Bill Mitchell — The BIS adds to the financial turbulence and should be disbanded

In 2014, it was apparent that the Bank of International Settlements (BIS) had made itself part of the ideological wall that was blocking any reasonable recovery from the GFC. I wrote about that in this blog – The BIS remain part of the problem. I was already concerned in 2013 (see this blog – Since when did the BIS become the Neo-liberal Ministry of Misinformation?). Things haven’t improved and the latest statements from the Bank in the BIS Quarterly Review (March 6, 2016) – Uneasy calm gives way to turbulence – demonstrates two things that are now obvious. First, that the neo-liberal Groupthink that created the crisis in the first place, and, which has prolonged the malaise continues to dominate the leading international financial institutions. Second, not only are these institutions (and I include the OECD, the IMF, to BIS, among this group) impeding return to prosperity as a result of their continued adherence to failed macroeconomics, but worse, their patterned behaviour actually introduces new instabilities that ferment further crises. Someone should be held accountable for the instability these organisations cause, which, ultimately leads to higher rates of unemployment and increased poverty rates.

Bill Mitchell – billy blog
The BIS adds to the financial turbulence and should be disbanded
Bill Mitchell | Professor in Economics and Director of the Centre of Full Employment and Equity (CofFEE), at University of Newcastle, NSW, Australia

See also Carroll Quigley, Tragedy and Hope: A History of the World in Our Time, Volumes 1-8 (New York: The Macmillan Company, 1966, Chapter 7, page 324

"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."

This is an extract from a section running several pages that lays out the basis behind the thinking that led to contemproary central banking.

Ryan Grim — Voters Driven By Anger At Economy Reward Republicans At Polls

Democrats and the president are in a difficult political spot, getting blamed for a sagging economy that they have little power to improve without control of Congress. But it is also a problem partly of their own making. As early as May 2010, more than six months before Democrats lost control of Congress for the rest of Obama's term, the party turned its focus away from jobs and stimulus and toward deficit reduction and belt tightening. The resulting fiscal pullback slowed the economic recovery and contributed to anger at Washington, which typically gets directed at the party that controls the White House. While pundits spent the last six years warning that voters cared first and foremost about the deficit, the news that it has plummeted under Obama was nevertheless met with a rebuke from voters.

Think the Democrats will learn from this? Nah. Clueless morons. In fact, the Democrats by and large are more likely to lurch to the right, thinking that that's where the votes are.

The Huffington Post
Voters Driven By Anger At Economy Reward Republicans At Polls
Ryan Grim