Ron Paul heeft ook gevaarlijke kanten.

Ron Paul is een Amerikaanse Senator die wel aanvoelt dat 911 geen zuivere koffie is, en die tegen al die buitenlandse oorlogen van Amerika is. Oorlogen die het Amerikaanse Rijk moeten vergroten (en Israel moeten beschermen) maar die worden verkocht aan de buitenwereld als "hulp aan de wereld." Blogger 'The Saker' waarschuwt ons echter voor de veel te liberale denkbeelden over  economische kwesties, van Ron Paul.

En passant leren we nog aardig wat over de Amerikaanse geschiedenis:

WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 4, 2012 ( Blog) 

Ron Paul's economics: a very toxic brew indeed

It appears that Ron Paul did well in the Iowa caucuses tonight.  On one hand, I am rather delighted by this, but on the 

Ron Paul is een Amerikaanse Senator die wel aanvoelt dat 911 geen zuivere koffie is, en die tegen al die buitenlandse oorlogen van Amerika is, oorlogen die het Amerikaanse Rijk moeten vergroten, maar die worden verkocht aan de buitenwereld als "hulp aan de wereld." 

other, I am also very concerned that a lot of people are seeing only one side of Ron Paul's ideology.  There is, however, a much darker side to Ron Paul, one which we all must have the courage and intellectual honesty to look at and not kid ourselves about its nature.

Now, before all of you Ron Paul fans get mad at me for posting this, I want to assure you of two thing:

a) I like Ron Paul's views on foreign policy and civil rights

b) I like and respect Ron Paul as a person

However, I always considered his 'Austrian' and 'Laisser Faire' economics as utter nonsense at best, or absolute lunacy at worst.  But now they are gaining more and more traction with the US public and I think that it is therefore time to honestly discuss these ideas here.

As a theory, 'Austrian' economics are fantastic.  But so are Marxism and Anarchism.  These theories all suffer from the same problem: highly loaded assumptions.  In the case of 'Austrian economics', the flaw is basic, but huge: the concept of a free market.  The fact is, of course, that there never was such a thing and that it will never exist.  Markets are always, by definition, regulated by somebody.  In the words of the brilliant economist Michael Hudson:

Every economy is planned. This traditionally has been the function of government. Relinquishing this role under the slogan of “free markets” leaves it in the hands of banks. 

One might wonder why a political and economic theory based on a so self-evidently flawed idea has so many followers.  The fact is, of course, that this theory has followers in significant numbers only in the USA.  Why?  Because of three uniquely American circumstances:

The evil nature of the state in US history:

It is a fact that throughout the history of the USA the state as always been on the side of the rich and powerful and not of the masses.  Not only that, but the US state has spent trillions of dollars in waste, mismanagement and fraud.  So it is no wonder that most Americans instinctively dislike a state which has almost never done anything useful for them.  Why would Americans care for a state when they never lived in a society in which the state did care for the common folks?  From its very inception the US state was both multi-genocidal (extermination of numerous Indian nations), slave-owning (Black slavery), plutocratic (Robber Barons) and oligarchic (Masonic).  There is a good case to be made that the US state has been one of the worst ones in mankind's history, so its no wonder that it is also distrusted and hated by so many Americans.

The insular nature of the US society:

The vast majority Americans are hopelessly insular.  Not to offend anybody here, but this is an undeniable fact.  Not all Americans, of course, but the vast majority.  The know only one language, they have rarely, if ever, been abroad.  When they are abroad they don't really interact with the locals and, last but not least, they are largely ignorant of world history.  I have yet to meet a US libertarian who could even pronounce "laisser faire" correctly, nevermind understand why this idea has been universally rejected by the rest of mankind.  This is why Americans have these bizarre views about Obama being a 'socialist' or why they don't realize that civilized mankind has, for example, rejected the death penalty and adopted universal health care as a right for all.  No,  Americans will still passionately argue about issues which have already been settled pretty much everywhere else on this planet.

Then there are those Americans who are aware of the bigger planet out there, but still fall back on some form or another of 'American exceptionalism" (let them Euroliberals have their health care, this is not the American way!).  The fact that what US libertarians call "statism" has been accepted and adopted by the rest of mankind therefore has no influence inside the USA at all.  As the lyrics of a song which was popular in the late eighties say: "if it's good enough for Texas it's good enough for me"... 

The unbridled power of US corporation:

It is well established that the "Tea Party" has been largely financed by the Koch brothers.  But this is just the tip of the iceberg.  The roots of this corporate libertarianism go back much further, to Ronald Reagan and his famous words in his first inaugural address:

Government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem

That statement was the slogan under which US corporations marched into a real crusade against any form of control over them.   We all know what happened after that: massive deregulations crippled entire sectors of the economy and nation, worker's rights collapsed, social safeguards were wiped-off, unions all but died, andevery bit of the power vacuum left by a retreating state was immediately filled by US corporations.  The difference being that while the US people had at least a modicum of control over their government, they had none over the corporations.  Corporate America recognized that, and ever since it has backed anything on the spectrum going from Reaganomics to Austrian libertarian theories.

Compare these factors with the situation in Europe where most Europeans did, at one time or another of their lives, get real, valuable services from their government, where corporations are carefully controlled and regulated and the consumer thereby protected, where civil and worker's rights are considered "social achievements" (acquis sociaux in French) never to be rescinded (although under US pressure politicians like Merkel, Papanderou, Sarkozy, Blair and Co. are now trying hard to dismantle them).  Sure, there were plenty of incompetent, corrupt and outright evil governments in Europe, but there were always enough counter-examples sufficiently nearby (geographically or historically) to always remind Europeans that the solution to bad government is good government, not no government.

So we are really dealing with a misnomer here.  Austrian Laisser Faire economics should really be called "US Turbocapitalsm" (term concocted by Ed Luttwak), or "US hypercapitalism" or even simply plutocracy.  

Coming back to Ron Paul, I invite you all to listen to the interview of Webster Tarpley recorded by Bonnie Faulkner for her show Guns and Butter.  Tarpley and Faulkner take a close look at Ron Paul's economic program and what it would mean if implemented.

For the direct link to the audio click here.

For the web page with the interview, click here.

The real danger:

Having said all these highly critical things about Ron Paul and his delusional and outright dangerous economic views, let me say that I understand that it is a fact that a US President has far more influence on foreign policy than in internal politics where he must contend with a Congress which can block the implementation of his economic policies and a Federal Reserve which will fight with everything it has to prevent Ron Paul from abolishing it (let me add here that this idea, to abolish the Fed, is anexcellent and fundamentally sound economic idea of Ron Paul!).  Finally, there is no doubt in my mind that if Ron Paul was elected President he would be simply murdered by the US "deep state".

So my concern is not that Ron Paul would instantly create millions of starving Americans by giving them a maximum of 15 dollars per week in food stamps or that he would wreck WIC, but that his ideology can be used by Corporate America to further weaken the state and strengthening the power of Wall Street.  All this libertarian nonsense really serves only one practical purpose: to turn citizens of a stateinto corporate subjects/slaves.

Michael Hudson is quite correct.   What we are witnessing in the USA (and, to a lesser degree, in Europe) is a return to feudalism, where the 99% serve the 1%, a society in which the people become simply a means of production for their corporate overlords. Laisser Faire indeed...

So ask yourself this question: do Ron Paul's economic ideas strengthen or weaken the power of Corporate America over the US people?

The answer is, I think, sadly obvious.

The Saker

Natuurlijk kan de staat een Bank beginnen !

http://tiny.cc/57hop

Bankiers en mensen die door hen bang zijn gemaakt ( de deskundigen) zien allerlei bezwaren als de staat een bank zou starten. 

Maar dat zijn onzin-bezwaren.  Het is angst voor concurrentie.  

Ellen Brown schreef 'Web of Debt'  over het financieel systeem. 

Het boek verscheen juli 2007, enkele weken voor de eerste crisisverschijnselen zichtbaar werden.  Maar de hele crisis werd reeds in haar boek beschreven. 

Kijk, dat zijn bronnen waar ik graag naar luister. 

Nu is er ook een artikel in de Financial Times verschenen waar dit idee wordt gesteund. 

Elke brug, spoorlijn of snelweg wordt daarmee half zo duur: de helft van de kosten bestaan uit rente ( op geld dat door de private bank uit het niets is gecreëerd). Als de staat die rente zelf casht, wordt het bouwwerk dus eigenlijk rente-vrij gevbouwd: dus tegen de helft van de kosten.   

Heel lang geleden vroeg Thomas Edison zich al af waarom die bankiers de enigen zouden zijn die geld mogen scheppen:  

As Thomas Edison observed in an interview

reported in The New York Times in 1921:

"If the Nation can issue a dollar bond it can issue a dollar bill.

The element that makes the bond good makes the bill good also.

The difference between the bond and the bill is that the bond

lets the money broker collect twice the amount of the bond and

an additional 20%. Whereas the currency, the honest sort

provided by the Constitution pays nobody but those who

contribute in some useful way. It is absurd to say our Country

can issue bonds and cannot issue currency. Both are promises to

pay, but one fattens the usurer and the other helps the People."

Hier het artikel van Ellen Brown: 

Occupy Wall Street has been both criticized and applauded for not endorsing any official platform.  But there are unofficial platforms, including one titled the 99% Declaration which calls for a "National General Assembly" to convene on July 4, 2012 in Philadelphia.  The 99% Declaration seeks everything from reining in the corporate state to ending the Fed to eliminating censorship of the Internet.  But none of these demands seems to go to the heart of what prompted Occupiers to camp out on Wall Street in the first place – a corrupt banking system that serves the 1% at the expense of the 99%. To redress that, we need a banking system that serves the 99%. 

Occupy San Francisco has now endorsed a plan aimed at doing just that.  In a December 1 Wall Street Journal article titled “Occupy Shocker: A Realistic, Actionable Idea,” David Weidner writes:

[P]rotesters in the Bay Area, especially Occupy San Francisco, have something their East Coast neighbors don't: a realistic plan aimed at the heart of banks. The idea could be expanded nationwide to send a message to a compromised Washington and the financial industry.

It's called a municipal bank. Simply put, it would transfer the City of San Francisco's bank accounts—about $2 billion now spread between such banks as Bank of America Corp., UnionBanCal Corp. and Wells Fargo & Co.—into a public bank. That bank would use small local banks to lend to the community.

The public bank concept is not new.  It has been proposed before in San Francisco and has a successful 90-year track record in North Dakota. Weidner notes that the state-owned Bank of North Dakota earned taxpayers more than $61 million last year and reported a profit of $57 million in 2008, when Bank of America had a $1.2 billion net loss.  The San Francisco bank proposal is sponsored by city supervisor John Avalos, who has been thinking about a municipal bank for several years. 

Weidner calls the proposal “the boldest institutional stroke yet against banks targeted by the Occupy movement.” 

Responding to the Critics

He acknowledges that it will be an uphill climb.  In a follow-up article on December 6^th, Weidner wrote:

Of course, there are critics. . . . They argue that public banks would put public money at risk.  Would you be surprised to know that most of the critics are bankers?

That’s why you don’t hear them talking about the $100 billion they lost for the California pension funds in 2008.  They don’t talk about the foreclosures that have wrought havoc on communities and tax revenues.  They don’t talk about liar loans and what kind of impact that’s had on the economy, employment and the real estate market — not to mention local and state budgets.

Risk to the taxpayers remains the chief objection of banker opponents.  “There is no need for such lending,” they say.  “We already provide loans to any creditworthy applicant who comes to us.  Why put taxpayer money at risk, lending for every crackpot scheme that some politician wants to waste taxpayer money on?”

Tom Hagan, who pays taxes in Maine, has a response to that argument.  In a December 3rd letter to the editor in the Press Herald (Portland), he maintained there is no need to invest public bank money in risky retail ventures.  The money could be saved for infrastructure projects, at least while the public banking model is being proven.  The salubrious result could be to cut local infrastructure costs in half.  Making his case in conjunction with a Maine turnpike project, he wrote:

Why does Maine pay double for turnpike improvements?

Improvements are funded by bonds issued by the Maine Turnpike Authority, which collects the principal amounts, then pays the bonds back with interest.

Over time, interest payments add up to about the original principal, doubling the cost of turnpike improvements and the tolls that must be collected to pay for them. The interest money is shipped out of state to Wall Street banks.

Why not keep the interest money here in Maine, to the benefit of all Mainers? This could be done by creating a state-owned bank. State funds now deposited in low- or no-interest checking accounts would instead be deposited in the state bank.

Those funds would be used to buy up the authority bonds and municipal bonds issued by the Maine Bond Bank. All of them. Since all interest payments would flow into the state treasury, we would end up paying half what we now pay for our roads, bridges and schools.

North Dakota has profited from a state-owned bank for 90 years. Why not Maine?

The state bank could generate “bank credit” on its books, as all chartered banks are authorized to do.  This credit could then be used to buy the bonds.  The government’s deposits would not be “spent” but would remain in the government’s account, as safe as they are in Bank of America—arguably more so, since the solvency of the public bank would be guaranteed by the local government.

Critics worry about the profligate risk-taking of politicians, but the trusty civil servants at the Bank of North Dakota insist that they are not politicians; they are bankers.  Unlike the Wall Street banks that had to be bailed out by the taxpayers, the Bank of North Dakota invests conservatively.  It avoided the derivatives and toxic mortgage-backed securities that precipitated the credit crisis, and it helped the state avoid the crisis by partnering with local banks, helping them with capital and liquidity requirements.  As a result, the state has had no bank failures in at least a decade.   

With intelligent use of the ever-evolving Internet, truly effective public oversight can minimize any cronyism.  California’s pension funds might have avoided losing $100 billion if, instead of gambling in the Wall Street casino, they had invested in infrastructure through the state’s own state bank. 

The Constitutional Challenge

In Weidner’s Wall Street Journal article, he raises another argument of opponents—that California law forbids using taxpayer money to make private loans.  That, he said, would have to be changed.

The U.S. Supreme Court, however, has held otherwise.  In 1920, the constitutional objection was raised in conjunction with the Bank of North Dakota and was rejected both by the Supreme Court of North Dakota and the U.S. Supreme Court.  See Green v. Frazier, 253 U. S. 233 (1920), and fuller discussion here.     

A municipal bank would be doing with the public’s funds only what Bank of America does now: it would be lending “bank credit” backed by the bank’s capital and deposits.  The difference would be that the local community, not Florida or Europe, would get the loans; and the city of San Francisco, not Bank of America, would get the profits. 

California and many other states already own infrastructure banks that use the states’ funds to back loans.  If that use of public monies is legal, and if public funds can be deposited in Bank of America and used as the basis for loans to multi-national corporations, they can be deposited in the Bank of San Francisco and used as the basis for loans to the local community. 

Better yet, they can be used to buy municipal bonds.  Investing in municipal bonds would avoid the constitutional issue with “private loans” altogether, since the loans would be to local government.

Sending a Message to Wall Street

The campaign to “move your money” has gotten a groundswell of support, but move your money into what?  Weidner repeats the complaint of critics that private credit unions have gotten too big and threaten commercial banking.  Having greater impact would be to “move our money”—move our local government revenues out of Wall Street banks into our own publicly-owned banks, which could then generate credit for the local economy and public works.   

Ellen Brown is an attorney and president of the Public Banking Institute, http://PublicBankingInstitute.org.  In Web of Debt, her latest of eleven books, she shows how a private cartel has usurped the power to create money from the people themselves, and how we the people can get it back.  Her websites are http://WebofDebt.com and http://EllenBrown.com.