"What does count as suspicious behaviour, however, is the White House’s response to the public’s legitimate interest in a political appointee’s previous job, which involved significant dealings with Russia in a context of financial risk. The White House has been accused of blocking details about Wilbur Ross’s engagement with the Bank of Cyprus and its Russian investors, thus warranting the question of why. Is this simply a power play, or are they seeking to hiding any other information that might be divulged as a result? The Trump administration’s tactics on this will be interesting to watch."
x
Fascinating profile of the delusional, batshit LtGen Michael Flynn. He thinks what he did was "capitalism." https://t.co/If7vIPWXj8
Capitalism with a crony’s face … layered onto a number of intersecting social, financial, and data networks.
This vile paper-money and funding system; this system of Dutch descent, begotten by Bishop Burnet and born in hell; this system has turned everything into a gamble. There are hundreds of men who live by being the agents to carry on gambling... many of the gamblers live in the country; they write up to their gambling agent, whom they call their stockbroker; he gambles according to their order; and they receive the profit or stand to the loss. Is it possible to conceive a viler calling than that of an agent for the carrying on of gambling! And yet the vagabonds call themselves gentlemen.
William Cobbett, Rural Rides 1830
The International Regulation of Money Laundering Mónica Serrano and Paul Kenny Global Governance Vol. 9, No. 4 (Oct.–Dec. 2003), pp. 433-439[/caption]
In keeping with his materialist view of history, Marx expected banking to be subordinated to the needs of industrial capitalism. Equity investment – followed by public ownership of the means of production under socialism – seemed likely to replace the interest-extracting “usury capital” inherited from antiquity and feudal times: debts mounting up at compound interest in excess of the means to pay, culminating in crises marked by bank runs and property foreclosures.
But as matters have turned out, the rentier interests mounted a Counter-Enlightenment to undermine the reforms that promised to liberate society from special privilege.
Instead of promoting capital investment in an alliance with industry and government, financial planners have sponsored a travesty of free markets.
Realizing that income not taxed is free to be capitalized, bought and sold on credit, and paid out as interest, bankers have formed an alliance between finance, insurance and real estate (FIRE) to free land rent and monopoly rent (as well as debt-leveraged “capital” gains) from taxation.
The result is that today’s economy is burdened with property and financial claims that Marx and other critics deemed “fictitious” – a proliferation of financial overhead in the form of interest and dividends, fees and commissions, exorbitant management salaries, bonuses and stock options, and “capital” gains (mainly debt-leveraged land-price gains). And to cap matters, new financial modes of exploiting labor have been innovated, headed by pension-fund capitalism and privatization of Social Security. As economic planning has passed from government to the financial sector, the alternative to public price regulation and progressive taxation is debt peonage.
How often can one think that money laundering has no labor effects because it is the accumulated finance capital surplus being transformed and exploited.
Similarly the machinations of finance capitalism manifest themselves in indulgences like yacht racing, where there is no real relation to the sponsors from vast global neocapitalism selling fossil fuel, upscale automobiles, and computer software.
And yet there are major national elements at work representing North/South and the 1% / 99%. Now one can see how they affect significant geopolitical and demographic change as state capitalism in the post-soviet period has evolved into kleptocratic crony capitalism.
What’s more galling is how US ruling class clowns have paraded exploitation as a mass spectacle complete with security theater, demonizing immigration, the arts, and race/class/gender differences.
Debt peonage arising from the dislocating taxes from land rent and monopoly rents is a key to the current crises of social division.
Diplomats explain & defend our political system.Can be tough when partisan acrimony so high, but there is still no greater country. #USA ðºð¸
Ms Smith - who was appointed as the head diplomat in Doha by former President Barack Obama three years ago - has since tweeted that "Qatar is a strong partner in combating terrorist financing", contradicting the US President's public claims that the country is “a funder of terrorism at a very high level”…
Egypt has long thought Qatar’s support of Islamist groups Muslim Brotherhood was dangerous for their country.
Saudi Arabia also re-ignited tensions over Doha’s alleged support for Iran, which they claim could act to destabilise the region.
Qatar
Trump has stakes in four companies that appear to be tied in business in the desert nation. The country’s state-owned carrier, Qatar Airways, has leased an office in Manhattan’s Trump Tower since 2008. Ivanka Trump told Hotelier Middle East in 2015 that the Trump Hotel Collection was eyeing opportunities in Qatar. Back to map.
Saudi Arabia
Shortly after his presidential campaign got underway, according to his financial disclosures, Trump registered eight companies that could be related to a development project in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia’s second-biggest city. "Saudi Arabia, I get along great with all of them. They buy apartments from me," Trump said at a campaign rally. Four of the eight companies have since dissolved. In February 2016, Trump said Saudi Arabia “blew up the World Trade Center.” (Fifteen of the Sept. 11 hijackers were Saudi citizens.) Saudi Prince Alwaleed bin Talal Alsaud reminded Trump on Twitter that he had helped “bail” him out in the past; according to the New York Times, the prince agreed to take majority control of New York’s Plaza Hotel when Trump faced financial upheaval in the 1990s and also bought a Trump yacht when the President-elect’s Atlantic City casinos were struggling. Back to map.
Money has no hygienic meaning even though there is dirty/clean money. Money laundering regulation involves banks in competitive cost-benefit strategies
There are regulatory mechanisms that in their political economy distinguish between criminal organizations, terrorist entities, and “normal” finance with a variety of agencies signaling violations.
More interesting in the case of the Gulf states are claims of terrorism and non-terrorism. The Trump Qatar accusations are actually a diversion from examining money laundering for things other than terrorism and other capital gains.
Hooverville NYC
In the #TrumpRussia context, the intersection of financial laundering and demographic data laundering came together in a variety of media applications including the targeting of audiences as well as critical voting districts.
The prosecution of individuals leveraging influence in the #TrumpRussia can be layered over the overt/covert active measures, and layered over the capitalist social networks that laundered data.
Moments later, a second protester ... stood up in the crowd and gestured, screaming: "You are all Goebbels! You are all Nazis like Joseph Goebbels... you are inciting terrorists," likening the audience to the Nazi propaganda minister who aided Adolf Hitler.
The Public Theater's latest production of the Shakespearean classic has prompted social media protests and led to the withdrawal of two corporate sponsors — Bank of America and Delta Airlines.
Finally, the role of legal/illegal banking operations especially in tax havens can be layered onto the 2016 election just as one observes the relation between individuals bridging the GOP and Russian actors.
In Trump’s case he had a preexisting relationship with Russians who only coincidentally in the 2007 prosecution of Bayrock, revealed the money laundering that is ubiquitous — in such financial capital transactions.
The strangeness of the relations of fictitious capital as fiction have come in its most epiphenomenal realms, like the withdrawal of corporate sponsorship of NYC’s Public Theater because of the purported costume blasphemy of god-emperor Trump in Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar.
Such spectacular noise near the original historical sites of Hoovervilles … the ultimate problem of rentier economies.
Politically exposed and expressed, our reality show Donald ...
Per WaPo and NYT: THREE components to Mueller investigation of Trump:
1. Obstruction of Justice
2. Russian Collusion
3. Money-laundering pic.twitter.com/pimYmU53X9
â Keith Olbermann (@KeithOlbermann) June 15, 2017
The study argues that while the prevailing views of deregulation and financialization as instrumental culprits in the explosion and implosion of the financial bubble are not false, they fail to point out that financialization is essentially an indication of an advanced stage of capitalist development. These standard explanations tend to ignore the systemic dynamics of the accumulation of finance capital, the inherent limits to that accumulation, production and division of economic surplus, class relations, and the balance of social forces that mold economic policy.
Instead of simply blaming the ‘irrational behavior’ of market players, as neoliberals do, or lax public supervision, as Keynesians do, this book focuses on the core dynamics of capitalist development that not only created the financial bubble, but also fostered the ‘irrational behavior’ of market players and subverted public policy.The International Monetary Fund (IMF) in 2015 estimated the size of money laundering to be at 2-5% of the world Global Domestic Production (GDP) with around USD 800 billion to USD 2 trillion being laundered.
This is partly because the crisis experienced due to an increase in criminal activities is borne out of the fact that the life blood of almost all the crimes are embedded in the financial system.
Ironically, detecting money laundering becomes extremely difficult once it has been allowed to crystallized at a layering level and finds its ways to the legitimate fund through an integration mechanism.
The party involved will usually carry out complex financial transactions in order to mix and disguise the illegal sources. According to Cox (2014: 17), in a more complicated scheme, ‘the money launderer will move the funds between a number of accounts in a number of different jurisdictions and through a series of companies to ensure that the trail is as complicated as possible. This will essentially obscure the audit trail and sever the link with the original criminal proceeds. The funds can actually ‘spin up’ to ten times prior to being integrated into the banking system
In financial regulation, "politically exposed person" (PEP) is a term describing someone who has been entrusted with a prominent public function.
A PEP generally presents a higher risk for potential involvement in bribery and corruption by virtue of their position and the influence that they may hold.
The terms politically exposed person and senior foreign political figure are often used interchangeably, particularly in international forums.
Foreign official is a term for individuals deemed as government persons under the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act or FCPA, and although definitions are similar to PEP, there are quite a few differences and should not be used interchangeably.The term PEP is typically used referring to customers in the financial services industry, while 'foreign official' refers to the risks of third party relationships in all industries.
Due to their position and influence, it is recognised that many PEPs are in positions that potentially can be abused for the purpose of committing money laundering (ML) offences and related predicate offences, including corruption and bribery, as well as conducting activity related to terrorist financing (TF). This has been confirmed by analysis and case studies. The potential risks associated with PEPs justify the application of additional anti-money laundering / counter-terrorist financing (AML/CFT) preventive measures with respect to business relationships with PEPs (FATF 2013: 3).
Recent weeks have seen revelations over vast money laundering schemes operating through Russian banks. Given President Trump’s alleged links to Russia, these reports have become even more important. Cerelia Athanassiou writes that these potential connections, in combination with Trump’s often murky real estate dealings, show just how vigilant regulators and financial institutions should be when it comes to looking out for and investigating money laundering.
‘Bank that lent $300m to Trump linked to Russian money laundering scam’, reads an ominous headline. The bank in question, Deutsche Bank – themselves implicated in recent and serious scandals involving failure to prevent Russian money laundering going through their organization – is investigating Trump’s accounts for any Russia links. This investigation does have an air of intrigue and scandal to it, but it is also important to keep in mind that it is simply a logical consequence of the due diligence that should be conducted on a so-called Politically Exposed Person (PEP, as they are referred to in Anti-Money Laundering parlance) by a financial institution eager to keep its compliance checks running smoothly.
The concern is that a president who is known for a particularly warm yet murky relationship with a country that has repeatedly been on sanctions lists might bring further trouble the Bank’s way. At the very least, PEPs undergo Enhanced Due Diligence to minimise the risk that any transactions they undertake through the relevant institution are a result of abuse of power...
This does not mean that dealing with PEPs is somehow prohibited, but FATF’s approach does set out enhanced regulations that recognise and account for PEPs’ power. The reputational risks to financial institutions of being linked to cases of abuse of power are significant – as might be borne out by the Deutsche-Trump relationship. Considering the financial system’s current infrastructure and the various links between the Trump administration and the Russian government, Deutsche Bank’s behaviour seems entirely proportional and reasonable…
Although there is little evidence of Trump’s direct involvement in money laundering, the trail does suggest, at best, complete disregard for knowing the origins and legal status of any funds raised.
A good primer on this is a case brought to public attention by Rachel Maddow, of the Russian billionaire, Dimitry Rybolovlev, buying a luxury estate from Trump at a significant profit to the latter.
There are two interesting points in this case.
Firstly, at a time when the Trump administration’s relationship with Russia – a foreign power that has been an active adversary of successive US governments – is unclear, any ties with Russian citizens, and especially high net worth citizens that might have ties to the Russian government, are clearly worth interrogating.
The second issue is directly related to the main concern with money laundering: any pattern of payments and/or transactions where the client stands to lose is suspicious. The concern here is that if they conduct a transaction from which they do not seem to clearly ‘benefit’, suspicions arise as to the motive: what does the client stand to gain from the transaction if not monetary gain? Is there evidence to suggest that the client is trying to hide money through this transaction, thus the value of this transaction itself being of secondary importance to them?
The purchase of the luxury estate of the Maison de l’Amitie took place at a time when Rybolovlev was going through divorce proceedings with his wife, reportedly trying to hide as much of his fortune from her as possible. This does not look like a case of money laundering, despite Maddow’s implications on this, but it does demonstrate quite neatly how real estate could be used to hide gains (including ill-gotten ones!)…
With Trump, where there is no pattern showing direct involvement in money laundering, there is at the same time a pattern suggesting carelessness about engaging with business partners of questionable repute. At worst, evidence might surface to suggest this is collusion in fraudulent activity; this is the suspicion at this stage.
The enthusiasm with which journalists like Maddow are pursuing the trail of Trump’s past financial dealings is to be welcomed, but it is also important that this goes hand in hand with explaining the full dynamics of money laundering and making sure to pursue the right leads. Combating money laundering is a constant process of linking the routine and the mundane to the bigger picture.
In MMT, we see public debt as private wealth and the interest payments as private income. The outstanding public debt is really just an expression of the accumulated budget deficits that have been run in the past. These budget deficits have added financial assets to the private sector, providing the demand for goods and services that have allowed us to maintain income growth. And that income growth has allowed us to save and accumulate financial assets at a far greater rate than we would have been able to without the deficits.
MMT might create better preconditions for transparency or improved regulatory mechanisms
The only issues a progressive person might have with public debt would be the equity considerations of who owns the debt and whether there an equitable provision of private wealth coming from the deficits. There is a debate to be had about that, but there is no reason to obsess over the level of outstanding public debt. The government can always honor its debt; it can never go bankrupt. There’s no question that the debt obligations will be met. There’s no risk. What’s more, this debt provides firms, households, and others in the private sector a vehicle to park their saved wealth in a risk-free form…
Well, the New Keynesian paradigm is built upon a series of false premises that affect policy prescriptions. False premise number 1: government has to borrow to fund spending. False premise number 2: there’s a fixed supply of savings available at any point in time. False premise number 3: the government, by borrowing from that fixed supply of savings, denies private sector borrowers those funds, and competition for those funds drives up interest rates…
The second part of the story is that private sector borrowing is not dependent upon a fixed supply of savings. The concept of a bank in the New Keynesian model is that the bank sits there waiting for depositors to come with their savings, and only once the bank attracts those deposits is it in a position to lend. In other words, the New Keynesian conception is that banks are constrained by their existing reserves. In reality, however, banks always have the capacity to create loans for credit-worthy borrowers because they can always get more reserves. Banks can get reserves from a number of sources, but at the end of the evening the banks know they can cover their reserves by borrowing from the central bank. So the conception of banking in MMT is much different from the stylized treatment in New Keynesian economics…
Typically—though not at the present because we are in an extraordinary situation where the central bank is paying interest on reserves—those reserves would just sit there and earn zero interest for the banks. And so typically, as I’ve explained before, banks try to get rid of those reserves, driving down the interest rate in the interbank market in the process. What you can understand from that is that budget deficits, independent of any monetary operations, drive interest rates down, not up. This is the complete opposite of what orthodox economists claim is the case, and it’s confirmed by the present combination of record low interest rates and very large budget deficits.
Classical economists developed the labor theory of value to isolate economic rent, which they defined as the excess of market price and income over the socially necessary cost of production (value ultimately reducible to the cost of labor). A free market was one free of such “unearned” income – a market in which prices reflected actual necessary costs of production or, in the case of public services and basic infrastructure, would be subsidized in order to make economies more competitive. Most reformers accordingly urged – and expected – land, monopolies and banking privileges to be nationalized, or at least to have their free-lunch income taxed away.
In keeping with his materialist view of history, Marx expected banking to be subordinated to the needs of industrial capitalism. Equity investment – followed by public ownership of the means of production under socialism – seemed likely to replace the interest-extracting “usury capital” inherited from antiquity and feudal times: debts mounting up at compound interest in excess of the means to pay, culminating in crises marked by bank runs and property foreclosures.
But as matters have turned out, the rentier interests mounted a Counter-Enlightenment to undermine the reforms that promised to liberate society from special privilege.
The result is that today’s economy is burdened with property and financial claims that Marx and other critics deemed “fictitious” – a proliferation of financial overhead in the form of interest and dividends, fees and commissions, exorbitant management salaries, bonuses and stock options, and “capital” gains (mainly debt-leveraged land-price gains). And to cap matters, new financial modes of exploiting labor have been innovated, headed by pension-fund capitalism and privatization of Social Security. As economic planning has passed from government to the financial sector, the alternative to public price regulation and progressive taxation is debt peonage.
Getting Trump on money-laundering charges should be a slam-dunk, except for the fact that it's now so thoroughly widespread, many may have forgotten that it's a crime.
[comment:body]
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"Obama promised transparency, but Assange is the one who brought it."
Getting Trump on money-laundering charges should be a slam-dunk, except for the fact that it's now so thoroughly widespread, many may have forgotten that it's a crime.
The other side of this is due to the pervasiveness, it would be hard to separate Trump as an isolated "bad apple." I'm willing to bet a real deep investigation would start to look like publishing a high priced Madam's client list and might make a lot of TPTB a bit uncomfortable.
Getting Trump on money-laundering charges should be a slam-dunk, except for the fact that it's now so thoroughly widespread, many may have forgotten that it's a crime.
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Idolizing a politician is like believing the stripper really likes you.
Prof: Nancy! I’m going to Greece!
Nancy: And swim the English Channel?
Prof: No. No. To ancient Greece where burning Sapho stood beside the wine dark sea. Wa de do da! Nancy, I’ve invented a time machine!
GG Tweets you out on Twitter, and I published you on Facebook. We welcome intellectuals and free thought. Why you post at TOP is your business, since few over there read this series anyway. Above their pay grade, and the DNC hasn't directed them to you. If they the bots at TOP aren't bashing white people, males in particular, they are cheering on Wall Street and the invasion of Syria. And, of course, it was Russia, Russia, Russia that interfered with our election - not Hillary and the Democrats.
I keep wishing for the demise of the financial institutions and current American government. I know it will hurt me more than it will hurt them, but I don't know any other way to give this country a chance for a new beginning - one without financiers running the joint.
although some haven't gotten here because no one person is designated to do the cross posting from TOP
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"Religion is what keeps the poor from murdering the rich."--Napoleon
GG Tweets you out on Twitter, and I published you on Facebook. We welcome intellectuals and free thought. Why you post at TOP is your business, since few over there read this series anyway. Above their pay grade, and the DNC hasn't directed them to you. If they the bots at TOP aren't bashing white people, males in particular, they are cheering on Wall Street and the invasion of Syria. And, of course, it was Russia, Russia, Russia that interfered with our election - not Hillary and the Democrats.
I keep wishing for the demise of the financial institutions and current American government. I know it will hurt me more than it will hurt them, but I don't know any other way to give this country a chance for a new beginning - one without financiers running the joint.
#3 do we? Let's be the tolerant, accepting free speech zone that we're known for.
I'm frankly thrilled to see annieli here, and the more people cross-post here, I think, the better.
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A truth of the nuclear age/climate change: we can no longer have endless war and survive on this planet. Oh sh*t.
The government can always honor its debt; it can never go bankrupt. There’s no question that the debt obligations will be met. There’s no risk.
False. Governments have gone bankrupt many times before, and some (like Greece) are in the process of doing so now.
Of course, there's the honest question about what "meeting the obligation" means. If just providing the promised currency units when due counts, then perhaps you're correct here. But Weimar Germany and Zimbabwe both did that; and what happened is: the government issued new currency units to meet the obligation; the currency units lost all their value and the creditors ended up with nothing of value, which doesn't sound like "meeting the obligations" to me.
No one has ever simultaneously set the number of currency units in existence and still dictated the real-world value of each one of them. To do either one of these things is also to do the other one; the more units of currency that exist, the less each one will purchase. This is a law of nature, as subject to human sovereignty as is the law of gravity or the universal speed limit (speed of light). And for a government to truly meet its obligations, then it must return, not currency for currency, but value for value.
Matters may be different in a system which is MMT in name as well as in fact (nearly all fiat currency systems now existing are MMT in fact). But while the illusion of asset-backing is being maintained, what I said above remains intact, and there will be more Weimars and Zimbabwes out there.
Point to the MMT side: Greece is going bankrupt largely because the Franks (Germans, French, Belgians, Dutch) are totally willing to sacrifice the Greek nation utterly in order to maintain the complete and total fiction that the Euro is an asset-backed currency. In reality, it's just as MMT as any other fiat currency.
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"US govt/military = bad. Russian govt/military = bad. Any politician wanting power = bad. Anyone wielding power = bad." --Shahryar
"All power corrupts absolutely!" -- thanatokephaloides
That they are just like their 'fellow' Western/Northern Euros, despite prior and present economic realities.
Kings have fallen for less.
The government can always honor its debt; it can never go bankrupt. There’s no question that the debt obligations will be met. There’s no risk.
False. Governments have gone bankrupt many times before, and some (like Greece) are in the process of doing so now.
Of course, there's the honest question about what "meeting the obligation" means. If just providing the promised currency units when due counts, then perhaps you're correct here. But Weimar Germany and Zimbabwe both did that; and what happened is: the government issued new currency units to meet the obligation; the currency units lost all their value and the creditors ended up with nothing of value, which doesn't sound like "meeting the obligations" to me.
No one has ever simultaneously set the number of currency units in existence and still dictated the real-world value of each one of them. To do either one of these things is also to do the other one; the more units of currency that exist, the less each one will purchase. This is a law of nature, as subject to human sovereignty as is the law of gravity or the universal speed limit (speed of light). And for a government to truly meet its obligations, then it must return, not currency for currency, but value for value.
Matters may be different in a system which is MMT in name as well as in fact (nearly all fiat currency systems now existing are MMT in fact). But while the illusion of asset-backing is being maintained, what I said above remains intact, and there will be more Weimars and Zimbabwes out there.
Point to the MMT side: Greece is going bankrupt largely because the Franks (Germans, French, Belgians, Dutch) are totally willing to sacrifice the Greek nation utterly in order to maintain the complete and total fiction that the Euro is an asset-backed currency. In reality, it's just as MMT as any other fiat currency.
@thanatokephaloides
Well, with Greece though they don't control their own money supply, thus they were constrained. They couldn't go and print more, which makes them more akin to say a state here in the US vs. a sovereign nation.
Regarding Weimar Germany, part of the problem was that no one wanted their currency. They had to pay reparations via gold or foreign currency. So of course if no one wants your currency, you got a problem there.
America is just honky dory because of the petrodollar. People want the US dollar. If that were to stop, well, might get some problems down the road there.
The government can always honor its debt; it can never go bankrupt. There’s no question that the debt obligations will be met. There’s no risk.
False. Governments have gone bankrupt many times before, and some (like Greece) are in the process of doing so now.
Of course, there's the honest question about what "meeting the obligation" means. If just providing the promised currency units when due counts, then perhaps you're correct here. But Weimar Germany and Zimbabwe both did that; and what happened is: the government issued new currency units to meet the obligation; the currency units lost all their value and the creditors ended up with nothing of value, which doesn't sound like "meeting the obligations" to me.
No one has ever simultaneously set the number of currency units in existence and still dictated the real-world value of each one of them. To do either one of these things is also to do the other one; the more units of currency that exist, the less each one will purchase. This is a law of nature, as subject to human sovereignty as is the law of gravity or the universal speed limit (speed of light). And for a government to truly meet its obligations, then it must return, not currency for currency, but value for value.
Matters may be different in a system which is MMT in name as well as in fact (nearly all fiat currency systems now existing are MMT in fact). But while the illusion of asset-backing is being maintained, what I said above remains intact, and there will be more Weimars and Zimbabwes out there.
Point to the MMT side: Greece is going bankrupt largely because the Franks (Germans, French, Belgians, Dutch) are totally willing to sacrifice the Greek nation utterly in order to maintain the complete and total fiction that the Euro is an asset-backed currency. In reality, it's just as MMT as any other fiat currency.
Regarding Weimar Germany, part of the problem was that no one wanted their currency. They had to pay reparations via gold or foreign currency. So of course if no one wants your currency, you got a problem there.
There's a "chicken/egg" problem here too: was the currency worthless because no one wanted it, or did no one want it because it was already worthless? (Which came first?)
I doubt anyone will ever sort that one out....
But my base statement still remains intact: no one has ever done what MMT suggests can be done, issuing huge quantities of currency while still having each unit of currency retain the same value as beforehand. The relationship between the number of currency units in existence and the net value of each one of them still appears to be pretty ironclad. And the US petrodollar isn't immune, as those of us who lived through the inflation of the 1970s can attest.
Again, mileage may vary considerably if a major currency sovereign decides to adopt MMT openly, honestly, and in name as well as fact. This has never been tried either, nations preferring to maintain the fiction that their currency is asset-backed instead. The worst thing about the petrodollar in this regard is that neither the American Government (the sovereign currency issuer) nor any other American entity or natural person owns the majority of the assets which in fact back the dollar. The assets are almost all somebody else's crude oil!
As the old saying goes, "This cannot end well!"
#5 Well, with Greece though they don't control their own money supply, thus they were constrained. They couldn't go and print more, which makes them more akin to say a state here in the US vs. a sovereign nation.
Regarding Weimar Germany, part of the problem was that no one wanted their currency. They had to pay reparations via gold or foreign currency. So of course if no one wants your currency, you got a problem there.
America is just honky dory because of the petrodollar. People want the US dollar. If that were to stop, well, might get some problems down the road there.
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"US govt/military = bad. Russian govt/military = bad. Any politician wanting power = bad. Anyone wielding power = bad." --Shahryar
"All power corrupts absolutely!" -- thanatokephaloides
The worst thing about the petrodollar in this regard is that neither the American Government (the sovereign currency issuer) nor any other American entity or natural person owns the majority of the assets which in fact back the dollar. The assets are almost all somebody else's crude oil!
Right, as I mentioned, people want the US dollar because of many reasons, including the petrodollar. But, that can all come crashing down if oil was to be sold in other currencies. Thus, not only do we fight for oil and strategic land, but also do it at the bidding of those who could severely harm or crash our economic systems.
Regarding Weimar Germany, part of the problem was that no one wanted their currency. They had to pay reparations via gold or foreign currency. So of course if no one wants your currency, you got a problem there.
There's a "chicken/egg" problem here too: was the currency worthless because no one wanted it, or did no one want it because it was already worthless? (Which came first?)
I doubt anyone will ever sort that one out....
But my base statement still remains intact: no one has ever done what MMT suggests can be done, issuing huge quantities of currency while still having each unit of currency retain the same value as beforehand. The relationship between the number of currency units in existence and the net value of each one of them still appears to be pretty ironclad. And the US petrodollar isn't immune, as those of us who lived through the inflation of the 1970s can attest.
Again, mileage may vary considerably if a major currency sovereign decides to adopt MMT openly, honestly, and in name as well as fact. This has never been tried either, nations preferring to maintain the fiction that their currency is asset-backed instead. The worst thing about the petrodollar in this regard is that neither the American Government (the sovereign currency issuer) nor any other American entity or natural person owns the majority of the assets which in fact back the dollar. The assets are almost all somebody else's crude oil!
The worst thing about the petrodollar in this regard is that neither the American Government (the sovereign currency issuer) nor any other American entity or natural person owns the majority of the assets which in fact back the dollar. The assets are almost all somebody else's crude oil!
Right, as I mentioned, people want the US dollar because of many reasons, including the petrodollar. But, that can all come crashing down if oil was to be sold in other currencies. Thus, not only do we fight for oil and strategic land, but also do it at the bidding of those who could severely harm or crash our economic systems.
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"Obama promised transparency, but Assange is the one who brought it."
Flynn is right. "They" being the Ubers and Filthys (As I call them) (the uber rich and filthy rich), aka the oligarchy. "Capitalism" to them is, "any way you can make a buck without doing the work."
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the little things you can do are more valuable than the giant things you can't! - @thanatokephaloides. On Twitter @wink1radio. (-2.1) All about building progressive media.
I need to look into money laundering. Seems as though anybody who is anybody has done it. Political campaigns, the Vatican, law firms, banks, the POTUS. Somehow, I feel as though I've been failing to pull my weight. I'm so ashamed!
I need to look into money laundering. Seems as though anybody who is anybody has done it. Political campaigns, the Vatican, law firms, banks, the POTUS. Somehow, I feel as though I've been failing to pull my weight. I'm so ashamed!
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"Obama promised transparency, but Assange is the one who brought it."
![Money_Laundering_Flow_Chart[1]](https://genehowington.files.wordpress.com/2017/06/money_laundering_flow_chart1.jpg)
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oops
@eState4Column5
Great diary annieli!
and I'm glad to see you here!
Getting Trump on money-laundering charges should be a slam-dunk, except for the fact that it's now so thoroughly widespread, many may have forgotten that it's a crime.
"Obama promised transparency, but Assange is the one who brought it."
There's the rub...
The other side of this is due to the pervasiveness, it would be hard to separate Trump as an isolated "bad apple." I'm willing to bet a real deep investigation would start to look like publishing a high priced Madam's client list and might make a lot of TPTB a bit uncomfortable.
Idolizing a politician is like believing the stripper really likes you.
Tremendous work annile
It's all about moving money.
A great read...Thanks.
I want a Pony!
Tks. But will wait to read
these huge posts when you post them here first.
Why are you cross posting here?
Not enuf ToP luv?
Prof: Nancy! I’m going to Greece!
Nancy: And swim the English Channel?
Prof: No. No. To ancient Greece where burning Sapho stood beside the wine dark sea. Wa de do da! Nancy, I’ve invented a time machine!
Firesign Theater
Stop the War!
Anti-Capitalist Meetup here not there
Actually, most of the Anti-Capitalist Meetup readership is now here and not there.
At this point, I think the posting at Daily Kos (TOP)(DK) is little else besides tradition .....
[video:https://youtu.be/gRdfX7ut8gw]
"US govt/military = bad. Russian govt/military = bad. Any politician wanting power = bad. Anyone wielding power = bad." --Shahryar
"All power corrupts absolutely!" -- thanatokephaloides
Oh now, we don't mind where else people post,
do we? Let's be the tolerant, accepting free speech zone that we're known for.
I'm frankly thrilled to see annieli here, and the more people cross-post here, I think, the better.
"Obama promised transparency, but Assange is the one who brought it."
ACM is usually cross-posted weekly
although some haven't gotten here because no one person is designated to do the cross posting from TOP
@eState4Column5
I am glad to have you and the series here.
GG Tweets you out on Twitter, and I published you on Facebook. We welcome intellectuals and free thought. Why you post at TOP is your business, since few over there read this series anyway. Above their pay grade, and the DNC hasn't directed them to you. If they the bots at TOP aren't bashing white people, males in particular, they are cheering on Wall Street and the invasion of Syria. And, of course, it was Russia, Russia, Russia that interfered with our election - not Hillary and the Democrats.
I keep wishing for the demise of the financial institutions and current American government. I know it will hurt me more than it will hurt them, but I don't know any other way to give this country a chance for a new beginning - one without financiers running the joint.
"Religion is what keeps the poor from murdering the rich."--Napoleon
Agree, good to see this here.
A truth of the nuclear age/climate change: we can no longer have endless war and survive on this planet. Oh sh*t.
MMT?
False. Governments have gone bankrupt many times before, and some (like Greece) are in the process of doing so now.
Of course, there's the honest question about what "meeting the obligation" means. If just providing the promised currency units when due counts, then perhaps you're correct here. But Weimar Germany and Zimbabwe both did that; and what happened is: the government issued new currency units to meet the obligation; the currency units lost all their value and the creditors ended up with nothing of value, which doesn't sound like "meeting the obligations" to me.
No one has ever simultaneously set the number of currency units in existence and still dictated the real-world value of each one of them. To do either one of these things is also to do the other one; the more units of currency that exist, the less each one will purchase. This is a law of nature, as subject to human sovereignty as is the law of gravity or the universal speed limit (speed of light). And for a government to truly meet its obligations, then it must return, not currency for currency, but value for value.
Matters may be different in a system which is MMT in name as well as in fact (nearly all fiat currency systems now existing are MMT in fact). But while the illusion of asset-backing is being maintained, what I said above remains intact, and there will be more Weimars and Zimbabwes out there.
Point to the MMT side: Greece is going bankrupt largely because the Franks (Germans, French, Belgians, Dutch) are totally willing to sacrifice the Greek nation utterly in order to maintain the complete and total fiction that the Euro is an asset-backed currency. In reality, it's just as MMT as any other fiat currency.
"US govt/military = bad. Russian govt/military = bad. Any politician wanting power = bad. Anyone wielding power = bad." --Shahryar
"All power corrupts absolutely!" -- thanatokephaloides
And the Greeks are desperate to maintain the fiction
That they are just like their 'fellow' Western/Northern Euros, despite prior and present economic realities.
Kings have fallen for less.
Gëzuar!!
from a reasonably stable genius.
fallen
Republics, too, as I pointed out above.
"US govt/military = bad. Russian govt/military = bad. Any politician wanting power = bad. Anyone wielding power = bad." --Shahryar
"All power corrupts absolutely!" -- thanatokephaloides
@thanatokephaloides Well, with Greece though
Well, with Greece though they don't control their own money supply, thus they were constrained. They couldn't go and print more, which makes them more akin to say a state here in the US vs. a sovereign nation.
Regarding Weimar Germany, part of the problem was that no one wanted their currency. They had to pay reparations via gold or foreign currency. So of course if no one wants your currency, you got a problem there.
America is just honky dory because of the petrodollar. People want the US dollar. If that were to stop, well, might get some problems down the road there.
no one wanted the old Reichsmark
There's a "chicken/egg" problem here too: was the currency worthless because no one wanted it, or did no one want it because it was already worthless? (Which came first?)
I doubt anyone will ever sort that one out....
But my base statement still remains intact: no one has ever done what MMT suggests can be done, issuing huge quantities of currency while still having each unit of currency retain the same value as beforehand. The relationship between the number of currency units in existence and the net value of each one of them still appears to be pretty ironclad. And the US petrodollar isn't immune, as those of us who lived through the inflation of the 1970s can attest.
Again, mileage may vary considerably if a major currency sovereign decides to adopt MMT openly, honestly, and in name as well as fact. This has never been tried either, nations preferring to maintain the fiction that their currency is asset-backed instead. The worst thing about the petrodollar in this regard is that neither the American Government (the sovereign currency issuer) nor any other American entity or natural person owns the majority of the assets which in fact back the dollar. The assets are almost all somebody else's crude oil!
As the old saying goes, "This cannot end well!"
"US govt/military = bad. Russian govt/military = bad. Any politician wanting power = bad. Anyone wielding power = bad." --Shahryar
"All power corrupts absolutely!" -- thanatokephaloides
@thanatokephaloidesThe worst thing about
Right, as I mentioned, people want the US dollar because of many reasons, including the petrodollar. But, that can all come crashing down if oil was to be sold in other currencies. Thus, not only do we fight for oil and strategic land, but also do it at the bidding of those who could severely harm or crash our economic systems.
I can think of a couple of countries
that could tank the dollar like flipping a light switch. No wonder we dance to their tunes.
"Obama promised transparency, but Assange is the one who brought it."
How cute. Six degrees of separation.
I could be nicely linked into every one of these charts.
But then, so could you.
[In fact, my connections are even better than Trump's. I'm beginning to think Putin hired me to make this comment.]
/intellectual honesty.
Well, by their definition
Flynn is right. "They" being the Ubers and Filthys (As I call them) (the uber rich and filthy rich), aka the oligarchy. "Capitalism" to them is, "any way you can make a buck without doing the work."
the little things you can do are more valuable than the giant things you can't! - @thanatokephaloides. On Twitter @wink1radio. (-2.1) All about building progressive media.
Wow, gohnsit! What a tour de force post! Thank you.
I need to look into money laundering. Seems as though anybody who is anybody has done it. Political campaigns, the Vatican, law firms, banks, the POTUS. Somehow, I feel as though I've been failing to pull my weight. I'm so ashamed!
I just found a quarter
in the washing machine, does that count?
"Obama promised transparency, but Assange is the one who brought it."
A retired nurse told me her doc had required her
to sterilize money before giving it to him. She said it made bills crisp.
thanks
just glad TOP tolerates ACM
@eState4Column5