World Bank Insider Blows Whistle

World Bank Insider Blows Whistle on Corruption, Federal Reserve

Written by  Alex Newman

World Bank Insider Blows Whistle on Corruption, Federal Reserve

A former insider at the World Bank, ex-Senior Counsel Karen Hudes, says the global financial system is dominated by a small group of corrupt, power-hungry figures centered around the privately owned U.S. Federal Reserve. The network has seized control of the media to cover up its crimes, too, she explained. In an interview with The New American, Hudes said that when she tried to blow the whistle on multiple problems at the World Bank, she was fired for her efforts. Now, along with a network of fellow whistleblowers, Hudes is determined to expose and end the corruption. And she is confident of success.

Citing an explosive 2011 Swiss study published in the PLOS ONE journal on the “network of global corporate control,” Hudes pointed out that a small group of entities — mostly financial institutions and especially central banks — exert a massive amount of influence over the international economy from behind the scenes. “What is really going on is that the world’s resources are being dominated by this group,” she explained, adding that the “corrupt power grabbers” have managed to dominate the media as well. “They’re being allowed to do it.”

According to the peer-reviewed paper, which presented the first global investigation of ownership architecture in the international economy, transnational corporations form a “giant bow-tie structure.” A large portion of control, meanwhile, “flows to a small tightly-knit core of financial institutions.” The researchers described the core as an “economic ‘super-entity’” that raises important issues for policymakers and researchers. Of course, the implications are enormous for citizens as well.

Hudes, an attorney who spent some two decades working in the World Bank’s legal department, has observed the machinations of the network up close. “I realized we were now dealing with something known as state capture, which is where the institutions of government are co-opted by the group that’s corrupt,” she told The New American in a phone interview. “The pillars of the U.S. government — some of them — are dysfunctional because of state capture; this is a big story, this is a big cover up.”

At the heart of the network, Hudes said, are 147 financial institutions and central banks — especially the Federal Reserve, which was created by Congress but is owned by essentially a cartel of private banks. “This is a story about how the international financial system was secretly gamed, mostly by central banks — they’re the ones we are talking about,” she explained. “The central bankers have been gaming the system. I would say that this is a power grab.”

The Fed in particular is at the very center of the network and the coverup, Hudes continued, citing a policy and oversight body that includes top government and Fed officials. Central bankers have also been manipulating gold prices, she added, echoing widespread concerns that The New American has documented extensively. Indeed, even the inaccurate World Bank financial statements that Hudes has been trying to expose are linked to the U.S. central bank, she said.

“The group that we’re talking about from the Zurich study — that’s the Federal Reserve; it has some other pieces to it, but that’s the Federal Reserve,” Hudes explained. “So the Federal Reserve secretly dominated the world economy using secret, interlocking corporate directorates, and terrorizing anybody who managed to figure out that they were having any kind of role, and putting people in very important positions so that they could get a free pass.”

The shadowy but immensely powerful Bank for International Settlements serves as “the club of these private central bankers,” Hudes continued. “Now, are people going to want interest on their country’s debts to continue to be paid to that group when they find out the secret tricks that that group has been doing? Don’t forget how they’ve enriched themselves extraordinarily and how they’ve taken taxpayer money for the bailout.”

As far as intervening in the gold price, Hudes said it was an effort by the powerful network and its central banks to “hold onto its paper currency” — a suspicion shared by many analysts and even senior government officials. The World Bank whistleblower also said that contrary to official claims, she did not believe there was any gold being held in Fort Knox. Even congressmen and foreign governments have tried to find out if the precious metals were still there, but they met with little success. Hudes, however, believes the scam will eventually come undone.

“This is like crooks trying to figure out where they can go hide. It’s a mafia,” she said. “These culprits that have grabbed all this economic power have succeeded in infiltrating both sides of the issue, so you will find people who are supposedly trying to fight corruption who are just there to spread disinformation and as a placeholder to trip up anybody who manages to get their act together.… Those thugs think that if they can keep the world ignorant, they can bleed it longer.”

Of course, the major corruption at the highest levels of government and business is not a new phenomenon. Georgetown University historian and Professor Carroll Quigley, who served as President Bill Clinton’s mentor, for example, wrote about the scheme in his 1966 book Tragedy And Hope: A History Of The World In Our Time. The heavyweight academic, who was allowed to review documents belonging to the top echelons of the global establishment, even explained how the corrupt system would work — remarkably similar to what Hudes describes.

“The powers of financial capitalism had a far-reaching aim, nothing less than to create a world system of financial control in private hands able to dominate the political system of each country and the economy of the world as a whole,” wrote Prof. Quigley, who agreed with the goals but not the secrecy. “This system was to be controlled in a feudalist fashion by the central banks of the world acting in concert by secret agreements arrived at in frequent private meetings and conferences. The apex of the system was to be the Bank for International Settlements in Basel, Switzerland, a private bank owned and controlled by the world’s central banks which were themselves private corporations.”

But it is not going to happen, Hudes said — at least not if she has something do to with it. While the media are dominated by the “power grabber” network, Hudes has been working with foreign governments, reporters, U.S. officials, state governments, and a broad coalition of fellow whistleblowers to blow the entire scam wide open. There has been quite a bit of interest, too, particularly among foreign governments and state officials in the United States.

Citing the wisdom of America’s Founding Fathers in creating a federal system of government with multiple layers of checks and balances, Hudes said she was confident that the network would eventually be exposed and subjected to the rule of law, stopping the secret corruption. If and when that happens — even if it may be disorderly — Hudes says precious metals will once again play a role in imposing discipline on the monetary system. The rule of law would also be restored, she said, and the public will demand a proper press to stay informed.

“We’re going to have a cleaned-up financial system, that’s where it is going, but in the meantime, people who didn’t know how the system was gamed are going to find out,” she said. “We’re going to have a different kind of international financial system…. It’ll be a new kind of world where people know what’s going on — no more backroom deals; that’s not going to keep happening. We’re going to have a different kind of media if people don’t want to be dominated and controlled, which I don’t think they do.”

While Hudes sounded upbeat, she recognizes that the world is facing serious danger right now — there are even plans in place to impose martial law in the United States, she said. The next steps will be critical for humanity. As such, Hudes argues, it is crucial that the people of the world find out about the lawlessness, corruption, and thievery that are going on at the highest levels — and put a stop to it once and for all. The consequences of inaction would be disastrous.

Photo of World Bank headquarters in Washington, D.C.

Alex Newman, a foreign correspondent for The New American, is currently based in Europe. He can be reached at anewman@thenewamerican.com.

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Social Warfare keeps Johann Rupert awake at night

Social Warfare keeps Johann Rupert awake at night

Written by Ben MorkenTuesday, 16 June 2015   

Recent comments by South Africa’s most powerful business tycoon, Johann Rupert, gives interesting and penetrating insights into the current state of mind of the bourgeoisie. Rupert is clearly very disturbed by the current state of affairs, even admitting that they are keeping him awake at night.

Rupert-Johann-2004In a recent speech at the Financial Times Business of Luxury Summit in Monaco, a gathering for senior executives of the luxury goods industry, he said tension between the rich and the poor is set to escalate as robots and artificial intelligence fuel mass unemployment. “We cannot have 0.1 percent of 0.1 percent taking all the spoils,” he said to his fellow bourgeois friends surrounded by $130 million yachts, Macallan whiskey and Almas caviar.

He proceeded to ask his audience a loaded question: “How is society going to cope with the structural unemployment and the envy, hatred and social warfare?” This shows that Rupert has a clear grasp of the crisis his system is facing. The capitalist system has long ago ceased to be a progressive system, it now staggers along at an appalling cost to society. One of the key manifestations of this is the phenomenon of organic, structural mass unemployment which in South Africa officially stands at 25 percent. Rupert understands that this is a clear recipe for class struggle, and he admits that this is giving him sleepless nights: “We are destroying the middle classes at this stage and it will affect us. It’s unfair. So that’s what keeps me awake at night.”

He said that conflicts between social classes will make selling luxury goods more tricky as the rich will want to conceal their wealth. On this point, the Financial Times chipped in to give the rulers of our world some amusing advice: “Perhaps discretion will be in more demand: minimalist jewellery instead of bling; Audis instead of Ferraris; silver watches instead of gold chronometers. A yacht is hard to disguise, but it can be sailed out of sight of public beaches.” But it is unclear how wealth is to be concealed in a country like South Africa where the class divisions are so glaring that they are evident to the naked eye. Rich and poor literally stare each other in the face every day and both are disgusted at what they see. Rupert concluded his speech by giving his audience some disturbing advice: “We are in for a huge change in society. Get used to it. And be prepared.”

Johann Rupert knows a thing or two about “disturbing” changes in society from a bourgeois perspective. Together with the Oppenheimer family, the Ruperts were at the heart of efforts to  quell the revolutionary events of the 1980s and 1990s in South Africa, which nearly overthrew their entire system. In the end they were prepared to give all democratic rights to the masses as long as Capitalism as a whole was maintained.

Rupert knows the bourgeoisie intimately well. He is the chairman and chief executive officer of the Swiss luxury goods company Compagnie Financiere Richemont, which manufactures and sells jewellery, watches, leather goods, writing instruments, and menas and women’s clothes to the richest people on Earth. Their most famous brands include Cartier, IWC International Watch Co. AG, Jaeger-LeCoultre and Montblanc. Rupert also serves as Non-Executive Chair of VenFin and Remgro Ltd.

Johann Rupert can clearly hear the alarm bells going off. A few months back, he berated South Africa’s government for failing to address corruption and electricity shortages: “The leadership of this country, quite frankly, is becoming very, very hard to defend abroad,” Rupert told Remgro’s annual general meeting in Somerset West, near Cape Town. “The people who are running the country now were not given proper education [!]. Wherever you look we have got stagnation and really worrying signs.” Of course, this is rich coming from Rupert. The corruption which he is complaining about is of the bourgeoisie’s own doing. In their endeavour to stabilise South African Capitalism after the fall of the Apartheid regime, corruption as a means of controlling the new political elite and tying them to the bourgeoisie, was one of the main tools used by the ruling class. The problem now is that this has reached epidemic proportions. In the context of a sharp rise in the class struggle, the daily revelations about corruption which involves some of the most senior ANC leaders, including the Nkandla scandal which involves the president himself, is becoming a major cause for instability by enraging the tested South African masses.

At the same meeting in Somerset West, Rupert also had some gloomy news regarding the global economy. Asked by a shareholder about the company’s prospects, Rupert said the global economic outlook “is not looking too rosy”: “It doesn’t really matter who you listen to, whether it’s the IMF or whosoever, they are petrified,” he said. “The only way to get out of this is economic growth. I see nothing on the horizon to pull Europe out of its malaise.

These comments, by one of South Africa’s most influential bourgeois, strikingly confirms that some of the rulers of our world are deeply concerned about the state of their system. Some of them are overcome with a sense of dread and foreboding. Everywhere they look, they are confronted with a deep malaise in society. As a South African bourgeois, Johann Rupert can see nothing but trouble ahead. Recently he recalled author Ernest Hemingway’s quote that “man goes bust gradually … and then suddenly”. He believes South Africa was in the gradual stage, but the “sudden stage” could come at any time. It is not exactly clear whether or not Rupert knows it, but it is actually a profound dialectical quote, although from a deeply pessimistic point of view.

Johann Rupert only sees doom and gloom. But the bourgeois has every reason to dread the future. More than two decades ago the revolutionary South African proletariat came within a hair’s breadth of overthrowing capitalism. Only the lack of a revolutionary leadership prevented them from doing so. But today, the bourgeois faces a massive dilemma: whereas the ANC leaders of the past had enormous stature and authority, today’s leaders have very little of both. It would be very difficult for the current leaders to hold the masses back once they move to change society.

The capitalist system is in the middle of its deepest crisis ever, and it is global. Together with this, come roaring revolutionary mass movements from Egypt, Turkey, Brazil and Burkina Faso. On the other hand, Marxists look to the future with enormous optimism. Where the Johann Ruperts of the world are petrified by the advance of modern technologies like robots, Marxists welcome technological advances wholeheartedly. Under Capitalism advances in technology are solely aimed at improving the rate of profit and the bottom line. But under socialism, robots and other technologies will be used solely for human advances and needs. It would be a terrible mistake to believe that the ruling class will give up their position in society without a desperate fight to the finish. They will fight, claw and scratch to keep their privileges, interests and positions as the ruling class of society.

class warfare captain

Monopoly Monetary Elite Man

But all of their attempts would be no match for the strength of the workers and poor once they start to move. It is not the sudden “going bust” of mankind that Ruperts is prophesising, but the doom of his own class which is terrified by its own impotence in the face of the rising class struggle.

Reprinted from Bloomberg

Farmers Dump GMO Crops

Aug. 09- 2015 article reprinted here  Farmers and GMO crops

Five years ago, Dan Beyers took his farm in a new direction. Or, rather, back in an old direction.

The Pana, Ill.-area farmer had been using corn and soybean seeds genetically modified to work with glyphosate — the generic name for Monsanto’s signature Roundup herbicide. But he reached a point at which he said it no longer made sense from a dollars standpoint.

So he turned his back on GMO crops.

“As they added more traits, we didn’t really see a yield advantage. And every time they added a trait, they added cost,” said Beyers, who also worries that GMO seeds could be damaging his soil.

Clearly the world of farming is still dominated by seeds that have been genetically altered to help them deal with drought, insects and weeds. But there’s anecdotal evidence suggesting that more farmers are considering the path Beyers has chosen.

Several factors are in play, including the premium prices that non-GMO crops — particularly soybeans — can fetch at the market. But also there is growing concern about the decreasing effectiveness of glyphosate, with farmers increasingly running into weeds that have developed resistance to the herbicide that revolutionized modern farming.

“Roundup isn’t cleaning up the fields the way it used to,” Beyers said.

Regardless, GMO seeds are in no danger of being pushed out of the market, with recent acreage surveys by the U.S. Department of Agriculture showing they account for more than 92 percent of our corn and soybeans. And there are new seed-herbicide combinations — using Dicamba and 2,4-D — on the way to help farmers deal with the weakening powers of glyphosate.

“There’s very little change for the country as a whole,” said Pat Westhoff, director of the Food and Agricultural Policy Research Institute at the University of Missouri.

Monsanto, based in Creve Coeur, agrees.

The company’s large seed portfolio is dominated by GMOs, but it does produce a range of conventional corn, soybean and cotton seeds. They represent a small percentage of the company’s U.S. sales, and there has been no spike in demand, a spokeswoman said.

“Most farmers look to Monsanto for the innovation and trait packages we offer,” spokeswoman Danielle Stuart said in an email.

Yet companies such as eMerge, an Iowa-based firm specializing in non-GMO seeds, say they’ve experienced modest increases in demand for their products, particularly with market prices for soybeans and corn falling rapidly in the wake of consecutive bumper harvests.

“With the price of grain dropping, guys are looking for more economic seeds to plant,” said Johnny Millwood, a district sales manager for the Midwest-focused company, which was founded in 2009.

Conventional seeds certainly cost less, lacking the need to recoup the large research and development costs behind their genetically altered counterparts. A bag of non-GMO soybeans — which covers roughly one acre — costs about $20 less than a similar bag of seeds designed to work with glyphosate, Millwood said.

But those non-GMO crops also are more valuable when it’s time to sell.

While corn draws an anemic 25 cents extra per bushel, food-grade soybeans are commanding an extra $2 per bushel.

That’s driven largely by overseas markets, with countries including Japan and South Korea providing steady demand for non-GMO soybeans, said Kellee James, chief executive of Mercaris, a market data service for non-GMO and organic commodities.

But ongoing debates over GMO labeling suggest there could soon be greater domestic demand for non-GMO grains.

“What’s driving this cycle is the consumer’s desire for more information about their food,” James said. “I don’t think that’s going away.”

The premium prices, however, do come with their own set of problems.

One of the bigger tasks facing conventional farmers is the need to keep that grain separate after it’s harvested. Only small amounts of GMO contamination (generally less than 1 percent) are allowed.

It’s particularly challenging for farmers growing both GMO and non-GMO crops. They have to take greater care in cleaning equipment and storage facilities when moving between the two types of crops.

“It does involve a little bit more effort and more cost,” said Nathan Fields, director of biotechnology for the National Corn Growers Association.

There is also the matter of operating in a world in which almost everyone around you is using glyphosate.

It’s a situation that Mike York has been dealing with for years on the land he works southeast of Mt. Vernon, Ill.

He used to lose plants along the edges of his fields after neighbors sprayed their crops on adjacent land. And there was an incident a few years back when a mix-up resulted in a sprayer’s covering one of York’s smaller fields with glyphosate, wiping out much of the crop.

But these days, neighbors have become more careful when spraying near his fields.

“As a matter of fact, a farmer just called yesterday to ask if I was still doing non-GMO,” York said.

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