FASCIST CAPITALISM COMING TO AMERICA?

Are we about to see a new form of fascism in America and Europe?

Perhaps the 'New Capitalism' will be based upon the 'China model' of 'Totalitarian Capitalism'.

Perhaps Obama will not worry too much about the American consumer.

Daniel Guerin wrote in Fascism and Big Business about fascist economies helping big corporations with 'orders for public works and armaments.' (Daniel Guerin: Fascism and Big Business (1938))

Middle class people sometimes get into debt. When intererst rates are kept too low for too long, and there is too much borrowing, bubbles develop in property and stock markets. Eventually there is a crash. The elite are able to buy up cheap assets and end up becoming yet more rich. A police state is required to protect the elite.

The world is becoming more unbalanced.

In 1960 the average income of the top 20% of the world's population was 30 times that of the bottom 20%.

By 1990 it was 60 times.

And by 1997, 74 times.

Today the assets of the top three billionaires are more than the combined GNP of all least developed countries and their 600 million people. (Debt Dynamite Dominoes: The Coming Financial Catastrophe)

We could end up with a situation where "only a few corporations and banks control the global economy and its resources."

We could be about to have a fully fascist state.

Poor people sometimes get into debt, when they have to borrow money to buy medicines. Big corporations like to keep wages low.

In Norway, there is no great gap between the rich and the poor.

Norwegians can still afford to shop.

But if you go into a shopping mall in Indonesia you will find that most of the people cannot afford to buy anything.

In Indonesia, the elite are very rich and they keep down the wages of the poor.

Part of the world's economic problem has to do with imbalances.

When the USA kept interest rates too low, there was a crazy housing bubble.

Wayne, in California, took out a mortgage on a house costing over $500,000.

That house is now worth around $300,000 (FT.com / UK - 'A business decision')

Wayne has decided to default on his mortgage.

Fascism thrives on crisis. It uses a policy of divide and rule.

The economist William White has spoken of several imbalances:

1. share price price bubbles in the 1990s,

2. house price bubbles,

3. bubbles involving bank lending,

4. and trade imbalances (China has a surplus; the USA has a deficit). (The world economy has no easy way out of the mire )

Globalisation can mean big corporations moving factories to where there is 'slave labour'.

American workers end up poor.

Bangladeshi and Haitian workers stay poor.

In February 2010, we learn that the default rate for commercial property mortgages held by U.S. banks more than doubled in the fourth quarter. (Commercial Mortgage Default Rate in US More Than Doubles)

Former International Monetary Fund chief economist Kenneth Rogoff says numerous nations will default on their debts in the coming years. (Former IMF chief says sovereign defaults will happen)

And concerns grow over China's sale of US bonds

Fascism has been around at least since the time of the Romans. It is about keeping a small elite in power.

Have you noticed how the small local shops are disappearing to make way for shops which are part of big corporations which have their goods manufactured in China?

Have you noticed how the oligarchs can still afford to shop.

If you earn only $10 an hour, or only $1 per day in certain countries, it's easy to get into debt.

And eventually you may have to stop buying things in the shops.

If you, as a president, or prime minister, spend massive amounts on stupid projects such as wars, and fail to collect sufficient tax from big corporations and wealthy individuals, then it's easy to get into debt.

Of course, basic wages should be higher, in America and in Haiti.

There should, of course, be cuts in wasteful spending, such as wars.

And the rich should pay much more in taxes, especially on the money hidden away in the Bahamas.

aangirfan: Hitler was Jewish?

On 22 February 2010, at Global Research, Andrew Gavin Marshall wrote: "Debt Dynamite Dominoes: The Coming Financial Catastrophe"

Among the points made:

1. The debt crisis in Greece threatens to spread to the USA.

2. Governments gave a lot of money to banks but did not tackle core problems.

"Now it’s time to pay."

There could be:

Big tax increases,

Social spending cuts,

Much higher unemployment,

Crashing stock markets.

3. "When the crisis is over, the middle classes of the western world will have been liquidated of their economic, political and social status."

We will end up with a situation where "only a few corporations and banks control the global economy and its resources."

"The people of the western world will be treated by the financial oligarchs as they have treated ... Africa

4. At the 1973 Bilderberg meeting, a 400% increase in the price of oil was discussed.

Henry Kissinger "worked behind the scenes in 1973 to ensure a war would take place in the Middle East."

The Yom Kippur War took place in 1973 and oil prices shot up. In 1979, the price of oil skyrocketed again.

In the early 1980s, interest rates rose to 18%.

The US economy went into recession.

In 1982, Mexico announced that it could no longer service its debt, and defaulted on its loans.

The 1980s debt crisis spread throughout Latin America and across Africa.

The IMF got busy and many countries had to undergo a neoliberal restructuring.

Countries that resisted neoliberalism were subjected to 'regime change'.

Multinational corporations and international banks were able to buy up privatized industries.

5. When Russia opened itself up to the IMF and World Bank, the result was a collapse of the Russian economy, and enrichment of a few billionaire oligarchs.

6. In the 1990s, the US Federal Reserve began to lower interest rates.

This was the era of 'globalization'.

"Regionalism had emerged as the next major phase in the construction of the New World Order, with the European Union being at the forefront."

The middle class was being subjected to 'a quiet dismantling'.

In the Western developed nations, industries and factories closed down, relocating to cheap Third World countries.

The Clinton administration used 'globalization' as its grand strategy throughout the 1990s.

'Financial speculation became one of the key tools of economic expansion.'

'Large banks ate smaller banks, corporations merged... banks and corporations stopped being American or European and became truly global.'

Money flowed into the housing sector.

7. In 1997, there was the East Asian financial crisis.

Economies collapsed and then the IMF came in to 'restructure'.

8. In 2008, the CEO of JP Morgan Chase, working with the President of the New York Fed, Timothy Geithner, and the Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson (former CEO of Goldman Sachs), forced Bear Stearns to sell itself to JP Morgan Chase for $2 a share, which had previously traded at $172 a share in January of 2007. The merger was paid for by the Federal Reserve of New York, and charged to the US taxpayer.

Bank of America swallowed Merrill Lynch, JP Morgan ate Washington Mutual, and Wells Fargo took over Wachovia.

"The bailout package was made into a massive financial scam, which would plunge the United States into unprecedented levels of debt, while pumping incredible amounts of money into major global banks."

9. Governments will need to drastically increase taxes and cut spending.

10. The USA has lots of wars.

It has borrowed vast sums of money.

But eventually the US taxpayer may have to pay.

Obama took on a team of economic advisers 'that made any astute economic observer flinch in terror.'

Paul Volcker, architect of the 1980s debt crisis, is a top economic adviser to Obama.

15. What we are going to get in America and Europe is some kind of fascism.

The 'New Capitalism' will be based upon the 'China model' of 'Totalitarian Capitalism'.

'The state thrusts itself into the breach left by the vanishing private customers.' (Daniel Guerin. Fascism and Big Business)

Daniel Guerin wrote in Fascism and Big Business about the the fascist economies of Italy and Germany.

The state helps big corporations with 'orders for public works and armaments.'

16. To keep the fascist system in place, a police state is required.

Could martial law be coming to America?