Monday, January 19, 2015

Norbert Haering — ECB Bond buying as a hard-right bank centered political strategy

…If this sounds like a conspiracy theory for you, just consider what Hans-Werner Sinn, President of the IFO economic research institute, one of the politically better connected economists in Germany, let slip in a guest comment in “Handelsblatt” October 7, 2014 (in German) about the true rulers of Europe. He confides that in autumn 2011 Italian prime minister Silvio Berlusconi wanted to solve Italy’s economic problems by leaving the Euro and devaluating. “To that goal, he had already had some preliminary talks with other governments of the euro area. He had an agreement with the Greek prime minister Papandreou, who had wanted to make his people chose in a referendum between exit and a hard austerity policy”, Sinn informs us and continues: “Both had to step down in November 2011, almost at the same time”. He gives the following reason: “An exit was going against higher-ranking political interests, but also against the interest of the banking system.” 
Such wild “conspiracy theories” we are used to hear only from the fringes of politics – not from heads of economic think tanks! If the interests of the banking system are at stake (the interests of the “fifth power”, as the former head of Deutsche Bank, Rolf Breuer, or the former chief economist of the Bundesbank and the European Central Bank, Otmar Issing, named it) then the citizens of European countries have nothing to decide any more. In such cases, they are given a government which does what suits the “higher-ranking interests and the interest of the banking system”. Democracy takes a break. Everybody is invited to figure out for themselves what the “higher-ranking public interests” are and, above all, whose interests these are.
Real World Economic Review
ECB Bond buying as a hard-right bank centered political strategy
Norbert Haering

Read the whole post in the light of:
"The powers of financial capitalism had (a) far-reaching aim, nothing less than to create a world system of financial control in private hands able to dominate the political system of each country and the economy of the world as a whole. This system was to be controlled in a feudalist fashion by the central banks of the world acting in concert, by secret agreements arrived at in frequent meetings and conferences. The apex of the systems was to be the Bank for International Settlements in Basel, Switzerland, a private bank owned and controlled by the world's central banks which were themselves private corporations. Each central bank... sought to dominate its government by its ability to control Treasury loans, to manipulate foreign exchanges, to influence the level of economic activity in the country, and to influence cooperative politicians by subsequent economic rewards in the business world." — Carroll Quigley (1910-1977) | Professor of History at Georgetown University, member of the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), mentor to Bill Clinton, in Tragedy and Hope, 1966


Carroll Quigley, Tragedy and Hope: A History of the World in Our Time (PDF)
Volumes 1-8
New York: The Macmillan Company, 1966


7 comments:

MRW said...

Tom,

"a private bank owned and controlled by the world's central banks which were themselves private corporations."

Is the US Treasury a private corporation?

Tom Hickey said...

MRW, this looks like conspiracy theory, and conspiracy theorists cite it liberally. But Quigley was an insider and he had the go-ahead to publish this. David Rockefeller is on record as saying as much.

BTW, I was a student at Georgetown when Quigley was a professor there. His stature was huge and he was recognized as a person that had been given inside access and the permission to use it in his work as a historian. They wanted the story told and chose Quigley to do it.

These people, including Quigley, were of the opinion that only the elite was in a position to manage liberal globalization in a way that would increase freedom and prosperity worldwide.

This elite was not only the banking elite, but the banking elite was prominent. David Rockefeller was the dean, so to speak.

This is the view of the eurocrats and it is also the view of the Western banking elite in general.

These are the people who have in fact largely accomplished what they set out to do in the above description that Quigley recorded many decades ago.

It is incorrect to see the so-called 1% as greedy bastards who are just out to make a buck and control the world in order to do so. They is not how they think. Lloyd Blankfein was not kidding about his intentions when he said that GS was doing God's work.

Many if not most of them are forward thinkers who see themselves as the people that can take humanity on its next step forward to globalization based on freedom and prosperity.

They have not been secretive about this either. It is laid out in such places as publications of the Council of Foreign Relations, and it lies at the basis of neoliberalism and neoconservatism as geopolitical theory. The liberal principles of the Enlightenment are spreading through out the world under Western aegis, especially Anglo-American.

The unfolding of historical events has shown the Western elite to be correct so far. Their goal is to be efficient and effective as managers, not popular. They don't have to be too concerned with the popular aspects, since they control the apparatus including the media and use the deep state for intelligence and operations.

I am actually of two minds in this. The libertarian in me reacts against it as elitism, and the elitist in me agrees that the perfect is the enemy of the good and that the most efficient and effective way to get the job done is to let the best managers do it instead of crowd-sourcing it, which would likely be a lot less effective and efficient and probably a lot messier than it would be otherwise, too.

As a pragmatist I would like to see a compromise between elitism and populism that takes greater advantage of more egalitarian distribution. One way to address this economically is by taxing economic rent to incentivize productive contribution and reduce rent-seeking. I also think that greater popular participatory democracy would decrease the negative externalities currently embedded in the way things work now.

Tom Hickey said...

Now to the question whether the Treasury is public or private. That's not really the way the elite thinks. They tink as of themselves as managers of resources, and they don't draw strict lines between public and private because they way they set the game up they don't have to. These are just resources to be managed efficiently and effectively to get the job done, which in the overarching sense is liberal globalization.

Where others might see empire, they see transnational management by an elite class of top managers operating in a technocracy. They use competition to wring as much efficiency out of the system as they can, but the goals that are the criteria of effectiveness are generally agreed upon as a class. That's why the form a political class that dominates the power structure.

Who runs the cb and Treasury. The short answer is the revolving door and the elite hold the keys to that door. While some may see the former CEO becoming the Us Treasury secretary, for the elite, it's just a switch of offices.

MRW said...

Tom, I particularly agree with your pragmatist paragraph. Describes me to a tee. The last sentence in that post I am wedded to.

This is why I am now leery of the Omigod the Fed is a private corp/run by a cabal of Europeans schtick that precludes all thinking that would lead to participatory democracy. I live in a red state and I've given up arguing. Now I listen. Because I've been trying to figure out why is it that MMT hasn't caught on, and why I don't get through when I talk. (At the bar.) These people are walking FOX News talking points types. It's all mixed up with religious ideas that I don't resonate with, but because I *do* have deep spiritual beliefs of my own, I won't mock their POVs. Even though between you and me, I can't take much more than 60 minutes max.

I hadn't really thought of the CB/Fed is Private business as an entitlement. Good to know. BTW, have you ever seen Sir James Goldsmith's Nov 1994 interview with Charlie Rose? Prescient. If you haven't seen it, you should. He was dead two years later from a fast-acting cancer. Judging from his vigor and what he was trying to accomplish during that interview, I always suspected that his voice was silenced, But that's just me.

MRW said...

But technically the Fed is an agent of the US Treasury. Is it not that way with other CBs?

Tom Hickey said...

Is it not that way with other CBs?

Central banks are the government's bank, but they are also politically independent of government as check on the government's fiscal program, just as commercial banks are a check on borrowers' fiscal behavior. If a government acts "irresponsibly" wrt "too loose" a fiscal stance, the cb is supposed in principle to adopt a tighter monetary policy to counter it in order to control inflation.

This is pretty much the accepted view, with the CB working hand in hand with bond vigilantes to impose fiscal discipline on governments to stabilize the currency.

Treasuries don't actually spend. They just write the check that the cb stands behind to cash. Politicians control policy regarding fiscal expenditure and revenue. Treasury pays the bills and the cb cashes the checks. But the cb also administers monetary policy, supposedly independently.

NeilW said...

The CB will not cross an elected representative in any country.

Whatever they do they do in cahoots with the elected people.

There may be a 'Wizard of Oz' show for the gullible masses, but behind the scenes it is all done by politics.