MONEY SUPPLY

by Jeremy Lee
If we are to believe the present financial theology, Brazilians may be able to escape the anarchy and despair in Argentina if somebody in New York presses some computer keys and transfers some numbers, equivalent to what we call $3 billion United States dollars, to another computer in Rio de Janeiro. Once this has been accomplished, Brazilians will be able to eat the food their farmers have produced in abundance, buy clothes, sleep in their own beds sheltered from rain, hail, etc. If the computer keys are not pressed, they will be reduced to starvation and despair – no matter that exactly the same amount of provisions exist to the nearest grain of sugar and the same number of coffee beans!

Is it the computers that control life? Or the numbers typed on them? However it's portrayed, it's called MONEY. It doesn't matter if there's enough, and more, in physical goods and services to go round. If there are not enough figures called MONEY to go round, then everybody starves. But there's more to it than that, apparently. If the numbers are called "Reals" (the Brazilian unit of currency which has dropped to record lows in recent months) then the magic doesn't work. But if they are called "Greenbacks" (the US unit of currency which is scaring the daylight out of investors round the world while the biggest 'bubble' in world history is bursting) then the Sun will shine on another Brazilian day.

Undoubtedly, this is a financial 'ju-ju' mystery that flummoxes common sense. Brazil is bigger in area than the United States, with 172 million people. Among its industries are listed: Steel, autos, textiles, shoes, chemicals, machinery, coffee, soybeans, sugar, cocoa, rice, corn, wheat, citrus. It has 7.4 billion barrels of crude oil in reserve. It has 163 million cattle (twice as many as Australia). It has 28 million pigs and 18 million sheep. It has 18,000 miles of rail and 139 airports. Brazil has enough – as do its neighbours – to provide its citizens with "the good life".
There is enough for all; except for those wretched computer figures!

The Australian Financial Review (7/8/02) reported: " ...The IMF and Brazil are discussing assistance for the country, now in its fourth year of recession, as investors fret it may default on its R1 trillion ($560 billion) debt. "Analysts say Brazil requires an additional $US20 billion ($38 billion) because its $US16 billion package expires in December and it has just $US1 billion remaining. Other economists expect the IMF to extend its credit line through to the end of the year. As the IMF's largest shareholder, the US wields an effective veto over its lending ...."

The same situation exists in Argentina, Venezuela, Uruguay and Peru. In other words, a complete continent is being strangled and paralysed for lack of computer figures. Australia might ponder this as New Guinea to its north goes belly-up, and the Solomons sinks into bankruptcy. The AFR (7/8/02) said: "Papua New Guinea, the principal beneficiary of Australian largesse, is on the edge of failure, despite all the aid and a rich natural resource base that includes gold, copper, oil and gas, large areas of arable land, extensive tropical forests and fisheries ....In fact, according to The World Almanac, Papua New Guinea's less than 5 million people have 330 million barrels of oil in reserve, 3.6 million chickens, 1.5 million pigs, 105,000 cattle, etc. There is enough for everybody in Papua New Guinea!

Meanwhile, in the Solomons, "the country is effectively bankrupt, with hospital staff, teachers and other public servants unpaid for months. Exports have collapsed, and the Government has depended for survival on loans from Taiwan ....Riding in like Tonto is, of course, the International Monetary Fund."

The AFR added: "The International Monetary Fund is next week sending a team to the Solomons, to negotiate a rescue package in its role as lender-of-last-resort. Part of the package is to replace the local currency with the Australian dollar, Solomon Islands Finance Minister Laurie Chan said yesterday ....." The Solomons, with a population smaller than that of Brisbane, produces copra, coconuts, rice, cocoa and beans. It has gold and bauxite. It has a significant tourist industry and exports worth $84 million. Perhaps it has no computers capable of producing magic figures. So it will end up losing its sovereignty and using Australia's.

AUSTRALIA'S MAGIC FIGURES

Australia seems to have no problem churning out money-figures on computers. After all, it has been described by the World Bank as the richest country, resource-wise per capita, in the world. In the six years since the Howard government came to power, money creation has slowed slightly, but still managed to increase the Volume of Money from $292 billion to $472 billion in June of this year. The average increase over the Howard period has been over $100 million per day. With an estimated population of 19 million the increase in the Volume of Money over the period has been about $10,000 for each man, woman and child in the country, or $43,600 for the average mother, father and two children. Our computers seem to work very well! These are the figures:

VOLUME OF MONEY IN AUSTRALIA

(Source: Reserve Bank Bulletin figures. Figures have been rounded for ease of comprehension)

About 5% of this increase has been notes and coin (cash). The rest has been intangible credit – simply figures churned out by computers in the form of interest-bearing loans. In other words, we have attempted to borrow our way into the future, operating a system where debt and interest always increase at a faster rate than the means to repay it. When our turn comes, who will we contact overseas to lend us some of their computer-generated money? Judging by recent events the United States may not be in a position to extend loans of US dollars. So who will we ask? Japan? Iraq? Or perhaps the Palestinians? Who owns the computer-generated money systems? In other words, who are the world's mortgagees? Now there's a question that needs answering!

DREAM-TIME

Let us imagine a wise and kind Treasurer had done something different over the period since the Howard Government arrived. Let us suppose that he allowed exactly the same Money-Supply increase of $100 million a day. Let us imagine a Treasurer with the courage to tell the existing money-creators that new money no longer belonged to them, but to the Australian people. And, finally, let us suppose he injected the $100 million a day into cost-cutting instead of cost increases.
He would have a lot of options: he could abolish Payroll Tax, Sales Tax and the GST. He could set up an Emergency Fund and Fodder Banks to save drought-threatened farmers. He could wipe the debts of Australia's public hospitals, thus getting them up and running again. He could make sure Australia's hard-pressed Defence Forces had enough bullets to practice before battle (for defending Australia, not attacking other countries). He could abolish taxes on fuel. If necessary, he could extend permanently and enlarge the First Home Owners' Grant. He could offer every Australian a wage-increase (whether he or she was employed or not) in the form of a debt-free bonus on true production, or in the form of a dividend. He could bring back the comfortably-off one-income family; and would find, to his surprise, that the current disastrous Australian birth-rate would start to rise again. Small, Australian-owned farms and manufacturing industries would re-emerge. Our import bill would drop, our Current Account Deficit would disappear and our Foreign Debt begin to plunge downwards. There would be less crime and suicides. As hope among young people was re-kindled, the drug crisis would diminish. And all without creating any more money than at present.
But the crazy escalation of debt, producing funding crises across the nation, would subside year by year. He could change his loyalty from the Debt-driven, globalist world of bankers to the people he is destined to serve – the Australian people. And he could regain his own self-respect.

All these possibilities, for the moment, seem impossible. But normally-complacent people are apt to learn very quickly when struck by crisis. The learning-curve of ordinary Australians has already begun.

ALAN GREENSPAN TO BE KNIGHTED

According to Associated Press, 6th August 2002, Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan is to receive an English knighthood. "He won't get to call himself 'Sir Alan' but Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan – often known as the second most powerful man in the United States – will get another title: knight."

Queen Elizabeth II has approved an honorary knighthood for Greenspan's "outstanding contribution to global economic stability," the British Treasury announced. Greenspan will receive the award when he next visits the United Kingdom. "I am most privileged to accept this honor," Greenspan said in a statement. "I have valued my close relationships with the Bank of England and with many Chancellors of the Exchequer, going back nearly 30 years," he said. The award also recognises "the benefit that the UK has received from the wisdom and skill" with which Greenspan has led the Federal Reserve Board, the British Treasury said. Greenspan will mark his 15th year as chairman of the Federal Reserve Board on August 11th this year. We are told "American citizens admitted to British Orders of Chivalry do not get the right to be called 'Sir', but Greenspan will be entitled to place the letters KBE – for Knight Commander of the British Empire – after his name, the British Treasury said."

Notice the reference to "the benefit the UK has received from the wisdom and skill" of Greenspan. That is typical abstractionism. What it should read is: the award recognises the benefits received by those who control the Bank of England and the UK's money supply from the wisdom and skill of Alan Greenspan, Chairman of the Federal Reserve Board, the private international banking monopoly which, among other things, controls America's money supply.

PAULINE, PAULINE, WHAT ARE YOU ABOUT?

GATS: GLOBALISATION STAGE THREE

by Graham Strachan – taken from Neil Baird's e-mail
According to an AAP report 'Australia appeals to trading nations' (July 2nd 2002), Australia has lodged with the World Trade Organisation (WTO) its initial requests under the General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS), formally asking 33 nations to "open their doors to freer trade in services" – globospeak for "offer up their service sectors for global corporate takeover". Since there is no world government yet (and never will be – it's all a conspiracy theory) such 'formal requests' are required to open negotiations in institutions of global governance such as the WTO; and what better country to get the ball rolling than the one renowned internationally for its global grovellers – Australia, the anti-terrorist state.
According to Trade Minister Mark Vaile, "breaking down market-access barriers and discriminatory practices in international services trade will lead to the creation of more jobs in Australia's flourishing service sector both at home and abroad". There exposed is the basic lie – that in a country where over 90% of big business is foreign owned, there are all these Australian-owned service companies simply busting to compete with TNCs in the global market-place for contracts in other countries.
By enabling them to do that, this agreement will be of benefit to 'Australia', whatever that term has come to mean. What will happen in fact is this: Australia will remove barriers to the foreign penetration of its services sector, using the mantra that this will result in 'greater competition' and therefore cheaper and better services; global TNCs will come in and 'compete' with local companies for the provision of services to Australians; the federal government will continue to tax the local companies but not the TNCs, whose interests it directly serves.

The TNCs will either take over the local companies or drive them out of business, leaving no local companies to benefit from the Agreement, here or overseas; even if there are, concessions sought on their behalf by the government in the major participating countries will be met with protectionist barriers; 'free trade' is for the second and third world players, not the majors. Instead of job creation, there will be widespread layoffs as greater 'consolidation' (takeover) and downsizing occur throughout the sector; any significant job creation will be in cheap labour countries, not Australia, until it too becomes a cheap labour country. Instead of increased competition, the result will be oligopoly then monopoly; services will be shoddy, more expensive, and propped up by taxpayer-funded corporate welfare; the idea that the government will 'demand standards' is nonsense – it is scared witless of the multinationals, and too preoccupied with ridding its citizens of their legal rights.
In the meantime, the Australian services sector, like every other sector, will have been taken over by global TNCs; globalisation stage three will have been accomplished.

This Agreement is not about greater competition, better and cheaper services or job creation. This is about global economic takeover and consolidation and Mr. Vaile knows it. He cannot not know it. It has been going on since 1983 and Hawke. All the evidence is in and it is irrefutable. Each time another sector of the economy is offered up for global takeover the same old lies are trotted out by the same old media apologists. The marvel is that the Australian people still seem to believe them.

THE LOGIC OF EMPIRE

by George Monbiot – taken from his website; published in the Guardian, United Kingdom, August 6th, 2002
"The United States is now our foremost enemy. We must begin to treat it as such. There is something almost comical about the prospect of George Bush waging war on another nation because that nation has defied international law. Since Mr Bush came to office, the United States government has torn up more international treaties and disregarded more UN conventions than the rest of the world has done in twenty years.

• It has scuppered the biological weapons convention, while experimenting, illegally, with biological weapons of its own.

• It has refused to grant chemical weapons inspectors full access to its laboratories, and destroyed attempts to launch chemical inspections in Iraq.

• It has ripped up the anti-ballistic missile treaty, and appears to be ready to violate the nuclear test ban treaty.

• It has permitted CIA hit squads to recommence covert operations of the kind which included, in the past, the assassination of foreign heads of state.

• It has sabotaged the small arms treaty, undermined the international criminal court, refused to sign the climate change protocol and, last month, sought to immobilise the international convention on torture, so that it could keep foreign observers out of its prison camp in Guantanamo Bay.

• Even its preparedness to go to war with Iraq without a mandate from the UN Security Council is a defiance of international law far graver than Saddam Hussein's non-compliance with UN weapons inspectors.

But the US government's declaration of impending war has, in truth, nothing to do with weapons inspections. On Saturday, John Bolton, the US official charged, hilariously, with 'arms control', told the Today programme that "our policy ... insists on regime change in Baghdad and that policy will not be altered, whether inspectors go in or not". The US government's justification for whupping Saddam has now changed twice. At first, Iraq was named as a potential target because it was "assisting Al-Qaeda". This turned out to be untrue...

Greatest threat to world peace is not Saddam Hussein
By invoking the 'special relationship', Blair (UK) also avoids the greatest challenge a prime minister has faced since the Second World War. This challenge is to recognise and act upon the conclusion of any objective analysis of global power: namely that the greatest threat to world peace is not Saddam Hussein, but George Bush. The nation which in the past has been our firmest friend is becoming, instead, our foremost enemy. As the US government discovers that it can threaten and attack other nations with impunity, it will surely soon begin to threaten countries which have numbered among our allies. As its insatiable demand for resources prompts ever bolder colonial adventures, it will come to interfere directly with the strategic interests of other quasi-imperial states. As it refuses to take responsibility for the consequences of the use of those resources, it threatens the rest of the world with environmental disaster. It has become openly contemptuous of other governments, and prepared to dispose of any treaty or agreement which impedes its strategic objectives. It is starting to construct a new generation of nuclear weapons, and appears to be ready to use them pre-emptively. It could be about to ignite an inferno in the Middle East, into which the rest of the world would be sucked.

The United States, in other words, behaves like any other imperial power. Imperial powers expand their empires until they meet with overwhelming resistance. To abandon the special relationship would be to accept that this is happening. To accept that the US presents a danger to the rest of the world would be to acknowledge the need to resist it. Resisting the United States would be the most daring reversal of policy a British government has undertaken for over 60 years.

• We can resist diplomatically:

• We can resist the US by neither military nor economic means, but we can resist it diplomatically.

• The only safe and sensible response to American power is a policy of non-cooperation.

Britain and the rest of Europe should impede, at the diplomatic level, all US attempts to act unilaterally. We should launch independent efforts to resolve the Iraq crisis and the conflict between Israel and Palestine. And we should cross our fingers and hope that a combination of economic mismanagement, gangster capitalism and excessive military spending will reduce America's power to the extent that it ceases to use the rest of the world as its doormat. Only when the US can accept its role as a nation whose interests must be balanced with those of all other nations can we resume a friendship which was once, if briefly, founded upon the principles of justice.

US PUMPS $1.5bn INTO URUGUAY - To avert a Latin American crisis!

SYDNEY CONSERVATIVE SPEAKERS' CLUB

SOUTH AUSTRALIA'S 34th STATE SEMINAR, DINNER, ACTION CONFERENCE

BILL DALY'S MEETINGS IN VICTORIA

THE NEWSPAPER HEADLINES READ: "US PUMPS $1.5bn INTO URUGUAY: To avert a Latin American crisis!" BUT WHAT WILL YOU DO SHOULD THIS COUNTRY'S DEBT-MONEY SYSTEM COLLAPSE UNDER ITS OWN DEAD WEIGHT? MAKE THE EFFORT TO GO TO HEAR WHAT BILL DALY HAS TO SAY ON THE MATTER.

Bill Daly, New Zealand's National Director of the League of Rights will be speaking at:
HORSHAM: Monday, August 19th, CWA HALL 8pm.
MELBOURNE: Tuesday, August 20th, HERITAGE BOOK SHOP, 8pm. Phone bookings only.
NUMURKAH: Wednesday, August 21st, 8pm. RING (03) 5856 1315
TRARALGON – REGIONAL DINNER: Thursday, August 22nd. To be seated by 6.30pm. – RING (03) 5633 1969