IWF AN EU:

ENTEIGNET EURE BÜRGER!

Das globale Finanzsystem gleicht seit 2008 einem Patienten, der auf der Intensivstation liegt und künstlich am Leben erhalten wird. Seine Ärzte sind die Zentralbanken, die ihm immer höhere Dosen immer billigeren Geldes verabreichen und dabei wissen: Ohne diese Behandlung wäre der Patient innerhalb kürzester Zeit tot.

Von Ernst Wolff

Ähnlich wie mit dem Finanzsystem verhält es sich derzeit mit den italienischen Banken. Sie sind aus eigener Kraft nicht überlebensfähig. Für genau diesen Fall hat die EU die Bail-in–Regelung eingeführt. Sie besagt: In Not geratene Banken sollen nicht mehr wie 2008 durch ein Bail-out, also mit dem Geld der Steuerzahler, sondern zunächst durch die teilweise Enteignung von Aktionären, Einlegern und Sparern gerettet werden.

ITALIEN UND EU IN DER SACKGASSE

Dieses Prinzip ist allerdings bereits im vergangenen Dezember bei vier Banken in der Toskana angewendet worden und hat nicht nur dort, sondern in ganz ITALIEN für Aufruhr gesorgt: Es wurde nämlich deutlich, dass es alles andere als sozial gerecht ist. Während ultrareiche Investoren ihre Vermögen durch ihren Informationsvorsprung rechtzeitig abziehen und in Sicherheit bringen konnten, wurden Arbeiter, Angestellte, Kleinunternehmer und Rentner kalt erwischt und über Nacht zwangsenteignet. Einige von ihnen verloren ihre gesamten Ersparnisse, ein Rentner nahm sich aus Verzweiflung das Leben.

Die italienische Regierung steht nun vor einem unlösbaren Dilemma: Wendet sie die Bail-in-Regelung erneut an, muss sie mit heftigem sozialem Widerstand, möglicherweise einem Volksaufstand und einem Run auf die Banken rechnen. Wendet sie die Regelung nicht an, ist sie auf die Unterstützung der EU angewiesen.

Die EU aber befindet sich ebenfalls in einer Zwangslage: Gibt sie den italienischen Forderungen nach, macht sie sich nicht nur unglaubwürdig, sondern verteilt das Problem einfach nur auf alle europäischen Steuerzahler. Diese aber sind gleichzeitig die Wähler der nationalen Regierungen und werden jede weitere Maßnahme dieser Art durch Abwendung von den etablierten Parteien und nach dem Brexit-Votum der Briten durch weitere Austrittsforderungen aus der EU quittieren.

DER IWF SCHALTET SICH EIN

In die Patt-Situation zwischen der italienischen Regierung und der EU-Führung hat sich nun der IWF eingeschaltet. Die erste Frage, die sich dem Beobachter aufdrängt, lautet: Wieso mischt sich der IWF überhaupt in innere Angelegenheiten der EU ein? Die Antwort: Die Angelegenheit ist alles andere als ein internes Problem der EU. Hier der Grund:

Wegen der seit Jahren instabilen Situation des Finanzsystems wird heute kaum noch ein Kredit ohne Kreditausfallversicherung (englisch: credit default swap oder CDS) vergeben. Dabei versichert sich der Kreditgeber gegen den möglichen Zahlungsausfall seines Schuldners. Was einmal vernünftig als Maßnahme zur Risikobegrenzung gedacht war, ist durch die Deregulierung der Finanzmärkte in eine der gefährlichsten Tellerminen im Finanzgeschäft verwandelt worden: Heute ist es nämlich auch solchen Marktteilnehmern, die an der Vergabe eines Kredites nicht beteiligt sind, gestattet, eine Kreditausfallversicherung abzuschließen.

Das hat jede Menge Spekulanten auf den Plan gerufen, die sich gezielt nach unsicheren Krediten umsehen und darauf Ausfallversicherungen abschließen, d.h.: auf ihren Ausfall wetten. Je mehr von ihnen auf den Zug aufspringen, umso größer die Summe, die bei einem tatsächlichen Ausfall des Schuldners fällig wird – im Falle der italienischen Banken dürfte es sich dabei inzwischen um weit mehr als eine Billion Euro handeln.

Insbesondere Hedgefonds (Vermögensverwaltungen für Milliardäre) lauern im Hintergrund und warten nur darauf, dass es zu Zahlungsausfällen kommt. Da die meisten Kreditausfallversicherungen bei Marktgiganten wie der DEUTSCHEN BANK, der CRÉDIT SUISSE und den US-Großbanken JP-MORGAN und GOLDMAN SACHS abgeschlossen wurden, ist das Problem der italienischen Banken also kein nationales, sondern ein internationales. Und in der internationalen Arena hat vor allem einer das Sagen: der IWF.

Allerdings steckt der IWF in Bezug auf die EU ebenfalls in der Klemme. Auf der einen Seite ist die EU ein Konkurrent der USA, daher ist der IWF an ihrer Schwächung interessiert. Auf der anderen Seite ist die EU ein essentieller Teil des globalen Finanzgefüges und könnte es im Falle ihres Zusammenbruchs mit in den Abgrund reißen. Aus diesem Grund muss der IWF also versuchen, die EU trotz aller Störmanöver am Leben zu erhalten.

DAS REZEPT DES IWF IST BEREITS AUSGESTELLT

In der Tat bemüht sich der IWF zurzeit um eine solche Doppel-Strategie: Indem er die italienische Regierung in ihrer Forderung nach einem Bail-out durch die EU unterstützt, treibt er die seinem Vorschlag ablehnend gegenüberstehenden deutschen Politiker in die Enge: Geben sie nicht nach, droht der Banken-Kollaps in ITALIEN, geben sie nach, wird die Empörung darüber ihren Rückhalt in der Bevölkerung weiter schwinden lassen.

Noch kann niemand sagen, wie das Drama um die italienischen Banken ausgehen wird. Nur eines ist gewiss: Selbst ihre vorübergehende Stabilisierung würde nur einen Bruchteil der Probleme in der Eurozone lösen. Derzeit nicht im Blick der Öffentlichkeit sind nämlich noch die spanischen, portugiesischen und griechischen Banken, deren Bilanzen ebenfalls riesige Löcher aufweisen. Dazu kommen die Staatsschulden, die inzwischen nicht nur in GRIECHENLAND, sondern auch in ITALIEN, SPANIEN, PORTUGAL, BELGIEN und IRLAND mehr als 100 % des Bruttoinlandsproduktes ausmachen und damit als untragbar gelten.

Das Problem, vor dem die EU zurzeit steht, ist also erheblich größer als das der italienischen Banken und erfordert langfristig wesentlich mehr Geld als eine „einfache“ Bankenrettung. Doch woher soll es in einer Situation allgemein hoffnungsloser Verschuldung kommen?

Der IWF hat seine Antwort auf diese Frage bereits vor Jahren gegeben: In der Broschüre „Taxing Times“ vom Oktober 2013 hat er zur Lösung der europäischen Schuldenkrise eine „einmalige Vermögensabgabe“ in Form einer Steuer auf Privatvermögen ins Gespräch gebracht und diese Forderung sogar präzisiert: „Um die Schuldenquote auf das Niveau vom Jahresende 2007 zu senken, bedürfte es… eines Steuersatzes von etwa 10 % auf alle Haushalte, die über Kapitalvermögen verfügen.“ Da die Verschuldung seit 2013 um ca. 1,5 Billionen Euro gestiegen ist, müsste der Prozentsatz heute also noch etwas höher liegen.

In anderen Worten: Für den Ernstfall verlangt der IWF von der EU, der arbeitenden Bevölkerung durch einen Rundumschlag einen Teil ihrer hart erarbeiteten Rücklagen zu entziehen. Und das nicht etwa, um die Probleme der EU ein für allemal aus der Welt zu schaffen, sondern nur, um einen Reset auf den Stand von 2007 vorzunehmen! Da der IWF keinerlei Konsequenzen für die Verursacher der Krise fordert, ist es nicht schwer, sich seine Zukunftsvision auszumalen: Nach der Enteignung darf das gegenwärtige Spiel zu den gleichen Regeln wieder von vorn beginnen: Nachdem die arbeitende Bevölkerung gezwungen wurde, für die von ultrareichen Investoren angerichteten Schäden aufzukommen, dürfen diese nach dem Willen des IWF auch weiterhin ungehemmt auf Kosten der Allgemeinheit spekulieren.

Ernst Wolff ist freier Journalist und Autor des Buches „Weltmacht IWF – Chronik eines Raubzugs“, erschienen im Tectum-Verlag, Marburg. Sc

LIBYA - EXPOSING THE LIBYAN AGENDA:

ALL ABOUT MONEY, BANKING, AND PREVENTING AFRICAN ECONOMIC SOVEREIGNTY?

Critics have long questioned why violent intervention was necessary in LIBYA. HILLARY CLINTON’S recently published emails confirm that it was less about protecting the people from a dictator than about money, banking, and preventing AFRICAN economic sovereignty.

Background Information: 

AFRICAN ECONOMIC SOVEREIGNTY

Click below to read entire reports: 

WAS LIBYA GETTING A TOO POWERFUL PLAYER IN AFRICA FOR WESTERN ENTITIES?

IT’S ALL ABOUT WATER, OIL AND

THE INTERNATIONAL FINANCIAL INSTITUTIONS

LIBYA HAS BASICALLY BEEN “FAILED” BY WESTERN ENTITIES

The brief visit of then-Secretary of State HILLARY CLINTON to LIBYA in October 2011 was referred to by the media as a “victory lap.” “We came, we saw, he died!” she crowed in a CBS video interview on hearing of the capture and brutal murder of LIBYAN leader MUAMMAR EL-QADDAFI.

But the victory lap, was premature. LIBYA was relegated to the back burner by the State Department, “as the country dissolved into chaos, leading to a civil war that would destabilize the region, fueling the refugee crisis in EUROPE and allowing the Islamic State to establish a LIBYAN haven that the UNITED STATES is now desperately trying to contain.”

Background Information: 

US STRATEGY IN LIBYA

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WASHINGTON’SAL QAEDA ALLY NOW LEADING ISIS IN LIBYA

DOOMED FROM DAY ONE

US-NATO intervention was allegedly undertaken on humanitarian grounds, after reports of mass atrocities; but human rights organizations questioned the claims after finding a lack of evidence. Today, however, verifiable atrocities are occurring. As DAN KOVALIK wrote in the Huffington Post, “the human rights situation in LIBYA is a disaster, as ‘thousands of detainees [including children] languish in prisons without proper judicial review,’ and ‘kidnappings and targeted killings are rampant’.”

Before 2011, LIBYA had achieved economic independence, with its own water, its own food, its own oil, its own money, and its own state-owned bank. It had arisen under QADDAFI from one of the poorest of countries to the richest in AFRICA. Education and medical treatment were free; having a home was considered a human right; and LIBYANS participated in an original system of local democracy. The country boasted the world’s largest irrigation system, the Great Man-made River project, which brought water from the desert to the cities and coastal areas; and QADDAFI was embarking on a program to spread this model throughout AFRICA.

Background Information: 

LIBYA - A THRIVING COUNTRY BEFORE WESTERN INTERVENTION 

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THINGS WERE LOOKING GOOD FOR LIBYA – TOO GOOD?

  

VOLATILE SAHEL REGION

But that was before US-NATO forces bombed the irrigation system and wreaked havoc on the country. Today the situation is so dire that President OBAMA has asked his advisers to draw up options including a new military front in LIBYA, and the Defense Department is reportedly standing ready with “the full spectrum of military operations required.”

The Secretary of State’s victory lap was indeed premature, if what we’re talking about is the officially stated goal of humanitarian intervention. But her newly-released emails reveal another agenda behind the LIBYAN war; and this one, it seems, was achieved.

Mission Accomplished?

Of the 3,000 emails released from HILLARY CLINTON’S private email server in late December 2015, about a third were from her close confidante SIDNEY BLUMENTHAL, special adviser for the CLINTON'S during the MONICA LEWINSKY scandal. One of these emails, dated April 2, 2011, reads in part:

CENTRAL BANK OF LIBYA

“QADDAFI’S government holds 143 tons of gold, and a similar amount in silver . . . . This gold was accumulated prior to the current rebellion and was intended to be used to establish a pan-AFRICAN currency based on the LIBYAN golden DINAR. This plan was designed to provide the FRANCOPHONE AFRICAN Countries with an alternative to the FRENCH franc (CFA).”

In a “source comment,” the original declassified email adds:

“According to knowledgeable individuals this quantity of gold and silver is valued at more than $7 billion. FRENCH intelligence officers discovered this plan shortly after the current rebellion began, and this was one of the factors that influenced President NICOLAS SARKOZY’S decision to commit FRANCE to the attack on LIBYA. According to these individuals SARKOZY’S plans are driven by the following issues:

A desire to gain a greater share of LIBYA oil production,

Increase FRENCH influence in NORTH AFRICA,

Improve his internal political situation in FRANCE,

Provide the FRENCH military with an opportunity to reassert its position in the world,

Address the concern of his advisers over Qaddafi’s long term plans to supplant France as the dominant power in Francophone Africa.”

Conspicuously absent is any mention of humanitarian concerns.

THE OBJECTIVES ARE MONEY, POWER AND OIL.

Background Information: 

GRAB FOR LIBYA’S MONEY AND GOLD RESERVES 

Click below to read entire report: 

GRAB FOR THE CENTRAL BANK OF LIBYA BY INTERNATIONAL FINANCIAL INSTITUTIONS

OVER$100 BILLION UNDER THE GOVERNOR OF THE CENTRAL BANK OF LIBYA

Other explosive confirmations in the newly-published emails are detailed by investigative journalist ROBERT PARRY. They include admissions of rebel war crimes, of special ops trainers inside LIBYA from nearly the start of protests, and of AL QAEDA embedded in the US-backed opposition. Key propaganda themes for violent intervention are acknowledged to be mere rumors. Political analysts suggest they may have originated with BLUMENTHAL himself. They include the bizarre claim that QADDAFI had a “rape policy” involving passing Viagra out to his troops, a charge later raised by UN Ambassador SUSAN RICE in a UN presentation. These analysts ask rhetorically:

“So do you think it would it be easier for the OBAMA administration to rally American support behind this “regime change” by explaining how the FRENCH wanted to steal LIBYA’S wealth and maintain FRENCH neocolonial influence

over AFRICA – or would AMERICANS respond better to propaganda themes about GADDAFI passing out Viagra to his troops so they could rape more women while his snipers targeted innocent children? Bingo!”

Toppling the Global Financial Scheme

QADDAFI’S threatened attempt to establish an independent AFRICAN currency was not taken lightly by WESTERN interests. In 2011, SARKOZY reportedly called the LIBYAN leader a threat to the financial security of the world. How could this tiny country of six million people pose such a threat? First some background.

It is banks, not governments, which create most of the money in Western economies, as the BANK OF ENGLAND recently acknowledged. This has been going on for centuries, through the process called “fractional reserve” lending. Originally, the reserves were in gold.  In 1933, President FRANKLIN ROOSEVELT replaced gold domestically with central bank-created reserves, but gold remained the reserve currency internationally.

In 1944, the INTERNATIONAL MONETARY FUND and the WORLD BANK were created in BRETTON WOODS, NEW HAMPSHIRE, to unify this bank-created money system globally. An IMF ruling said that no paper money could have gold backing. A money supply created privately as debt at interest requires a continual supply of debtors; and over the next half century, most developing countries wound up in debt to the IMF. The loans came with strings attached, including “structural adjustment” policies involving austerity measures and privatization of public assets.

After 1944, the US dollar traded interchangeably with gold as global reserve currency. When the US was no longer able to maintain the dollar’s gold backing, in the 1970s it made a deal with OPEC to “back” the dollar with oil, creating the “petro-dollar.”  Oil would be sold only in US dollars, which would be deposited in Wall Street and other international banks.  

In 2001, dissatisfied with the shrinking value of the dollars that OPEC was getting for its oil, Iraq’s Saddam Hussein broke the pact and sold oil in euros. Regime change swiftly followed, accompanied by widespread destruction of the country.

In LIBYA, QADDAFI also broke the pact; but he did more than just sell his oil in another currency.

NATIONALIZING OIL COMPANIES AND CREATING A PAN AFRICAN CURRENCY BROKE QADDAFI’S BACK. FROM THIS MOMENT, QADDAFI WAS ONCE AGAIN THE BAD DICTATOR

Post 2011 relations with LIBYA

For decades, LIBYA and other AFRICAN countries had been attempting to create a pan-AFRICAN gold standard.  LIBYA’S AL-QADHAFI and other heads of AFRICAN STATES had wanted an independent, pan-African, “hard currency.”

Under AL-QADHAFI’S leadership, AFRICAN nations had convened at least twice for monetary unification.  The countries discussed the possibility of using the LIBYAN dinar and the silver dirham as the only possible money to buy AFRICAN oil.

Libyan Gold Dinar 

Until the recent US/NATO invasion, the gold dinar was issued by the CENTRAL BANK OF LIBYA (CBL).  The LIBYAN bank was 100% state owned and independent.  Foreigners had to go through the CBL to do business with LIBYA.  The CENTRAL BANK OF LIBYA issued the dinar, using the country’s 143.8 tons of gold.

LIBYA’S QADHAFI (AFRICAN Union 2009 Chair) conceived and financed a plan to unify the sovereign STATES OF AFRICA with one gold currency (UNITED STATES OF AFRICA).  In 2004, a pan-AFRICAN Parliament (53 nations) laid plans for the AFRICAN Economic Community – with a single gold currency by 2023.

AFRICAN oil-producing nations were planning to abandon the petro-dollar, and demand gold payment for oil/gas.

SHOWING WHAT IS POSSIBLE

QADDAFI had done more than organize an AFRICAN monetary coup. He had demonstrated that financial independence could be achieved. His greatest infrastructure project, the Great Man-made River, was turning arid regions into a breadbasket for LIBYA; and the $33 billion project was being funded interest-free without foreign debt, through LIBYA’S own state-owned bank.

That could explain why this critical piece of infrastructure was destroyed in 2011. NATO not only bombed the pipeline but finished off the project by bombing the factory producing the pipes necessary to repair it. Crippling a civilian irrigation system serving up to 70% of the population hardly looks like humanitarian intervention.

AFRICAN SELF-RELIANCE - AT ODDS WITH THE GEO - STRATEGIC AND POLITICAL ECONOMIC AMBITIONS OF WESTERN ENTITIES

The goal of US military intervention was to disrupt an emerging pattern of independence and a network of collaboration within AFRICA that would facilitate increased AFRICAN self-reliance. This is at odds with the geostrategic and political economic ambitions of extra-continental EUROPEAN powers, namely the US.

MYSTERY SOLVED – GLOBAL MONETARY SYSTEM AFTER LIBYA'S MONEY RESERVE

Hilary Clinton’s emails shed light on another enigma remarked on by early political observers. Why, within weeks of initiating fighting, did the rebels set up their own central bank? Robert Wenzel wrote in The Economic Policy Journal in 2011:

This suggests we have a bit more than a rag tag bunch of rebels running around and that there are some pretty sophisticated influences. I have never before heard of a central bank being created in just a matter of weeks out of a popular uprising.

It was all highly suspicious, but as Alex Newman concluded in a November 2011 article:

Whether salvaging central banking and the corrupt global monetary system were truly among the reasons for Gadhafi’s overthrow . . . may never be known for certain – at least not publicly.

LIBYAN INTERVENTION

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LIBYAN INTERVENTION IS AND WAS ALL ABOUT WATER, OIL AND

THE INTERNATIONAL FINANCIAL INSTITUTIONS

· LIBYA possessed more than us$150 billion in overseas financial assets and had one of the largest sovereign investment funds in the world at the start of 2011

·        In 2008 GOLDMAN SACHS was given us$1.3 billion dollars by the LIBYAN investment authority.

·  Then, in an blink of an eye, GOLDMAN SACHS had effectively appropriated us$1.3 billion dollars from TRIPOLI

· GOLDMAN SACHS was not alone in filching LIBYAN investment funds: SOCIÉTÉ GÉNÉRALE S.A., CARLYLE GROUP, J.P. MORGAN CHASE, OCH-ZIFF CAPITAL MANAGEMENT GROUP, and LEHMAN BROTHERS holdings were also all in possession of vast LIBYAN investments and funds.

·  NATO’s war on LIBYA and the freeze of LIBYAN financial assets profited all the INTERNATIONAL FINANCIAL INSTITUTIONS.

·   While LIBYAN energy reserves and geopolitics played major roles in launching the 2011 war, it was also waged in part to appropriate TRIPOLI’S vast financial holdings and to supplement and maintain the crumbling financial hegemony of Wall Street and other financial centers.

·    WALL STREET COULD NOT ALLOW TRIPOLI TO BE DEBT-FREE, to continue accumulating international financial possessions, and to be a creditor nation giving international loans and investing funds in other countries, particularly in AFRICA.

·         The NUBIAN SANDSTONE AQUIFER SYSTEM

·     LIBYAN government had spent about us$19.6 billion dollars on the water project

·   Huge water multinationals in the US, FRANCE were salivating at the idea of privatizing LIBYAN fresh water and controlling the NUBIAN SANDSTONE AQUIFER SYSTEM.

·        NUBIAN SANDSTONE AQUIFER SYSTEM is the world’s largest fossil aquifer system and will be “the biggest and in some cases the only future source of water to meet growing demands and development” among CHAD, EGYPT, LIBYA, and SUDAN

·         Was LIBYA getting a too powerful player in AFRICA for the liking's of western powers?

There the matter would have remained – suspicious but unverified like so many stories of fraud and corruption – but for the publication of Hillary Clinton’s emails after an FBI probe. They add substantial weight to Newman’s suspicions: violent intervention was not chiefly about the security of the people. It was about the security of global banking, money and oil.

Adapted by Geopolitical Analysis and Monitoring from the original article

written by Ellen Brown, who  is an attorney, founder of the Public Banking Institute, and author of twelve books including the best-selling Web of Debt. Her latest book, The Public Bank Solution, explores successful public banking models historically and globally. Her 300+ blog articles are at EllenBrown.com. Listen to “It’s Our Money with Ellen Brown” on PRN.FM.

POLITICAL TANGO ARGENTINA - ONE STEP FORWARD – TWO BACK

ARGENTINA’S PAINFUL RETURN TO 
“ECONOMIC ORTHODOXY”

The new MACRI government in ARGENTINA has embarked on a rapid-fire series of conservative economic reforms, threatening public sector employment and social programs.

Since taking office on December 10, ARGENTINA’S new president MAURICIO MACRI has moved at a hurried pace to overhaul twelve years of progressive economic and social policies implemented by the successive NÉSTOR and CRISTINA KIRCHNER governments.

DEMOCRACY AT STAKE - GOVERNING BY DECREE

In his first two weeks, and governing by “emergency” decree, MACRI lifted currency controls—devaluing the peso by 30 percent—passed a decree seeking approval from Congress to slash education spending by half, and attacked the hard-won Broadcast Media Law that limited media concentration. He also eliminated the KIRCHNERS’ agricultural export taxes, removed a series of electric and gas subsidies, and shut down the popular KIRCHNERIST television talk show 678. Though many conservatives heralded the changes, the country’s social movements have responded with outcry and protest.

Background Information:
Click here: ARGENTINE CORPORATE MEDIA: WAR BY MEDIA AND THE TRIUMPH OF PROPAGANDA

BACK TO “BUSINESS”

Following ARGENTINA’S break with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) in 2002 as part of its strategy to pursue policy options going against the “WASHINGTON CONSENSUS” neoliberal framework, the KIRCHNER governments followed a KEYNESIAN model of economic growth, protecting national industries and boosting internal consumption in order to stimulate the economy. From 2002 to 2011, ARGENTINA achieved the fastest economic growth in the Western Hemisphere.

CORPOCRACY IS BACK IN ARGENTINA

MACRI’S government, much more allied with the business community and a myriad of international corporations, is now racing back toward a free market-oriented model aimed at attracting foreign investment while reducing state spending and implementing austerity measures. Such contractionary policies have often slowed economic growth and prolonged recessions in developing economies.

Though many economists agree a currency adjustment was necessary to correct for years of the peso being held artificially strong and to curb falling reserves in the Central Bank, the sharp peso devaluation on MACRI’S second day in office led to an immediate fall in purchasing power for ARGENTINE consumers. This was something the KIRCHNER economic model had worked to prevent by regularly increasing salaries and pensions to keep up with rising prices. Analysts have speculated that MACRI—unlikely to successfully curb high inflation rates in the coming months—will probably end these pay increases, further eroding consumer purchasing power and most directly affecting the poor and working class. Additionally, the devaluation and a hike in utility prices have led to an increase in the cost of living and a fall in disposable income, sapping the ability of many to participate in the economy through business ventures or discretionary spending.

To the dismay of many, MACRI began the New Year by ordering thousands of public sector layoffs across the country—14,000 by mid-January—with anywhere between 60,000–200,000 more projected for the coming months. His opponents have protested, claiming that the layoffs are a form of political persecution, with KIRCHNERISTS disproportionately targeted.

ONCE AGAIN BACK TO THE DARK AGES OF RIGOROUS OPPRESSION  IN ARGENTINA?

Reminiscent of the ARGENTINA of the 1990s, those who have taken to the streets to oppose the layoffs have been met with riot police, tear gas, rubber bullets and water cannons. One widely circulated photograph shows a public employee’s back completely bloodied from rubber bullets.

CONVERGE ARGENTINA INTO A CHEAP WORKFORCE

Some analysts argue that the layoffs are being used to lower salaries and wages overall, with higher unemployment levels serving to pressure wages downward. This would be to the benefit of the economic elite and corporate supporters of MACRI’S government who foresee greater investment in Argentina if wages are sufficiently lowered—or made “competitive.”

Indeed, CRISTINA KIRCHNER’S former minister of economy, AXEL KICILLOF, maintains that the policy is purposely designed to “convert Argentina into a country with a very cheap workforce.”

Others who will suffer from MACRI’S massive lay-off plan include thousands of women and transgender victims of domestic violence who get free prenatal and infant care and other important services from free community health centers. With all of their employees laid off, some centers have been shut down entirely. Meanwhile, KIRCHNER-era grain and beef export taxes, which had fed state coffers and provided funding to social programs and public services, have also been cut in a lackluster attempt to appease farmers by triggering a rise in grain sales while boosting Central Bank revenue.

THOSE WHO STAND TO PROFIT FROM THESE NEW POLICIES INCLUDE MANY IN MACRI’S INNER CIRCLE.

He has stacked his cabinet with businessmen and former CEOs, and at the provincial level, the new minister of agriculture for BUENOS AIRES Province—now also governed by MACRI’S party—is a former regional manager for MONSANTO. The media has reported that since the election, the sale of MONSANTO products like GMO corn seeds and herbicides have jumped. Questions of conflict of interest, though, do not seem to concern MACRI, who seems intent on bringing a new "managerial ethos" to ARGENTINA. Other corporate executives whom he has appointed to cabinet positions have had close business relationships with his family, who themselves are often criticized for having greatly profited from ventures during the 1976-1983 dictatorship. If government policy is going to have the same “ethos” as scandal-plagued companies like MONSANTO, SHELL, JP MORGAN CHASE, and GENERAL MOTORS—some of the corporations that MACRI'S new cabinet members have previously worked for— then it is no wonder that so many ARGENTINE'S are worried for their country.

Background Information: MONSANTO AND ARGENTINA

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ARGENTINIANS consumes vast amounts of Genetically Modified Food (GMO) products without being aware of the fact, not to mention the subsequent health risks. For in ARGENTINA it is not mandatory to label genetically modified food products, unlike in the EU.

IS ARGENTINA HEADING FOR ANOTHER 2001?

The return to a “business-oriented” economic regime under MACRI will likely include returning to increased dependence on foreign creditors and the same multilateral organizations that led the country down a turbulent path to economic collapse in 2001. An important component of his business-friendly model is MACRI’S vow to renew ties with the IMF and end the conflict with “vulture fund” hold-out creditors. In January, after thirteen years of ARGENTINA’S absence, he attended the World Economic Forum in DAVOS, as if proudly debuting the country’s young, new economic orthodoxy to an eagerly awaiting business world.

Background Information: 

MACRISMO IN “MACRILANDIA”

Click here to read entire article:

WHY MACRI'S WIN IS BAD NEWS

MACRI, THE PUPPET OF THE WASHINGTON CONSENSUS?

The renewal of IMF ties has supporters of KIRCHNERIST economic heterodoxy worried, and for good reason. From 2003 to 2011, NÉSTOR and CRISTINA KIRCHNER oversaw recovery from a deep recession and the largest sovereign debt default in history at the time, and subsequently—against the predictions of economists and the international finance world—an impressive economic rebound. Within three years, ARGENTINA’S GDP returned to pre-recession levels, simultaneously increasing real wages, social spending, and employment, while lowering inequality and reducing poverty almost by half. A crucial factor in this successful rebound was ARGENTINA’S breaking of ties with the IMF, and its release from the dictates of “WASHINGTON CONSENSUS” policies that had run the economy into the ground in the first place. In 2008, counter-cyclical and heterodox economic policies helped ARGENTINA weather the effects of the global downturn.

Background Information:ARGENTINA -

OPPOSING THE WASHINGTON CONSENSUS

ARGENTINA, UNDER THE PREVIOUS ADMINISTRATION HAS REFUSED TO SWALLOW THE IMF’S BELT-TIGHTENING RECIPES

Yet there is already speculation that, due to the large debts accrued to the City of BUENOS AIRES when MACRI was Chief of Government, creditors will decide to issue loans to ARGENTINA only if the government implements austerity measures. The return to an economic model predicated on adherence to the constraints of IMF-mandated policies is a worrying prospect, as it would undermine Argentina’s economic sovereignty and possibly return it to dependency on foreign-induced growth.

THE LEFT AS OPPOSITION, AGAIN

Argentina’s Left solidified commitment to a number of ideals during twelve years of working within the framework of a progressive center-left government, but now it has again found itself on the outside. Unwilling to accept that over a decade of progress can revert so rapidly, KIRCHNERIST loyalists and other MACRI opponents have protested each new blow against the previous government’s policies.

Commentators point out that since 1928, no elected non-Peronist president has completed a full term. The implication is that ARGENTINES will not allow MACRI to finish his term if he continues to pass unpopular measures. Could MACRI be brought down amid burning tires, Molotov cocktails and the clamoring of pots and pans, as five other presidents were during the crisis of 2001–2002? Or might he be the first non-Peronist president to finish his term in almost a century?

FORTUNATE ECONOMIC INHERITANCE FOR MACRI 

Despite the unpopularity of his reforms, MACRI maintains an important advantage: the economy he inherits is not the disastrous economy that the late NÉSTOR KIRCHNER faced in 2003. Rather, despite inflation and slow growth in the last four years, ARGENTINA has had a relatively well-functioning and independent economy, allowing many to live well and to even thrive. The general stability that passed on to MACRI allows him more flexibility to enact unfavorable economic policies. Today, the public has growing confidence in institutions that during the 2001 crisis were completely delegitimized.

Similarly, the difference between protests now and those during the recession and crisis of 2001–2002 is that the latter were preceded by the complete delegitimization of institutions and the politicians who ran them. The KIRCHNER government’s decline in support has been nowhere near the lack of public confidence that led people to chant “que se vayan todos!” fourteen years ago. Instead, confidence in the state and its role in society has increased since 2001, as support for the KIRCHNERS’ policies—sometimes even within MACRISMO—has also shown. Each of these factors increases the likelihood that MACRI’S government will maintain stability.

ARGENTINES – BRACE YOURSELF OF WHAT’S TO COME

If the violent repression of protestors or the recent detention of Tupac Amaru leader MILAGRO SALA is any indication of what may come, then social movement organizations should brace themselves. The criminalization of protest and the persecution of social activism—as some describe MACRI’S actions—seem consistent with MACRI’S resolve to “remove ideology” from government politics. MARGARET THATCHER’S neoliberal dictum that “there is no such thing as society” comes to mind in this context of renewed mass protests — and police violence —on the streets of ARGENTINA.

Background Information: MANCHESTER LIBERALISM – ARGENTINE STYLE

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VULTURE CAPITALISTS ARE THE REAL WINNERS OF ARGENTINA’S ELECTIONS

But the ARGENTINE Left is not easily deterred. For social movement organizations, KIRCHNERIST groups, labor unions and more radical organizations, the key is to continue to organize. “The social movement groups have learned a lot in the last fifteen years,” says EZEQUIEL ARNEODO, a member of the socialist-oriented organization Patria Grande, which has roots in the social explosions of 2001–2002. “We gained new legislative spaces in Congress and local governance that we never had before, and have learned to use them. Now it’s time to build again, even if it is from the outside.” 

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Adapted by Geopolitical Analysis and Monitoring from the original article written by Sara Kozameh via Nacla reporting