And the Economy of Nothing

From a Bretton Woods Committee slide show titled Opportunities in Emerging Markets, by June E. Schoenfeld:

The Bretton Woods Committee, the American-based lobbyist group for the ultra-rich, sent a letter and fax, dated February 11, 2009, to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid,

The members of the Bretton Woods Committee are concerned about the "Buy American" provisions in the economic stimulus bills. The House-passed provision requires contractors to purchase only American-made goods for stimulus-funded projects. The Senate has agreed to a less-onerous version requiring that the provisions must be applied in a manner consistent with U.S. obligations under international agreements.

The missive continues on warning against such provisions. Interesting to note they raised no such objects for those bank bailouts, even though the very same exact argument could be raised (and would be technically far more legal) against them as they conflicted with the WTO Financial Services Agreement, etc.

Those "Buy American" provisions were later greatly watered down, with a number of waivers granted to date by the Department of the Commerce.

It is interesting to make note of the influence and power of this organization, made up of the power elite of international finance and private equity.

The Undersecretary of State for Economics, Energy and Agricultural Affairs, Robert Hormats, also a member of the Bretton Woods Committee, is promoting the Obama Administration program on increased exports. Unfortunately, he appears to be essentially promoting the adoption of yet more "free trade agreements" and the exporting of further American jobs.

Are there really any jobs left to export?

Mr. Hormats, former vice chairman of Goldman Sachs International, former aide to Henry Kissinger, and former member of the Nixon Administration, has long been an ardent promoter of these so-called free trade agreements. Mr. Hormats has also worked on behalf of the Chinese oil industry which, for anyone unaware is, like the majority of Chinese factories, owned by the Chinese military.

Therefore, Mr. Hormats was technically working on behalf of the Chinese military. Not a man to inspire confidence in the American worker on any level.

While the letter quoted from above is no longer online, another letter, with the signatories on the second page, can be found at this site here. (Demonstrates the heavy hitters, and some well-known financiers, involved with this group.)

For anyone interested, please check their membership list and compare against the members of the Obama Administration.

The challenge is in finding members of his administration who aren't members of this lobbyist group for the ultra-rich!

So all those people who have worked for, and profited from, the dismantling of the American economy, are back in place in the Obama Administration to further their agenda.

What was that definition for insanity?

This slide show had some neat graphs, so here's a few more below.

I have long argued about the trivial difference, if any, existing between the Republican and Democratic parties today.

One need only go back, beginning with the Nixon Administration, and compare the presidential appointments of each and every administration from there, to the members of each and every presidential administration up to the present one, to realize this.

It is not that President Obama hasn't replaced many of the previous Bush appointees, so much as they are also his people.

So also did many of the Carter Administration appointees remain with the Reagan Administration, as like begets like.

To be truly aware today, it is paramount that the citizenry focus on real populists, such as Jesse Ventura, who asks the hard questions, rather than those faux populists (and staunch anti-union, wackadoodle teabaggers) such as Lou Dobbs, who seek to confuse and mislead us.

REFERENCES

Orr, James C. Letter to the United States Congress. Feb. 11, 2009.
http://www.brettonwoods.org (accessed March 2009)

Schoenfeld, June E. A Presentation for the Bretton Woods Committee. "Opportunities in Emerging Markets." May 2007.
http://www.brettonwoods.org/uploads/pages/189/051707_Presentation.ppt