Bleak future ahead?

Bleak Future Ahead?

The Financial Curse (2018, Nicholas Shaxson)
How and Why Global Finance Makes Us All Poorer

Being rich is a curse. When an impoverished third world nation gets a potential windfall, its leaders will become greedy and would want to usurp all the richness fo themselves, their family members and cronies. When a prosperous nation (read former Imperial power) has access to wealth, nothing is ever enough. After living in comfort with a particular lifestyle for all these while, the national coffers are forever in the want. In both cases, the average citizen is at the receiving end. He is the one who has to tighten his belt to meet the demands of the rich and those in power.

The world is ruled by bankers. Ever since banks started functioning and people developed the insatiable appetite for money and megalomaniac industries, these cherubs with horns have been in action. Through slews of business manoeuvres, the creation of shell companies, accounts in tax havens, the evil empire of bankers, auditors, accountants, and politicians have created a smokescreen to hoodwink the general public. Many ventures are proposed to the leaders of nations, both small and big, to invest monies. With legitimate approval of the people, using rhetorics which naturally hide many detrimental clauses, the self-serving leaders dupe their citizens to sign off the national wealth to finance megaprojects. These projects, failing to live up to its expectations, had to be bailed out. Where does the money come from? From the already impoverished people of the state, of course.

The philosophy behind the banking seems to be, "give the people a longer rope, easier for them to hang themselves", meaning lure than more than they can pay. "Heads we win, tails they lose" is another one of their mantras. 

It is a paradox. Amidst the sea of plenty, poverty is widespread. Smart people who are very capable of bringing ground shattering breakthroughs to the society are by lured by the glitz of the financial market. Science and technology which had brought many positive changes to mankind take a backseat whilst they use their intelligence to re-package debts into yet another money-making scheme that is bound to fail. Of course, this would happen after enriching the wealthy and eventually, the taxpayers would end up paying up for the debacle.  The wealthy, however, would have their cash stashed nicely in the numerous countries whose existence is to be a tax-haven to crooks. 

It is an open secret that these shelters are aplenty - the list goes on and on; Bahamas, Panama, Luxemburg, Cayman Islands, St. Kitts, Lichstentein, Jersey and many more. 

The City of London is controlled by a group of businessman, bankers and accountants who primarily run the city like an independent state. They elect their own mayor, Lord Mayor of the City of London. This is an apolitical appointed post. The Lord Mayor represents the city at the Parliament. This post is not to be confused with the Mayor of London. Interestingly, the people who elected the Lord Mayor's position include businesses from Communist China who heavily parked their spare cash to splash into capitalistic ventures elsewhere. Through the City of London, Britain is building its Second British Empire.

We are living in a material world, that more one where everyone lives and spends money that they do not own. And the bank loan money that they do not have; print money that has no value. The financiers of the world control the media, showbiz and telecommunication. They dictate what truth is and what is fake news. People buy their stories and get fascinated with mundane things like what the Kardashians are up to!

Economics as we know it has evolved over the years. We are still trying to understand how it works. It seems that every model introduced by man fails because it cannot satisfy the greed of man. From one where the economy is controlled by the 'invisible hand' - the market to laissez-faire one to one with government supervision, now we have countries competing with multinational companies to thump their invisible fists.

Expansion of businesses made giant mergers inevitable. Unfortunately, it is also accompanied by undercutting rivals through monopoly. It is alright if mergers mean more employment and return of investment through taxes back to the society. Unfortunately, profits find their way to off-shore accounts. Smaller retailers go bust. It is affluence on the outside by poverty of majority.

The state of the economy is pathetic at best. Outsourcing was supposed to cut costs, but it does not. The only beneficiaries seem to be lawyers, bankers and consultants who still get their fat cheque no matter what. Instances of megacompanies going bust with preceding years of a clean bill of financial health endorsed by the infamous big accountancy firms are aplenty.

All these things are nothing new to the average Malaysian. Recent events before the 14th Malaysian General Elections peeled open our eyes of ignorance on the scandalous nature of the union of politicians and businessmen. It is akin to asking Big Bad Wolf to take care of the sheep and Little Red Riding Hood.


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Filling up the bottomless pit!

The Spider's Web: Britain's Second Empire (Documentary; 2017)

Director, Producer: Michael Oswald

I always wondered how Britain, after 200 years of ruling over almost half of the globe, survived after losing everything after the Second World War. It is a mystery how they continued their role in being one of the economic powerhouses of the world.

It is no secret that WW2 marked the beginning of setting of the sun over the British Empire. Slowly, one by one, its colonies demanded to be cut off their attachments to the Crown. The coup de grâce must have come after their disastrous 1956 campaign over the nationalisation of the Suez Canal by President Nasser.

The value of the pound-sterling plummeted. Foreign investors withdrew their investments. A special market was created to circumvent the control of the monetary bodies of the UK. Hence was born the London Euro-Dollar market to keep investors' interest in Britain. This was the precursor to the setting up of the spider's web of secrecy jurisdiction in the remote off-shore tax havens. 

These tax havens were mostly British territories like Cayman Island, Virgin Islands, Bermuda and Jersey in the UK. Soon Americans set up their own concerns in the Caribbean with the same midis operandi - funnelling global funds which were obtained clandestinely and laundered into London and other Western markets. The web attracted bankers, lawyers, accountants and the elite of the society. It formed like a secret society that drew in ill-gotten spoils from drugs and corruption the world over to syphon it to finance more than 90% of international loans.

Bankers are a protected species. No law so far has significantly brought down big banks. Bank of England and its affiliates carry out their tasks with impunity. The City of London, it seems, because of 1066 William the Conqueror's failure to capture this town, has its own council and elected its own Lord Mayor. (Cf. Mayor is a political post elected four years once; Lord Mayor of London is an annual apolitical appointment by the Sovereign.) The council is made up of a guild of businessmen, retired high-ranking civil servants and aristocrats who have no qualms using public funds for personal gains. They are also seen making use of public monies for dubious business ventures. They are experts in creating shell companies and concocting creative accounts to cover their trails. Just in case their endeavours go south, the general public can always be used to bail them out. They are, after all, protected by the law. 

Losers of the deal are also the citizens of Africa and other third world countries who are regularly looted by their elites with the help of these financial wizards. CIA is known to finance covert operations via this channel. 

One of the purposes of this offering is to make its viewers aware of the dealings of these big conglomerate. The general public, in turn, must demand greater transparency in their leaders' dealings. The national agreements should not be official secrets but must be assessed by concerned citizens.

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A monster too big to leash?

The Creature from Jekyll Island (1994)

Author: G. Edward Griffin

No, this is not some kind of sci-fiction about a radioactive exposed and mutated creature that lurks in the vicinity of Jekyll Island. This book is, of the non-fiction variety, and it talks about our banking system. In fact, it tells of the devious manner that it operates. It was on this island that the monster called Federal Reserve System was created.

Jekyll Island is a real island off the coast of Georgia. In 1910, a group of seven individuals of politicians and bankers gathered in a holiday resort to discuss the future of banking in America. Together, they possessed a quarter of the world's wealth then. Earlier, at the beginning of the century, Americans had become wary of their banking system and did not trust bankers to handle their money. The purpose of this extremely secret meeting was to create the blueprint of the Federal Reserve System. Note the absence of bank in its name and the authentic sound of its title. At one look the intentions look noble, but when we scrutinise its whole setup, we can smell a rat. The entire operation was shrouded in secrecy as the American public wanted the bankers to be the last person given the responsibility of taking care of their money. In the not-so-distant American past then, many financial institutions had sprung up and followed in the line of customers being fleeced off their hard-earnings.

It was a covert operation for a group of European bankers, who had links with magnates like the Rockefellers, Rothschilds and JP Morgan and had a stronghold in the dealings of the world economy. Despite America's previous bad experiences with unregulated paper money, the USA decided to follow the very same path. That was the beginning of fiat money where wealth is made out of thin paper with no intrinsic value to the currency. It was built on the trust that people would take the money for its face value. It operates under the assumption that the public would not, all at once, demand back their deposits in cash.

The setup is like this. When the Congress needs money, it goes to the Treasury. The Treasury would not have money. Together, we would march to the Federal Reserve System (FRS). The FRS would issue a cheque for a certain sum (of money that it does not have). This paper money makes its way to the banks to be loaned. The banks can loan out up to 90% of the funds it received (which is non-existent) to customers who would repay with interest. In other words, the lay people are taxed to work to pay for the money that was created from nothing to run the whole system. The by-product of this entire exercise to finance the banking system and to fatten bankers.

Every now and then, the whole bubble would go burst when inflation sets in as the value of money dwindle as there is a lot of money circulating. To offset this, the banking system makes the taxpayers pay more taxes or decrease the interest rate for them to borrow more. The whole setup is based on credit.

The author, G. Edward Griffin, is a renowned conspiracy theorist who goes on to link the operation of the FRS to many of mishaps that happen around us. War and political upheavals spur economic activities which are, of course, beneficial to the bankers. Loans need to be taken.

Even as early as the American Civil War, financiers had the bad habit of financing both sides of the warring factions. In their mind, they are not tied down to nations but were citizens of the world. The Russian Revolution did not solely happen because peasants raised their sickles against the Tsar. Their course was partially finally sponsored by German bankers who wanted the Russians to be weak to defeat them. The Americans brought in aid under the guise humanitarian effort through the Red Cross to fund rebels. The financiers sponsored Trotsky, the Menshevik and even the Bolshevik to cripple the Russians. The sinking of Lusitania by the German U-boats marked the entry of the USA into World War 1. It was no mere coincidence that the cruise ship was hit. It entailed an elaborate plan of the bankers' interference in intercepting newspaper advertisement, false declaration of goods and blocking of navy communications.

As known to us, FRS through their lackeys, the World Bank and IMF, are quick to write off loans of despotic third world regimes by giving them more notable credits with a more extended tenure of repayment to make these countries eternally in debt. The biggest losers are the citizens who become debtors for generations altogether.

Loyalty is an alien to the bankers. Money, business, wealth and power is all that matters. The strategy of putting up a two-faced appearance go on all through time. They were around at the time when Germany was gung-ho in arming themselves to the teeth and going gangbuster into industrialisation. At a time midway through World War 2, they syphoned off legally gold to Europe to improve their economy. They support dictators in the modern era.

The Federal Reserve System has grown too large for comfort. The author proposes that it should be abolished as it runs like a cartel working against the public interest, advocating extreme usury, generates unfair tax, destabilises the economy, encourages war and is an instrument of totalitarianism.

The Seven Members of Jekyll Island

A satirical cartoon of 1848 depicts "Rothschild" pondering over which of Europe's rulers to favour with loans, while revolutionaries challenge the ancient order he is supporting.

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