Western economies: A tale of thieves and tapers
Published on Russia Today RT, by Patrick L Young, expert in global financial markets, Jan 4, 2014.
2013 was the year where the threat of removing the QE punchbowl provoked market panic, while the EU was instrumental in sinister programs of theft above and beyond even the rapacious ‘Central Bankers’ party’… We began 2013 with the euro crisis yet to be cured, and indeed as we end the year it remains the fiscal elephant in the room. A volcano apparently dormant but clearly still active beneath the crater. Quite when it will next erupt nobody knows, but even Christine Lagarde of the IMF was keen during December to remind us that the crisis was far from resolved.
However, 2013 was the year where certain governments continued to be immolated on a symbolic funeral pyre as euro authorities sought to keep the flawed single currency alive at any price. Bank customers in Cyprus, ranging from Russian companies, through a significant quantity of the companies quoted on the Warsaw Stock Exchange and many individuals across the world found their assets appropriated. Rather than burn bondholders and others holding risk capital (Germany protected its bankers as they did in Ireland and elsewhere), the depositors found their deposits being stolen. The theft axis was one which carried on throughout the year. In an audacious deployment of arcane EU accounting rules previously exploited by Hungary, the Polish government de facto confiscated over half the nation’s private pension funds in an attempt to make up for their inadequate fiscal management.
Ultimately, most global citizens ended the year with their pockets having been picked in some way by rapacious governments, albeit through stealthy means… The daft policy of Quantitative Easing continued apace. In the vanguard remained the Federal Reserve handing bankers a cool 85 billion dollars every month to perpetuate the largely bankrupt system. During 2013, the US alone every month spent twice the annual GDP of Serbia in a balance sheet shuffle which a non-economist might prosaically term a confidence trick.
Even some traditional congressional spendthrifts have realised they can’t maintain this suicidal ‘rob Peter to pay bankers’ policy. Thus the second half of 2013 was spent obsessing about the ultimate financial terror (aside from the bankers’ previous hegemony). Outgoing Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke plotted a way out of the ‘crazynomics’ created by the ill-considered QE policy knee jerk after the credit crunch … //
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Links:
Egypt needs its Mandela – but not one in sight, on Russia Today RT, Jan 4, 2014;
Okinawans to Be Sacrificed Again on the Altars of US and Japanese Militarism, on truthout, by Dr Joseph Gerson, Jan 3, 2014;
Edward Snowden Evolved From Gaming Geek to Conscientious Whistleblower, on truthout, by Jonathan Franklin, Jan 3 2014;
Les événements de Bretagne: vraies crises et vraies manipulations, dans Ligue des Droits de l’Homme LdH, par Michel Savy et Jean-Louis Galzin, le 20 décembre 2013 – voir aussi leur lettre d’information mensuel;
Dirk Müller im ORF: Das ganze Interview, 66.55 min, von LuxariusIlluminator am 23. Januar 2013 hochgeladen;
END FORCED LABOR IN THE COTTON SECTOR OF UZBEKISTAN, on Stop Forced and Chils Labour in the Cotton Industry of Uzbekistan, not authored nor dated.