The Past Week: March 29-April 4, 2009 (Hugo Chavez Takes Over Food Producers, Sounds Off on the G-20; A Government Bailout Special; “The Reluctant Ones”

~~By InsightAnalytical-GRL

As the  G-20 circus brought out the whole gang in London, Hugo Chavez was doing his thing in Iran.

Chavez had this to say about the G-20 summit:

Venezuela’s Chavez: Capitalism Must End

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez on Friday ridiculed the G-20 summit’s attempts to deal with the global financial meltdown, saying that capitalism is in crisis and must end. Chavez criticized the G-20 nations’ pledges of more than a trillion dollars for lending to struggling countries at Thursday’s summit in London, calling it “the same medicine that’s killing the patient—a trillion dollars … more money for a bottomless pit.”

SNIP

The IMF and the World Bank are “tools of imperialism” and must be eliminated, Chavez said.

MORE

Well, he has a point…But does this mean that he’s no longer Obama’s “best buddy” since Obama is part of the Obama Borg?

Meanwhile, a couple of weeks ago, Chavez took steps to deal with Venezuela’s economy during this global economic crisis:

Chavez trims budget, adds debt to counter crisis

(SNIP)

Chavez, who won a referendum last month allowing him to stay in office as long as he keeps winning elections, is popular for spending oil revenues on health and education programs for the poor majority.

During 10 years in office he has nationalized much of Venezuela’s economy including major oil projects as part of his drive to build a socialist state.

On Saturday, he cut the 2009 budget by 6.7 percent to $72 billion, raised the minimum wage 20 percent and increased planned government financing to $16 billion from $5.6 billion. And he increased a sales tax to 12 percent from 9 percent.

(SNIP)

Economist Luis Vicente Leon described the package of measures as moderate but said the government was gambling crude prices would recover later this year.

“These are not truly deep measures, they don’t attack the fundamental problems of the economy,” Leon told Reuters.

Faced with Latin America’s highest inflation, Chavez has in recent weeks increased pressure on business to lower prices by taking over farms and rice mills and threatening to nationalize the country’s top private employer, which makes food and beer.

What do you think of that last part?  When does Obama go after the food supply?

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The next two items courtesy Kenosha Marge:

johndeer-bailout

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A couple of weeks ago we learned that Evan Bayh has put together a group of “pragmantic Democrats.”  Then there are the Blue Dogs:

Centrist Dems: Dogged If They Do, Dogged If They Don’t

By Froma Harrop

There’s trouble around the Democratic campfire. The party has the White House and solid congressional majorities. But what it doesn’t have is everyone on the same page, strumming the same chords, singing the same tune.

Liberals who kept the fires burning during the long Republican reign now fear that moderate Blue Dog Democrats will thwart their much-delayed dreams. Elected from purplish parts of America, the Blue Dogs are fiscal conservatives who regard expensive new programs with a wary eye.

What’s a liberal to do? First, recognize that the Blue Dogs are the reason Democrats have such nice majorities. They are why the dreams are even on the menu. Second, concede that the Reluctant Ones have a point.

(MORE)

“The Reluctant Ones”…has a certain ring to it, yes?

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THE PAST WEEK

*By American Lassie

Saturday Sanity: The Antidote to the Madness (April 4, 2009) Spring Winds; Squirrel Wars; Bees Invade Feeder; Wounded Butterfly; Sunrise Over the Organs; Slick Lounges Around

Non-Stop Campaigning Here in NM-CD2 By Bill Richardson’s Hand-Picked Freshman Rep Harry Teague, Who’s Splitting His Votes Pro/Con on Obama Policies

Iowa Gone Wild With Nazi Reference at Public Hearing (Listen to the Audio) as New Yorkers in CD-20 Test Obama’s Popularity

Canada Follows the U.S. Terms for GM/Chrysler; Harper Still Worrying About the “Eased” ‘Buy-American’ Clause in Stimulus Package

Closing Out Women’s History Month With Dr. Mary Schweitzer, Ground-Breaking Molecular Paleontologist, and a Special T. Rex

*China, the Treasury, and Real Estate (As in the New World Trade Center); Cross-Pollination:The New America Foundation/Council of Foreign Relations

The Past Week: March 22-28, 2009 (A Split in Russian Political Forces as Putin Weakens; The Voice of Korea, North Korean Propaganda Outlet; G-20 Protests Begin; A Prescient Wish for a Bush Successor ca. 2006; X-Rated Google Earth)

China, the Treasury, and Real Estate (As in the New World Trade Center); Cross-Pollination:The New America Foundation/Council of Foreign Relations

Editor’s Note: Last week’s post, Russia-China Proposals; “Rebalancing” Global Currency Reserves: Why the U.S. Can’t Take Anything for Granted Re: the Dollar, inspired American Lassie to develop a few observations/opinions:

~~By American Lassie

China won’t be buying any more Treasury Bonds, for a while at least, because the yield is too low. Not enough bang for the buck. The Federal Reserve has been buying Treasury Bonds like a drunken sailor for a reason. To keep the yield low. They don’t want China to buy any more bonds, IMO. China has too great a strangle hold on America as it is. Bernanke and Geithner don’t want the people of America to buy bonds right now, another reason for keeping the yield low.

It is my opinion, and many people will differ with me on this, that Geithner and Bernanke want Americans to invest in stocks to help bolster Wall Street and the banks, and to buy, buy, buy durable goods to help move the economy along.

The plan being that if the banks are strengthened and do what they have been given all this bail-out money to do, they will lend more freely to make it possible for the people to buy these durable goods– cars, washing machines, refrigerators, household furniture, etc.  If they free up the money needed by business to continue producing these goods, there might be a slim chance that this thing could turn around. But if the banks continue to put the bail-out money where they have been putting it, it will be the same old same old.

It stands to reason that Americans won’t buy Treasury Bonds with such a low yield, especially when they have so little faith in their government.

***

China may not be in the market for any more Treasury Bonds because of the low yield, or the fear that the large investment they already have in the notes is losing their vallue. But this hasn’t prevented their continued buying and leasing of U.S. real estate.

The Vantone Industrial Co., Ltd, a Chinese real estate group has just become the first commercial tenant of the still under construction skyscraper to replace the Twin Towers destroyed on 9/11.

They have taken a 20-year lease on the top floors of the 70 floor building to begin when the building is completed. It is projected to be completed in 2013.

The floors 64 through 69 will be known as the China Center. Wonder what the 70th floor penthouse will be used for? Any guesses?

Vantone Industrial provided the Port Authority with a $10 million dollar letter of credit. What goes on here?

No more Treasury notes, but a real estate coompany establishing itself in the new trade center. This is indeed food for thought. Know thine enemy. Our intelligence people had better be on hand constantly while that 70th floor is under construction, and after, IMO.

Our government notes aren’t so valuable right now, but the soil of the United States is still coveted by many. What better way to keep your ears peeled than to set up shop on the top floors of the tallest building in the city.

http://www.costar.com/News/Article.aspx?…&ref=1&src=rss

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Regarding the 1st Bernard Schwartz Economic Policy Symposium sponsored by the New America Foundation (See this post for more details: A Reminder: Live Streaming of the First “Bernard L. Schwartz Economic Policy Symposium” Today (3/26) With a Rather Interesting Group & Agenda [To End “Fumbling” on Economic Policy]):

It’s important to note: “The Honorable Laura Tyson holds the Chair in Global Management and Public Policy, at the Haass School of Business at the U of C at Berkley.” (Haas being Richard Haass, the President of  The Council on Foreign Relations [CFR].)

I will point you to an article, (that I was saving with other research for a possible post), that I think you will want to read. It’s a short article but it is very informative.

http://www.crossroad.to/Quotes/globalism/2008/trends.htm

Let’s take a closer look at THE NEW AMERICA FOUNDATION…

On the matter of the “New America Foundation,” don’t get your hopes up people because this is nothing new.  It’s like the message we used to get continuously during the commercials in the old time soap operas.  “Duz does everything”- “New and Improved” – “Better than Ever”, the blurbs go on and on, but we still got the same old soap only in a different box.  The primary drivers in this group are the same re-cycled Democrats who brought you Hopey Changey politics this past election cycle.

LAURA TYSON, the Chair of Global Management and Public Policy, Haass School of Business, Univ. of Calif. at Berkeley, has an impressive resume and there is no doubt that she is an extremely intelligent economist who need not take a back seat to anyone in her field. She was top economic advisor to former President Bill Clinton.  She was head of the National Economic Council and Chair of the President’s Council of Economic Advisors. In fact, her skill and expertise, in my opinion, played a major part in the financial surplus that Bill Clinton left to the American people when he left office.

I admire Laura Tyson greatly as an economist, but the fact that she is a member of The Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) as are the people with whom she associates, disturbs me more than a little. Her association with Richard Haas, President of the CFR bothers me a lot.

The following was written on April 2, 1997 by Fernando Quintero, a reporter for the Rocky Mountain News in Colorado. Mr. Quintero spent a number of years working in higher education. He was a writer and editor for the University of California at Berkeley Office of Public Affairs.

“Over the past four years nearly a quarter of the University’s (U of Calif. at Berkeley) economics faculty at the Business School and the College of Letters and Sciences has taken leave to go to Washington.  No other university outside the Ivy League  has provided the White House with so much economic brain power.”

-snip-

The fact is, a Berkeley Mafia does exist and Tyson is the Godmother.”
http://www.berkeley.edu/news/berkeleyan/1997/0402/tyson.html

BERNARD SCHWARTZ, along with Tyson, is also a member of The Council on Foreign Relations. He is chairman and CEO of BLS Investments, LLC. His concern over our deteriorating infrastructure is legitimate.  This has been his baby for a long time, but as in the case of Tyson his connections are to be questioned.  Mr Schwartz is a very benevolent donor to the Democratic Party.

GEORGE SOROS is another member of the “New America Foundation”.  Mr Soros is a leading figure in the CFR and close with Henry Kissinger (who once made the statement that Jimmy Carter isn’t the President of the United States, the Trilateralist Commission is, and I am the Trilateralist Commission). Soros is also a confidante of Zbigniew Brzezinski and George Soros is also a partner in the Carlyle Group.  He is truly a busy and involved individual.

“The Carlyle Group specializes in seizing control of aerospace and defense contractors and then strong-arming contracts out of the Department of Defense.”

-snip-

“Shortly after September 11, George Soros developed a strategy how to manipulate messages within the media.”…
http://911review.org/Sept11Wiki/CarlyleGroup.shtml
http://911review.org/Sept11Wiki/Soros,George.shtml

It is my personal opinion that George Soros is a very evil man, and anything he touches smells of fire and brimstone.  This nefarious creature has caused untold damage not only to the United States of America, but to other countries.  He is evil personified and he does not wish well for our country and any group that he is connected with, in my opinion, is just as dirty as he is.

I love my country very much, my ancestors fought and died for this country, and to see this foreign-born billionaire, who was able to come to this country and make a fabulous fortune and then turn around and try to ruin us, makes my blood boil.  He is  one of the main players in the quest to level this country to third world status enabling himself and his cohorts to pronounce a New World Order.  He recently said something to the effect that this crisis has satisfied his life’s ambition.  What kind of devil makes it his life’s ambition to see people out of work, losing their homes, going hungry etc.?  Old Beelzebub must be down there dancing a jig.

“COUNCIL ON FOREIGN RELATIONS, a U.S. think tank.  Some CFR critics say the Korean War, the Vietnam War and the Civil Rights movement were all arranged and approved by the CFR and the insiders.  And that each one has played on a kind of reverse psychology:
The more societal unrest there is , the more people will turn (sic) its govenment for control, eventually becoming so desperate for order that they grant their government more and more power over every citizen’s private life.”

-snip-

“Some of their directors hold important positions in many other worldwide connected companies or government related institutions:  John Deutch, Richard Holbrooke, Theodore Sorenson, George Soros, or David Rockefeller.”
http://911review.org/Sept11Wiki/Cfr.shtml

So you can readily see why I think the New America Foundation is nothing more than the CFR.  New and improved?  Not at all.  This is the same old bunch with the same old ambitions.  Just using a new package to try to fool us old dumb citizens who they think will swallow anything.  Not anymore, Buster.  The cataracts are off our eyes and the wax is out of our ears and we have a steel rod up our spines and we say to you – fool me once, shame on you – fool me twice, shame on me.

No sale,  Mr. Soros and Ms. Tyson. Money is so tight right now that I’m mighty particular what I spend it on and your lying, treacherous words don’t fit into my budget.  Take your global philosophy and eat it– I’m not buying and I’ll bet no other thinking and reading American will either.

Russia-China Proposals; “Rebalancing” Global Currency Reserves: Why the U.S. Can’t Take Anything for Granted Re: the Dollar

~~By InsightAnalytical-GRL

Nothing like tuning into Turner Classic Movies to find the 1936 film “Things to Come,” a version of the H.G. Wells’ novel about a post-World War collapse of Western civilization and rebuilding efforts through that year.

Not very cheery…and neither is the following…

We touched on Timothy Geithner’s “slip” about the dollar, but this article for yesterday’s Guardian details how the proposal China has put forth for a new role for the IMF (International Monetary Fund) is gaining ground.  And the RIA Novosti news outlet (government run), is reporting that Russia wants a conference that will remove the dollar as the world’s reserve currency.

From The Guardian:

Thursday 26 March 2009 14.42 GMT

Global currency flies with push from Russia and slip from Timothy Geithner

The dollar drops back as China’s proposal for an IMF alternative gains ground

Russia plans to hold an international conference to discuss the creation of a global currency to replace the dollar.

According to the RIA news agency, Andrei Denisov, Russia’s first deputy foreign minister, said: “This proposal is aimed at a practical realisation of the idea about a new global accounting unit or a new global currency. It is a question that should be discussed to create a consensus.”

Denisov’s comments came only hours after the US treasury secretary, Timothy Geithner, shocked the markets by saying Washington was open to the idea, though he later qualified his remarks.

The debate about a global reserve currency run by the International Monetary Fund was sparked by a proposal from China this week.

snip

China’s bold proposal has been made before by independent economists, but it has until now met with resistance from the US and other countries with large dollar holdings. Zhou has acknowledged that such a shift could take a long time.

Zhou says it could “take a long time” but if you heard Peter Schiff last night on the Jerry Doyle show, you would have heard him say that China alone can do the job.  They’ve already expressed doubts about U.S. Treasury bonds and we reported a couple of days ago that they are not going to be purchasing any more.

Just yesterday a talking head on FOX’s Shepherd Smith show predicted that the dollar wouldn’t be replaced as the world’s currency at the G-20 meeting, but the agenda of that meeting on April 1-2 sounds an awful lot like what’s coming out of China and Russia.  See our prior posts for details (below).

We also covered the Steve Clemons’/New America Foundation-sponsored Economic Policy Symposium held yesterday in D.C. which featured Laura Tyson and George Soros. Unfortunately, every browser I tried crashed repeatedly as I tried to listen and also when I tied to click through the link below to see the agenda.

I guess we have to be satisfied for now with a summary of sorts by someone I know nothing about, a certain Douglas Rediker,  which was posted yesterday after the forum was over. But I still would love to be able to read/listen to whatever is on the site, without it crashing!

Here’s an excerpt from Rediker’s short post…I suggest reading the whole thing because it has some hard numbers of interest. He takes a different view than Schiff does on what China can do or will do, but the warning is clear (my bolding):

http://www.thewashingtonnote.com/archives/2009/03/rebalancing_glo/

Rebalancing Global Currency Reserves

Thursday, Mar 26 2009, 2:05PM

At this morning’s superb economic event at the New America Foundation and in testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee yesterday, there was a lot of discussion about China’s recent proposal to consider a move away from the US dollar and towards the use of a new “super-sovereign reserve currency.” The intention according to China’s central bank governor, Zhou Xiaochuan, would be to ultimately “create an international reserve currency that is disconnected from individual nations and is able to remain stable in the long run.”

SNIP

…The short term risk is not that China is about to dump its dollar holdings. Rather, it is the trading floors and fund managers around the world, whose job it is to be ahead of the curve, who may well start to re-weight their holdings on the marginally increased probability that this re-weighting might actually occur in the future. As the numbers above suggest, even a relatively small shift could represent a meaningful shift of capital and resulting impact on the dollar’s value.

There are, of course, multiple forces at work in foreign exchange markets and, among the sure-fire ways to lose money in this world are: 1) to play currency markets and 2) to bet against the US and the US dollar. Nevertheless, the fact that this is now likely to be a discussion topic on the agenda for the London Summit, suggests that the US should not take for granted that the US dollar will retain its current role in the world forever. Currencies are traditionally viewed as a reflection of a country’s economic strength. The US cannot lose sight of the crucial role that the “exorbitant privilege” to print the world’s currency provides and do what it can to ensure that this privilege is not lost. We can’t take anything for granted.

Feeling better now? I’m not…

***

Related Posts:

The Scanner–International Edition, March 24, 2009: Say Goodbye to the Dollar? China, Russia Proposing a New World Currency for “Non-Credit” Based Economies, Echo G-20 Agenda of Expanding IMF; China Will “Consider” Buying IMF Bonds; 10th China Develpment Forum Underway (UPDATE 1X–Geithner Supports China Proposal??)

The Scanner-Politics: March 25, 2009 (G-20; Glenn Beck’s “The One Thing” Segment on the Dollar [Video]; “The Big Takeover”; Al Gore Releasing New Book on Election Day 11/3/2009; Augie the Dog Sends a Deposit to the U.S. Treasury)

A Reminder: Live Streaming of the First “Bernard L. Schwartz Economic Policy Symposium” Today (3/26) With a Rather Interesting Group & Agenda (To End “Fumbling” on Economic Policy)

A Reminder: Live Streaming of the First “Bernard L. Schwartz Economic Policy Symposium” Today (3/26) With a Rather Interesting Group & Agenda (To End “Fumbling” on Economic Policy)

~~By InsightAnalytical-GRL

This might be something to keep an eye on…

From the Washington Note:

Bernard Schwartz, Laura Tyson, Martin Wolf, George Soros,  Mark Zandi and Others to Headline Major NAF Economic Policy Forum on London G-20 Meeting and What Will Replace US Consumer

http://www.thewashingtonnote.com/archives/2009/03/george_soros_be/

This conference will be STREAMED LIVE at the WN site…

Excerpt from the above archived  post/ URL:

The first “Bernard L. Schwartz Economic Policy Symposium” will take place in Washington at the New America Foundation offices on Thursday, 26 March 2009. Attendance information is here.

Financier and former Loral CEO Bernard Schwartz has been trying to push the administration and Congress to realize that there are different kinds of deficits the nation has to struggle with — and the most important in his mind is leaving an “infrastruture deficit” to the next generation. He will be helping to open this important conference.

snip

I will be moderating the meeting along with my colleague Sherle Schwenninger and New America Foundation President and New Yorker staff writer Steve Coll.

Bernard Schwartz. . .George Soros. . .Laura Tyson. . .Martin Wolf. . .Clyde Prestowitz. . .Desmond Lachman. . .Tom Gallagher. . .Steve Coll. . .Mark Zandi. . .William Gerrity. . .Leo Hindery. . .Richard Vague. . .Nicholas Lardy. . .Jeff Madrick. . .Sherle Schwenninger. . .and others make up quite a line up for a great meeting.

snip

This entire conference will STREAM LIVE on this blog, The Washington Note between approximately 8:30 am and 1:00 pm EST on Thursday, 26 March 2009.

snip

The purpose we have in organizing this meeting is to try and position some of the key issues that should be considered at the London G-20 meeting and to begin to emphasize that the fumbling on economic policy needs to stop. (my bolding)

It’s time to begin organizing a Team B economic policy effort — even if it is organized by a network of concerned civil society leaders.

MMMa “Team B” ….”even if it is organized by a network of concerned civil society leaders.”

Remember Laura Tyson during the Clinton years?  And what’s George Soros got to say??