Was Geithner in Europe to Advance a Decades Long Secret Plan of the US?

As part of the eurozone financial rescue effort, Treasury Secretary Geithner traveled to Europe four times in recent months. In fact, this week, just before the EU announced a tighter "fiscal union," Geithner was in Europe visiting government officials from  France, Italy Spain and Germany, to consult on the plan.

The result was the announcement of an agreement for a more unified financial eurozone. All European Union members, except for Great Britain. signed on to the plan, that clearly was heavily influenced by the United States efforts. Indeed, in addition to Geithner, the American and former State Department official, Robert Zoellick, the current president of the World Bank, told the WSJ CEO Council that he had been to Europe twice in recent weeks.

Given these developments, it may be instructive to review a September 2000 report by Ambrose Evans-Pritchard about then declassified documents that point to plotting by the U.S. as early as the fifties and sixties  to create a more unified Europe. Pritchard wrote in 2000:

DECLASSIFIED American government documents show that the US intelligence community ran a campaign in the Fifties and Sixties to build momentum for a united Europe. It funded and directed the European federalist movement.

The documents confirm suspicions voiced at the time that America was working aggressively behind the scenes to push Britain into a European state. One memorandum, dated July 26, 1950, gives instructions for a campaign to promote a fully fledged European parliament. It is signed by Gen William J Donovan, head of the American wartime Office of Strategic Services, precursor of the CIA.

The documents were found by Joshua Paul, a researcher at Georgetown University in Washington. They include files released by the US National Archives. Washington's main tool for shaping the European agenda was the American Committee for a United Europe, created in 1948. The chairman was Donovan, ostensibly a private lawyer by then.

The vice-chairman was Allen Dulles, the CIA director in the Fifties. The board included Walter Bedell Smith, the CIA's first director, and a roster of ex-OSS figures and officials who moved in and out of the CIA. The documents show that ACUE financed the European Movement, the most important federalist organisation in the post-war years. In 1958, for example, it provided 53.5 per cent of the movement's funds.

The European Youth Campaign, an arm of the European Movement, was wholly funded and controlled by Washington. The Belgian director, Baron Boel, received monthly payments into a special account. When the head of the European Movement, Polish-born Joseph Retinger, bridled at this degree of American control and tried to raise money in Europe, he was quickly reprimanded. 

The leaders of the European Movement - Retinger, the visionary Robert Schuman and the former Belgian prime minister Paul-Henri Spaak - were all treated as hired hands by their American sponsors. The US role was handled as a covert operation. ACUE's funding came from the Ford and Rockefeller foundations as well as business groups with close ties to the US government. 

The head of the Ford Foundation, ex-OSS officer Paul Hoffman, doubled as head of ACUE in the late Fifties. The State Department also played a role. A memo from the European section, dated June 11, 1965, advises the vice-president of the European Economic Community, Robert Marjolin, to pursue monetary union by stealth. 

It recommends suppressing debate until the point at which "adoption of such proposals would become virtually inescapable".

Huh, the crashing eurozone made the recent crisis virtually an inescapable situation for EZ members to band together, or so many EZ political leaders said.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel said last week while addressing the German parliament that  tighter regulation of eurozone members was the only way out of what she described as "the most difficult chapter in the history of the euro, if not the most difficult in the history of the European Union".

Also last week, Poland’s Finance Minister Jacek Rostowski, whose country holds the rotating presidency of the EU, said ““We should all be aware what the stake of the game is. Because the game is not only about the well-being of this generation or the next generation, but is goes without saying we’re also fighting for the safety of this and future generations,”

And then there's that Ford Foundation again, where Geithner's father worked, who I have long suspected is/was a high ranking CIA official.

Makes you wonder.

(htRyanUnderwood)

On Its Way: The United Europe of Germany

The banksters will cheer this and are, in fact, behind it, with the long shadow of the US doing the backstage directing. NYT explains:

{German Chancellor] Merkel is in nearly daily contact with Obama administration officials who hope she will master the crisis — or, at the very least, win tacit approval for the European Central Bank to step in more forcefully — even though she deflects their demands for more aggressive action.

Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner flew to Germany on Tuesday, meeting first in Frankfurt with the president of the European Central Bank, Mario Draghi, and the president of the Bundesbank, Jens Weidmann. He then spent an hour with Wolfgang Schäuble, his German counterpart, at the Finance Ministry in Berlin. Mr. Geithner said he was “very encouraged by the developments in Europe in the past few weeks.”

But Merkel is the front person:

To American officials, Mrs. Merkel, 57, seems at times shockingly aloof about market turmoil. But as European leaders prepare for crucial meetings this week in Brussels, what may have seemed like timid or even bumbling leadership is looking more like a consistent strategy of brinkmanship aimed at remaking the euro zone in Germany’s likeness...

The treaty changes she and President Nicolas Sarkozy of France proposed in Paris on Monday would have been inconceivable at the beginning of the crisis, since it requires states to cede a significant degree of economic sovereignty. It is a process that many observers, in particular the populist British press, say is well underway. German dominance of the euro zone, they say — with Mrs. Merkel as the unofficial but unchallenged leader of Europe — has in fact already arrived.

Silvio Berlusconi’s resignation as Italy’s prime minister was interpreted as an omen for Europe’s German-directed future. And confidential draft proposals of Ireland’s December budget were found to have circulated among lawmakers in Berlin last month before opposition lawmakers in Dublin saw them.

The Curious Timing of S&P Putting EU Nations on Watch for Possible Downgrade

Standard & Poor's has put 15 European Union nations on watch for a possible downgrade of their credit ratings, including Germany and France.

What convenient timing.

The heads of state of the EU members meet on December 9 to consider changing the EU treaty to bring about a more centrally planned European "fiscal union." The S&P announcement provides further cover for the heads of state to agree to treaty changes. It's all to save the EU, you see.

In truth, a bankruptcy of countries who can't afford to pay their bills would be a good start to bringing sanity to EU nations. However, the banksters will have none of that. Led by German Chancellor Angela Merkel, the EU is about to create an even greater monster that is sure to eventually make a mess of freedom through out the eurozone.

The Arrogance and Ignorance of the Political Elite: A Case History

German Chancellor Angela Merkel clearly understands what the financial crisis fight is about, but she is severely overestimating her chances of wining. Given that she is a member in good standing of the global political elite, it is fascinating to analyze how absurd her arrogant and economic illiterate comments are about the ongoing crisis.

Merkel said on Thursday:

In some ways, it’s a battle of the politicians against the markets. I'm determined to win. The speculators are our adversaries. That’s why we have to weigh our words more carefully than ever and stand united.

Could she possibly understand the impossibility of what she is saying? She is going to fight the markets, she says. Does she understand that "the markets" are millions of people transacting business for their mutual benefit? Does she really believe that politicians have the power to reverse markets? Does she understand that throughout history governments have attempted to stop market activity, but have only succeeded in distorting market activity, but never killing it. From price controls to drug laws, the history books are filled with attempts by governments to move markets in a way they do not want to go. The history books are also filled with the failure of these attempts. Yet, the Chancellor tells us that by politicians weighing their words and standing united that they are going to somehow beat "the markets."

 Let us look at  the current crisis where the Chancellor wants to battle ""the"markets.". Specifically, let's look at Greece. The government of Greece does not have enough money to pay all its bills. As this becomes more and more obvious, fewer and fewer people want to hold Greek debt. Thus, the interest rate on Greek debt continues to climb to attract buyers of that debt, who are willing to bet that Germany and other countries are going to be  bailed out by Greece and others. How is the Chancellor going to battle this by weighing her words? What does standing united mean? Other countries either pony up to pay the Greek government's tab or they don't and Greece defaults. Those are the options. To speak of battling "the markets" in this situation, pretty much means that by "weighing her words" she thinks she is going to convince investors to buy Greek debt without Germany, or anyone else, ponying up and paying the difference that exists between what Greece owes and what it has available to pay its debt.

Looked at it from this perspective, the Chancellor sounds like a short-game con artist. She will say or do anything to keep the con going one more day. That is the long and short of what she really means when she talks about weighing her words. It's a con, a not very sophisticated con, but a con none the less.

It is only a supreme arrogance and ignorance that could result in the Chancellor declaring that it is politicians against the markets and that she wants to win. She doesn't have a chance. At the end of the day, she and her political global cronies are going to have to either pony up with more money or they will see some defaulting PIIGS.

Will Germany Ratify the Greek Bailout?

There is no question that international banksters are in high gear. They are pushing Greek legislators to ratify the agreed to Greek bailout. Will they buckle to the pressure? The bailout is hugely unpopular in Germany, but legislators of late appear to buckle when pushed by global banksters, even if it ultimately means the legislator losing office.

European Central Bank council member from Germany Axel Weber, who from time to time has displayed some ability to understand basic economics is clearly all in with the banksters, when it comes to the bailout. He said Greece’s fiscal crisis is threatening “grave contagion effects” in the euro area, justifying Germany’s contribution to a 110 billion-euro ($142 billion) aid package.

“There is a threat of grave contagion effects for other member states in the monetary union and increasing negative feedback loop effects on capital markets,” Weber said in a statement today as German lawmakers in Berlin debate the proposed rescue of Greece. “All in all, Germany’s contribution to the aid package for Greece is justifiable.”

The warnings of contagion are true enough, but why is it Germany's duty to bailout the PIIGS out? Defaults by these governments simply mean the banksters take the hit instead of the German people.

Another tool of the banksters, German Chancellor Angela Merkel appealed to parliament to approve Germany’s 22.4 billion-euro portion of the joint European Union- International Monetary Fund bailout amid public opposition.

“Weber is worried,” said Juergen Michels, chief European economist at Citigroup Inc. in London. “He knows that if Germany doesn’t ratify the Greek aid plan rapidly we’re facing more turbulence in the weeks ahead.”