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Libya: All About Oil, or All About Banking?
Libya: All About Oil, or All About Banking?
Courtesy of Ellen Brown, originally published at Truthout
Several writers have noted the odd fact that the Libyan rebels took time out from their rebellion in March to create their own central bank - this before they even had a government. Robert Wenzel wrote in the Economic Policy Journal:
I have never before heard of a central bank being created in just a matter of weeks out of a popular uprising. This suggests we have a bit more than a rag tag bunch of rebels running around and that there are some pretty sophisticated influences.
Alex Newman wrote in the New American:
In a statement released last week, the rebels reported on the results of a meeting held on March 19. Among other things, the supposed rag-tag revolutionaries announced the "[d]esignation of the Central Bank of Benghazi as a monetary authority competent in monetary policies in Libya and appointment of a Governor to the Central Bank of Libya, with a temporary headquarters in Benghazi."
Newman quoted CNBC Senior Editor John Carney, who asked, "Is this the first time a revolutionary group has created a central bank while it is still in the midst of fighting the entrenched political power? It certainly seems to indicate how extraordinarily powerful central bankers have become in our era."
Another anomaly involves the official justification for taking up arms against Libya. Supposedly it's about human rights violations, but the evidence is contradictory. According to an article on the Fox News web site on February 28:
As the United Nations works feverishly to condemn Libyan leader Muammar al-Qaddafi for cracking down on protesters, the body's Human Rights Council is poised to adopt a report chock-full of praise for Libya's human rights record.
The review commends Libya for improving educational opportunities, for making human rights a "priority" and for bettering its "constitutional" framework. Several countries, including Iran, Venezuela, North Korea, and Saudi Arabia but also Canada, give Libya positive marks for the legal protections afforded to its citizens - who are now revolting against the regime and facing bloody reprisal.
Whatever might be said of Qaddafi's personal crimes, the Libyan people seem to be thriving. A delegation of medical professionals from Russia, Ukraine and Belarus wrote in anappeal to Russian President Medvedev and Prime Minister Putin that after becoming acquainted with Libyan life, it was their view that in few nations did people live in such comfort:
[Libyans] are entitled to free treatment and their hospitals provide the best in the world of medical equipment. Education in Libya is free, capable young people have the opportunity to study abroad at government expense. When marrying, young couples receive 60,000 Libyan dinars (about 50,000 US dollars) of financial assistance. Non-interest state loans and as practice shows, undated. Due to government subsidies the price of cars is much lower than in Europe and they are affordable for every family. Gasoline and bread cost a penny, no taxes for those who are engaged in agriculture. The Libyan people are quiet and peaceful, are not inclined to drink and are very religious.
They maintained that the international community had been misinformed about the struggle against the regime. "Tell us," they said, "who would not like such a regime?"
Even if that is just propaganda, there is no denying at least one very popular achievement of the Libyan government: it brought water to the desert by building the largest and most expensive irrigation project in history, the $33 billion GMMR (Great Man-Made River) project. Even more than oil, water is crucial to life in Libya. The GMMR provides 70 percent of the population with water for drinking and irrigation, pumping it from Libya's vast underground Nubian Sandstone Aquifer System in the south to populated coastal areas 4,000 kilometers to the north. The Libyan government has done at least some things right.
Another explanation for the assault on Libya is that it is "all about oil," but that theory, too, is problematic. As noted in the National Journal, the country produces only about 2 percent of the world's oil. Saudi Arabia alone has enough spare capacity to make up for any lost production if Libyan oil were to disappear from the market. And if it's all about oil, why the rush to set up a new central bank?
Another provocative bit of data circulating on the net is a 2007 Democracy Now! interview of US Gen. Wesley Clark (Ret.). In it he says that about ten days after September 11, 2001, he was told by a general that the decision had been made to go to war with Iraq. Clark was surprised and asked why. "I don't know!" was the response. "I guess they don't know what else to do!" Later, the same general said they planned to take out seven countries in five years: Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and Iran.
What do these seven countries have in common? In the context of banking, one that sticks out is that none of them is listed among the 56 member banks of the Bank for International Settlements (BIS). That evidently puts them outside the long regulatory arm of the central bankers' central bank in Switzerland.
The most renegade of the lot could be Libya and Iraq, the two that have actually been attacked. Kenneth Schortgen Jr., writing on Examiner.com, noted, "[s]ix months before the US moved into Iraq to take down Saddam Hussein, the oil nation had made the move to accept Euros instead of dollars for oil and this became a threat to the global dominance of the dollar as the reserve currency and its dominion as the petrodollar."
According to a Russian article titled "Bombing of Lybia - Punishment for Ghaddafi for His Attempt to Refuse US Dollar," Qaddaffi made a similarly bold move: he initiated a movement to refuse the dollar and the euro and called on Arab and African nations to use a new currency instead, the gold dinar. Qaddafi suggested establishing a united African continent, with its 200 million people using this single currency. During the past year, the idea was approved by many Arab countries and most African countries. The only opponents were the Republic of South Africa and the head of the League of Arab States. The initiative was viewed negatively by the USA and the European Union, with French President Nicolas Sarkozy calling Libya a threat to the financial security of mankind; but Qaddafi was not swayed and continued his push for the creation of a united Africa.
And that brings us back to the puzzle of the Libyan central bank. In an article posted on the Market Oracle, Eric Encina observed:
One seldom mentioned fact by western politicians and media pundits: the Central Bank of Libya is 100% State Owned.... Currently, the Libyan government creates its own money, the Libyan Dinar, through the facilities of its own central bank. Few can argue that Libya is a sovereign nation with its own great resources, able to sustain its own economic destiny. One major problem for globalist banking cartels is that in order to do business with Libya, they must go through the Libyan Central Bank and its national currency, a place where they have absolutely zero dominion or power-broking ability. Hence, taking down the Central Bank of Libya (CBL) may not appear in the speeches of Obama, Cameron and Sarkozy but this is certainly at the top of the globalist agenda for absorbing Libya into its hive of compliant nations.
Libya not only has oil. According to the International Monetary Fund (IMF), its central bank has nearly 144 tons of gold, in its vaults. With that sort of asset base, who needs the BIS, the IMF and their rules?
All of which prompts a closer look at the BIS rules and their effect on local economies. An article on the BIS web site states that central banks in the Central Bank Governance Network are supposed to have as their single or primary objective "to preserve price stability." They are to be kept independent from government to make sure that political considerations don't interfere with this mandate. "Price stability" means maintaining a stable money supply, even if that means burdening the people with heavy foreign debts. Central banks are discouraged from increasing the money supply by printing money and using it for the benefit of the state, either directly or as loans.
In a 2002 article in Asia Times titled "The BIS vs National Banks," Henry Liu maintained:
BIS regulations serve only the single purpose of strengthening the international private banking system, even at the peril of national economies. The BIS does to national banking systems what the IMF has done to national monetary regimes. National economies under financial globalization no longer serve national interests.
... FDI [foreign direct investment] denominated in foreign currencies, mostly dollars, has condemned many national economies into unbalanced development toward export, merely to make dollar-denominated interest payments to FDI, with little net benefit to the domestic economies.
He added, "Applying the State Theory of Money, any government can fund with its own currency all its domestic developmental needs to maintain full employment without inflation." The "state theory of money" refers to money created by governments rather than private banks.
The presumption of the rule against borrowing from the government's own central bank is that this will be inflationary, while borrowing existing money from foreign banks or the IMF will not. But all banks actually create the money they lend on their books, whether publicly owned or privately owned. Most new money today comes from bank loans. Borrowing it from the government's own central bank has the advantage that the loan is effectively interest free. Eliminating interest has been shown to reduce the cost of public projects by an average of 50 percent.
And that appears to be how the Libyan system works. According to Wikipedia, the functions of the Central Bank of Libya include "issuing and regulating banknotes and coins in Libya" and "managing and issuing all state loans." Libya's wholly state-owned bank can and does issue the national currency and lend it for state purposes.
That would explain where Libya gets the money to provide free education and medical care and to issue each young couple $50,000 in interest-free state loans. It would also explain where the country found the $33 billion to build the GMMR project. Libyans are worried that NATO-led airstrikes are coming perilously close to this pipeline,threatening another humanitarian disaster.
So, is this new war all about oil or all about banking? Maybe both - and water as well. With energy, water and ample credit to develop the infrastructure to access them, a nation can be free of the grip of foreign creditors. And that may be the real threat of Libya: it could show the world what is possible. Most countries don't have oil, but new technologies are being developed that could make non-oil-producing nations energy independent, particularly if infrastructure costs are halved by borrowing from the nation's own publicly-owned bank. Energy independence would free governments from the web of the international bankers and of the need to shift production from domestic to foreign markets to service the loans.
If the Qaddafi government goes down, it will be interesting to watch whether the new central bank joins the BIS, whether the nationalized oil industry gets sold off to investors and whether education and health care continue to be free.
Photo: A line of rebel trucks wait at the western entrance to Ajdabiya, Libya, on April 11, 2011. (Photo: Bryan Denton / The New York Times)
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Great book.
Of course that's what happened. Why else would have Haliburton and the Pentagon been scouting Kuwait for warehouse space and logistics 6 months before the war began. I think CNN booked hotel space with non-refundable deposits via their agents.
Also, the last "hurrah" of the Dollar were the events of 2008. An orchestrated crash to get the world to rethink their allegiance to the Dollar.
Now the Dollar drowns in debt as the rest of the world is prefering the Euro regardless of whatever perceived "flight to safety" option the Dollar once had.
Maybe Obama can "fix" it? LOL. 't was worth a try don't you all think?
Now, how do we continue to do business and go forward when the cat is out of the bag and the lies and deception really are all that and nothing else?
Don't forget Iran.
The IOB (Iranian Oil Bourse) is intended as an oil bourse for petroleum, petrochemicals and gas in various currencies, primarily the euro and Iranian rial and a basket of other major currencies apart from the United States dollar.
December 2006 Bloomberg cited two Iranian newspapers reporting Iran's Minister of Economy Davoud Danesh-Ja'fari Iran as wanting to cut US dollar based transactions to a minimum.
March 2007 Tehran based Press TV reported that the Iranian Embassy in Baghdad announced a shift of its major currency from dollars to euros. Iraqis traveling to Iran will pay for a visa in euros in line with other Iran Embassy locations.
December 2007 Iran stops accepting U.S. dollars for oil.
It was supposed to open in 2006 but was delayed until 2008.
At least someone has the courage to post the truth. Certainly won't find this on the evening news tonight. All the wars that are fought are 'encouraged' by the central bankers for power, profit and control. Every war the US has fought in has been a direct result of bankers or their policies.
The next subject that needs to be published is the use of the dollar (and the QE n+1) as an economic WMD. The cartel does not care anything about the US economy but is intent to get China to de-peg the yuan from the dollar. I believe the Fed will keep printing dollars with the express intent to cause inflationary damage to China until they capitulate on floating their currency. After all, the US (I mean China!) is the currency manipulator.
This is the textbook playbook of the IMF. Let the currency float, manipulate and crash the target country's economy, offer IMF loans with 'austerity' strings attached (not to mention privatizing national resources or industries), and let the eslavement continue.
Oh, by the way, China's central bank is also not in private hands (yet). It will be interesting to see at Bretton Woods II if the globalist's plan is to make the yuan the reserve currency in exchange for privatization of China's central bank. If their politicians in China are half the soulless whores they are in the US they will be lining up to send their country down the river for the promise of further riches and empire building. If so, then the American Empire is officially over (as if it isn't almost there already)
Our empire doesnt have to be over if we stop the entitlements.
No great nation ever maintained pre eminence and.dynamism after converting to socialism.
oh please, Soc Sec was funding defecit spending for last decades, to pay for things that taxes didn't like Defense spending....FICA taxes on baby boomers was raised by Reagan/Dems to build up Soc Sec trust fund so the when baby boomers retired and there were less working age people compare to retirees there would be a surplus to draw down from to pay boomer their Soc Sec benes. So Soc Sec for decades collected more in FICA taxes than it paid out to retirees/SDI etc. It had a surplus there, prepared for the obvious demographic shift. This surplus was lent to govt to fund its overspending in other areas, so entitlements, prior to 2009 actually kept govt afloat rather than dragging it down.
Soc Sec trust is solvent thru 2030s and would not need major changes to keep it solvent long past that...say just remove 100k income tax cap on FICA tax (wehn REagan implemented FICA changes, top 10 percent of wages was exempted, now because inocme disparity has grown in US, top 17 percent of wages don't pay FICA) you could raise retirment age a couple of years etc...Do a few mild reforms like this and Soc Sec is solvent thru 2050s-2070s, hardly a dooms day scenario.
US tas rates are low compared to most other developed countries and low compared to historic rates in 50s, 60s, 70s even Reagan years 80s and Bush/Clinton years in 90s. So even if we decided to increase taxes to pay for Medicare etc, we wouldn't be as high as previous times in US nor as high as other countries. Hardly end of the world stuff.
Everyone is flipping out now because Soc Sec is paying out more benes than FICA tax is taking in, but that was known and planned for, that was why a trust fund was built up, just as an private insurance company take premiums and puts most of them away in reserves to pay some big claims some day. You don't say the insurance company is insolvent when during a big disaster it pays out more than it takes in in premiums, of course that will happen from time to time, that is whole reason surplus in revenue set aside in trust funds. Now that Soc Sec is not lending money to govt but is actually asking for its savings back, everyone is freaking out...please. It has nothing to do with mis-management of entitlements and everything to do with spending more than we were willing to tax, on defense etc.
As long as you're an oligarch you're ok. If you're a plebe...that's different. The rat race in imperial Rome was a terrible thing as they had a bubble cycle every five years under burgeoning slave/plebe population increase, (all roads led to...), in grain prices and real estate. It's all there...the future road to spiraling down, under the heel of greedy despots... "This ain't no technological breakdown...this is the road to hell...". Sing on bard, starved of hope and harbinger of bleeding despair.
I think your right. They have to be able to control that economy.
Great article, thanks Ilene
Ditto, with a big exclamation mark.
A bankster meeting as I imagine it:
Bankster in bespoke suit (bbs): Define success
Bankster in santorelli suit (bss): Utter control of the world's most important non-renewable resource
bbs: Can you warp a democratic uprising to suit your interests?
bss: How well would that suit my salary and bonus?
I need bears. And better material.
This is strange.
Perhaps there is a global banking conspiracy.
However content people do not so easily revolt.
And pilots don't flee to malta to avoid fulfilling their mission in normal circumstances.
I suspect Libya is not the idyllic socialist paradise represented in this article.
I go both ways on this, consider in the U.S. I saw some folks on TV in TX that are proposing seccession of TX, they were screaming hostilely about how much they hate America, the flag etc. Now, I suspect they have some real greivances about the US govt, perhaps they read ZH and are really sick of the financial corruption or really don't like paying taxes but how bad is it? They are straight white people of seemingly middle class economic situation, they have a right to free speech as they were assembling freely, so they are not a targetted ethnic group, are doing okay financially, they have to pay taxes but they tax burden is below average compared to other developed countries and taxes are not higher than any time in last 50 years, their local and state govt fairly functional, had not taken over by a drug cartel, say like in MX etc..So they are hopping mad, and maybe have some real legit greivances, and they are so mad the want a revolution/secession...but really how bad is it?
Also I think how mad and "protesty" Tea Partiers were about Obamacare. There were very well publicized protests. The health care plan was mostly about how to insure non-poor, working age people who did not have health insurance. It was not immediately changing employer provided care, even if you believed it would erode that system eventually, that was a long way off at best with many political admin likely to come and go along the way, it was not about health care for old and poor, those folks already had Medicare and Medicaid, it only had slight revisions to those programs, and yet a lot of old people were really hopping mad about this. Sure people had legit concerns about mandate for the minority of people that were uninsured, sure people were worried about some businesses that did not provide health insurance being taxed, but people at these protests were hopping mad. Now I have seen anti-war protests 100s of times bigger than many of the tea party anti-health care that were not on TV. If I watch TV during 2004 I may have not even seen much war protest even tho it really existed, but if I watched TV in 2009, I would have seen some Americans really really mad at their govt about somethign that was really really bad, like change their whole lifestyle/economy/freedoms bad.
So while I am sure Q engaged in tyranny and people were abused by a secret police and Q asked soldiers to fire on civilians etc, I also know that in any country you can find 20 prominent people to turn on the current political leadership even they were George Washington or Ghandi and could make it look like they were horrible.
So while I think there was legit political/liberty issues at hand, and Q has been thuggish and economy has not been as good to people as above article states (Q created the problem of educated people without enought professional jobs for them), you could also have people in a situation that is much better than many others in nearby countries where there is no revolt.
The people in Texas pay US federal income taxes, therefore their tax burden is above average compared to other developed countries.
Texas is unique in that it was an internationally-recognized independent sovereign State (nation) before admission to the Union.
Texas is also unique in that it has the legal right to succession from the union. My memory escapes me at the moment but if I recall correctly, when Texas was admitted to the union there a provision that that the state could be subdivided by popular referendum, and the new subdivisions would have to specifically seek re-admittance to the union. The practical implication being that Texas could decide to hold a referendum to divide the state where half of the town of TexArkana would be "Texas" and the remainder would be a new State/state that was not automatically the 51st state. Perhaps someone from Texas can clarify this.
Remember, you do not measure your freedom by the size of your neighbors cell-block.
Be careful about comparing taxes to other nations, lest you wish to compare it to prior generations as well. We are at extremely high tax levels compared to the early parts of our history.
Of course, I would suggest you ignore that comparison altogether anyways.
The UN says Libya is peachy. Right. Yet real people have found a North Korea on the Med. Hats off if they are free of the international banksters, but that doesn't excuse the Duck's brutal dictatorship. Abe Lincoln printed money without the banksters and JFK and Jackson threatened to, if I remember correctly. Time to shut down the Fed scam and send some banksters and Senators to a new home in Marion, OH.
It was good while it lasted.
http://www.zerohedge.com/article/gaddafis-ukrainian-love-interest-nurse-...
Guys even a middle class american can have a beautiful ukranian or russian girlfriend or wife.
Be careful and dont get conned. Go there yurself and pick one out. The internet sites are real, very real. It is becoming increasingly well known as the place for hot cheap caucasian women, the race in high demand.
I saw a portly 50 something guy at a restaurant with a bombshell 35 something girlfriend. He wasnt high class enough to have an american girl that hot. I managed to introduce myself and confirm my suspicions, a ukranian who could barely speak english. Nice shy girl who had escaped from the crushing third world poverty.
To get one with nursing skills, I've heard you have to be an upper-middle class American or, generally, not Libyan.
not wet nursing
Love, its a beautiful thing.
;-)
Well looks like she left one third world haven to enter into a new one in five years...
Three words: Central Intelligence Agency.
International Monetary Fund
Wow. Would that mean that USA Inc and the US military are taking orders from the international banking cartel?
and most of them don't even know it...they were happy to go into Iraq because Saddam was a bad man, same with Libya and Q...I still say if you were a woman, which place was worse to live Saddams Iraq or Saudi Arabia? Iraq was another Arab state that had a solid middle class, and while suffering politicaly tyranny, had many progressive programs for the population. Now look at the economic situation of Iraqi's...we will see how Libya compares in 10 years.
Yes, as they have been for years.
+Eye of Horus on the US dollar bill
It also says, "In God we Trust"...which god are they trusting?
I read this article earlier today and was hoping it would find it's way to ZH. It really is very intriguing and poses some very provocative questions.
This is worth following and digging a little deeper into.
I hope ZH stays on top of this one. Can't wait for "film at 11:00".
Who doesn't think that fraud and treachery isn't involved here?
Just imagine Wolf Blitzer or Ali Velshi trying to explain this scenario!
I thought it odd too...it's like starting a new public infrastructure project in the middle of a war zone...kinda ;-)
http://www.zerohedge.com/article/fed-bailed-out-libya-owned-bank#comment-1123211
We need to stay on top of this one.
I gotta do this here/now, for all you buyers of silver and might have your contact info at APMEX. There are 25 ounces of silver in these sets. This is less than $40/oz for .999 silver. This is a set of 5 ounce "quarters" (that's what they call 'em).
Article from Mint News Blog:
2010 ATB Silver Bullion UpdateAPMEX has made their remaining allotment available, but only to certain people who have been selected to receive the opportunity to purchase them.
According to emails sent by APMEX, there were 18,000 requests to order the coins. They selected 3,500 email addresses and provided these people with the opportunity to purchase one of 3,100 available sets. The coins are encapsulated in PCGS "Choice BU" holders and priced at $959.95 per set if paying by check or wire, or $988.75 for payment by credit card. For the group of selected email addresses, orders must be placed by April 15, 2011, midnight CST.
Their product page can be found online here. As mentioned, only those 3,500 people selected by APMEX can place orders. A reader whose email was not selected reported that the order cannot be completed at step 2 of the checkout process.
We are sorry, your Customer ID was not selected to be eligible to purchase one of these items. (#59810) 2010 5 oz Silver ATB 5-Coin Set PCGS BU or Better (May 13th) These items have been removed from your cart.
Good enough for popcorn, not silver below spot. Guess I will continue to purchase from Provident. I have saved plenty over APMEX since switching to Provident.
Don't feel too pregnant, mine wasn't accepted either. It's worth a shot. Try back again as the original emails selected might not check in and they'll have to rotate the names.
Note: These 2010 coins have to be sold or the dealers will not be able to receive the 2011 issues! They WILL dump them as fast as they can at any price.