On June 24, 2018, the Bank of International Settlements (BIS) released their – Annual Economic Report 2018 – which contains their latest analysis of the global economy including the risks they think the current growth process faces. It is full of myth and like previous statements from the BIS it only serves to perpetuate the policy mentalities that caused the global financial crisis. These multilateral organisations (including the BIS, IMF, World Bank, OECD etc) have become the harbingers of the neoliberal ideology. In doing so, they have breached their original charter. They should be dissolved and replaced with new institutions within a revised international framework. We sketched that framework in our current book – Reclaiming the State: A Progressive Vision of Sovereignty for a Post-Neoliberal World (Pluto Books, 2017).Bill Mitchell – billy blog
The BIS should be defunded and then dissolved
Bill Mitchell | Professor in Economics and Director of the Centre of Full Employment and Equity (CofFEE), at University of Newcastle, NSW, Australia
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"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, Tragedy and Hope: A History of the World in Our Time. New York: The Macmillan Company, 1966, VII, page 324.
Carroll Quigley (1910-1977), Professor of History at Georgetown University School of Foreign Relations, member of the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), and mentor to Bill Clinton. Quigley was writing from the vantage of an insider.
This quote begins a section of the chapter on the BIS. Quigley asserts that historically the BIS was an extension of banker control of international finance. The BIS, IMF, World Bank, and other influential international institutions were created by a Western elite as a mechanism of global financial and economic dominance. The East and Global South is now pushing back on this. This is one of the issues in demands for multilateralism and multipolarism.
Tragedy and Hope and other Quigley works are available at archive.org and also at his site.
Wow! Our wonderful (and modern!!) fiat funny money system is just a ruse for the Deep State and the .01% to loot and control us. WHO KNEW??
ReplyDeleteYes, and the BIS was founded in 1930, while the global monetary system was on a gold standard. While the gold standard was abandoned by most countries, international settlement remained until President Nixon shut the gold window in August, 1971. Prior to that, whoever controlled gold controlled the financial system.
ReplyDeleteFrom Quigley's account it appears that the masters of the universe simply engineered a new system of control as the old one was collapsing, similar to the passing of the baton from the feudal lords to the owners of capital during the transition from the agribultural age to the industrial age.
As the Vietnamese proverb goes, "Flies change; dung-hill remains same."
“US government largely maintained their fiscal stimulus and growth continued unabated once the turning point was passed.“
ReplyDeleteWhat is a “turning point”? It’s a metaphor from Bill here...
By opposing inexpensive fiat, Bob, you are supporting the current two tiered money system whereby fiat use is largely confined to the banks and the non-bank private sector is largely confined to using bank deposits.
ReplyDeleteMatt. "turning point" is precisely defined in math (calculus) as the point at which a derivative changes sign. It can be either an absolute maxima for the curve or a relative maxima.
ReplyDeleteI don't know how Bill was thinking when he used the terms, but economists generally think in terms of curves and maxima-minima.
By opposing inexpensive fiat, Bob, you are supporting the current two tiered money system whereby fiat use is largely confined to the banks and the non-bank private sector is largely confined to using bank deposits.
ReplyDeleteAnd if I opposed putting olives on pizza it would really mean that I support putting olives on pizza.
Your skills at BS-ing and sidestepping the obvious are getting worse as the years go by.
Snow is hot.
The sky is brown.
You can stand while sitting down.
Well then Bob, let's hear your proposals for eliminating privileges for the banks including deposit insurance?
ReplyDeleteTom do these “turning points” happen by random chance mutation? These are like “acts of God” or something?
ReplyDeleteOr do people do something.. Bill is treating these phenoms as non-man made here with this metaphor... they are man made...
Bill uses "turning point" twice in the post.
ReplyDeleteThe US government largely maintained their fiscal stimulus and growth continued unabated once the turning point was passed.
As we saw in the early days of the GFC, the turning point when the balance sheet restructuring begins can be sharp, substantial and savage.
The context is without explanation of the causality involved.
That doesn't imply to me that human action was not involved, as in "an act of God," that is, an unforeseeable shock, that is was otherwise unforeseeable as not man-made.
But I don't think that is germane here. The point is not so much the cause of the turning points but rather the reaction to them when they became evident. They should have noticed if they had the right data and were paying attention with the right analysis.
Bill's point seems to be that the analysis missed the turning points, i.e., change in sign of the derivative of the curve, and so they did not adapt to changes that were becoming evident in the data.
Well then Bob, let's hear your proposals for eliminating privileges for the banks including deposit insurance?
ReplyDeleteI thought it was clear around 1927 that the Austrian school wanted to eliminate privileges for banks including deposit insurance.
I realize that there are no pictures for slower folks, and that these books are long, but they are free to download and read.
https://mises.org/sites/default/files/Human%20Action_3.pdf
No Bob, from your own finger tips so people can hear how stupid, cruel and unjust Austrian Economists' "solutions" are. And from a person who insult's other people's intelligence!
ReplyDeleteDon't be shy, Bob. Reveal yourself.
Andrew Anderson:
ReplyDeleteIt's not clear how PROPOSING the abolition of violence, fraud and theft and the end of the boom/bust cycle amounts to "stupid, cruel and unjust Austrian Economists' 'solutions'". Further, since most problems humans face these days are the result of "progressive", socialist and/or Keynesians policies, it's not clear how saving humanity from them is "stupid, cruel and unjust". It would seem that the heartless and vicious people who inflict those policies on the innocent are the ones who are stupid, cruel and unjust.
Details, Bob. You've said nothing about HOW, for example, you'd justly eliminate deposit insurance.
ReplyDelete