{"id":60439,"date":"2015-07-06T12:00:29","date_gmt":"2015-07-06T11:00:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=60439"},"modified":"2015-06-30T14:56:25","modified_gmt":"2015-06-30T13:56:25","slug":"in-the-western-world-capitalism-has-devolved-into-looting","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2015\/07\/in-the-western-world-capitalism-has-devolved-into-looting\/","title":{"rendered":"In the Western World Capitalism Has Devolved into Looting"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201c\u2026when you see that men get richer by graft and by pull than by work, and your laws don\u2019t protect you against them, but protect them against you\u2013when you see corruption being rewarded and honesty becoming a self-sacrifice\u2013you may know that your society is doomed.\u201d \u00a0\u2013- Ayn<\/em> Rand, \u201cAtlas Shrugged\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s no such thing as markets anymore \u2013 only interventions.\u201d \u00a0\u2013- <\/em>Chris Powell, co-founder and Treasurer of GATA<\/p>\n

Ayn Rand is a pariah among those who believe that government is our benefactor. There are times and conditions when government can be a benefactor of the people. But not in the Western world at the present time. As Michael Hudson and I agree, Western central banks refuse to create money to finance economy recovery. Money is created only for the benefit of the oligarchs\u2019 banks in order that the oligarchs can continue to control the governments.<\/p>\n

In the US for the past seven years the Federal Reserve has provided cheap bank reserves for the banks to lend at a markup or to speculate with. Banks are no longer suppliers of capital for productive investments and employment. Instead banks invest in speculation, arbitrage, derivatives, financing corporate takeovers and stock buybacks. The Fed has made it unnecessary for banks to pay for deposits. Instead, the banks get free money and charge consumers with negative interest rates for making deposits. For seven years Americans have, thanks to the utterly corrupt Federal Reserve and US government, been deprived of interest on their savings. In the Western world today, savers are penalized, not rewarded.<\/p>\n

In Greece and Europe the banks are the oligarchs\u2019 method of control just as the Federal Reserve is in the US and the Bank of England in the UK and the European Central Bank in the EU. The same in Canada, Australia, and Japan. When an oligarchy controls the money, the oligarchy controls the country, so \u201cWestern democracy\u201d is only a pretense. There is no democracy in the West; only manipulated democratic symbols, the manipulation of which has allowed the One Percent to acquire the lion\u2019s share of income and wealth, depriving the economy of the consumer purchasing power necessary to maintain full employment.<\/p>\n

I agree with Michael Hudson that southern Europe, not only Greece, but also Italy, Spain, and Portugal, are being crucified, because looting debtors is the only way banks can make money when jobs offshoring has destroyed productive investment opportunities in the US and Europe that would raise employment and GDP. The European Central Bank, Hudson writes correctly, \u201crefuses to create money to finance economic recovery, but only to pay the oligarchs\u2019 banks so that they can continue to control the governments.\u201d<\/p>\n

Below is Hudson\u2019s article on the Greek debt situation. He explains Syriza\u2019s strategy, which if successful will result in Greece\u2019s departure from the EU and thereby NATO and begin the unraveling of Washington\u2019s principle instruments of creating conflict with Russia.<\/p>\n

As I said in my interviews with Investment Research Dynamics and with King World News, the leaders of the current Greek government possibly could be assassinated in order that Washington prevents the unraveling of the EU and NATO. In my opinion, Greece\u2019s departure would be followed by Spain\u2019s and Italy\u2019s. see: http:\/\/investmentresearchdynamics.com\/sot-40-paul-craig-roberts-greece-tpp-omens-the-west-is-collapsing\/<\/a> It would be the beginning of the unraveling of Washington\u2019s empire. It is unlikely that Washington would stand for this.<\/p>\n

__________________________________<\/p>\n

Dr. Paul Craig Roberts<\/em>\u00a0<\/strong><\/em>was Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Economic Policy and associate editor of the <\/em>Wall Street Journal. He was columnist for <\/em>Business Week, Scripps Howard News Service, and <\/em>Creators Syndicate. He has had many university appointments. His internet columns have attracted a worldwide following. Roberts’ latest books are <\/em>The Failure of Laissez Faire Capitalism and Economic Dissolution of the West<\/a> and<\/em> How America Was Lost<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Go to Original \u2013 paulcraigroberts.org<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201c\u2026when you see that men get richer by graft and by pull than by work, and your laws don\u2019t protect you against them, but protect them against you\u2013when you see corruption being rewarded and honesty becoming a self-sacrifice\u2013you may know that your society is doomed.\u201d <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[55],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-60439","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-capitalism"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60439","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=60439"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60439\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=60439"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=60439"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=60439"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}