Monday, June 29, 2015

June 29. 2015

I don't really know how feasible "targeted multi-channel financing" is, but Glaziev makes a lot of good points in a candid manner ("Interviewer: It's that simple?" Glaziev: It's not simple at all").

It's a long read, but if you just had half an hour to spend on coming up to speed with the whole "what's wrong with the current global finance regime" (not to mention a primer on global finance and investment), spend it on this interview. A couple of choice bits: 
In other words, our monetary authorities are working for foreign speculators? What about the Western sanctions?
Not just foreign ones. Here as well the income of speculators grew like mushrooms sprouting up after rain after the ruble was allowed to float freely. They have superior communication and authoritative leadership with access to confidential information from the regulator. Creating “currency swings” – this latter created a real gold mine for them… By the way Western sanctions only affect loans with a term of over a month. They don’t apply to short-term loans, which are what the speculators depend on. Indeed they need loans for literally one day, often – for one hour. So the entire Western financial system is still connected to our financial market, which is still dominated by foreign speculators – they account for 90% of transactions...
 ...
And this isn’t a return to a planned economy?
If so, then Japan, China, India and Brazil all have planned economies. And even in Western Europe there was also a planned economy before the introduction of the Euro – money was printed by the national banks according to demand from the manufacturing enterprises, as confirmed by their business plans, the implementation of which was monitored by commercial banks. They took the risks of lending to their clients and refinanced with the national banks using promissory notes...
 The status quo will persist as long as the speculation-is-good-for-injecting-liquidity side prevails in the ideological debate. Regulatory capture and corruption/blackmail also help.
***
Maybe Greenpeace at the international level is different, but I have a very low opinion of their torch-bearers in India, even ignoring aspects related to their funding. What's the most attention-whory way to protest the freezing of your accounts? Let me see, oh, a couple of us will don mountain-climbing gear and unfurl our protest banners from the top of the building while dangling precariously. Is there an easier and safer way we can accomplish our objectives? Hush. A long time ago I attended a concert that was sponsored by Greenpeace, and there was this guy on the stage who went on and on about how he was hanging out in the Rainbow Warrior (that's their famous ship that keeps sailing around the world doing, well, attention-whory things ["it's all for the ENVIRONMENT, dammit!"]), how he had not yet decided whether to continue his voyage or pursue his fucking PhD, and so on. My interactions with the local volunteers over subsequent years lead me to believe that most of them are cut from the same cloth as that guy.