399 One Worlders use the Depression as pretext for Global Central Bank, Global Government

One Worlders use the Depression as pretext for Global Central Bank, Global Government

Jeffrey Garten was Undersecretary of Commerce for International Trade in the Clinton administration, former Managing Director at Lehman Brothers. Currently a Professor in the Yale School of Management.

Wikepedia's webpage on him makes no mention of him being Jewish <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeffrey_Garten>

But its webpage on his wife, Ina Garten, does. It says that both are "Jewish by birth and heritage":

Ina Garten <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ina_Garten>

At 15, she met her future husband, Jeffrey Garten ... Garten is Jewish by birth and heritage, as is her husband, but rarely refers to her religion and ethnicity.
...
This page was last modified on 13 October 2010 at 21:55.

Why mention this? Because Judaism sees itself as "unifying" humanity.

(1) "Crisis is an Opportunity": calls for a  Global Central Bank - Andrew Gavin Marshall
(2) Jeffrey Garten: A Fed for the World
(3) Jeffrey Garten: Global authority can fill financial vacuum
(4) Jeffrey Garten: We Need a Bank Of the World

(1) "Crisis is an Opportunity": calls for a  Global Central Bank - Andrew Gavin Marshall

From: Ken Freeland <diogenesquest@gmail.com> Date: 30.10.2010 01:16 PM
Subject: [shamireaders] FW: Andrew Gavin Marshall: "Crisis is an Opportunity" - Engineering a Global Depression to Create a Global government

"Crisis is an Opportunity": Engineering a Global Depression to Create a Global government

By Andrew Gavin Marshall

http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=21632

Global Research, October 26, 2010

The following is a sample from an forthcoming book by Andrew Gavin Marshall on 'Global government', Global Research Publishers, Montreal. For more by this author on the issue of the economic crisis and global governance, see the recently-released book by Global Research "The Global Economic Crisis: The Great Depression of the XXI Century," Michel Chossudovsky and Andrew Gavin Marshall, (Editors), in which the author contributed three chapters on the history of central banking, the rise of a global currency and global central bank, and the political economy of global government.

Problem, Reaction, Solution: "Crisis is an Opportunity"

In May of 2010, Dominique Strauss-Kahn, Managing Director of the IMF, stated that, "crisis is an opportunity," and called for "a new global currency issued by a global central bank, with robust governance and institutional features," and that the "global central bank could also serve as a lender of last resort." However, he stated, "I fear we are still very far from that level of global collaboration."[1] Well, perhaps not so far as it might seem.

The notion of global governance has taken an evolutionary path to the present day, with the principle global political and economic actors and institutions incrementally constructing the apparatus of a global government. In the modern world, global governance is an inter-lapping, intersecting, and intertwined web of international organizations, think tanks, multinational corporations, nations, NGOs, philanthropic foundations, military alliances, intelligence agencies, banks and interest groups. Globalization – a term which was popularized in the late 1980s to refer to the global spread of multinational corporations – has laid the principle ideological and institutional foundations for this process. Global social, economic and political integration do not occur at an equal pace; rather, economic integration and governance on a global level has and will continue to be ahead of the other sectors of human social interaction, in both the pace and degree of integration. In short, global economic governance will set the pace for social and political global governance to follow.

In 1885, Friedrich List, a German mercantilist economic theorist wrote that when it came to the integration of a "universal union or confederation of nations," that "all examples which history can show are those in which the political union has led the way, and the commercial union has followed. Not a single instance can be adduced in which the latter has taken the lead, and the former has grown up from it."[2] The twentieth century thus changed the historical trend, with undertaking economic integration – union – which is then followed by political integration. The best example of this is the European Union, which started out as a series of trade agreements (1951), eventually leading to an economic community (1957), followed by an economic union (1993), followed by a currency union (2002), and with the recent Lisbon Treaty, is now in the process of implementing the apparatus of a political union (2009). While this same regional governance model is occurring on a global scale in Africa, South America, East Asia, the Gulf Arab states, and with North American and Euro-American integration, it is simultaneously taking place on a global level. With the establishment of the World Trade Organization (WTO) in 1995, global trade systems were institutionally integrated, while the major global economic institutions of the IMF and World Bank, as well as others including the Bank for International Settlements (BIS), accelerated their management of the global economy.

The process of globalization has firmly established a globally integrated economic system, and now the global economic crisis is facilitating the implementation of global economic governance: to create the economic apparatus of a global government, including a global central bank and a global currency. This process is exponentially accelerated through economic crises, which create the need, desire, urgency and means of establishing a structure of global economic governance, purportedly under the guise of "preventing economic crises" and "maintaining" the global economy.

The same institutions and actors responsible for creating the crisis, are then given the job of determining the solution, and are then given the power and means of implementing it: problem, reaction, solution. They create a problem to incur a particular reaction for which they then propose a predetermined solution. When pressure needs to be applied to individual states that are not following dictates of the institutions of global governance, the market is turned against them in a barrage of economic warfare, often in the form of currency speculation and derivatives trading. The result of this economic warfare against a nation is that it must then turn to these same global institutions to come to its rescue: problem, reaction, solution.

The global economic crisis, really having only just begun, will in years to come spiral into a Great Global Debt Depression, plunging the entire world into the greatest economic catastrophe ever known. This will be the ultimate catalyst, the most pervasive crisis, and most commanding 'opportunity' to implement the formation of a global government. In 1988, the Economist ran an article entitled, "Get Ready for the Phoenix," in which it postulated that by the year 2018, there will be a global currency, which it termed the "Phoenix." The mention of a phoenix is not to go unnoticed, as symbolically, a phoenix dies and from its ashes a new phoenix emerges. It is the symbol of destruction as a form of creation; the ultimate incarnation of crisis as an opportunity. The article in the Economist acknowledged this meaning, with the idea that economic and monetary collapse will likely lead to the formation of a global currency, stating that, "several more big exchange-rate upsets, a few more stockmarket crashes and probably a slump or two will be needed before politicians are willing to face squarely up to that choice." Further:

As time passes, the damage caused by currency instability is gradually going to mount; and the very trends that will make it mount are making the utopia of monetary union feasible... The phoenix would probably start as a cocktail of national currencies, just as the Special Drawing Right is today. In time, though, its value against national currencies would cease to matter, because people would choose it for its convenience and the stability of its purchasing power.[3]

This further reinforces the notion of crisis as an opportunity, and established the desire to form a global currency far before any crises that prompted official calls for one. In 2000, Paul Volcker, former Chairman of the Federal Reserve, stated that, "if we are to have a truly global economy, a single world currency makes sense," and a European Central Bank executive stated that, "we might one day have a single world currency," in "a step towards the ideal situation of a fully integrated world."[4] In 1998, Jeffrey Garten, former Undersecretary of Commerce for International Trade in the Clinton administration, former Managing Director at Lehman Brothers and member of the Council on Foreign Relations, wrote an article for the New York Times in which he called for the creation of a "global Fed" and said that, "the world needs an institution that has a hand on the economic rudder when the seas become stormy. It needs a global central bank."[5]

The Global Economic Crisis As a Pretext for Global governance

With the onset of the global economic crisis in 2008, powerful political and economic figures began making the call for constructing systems of global governance to manage and "prevent" crises. In September of 2008, in the midst of the financial crisis, Garten wrote an article for the Financial Times renewing his call for a global central bank, which he termed a "Global Monetary Authority."[6] A month later, Garten wrote a piece for Newsweek saying that, "leaders should begin laying the groundwork for establishing a global central bank."[7] In the same month, John Mack, CEO of Morgan Stanley said that, "it may take continued international coordination to fully unlock the credit markets and resolve the financial crisis, perhaps even by forming a new global body to oversee the process."[8]
  
In October of 2008, then Prime Minister of the UK, Gordon Brown, called for "a new Bretton Woods – building a new international financial architecture for the years ahead," and that he would want "to see the IMF reformed to become a 'global central bank' closely monitoring the international economy and financial system."[9] In the same month, Brown wrote an op-ed for the Washington Post in which he said that this 'new Bretton-Woods' should work towards "global governance."[10]

That month, the world's central bankers met in Washington D.C., of which the principle question they faced was "whether it is time to establish a global economic 'policeman' to ensure the crash of 2008 can never be repeated," and that any organization with the power to police the global economy would have to include representatives of every major country – a United Nations of economic regulation." A former governor of the Bank of England stated that the answer might be in the form of the Bank for International Settlements (BIS), the central bank to the world's central banks, which compared to the IMF, "is more independent and much better placed to deal with this if it is given the power to do so."[11]

The first major summit of the G20 – the group of the 20 largest economies in the world – was in November of 2008, in the midst of the financial crisis. The G20 was to replace the G8 in the management of the global economy. The member nations are the United States, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, the United Kingdom, the European Union, Australia, Russia, Japan, South Korea, Turkey, Mexico, Indonesia, Saudi Arabia, Brazil, South Africa, Argentina, India and China. The World Bank and IMF also work directly with the G20, as does the Bank for International Settlements.

In March of 2009, Russia suggested that the G20 meeting in April should "consider the possibility of creating a supra-national reserve currency or a 'super-reserve currency'," and to consider the IMF's Special Drawing Rights (SDRs) in this capacity.[12] A week later, China's central bank governor proposed the creation of a global currency controlled by the IMF, replacing the US dollar as the world reserve currency, also using the IMF's SDRs as the reserve currency basket against which all other currencies would be fixed.[13]

Days after this proposal, the US Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, former President of the New York Federal Reserve Bank, told the Council on Foreign Relations that, in response to a question about the Chinese proposal, "we're actually quite open to that suggestion. But you should think of it as rather evolutionary, building on the current architectures, than -- rather than -- rather than moving us to global monetary union."[14]

In late March a UN panel of economists recommended the creation of a new global currency reserve that would replace the US-dollar, and that it would be an "independently administered reserve currency."[15]

Following the April 2009 G20 summit, "plans were announced for implementing the creation of a new global currency to replace the US dollar's role as the world reserve currency." Point 19 of the communiqué released by the G20 at the end of the Summit stated, "We have agreed to support a general SDR allocation which will inject $250bn (£170bn) into the world economy and increase global liquidity." SDRs, or Special Drawing Rights, are "a synthetic paper currency issued by the International Monetary Fund." As the Telegraph reported, "the G20 leaders have activated the IMF's power to create money and begin global 'quantitative easing'. In doing so, they are putting a de facto world currency into play. It is outside the control of any sovereign body."[16] The Washington Post reported that the IMF is poised to transform "into a veritable United Nations for the global economy":

It would have vastly expanded authority to act as a global banker to governments rich and poor. And with more flexibility to effectively print its own money, it would have the ability to inject liquidity into global markets in a way once limited to major central banks, including the U.S. Federal Reserve... the IMF is all but certain to take a central role in managing the world economy. As a result, Washington is poised to become the power center for global financial policy, much as the United Nations has long made New York the world center for diplomacy.[17]

In April of 2010, the IMF released a report in which it explained that while SDRs will aid in 'stabilizing' the world economy, "a more ambitious reform option would be to build on the previous ideas and develop, over time, a global currency," but that this is "unlikely to materialize in the foreseeable future absent a dramatic shift in appetite for international cooperation."[18] Of course, the exacerbation of a global economic crisis – a new great depression – could spur such a "dramatic shift in appetite for international cooperation."

While the IMF is pushed to the forefront of the global currency agenda, the Bank for International Settlements (BIS) remains as the true authority in terms of 'global governance' overall. As the IMF's magazine, Finance and Development, stated in 2009, "the Bank for International Settlements (BIS), established in 1930, is the central and the oldest focal point for coordination of global governance arrangements."[19] Jean-Claude Trichet, President of the European Central Bank (ECB), gave a speech at the Council on Foreign Relations in April of 2010 in which he explained that, "the significant transformation of global governance that we are engineering today is illustrated by three examples":

First, the emergence of the G20 as the prime group for global economic governance at the level of ministers, governors and heads of state or government. Second, the establishment of the Global Economy Meeting of central bank governors under the auspices of the BIS as the prime group for the governance of central bank cooperation. And third, the extension of

Financial Stability Board membership to include all the systemic emerging market economies.[20]

In concluding his speech, Trichet emphasized that, "global governance is of the essence to improve decisively the resilience of the global financial system."[21] The following month, Trichet spoke at the Bank of Korea, where he said, "central bank cooperation is part of a more general trend that is reshaping global governance, and which has been spurred by the global financial crisis," and that, "it is therefore not surprising that the crisis has led to even better recognition of their increased economic importance and need for full integration into global governance." Once again, Trichet identified the BIS and its "various fora" – such as the Global Economy Meeting and the Financial Stability Board – as the "main channel" for central bank cooperation.[22]

The Great Global Debt Depression

As commentators and governments praised the 'economic recovery', the world entered into a massive global debt crisis, a veritable 'Great Global Debt Depression,' in which the major industrialized nations of the world, having taken on excessive debts due to bailouts, stimulus packages and decades of imperial expenditures and war-mongering. The debt trap used to enslave the 'global south' has come home to roost. The first stage of the 'Great Global Debt Depression' began in Greece, where the country was so indebted that it needed to seek help in the form of an IMF 'bailout' simply to pay the interest on its debt. For nearly a decade, Greece's government colluded with major Wall Street firms such as Goldman Sachs and J.P. Morgan Chase to hide its true debt in the derivatives market, so when a new government came to power in October of 2009, it inherited a debt twice as large as it had anticipated, at 300 billion euros.[23]

In early 2010, Greece sought a bailout from the European Union (European Central Bank – ECB) and the IMF in order to pay the annual interest fee on its debt. The ECB and IMF agreed to a loan in April.[24] Greece, however, had been pressured by both the EU and the IMF that in order to receive a loan, it must implement "fiscal austerity measures" in order to reduce its deficit, and also to convince "global markets" that it could reduce its deficit. Greece had implemented two austerity packages that included massive social spending cuts and increases in taxes. Yet, this seemed to not be enough for the EU, IMF or global markets.[25] As Greece was imposing 'fiscal austerity' and seeking international loans, 'global markets' had turned against the country, as derivatives – particularly Credit Default Swaps (CDS) – were being used to bet that Greece would default on its debt, thus plunging the country further into crisis. Many of the banks participating in this speculative assault were the very same ones that helped Greece hide its debt in the first place. Thus, if Greece defaults on its debt, the speculators who bet against Greece stand to profit, and as these trades become popular, it makes it more difficult for Greece to borrow the money it needs to pay its interest. As one expert explained, "It's like buying fire insurance on your neighbor's house — you create an incentive to burn down the house."[26]

J.P. Morgan Chase, Goldman Sachs, and several other leading banks helped hide the debt for several nations across Europe, which all began to enter into a debt crisis.[27] Interestingly, banks rapidly expanded their use of the derivatives trade not only in Greece, but Spain and Portugal as well, "as worries about those countries' debts moved markets around the world." Subsequently, "European banks including the Swiss giants Credit Suisse and UBS, France's Société Générale and BNP Paribas and Deutsche Bank of Germany have been among the heaviest buyers of swaps insurance." The reason for this: "those countries are the most exposed. French banks hold $75.4 billion worth of Greek debt, followed by Swiss institutions, at $64 billion," and "German banks' exposure stands at $43.2 billion."[28] J.P. Morgan Chase, Goldman Sachs, and other US banks are also participating in the derivatives assault against Greece, which may be "pushing Greece toward financial collapse."[29] Thus, we have a situation in which major global banks helped governments acquire expansive debts (and hide it from their balance sheets), and then the countries enter into a debt crisis. As they impose fiscal austerity measures to reduce their deficits, and seek help from central banks and the IMF to pay their interest, these same global banks speculate against the debts, thus pushing the nations further into crisis, exacerbating the social crisis, and forcing further and more expansive 'austerity measures.' The interest payments on the debt are, as an added insult, to be paid to these same global banks, which hold most of the debt of these nations. In short, the debt crisis is amounting to a form of financial warfare and social genocide, implemented by the major global banks, the central banking system (which they control), and the international organizations that serve their interests.

A working paper issued by the Bank for International Settlements (BIS) in March of 2010 explained that the West is facing a massive debt crisis, and that the United Kingdom and United States – along with other nations such as Spain and Ireland – took on massive debt in the past three years, making the debt crises in Italy and Greece "comparatively small."[30] Further, investors are expected "to demand a higher risk premium for holding the bonds issued by a highly indebted country."[31] In other words, the BIS warned that speculators would likely undertake a 'market' assault against indebted nations, further exacerbating the debt crisis and increasing pressure to impose 'fiscal austerity', or commit 'social genocide'. In September of 2009, the derivatives market had rebounded to $426 trillion, and continued to pose "major systemic risks" for the financial system.[32]

Nouriel Roubini, an economist who had predicted the 2008 financial crisis, warned in March of 2010 that, "the recent difficulties of Greece are part of the iceberg. Markets have already targeted Greece, Spain, Portugal, Great Britain, Ireland and Iceland. They could deal with other countries, including Japan and the United States."[33] Renowned economist Kenneth Rogoff (who accurately predicted the 2008 economic crisis) had also warned that a global debt crisis is on the horizon, which "could set the scene for years of financial troubles."[34]

In 2010, the World Economic Forum warned of the potential of a "full-scale sovereign fiscal crisis" – a global debt crisis – possibly accompanied by a second major financial crisis.[35] Jürgen Stark, an executive member of the European Central Bank warned in April of 2010 that, "We may already have entered into the next phase of the crisis: a sovereign debt crisis," which could spread across the EU, to the U.K., United States, and Japan.[36] Economic historian (and Bilderberg participant) Niall Ferguson warned of a "Greek Crisis Coming to America," and a "fiscal crisis of the western world," which will spread from Greece, throughout Europe, and to the U.S. and Japan.[37]

Structural Adjustment in the West

As the nations of the West took on enormous debts by giving the banks money (effectively buying the bad debt of the banks), and with decades of imperialism building massive foreign debts, the West and notably America, are entering into a period in which they will be subjected to the same or similar forms of 'structural adjustment' as they have inflicted upon the rest of the world. With the G20 promising to impose "fiscal austerity," public sector jobs will be lost, state-owned assets and infrastructure privatized, taxes raised, interest rates will soar (eventually), and liberalized markets will be expanded and institutionalized, not least so that major global banks will be able to profit off of the subsequent collapse of nations through the financial weapon of speculation. The middle classes will vanish and poverty will reign supreme, while the rich become immeasurably richer and more powerful. Naturally, people will rise up, take to the streets, protest, demonstrate, riot, even rebel and revolt. As sure as the people will resist, the state will repress with police, the military and the 'Homeland Security State' apparatus of surveillance and control. Make no mistake: this is the 'Thirdworldization' of the West: the 'Post-Industrial Revolution.'

In early June of 2010, the G20 finance ministers and central bank governors met in Seoul, South Korea, in a meeting with significantly less media coverage than the later G20 leaders summit in Toronto, and significantly more importance to the state of the world economy. The communiqué released by the finance minister and central bankers following the summit stated that G20 nations needed to speed up the process of "fiscal consolidation" (see 'fiscal austerity').[38] The IMF presented a report at the meeting recommending the adoption of "adjustment policies" to presumably aid in economic growth.[39] There was no mention, however, of how similar "adjustment policies" failed to deliver growth to the developing world over the previous 30 years, and in fact, spread poverty and economic despair instead.

After the G20 leaders meeting in late June of 2010, leaders of the world's largest economies agreed on a timetable to impose 'fiscal austerity' measures to cut their deficits and halt the growth of their debts. The plan entailed cutting deficits in half by 2013.[40] In June, Germany had announced massive austerity cuts to spending, spurring protests in the streets.[41] Simon Johnson, former Chief Economist at the IMF, stated that fiscal austerity would likely result in "exacerbating developing world-type problems in the United States – and to creating the conditions for another financial crisis."[42] The chief economist of the major global bank HSBC, stated in May of 2010 that, "at the very least, governments need to pursue a multi-year period of fiscal austerity," and ultimately, "fiscal positions will become intolerable politically, economically and financially."[43]

Fiscal austerity will imply massive cuts in social spending, which will do to the developed world what they did to the 'developing' world: health, education and social services will be cut, with public employees in those and other sectors fired, creating a massive new wave of unemployed people. Simultaneously, taxes will be dramatically increased, particularly on the middle and lower classes, which would then be more impoverished than ever before. However, fiscal austerity is not the only condition of "structural adjustment," as many other measures will be taken, advancing on current trends, including further expanding and institutionalizing trade liberalization, as well as selling off public assets in major privatization schemes. Since the West largely privatized all the state-owned industries in the dawn of the neoliberal era, the remaining areas of privatization are largely in infrastructure projects such as roads, airports and ports. However, in America, this will be undertaken by individual states and cities desperate for cash and 'investment'. Thomas Osborne, head of infrastructure and privatization at UBS bank, said in May of 2009 that, "privatization will eventually take hold," but it will be done in "a more incremental approach."[44]

In September of 2010, the Chicago Council on Global Affairs released a report on infrastructure privatization. The Council represents and is run by various officials from J.P. Morgan Chase & Co., CME Group (the world's largest derivatives exchange), the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago, Bank One Corporation, McKinsey and Company, Goldman Sachs, Boeing, Northern Trust, United Airlines, the Chicago Board of Trade, and a host of other corporate, financial and banking interests, and the board even includes the First Lady, Michelle Obama.[45] In the report sponsored by the Chicago Council, it stated that, "the trend toward infrastructure privatization is happening not just in the United States, but globally."[46] Ultimately, the report found that, "financial realities mean that the privatization of infrastructure will continue."[47] In defining infrastructure, the report identified roads, bridges, port facilities, water treatment plants, electric transmission lines, and railways, as well as hospitals, prisons, "and other communal assets that serve the public interest."[48]

On this note, sovereign wealth funds (SWFs) from around the world are buying up American infrastructure. Sovereign wealth funds are state-owned investment funds of stocks, bonds, financial assets, resources and property. Some of the world's largest SWFs are those of the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Norway, China, South Korea, Kuwait, and Russia. As the "recovery" edges into the oblivion of the Great Global Debt Depression, SWFs are buying up American infrastructure, including:

A toll highway in Indiana. The Chicago Skyway. A stretch of highway in Florida. Parking meters in Nashville, Pittsburgh, Los Angeles, and other cities. A port in Virginia. And a whole bevy of Californian public infrastructure projects, all either already leased or set to be leased for fifty or seventy-five years or more in exchange for one-off lump sum payments of a few billion bucks at best, usually just to help patch a hole or two in a single budget year.

America is quite literally for sale, at rock-bottom prices, and the buyers increasingly are the very people who scored big in the oil bubble. Thanks to Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley and the other investment banks that artificially jacked up the price of gasoline over the course of the last decade, Americans delivered a lot of their excess cash into the coffers of sovereign wealth funds like the Qatar Investment Authority, the Libyan Investment Authority, Saudi Arabia's SAMA Foreign Holdings, and the UAE's Abu Dhabi Investment Authority.[49]

This process is also underway in Canada, as the Ontario government in 2009 considered selling off "all or part" of its Crown corporations to reduce the provincial deficit, and it hired CIBC and Goldman Sachs to write a blueprint for possible privatizations.[50] Further, there are increased calls – globally – for advancing the agenda of the privatization of water, a scheme which the World Bank has pushed on several countries around the world, resulting in enormous costs – in economic, political and social terms – to the poorest people, and enormous profits for the handful of global water conglomerates. Organized around the International Water Association and the World Water Council, the major water conglomerates, the World Bank and the UN have been promoting water privatization schemes across the 'developing' world and increasingly within the West as a means to 'solving' the world water crisis. As we have seen, however, from the cases of water privatization in places like Bolivia, South Africa, El Salvador, and several others, it is the poor who suffer the most, and it will be the same whether it is in Angola or America. ...

Third World America

As a further indication of the coming 'third world' status of America, in June of 2008, in the midst of the financial crisis, the United States Federal Reserve was audited by the IMF for the first time in history. As part of the investigation, "the Fed, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), the major investment banks, mortgage banks and hedge funds will be asked to hand over confidential documents to the IMF team."[55]

Simon Johnson, former Chief Economist at the IMF, wrote an article in May of 2009 explaining that the problem with most third world nations ("emerging market economies") is that the governments are so closely tight-knit with the corporate and banking elite that they form a financial oligarchy, and that this is essentially the same problem in the United States. He wrote that, "the finance industry has effectively captured our government," and "recovery will fail unless we break the financial oligarchy that is blocking essential reform."[56] ...

The G20 Korea Summit

To further accelerate the process of global economic governance, it is essential for the principle economic institutions and powers to integrate China fully into this system. China is already a signatory to the World Trade Organization, having opened up its banking sector to foreign investment, with its economy fully integrated with and largely dependent upon the West, it is pivotal to include China in the system of global governance. China is represented in the Bank for International Settlements (BIS), which the IMF referred to as "the central and the oldest focal point for coordination of global governance arrangements."[77] The board of directors of the BIS has 19 members, comprising the Governors of the central banks of Belgium, France, Germany, Italy and the United Kingdom and the Chairman of the Board of Governors of the US Federal Reserve System, as well as the Governors of the central banks of Brazil, Canada, China, Japan, the Netherlands, Sweden and Switzerland and the President of the ECB (European Central Bank). China is also represented in the G20, of which the President of the European Central Bank, Jean-Claude Trichet, referred to as "the prime group for global economic governance at the level of ministers, governors and heads of state or government."[78] In 2009, China and India were invited as official members of the Trilateral Commission,[79] an international think tank created by David Rockefeller and Zbigniew Brzezinski in 1973 with the aim of creating a "community of industrial nations" comprising Western Europe, North America and Japan, essentially with the aim of managing the process of globalization.

In November of 2010, the G20 is to be hosted by South Korea, where they will meet to again advance the process of global governance and global social genocide. Prior to the official meeting of heads of state, a much more important preliminary meeting took place between the finance ministers and central bank governors of the G20 nations. This took place in late October of 2010 in Seoul, South Korea, at a time when the world is immersed in a global currency war. The currency war involves several major nations, from America, to Brazil and China, seeking to depreciate their currency in order to make exports more attractive, so their central banks (all of which cooperate on global governance at the BIS), buy and sell each others' currencies, attempting to decrease the value of their own currency while increasing the value of competitor currencies. In short, it's a race to the bottom. To convince China to appreciate its currency, incentives must be given. If China is to be following the dictates of the global financial powers, its economic weight in the world demands that China be better represented and more involved in the governance of these institutions. This means that if China is being integrated into a system of global governance, it must be invited to the management table.

The G20 agreed on implementing an historic reform in the IMF, where for the first time since its creation in 1944, the management structure of the IMF has been [slightly] altered. The significance is that European countries have agreed to give up two of their seats on the 24-member executive board, making room for China and India, and more than 6 per cent of IMF voting power will be transferred to underrepresented countries at the fund. As the Financial Times reported:

After the changes take effect, Brazil, Russia, India and China will be all included in the fund's 10 biggest shareholders. The US, with a 17.67 per cent share of IMF quotas, will retain its veto power for the fund's key decisions as they will continue to require a super-majority of 85 per cent.[80]

This is important to note as it clearly indicates that America still remains the 'Godfather' of the global financial system. The IMF requires 85% of voters to agree on any changes or decisions, and since the U.S. has 17.67% of the shares, if the U.S. votes against anything, the IMF cannot go forward, giving the U.S. veto power over the IMF. Yet these changes still represent an incremental effort to bring China within this system of global governance. At the same time, a top Chinese banker stated that, "the yuan should be included in the basket of currencies that constitute the International Monetary Fund's Special Drawing Rights."[81] This would give China a more direct stake in the formation of a global currency, of which its central bank governor is already a firm supporter.

Conclusion

Herman Von Rompuy became President of the European Union in 2009, a new position established by the Lisbon Treaty passed the same year. Rompuy was selected as President following his attendance at a meeting of the Bilderberg Group.[82] Shortly after being given the position, Von Rompuy gave a speech in which he declared that 2009 is "the first year of global governance."[83] As Denis Healey, a founding member and former member of the Steering Committee of the Bilderberg Group for over 30 years, stated in 2001, "To say we were striving for a one-world government is exaggerated, but not wholly unfair. Those of us in Bilderberg felt we couldn't go on forever fighting one another for nothing and killing people and rendering millions homeless. So we felt that a single community throughout the world would be a good thing."[84]

So while institutions and organizations of global governance continue to grant themselves more power and expand their control and authority over the world, the people of the world must wake up to this process and seek to stem and stall its advancement. A global government would represent the people of the world even less than they are already not represented through their national governments. Institutions of global governance are totally unaccountable to the people, totally undemocratic, and are inherently totalitarian. As Gideon Rachman wrote for the Financial Times in December of 2008, "for the first time in my life, I think the formation of some sort of world government is plausible." While articulating the need for a global government, modeling it on the European Union "going global," he examined the setbacks that the EU had in this process, suggesting the same is likely in the process for global government. Specifically, he identified that whenever the people were involved in the process, they would act to stall or reject the process of integration. Thus, Rachman concluded, the European Union "has progressed fastest when far-reaching deals have been agreed by technocrats and politicians – and then pushed through without direct reference to the voters. International governance tends to be effective, only when it is anti-democratic."[85] In other words, if we want global governance, we must kill democracy in the process.

What this implies then, is that the people have the potential to prevent this process from taking place, but only if they become directly involved in rejecting it. This means that people's movements need to stop recognizing the legitimacy of these international organizations and institutions, complaining only that they are not included in discussions, and instead demand that they be dismantled altogether in favour of forming new governance arrangements – political, economic and social – that actively represent and empower the people over the entrenched powers. This is no simple task, in fact, it is likely the greatest, most monumental and challenging task that has ever faced humanity. So it seems necessary that the people not waste their time, not waste their votes, voices, or ideas, and work together to promote true progressive and humane change. There is hope in humanity yet, but so long as we allow the powerful to accumulate more power for themselves, we cannot expect things to get better for the majority. We must take advantage of our freedoms in order to fight for and preserve them. We can either be free thinkers, directing the course of our own lives, or we can be slaves to bankers.

Andrew Gavin Marshall is a Research Associate with the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG). He is co-editor, with Michel Chossudovsky, of the recent book, "The Global Economic Crisis: The Great Depression of the XXI Century," available to order at Globalresearch.ca. He is currently writing a book on 'Global government' due to be released in the New Year.

Notes
[1] Dominique Strauss-Kahn, Concluding Remarks by Dominique Strauss-Kahn, Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund, at the High-Level Conference on the International Monetary System, Zurich, 11 May 2010:
http://www.imf.org/external/np/speeches/2010/051110.htm
[2] George T. Crane, Abla Amawi, The Theoretical evolution of international political economy. Oxford University Press US, 1997: pages 50-51
[3]  Get ready for the phoenix. The Economist: Vol. 306: January 9, 1988: pages 9-10
[4] ECB, The euro and the dollar - new imperatives for policy co-ordination. Speeches and Interviews: September 18, 2000:
http://www.ecb.int/press/key/date/2000/html/sp000918.en.html
[5] Jeffrey E. Garten, Needed: A Fed for the World. The New York Times: September 23, 1998:
http://www.nytimes.com/1998/09/23/opinion/needed-a-fed-for-the-world.html
[6] Jeffrey Garten, Global authority can fill financial vacuum. The Financial Times: September 25, 2008:
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/7caf543e-8b13-11dd-b634-0000779fd18c.html?nclick_check=1
[7] Jeffrey Garten, We Need a Bank Of the World. Newsweek: October 25, 2008:
http://www.newsweek.com/id/165772
[8] CNBC, Morgan's Mack: Firm Was Excessively Leveraged. CNBC: October 16, 2008:
http://www.cnbc.com/id/27216678
[9] Robert Winnett, Financial Crisis: Gordon Brown calls for 'new Bretton Woods'. The Telegraph, 13 October 2008:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/financetopics/financialcrisis/3189517/Financial-Crisis-Gordon-Brown-calls-for-new-Bretton-Woods.html
[10] Gordon Brown, Out of the Ashes. The Washington Post: October 17, 2008:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/10/16/AR2008101603179.html
[11] Gordon Rayner, Global financial crisis: does the world need a new banking 'policeman'? The Telegraph: October 8, 2008:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/financetopics/financialcrisis/3155563/Global-financial-crisis-does-the-world-need-a-new-banking-policeman.html
[12] Itar-Tass, Russia proposes creation of global super-reserve currency. ITAR-TASS News Agency: March 16, 2009:
http://www.itar-tass.com/eng/level2.html?NewsID=13682035&PageNum=0
[13] Jamil Anderlini, China calls for new reserve currency. The Financial Times: March 23, 2009:
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/7851925a-17a2-11de-8c9d-0000779fd2ac.html
[14] CFR, A Conversation with Timothy F. Geithner. Council on Foreign Relations Transcripts: March 25, 2009:
http://www.cfr.org/publication/18925/
[15] UN backs new new global currency reserve. The Sunday Telegraph: March 29, 2009:
http://www.news.com.au/business/story/0,27753,25255091-462,00.html
[16] Ambrose Evans-Pritchard, The G20 moves the world a step closer to a global currency. The Telegraph: April 3, 2009:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/comment/ambroseevans_pritchard/5096524/The-G20-moves-the-world-a-step-closer-to-a-global-currency.html
[17] Anthony Faiola, A Bigger, Bolder Role Is Imagined For the IMF, The Washington Post, 20 April 2009:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/04/19/AR2009041902242.html?hpid=topnews
[18] Izabella Kaminska, IMF blueprint for a global currency – yes really, Financial Times Blog, 4 August 2010:
http://ftalphaville.ft.com/blog/2010/08/04/306346/imf-blueprint-for-a-global-currency-yes-really/
[19] Amar Bhattacharya, A Tangled Web, Finance and Development, March 2009, Vol. 46, No. 1:
http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/fandd/2009/03/bhattacharya.htm
[20] Jean-Claude Trichet, Global governance Today, Keynote address by Mr Jean-Claude Trichet, President of the European Central Bank, at the Council on Foreign Relations, New York, 26 April 2010:
http://www.bis.org/review/r100428b.pdf
[21]  Ibid.
[22] Jean-Claude Trichet, Central bank cooperation after the global financial crisis, Video address by Jean-Claude Trichet, President of the European Central Bank, at the Bank of Korea International Conference 2010, Seoul, 31 May 2010:
http://www.ecb.int/press/key/date/2010/html/sp100531.en.html
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http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/comment/ambroseevans_pritchard/6804156/Greece-defies-Europe-as-EMU-crisis-turns-deadly-serious.html; Elena Becatoros, Greece prepares economic crisis plan. The Globe and Mail: December 14, 2009:
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/greece-prepares-economic-crisis-plan/article1399496/; LOUISE STORY, LANDON THOMAS Jr. and NELSON D. SCHWARTZ, Wall St. Helped to Mask Debt Fueling Europe's Crisis. The New York Times: February 13, 2010:
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/14/business/global/14debt.html?adxnnl=1&adxnnlx=1266501631-XefUT62RSKhWj6xKSCX37Q
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[25] Economist, Now comes the pain. The Economist: March 4, 2010:
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[26] Nelson D. Schwartz and Eric Dash, Banks Bet Greece Defaults on Debt They Helped Hide. The New York Times: February 24, 2010:
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[27] Louise Story, Wall St. was partner in Greece's debt crisis. The Boston Globe: February 14, 2010:
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[28] Nelson D. Schwartz and Eric Dash, Banks Bet Greece Defaults on Debt They Helped Hide. The New York Times: February 24, 2010:
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[29] Barrie McKenna and Joanna Slater, Role of banks eyed in Greek debt crisis. The Globe and Mail: February 25, 2010:
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[30] Stephen G. Cecchetti, M.S. Mohanty and Fabrizio Zampolli, The Future of Public Debt: Prospects and Implications. BIS Working Papers, No 300, Monetary and Economic Department, March 2010: page 2
[31]  Ibid, page 12.
[32] Ambrose Evans-Pritchard, Derivatives still pose huge risk, says BIS. The Telegraph: September 13, 2009:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/banksandfinance/6184496/Derivatives-still-pose-huge-risk-says-BIS.html
[33] Report on Business, Is Japan hurtling toward a debt crisis? The Globe and Mail: April 14, 2010:
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/economy/is-japan-hurtling-toward-a-debt-crisis/article1534498/
[34] Brett Arends, What a Sovereign-Debt Crisis Could Mean for You. The Wall Street Journal: December 18, 2009:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703323704574602030789251824.html
[35] Edmund Conway, 'Significant chance' of second financial crisis, warns World Economic Forum. The Telegraph: January 14, 2010:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/financetopics/davos/6990433/Significant-chance-of-second-financial-crisis-warns-World-Economic-Forum.html
[36] Nina Koeppen, ECB Official Warns of Potential Sovereign Debt Crisis. The Wall Street Journal: April 15, 2010:
http://blogs.wsj.com/economics/2010/04/15/ecb-official-warns-of-potential-sovereign-debt-crisis/
[37] Niall Ferguson, A Greek crisis is coming to America. The Financial Times: February 10, 2010:
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/f90bca10-1679-11df-bf44-00144feab49a.html
[38] G20 communique after meeting in South Korea, Reuters, 5 June 2010:
http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE6540VN20100605
[39] David Lawder, Global rebalancing policies need coordination-IMF, Reuters, 5 June 2010:
http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSN0514799020100605
[40] Sewell Chan and Jackie Calmes, World Leaders Agree on Timetable for Cutting Deficits, The New York Times, 27 June 2010:
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/28/business/global/28summit.html
[41] Toby Helm, Ian Traynor and Paul Harris, Europe embraces the cult of austerity – but at what cost? The Observer, 13 June 2010:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2010/jun/13/europe-embraces-cult-of-austerity
[42] Simon Johnson, Fiscal Austerity and America's Future, The New York Times Economix Blog, 26 August 2010:
http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/08/26/fiscal-austerity-and-americas-future/
[43] Izabella Kaminska, Bible code, finance edition, The Financial Times Blog, 18 May 2010:
http://ftalphaville.ft.com/blog/2009/05/18/55977/bible-code-finance-edition/
[44] Joseph A. Giannone, UBS banker sees next U.S. privatizations smaller, Reuters, 6 May 2009:
http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE54562G20090506
[45] CCGA, Board of Directors, The Chicago Council on Global Affairs:
http://www.thechicagocouncil.org/dynamic_page.php?id=117
[46] Emerging Leaders Perspectives, No Free Money: Is the Privatization of Infrastructure in the Public Interest? The Chicago Council on Global Affairs, September 2010: p. 4
[47]  Ibid, page 7.
[48]  Ibid, page 11.
[49] Matt Taibbi, Exclusive Excerpt: America on Sale, From Matt Taibbi's 'Griftopia', Rolling Stone, 18 October 2010:
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/17390/222206?RS_show_page=0
[50] Andrew Willis and Boyd Erman, Ontario ponders sale of Crown corporations to beat down deficit, The Globe and Mail, 15 December 2009:
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/ontario-ponders-sale-of-crown-corporations-to-beat-down-deficit/article1401807/
[51] Simone Meier, BIS Sees Risk Central Banks Will Raise Interest Rates Too Late, Bloomberg, 29 June 2009:
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=newsarchive&sid=aOnSy9jXFKaY
[52] Ambrose Evans-Pritchard, BIS plays with fire, demands double-barrelled monetary and fiscal tightening, The Telegraph, 28 June 2010:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/comment/ambroseevans_pritchard/7859800/BIS-plays-with-fire-demands-double-barrelled-monetary-and-fiscal-tightening.html
[53]  Ibid.
[54] Stephen G. Cecchetti, M.S. Mohanty and Fabrizio Zampolli, The Future of Public Debt: Prospects and Implications. BIS Working Papers, No 300, Monetary and Economic Department, March 2010: page 14
[55] Gabor Steingart, The Shrinking Influence of the US Federal Reserve, Der Spiegel, 26 June 2008:
http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,562291,00.html
[56] Simon Johnson, The Quiet Coup, The Atlantic, May 2009:
http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2009/05/the-quiet-coup/7364/
[57] Desmond Lachman, Welcome to America, the World's Scariest Emerging Market, The Washington Post, 29 March 2009:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/03/25/AR2009032502226.html
[58] Luiza Ch. Savage, Third World America, Macleans, 14 September 2010:
http://www2.macleans.ca/2010/09/14/third-world-america/
[59] Juha Y. Auvinen, "IMF Intervention and Political Protest in the Third World: A Conventional Wisdom Refined," Third World Quarterly, Vol. 17, No. 3, (1996), p. 377
[60] Firoze Manji and Carl O'Coill, "The Missionary Position: NGOs and Development in Africa," International Affairs, Vol. 78, No. 3, (2002), p. 578
[61] Angela Balakrishnan, IMF chief issues stark warning on economic crisis. The Guardian: December 18, 2008:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2008/dec/16/imf-financial-crisis
[62] Jason Burke, Eastern Europe braced for a violent 'spring of discontent'. The Observer: January 18, 2009:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/jan/18/eu-riots-vilinius; Philip P. Pan, Economic Crisis Fuels Unrest in E. Europe. The Washington Post: January 26, 2009:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/01/25/AR2009012502516.html
[63] Adrian Michaels, Europe's winter of discontent. The Telegraph: January 27, 2009:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/personal-view/4363750/Europes-winter-of-discontent.html; Ian Traynor, Governments across Europe tremble as angry people take to the streets. The Guardian: January 31, 2009:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2009/jan/31/global-recession-europe-protests; Ben Hall, French workers stage strike in protest at job losses and reforms. The Financial Times: January 29, 2009:
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/71c25576-eda6-11dd-bd60-0000779fd2ac.html; Roger Boyes, World Agenda: riots in Iceland, Latvia and Bulgaria are a sign of things to come. The Times: January 21, 2009:
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/europe/article5559773.ece
[64] Henry Samuel, Riots across Europe fuelled by economic crisis. The Telegraph: May 1, 2009:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/5258634/Riots-across-Europe-fuelled-by-economic-crisis.html
[65] Stephen C. Webster, US intel chief: Economic crisis a greater threat than terrorism. Raw Story: February 13, 2009:
http://rawstory.com/news/2008/US_intel_chief_Economic_crisis_greater_0213.html
[66] Tom Philpott, MILITARY UPDATE: Official: Financial crisis a bigger security risk than wars. Colorado Springs Gazette: February 1, 2009:
http://www.gazette.com/articles/mullen-47273-military-time.html
[67] AFP, WTO chief warns of looming political unrest. AFP: February 7, 2009:
http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5gpC1Q4gXJfp6EwMl1rMGrmA_a7ZA
[68] Heather Scoffield, 'There will be blood'. The Globe and Mail: February 23, 2009:
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/article973785.ece
[69] BBC, World Bank warns of social unrest. BBC News: May 24, 2009:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/8066037.stm
[70] Press TV, Economic Crisis: Brzezinski warns of riots in US. Global Research: February 21, 2009:
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=12392
[71] Edmund Conway, Moody's warns of 'social unrest' as sovereign debt spirals, The Telegraph, 15 December 2009:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/economics/6819470/Moodys-warns-of-social-unrest-as-sovereign-debt-spirals.html
[72] Ambrose Evans-Pritchard, Moody's fears social unrest as AAA states implement austerity plans. The Telegraph: March 15, 2010:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/economics/7450468/Moodys-fears-social-unrest-as-AAA-states-implement-austerity-plans.html
[73] Simon Schama, The world teeters on the brink of a new age of rage, The Financial Times, 22 May 2010:
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/45796f88-653a-11df-b648-00144feab49a.html
[74] Ambrose Evans-Pritchard, IMF fears 'social explosion' from world jobs crisis, The Telegraph, 13 September 2010:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/financetopics/financialcrisis/8000561/IMF-fears-social-explosion-from-world-jobs-crisis.html
[75] Roddy Thomson, European cities hit by anti-cuts protests, AFP, 29 September 2010:
http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5iGPFQn-DOcZkJmTK5anC4nfopDZA?docId=CNG.a9e7345890360219e1ae3413e8fe2974.8b1
[76] Peter Allen, Nicolas Sarkozy most unpopular French president in more than 50 years, The Telegraph, 25 October 2010:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/france/8086078/Nicolas-Sarkozy-most-unpopular-French-president-in-more-than-50-years.html
[77] Amar Bhattacharya, A Tangled Web, Finance and Development, March 2009, Vol. 46, No. 1:
http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/fandd/2009/03/bhattacharya.htm
[78] Jean-Claude Trichet, Global governance Today, Keynote address by Mr Jean-Claude Trichet, President of the European Central Bank, at the Council on Foreign Relations, New York, 26 April 2010:
http://www.bis.org/review/r100428b.pdf
[79] About the Trilateral Commission, The Pacific Asia Group, The Trilateral Commission:
http://www.trilateral.org/go.cfm?do=Page.View&pid=13
[80] Song Jung-a, G20 agrees historic reform of IMF, Financial Times, 23 October 2010:
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[81] China Bureau, China Banker Urges IMF To Include Yuan In SDR Basket – Report, Wall Street Journal, 25 October 2010:
http://online.wsj.com/article/BT-CO-20101025-700112.html
[82] Ian Traynor, Who speaks for Europe? Criticism of 'shambolic' process to fill key jobs. The Guardian, 17 November 2009:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/nov/17/top-european-job-selection-process
[83] Herman Von Rompuy, Speech Upon Accepting the EU Presidency, BBC News, 22 November 2009:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pzm_R3YBgPg
[84] Jon Ronson, Who pulls the strings? (part 3), The Guardian, 10 March 2001:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2001/mar/10/extract1
[85] Gideon Rachman, And now for a world government, Financial Times, 8 December 2010:
http://us.ft.com/ftgateway/superpage.ft?news_id=fto120820081424026754

(2) Jeffrey Garten: A Fed for the World

http://www.nytimes.com/1998/09/23/opinion/needed-a-fed-for-the-world.html

Needed: A Fed for the World

By Jeffrey E. Garten
Published: September 23, 1998

NEW HAVEN — Even as emerging markets sink into depression and stocks plunge from Montreal to Melbourne, a global economy is slowly emerging, albeit in a tortuous and painful way. But governments seem paralyzed, unable to deal with both the crisis and the opportunity.

Today's chaotic international market mirrors how the American economy evolved between the Civil War and the 1930's. For well over half a century we, too, had booms and busts, countless bank failures, rampant bankruptcies. Capitalism was an uncontrollable Darwinian process, with big winners and big losers.

But over time the United States set up crucial central institutions -- the Securities and Exchange Commission (1933), the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (1934) and, most important, the Federal Reserve (1913). In so doing, America became a managed national economy. These organizations were created to make capitalism work, to prevent destructive business cycles and to moderate the harsh, invisible hand of Adam Smith.

This is what now must occur on a global scale. The world needs an institution that has a hand on the economic rudder when the seas become stormy. It needs a global central bank.

The sad fact is that we cannot rely on existing institutions or on national leaders for global economic stability.

The International Monetary Fund knows how to deal with one or a few countries at a time, but not an international phenomenon in which all countries' problems occur at once and are linked. The World Bank's mission has included financing big projects and alleviating poverty, but it is not designed for financial crises.

Simply trying to coordinate the world's powerful central banks -- the Fed and the new European Central Bank, for instance -- wouldn't work, either. If there is no inflation in the United States, the Fed won't lower interest rates simply because that would help, say, Southeast Asia. Such global responsibility is not in the Fed's charter. The European Central Bank, meanwhile, seems proud of its narrow focus on Europe. The result is inadequate attention to the three-quarters of the world consisting of emerging markets.

Effective collaboration among finance ministries and treasuries is also unlikely to materialize. These agencies are responsible to elected legislatures, and politics in the industrial countries is more preoccupied with internal events than with international stability. ...

(3) Jeffrey Garten: Global authority can fill financial vacuum

Global authority can fill financial vacuum

By Jeffrey Garten

Published: September 25 2008 20:02 | Last updated: September 25 2008 20:02

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/7caf543e-8b13-11dd-b634-0000779fd18c.html

Even if the US’s massive financial rescue operation succeeds, it should be followed by something even more far-reaching – the establishment of a Global Monetary Authority to oversee markets that have become borderless.

Washington recognises that the crisis has become global. Hank Paulson, Treasury secretary, has said that foreign banks operating in the US will be eligible for federal assistance and he is urging other nations to fashion their own bail-out programmes. Central banks have also been synchronising injections of funds into markets. These should be steps to a more comprehensive international response designed not just to extinguish the current fires, but to rebuild and maintain the capital markets for the longer term....

(4) Jeffrey Garten: We Need a Bank Of the World

We Need a Bank Of the World

The financial crisis is global, and only an international central bank can deal with it.

Jeffrey Garten

October 25, 2008

http://www.newsweek.com/2008/10/25/we-need-a-bank-of-the-world.html

If George W. Bush's upcoming global summit on how to fix the world's broken financial system—an event proposed by several European presidents and prime ministers—is to be a serious effort, the leaders should begin laying the groundwork for establishing a global central bank.

The idea of such an institution would have been a political nonstarter before the current debacle. The crises of the last several decades—the Latin American debt meltdown in the early 1980s, the stock-market crash in 1987, the savings and loan collapse of the early 1990s, the Asian financial blowup of the late

1990s, the Internet-stock collapse earlier in this decade—did not involve the extent of global linkages among financial institutions or the mind-boggling consequences of complex securities that we are seeing today. In none of these previous blowups did the global credit system shut down, as it did in recent weeks; in none did governments in both the industrialized and developing world intervene so massively, coming close to nationalizing the entire global banking system.

And in none was it so clear that there is no effective governing authority at the center of global finance. There was a time when the U.S. Federal Reserve played this role, as the prime financial institution of the world's most powerful economy, overseeing the one global currency. But with the growth of capital markets, the rise of currencies like the euro and the emergence of powerful players such as China, the shift of wealth to Asia and the Persian Gulf and, of course, the deep-seated problems in the American economy itself, the Fed no longer has the capability to lead singlehandedly.

After World War II, the IMF was designed to be a central financial institution, too. But over the decades it has had less and less influence on the rich industrialized nations. Its credibility with Asia and Latin America has also waned. It is still involved in bailouts for countries such as Iceland and Pakistan, but its once central role in protecting global stability is clearly over. And most important, its political legitimacy is deeply flawed, because its management structure reflects the 1950s, with Belgium having more voting power than China.

In the future, a global central bank is needed to oversee the rudderless global financial system. There are a number of critical functions it could perform.

It could be the lead regulator of big global financial institutions, such as Citigroup or Deutsche Bank, whose activities spill across borders. It could monitor risks that are building in the global market and create an early-warning system that alerts banks and national regulators that trouble is coming, and pushes them to modify their policies.

It could act as a bankruptcy court when big global banks that operate in multiple countries need to be restructured. It could oversee not just the big commercial banks, such as Mitsubishi UFJ, but also the "alternative" financial system that has developed in recent years, consisting of hedge funds, private-equity groups and sovereign wealth funds—all of which are now substantially unregulated.

A new institution could have influence over key exchange rates, and might lead a new monetary conference to realign the dollar and the yuan, for example, for one of its first missions would be to deal with the great financial imbalances that hang like a sword over the world economy.

A global central bank would not eliminate the need for the Federal Reserve or other national central banks, which will still have frontline responsibility for sound regulatory policies and monetary stability in their respective countries. But it would have heavy influence over them when it comes to following policies that are compatible with global growth and financial stability. For example, it would work with key countries to better coordinate national stimulus programs when the world enters a recession, as is happening now, so that the cumulative impact of the various national efforts do not so dramatically overshoot that they plant the seeds for a crisis of global inflation. This is a big threat as government spending everywhere goes into overdrive.

The IMF could continue to exist, but its board would have to be restructured, its bailout role for smaller nations carefully defined, and its directions—including the severity of the conditions it imposes on borrowers—would have to come from the new central bank.

To give it legitimacy, a global central bank would have to be governed in light of political realities. That means that its board would include not only the top financial officials of the United States, the U.K., the euro zone and Japan, but also China, Saudi Arabia, Brazil, South Africa and perhaps a few others.

If a global central bank had existed before today's financial crisis, it could have sounded a shrill warning about irresponsible financial transactions much earlier; and if it had been set up with the enforcement teeth it deserves, it would have had the clout to demand, perhaps as early as 2005, that banks and other financial institutions start building reserves when times were booming, rather than allow them to maintain lower reserves precisely because profits were soaring. It would have seen that financial institutions were accumulating debt that was 30 times their capital and imposed—or caused national central banks to impose—more sober leverage ratios.

A global central bank worth its salt would have reined in not just commercial banks but also loosely-regulated investment banks, because all such institutions would have been obligated to adhere to the global banks' regulatory standards or else be blacklisted in global markets. It would have intervened to deal with Lehman Brothers and AIG, both with truly global reach, and thereby put the burden not just on American taxpayers but also taxpayers of other countries who used these institutions' services.

Had it existed, a global central bank would have acted without the air of panic that has been exhibited by national central banks and finance ministries in this meltdown. Ideally, it would have gathered its governing board well in advance of a financial blowup to execute a coordinated rescue and global-stimulus plan, part of what should be its ongoing role of preparing for crises.

It would be hard to overestimate the political pushback that any official proposal for a global central bank would draw from various constituencies, most especially within the United States. Among their many charges, critics will protest the establishment of "world government." But we have a World Trade Organization with legally binding powers over trade disputes. We have a World Health Organization for communicable disease with the ability to quarantine entire countries. And a World Court functions today that has considerable legal and moral clout.

No one should want too much globally centralized oversight. But the world's gathering misery shows that too little leadership from the center can be equally dangerous. The November summit itself won't solve anything, but if it gave instructions to finance ministers and central bankers to explore what a new central bank could do, with a deadline to come back with concrete ideas shortly after a new U.S. president is inaugurated, it will have made real progress on one of the great problems of our times.