An American economic coup
Will Conroy, '11 | Staff Reporter
Issue date: 10/22/09 Section: Opinion
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"Thanks to the bold and decisive action we have taken since January, I can stand here with confidence and say that we have pulled this economy back from the brink," Obama commented at the start of his health care speech.
Federal Reserve Chairmen Ben Bernanke made a similar comment days later when he said, "the recession is very likely over."
Cheerleading comments like these, spoken to help motivate economic recovery, shouldn't come as a surprise. But they seem to be a little too reassuring over an issue that has yet to be resolved. Greg Palast of the Huffington Post comments that all Obama and Bernanke are missing is a "Mission Accomplished sign." He reports on a confidential letter from the White House addressed to the 20 heads of state who met in Pittsburgh from Sept. 24 to 25. In the letter the president's Deputy National Security Adviser, Michael Froman, prematurely announced the recession had been defeated.
"There is no recovery; it is a cover up," renowned Trends Journal Publisher Gerald Celente said in an interview with Russia Today's Anastasia Churkina. He adds that the American economy and quality of life are only going to continue to decline into "The Greatest Depression" as a result of the "worst economic collapse ever" unless there is a shift of focus from Wall Street to Main Street. While we seem to be set on continuing a flawed, expensive foreign policy and considering the aftermath of the G-20 meeting, that shift in focus seems to be low on the to-do list.
Nouriel Roubini of the Financial Times argues that there is a substantial risk for a double-dip recession, as he delicately puts. He argues that true de-leveraging has yet to begin because "the losses and debts of the financial institutions have been socialized and put on a government balance sheet," limiting the ability for banks to lend, households to spend and companies to invest. He believes that there is too much focus on re-leveraging, or again loaning money as an investment, in the public sector while the main problem of solvency, or ability to pay the debts, is yet to be addressed.
Roubini isn't alone. Among others, top economists like Nobel Prize winners Joseph Stiglitz and Ed Prescott are all saying the same thing: that we should attempt to liquidate, and collect the debts by converting what assets remain from the insolvent banks to solve the economic crisis. It is this concept of "too big to fail" that got us into the trouble we're in now, perpetuating the problem and creating even worse repercussions.
On Sept. 13 Stiglitz warned, "the problems are worse than they were in 2007 before the crisis." He added that we have failed to fix the underlying problems of the banking system. By ignoring these issues, Obama has inflated a bigger bubble that is set to burst and create an even worse crisis for the future. A crisis to be used as a pretext to create a larger, inefficient hierarchal system that continues a flawed monetary policy, further stratifying the people and their government as well as the wealth.
White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel modeled the perspective towards crises of the global elite well when he said, "You never want a serious crisis to go to waste - and what I mean by that is an opportunity to do things that you didn't think you could do before."
Jonathan Tirone of Bloomberg reports that on Sept. 7, the Geneva-based U.N. Conference on Trade and Development said U.N. countries should agree on a global reserve bank to issue the currency and monitor exchange rates of its members. Hatching the beginning stages of a global government. This idea, up until recently, has been dismissed as some kind of outlandish conspiracy theory. The reality is that such plans have been discussed for some time now behind closed doors at meetings held by groups like Bilderberg. The New World Order has been "popularly" referred to by George H.W. Bush in 1991 and more recently by Prime Minister Gordon Brown, Henry Kissinger, Tony Blair and Obama; but was referred to as far back by Hitler.
"[The] International Monetary Fund is being anointed as the global central bank," Jim Rickards, director of the market intelligence for the scientific consulting firm Omnis, said was the unannounced purpose of the meeting in Pittsburgh. This is an odd thing to do to an organization that failed in their purpose. The IMF's Chief Economist Oliver Blanchard, in 2008 before the collapse, declared something eerily familiar, "the macroeconomy is good."
With some of the actions - or lack thereof - and plans being made, it is looking less like overly optimistic economic cheerleading, and more like a deliberate attempt to institute a new financial system and governing body. The question becomes, "how many shoes must be thrown to get to the center of our economic hardship?"