"La BIS est la banque centrale des banques centrales. Ses membres sont les banques centrales du monde industrialisé. C'est certainement la plus puissante institution financière du monde." --Dennis Birch
La BIS fut établie par Charles G. Dawes (agent Rothschild et Vice Président sous le président Calvin Coolidge de 1925-1929), Owen D. Young (agent Rothschild, fondateur de RCA et président de General Electric de 1922 à 1939) et Hjalmar Schacht d'Allemagne Germany (Président de la Reichsbank).
Alors que le Fond Monétaire International et la Banque mondiale font affaire avec les gouvernements, la BIS ne s'occupe que des banques centrales. toutes ses réunions sont secrètes et impliquent les banquiers centraux de partout dans le monde. Le président de la Réserve Fédérale américaine, Alan Greenspan, allait au quartier général de la BIS à Bâle en Suisse dix fois par an pour assister à ces réunions pivées.
La BIS a aussi le statut de puissance souveraine et détient l'immunité contre tout contrôle gouvernemental: immunité diplomatique pour les personnes et ce qu'elles transportent comme documents, aucune taxe sur toutes les transactions incluant les salaires payés aux employés, une immunité de type embassadrice pour tous les bâtiments et bureaux de la BIS partout dans le monde incluant la Chine et le Mexique, aucune surveillance ni prise en compte des opérations par les autorités gouvernementales, liberté totale face aux restrictions d'immigrations, liberté d'encoder toute sorte de communication quelle qu'elle soit, liberté face à toute juridiction légale et même d'avoir leur propre force de police.
À la direction du BIS, seulement cinq directeurs sont élus et les autres sont permanents:
Nout H E M Wellink, Amsterdam (Chairman of the Board of Directors)
Hans Tietmeyer, Frankfurt am Main (Vice-Chairman)
Axel Weber, Frankfurt am Main
Vincenzo Desario, Rome
Antonio Fazio, Rome
David Dodge, Ottawa
Toshihiko Fukui, Tokyo
Timothy F Geithner, New York
Alan Greenspan, Washington
Lord George, London
Hervé Hannoun, Paris
Christian Noyer, Paris
Lars Heikensten, Stockholm
Mervyn King, London
Guy Quaden, Brussels
Jean-Pierre Roth, Zürich
Alfons Vicomte Verplaetse, Brussels
Le grand professeur d'histoire de l'université Georgetown, Carroll Quigley (qui fut professeur de Bill Clinton), a commenté ainsi la création de cette banque centrale dans son livre de 1975 intitulé "Tragedy And Hope":
"The powers of financial capitalism had (a) far reaching (plan), nothing less than to create a world system of financial control in private hands able to dominate the political system of each country and the economy of the world as a whole. This system was to be controlled in a feudalist fashion by the central banks of the world acting in concert, by secret agreements arrived at in frequent meetings and conferences.
The apex of the system was to be the Bank For International Settlements in Basel, Switzerland (home of first World Zionist Congress, chaired by Theodor Herzl in 1897), a private bank owned and controlled by the world's central banks which were themselves private corporations.
Each central bank...sought to dominate its government by its ability to control treasury loans, to manipulate foreign exchanges, to influence the level of economic activity in the Country, and to influence cooperative politicians by subsequent economic rewards in the business world."
2000 BANK FOR INTERNATIONAL SETTLEMENTS REPORT
BIS 77th Annual Report, 24 June 2007
BIS Quarterly Review, September 2007
September 10, 2007
Central bankers warn housing crisis could hit whole US economy
BASEL, Switzerland (AFP) — The crisis in the US housing market risks spreading to the whole of the nation's economy, European Central Bank chief Jean-Claude Trichet said Monday on behalf of world central bankers. Trichet was speaking in his capacity as head of the G10 group of central bankers from industrialised and emerging economies, who met at the Bank for International Settlements (BIS) here.
"There is a probability of fallout on the real economy in the USA," Trichet said.
"We will have to follow very carefully what happens particularly in the USA. We will remain ... alert, (there is) no time for complacency," he added.
High numbers of defaults by high-risk or subprime borrowers in the US housing market sparked widespread fear of a global lack of credit in August, prompting stock markets to plummet. Central banks in turn injected billions of dollars into the global economy.
Analysts in the United States said Sunday that the nation's economic outlook had darkened with data showing stalling job growth, which prompted fears the housing slump would lead to a full-blown recession. Friday's US economic data showed the first contraction in employment in four years, a loss of 4,000 US payroll jobs in August, and flew in the face of most forecasts for slow but steady growth. (...)
BIS warns of Great Depression dangers from credit spree
By Ambrose Evans-Pritchard
25/06/2007
The Bank for International Settlements, the world's most prestigious financial body, has warned that years of loose monetary policy has fuelled a dangerous credit bubble, leaving the global economy more vulnerable to another 1930s-style slump than generally understood.
"Virtually nobody foresaw the Great Depression of the 1930s, or the crises which affected Japan and southeast Asia in the early and late 1990s. In fact, each downturn was preceded by a period of non-inflationary growth exuberant enough to lead many commentators to suggest that a 'new era' had arrived", said the bank.
The BIS, the ultimate bank of central bankers, pointed to a confluence a worrying signs, citing mass issuance of new-fangled credit instruments, soaring levels of household debt, extreme appetite for risk shown by investors, and entrenched imbalances in the world currency system.
"Behind each set of concerns lurks the common factor of highly accommodating financial conditions. Tail events affecting the global economy might at some point have much higher costs than is commonly supposed," it said.
The BIS said China may have repeated the disastrous errors made by Japan in the 1980s when Tokyo let rip with excess liquidity. (...)
Another contributing factor to the current banking-muddle is the Basel rules. According to the BIS website:“The Basel Committee on Banking Supervision provides a forum for regular cooperation on banking supervisory matters. Its objective is to enhance understanding of key supervisory issues and improve the quality of banking supervision worldwide. It seeks to do so by exchanging information on national supervisory issues, approaches and techniques, with a view to promoting common understanding. At times, the Committee uses this common understanding to develop guidelines and supervisory standards in areas where they are considered desirable. In this regard, the Committee is best known for its international standards on capital adequacy; the Core Principles for Effective Banking Supervision; and the Concordat on cross-border banking supervision.”
The Basel Committee on Banking (Basel 2) requires “banks to boost the capital they hold in reserve against the loans on their books.”
Sounds like a good thing, doesn’t it? This protects the overall financial system as well as the individual depositor. Unfortunately, the banks found a way to circumvent the rules for minimum reserves by “securitizing” pools of mortgages (MBS) rather than holding individual mortgages. (which called for more reserves) This provided lavish origination and distribution fees for banks, but shifted much of the risk of default to Wall Street investors. Now, the banks are saddled with roughly $300 billion in mortgage-backed debt (CDOs) that no one wants and it is uncertain whether they have sufficient reserves to cover their losses.
By October, we should know how this will all play out. As David Wessel points out in “New Bank Capital requirements helped to Spread Credit Woes”:
“Banks now behave more like securities firms, more likely to mark down the value of assets when market prices fall---even to distressed levels---rather than sitting on bad loans for a decade and pretending they’ll be paid back.”
The downside of this is that once that banks write off these toxic MBSs and CDOs; the hedge funds, insurance companies and pension funds will be forced to do the same----dumping boatloads of this bond-sludge on the market driving down prices and triggering a panic-sell-off. This is what the Fed is trying to prevent through its $60 billion repo-bailout.
Regrettably, the Fed cannot hope to remove half-trillion of bad debt from the balance sheets of the banks or forestall the collapse of related financial institutions and funds which are loaded with these “unmarketable” time-bombs. Besides, most of the mortgage derivatives (CDOs) have been massively enhanced with low interest leverage from the “carry trade”. When the value of these CDOs is finally determined---which we expect will happen sometime before the end of the 3rd Quarter—we can expect the stock market to fall sharply and the housing recession to turn into a full-blown economic crisis.
ALAN GREENSPAN: THE FIFTH HORSEMAN?
So, who’s to blame? The finger-pointing has already begun and more and more people are beginning to see how this massive economy-busting equity bubble originated at the Federal Reserve--- it is the logical corollary of former Fed-chief Alan Greenspan's “easy money” policies.
Economist and author Henry C K Liu sums up Greenspan’s tenure at the Fed in his article “Why the Subprime Bust will Spread”:“Greenspan presided over the greatest expansion of speculative finance in history, including a trillion-dollar hedge-fund industry, bloated Wall Street-firm balance sheets approaching $2 trillion, a $3.3 trillion repo (repurchase agreement) market, and a global derivatives market with notional values surpassing an unfathomable $220 trillion.
On Greenspan's 18-year watch, assets of US government-sponsored enterprises (GSEs) ballooned 830%, from $346 billion to $2.872 trillion. GSEs are financing entities created by the US Congress to fund subsidized loans to certain groups of borrowers such as middle- and low-income homeowners, farmers and students. Agency mortgage-backed securities (MBSs) surged 670% to $3.55 trillion. Outstanding asset-backed securities (ABSs) exploded from $75 billion to more than $2.7 trillion.”( Henry Liu, “Why the Subprime Bust will Spread”, Asia Times)
"The greatest expansion of speculative finance in history". That says it all.
But no one makes the case against Greenspan better than Greenspan himself. Here are some of his comments at the Federal Reserve System’s Fourth Annual Community Affairs Research Conference, Washington, D.C. April 8, 2005. They show that Greenspan “rubber stamped” every one of the policies which have since metastasized and spread through the entire US economy.
Greenspan: Champion of Subprime loans:“Innovation has brought about a multitude of new products, such as subprime loans and niche credit programs for immigrants. Such developments are representative of the market responses that have driven the financial services industry throughout the history of our country. With these advance in technology, lenders have taken advantage of credit-scoring models and other techniques for efficiently extending credit to a broader spectrum of consumers.”
Greenspan: Main Proponent of Toxic CDOs“The development of a broad-based secondary market for mortgage loans also greatly expanded consumer access to credit. By reducing the risk of making long-term, fixed-rate loans and ensuring liquidity for mortgage lenders, the secondary market helped stimulate widespread competition in the mortgage business. The mortgage-backed security helped create a national and even an international market for mortgages, and market support for a wider variety of home mortgage loan products became commonplace. This led to securitization of a variety of other consumer loan products, such as auto and credit card loans.”
Greenspan: Supporter of Loans to People with Bad Credit“Where once more-marginal applicants would simply have been denied credit, lenders are now able to quite efficiently judge the risk posed by individual applicants and to price that risk appropriately.
These improvements have led to the rapid growth in subprime mortgage lending…fostering constructive innovation that is both responsive to market demand and beneficial to consumers.”
“Improved access to credit for consumers, and especially these more-recent developments, has had significant benefits.
Unquestionably, innovation and deregulation have vastly expanded credit availability to virtually all income classes. Access to credit has enabled families to purchase homes, deal with emergencies, and obtain goods and services. Home ownership is at a record high, and the number of home mortgage loans to low- and moderate-income and minority families has risen rapidly over the past five years. Credit cards and installment loans are also available to the vast majority of households”
Greenspan: Big Fan of “Structural Changes” which increase Consumer Debt
As we reflect on the evolution of consumer credit in the United States, we must conclude that innovation and structural change in the financial services industry have been critical in providing expanded access to credit for the vast majority of consumers, including those of limited means. Without these forces, it would have been impossible for lower-income consumers to have the degree of access to credit markets that they now have.
This fact underscores the importance of our roles as policymakers, researchers, bankers, and consumer advocates in fostering constructive innovation that is both responsive to market demand and beneficial to consumers.” (Federal Reserve Chairman, Alan Greenspan; Federal Reserve System’s Fourth Annual Community Affairs Research Conference, Washington, D.C. April 8, 2005
Greenspan’s own words are the most powerful indictment against him. They show that he played a central role in our impending disaster. The effort on the part of media pundits, talking heads, and so-called experts to foist the blame on the rating agencies, predatory lenders or gullible mortgage applicants (who may have lied on their loans) misses the point entirely. The problems began at the Federal Reserve and that’s where the responsibility lies.
Greenspan's Claim that He Didn't Know about Federal Reserve's Role in Iraq's Missing Billions 'is Flat Wrong', October 9th 2007
Greenspan's Dark Legacy Unmasked, by Stephen Lendman, October 1, 2007
