Evans-Pritchard Calls For New U.K. Government to File Divorce From EU

May 16, 2010 (LPAC)—Ambrose Evans-Pritchard, the son of MI6 and former Clintongate case officer, who is now the international business editor of the Daily Telegraph, penned an hysterical piece Saturday calling for Britain to split from the European Union, over the issue of escalating moves towards a Brussels dictatorship and the end of continental European sovereignty. In his own words, Evans-Pritchard called the moves coming out of the European Commission in Brussels, to take direct control over formerly sovereign budgetary decisions a move towards "fiscal Fascism." He began his divorce call, "Just when you thought the EU could not go any further down the road towards authoritarian excess, it gets worse.... Fonctionnaires and EU finance ministers will pass judgment on the British (or Dutch, or Danish, or French) budgets before the elected bodies of these ancient and sovereign nations have seen the proposals. Did we not fight the English Civil War and kill a king over such a prerogative?"

Evans-Pritchard equated the power grab by Brussels, pushing austerity and deflation, as the same as the Bruening destruction of Weimar and Laval's destruction of the French Third Republic, before he became the "Nazi enforcer of Vichy."

Speaking on behalf of a Tory faction in the City, Evans-Pritchard concluded his diatribe: "The moment of definition is fast arriving for Britain. The measures now being demanded to save monetary union cannot and will not be accepted by this Government, Nick Clegg notwithstanding.... The outcome—un veritable gouvernement economique—will put Britain and the eurozone on such separate courses that it will amount to separation in all but name. The sooner we get the nastiness of divorce behind us, the better."

LaRouche Democratic Campaigns On Full Mobilization

May 16, 2010 (LPAC)—The Summer Shields for Congress campaign got out early on Friday, May 14, to the transit stations in San Francisco and distributed leaflets calling for the reinstatement of Glass-Steagall. Several of the commuters had already received the literature from previous literature distributions with some thankful and indicating that they had already contacted their Senators.

With a video camera in hand, the team of organizers entered the office building where Sen. Dianne Feinstein's office is located and demanded a meeting with the Senator and were refused. After being refused a meeting by phone with Sen. Barbara Boxer's office, the team proceeded to meet with them anyway! Once they arrived at the office building the group was confronted with a locked door and a little box with a camera and voice being emitted from it. After arguing with the box for a while they were told that they would be contacted by the office later. This whole ordeal was filmed and is now on Summer's website:.

Later on, Boxer's office returned a call to Summer's campaign and took a statement on the need for Glass-Steagall. The statement, which was read back to him, essentially read: Glass-Steagall is necessary or else the nation won't survive; the bailout of European financial institutions is totally unacceptable and is a direct result of the repeal of Glass-Steagall; that he was running for Congress and had come to the office with a number of individuals, and that the support for the legislation in the population was across the board.

According to the highest ranking staff member there, this message was forwarded to Boxer's official advisor on economic matters, and the Senator herself immediately.

Several calls were made to city and state-level officials urging them to support the McCain-Cantwell legislation, and LaRouchePAC organizers also got in touch with some old contacts from city councils and the state legislature met during the mobilization for the Home Owners and Bank Protection Act.

From Our Archives: Restore the Glass-Steagall Now!

May 15, 2010 (LPAC)-- The following is the text of a LaRouchePAC Actuality, from Sept. 28, 2008, in which LaRouche first launched the Glass-Steagall campaign.

LAROUCHE: RESTORE THE GLASS-STEAGALL ACT NOW!

CG Intro:

The failure of Washington Mutual two days ago brought to 13 the number of U.S. banks to fail this year, and the pace is accelerating.

Many eyes have now turned to Wachovia Corp., the giant North Carolina-based holding company, as the next big bank to fail, and Wachovia is widely reported to be in "fire sale" talks with Citigroup, Wells Fargo, and Spain's Banco Santander.

Such a merger may occur, or the buyers may wait as J.P. Morgan Chase did with Washington Mutual and buy the bank from the FDIC after it closed. However it occurs, it is likely that Wachovia will cease to exist as an independent bank.

LaRouche: Restore the Glass-Steagall Act Now!

Transcript:

Lyndon LaRouche: We're at the point, that in addition to the three measures I prescribed since summer of 2007, that we have to add another provision, as a result of the degree of corruption which has been introduced into the system since the summer of 2007.

We now have a corruption of banks, of what were once legitimate banks, through the contamination with the market toxic waste, such that we can't simply reorganize and protect banks in a simple way. We're going to have to, in a sense, look at each bank, determine what corresponds to a legitimate bank under Glass-Steagall standards, and take that part of the bank, that corresponds with Glass-Steagall standards, and put that under protection: Which means, you'll essentially probably have a bank in the same place, physically, but you'll have the operation of the bank, as a functioning bank will be confined to the Glass-Steagall standard.

The rest of the funds, or the claims associated with what is that bank now, normally—this mixed bank of legitimate and illegitimate credit and debt—we're going to have to put the other part, the part that comes out of investment banking, through mergers and so forth, that will be frozen. And it has to be frozen under Federal and state bankruptcy proceedings—chiefly Federal.

So that will be essential. Because we must protect the normal banking functions of chartered banks, and their assets, and we must separate that, from the dubious claims to assets, which is the other stuff that comes in from the bankrupt investment banks.

So that's going to have to be done. That's the essential one change in what I prescribed last year, 2007, that has to be made now.

This means we will also have to have a very rapid restoration of the original Glass-Steagall legislation, and put that into effect immediately, as a supplement to the protection and reorganization of banks which otherwise would be bankrupt.

Your Survival Depends on the Passage of Cantwell-McCain's Glass Steagall

May 14, 2010 (LPAC)--Lyndon LaRouche today declared that the only hope for avoiding a near-term collapse of the entire global financial system is for the U.S. Senate to pass the Cantwell-McCain amendment, reinstating the Glass Steagall Act, that separated commercial banks from brokerage and insurance firms in 1933. "If the White House and the Senate Democratic leadership don't succeed in sabotaging the vote on the Cantwell-McCain amendment next week, I believe it will pass with significant bipartisan support,'' LaRouche said.

LaRouche reiterated his warning of May 11, that the $1 trillion-plus 'super-TARP' bailout of the entire bankrupt European Monetary Union, which was announced on Sunday night by the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve Bank, is doomed to fail. "The entire purpose of the way the Greek debt crisis was handled, was to destroy the United States," LaRouche declared. "The Greek debt crisis could have simply been handled by a sovereign restructuring of their own debt. Instead, they saddled the Greek debt, and then the Portuguese, Spanish, Irish and Italian debt on Germany, which has no capacity to pay. So, now the United States has been drawn in, courtesy of President Obama and Tim Geithner, to subsidize the whole mass of unpayable and, for the most part, illegitimate debt. This will destroy the United States, just as I warned. If President Obama were not such a toy of the British, none of this would be even conceivable.''

More:  http://www.larouchepac.com/node/14484

Ein versta fjármálakreppa í heila öld

Volcker Goes Home to 'Mother,' Attacks Glass Steagall

May 15, 2010 (LPAC)—In the midst of the historic showdown between United States national interests and the City of London, who should show up in London on Thursday to be heard attacking Glass Steagall, but former Fed Reserve chairman Paul Volcker.

More was clearly discussed behind the scenes, but what was public was that Volcker championed his so-called "Volcker rule," asking banks to agree on good behavior in two speeches (including one in the official residence of the Lord Mayor of London's financial district); met privately with Bank of England head Mervyn King (who in a press conference just the day before had announced that the United States faces the same problem as Greece, for which the only solution, as for all other countries, is to cut its deficit), and attacked Glass-Steagall in an off-the-cuff interview with BBC.

BBC's Business Editor, Robert Preston, reports that Volcker told him "he is not advocating a return to Glass-Steagall, or a stipulation that retail banks should be wholly prohibited from engaging in investment banking, such as underwriting securities." Instead, he pressed his Volcker Rule, which, he made clear, is toothless, telling BBC that his "rule" simply means "that banks should use their capital only to serve the interests of their clients, rather than trading to generate speculative profits for their owners. He believes that if boards of banks are aware that's the spirit of a new law, they will impose significant restrictions on the activities of their executives."

Sen. Cantwell: Outcry by American People Needed to Pass Glass-Steagall

May 15, 2010 (LPAC)—PBS's "To The Contrary" program, hosted by Bonnie Erbe, began airing an interview with Glass Steagall co-sponsor Sen. Maria Cantwell (D-WA), a show taped on May 12 clearly designed to build support for passing Glass-Steagall. The syndicated show will air nationally this weekend at different times, on 260 PBS stations.

The American people understand intuitively why we have to return to Glass Steagall, Sen. Cantwell argued, and the law has bipartisan support, but to ensure passage, "it may take the American people having an outcry, over the fact, that after all that's happened, some people here in Congress still don't get it. That that's the kind of safety and safeguards that we deserve."

After Erbe's interview of Cantwell (see below), a heated debate followed among Erbe and her four panelists. D.C. Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton defended Glass-Steagall, strongly, blaming the "worst recession of all time" on its repeal, with backing by Erbe, against the angry rejection by Genevieve Wood of the British Fabian Society's Heritage Foundation, of any return to Glass-Steagall.

A transcript of the interview follows:

Host ERBE: "The Democratic Senator proposes re-instating the Glass-Steagall Act, the Depression-era law, repealed a decade ago. That law set up a strict division between regular commercial banking and investment banking, so banks could not buy risky investments with depositors' money. This week I interviewed Senator Cantwell on what she thinks needs to be done to prevent future market meltdown."

CANTWELL: "Well, its pretty scary. The American people obviously don't want to have a roller coaster on Wall Street. We already know what happened in 2008, and that was scary enough for us. So, we want to get back to stable banking, and we want to get back to an investment market that has the right amount of oversight and transparency so that we know that regulators can find anybody who is manipulating the market, or doing something untowards, to create some sort of device that is putting them at an advantage. And so, that kind of functionality, we did away with in 2000. And we need to put the rules back into Wall Street."

ERBE: "What are those rules? Are you talking about Glass-Steagall, or something else?"

CANTWELL: "Well, I certainly am a big supporter of Glass-Steagall, which would be to go back to what we had prior to 2000, which is the separation of commercial banking from investment banking.

"If you think about it, they are two different functions. Investment banking is about taking risks. But with commercial banking, you want your deposits to be secure. But when you let your deposits—yours and mine—be used by those investment houses, which are huge, risk-taking ventures, it really does put those savings and those deposits at risk.

"And we should go back to separating them. I think the American people know this. They get it intuitively. They know that there was a reason in the last Depression that we got to this point.

"So, what's taking you so long! Go back to separating it. So we'll have a vote on that.

"But we also need to regulate these derivatives, these new financial tools that came into the marketplace in the late '90s, and make sure that they have the oversight of the Commodities Futures Trading Commission.

"Right now, hamburger in America—beef futures—has more oversight than some of these derivatives!"

ERBE: "How much support do you have for re-instating Glass-Steagall?"

CANTWELL: "Well, we'll find out. I would hope that we'd have a lot of bi-partisan support on both sides of the aisle, but this isn't really about being Democrat or Republican. If you— you know, if you think about it, this is about whether you're going to have the right system in place to protect Americans going forward. And while this was a big blow-up about derivatives, you know, these investment houses will continue to be creative. They"ll continue to be creative about how they take risk. But, you know, we want to keep the rest of the commercial banking community separate from that."

ERBE: "I mean, seriously, do think this will go through? A re-instatement of Glass-Steagall? Because we know that it became law, right after the Great Depression, and then the banking industry spent 70 years lobbying against it, and got it thrown out, or not renewed in Congress. And now that its back, you must be facing a mountain of opposition from financial institutions."

CANTWELL: "My personal impression, my personal views, are: it will be re-instated. But, I'll bet you, we'll end up with a two-step process. It may take the American people having an outcry, over the fact that after all that's happened, some people here in Congress still don't get it. That that's the kind of safety and safeguards that we deserve."

Downward Plunges the Unabated Disintegration of British Monetarist System

May 15, 2010 (LPAC)—The disintegration of the global British monetarist system continues unabated by the $1-trillion-plus Brutish hyperinflationary bailout announced just six days ago, taking the Euro and the world banking and bond systems down with it. "This is only a mild beginning," compared to what is coming in the next weeks if the United States does not crush the empire by passing Glass-Steagall, the world's most accurate forecaster, Lyndon LaRouche, commented.

The Euro hit new lows on Friday, falling to its levels during the Lehman Brothers collapse (under $1.24), accompanied by trepidatious talk that the Euro might soon disappear.

The international banking system continues frozen, as both the London Libor interbank lending rate, and bets on whether banks will default on those loans (politely called the Libor-OIS rate), rose every day this week, after their brief "morning after" reprieve on Monday.

Stocks fell across the world on Friday, with European bank stocks taking the worst hit. London's Spanish fronts, Banco Santander and BBVA, fell by 7.4% and 6.1%, respectively. "It couldn't happen to a worse people," as LaRouche remarked.

Leaders of Europe and the IMF are wrecklessly plunging ahead with schemes to save the British system through fascism, which won't work. IMF spokesmen today released the Fund's review of the fiscal situation in the industrial countries, demanding that Europe and the United States impose sizeable and unprecedented budget cutting across the board. Carlo Cottarelli, head of the IMF's Fiscal Affairs Office, endorsed the drastic wage- and budget-cutting programs announced by Spain and Portugal this week as important steps in the right direction, but not the final word. Since no government can implement the levels of austerity entailed, the European Union is preparing to grab direct control over the national budgets of Europe at its May 20 EU Ministers meeting.

We May Have One More Precious Day To Ensure that the Senate Passes Glass-Steagall

March 15, 2010 (LPAC)—The U.S. Senate adjourned before noon yesterday, Friday, after some desultory discussion of more minor amendments to Dodd's Financial Reform Act. It will reconvene at 2:00 on Monday, and resume debate on Financial Reform at 3:00. No votes will be taken until after 5:30 Monday.

Although the Cantwell-McCain amendment to restore Franklin Roosevelt's Glass-Steagall protections is still on the list of amendments to be considered, it was not one of the four amendments which Sen Dodd announced might be voted on on Monday,— so that strategically critical vote may be deferred until Tuesday, or even Wednesday.

At a Senate Democratic Caucus lunch on Thursday, called by Majority Leader Harry Reid, a number of angry Senators, including Byron Dorgan and Sheldon Whitehouse, threatened that they could join Republicans in blocking a cloture vote, if their amendments were not allowed to be presented for debate and a vote.

IF NOT!

 NEW DARK AGE !

Your Survival Depends on the Passage of Cantwell-McCain's Glass Steagall

May 14, 2010 (LPAC)--Lyndon LaRouche today declared that the only hope for avoiding a near-term collapse of the entire global financial system is for the U.S. Senate to pass the Cantwell-McCain amendment, reinstating the Glass Steagall Act, that separated commercial banks from brokerage and insurance firms in 1933. "If the White House and the Senate Democratic leadership don't succeed in sabotaging the vote on the Cantwell-McCain amendment next week, I believe it will pass with significant bipartisan support,'' LaRouche said.

LaRouche reiterated his warning of May 11, that the $1 trillion-plus 'super-TARP' bailout of the entire bankrupt European Monetary Union, which was announced on Sunday night by the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve Bank, is doomed to fail. "The entire purpose of the way the Greek debt crisis was handled, was to destroy the United States," LaRouche declared. "The Greek debt crisis could have simply been handled by a sovereign restructuring of their own debt. Instead, they saddled the Greek debt, and then the Portuguese, Spanish, Irish and Italian debt on Germany, which has no capacity to pay. So, now the United States has been drawn in, courtesy of President Obama and Tim Geithner, to subsidize the whole mass of unpayable and, for the most part, illegitimate debt. This will destroy the United States, just as I warned. If President Obama were not such a toy of the British, none of this would be even conceivable.''

LaRouche declared that the only option is for the U.S. Senate to pass the Cantwell-McCain amendment to the Dodd bill, that would reinstate the Glass Steagall separation of commercial banking from the speculative mess. "Otherwise, under the policy announced on Sunday night by the Fed, the United States and Europe are headed for 1923 Weimar-style hyperinflation, right now! Unless we stop this madness through the restoration of Glass Steagall, the entire planet is doomed to a rapid plunge into a new dark age.''

British Foreign Office Declared War

LaRouche reported that "reliable sources have informed me that they have first-hand knowledge that the British Foreign Office has communicated direct threats to the U.S. Department of State, warning, in effect, that any move to reinstate Glass Steagall will be considered an act of agression against the British government, by which they mean the British Monarchy and the City of London financiers. Wall Street is not the center of the problem. Wall Street is merely an appendage of the British. That is an old story. It goes back to the time of the British East India Company, and the actions of traitors like Aaron Burr and August Belmont.

"The question, therefore, that must be asked, is: How many members of the U.S. Senate and the U.S. House of Representatives, today, are prepared to kiss the Queen's rump? It really comes down to that. The Foreign Office has made a direct threat, that the only sane action for the United States at this time--the reinstatement of Glass Steagall as a first step towards re-establishing a viable commercial banking system, freed from the trillions of dollars in illegal speculative debt--is considered an act of agression against Britain.''

LaRouche reiterated that "over 80 percent" of the American people support the restoration of Glass-Steagall.

The Cantwell-McCain amendment to the Dodd bill, now being debated on the floor of the U.S. Senate, is scheduled to be taken up early next week, perhaps as early as Tuesday. LaRouche called on all of his supporters to "turn the country upside down, mobilizing support for the passage of the Cantwell McCain amendment."

"Senators Cantwell and McCain have shown what it means to be a true patriot at a moment of grave crisis," LaRouche concluded. "I know something about why they have taken up this responsibility at this time. They deserve our total support. The Cantwell-McCain Glass-Steagall amendment is the true test of patriotism at this moment. Whether you realize it fully or not, trust me: The very survival of the United States is on the line in this vote. And if the U.S. goes down, in a hyperinflationary collapse, due to a failure to stand up against the British, then all of the planet is doomed. That is no exaggeration."

NY AG Andrew Cuomo Subpoenas Eight Banks in Widening Probe

May 14, 2010 (LPAC)—In a growing avalanche of investigations of the money changers on Wall Street, New York AG Andrew M. Cuomo, issued subpoenas on Wednesday night to eight banks in an investigation as to whether the banks misled ratings agencies about the quality of mortgage securities they were offering. The banks are Citigroup, Credit Agricole, Credit Suisse, Deutsche Bank, Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, USB, and Merrill Lynch, now part of Bank of America.

The companies that rated the mortgage deals are Standard & Poors, Fitch Ratings, and Moody's Investors Service.

Cuomo is also investigating the revolving door of employees of the rating agencies who were hired by bank mortgage desks to help create mortgage deals that got better ratings than they deserved. For example, the Abacus 2007-AC1 Goldman Sachs deal now being investigated by the SEC was devised in part by a former Fitch Ratings employee named Shin Yukawa, whom Goldman recruited in 2005. At the height of the mortgage boom, companies like Goldman offered million-dollar pay packages to workers like Yukawa who had been working at much lower pay at the rating agencies.

Around the same time that Yukawa left Fitch, three other analysts in his unit also joined financial companies like Deutsche Bank. In the fall of 2007, the Fitch analyst on a Goldman deal was a friend of Yukawa.

Also, the rating agencies may have facilitated the banks manipulation of the ratings by publishing their rating models on their corporate web sites. One former rating agency employee said: "The models were posted for bankers who develop CDOs to be able to reverse-engineer CDOs to a certain rating."