06/30/2016 - Ellen Brown: WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT THE TRANS-ATLANTIC TRADE AND INVESTMENT PARTNERSHIP (TTIP)
The Financial Repression Authority is joined by Ellen Brown, a well renown author and advocate of financial reforms. FRA Co-founder, Gordon T. Long sits with Ellen to discuss a myriad of topics including the TTIP, Monsanto, Blockchain Technology, and bank bail-in’s. Ellen Brown is an American author, political candidate, attorney, public speaker, and advocate of alternative medicine and financial reform, most prominently public banking. Brown is the founder and president of the Public Banking Institute, a nonpartisan think tank devoted to the creation of publicly run banks. She is also the president of Third Millennium Press, and is the author of twelve books, including Web of Debt and The Public Bank Solution, as well as over 200 published articles. She has appeared on cable and network television, radio, and internet podcasts, including a discussion on the Fox Business Network concerning student loan debt with the Cato Institute’s Neil McCluskey, a feature story on derivatives and debt on the Russian network RT,[6] and the Thom Hartmann Show’s “Conversations with Great Minds.” Ellen Brown ran for California Treasurer in the California June 2014 Statewide Primary election.
TRANS-ATLANTIC TRADE AND INVESTMENT PARTNERSHIP (TTIP)
The Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) is a proposed trade agreement between the European Union and the United States, with the aim of promoting trade and multilateral economic growth. The American government considers the TTIP a companion agreement to the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP). The agreement is under ongoing negotiations and its main three broad areas are: market access; specific regulation; and broader rules and principles and modes of co-operation
The controversial agreement has been criticized and opposed by unions, charities, NGOs and environmentalists, particularly in Europe. The Independent describes the range of negative impacts as “reducing the regulatory barriers to trade for big business, things like food safety law, environmental legislation, banking regulations and the sovereign powers of individual nations”, or more critically as an “assault on European and US societies by transnational corporations”; and The Guardian noted the criticism of TTIP’s “undemocratic nature of the closed-door talks”, “influence of powerful lobbyists”, and TTIP’s potential ability to “undermine the democratic authority of local government”
Kangaroo Court
A weaker element of this trade agreement is the ISDS, an investor dispute which is a ‘guaranteed kangaroo court.’ Corporations whose profits have been hurt by some actions of government can take these local governments to court. But it is not a true court; moreover it’s a panel of 3 lawyers who are paid by the corporations. The issue is that these corporations can sue the government but the government cannot sue the corporations. It is a one way street, in which these corporations do not have to pay attention to legal authorities. It is a court set up for the betterment of the corporations. Furthermore they can not only sue for their lost profits, but they can also sue for lost projected future profits.
“This is not government by the people for the people; rather it is government by the corporations and for the corporations.”
MONSANTO AND THE TTIP
“Monsanto can now start a factory in Europe, which goes completely against what Europeans have been fighting for years. This agreement squanders everything Europeans have achieved in this sort of protection.”
One of the goals of these agreements is to enforce the world to use our rules rather than the rules of the BRICS. As soon as Gaddafi started talking about his gold backed banking system for northern Africa he became a target. Saddam Hussein did the same thing that was going to take euros for oil which is counter to the whole petro dollar. History shows that anybody who steers away from this system becomes a target. If you go through the banking, the ones that control their own creation, Venezuela, Brazil, and Russia etc. are facing high waters. Furthermore there is not enough money in the system because of the nature of the system, where banks create the money and charge interest. But ideally you need a central authority that can put some money out there. I think the national dividend is a great idea, the Swiss just had a referendum but it didn’t pass. Nonetheless it’s great for them to consider this at all.
“The money shouldn’t be coming from us, from our elected representatives, or from our central banks which should be representing us, but they don’t; they only represent themselves. The Federal Reserve isn’t there to serve our interest; they are there to serve the banks.”
BLOCKCHAIN TECHNOLOGY
The blockchain is seen as the main technological innovation of Bitcoin, since it stands as proof of all the transactions on the network. A block is the ‘current’ part of a blockchain which records some or all of the recent transactions, and once completed goes into the blockchain as permanent database. Each time a block gets completed, a new block is generated. There is a countless number of such blocks in the blockchain. Blocks are linked to each other in proper linear, chronological order with every block containing a hash of the previous block. To use conventional banking as an analogy, the blockchain is like a full history of banking transactions. Bitcoin transactions are entered chronologically in a blockchain just the way bank transactions are. Blocks, meanwhile, are like individual bank statements. Based on the Bitcoin protocol, the blockchain database is shared by all nodes participating in a system. The full copy of the blockchain has records of every Bitcoin transaction ever executed. It can thus provide insight about facts like how much value belonged a particular address at any point in the past.
Block chain technology can definitely revolutionize the banking system. It is important to understand that at this point, nearly all alternatives are better than what we currently have in place. The banks haven’t been able to come up with a valid plan because they don’t have the money; they are creating lots of money only to give off the appearance.
“Banks create money on their books in response to our request for a loan.”
We now know that we basically create the money. When we take out a loan, the bank takes your IOU and turns it into money, and that’s where money comes from. We, the borrower are the ones monetizing our own IOU; the bank merely just makes it official.
BANK BAIL-IN
“We are moving towards a cashless society.”
The argument for going cashless is this whole monetarist theory that there is specific amount of money in the system, and the central banks control the money that’s out there by playing with interest rates. They lowered the interest rate to zero and still we have deflation, and now the theory is to lower it below zero which clearly makes it worse. That means you’re paying money to keep your own money in the bank.
The reason people are waking up now is because they have been screwed. The balance is tipping; the people who are suffering are beginning to wake up to the reasons why.
Abstract Writer: Karan Singh karan1.singh@ryerson.ca
