Sunday, April 3, 2011

Can Japan Weather the Storm of Earthquake, Tsunami and Nuclear Disaster?

Why the Japanese Government Can Afford to Rebuild: It Owns the Largest Depository Bank in the World, by Ellen Brown.

The excellent article, discussed in this piece, about Japan’s ability to recover from the triple disasters is has recently suffered by utilizing the considerable resources of the country’s public central bank is from Ellen H. Brown, author of “Web of Debt”. In her book, Ms. Brown exposes the corrupt and decaying underbelly of the international banking cartel’s (IBC) death grip on world economies through its near total monopoly on the creation of money as debt.

While the IBC creates nearly the entire money supply out of thin air as loan principal amounts (based on fractional reserve banking), the IBC does not create the money supply needed by those receiving loans to pay the interest on these loans. The additional money supply required to pay the interest on IBC loans must be obtained from the misfortune and losses of others. The IBC then pockets their earnings, usually moving this income to foreign shores, thus transferring over time the wealth of individual victim nations to a foreign oligarchy that only grows more powerful each day.

Japan and China are examples of nations that have resisted the slimy tentacles of the IBC’s debt-bondage by having their own public central banks. China has fueled its tremendous economic growth with low or no interest loans to businesses (many of which, it is understood, do not have to be paid back). This allows Chinese businesses to produce goods and services at very low cost, permitting them to set extremely low prices for their goods. Low priced Chinese goods have attracted worldwide markets leading to China’s booming export trade and rapid economic expansion.

Japan’s government owned central bank, Japan Post Bank (JPB), functions much the same way as the Chinese model outlined above. The Japanese government, through JPB, has a large amount of debt on its books, but there are important differences between the Japanese government’s debt and that of Portugal, Ireland or Greece.

These European countries owe their debt (principal and interest) to the IBC, which can increase the interest rate charged, refuse to rollover any loan or deny further credit if the IBC lacks confidence in the country’s ability to repay the loan. The Japanese government owes its debt to itself alone, not to any counterparty, and charges itself a very low interest rate. JPB, using government debt money, makes loans to the Japanese people to spur economic growth and productivity.

As JPB has expanded financial services over the last several years, many and varied foreign and domestic financial institutions (all of which are ultimately owned and controlled by the IBC) have expressed concern about Japan’s fulfillment of international trade obligations and are pressuring the Japanese government to “privatize” JPB and institute “international competitive conditions”. In other words, the IBC wants to capitalize on and freely pillage the wealth and economy of Japan without any competition.

Current “international competitive conditions” for most countries of the world consist of a large number of banks that supposedly compete against one another for business. But the fact is, all these banks are owned and controlled by the country’s government chartered but privately owned central bank. The various central banks are, in turn, owned and controlled by the private IBC interests. The international standard of competition is the IBC monopoly (i.e. no competition).

Arguments that public banking is socialistic and anti-American, and that our current banking system is based on the free market, just don’t hold water. The Constitution grants Congress the power to make and control money in the U.S., and our Constitution does not promote socialism. As far as free markets, the international banking system monopoly never was “free enterprise”, and is the biggest example ever of crony capitalism gone wrong.

Disadvantages of our current international banking system include the fact that it is owned and controlled by IBC private interests, the IBC decides who gets credit at what cost (financing IBC friends and affiliates at favorable terms, while denying financing or reasonable terms to those less favored), the IBC manipulates money supply, most often increasing its supply out of proportion to productivity (i.e. by excess printing of money or by excessive creation of money as loans via fractional reserve banking), causing inflation and currency devaluation, and the workings of the IBC and its affiliate banks like the U.S. Federal Reserve go on in secret, behind closed doors.

Public banks are owned by the people and controlled by representatives elected by the people. Weaknesses with public central banking are similar to those seen with the IBC system: politicians are also prone to direct favorable financing to their friends and supporters as a form of patronage, they are usually unable to resist inflating the money supply to meet their insatiable desire to spend, and they also prefer that their horse-trading deals be conducted behind closed doors.

Where public banks participate in fractional reserve banking, the IBC system of creating money as debt, banks create ten times or more money as debt than they have in reserve and the money supply is expanded exponentially. Invariably, this practice leads to inflation, currency devaluation, and economic deterioration. To meet the needs of the people while avoiding these negatives, public banks should employ a system of 100% reserve banking.
While there is no redress or accounting obtainable from the private, IBC interests, politicians periodically have to face their constituents when they run for reelection.

If the people remain vigilant and demand restraint, fairness and transparency of their elected officials, the officials will respond appropriately or be removed from office. However, if people were to become complacent and neglect their responsibility to oversee their representatives’ actions, corrupt politicians controlling the public central bank could do little worse than the predatory IBC has done with the world’s money.

Japan will need every resource it can muster, including abundant cheap credit from the JPB, to recover, cleanup and rebuild from its triple disaster of earthquake, tsunami and nuclear emergency. If the JPB can avoid the many pitfalls of public central banking, and provide a real service by funding economic productivity and growth, Japan will weather this storm even as it has historically weathered severe storms in the past.