By William M. Esposo
Sunday, October 19, 2008
Lyndon H. LaRouche Jr., founder of the Executive Intelligence Review (EIR is accessible on: http://www.larouchepub.com/), foresaw over 40 years ago the financial meltdown and how it will trigger global mega problems. At this time, after listening to the mantra of the very people who brought the US and other countries to the financial meltdown, perhaps we should now listen to people like Lyndon H. LaRouche Jr. who called it right in the first place.
Butch Valdes heads the Philippine LaRouche Society. I’ve known Butch Valdes for the past three decades. Butch was featured a few months ago in Korina Sanchez’s Korina Today ANC Show where he explained the principles and policies that the Philippine LaRouche Society has been advocating.
I recently posed the following questions to Butch and he responded with these insightful answers:
Q: What is the gist of the thesis of Lyndon H. LaRouche Jr. as to what is wrong in the current world economic order? What are the great inequities of the present economic order?
Valdes: “Everything is wrong with the current economic order that’s founded on the global financial system of floating exchange rates, officially implemented in 1971 by the US unilateral withdrawal from the Bretton Woods Agreement of 1945 which is a system of “fixed” exchange rates.
This move initiated by the world’s money lenders shifted investments away from that which focused on expanding production and physical economy (generated labor) to speculative investments in casino-type markets (no employment economies). Since investments and loans (credits) were lured into speculating (gambling) and placing bets in money markets, commodity futures markets, bond markets, real estate markets and derivatives markets, the physical side of the economies, which are the labor generators, suffered a corresponding loss of credit and investments and thus started to shrink and can no longer absorb employment. The?dramatically widening gap between increasing financial and monetary aggregates (securities) on one side and the decrease in production output on the other result in a collapse function for all economies.
The Philippines is a classic case of this planned deterioration. As a result, we have had to export our people as domestic helpers and prostitutes, and we’ve lost our capability to feed ourselves.”
Q: When did LaRouche exactly predict what is now happening in the world markets? What is LaRouche’s vision of the right economic world order?
Valdes: “LaRouche has forecasted the current systemic collapse and disintegration some 40 years ago. He organized a movement precisely to warn the world about the dangers of “monetarism” ‑ the very same system which led to the collapse of 1929 and subsequently, World War II. ?
But since the 2007-2008 crash is upon us, LaRouche has proposed emergency legislation (Home and Bank Protection Act, HBPA) to be passed immediately – similar to the steps taken by Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1933 to address the Great Depression. The HBPA calls for protection?and non-eviction of homeowners (approximately 7 million) who may lose their homes because of non-payment of mortgages. Correspondingly, all state and city chartered commercial banks should get full federal government support in order to continue to function as providers of credit for continuance of businesses.
His vision of an economic order goes along the tradition and principles of the Roosevelt-initiated Bretton Woods Agreement of 1945. This economic order, signed by heads of 45 countries in New Hampshire, was the establishment of a system based on the principle of sovereign nation-states that are bound by a common purpose. This called for the development of all economies, all populations and succeeding generations through active collaboration in the implementation of a system of fixed-exchange rates, technology-sharing, and a guarantee of each nation’s sovereignty.”
Q: Who are the ‘villains’ responsible for promoting the bad world economic order?
Valdes: “The villains are the financial oligarchy — the usurious money lenders, those who make money out of other people’s money. Throughout the history of man, they have always been the villains. The shylocks who never failed to exact a pound of flesh as payment of debt.”
Q: How can the Philippines benefit from the ideas of LaRouche?
Valdes: “Those of us in positions of leadership in government, in business and the academe, (especially the ‘econoquacks’) should stop lying to the people and cease singing this mantra of “the fundamentals of our economy are sound.”??
We can only benefit from LaRouche’s leadership?by understanding the strategic causes of our present malaise. In all humility, we should acknowledge the gross errors that we made and muster the courage to correct the mistakes and implement the emergency measures needed to save as many Filipino lives as possible.
The Philippine LaRouche Society has proposed three programmatic emergency steps to enhance our society’s ability to survive and continue to function as a nation-state:
1. We must declare a moratorium on foreign debt payments. Before the idea becomes moot, the present leadership must seriously consider declaring a moratorium on debt payments which by now may reach upwards of $10 billion a year. We’ve been servicing a liability which merely ballooned due to three decades of peso devaluation that was facilitated by the “floating-exchange rate” system.
2. We must rehabilitate and activate soonest the Bataan Nuclear Power Plant which is indigenous, safe, and a cheap source of reliable energy. After spending approximately $4 billion on the nuclear power facility, we have not produced a single watt from it. Much of the scare tactics coming from misinformed and/or ill-intentioned sectors can easily be addressed. The general public must be informed of technological developments in the last 20 years which render fears on safety and efficiency as baseless and outdated. The more important thing for the leadership is to anticipate a global energy crisis and prepare to produce reliable and renewable energy from indigenous sources.
3. A Massive Food Production Program should take precedence over other projects which are not directly benefiting our people’s capacity to survive. Government must embark in expanding irrigation and water management facilities, building inventories of seeds, seedlings, fertilizer, fingerlings, feeds, etc. We must enact laws which would mandate that all land must be productive and not idle. We must enjoin the whole population to participate in a new green revolution geared towards the survival of our nation.
This integrated approach may not be the only solution but if implemented immediately, it will give our people new hope and motivation to cooperate with the leadership in achieving the survival of our society.”
It is sound management practice that those who created a major problem should not be relied upon to provide the solution. When asked to solve the problems that they created, managers will tend to waste time and energy trying to rationalize their failures — distracting from the more important task of formulating the right strategy and plan.
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Chair Wrecker e-mail and website: macesposo@yahoo.com and www.chairwrecker.com
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