3 First Steps To Cleanse The Economic System
Politics / Global Financial System Apr 03, 2014 - 06:36 AM GMTBy: Raul_I_Meijer
Since we can all attest to the fact that our financial banking economic system is bust and busted, we should probably look at ways to repair and cure it. And we don’t want to wait for the system to repair itself from the inside with the aid and abetment of its political stooges, revolving door and otherwise, because that will only lead to everyone else paying through the nose for a system they didn’t break to begin with. If we don’t seize control over this ourselves, it will never be cured, and the guys that went for broke and succeeded will make out like bandits and disappear like thieves into the night, leaving us with enough damage to last for multiple and miserable generations.
That last bit may not be evident to you, because the spin cycle runs at full force and speed, but what you think is the financial system is more volatile and vulnerable than probably ever before, based as it is on central bank handouts exclusively, and can’t take much if any sudden swings. I got three first points together that I think we need to execute, and one is still kind of optional, but there are many more, so let’s have suggestions. Abandoning the use of money altogether is not one I consider to be serious, or one world governments or currencies or debt jubilees.
1) All money must be banned from politics
This is so obvious that maybe that’s precisely the reason it’s ignored. As I said before, if you allow money to enter your political system, money will end up buying the system. That’s where one man one vote becomes one dollar one vote, and that isn’t the spirit of anyone’s constitution. It IS the reality of politics all throughout the western world though. In theory every American has the same weight as Jamie Dimon or the Koch brothers, but in practice that’s just an absurd notion.
Incidentally, just today the US Supreme Court struck down more limits on money that can be handed to politicians, claiming that the limits deny potential donors freedom of speech. And of course that’s just a next step, and of course the Cargenies of the planet have had a much bigger say than your (great-) grandparents for a long time, but how can you call that democratic, and how does it boost free speech that some people can buy a candidate’s time and others cannot? At least have the decency to tell the great unwashed that you changed over into an aristocracy or meritocracy or whatever fancy name you can come up with. Just not democracy.
It may seem like a dead and moot point, but banning money from politics is essential. There are plenty of possible systems under which a state can make a fixed amount of campaign money available for candidates, so there are no practical constraints. More than enough ideological ones, however, judging from Roberts and Scalia ***** suis. Total campaign donations in the 2012 elections surpassed $6 billion, and one of Hillary’s 2016 superpacs recently estimated her campaign would cost over $1.7 billion alone. And there’s still people who go vote. Go figure.
2) One country must restructure its entire financial system
Since the global banking system is so interconnected, all it would take to cleanse the system from all the festering debt that still resides within it is for one country to shut all banks on its territory one day and go through their books until there’s not a single stone unturned. People can be allowed – perhaps limited – access to their money while the investigations take place, and foreign banks will have the choice of either participating, with their books opened, or close their branches. Hidden losses will be written down, and banks with too much unpaid debt will be made to default. Bondholders will be the first to absorb losses, and an order created in which other creditors either get paid or not.
It may well be more complicated than I put it now, but just think of the advantages: at the end of the process, the first country to do this will be the only “rich” country to come out with a truly clean bill of financial health. That will attract a lot of investment. It will also attract a lot of anger, but the dirty secrets hiding in the ledgers should shut up a lot of that anger.
3) One country must leave the EU.
This one is optional, but it would help the process along in a big way. I can think of no other reason some countries are still in the EU, other than they have handpicked leaders who happen to have a past in banking. It may be a tough task to go from euro’s to lira or drachmas or escudos, but it will be worth it because the flaws in both the common currency and the bureaucracy that pushes it will be exposed.
I saw Barroso talk the other day about ” … in my ten years as chairman of the European Commission … “, and I was thinking: that unelected beanbag has been in office for ten years, while the leaders and parliaments of European nations’ governments must be (re-)elected every 4 years (or so). To gauge if the people (still) have faith in them, to gauge if broken promises are not held too much against them. The very least Brussels should do is put a maximum term on everybody’s stay, but it’s been a Barroso and Van Rompuy and Rehn and Juncker game of revolving door musical chairs for a very long time now and they’re not going to leave on their own.
It’s like a private enterprise runs the world’s second most populous democracy after India. How is that even possible? And there are European parliamentary elections in May, but they’re not going to leave after that either. At least US senators and congressmen, rich and corrupted as they may be, need to get re-elected.
Once one country leaves the EU and eurozone, more will follow soon after. And that will be the end of a once well-intentioned experiment gone horribly awry. But at least the Greeks and Italians will no longer be held prisoners by the global troika money cabal. They’ll have the freedom to rebuild and go deal with their own domestic corruption issues instead of international ones.
And make no mistake: such upheaval in Europe will have a huge impact in the US. Volatile and vulnerable are the key words.
By Raul Ilargi Meijer
Website: http://theautomaticearth.com (provides unique analysis of economics, finance, politics and social dynamics in the context of Complexity Theory)
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