\u202a
\nThe following is an article by Ellen Brown that I find interesting. One thing I have learned from my work in Iraq is that our governments can not be trusted. There is always something else working in the background. As a friend recently said about his work in inner city problems….. “when you see two bullies standing in front of you, there is often a hidden, more powerful person in the background….out of sight”.
\nI always get that feeling when I watch the actions of super powers. <\/p>\n
Libya: All About Oil, or All About Banking\u202c<\/p>\n
\u202a Wednesday 13 April 2011\u202c<\/p>\n
\u202a by: Ellen Brown, Truthout \u202c<\/p>\n
\u202a Several writers have noted the odd fact that the Libyan rebels took time out from their rebellion in March to\u202c<\/p>\n
\u202a create their own central bank – this before they even had a government.\u202c<\/p>\n
\u202a Robert Wenzel wrote in the Economic Policy Journal:\u202c
\n\u202a I have never before heard of a central bank being created in just a matter of weeks out of a popular\u202c
\n\u202a uprising. This suggests we have a bit more than a rag tag bunch of rebels running around and that there are some pretty sophisticated influences.\u202c<\/p>\n
\u202a Alex Newman wrote in the New American:\u202c<\/p>\n
\u202a \u202c<\/p>\n
\u202a In a statement released last week,\u202c<\/p>\n
\u202a the rebels reported on the results of a meeting held on March 19. Among\u202c<\/p>\n
\u202a other things, the supposed rag-tag revolutionaries announced the\u202c<\/p>\n
\u202a “[d]esignation of the Central Bank of Benghazi as a monetary authority\u202c<\/p>\n
\u202a competent in monetary policies in Libya and appointment of a Governor to\u202c<\/p>\n
\u202a the Central Bank of Libya, with a temporary headquarters in Benghazi.”\u202c<\/p>\n
\u202a \u202c<\/p>\n
\u202a Newman quoted CNBC Senior Editor John Carney,\u202c<\/p>\n
\u202a who asked, “Is this the first time a revolutionary group has created a\u202c<\/p>\n
\u202a central bank while it is still in the midst of fighting the entrenched\u202c<\/p>\n
\u202a political power? It certainly seems to indicate how extraordinarily\u202c<\/p>\n
\u202a powerful central bankers have become in our era.”\u202c<\/p>\n
\u202a Another anomaly involves the official\u202c<\/p>\n
\u202a justification for taking up arms against Libya. Supposedly it’s about\u202c<\/p>\n
\u202a human rights violations, but the evidence is contradictory. According to\u202c<\/p>\n
\u202a an article on the Fox News web site on February 28:\u202c<\/p>\n
\u202a \u202c<\/p>\n
\u202a As the United Nations works\u202c<\/p>\n
\u202a feverishly to condemn Libyan leader Muammar al-Qaddafi for cracking down\u202c<\/p>\n
\u202a on protesters, the body’s Human Rights Council is poised to adopt a\u202c<\/p>\n
\u202a report chock-full of praise for Libya’s human rights record.\u202c<\/p>\n
\u202a The review commends Libya for improving\u202c<\/p>\n
\u202a educational opportunities, for making human rights a “priority” and for\u202c<\/p>\n
\u202a bettering its “constitutional” framework. Several countries, including\u202c<\/p>\n
\u202a Iran, Venezuela, North Korea, and Saudi Arabia but also Canada, give\u202c<\/p>\n
\u202a Libya positive marks for the legal protections afforded to its citizens -\u202c<\/p>\n
\u202a who are now revolting against the regime and facing bloody reprisal.\u202c<\/p>\n
\u202a \u202c<\/p>\n
\u202a Whatever might be said of Qaddafi’s personal\u202c<\/p>\n
\u202a crimes, the Libyan people seem to be thriving. A delegation of medical\u202c<\/p>\n
\u202a professionals from Russia, Ukraine and Belarus wrote in an appeal\u202c<\/p>\n
\u202a to Russian President Medvedev and Prime Minister Putin that after\u202c<\/p>\n
\u202a becoming acquainted with Libyan life, it was their view that in few\u202c<\/p>\n
\u202a nations did people live in such comfort:\u202c<\/p>\n
\u202a \u202c<\/p>\n
\u202a [Libyans] are entitled to free\u202c<\/p>\n
\u202a treatment and their hospitals provide the best in the world of medical\u202c<\/p>\n
\u202a equipment. Education in Libya is free, capable young people have the\u202c<\/p>\n
\u202a opportunity to study abroad at government expense. When marrying, young\u202c<\/p>\n
\u202a couples receive 60,000 Libyan dinars (about 50,000 US dollars) of\u202c<\/p>\n
\u202a financial assistance. Non-interest state loans and as practice shows,\u202c<\/p>\n
\u202a undated. Due to government subsidies the price of cars is much lower\u202c<\/p>\n
\u202a than in Europe and they are affordable for every family. Gasoline and\u202c<\/p>\n
\u202a bread cost a penny, no taxes for those who are engaged in agriculture.\u202c<\/p>\n
\u202a The Libyan people are quiet and peaceful, are not inclined to drink and\u202c<\/p>\n
\u202a are very religious.\u202c<\/p>\n
\u202a \u202c<\/p>\n
\u202a They maintained that the international\u202c<\/p>\n
\u202a community had been misinformed about the struggle against the regime.\u202c<\/p>\n
\u202a “Tell us,” they said, “who would not like such a regime?”\u202c<\/p>\n
\u202a Even if that is just propaganda, there is no\u202c<\/p>\n
\u202a denying at least one very popular achievement of the Libyan government:\u202c<\/p>\n
\u202a it brought water to the desert\u202c<\/p>\n
\u202a by building the largest and most expensive irrigation project in\u202c<\/p>\n
\u202a history, the $33 billion GMMR (Great Man-Made River) project. Even more\u202c<\/p>\n
\u202a than oil, water is crucial to life in Libya. The GMMR provides 70\u202c<\/p>\n
\u202a percent of the population with water for drinking and irrigation,\u202c<\/p>\n
\u202a pumping it from Libya’s vast underground Nubian Sandstone Aquifer System\u202c<\/p>\n
\u202a in the south to populated coastal areas 4,000 kilometers to the north.\u202c<\/p>\n
\u202a The Libyan government has done at least some things right.\u202c<\/p>\n
\u202a Another explanation for the assault on Libya\u202c<\/p>\n
\u202a is that it is “all about oil,” but that theory, too, is problematic. As\u202c<\/p>\n
\u202a noted in the National Journal, the country produces only about 2 percent\u202c<\/p>\n
\u202a of the world’s oil. Saudi Arabia alone has enough spare capacity to\u202c<\/p>\n
\u202a make up for any lost production if Libyan oil were to disappear from the\u202c<\/p>\n
\u202a market. And if it’s all about oil, why the rush to set up a new central\u202c<\/p>\n
\u202a bank?\u202c<\/p>\n
\u202a Another provocative bit of data circulating\u202c<\/p>\n
\u202a on the net is a 2007 Democracy Now! interview of US Gen. Wesley Clark\u202c<\/p>\n
\u202a (Ret.). In it he says that about ten days after September 11, 2001, he\u202c<\/p>\n
\u202a was told by a general that the decision had been made to go to war with\u202c<\/p>\n
\u202a Iraq. Clark was surprised and asked why. “I don’t know!” was the\u202c<\/p>\n
\u202a response. “I guess they don’t know what else to do!” Later, the same\u202c<\/p>\n
\u202a general said they planned to take out seven countries in five years:\u202c<\/p>\n
\u202a Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and Iran.\u202c<\/p>\n
\u202a What do these seven countries have in common?\u202c<\/p>\n
\u202a In the context of banking, one that sticks out is that none of them is\u202c<\/p>\n
\u202a listed among the 56 member banks\u202c<\/p>\n
\u202a of the Bank for International Settlements (BIS). That evidently puts\u202c<\/p>\n
\u202a them outside the long regulatory arm of the central bankers’ central\u202c<\/p>\n
\u202a bank in Switzerland.\u202c<\/p>\n
\u202a The most renegade of the lot could be Libya and Iraq, the two that have\u202c
\n\u202a actually been attacked. Kenneth Schortgen Jr., writing\u202c<\/p>\n
\u202a on Examiner.com, noted, “[s]ix months before the US moved into Iraq to\u202c<\/p>\n
\u202a take down Saddam Hussein, the oil nation had made the move to accept\u202c<\/p>\n
\u202a Euros instead of dollars for oil and this became a threat to the global\u202c
\n\u202a dominance of the dollar as the reserve currency and its dominion as the\u202c
\n\u202a petrodollar.”\u202c<\/p>\n
\u202a According to a Russian article\u202c<\/p>\n
\u202a titled “Bombing of Lybia – Punishment for Ghaddafi for His Attempt to\u202c<\/p>\n
\u202a Refuse US Dollar,” Qaddaffi made a similarly bold move: he initiated a\u202c<\/p>\n
\u202a movement to refuse the dollar and the euro and called on Arab and\u202c<\/p>\n
\u202a African nations to use a new currency instead, the gold dinar. Qaddafi\u202c<\/p>\n
\u202a suggested establishing a united African continent, with its 200 million\u202c<\/p>\n
\u202a people using this single currency. During the past year, the idea was\u202c<\/p>\n
\u202a approved by many Arab countries and most African countries. The only\u202c<\/p>\n
\u202a opponents were the Republic of South Africa and the head of the League\u202c<\/p>\n
\u202a of Arab States. The initiative was viewed negatively by the USA and the\u202c<\/p>\n
\u202a European Union, with French President Nicolas Sarkozy calling Libya a\u202c<\/p>\n
\u202a threat to the financial security of mankind; but Qaddafi was not swayed\u202c<\/p>\n
\u202a and continued his push for the creation of a united Africa.\u202c<\/p>\n
\u202a As\u202c<\/p>\n
\u202a right-wing attacks on our basic rights and services are growing louder\u202c<\/p>\n
\u202a than ever, it’s essential to keep independent journalism strong. Support\u202c<\/p>\n
\u202a Truthout by clicking here.\u202c<\/p>\n
\u202a And that brings us back to the puzzle of the Libyan central bank. In an\u202c
\n\u202a article posted on the Market Oracle, Eric Encina observed:\u202c<\/p>\n
\u202a \u202c<\/p>\n
\u202a One seldom mentioned fact by\u202c<\/p>\n
\u202a western politicians and media pundits: the Central Bank of Libya is 100%\u202c<\/p>\n
\u202a State Owned…. Currently, the Libyan government creates its own money,\u202c<\/p>\n
\u202a the Libyan Dinar, through the facilities of its own central bank. Few\u202c<\/p>\n
\u202a can argue that Libya is a sovereign nation with its own great resources,\u202c<\/p>\n
\u202a able to sustain its own economic destiny. One major problem for\u202c<\/p>\n
\u202a globalist banking cartels is that in order to do business with Libya,\u202c<\/p>\n
\u202a they must go through the Libyan Central Bank and its national currency, a\u202c<\/p>\n
\u202a place where they have absolutely zero dominion or power-broking\u202c<\/p>\n
\u202a ability. Hence, taking down the Central Bank of Libya (CBL) may not\u202c<\/p>\n
\u202a appear in the speeches of Obama, Cameron and Sarkozy but this is\u202c<\/p>\n
\u202a certainly at the top of the globalist agenda for absorbing Libya into\u202c<\/p>\n
\u202a its hive of compliant nations.\u202c<\/p>\n
\u202a \u202c<\/p>\n
\u202a Libya not only has oil. According to the International Monetary Fund\u202c
\n\u202a (IMF), its central bank has nearly 144 tons of gold, in its vaults.\u202c
\n\u202a With that sort of asset base, who needs the BIS, the IMF and their\u202c
\n\u202a rules?\u202c<\/p>\n
\u202a All of which prompts a closer look at the BIS rules and their effect on\u202c
\n\u202a local economies. An article on the BIS web site\u202c<\/p>\n
\u202a states that central banks in the Central Bank Governance Network are\u202c<\/p>\n
\u202a supposed to have as their single or primary objective “to preserve price\u202c<\/p>\n
\u202a stability.” They are to be kept independent from government to make\u202c<\/p>\n
\u202a sure that political considerations don’t interfere with this mandate.\u202c<\/p>\n
\u202a “Price stability” means maintaining a stable money supply, even if that\u202c<\/p>\n
\u202a means burdening the people with heavy foreign debts. Central banks are\u202c<\/p>\n
\u202a discouraged from increasing the money supply by printing money and using\u202c<\/p>\n
\u202a it for the benefit of the state, either directly or as loans.\u202c<\/p>\n
\u202a In a 2002 article in Asia Times titled “The BIS vs National Banks,”\u202c
\n\u202a Henry Liu maintained:\u202c<\/p>\n
\u202a \u202c<\/p>\n
\u202a BIS regulations serve only the\u202c<\/p>\n
\u202a single purpose of strengthening the international private banking\u202c<\/p>\n
\u202a system, even at the peril of national economies. The BIS does to\u202c<\/p>\n
\u202a national banking systems what the IMF has done to national monetary\u202c<\/p>\n
\u202a regimes. National economies under financial globalization no longer\u202c<\/p>\n
\u202a serve national interests.\u202c<\/p>\n
\u202a … FDI [foreign direct investment]\u202c<\/p>\n
\u202a denominated in foreign currencies, mostly dollars, has condemned many\u202c<\/p>\n
\u202a national economies into unbalanced development toward export, merely to\u202c<\/p>\n
\u202a make dollar-denominated interest payments to FDI, with little net\u202c<\/p>\n
\u202a benefit to the domestic economies.\u202c<\/p>\n
\u202a \u202c<\/p>\n
\u202a He added, “Applying the State Theory of Money,\u202c<\/p>\n
\u202a any government can fund with its own currency all its domestic\u202c<\/p>\n
\u202a developmental needs to maintain full employment without inflation.” The\u202c<\/p>\n
\u202a “state theory of money” refers to money created by governments rather\u202c<\/p>\n
\u202a than private banks.\u202c<\/p>\n
\u202a The presumption of the rule against borrowing\u202c<\/p>\n
\u202a from the government’s own central bank is that this will be\u202c<\/p>\n
\u202a inflationary, while borrowing existing money from foreign banks or the\u202c<\/p>\n
\u202a IMF will not. But all banks actually create the money they lend\u202c<\/p>\n
\u202a on their books, whether publicly owned or privately owned. Most new\u202c<\/p>\n
\u202a money today comes from bank loans. Borrowing it from the government’s\u202c<\/p>\n
\u202a own central bank has the advantage that the loan is effectively interest\u202c<\/p>\n
\u202a free. Eliminating interest has been shown to reduce the cost of public\u202c
\n\u202a projects by an average of 50 percent.\u202c<\/p>\n
\u202a And that appears to be how the Libyan system works. According to\u202c
\n\u202a Wikipedia, the functions of the Central Bank of Libya\u202c<\/p>\n
\u202a include “issuing and regulating banknotes and coins in Libya” and\u202c<\/p>\n
\u202a “managing and issuing all state loans.” Libya’s wholly state-owned bank\u202c<\/p>\n
\u202a can and does issue the national currency and lend it for state purposes.\u202c<\/p>\n
\u202a That would explain where Libya gets the money\u202c<\/p>\n
\u202a to provide free education and medical care and to issue each young\u202c<\/p>\n
\u202a couple $50,000 in interest-free state loans. It would also explain where\u202c<\/p>\n
\u202a the country found the $33 billion to build the GMMR project. Libyans\u202c<\/p>\n
\u202a are worried that NATO-led airstrikes are coming perilously close to this\u202c<\/p>\n
\u202a pipeline, threatening another humanitarian disaster.\u202c<\/p>\n
\u202a So, is this new war all about oil or all about\u202c<\/p>\n
\u202a banking? Maybe both – and water as well. With energy, water and ample\u202c<\/p>\n
\u202a credit to develop the infrastructure to access them, a nation can be\u202c<\/p>\n
\u202a free of the grip of foreign creditors. And that may be the real threat\u202c<\/p>\n
\u202a of Libya: it could show the world what is possible. Most countries don’t\u202c<\/p>\n
\u202a have oil, but new technologies\u202c<\/p>\n
\u202a are being developed that could make non-oil-producing nations energy\u202c<\/p>\n
\u202a independent, particularly if infrastructure costs are halved by\u202c<\/p>\n
\u202a borrowing from the nation’s own publicly-owned bank. Energy independence\u202c<\/p>\n
\u202a would free governments from the web of the international bankers and of\u202c<\/p>\n
\u202a the need to shift production from domestic to foreign markets to\u202c<\/p>\n
\u202a service the loans.\u202c<\/p>\n
\u202a If the Qaddafi government goes down, it will\u202c<\/p>\n
\u202a be interesting to watch whether the new central bank joins the BIS,\u202c<\/p>\n
\u202a whether the nationalized oil industry gets sold off to investors and\u202c<\/p>\n
\u202a whether education and health care continue to be free.\u202c<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
\u202a The following is an article by Ellen Brown that I find interesting. One thing I have learned from my work in Iraq is that our governments can not be trusted. There is always something else working in the background. As a friend recently said about his work in inner city problems….. “when you […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-986","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","odd"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.derykhouston.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/986","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.derykhouston.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.derykhouston.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.derykhouston.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.derykhouston.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=986"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.derykhouston.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/986\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1051,"href":"https:\/\/www.derykhouston.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/986\/revisions\/1051"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.derykhouston.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=986"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.derykhouston.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=986"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.derykhouston.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=986"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}