Out of the Shambles of Neo-Liberalism,
A New Mission for Europe
In an article written on May 16, Helga Zepp-LaRouche, chairwoman of the Schiller Institute, reflects on the ruling handed
down by the German Constitutional Court on May 5, which
partially invalidates the ECB’s policy, and in what way this decision gives Europe the opportunity for “a new beginning”.
The ruling of the Constitutional Court, she wrote, “is similar in its impact to an underwater explosion, that sets off a
tsunami, which spreads in long wave trains before reaching
the coast. It calls into question not only a policy that – as
the Karlsruhe court correctly indicates – favors the banks at
the expense of the citizens, but also the balance of power
between supranational EU institutions and the national institutions of the members countries. Do the ECB (European
Central Bank) and the European Court of Justice (ECJ) have
boundless precedence over all national constitutional and supreme courts, although there is clearly no European people,
or do authorities still exist , despite the Maastricht and Lisbon
treaties, that in cases of doubt, will defend the well-being of
the member countries?”
One of the judges in the Karlruhe Court, Peter Huber, stated
in an interview that the message to the ECB is that “it is not
the master of the universe” (cf. below). But, comments Helga
Zepp-LaRouche, that is apparently “exactly what EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen thinks, since she is threatening to initiate infringement proceedings against this judgment and therefore against the German government. And it is
also clearly expressed by the President of the ECB, Christine
Lagarde, when she says: ‘We are an independent institution,
answerable to the European Parliament, driven by our mandate. We will continue to do whatever is needed, whatever is
necessary, to deliver on that mandate. Undeterred.’”
In fact, Helga Zepp-LaRouche notes, people like Lagarde and
von der Leyen, in their arrogance, really do consider themselves the representatives of the interests of the “masters of
the universe -- that is, the financial system of central and investment banks, hedge funds and insurance companies”.
For the chairwoman of the Schiller Institute, the ECB’s bond
purchasing program “is an integral part of a policy which
has systematically destroyed virtually all areas of the physical economy and the general welfare.” In many countries in
Europe and the United States, there used to be a very good
health system, until privatization and austerity. The social
systems used to work until middle-sized family businesses
were bought up, listed on the stock exchange and turned
into shareholder value companies. And if production had not
been outsourced to cheap countries, “the supply chains would
not have been so vulnerable when the Coronavirus pandemic
struck”.
Now, thanks to the Troika’s policy, the division between
North and South Europe has never been greater. Meanwhile,
rather than developing Africa and other poor countries in the
world, Europe has supported the IMF policy of non-development in the name of neoliberalism, which has led to the
threat of unprecedented pandemics, locust plagues, hunger
and waves of refugees.
In conclusion, Helga Zepp-LaRouche proposes that the ruling of the German Constitutional Court be used by Europe to
reflect on the fundamental errors that have been made, and
to change course. “It is high time to eliminate the Brussels and
Luxembourg bureaucracy and replace it by a Europe of the
fatherlands, which, through the common goal of developing
Africa and South-West Asia in the framework of the New Silk
Road, would acquire a new meaning and a common mission.”
Petition for Implementation
of a Global Health Infrastructure
Following the highly successful online conference held on
April 25-26, 2020 (cf. SAS 18(20), the international Schiller Institute is circulating the following petition worldwide.
It can be signed at https://schillerinstitute.nationbuilder.com/
coronavirus_petition#coronavirus_petition_page_new_petition_signature_form.
We, the undersigned, support Schiller Institute Founder
Helga Zepp-LaRouche’s call for global health and economic
infrastructure to address the coronavirus pandemic and the
conditions of underdevelopment (both economic and scientific) that caused us to be vulnerable to it.
The coronavirus pandemic sweeping the world — and the
economic effects of the health measures taken to crush it —
reveal the inexcusable lack of development of the human species, and demand a global approach to curing, not only the
coronavirus presently menacing us, but that underdevelopment that leaves us susceptible to the pandemic’s taking a
terrible toll.
EIR STRATEGIC ALERT 2 WEEKLY NEWSLETTER n°21 / 2020
When health systems even in developed regions, such as
Northern Italy, have been filled beyond capacity, what is the
outlook for less developed nations that have an immense
shortage of health infrastructure and lack secure access to
clean water, sanitation, and nutritious food? How can a person who relies on daily income to support the family remain
at home for weeks on end? How can people without clean
water practice good hand hygiene? If no ICU beds are available, can doctors save the life of a victim of severe Covid-19
symptoms?
While the acute suffering from the coronavirus claims our
attention, what of the 800,000 children under the age of
5 who die from diarrheal diseases every year? How can the
health of the hundreds of millions of people currently afflicted
with food insecurity be ensured?
We call for a global health infrastructure, in its fullest sense.
The world requires more hospitals, new ICU beds, additional
ventilators, many more trained physicians, increased manufacturing capacity for PPE, and orders of magnitude more
testing equipment than existed at the beginning of this outbreak. But it also needs much more. Poverty, malnutrition,
lack of access to improved water and sanitation — these are
health issues too. Our shared dignity as members of the human race calls upon us to cooperate in eliminating poverty,
through development. The entire world must be made safe
from diseases that threaten us all.
Barriers to the cooperation of the United States, China,
Russia, and India must be overcome to ensure that the world
is never again terrorized by such a threat.
To make all of this possible requires a New Bretton Woods
— international agreements on economic development in the
model of Franklin Roosevelt’s outlook at the end of World
War II, as advanced by the studies and proposals of Lyndon
LaRouche.
For more detail on the Schiller Institute’s proposals, see
“LaRouche’s ‘Apollo Mission’ to Defeat the Pandemic: Build
a World Health System Now!” https://schillerinstitute.com/
blog/2020/04/11/larouches-apollo-mission-to-defeat-theglobal-pandemic-build-a-world-health-system-now/
WHO Director Ryan Blasts Dangerous
Concept of Herd Immunity
Dr. Mike Ryan, head of the WHO’s Emergencies Program, has
sharply denounced the concept of “herd immunity”, which in
the absence of a vaccine could “lead to a very brutal arithmetic
which does not put people, life and suffering at the center of
the equation.”
Speaking in Geneva last week, Dr. Ryan insisted that “humans are not herds.” The bottom line, he emphasized, is that
“no one is safe until everyone is safe. So I do think this idea
that maybe countries who had lax measures and haven’t done
anything will all of a sudden magically reach some herd immunity, and so what if we lose a few old people along the
way? This is a really dangerous, dangerous calculation and
not one I believe most member states are willing to make that
arithmetic. Responsible member states will look at all their
population—they value every member of society and they
try to do everything possible to protect health while at the
same time, obviously, protecting society and protecting the
economy and other things. We need to get our priorities right
as we enter the next phase of this fight.”
Is Larry Fink, CEO of BlackRock,
the New “Green” John Law?
In 1720, at the height of the South Sea bubble, the King of
France appointed the man who had helped create the bubble,
John Law, as his Finance Minister. Law used his post to continuously inflate the bubble, even when he knew it was bursting, by just creating one bubble after the other.
Today, the Federal Reserve and the trans-Atlantic central
banks seem to be doing the same thing: BlackRock, the inventor of mortgage-backed securities, was hired by the U.S. government in 2008 to help “manage” the bursting bubble, and
it became the world’s largest asset manager thanks to that
job. Today, BlackRock manages over 6 trillion dollars in assets
and its platform, Aladdin, manages €15 trillion in assets for
third-party customers.
The Federal Reserve has appointed BlackRock as manager
of its new, unlimited bond purchase program. The EU Commission has hired BlackRock to write new financial rules to
build up the new “green bubble”. Indeed, just last month, the
Commission said that that fund had beaten eight other bidders for a contract to study how the EU could best integrate
environmentalist, social, and governance (ESG) factors into its
banking supervision.
Like John Law, BlackRock promises to save the bursting
bubble with a new one, based on environment-related scams,
as documented by EIR in the special report CO₂ Reduction’ Is
a Mass Murder Policy. John Law successfully drove the French
state into bankruptcy and BlackRock will do the same with
its clients.
After all, BlackRock founder Larry Fink was the victim of
the first speculative bubble he helped to create, losing $200
million at First Boston, the reason why he was kicked out.
He then created the high-risk market for Mortgage-Backed
Securities while working at a Blackstone unit, which eventually became BlackRock. We know how the mortgage bubble
ended. No one is stupid enough to buy a car from the guy who
sold you a piece of junk in the first place. But central banks do
so repeatedly, it seems.
Why is everyone hiring BlackRock? Simple: it owns them.
Among those who use the platform Aladdin, there are 170
government institutions, pension funds, megabanks and other
private and public institutions. Just to cite on example: Aladdin manages €900 billion of Deutsche Bank’s portfolio and
€700 bn of Prudential’s.
Green Ideologues on Offensive
to Prevent Post-Pandemic Recovery
The anti-industrial worldview of the radical ecologists has
likely never been clearer than now. Just as a serious debate
has begun on how to re-mobilize industry after weeks of
pandemic-related shutdowns, self-styled “Green” ideologues
are fuming over government attempts (limited as they are) to
save industrial firms from collapse by granting tens of billions
of euros in direct emergency support or in bridging loans at
low interest rates. Those funds, they insist, should flow into
their pipedream designs of a “sustainable economy” rather
than into the productive industrial sector.
What would happen to the millions of industrial jobs in
countries like Germany, where SMEs are the backbone of
manufacturing and skilled employment, is totally irrelevant
for such ideologues, who place climate-protection above all
EIR STRATEGIC ALERT n°21 / 2020 WEEKLY NEWSLETTER 3
other considerations. Unfortunately, far too many political
and economic leaders fall into the trap, rallying behind the European Commission, headed by Ursula von der Leyen, which
is committed to wasting at least one trillion euros to make
Europe “sustainable” by 2027 at the latest.
A webinar organized on May 15 by Agora Energiewende,
the energy thinktank of the German government, illustrated
the problem. The main theme was “A Double Booster against
the Crisis”, meaning that there is so much money on the table
right now to fight the pandemic, that as much as possible
should be grabbed to fund the costly march out of fossile
energy sources into the alleged paradise of “renewables”,
such as solar, wind and biomass. The event featured Prof.
Dr. Andreas Pinkwart (chairman of the FDP in North Rhine
Westphalia, and Minister for Economics, Innovation, Digitalization and Energy in the state government) and the CEO of
ZF Group in Friedrichshafen, Kai Lücke.
Pinkwart and the head of Agora Energiewende Patrick
Graichen both called for a “sustainable” remodelling of all industrial sectors, particularly construction and car-making, A
new law on a detailed timetable for the final exit from coal is
expected to come in June, Pinkwart stressed, and both agreed
that coal should be replaced by wind power parks in the North
Sea to supply the solar power parks in the South of Germany.
The webinar was funded by the European Climate Foundation
and the Mercator Foundation.
One day before the webinar, the environment ministers of
the 16 German states and the federal government’s Environment Minister also called for putting climate protection at the
center of all post-pandemic recovery programs. And on May
13, the heads of the three leading employers’ federations in
Europe -- Germany’s BDI, France’s Medef and Italy’s Confindustria -- endorsed the Green Deal of the European Commission and its “Recovery Fund” to stimulate the economy.
Soros Frets over EU’s Future
after Challenge to ECB
On May 5, Germany’s highest court ruled that the German central bank can no longer participate in the Asset Purchase Program program of the European Central Bank, unless the latter
can justify its policies within three months (cf. SAS 20/20). In
an interview with Süddeutsche Zeitung of May 13, Peter Huber, a member of the German Constitutional Court, described
the ruling as a message to the ECB that “it shouldn’t see itself
as the ‘Master of the Universe.’ An institution like the ECB,
which is only thinly legitimized democratically, is only acceptable if it strictly adheres to the responsibilities assigned to it.”
Thus the German court, according to Huber, only wants
proof that the ECB’s quantitative easing program is within
its mandate. “The central bank must show that it hasn’t
overstepped its powers, as it doesn’t have the right to make
moves just because Europe is in a crisis,” he said.
Support for the ruling came from Friedrich Merz, who
hopes to become the next chair of the CDU. In an interview
with the Funke Media Group, he rejected the arrogant response from the ECB and the EU Commission. As long as
European integration and its institutions are based on the national member states as their main pillars, Merz stated, there
could not be a minor status for national law as compared to
EU-level law.
Meanwhile, the Constitutional Court ruling is creating panic
among the profiteers of the EU system. Among them is megaspeculator George Soros, who called the decision “a political bomb that could tear the whole EU apart -- at least as a
Union that takes the law seriously, because the judgment did
not come from any court, but from the Federal Constitutional
Court, the most respected institution in Germany.
“We are experiencing an open conflict between the Federal
Constitutional Court and the European Court of Justice: Who
is in charge?” Soros said in an interview with the Ausgburger
Allgemeine Zeitung of May 15, adding that now other countries, such as Poland and Hungary, could follow the German
example and challenge the European Court of Justice.
What Would Happen
If the US and China “Decoupled”?
On May 14, President Trump responded to a question during
a Fox Business interview about US-China relations, by saying
that the United States could “cut off the whole relationship”,
and would, in that case, “save $500 billion”. It is safe to assume that Donald Trump knows that would not be the extent
of the consequences. The question is, how far is he willing to
go to appease the anti-China hysteria which has been generated in the press, the Congress, and within his own cabinet,
through the carefully orchestrated campaign to break up the
“threat” (in their eyes) of a Trump-led rapprochement between the US, Russia and China? He appears to believe that
his re-election depends on riding the wave of anti-China propaganda, but does he?
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo is calling on “the world to
join together” to combat the threat of the Chinese Communist
Party, while warning U.S. governors that they could get in legal trouble if they do business with China. FBI Director Christopher Wray is engaged in his own version of McCarthyism by
taking actions against Chinese and Chinese American scientists
within the US, and accusing them of stealing “American” secrets on how to cure cancer or how to find a vaccine to stop
the COVID-19 pandemic, while threatening universities and
science institutions with loss of funds if they collaborate with
China.
For the chairwoman of the Schiller Institute, Helga ZeppLaRouche, the decoupling of the United States from China
is the most dangerous development that could occur in the
current strategic situation. Speaking to colleagues on May 17,
she noted that the world is facing an existential crisis of a
combined pandemic and famine “of biblical proportions,” all
as a result of a systemic financial and economic breakdown
repeatedly forecast by Lyndon LaRouche. No solution to that
crisis is available, without the close cooperation of the United
States and China, along with Russia, India, and other nations,
centered on the urgent, high-tech development of the underdeveloped sector.
The lead editorial in China’s May 15 Global Times noted that
the country “must be prepared for the worst-case scenario
of a complete decoupling with the US in the high-tech sector.
Although the Trump administration’s menace of decoupling
with China is part of its election campaign strategy, the radical approach of suppressing China has become an irreversible
trend in the US. The environment for China’s peaceful development has changed greatly. China’s domestic and foreign
policies must also adjust.”
President Trump overcame the Russia-Russia-Russia hysteria, which came from the same sources centered in London,
which have now switched to China-China-China. Both flanks
EIR STRATEGIC ALERT 4 WEEKLY NEWSLETTER n° 21 / 2020
have less to do with Russia or China than with ousting the duly
elected President from power. It is crucial that he denounce
the coup. And that he quickly decouple the United States, not
from China, but from the British Empire.
Flynn Case Reversal Triggers Open Brawl
over Russiagate
Since our report in last week’s issue on the U.S. Justice Department (DOJ) decision to drop the case against Michael Flynn, announced on May 7, the controversy has escalated (cf.
SAS 19, 20/20). Those backing the coup against President
Trump are mobilizing to get the judge who presided in the
case, Emmet Sullivan, to overturn the DOJ’s ruling. They are
supported by former President Barack Obama, who is facing
increased scrutiny for the role he played in launching the attacks on the Trump campaign in 2016.
In a private call on May 9 to former members of his administration, Obama slammed the dismissal of the case, saying
there is “no precedent” for it, and adding that he worries that
“our basic understanding of rule of law is at risk.” Not surprisingly, his message was immediately leaked to the press.
General Flynn’s attorney, Sidney Powell, responded clearly: “Your statement is entirely false.” She not only rebutted
Obama’s comments, but pointed out that the “rule of law”
was sadly lacking in actions by his Justice Department, in
its corrupt handling of the case. Recall that then-President
Obama had fired General Flynn from his position as director
of Defense Intelligence in 2014.
At the same, time, nearly 2,000 former DOJ officials signed
an open letter calling for Attorney General Barr to resign over
the decision to drop the Flynn case. Judge Sullivan announced
he will hold a hearing on the DOJ ruling, and will allow opponents to submit “Friends of the Court” briefs, providing
the judge with arguments to overturn Barr’s ruling. He has
also hired a former judge, John Gleeson, to present the case
against the DOJ decision.
The frame-up of Flynn, the first National Security Adviser
of the Trump Administration, was a centerpiece of the whole
Russiagate scam, in which President Obama played a key role.
The latest revelations on that come from the declassification
of 53 interviews conducted by the House Intelligence Committee. One of them was with former Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates, who said she was surprised to discover, at a
meeting in the White House on Jan. 5, 2017, that Obama had
heard the intercept of the call between Flynn and the Russian
Ambassador, which was central to the frame up of Flynn. In
addition, the names of top Obama officials who had asked for
the “unmasking” of Flynn’s name in the FBI transcript have
now been leaked, and include Joe Biden, Director of National
Intelligence James Clapper, and UN Ambassador Samantha
Power, who had attended that meeting with Obama.
That Obama had been involved in the operation against
Trump should have been obvious, as it occurred in 2016, during the campaign, while he was still President. In a text message from FBI attorney Lisa Page to FBI official Peter Strzok,
who was involved in the anti-Trump “Crossfire Hurricane”
investigation, and who pushed to reopen the Flynn case, she
wrote “POTUS [Obama] wants to know everything we’re doing.”
The glaring question now is: “What did Obama know, and
when did he know it?”
Call to Save Family Farming
and the Food Supply
Four out of every ten cattle producers in the United States
have gone out of business since 1980, four major companies
control the slaughter of some 85% of the fed cattle per year,
and hogs are being euthanized by the hundreds of thousands
because slaughter houses have been closed due to the Coronavirus.
At the same time, the world’s largest meat producer, JBS,
posted a 322% increase in revenues in the first quarter of
2020 compared to one year ago. 332%!
The facts and figures reported by a panel of American farm
leaders at the Schiller Institute conference on April 25-26
came as a shock to many, including in Europe, who did not realize just how bad the situation there was, or just how similar
the plight of farmers is -- despite the many differences -- on
both sides of the Atlantic.
The decades of cartelization of agriculture have decimated
independent farming, while putting consumers at the mercy
of a handful of huge companies whose primary purpose is
to make a profit, and not to produce food, as one of the
farmers on the panel put it. At thkkke same time, hunger
continues to stalk the world, and is even rising dangerously
in the U.S. itself.
A number of the farm leaders at the SI conference stressed
that “if any good is to come out of the COVID-19 epidemic”,
it will be to show “just how fragile our food security has become” under the current industrialized food system, and to
“raise awareness of the need to take agriculture and animal
husbandry out of the hands of corporate America.” Farmers
need to be able to earn parity prices to continue to produce
and reverse the current trend of borrowing from the bank to
make up for the drastic drop in purchasing power.
One cattle and grain producer from California gave a few
concrete examples of the pricing problem. For a pound of bacon sold at a retail price of $5, the farmer’s share is 63 cents;
for a loaf of bread that costs $3.99 in the supermarket, the
farmer only pockets 12 cents. “And for those of you who like
to drink beer, for a six-pack of beer, the retail price is $9.99
and the farmer’s share is 4 cents...” Not so very different
from the problems in the European Union.
Another speaker brought up the ongoing loss of farmland,
which is being converted from food production to shopping
malls, parking lots, and increasingly now for setting up solar
panels.
Emergency action is thus needed to save agricultural capacity everywhere. Among the measures: stop foreclosures,
ensure parity pricing, put an end to outsourcing aimed at exploiting low wage labor, and in the immediate term, get the
food to where populations are now severely undernourished.
E.I.R. STRATEGIC ALERT www.eir.de
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Verantwortl. f. d. Inhalt: Dean Andromidas, Claudio Celani
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