotiated in a prior period of greater economic and political strength. I wish I could say that it is primarily the Republican Party that has been in bed with Wall Street in this looting process, but it’s not true: The Democrats are equally guilty. I’m disappointed and angry about the silence of our national union leadership. This kind of collapse could not have happened without their complicity.
My question is:
- What can we do to restore the health of the union movement as an engine for development, in restoring a large-scale infrastructure/economic development orientation across the nation? And
- What, in addition to the re-enactment of Glass-Steagall, can we do to put a halt to the looting of pensions and health-care programs?
Lyndon LaRouche: Well, dealing with the pension problem is actually fairly straightforward: Those bums should be punished. Exactly that. Because this is not our policy.
The problem here is the fact that for many years, and many particular Presidents and incumbencies, and so forth, that the arguments that have been placed in designing policy have been based on certain European standards, which are not intrinsically American standards. That’s the first problem. The European standard is simply what you’re seeing in the United States today! And this is not our policy, this is not the intention of our Constitution.
Our Constitution was based, in terms of economic and social policy, on what was done by Alexander Hamilton. And Alexander Hamilton had nothing to do with what most people think are politics, or economy—nothing at all. Because our system is not a European system. But unfortunately, Europe has invaded the United States through our institutions, largely through British banking institutions which have taken over the control of the Congress of the United States. Today we function on the basis of, really, a British system, a British-style system, or a European-style system—which is not the American System.
The Principle of Production
The American System was the assumption that: How do we organize a currency, rather than a European currency? A European currency is gold and silver, chiefly. You take a pile of gold and silver, and that’s your wealth. Now you go around and you park this wealth in order to attract suckers to meet the conditions of the people who are the bankers. That’s what the system is; that’s what the system is now.
The system in the Congress now, is a fraud. It has no relationship to the purpose of the United States and our policy. Our policy is: We are not slaves of gold and silver! We never depended upon gold and silver, except in dealing with foreigners. But among ourselves, we’re not supposed to rely on gold and silver; we’re supposed to rely on production. And production, which was defined by Alexander Hamilton as a principle, is what made the United States successful.
But then, some of our Presidential leaders and so forth—their Presidencies—screwed things up but good. And since that time, except with very exceptional circumstances—like Franklin Roosevelt and a few other Presidents—we have never had a leadership which corresponds to our Constitution.
And so therefore, that’s the key problem here. And members of the Congress have, in the main, no understanding whatsoever of our Constitution. They don’t care about our Constitution. They care about wheeling and dealing. They act like a European parliamentary system with American footprints or something.
Now, the problem on Glass-Steagall is that people don’t understand Glass-Steagall. They think they do; even many of my own associates don’t have any understanding whatsoever of what Glass-Steagall means. They give the name Glass-Steagall, but the content is missing.
For example, let’s take the case of what Alexander Hamilton used. You have farmers, and you have machinists, and so forth. Now, the farmer will produce a crop, and at the end of that point, the farmer needs to get some payment. So therefore, then you have the others who produce now come in, and they do something. So, this transfer of agricultural production, and industrial or manufacturing production, went as a physical operation—not a monetary operation. All you had to do was put a price, which was your fair-price estimate, on what these things represent in value.
You do not deal on banking. You use banking; but banking is largely used in order to make the funding arrangements and payments arrangements among farmers and industrial workers, machinists, and so forth. All of this is laid out very clearly by Alexander Hamilton.
What happened is, we had some other people who came in, who opposed Hamilton strongly, and opposed President Washington. And as a result of this corruption, we’ve had only a few Presidents of the United States who I would consider not skunks. I mean, some of them are not bad people, but when it comes to their politics, their policy, their outlook, their conception of policy-making, they’re skunks, and a big disappointment. They’re not Americans; they’re some kind of a hybrid of Europeans.
Two Hotspots of Corruption
The other side of the thing is, the United States has been controlled increasingly by British banking—not only from Britain, but in New York City, and in the City of Boston. These are two hotspots of corruption in the United States. Because the British banking system has controlled American banking! And that’s what the Wall Street thing is today.
Now, this Wall Street evil—and it is an evil; it’s not an error, it’s an evil—my view is: Cancel Wall Street! And Glass-Steagall’s intention now is to eliminate Wall Street—utterly eliminate it. Because it has no value as banking. It has no particular place in our Constitutional system for banking. Our system was a credit system, and the idea of money and so forth was based on the understanding of a credit system. We had set agreements, which would implicitly be satisfactory to all kinds of people, and to the needs of the American people. And we had that under great Presidents. Franklin Roosevelt is particularly typical of that. Others, John F. Kennedy was one of that persuasion, and tried to be of that persuasion. And they killed him, because they didn’t like his policy. They wanted to destroy the United States, and when they killed him, they were able to do what they were not able to do otherwise.
Their intention was to send the United States to a war in Indochina. Now, that war in Indochina was a disaster. It lasted, essentially, for about a decade. And this war ruined the United States, and we never really recovered from it. We got involved with other wars, which the British arranged. These were not in our interest.
And you take the case of Douglas MacArthur, who exemplifies what our military policy is. He was not out to kill, he was out to win—and there’s a difference—and win quickly, and to win efficiently, and not to get into bloody messes. And that was his policy. And that was his policy at the time on the Indochina problem; that was exactly his policy, his advice. That’s the way it should have happened. We should never have gone into Indochina. We were never going to get anything from going into Indochina. Leave it for them to solve their own problems. There’s no reason why we should mess ourselves up by getting involved in this nonsense.
Sometimes there are major wars, and we’ve had major wars. The Civil War was a major war. There have been other major wars which we’ve had to fight. But we went to win, not to kill. The basic idea of the flanking operation is typical of that thing.
So, what we’re dealing with now, you have a bunch of people, including our own associates, who really do not understand economics. They think they do, because they’ve been reading books and hearing stories, and being told this advice by various people. But they have no understanding, because they say “We’re going to win the election, and when we win the election”—that’s the proposition—”if we win the election, then we’re going to do the following things.” Well, that is nonsense. That is absolute nonsense.
What you have to do is go back to the principles which were clearly understood by the Founders of this nation, notably the economic policies of Alexander Hamilton. The problem is that our own people, who are supporting Glass-Steagall, still do not understand what Glass-Steagall means. Because Glass-Steagall means Franklin Roosevelt, and it means also Alexander Hamilton—the same thing. And the problem we’ve got now, is we don’t have an Alexander Hamilton perspective on the U.S. economy. And the danger is, if we don’t have that Alexander Hamilton outlook, we are incapable of assuring the support of the citizens.
Because the citizen, given this kind of stuff, is simply going to react as a “maybe” person: “Well, maybe they will do something for us, maybe they won’t”—that kind of thing. Whereas if you get to the truth of the matter, and actually present the ideas of Alexander Hamilton—what that means—as opposed to these monetarist and other kinds of nonsense which people foolishly believe in—then we can win.
If you could present to the American people now what that actually means, what Alexander Hamilton’s policy means—and there are a number of people among us who understand that, at least understand it superficially, maybe not with the greatest profundity, but they understand it—and if you could get the majority of, say, trade union workers, skilled workers, if you could mobilize them, they would readily be capable of understanding.
