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)

Brad DeLong Tries to Steal "Stupidest Man Alive" Crown from Zoellick

Brad DeLong just posted that Robert Zoellick may be the "Stupidest Man Alive", for advocating a role for gold in a new monetary system. (See: In Which Bob Zoellick Makes His Play for the Stupidest Man Alive Crown)

DeLong writes:

The last thing that the world economy needs right now is another source of deflation in a financial crisis. And attaching the world economy's price level to an anchor that central banks cannot augment at need is another source of deflation--we learned that in the fifteen years after World War.

So Brad, I'm wondering does this mean you want higher prices for cell phones, iPads and personal computers? I'm also guessing you would like to see McDonald's charge $1.25 for its dollar menu items, correct?

Is this your way of trying to steal the "Stupidest Man Alive" crown from Zoellick?

Delong pants:

Markets are using gold as a speculative asset and a hedge. They are not using it is a medium of exchange, a unit of account, or a safe store of nominal value.

Actually, there are using it as a safe store of value, and are holding it at the ready as the likely medium of exchange once you, Krugman and Bernanke drive the dollar debasement to Zimbabwe type levels.

So Brad, I know you see deflation everywhere, so I'll make you the same offer I made Krugman:

Take advantage of me, why don't you teach me a lesson and sell me at last year's prices, gold, silver, oil, sugar, corn, wheat and cotton. Go ahead sell me as much as you want. I'm really stupid about these things. I have no idea that deflation is all around. I'll buy it all.

(Hat tip to the Gold Hater, who naturally found sound analysis in DeLong's race for the "Stupidest Man Alive" crown. Writes the Gold Hater:

Zoellick's characterization of gold is trendy, but there's something to DeLong's argument here.)

World Bank President Calls for a Role for Gold in a New International Monetary System

Insider and World Bank president Robert Zoellick is calling for a role for gold in an international monetary system.

I'm not sure what to make of this. My best guess is that the global elite are running scared and fearful that the world may be turning toward a gold standard that may leave the elites' paper money in the dust.

In a commentary for FT, Zoellick writes that a new co-operative monetary system must be built. He says the new system needs to involve the dollar, the euro, the pound and the renminbi but adds that the system should also consider employing gold as "an international reference point of market expectations about inflation, deflation and future currency values." He added, "Although textbooks may view gold as the old money, markets are using gold as an alternative monetary asset today."

Keep in mind this is coming from a total insider.

Zoellick signed the January 26, 1998 neo-con letter to President Bill Clinton from the Project for a New American Century that advocated war against Iraq.

Zoellick has been World Bank president since June 2007 and prior to that was a managing director of Goldman Sachs. He was also counselor to James Baker, when Baker was Treasury Secretary. During the disputed Bush/Gore presidential election, Baker designated him as his second-in-command—"a sort of chief operating officer or chief of staff"—in the 36-day battle over recounting the vote in Florida.

Zoellick is clearly in the Bush global domination camp. It is not clear what his purpose is in calling for a role for gold. It may be some rear action type move to dilute the growing significance of gold in the eyes of investors.

By calling for a role for gold, while at the same time calling for inclusion of the dollar, the euro, the pound and the renminbi, in a new international monetary system, it may be a desperate move by the global banking elite to head off a move toward a full international gold standard.

What is clear is that the elite no longer feel it is safe to simply ignore gold.