From: TruthOut
 |
| (Photo: Allison Harger) |
On December 11, 2014, the US House passed a bill
repealing the Dodd-Frank requirement that risky derivatives be pushed
into big-bank subsidiaries, leaving our deposits and pensions exposed to
massive derivatives losses. The bill was vigorously challenged by
Senator Elizabeth Warren; but the tide turned when Jamie Dimon, CEO of
JPMorganChase, stepped into the ring. Perhaps what prompted his
intervention was the unanticipated $40 drop in the price of oil. As financial blogger Michael Snyder points out,
that drop could trigger a derivatives payout that could bankrupt the
biggest banks. And if the G20's new "bail-in" rules are formalized,
depositors and pensioners could be on the hook.
The new bail-in rules were discussed in my last post here.
They are edicts of the Financial Stability Board (FSB), an unelected
body of central bankers and finance ministers headquartered in the Bank
for International Settlements in Basel, Switzerland. Where did the FSB
get these sweeping powers, and is its mandate legally enforceable?
Those questions were addressed in an article I wrote in June 2009, two months after the FSB was formed, titled "Big Brother in Basel:
BIS Financial Stability Board Undermines National Sovereignty." It
linked the strange boot shape of the BIS to a line from Orwell's 1984:
"a boot stamping on a human face—forever." The concerns raised there
seem to be materializing, so I'm republishing the bulk of that article
here. We need to be paying attention, lest the bail-in juggernaut
steamroll over us unchallenged.
The Shadowy Financial Stability Board
Alarm bells went off in April 2009, when the Bank for International
Settlements (BIS) was linked to the new Financial Stability Board (FSB)
signed onto by the G20 leaders in London. The FSB was an expansion of
the older Financial Stability Forum (FSF) set up in 1999 to serve in a
merely advisory capacity by the G7 (a group of finance ministers formed
from the seven major industrialized nations). The chair of the FSF was
the General Manager of the BIS. The new FSB was expanded to include all G20 members (19 nations plus the EU).
Formally called the "Group of Twenty Finance Ministers and Central
Bank Governors," the G20 was, like the G7, originally set up as a forum
merely for cooperation and consultation on matters pertaining to the
international financial system. What set off alarms was that the new
Financial Stability Board had real teeth, imposing "obligations" and
"commitments" on its members; and this feat was pulled off without
legislative formalities, skirting the usual exacting requirements for
treaties. It was all done in hasty response to an "emergency."
Problem-reaction-solution was the slippery slope of coups. MORE
No comments:
Post a Comment