Let's begin by exploring the Corrigan - Group of Thirty - Volcker connections and adding some depth to our picture of the Federal Reserve System. Â
Paul Volcker, a Democrat, was appointed Chairman of the Fed in August 1979 by Democratic President Jimmy Carter and reappointed in 1983 by Republican President Ronald Reagan. The Volcker Fed is generally "credited" with ending the United States' stagflation crisis of the 1970s by raising the federal funds rate to a peak of 20% in June 1981. The prime rate rose to 21.5% the same year. Under Volcker, general price inflation as measured by increases in the Consumer Price Index peaked at 13.5% in 1981 and declined to 3.2% by 1983.
The Volcker policy also contributed to the significant recession in the U.S. economy in the early 1980s, with the highest unemployment levels since the Great Depression. Volcker also stimulated the strongest political attacks and most wide-spread protests in the history of the Federal Reserve (unlike any protests experienced since 1922), due to the effects of the high interest rates on the construction and farming sectors. Indebted farmers drove their tractors onto C Street NW and blockaded the Eccles Building, the main offices of the Board of Governors of the Fed in Washington, D.C.
Volcker was a founding member of the Trilateral Commission in 1973, and is a long time member of the Bilderberg Group.  After leaving the Fed in 1987, Volcker became Chairman of J. Rothschild, Wolfensohn & Co., run by James D. Wolfensohn, who was later to become president of the World Bank.  Volcker was a director of the United Nations Association of the United States of America between 2000 and 2004. As of October 2006, he remains the current Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the influential Washington-based financial advisory body, the Group of Thirty, He has had a long association with the Rockefeller family, not only with his positions at Chase Bank and the Trilateral Commission, but also through membership of the Trust Committee of Rockefeller Group, Inc. (RGI), which he joined in 1987.
In January 2008, Volcker endorsed Democratic Presidential Candidate Barack Obama for President. Total political political contributions by the financial/insurance/real estate (FIRE) sector in 2008 were $468,809,924, an increase of 81% from the 2006 election cycle. Fifty one percent of that went to Obama and Democrats. Obama took in $22.5 million of it during his Presidential campaign. Volcker is currently an economic advisor to President Barack Obama and will head the President's Economic Recovery Advisory Board.
Aside from the fact that it would be crazy to think that
President Obama is not in the pocket of the world's most influential bankers, what
the heck is really going on? Why
is everyone in finance so anxious to get you the taxpayer on the hook to pull
every big bank's fat out of the fire??? Perhaps a global view can shed
light on the subject.Â
Do you know this next man?Â
Â
He is Zhou Xiaochuan, Governor of the People's Bank of China, the central bank of China. He is China's Ben Bernanke, and the People's Bank is China's version of the Federal Reserve. So, what's up with Zhou? It just so happens that Zhou wants the IMF to manage a new one world reserve currency according to The Daily Bell:
"On March 23, 2009, China's central bank on Monday proposed replacing the US dollar as the international reserve currency with a new global system controlled by the International Monetary Fund. In an essay posted on the People's Bank of China's website, Zhou Xiaochuan, the central bank's governor, said the goal would be to create a reserve currency "that is disconnected from individual nations and is able to remain stable in the long run, thus removing the inherent deficiencies caused by using credit-based national currencies".
Wow, out of left field, the International Monetary Fund is attracting encomiums from all over the place! Even China. China! Some big shot in China sees the same positive qualities in the IMF that the English Prime Minister and the French President ...
[Sarkhozy is the French President with the sexy ex-model wife, who likes to hang out with Vincent Bollore and ride on the billionaire's private yacht and jet; Strauss-Kahn of the IMF we will learn was previously secretary-general and VP of a French industry lobby that represented Bollore.]
... see in that world-spanning organization. Incredible. What are the odds? And where does this man - whom few have heard of - Zhou Xiaochuan come from? And why would he be interested in the IMF? Well, let's look a little deeper. ...
Hm-mm. We are doing our research ... He is certainly a most interesting and powerful banker - and comes from a powerful family. His father, a leading communist, was apparently mentor to China's most powerful bureaucrat in the 1990s - Jiang Zemin. In December 2002, Zhou was appointed to his present position as governor of the People's Bank of China. As leading banking authority, Zhou is in charge of clearing up some $865 billion bad loans in the Chinese banking system. Recently he has been under pressure from the finance ministers and central bankers of the G7 countries, to revalue the Renminbi and change its exchange rate-setting mechanism. Later on, in 2005 Zhou joined the influential Washington-based financial advisory body, the Group of Thirty.
The Group of Thirty, often abbreviated to G30, is an international body of leading financiers and academics which aims to deepen understanding of economic and financial issues and to examine consequences of decisions made in the public and private sectors related to these issues. ... The group is noted for its advocacy of changes in global clearing and settlement. The group consists of thirty members and includes the heads of major private banks and central banks, as well as members from academia and international institutions. It holds two full meetings each year and also organizes seminars, symposia, and study groups. It is based in Washington, D.C. The Group of Thirty was founded in 1978 by Geoffrey Bell at the initiative of the Rockefeller Foundation, which provided the initial funding. Its first Chairman was Johannes Witteveen, the former Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund. Its current Chairman of Trustees, as we already know, is Paul Volcker.
In a previous Daily Bell article, we pointed out how certain politicians were making the case for the International Monetary Fund to become a kind of global regulator - and even holder of reserve currency. British Prime Minister Gordon Brown has been a big IMF backer in this regard for some reason.
And the tide keeps building. What about this just recently offered perspective from our old Cold War foe?
The Kremlin published its priorities Monday for an upcoming meeting of the G20, calling for the creation of a supranational reserve currency to be issued by international institutions as part of a reform of the global financial system. The International Monetary Fund should investigate the possible creation of a new reserve currency, widening the list of reserve currencies or using its already existing Special Drawing Rights, or SDRs, as a "super-reserve currency accepted by the whole of the international community," the Kremlin said in a statement issued on its web site. (Moscow Times)
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