An Emergency Program of Monetary Reform for the United States
by Richard C. Cook
Global Research, April 26, 2007
The author of this independent report worked for the Carter White House and NASA, then spent 21 years with the U.S. Treasury Department. In the report, he explains that the U.S. financial system headed by the Federal Reserve System has failed and that only an emergency program of monetary reform can address conditions which may be leading to a catastrophe like the Great Depression or worse. Such an assessment has become increasingly familiar as economic storm clouds continue to gather. But the analysis and recommendations contained in the report may be surprising, even to many progressives.
INTRODUCTION
The mass media show attractive images of the comfortable lifestyles of the upper income earners who benefit from the cash-rich global economy. Which luxury car to drive, which championship golf course to frequent, which hedge funds to invest in, which stock brokers to consult—good questions if you’ve got the money! But behind this attractive scenery, debt, bankruptcy, and poverty are a tsunami that is overwhelming much of the world’s population, including growing numbers in the U.S.
Following close on the heels of these calamities is a worldwide breakdown in law and order. Drug dealing, money laundering, gangsterism, white collar crime, political corruption, weapons trafficking, human slavery, terrorism, and endemic warfare are the dark side of a global financial system where everything has a price, the rich seem above the law, and individual security is almost impossible to attain.
Behind the fences of our gated communities, we fancy ourselves the “good guys” in this scenario. We’ve learned to blame the victim, failing to see that it’s a world the U.S. and the other Western powers have fashioned through our centuries-long march to own or control everything that can have a price tag attached to it.
Meanwhile, “dollar hegemony” has flooded the world with U.S. currency, loans, or debt instruments to support our fiscal and trade deficits, pay for our extraordinary level of resource utilization, induce foreign governments to purchase our armaments, ensure the allegiance of their governing elites, and maintain their economies in subservience through World Trade Organization and International Monetary Fund trade and lending policies.
Today we are engaged in the outright military conquest of the Middle East. Our political leaders tell us that if we don’t fight the “terrorists” in Bagdad we will have to fight them on our own shores. But India, which has become our largest armaments customer, has seen a soaring number of suicides among bankrupt farmers left out of that nation’s economy. The illegal immigrants who have flooded the U.S. from Mexico have watched NAFTA destroy their own family farms, where 600 Mexican farmers a day are forced off the land.
But now our pigeons are coming home to roost. The CEO of one of our leading brokerage houses received over $53 million in bonuses in 2006. Not far from his plush Wall Street office, veterans of two Iraq wars sleep in homeless shelters.
While U.S. corporations, including the financial industry, are reaping enormous profits, our domestic economic problems are growing, including an enormous load of cumulative societal debt, a continuing decline of real family income, and increasing wealth and income gaps between the rich and the rest. Despite the reports in the mainstream press about the economy’s “soft landing” and the continued record-setting performance of the stock market, the financial markets have been shaken by the bursting of the housing bubble and soaring home foreclosures. Meanwhile, the relentless decline of our domestic manufacturing sector continues.
But
The author recommends turning your cash into tangibles before inflation makes it worthless.
by Richard C. Cook
Global Research, April 26, 2007
The author of this independent report worked for the Carter White House and NASA, then spent 21 years with the U.S. Treasury Department. In the report, he explains that the U.S. financial system headed by the Federal Reserve System has failed and that only an emergency program of monetary reform can address conditions which may be leading to a catastrophe like the Great Depression or worse. Such an assessment has become increasingly familiar as economic storm clouds continue to gather. But the analysis and recommendations contained in the report may be surprising, even to many progressives.
INTRODUCTION
The mass media show attractive images of the comfortable lifestyles of the upper income earners who benefit from the cash-rich global economy. Which luxury car to drive, which championship golf course to frequent, which hedge funds to invest in, which stock brokers to consult—good questions if you’ve got the money! But behind this attractive scenery, debt, bankruptcy, and poverty are a tsunami that is overwhelming much of the world’s population, including growing numbers in the U.S.
Following close on the heels of these calamities is a worldwide breakdown in law and order. Drug dealing, money laundering, gangsterism, white collar crime, political corruption, weapons trafficking, human slavery, terrorism, and endemic warfare are the dark side of a global financial system where everything has a price, the rich seem above the law, and individual security is almost impossible to attain.
Behind the fences of our gated communities, we fancy ourselves the “good guys” in this scenario. We’ve learned to blame the victim, failing to see that it’s a world the U.S. and the other Western powers have fashioned through our centuries-long march to own or control everything that can have a price tag attached to it.
Meanwhile, “dollar hegemony” has flooded the world with U.S. currency, loans, or debt instruments to support our fiscal and trade deficits, pay for our extraordinary level of resource utilization, induce foreign governments to purchase our armaments, ensure the allegiance of their governing elites, and maintain their economies in subservience through World Trade Organization and International Monetary Fund trade and lending policies.
Today we are engaged in the outright military conquest of the Middle East. Our political leaders tell us that if we don’t fight the “terrorists” in Bagdad we will have to fight them on our own shores. But India, which has become our largest armaments customer, has seen a soaring number of suicides among bankrupt farmers left out of that nation’s economy. The illegal immigrants who have flooded the U.S. from Mexico have watched NAFTA destroy their own family farms, where 600 Mexican farmers a day are forced off the land.
But now our pigeons are coming home to roost. The CEO of one of our leading brokerage houses received over $53 million in bonuses in 2006. Not far from his plush Wall Street office, veterans of two Iraq wars sleep in homeless shelters.
While U.S. corporations, including the financial industry, are reaping enormous profits, our domestic economic problems are growing, including an enormous load of cumulative societal debt, a continuing decline of real family income, and increasing wealth and income gaps between the rich and the rest. Despite the reports in the mainstream press about the economy’s “soft landing” and the continued record-setting performance of the stock market, the financial markets have been shaken by the bursting of the housing bubble and soaring home foreclosures. Meanwhile, the relentless decline of our domestic manufacturing sector continues.
But
The author recommends turning your cash into tangibles before inflation makes it worthless.
