Obama's New World Order

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By Stephen Lendman (about the author) Page 2 of 6 page(s)

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-- the population declined by 700,000 a year; by 2007 it was 10% lower than in 1989 because of sharply reduced life expectancies.

Iceland, the developing world, and the West take note. This cancer is heading everywhere, courtesy of banker-imposed diktats, mainly from America and the UK. They insist Iceland "impoverish its citizens by paying debts in ways (they'd) never follow" even though the government has no way to do it.

No matter. "They are quite willing to take payment in the form of foreclosure on the nation's natural resources, land and housing, and a mortgage on the next few centuries of its future" - perpetual debt bondage no different than the spoils of war under permanent occupation.

However, in this case, debtors are convinced to pay voluntarily "to put creditor interests above the economy's prosperity (and) national interest." Their indebtedness comes at a huge cost - "chronic currency depreciation (and) domestic price inflation for many decades to come."

Contrast this to how developed countries, like America, handle debt - by inflating (not deflating) their way out to pay it off with cheap (reduced purchasing power) money because inflation erodes its value. It's simple - by printing money and running budget deficits the way Washington did after Nixon closed the gold window in August 1971, ended the 1944 Bretton Woods Agreement, and no longer let dollars be backed by gold or converted into it in international markets. A new monetary system creates money like confetti, and lets us spend and live beyond our means, then have developing and indebted nations pay the price.

In recent years, dollar weakness and price inflation "wiped out much of the US international debt." The Iceland model turns "this inflationary solution inside out....in violation of traditional credit practice." Instead of currency inflation, Iceland "inflate(d) its way into debt, not out of it, (by) indexing (it) to the rate of inflation," thus guaranteeing "a unique windfall for banks at the expense of wage earners and industrial profits." The result: destruction of its traditional way of life.

Iceland must "repudiate this debt bomb" to escape. It's indexed to inflation and "will never lose value." It's caught in a destructive whirlpool creating economic shrinkage, falling assets and wages in the face of perpetually burgeoning debt, the same global model needing to be exposed and renounced "now." Otherwise, economies will be hollowed out, "capital formation will plunge," people will be impoverished, and many won't survive.

Hudson's Background

His expertise comes from "having been an insider to imperial-style plundering....for forty years" - as an economist for Chase Manhattan Bank, Arthur Andersen, and the UN Institute for Training and Development (UNITAR). He's also taught economics since 1969, heads a Harvard-based economic and financial history group, is a Research Professor at the University of Missouri, and organized the first sovereign-debt fund in 1990 at Scudder, Stevens and Clark.

"All these jobs (except his current professorship) involved analyzing the limited ability of debtor countries to pay - how much could be extracted from them through foreign-currency loans and how much public infrastructure (could) be sold off (through) voluntary virtual foreclosure (under) creditor-dictated rules."

He advises countries not to borrow in foreign currencies, instead "monetize their own credit for domestic spending and investment." Iceland broke "the cardinal rule of international finance: Never borrow in a foreign currency for credit" that can freely be created at home. "Governments can inflate their way out of domestic debt," not the foreign kind.

Post-Soviet economies did it the wrong way, now suffer, and recent riots highlight their problems. "Instead of helping them industrialize and become more efficient," Western bankers loaded them with debt and exploited them - not for manufacturing and infrastructure development, as loans against existing real estate and infrastructure, to suck as much wealth out quickly.

It produced "bubble economies built on debt-financed real estate and stock market inflation," illusory wealth "bubbles (that) always burst." The only sustainable financing of imports is through enough exports for a favorable balance of trade.

De-industrialization destroys economies by shrinking them, the result of plunging property valuations, rental income, and exchange rates. Foreign currency mortgage costs exceed property values producing defaults and losses for lenders.

It's hitting Sweden, Austria and leading creditor states like America and the UK. Real estate, stock market and employment are declining "in a straight line unprecedented even in the Great Depression." It's turned neoliberalism into a nightmare.

"Just as individuals can't live off a credit card forever, neither can nations. As any classical economist knows, societies that only manufacture debt are unsustainable." Eventually they collapse into bankruptcy just like a business or household. The old saying applies. Things that can't go on forever, won't.

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I am a 72 year old, retired, progressive small businessman concerned about all the major national and world issues, committed to speak out and write about them.

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