{"id":51620,"date":"2016-01-31T07:01:39","date_gmt":"2016-01-31T14:01:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=51620"},"modified":"2016-01-31T07:03:01","modified_gmt":"2016-01-31T14:03:01","slug":"the-west-is-reduced-to-looting-itself","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2016\/01\/31\/the-west-is-reduced-to-looting-itself\/","title":{"rendered":"The West Is Reduced To Looting Itself"},"content":{"rendered":"

Paul Craig Roberts\u00a0<\/em>Institute for Political Economy<\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n

Myself, Michael Hudson, John Perkins, and a few others have reported the multi-pronged looting of peoples by Western economic institutions, principally the big New York Banks with the aid of the International Monetary Fund (IMF).<\/p>\n

Third World countries were and are looted by being inticed into development plans for electrification or some such purpose. The gullible and trusting governments are told that they can make their countries rich by taking out foreign loans to implement a Western-presented development plan, with the result being sufficient tax revenues from economic development to service the foreign loan.<\/p>\n

Seldom, if ever, does this happen. What happens is that the plan results in the country becoming indebted to the limit and beyond of its foreign currency earnings. When the country is unable to service the development loan, the creditors send the IMF to tell the indebted government that the IMF will protect the government\u2019s credit rating by lending it the money to pay its bank creditors. However, the conditions are that the government take necessary austerity measures so that the government can repay the IMF. These measures are to curtail public services and the government sector, reduce public pensions, and sell national resources to foreigners. The money saved by reduced social benefits and raised by selling off the country\u2019s assets to foreigners serves to repay the IMF.<\/p>\n

This is the way the West has historically looted Third World countries. If a country\u2019s president is reluctant to enter into such a deal, he is simply paid bribes, as the Greek governments were, to go along with the looting of the country the president pretends to represent.<\/p>\n

When this method of looting became exhausted, the West bought up agricultural lands and pushed a policy on Third World countries of abandoning food self-sufficiency and producing one or two crops for export earnings. This policy makes Third World populations dependent on food imports from the West. Typically the export earnings are drained off by corrupt governments or by foreign purchasers who pay little while the foreigners selling food charge much. Thus, self-sufficiency is transformed into indebtedness.<\/p>\n

With the entire Third World now exploited to the limits possible, the West has turned to looting its own. Ireland has been looted, and the looting of Greece and Portugal is so severe that it has forced large numbers of young women into prostitution. But this doesn\u2019t bother the Western conscience.<\/p>\n

Previously, when a sovereign country found itself with more debt than could be serviced, creditors had to write down the debt to an amount that the country could service. In the 21st century, as I relate in my book, The Failure of Laissez Faire Capitalism<\/em>, this traditional rule was abandoned.<\/p>\n

The new rule is that the people of a country, even a country whose top offiials accepted bribes in order to indebt the country to foreigners, must have their pensions, employment, and social services slashed and valuable national resources such as municipal water systems, ports, the national lottery, and protected national lands, such as the protected Greek islands, sold to foreigners, who have the freedom to raise water prices, deny the Greek government the revenues from the national lottery, and sell the protected national heritage of Greece to real estate developers.<\/p>\n

What has happened to Greece and Portugal is underway in Spain and Italy. The peoples are powerless because their governments do not represent them. Not only are their governments receiving bribes, the members of the governments are brainwashed that their countries must be in the European Union. Otherwise, they are bypassed by history. The oppressed and suffering peoples themselves are brainwashed in the same way. For example, in Greece the government elected to prevent the looting of Greece was powerless, because the Greek people are brainwashed that no matter the cost to them, they must be in the EU.<\/p>\n

The combination of propaganda, financial power, stupidity and bribes means that there is no hope for European peoples.<\/p>\n

The same is true in the United States, Canada, Australia, and the UK. In the US tens of millions of US citizens have quietly accepted the absence of any interest income on their savings for seven years. Instead of raising questions and protesting, Americans have accepted without thought the propaganda that their existence depends upon the success of a handful of artificially created mega-banks that are too big to fail.\u201d Millions of Americans are convinced that it is better for them to draw down their savings than for a corrupt bank to fail.<\/p>\n

To keep Western peoples confused about the real threat that they face, the people are told that there are terrorists behind every tree, every passport, under every bed, and that all will be killed unless the government\u2019s overarching power is unquestioned. So far this has worked perfectly, with one false flag after another reinforcing the faked terror attacks that serve to prevent any awareness that this a hoax for accumulating all income and wealth in a few hands.<\/p>\n

Not content with their supremacy over democratic peoples,\u201d the One Percent has come forward with the Trans-Atlanta and Trans-Pacific partnerships. Allegedly these are free trade deals\u201d that will benefit everyone. In truth, these are carefully hidden, secret, deals that give private businesses control over the laws of sovereign governments.<\/p>\n

For example, it has come to light that under the Trans-Atlantic partnership the National Health Service in the UK could be ruled in the private tribunals set up under the partnership as an impediment to private medical insurance and sued for damages by private firms and even forced into abolishment.<\/p>\n

The corrupt UK government under Washington\u2019s vassal David Cameron has blocked access to legal documents that show the impact of the Trans-Atlantic partnership on Britain\u2019s National Health Service. http:\/\/www.globalresearch.ca\/cameron-desperate-to-stop-scandal-as-secret-plans-to-sell-the-national-health-service-are-discovered\/5504306<\/a><\/p>\n

For any citizen of any Western country who is so stupid or brainwashed as not to have caught on, the entire thrust of their\u201d government\u2019s policy is to turn every aspect of their lives over to grasping private interests.<\/p>\n

In the UK the postal service was sold at a nominal price to politically connected private interests. In the US the Republicans, and perhaps the Democrats, intend to privatize Medicare and Social Security, just as they have privatized many aspects of the military and the prison system. Public functions are targets for private profit-making.<\/p>\n

One of the reasons for the escalation in the cost of the US military budget is its privatization. The privatization of the US prison system has resulted in huge numbers of innocent people being sent to prison, where they are forced to work for Apple Computer, IT services, clothing companies that manufacture for the US military, and a large number of other private businesses. The prison laborers are paid as low as 69 cents per hour, below the Chinese wage.<\/p>\n

This is America today. Corrupt police. Corrupt prosecutors. Corrupt judges. But maximum profits for US Capitalism from prison labor. Free market economists glorified private prisons, alleging that they would be more efficient. And indeed they are efficient in providing the profits of slave labor for capitalists.<\/p>\n

Here is a news report on UK Prime Minister Cameron denying information about the effect of the Trans-Atlantic partnership on Britains\u2019 National Health.
\nhttp:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/business\/2016\/jan\/26\/anger-government-blocks-ttip-legal-documents-nhs-health-service<\/a><\/p>\n

The UK Guardian, which often has to prostitute itself in order to maintain a bit of independence, describes the anger that the British people feel toward the government\u2019s secrecy about an issue so fundamental to the well being of the British people. Yet, the British continue to vote for political parties that have betrayed the British people.<\/p>\n

All over Europe, the corrupt Washington-contolled governments have distracted people from their sellout by their\u201d governments by focusing their attention on immigrants, whose presence is a consequence of the European governments representing Washington\u2019s interests and not the interest of their own peoples.<\/p>\n

Somthing dire has happened to the intelligence and awareness of Western peoples who seem no longer capable of comprehending the machinations of their\u201d governments.<\/p>\n

Accountable government in the West is history. Nothing but failure and collapse awaits Western civilization.<\/p>\n

<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Paul Craig Roberts\u00a0Institute for Political Economy Myself, Michael Hudson, John Perkins, and a few others have reported the multi-pronged looting of peoples by Western economic institutions, principally the big New York Banks with the aid of the International Monetary Fund (IMF). Third World countries were and are looted by being inticed into development plans for […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-51620","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51620","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=51620"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51620\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=51620"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=51620"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=51620"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}