The world has changed, qualitatively, with the creation of a new world
system of credit to rival the bankrupt imperial model of the IMF/World Bank, a
process that Lyndon LaRouche and this organization have promoted and fought for
over the past forty years. Following the report on the BRICS Summit, you will
find links to brief reports on the speeches and meetings held by Narendra Modi,
Vladimir Putin, Xi Jinping, and Cristina Fernandez, as well as a review of
LaRouche's record. It is no surprise within hours of these historic steps,
the Empire is demanding war on Russia (and China) with no more evidence
than that for Saddam's WMD - i.e., none.
Please circulate this report widely -
thanks.
Mike Billington
THE BRICS
SUMMIT
Half of Humanity
Launches a New World Economic Order
by Dennis
Small
[PDF
version of this article]
July 22—In
mid-July, as the planet was being wracked by growing war horrors in eastern
Ukraine, Iraq, and Gaza, and by economic depression caused by the death throes
of the trans-Atlantic financial system, heads of state representing half of
humanity gathered in Brazil and took the first steps toward creating a New World
Economic Order.
The leaders
of the BRICS nations (Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa), met on
July 16 in Fortaleza for the VI BRICS Summit, and the next day they were joined
by the heads of state of South America in the capital city Brasilia. The BRICS
account for 43% of the world's population and 27% of the planet's land area;
when Ibero-America is added in, they jointly represent 48% of the human race,
and one third of the Earth's land area (Figure 1).
At the summit
and its numerous associated bilateral and multilateral meetings, that half of
humanity adopted a project that is premised on rejecting the current casino
financial system, and replacing it with one providing credit for high-technology
development projects; on educating and training youth to meet the growth
challenges of the future; on full respect for national sovereignty, banishing
the imperial policy of regime change and wars; and on explicit promotion of the
common good among nations—the Westphalian principle.
"History
tells us the law of the jungle isn't the way of human coexistence," Chinese
President Xi Jinping stated on July 16.
"Every
nation should obey the principle of equality, mutual trust, learning from each
other, cooperating and seeking joint benefits ... for the construction of a
harmonious world, sustained peace, and joint
prosperity."
The British
Queen was not pleased by these developments, seeing in them an existential
threat to the Empire. Lyndon LaRouche was pleased—for the same reason.
For 40 years, the renowned American statesman has devised programs, and
organized for them internationally, of global financial reform and great
development projects—most recently his "Four New Laws To Save the U.S.A.
Now!"—of precisely the sort that have now been placed on the agenda by the
BRICS.
"The BRICS
and allies are building a world system based on real value, not phony paper
value," LaRouche stated July 18.
"They are deciding
what real value is, and they are imposing it, which is the cost of the
productive powers of labor in a changing situation."
The
underlying problem that we have to deal with today, LaRouche elaborated, is the
"asymmetry of value in the world," which is coming from two distinct systems
that are operating with a different logic and different metrics: They are
totally incompatible.
The first
system is the trans-Atlantic system. "These bastards," LaRouche stated, "who
hold pieces of paper that they say are worth quadrillions, and they're prepared
to kill for that," as the case of Argentina's battle against the vulture funds
shows, as does the pro-vulture ruling of the Aristotelian idiot otherwise known
as Justice Antonin Scalia of the U.S. Supreme Court. What these people are
holding, this paper, LaRouche added, is absolutely worthless. "It's like taking
rags out of a bucket and trying to sell them"; or even worse, it's just the
promise of future delivery of derivatives on those rags, that
they're saying actually has value.
This is the
dead hand of the past, trying to stop humanity from creating any future for
itself.
On the other
side, we have an emerging system, incompatible with the first, which is building
a market based on real value. And real value, LaRouche elaborated,
comes from, and is measured by, the development of the productive powers of
labor—that is, through the introduction of scientifically created new
technologies, implementing productive processes which increase the
energy-flux density through the physical economy in such fashion as to
immensely increase the productive powers of labor. That new system will create a
process whereby the increase in energy-flux density will itself
increase at an accelerating rate.
This role of
technological progress and scientific advance, LaRouche specified, is what the
human species uniquely does. Such creativity is actually the source of value in
an economy, and it is the way in which our action to create the future defines
present value. It is the central concept of the American System of Political
Economy, on which the United States was founded.
The decisive
strategic question today, LaRouche concluded, is whether the United States will
join that emerging New World Economic Order, or will remain joined at the hip to
the British Empire—as it is under the impeachable President Barack Obama—and
bring destruction down upon itself and the rest of the world. The same
existential issue faces Europe.
Building a Nuclear
Future
The BRICS
Summit issued a 72-point Fortaleza Declaration (see below), which
announced the formation of a New Development Bank (NDB), initially capitalized
at $50 billion, to fund infrastructure projects in BRICS and other countries; as
well as a Contingent Reserve Arrangement (CRA) with $100 billion to help nations
deal with capital flight and other forms of financial warfare.
Most
international commentators have engaged in endless contortions, dissecting
sentences from the Fortaleza Declaration and speeches at the summit, to
try to determine whether these new BRICS institutions are meant to merely
complement the British Empire's International Monetary Fund and other
institutions, or to replace them with a new financial architecture. But
the answer to that question lies not in parsing written or spoken
words, but in the intent behind the creation of the new
institutions, which is best reflected in two fundamental issues which were
pervasive throughout the discussions: the future and youth, and nuclear
energy.
Indian Prime
Minister Narendra Modi was most eloquent on the first of these, emphasizing to
the plenary session of the Summit "the uniqueness of BRICS as an international
institution. For the first time, it brings together a group of nations on the
parameter of 'future potential,' rather than existing prosperity or shared
identities. The very idea of BRICS is thus forward-looking." He urged the BRICS
to now go beyond "being summit-centric," proposing that the youth of the BRICS
nations should take a lead in expanding people-to-people contact between their
nations. He suggested establishing a BRICS Young Scientists' Forum, setting up
BRICS language schools "to offer language training in each of our languages,"
and exploring the creation of a BRICS University.
Modi
concluded:
"Excellencies, we have an
opportunity to define the future—of not just our countries, but the world at
large.... I take this as a great responsibility."
Russian
President Vladimir Putin struck a similar note in comments to the press on July
17, evaluating the results of his trip:
"The BRICS
are all young states, and the future belongs to the
young."
As for the
issue of nuclear energy, discussion of it and conclusion of numerous concrete
deals permeated the summit and related bilateral meetings, especially those of
Russia's Putin with Argentina's Cristina Fernández de Kirchner and Brazil's
Dilma Rousseff. This, despite the fact that the Fortaleza Declaration
itself—in many ways a "consensus document" typical of such international
gatherings—does not mention the matter, other than to defend Iran's right to
develop peaceful nuclear energy.
The true
measure of value in an economy, LaRouche has emphasized, is the impact of
science and technology in continually increasing the energy-flux
density of the productive processes. Although the required science-driver
for the world economy is the development of thermonuclear fusion
energy, the current insistence on nuclear fission among the BRICS and
allied countries is highly significant, as it reflects a commitment to raising
the economy's overall energy-flux density.
Far better
than any monetary or GDP-based measure, energy-flux density and other physical
economic parameters best indicate the BRICS' direction.
Figure 2
shows nuclear energy as a percentage of total electricity generation—which is an
indicator of overall energy-flux density—in a number of BRICS countries (Russia,
India, and Brazil), as compared to representative European countries (Germany
and Spain), looking at both current and projected levels. In the case of
Germany, for example, the British Empire's criminal green policy of
de-nuclearization has already led to a drastic collapse of nuclear from 28% of
total electricity in 1990, to 15% today. The German government of Angela Merkel
has adopted a policy of reducing that to zero by the year 2020! Spain
is almost as bad.
Compare that
to what Russia has done, increasing its proportion of nuclear from 11%
in 1990 to 18% in 2013, with a policy of raising that proportion to some 27% by
2030. Other BRICS countries have smaller proportions of nuclear to total
electricity today, but they are defiantly committed to a nuclear future. Brazil,
for example, plans to increase nuclear from 3% to 15% by 2030. As President
Rousseff stated just before the summit began: "Our countries are among the
largest in the world, and they cannot be content, in the midst of the 21st
Century, with any kind of dependency. Recent events demonstrate that it is
essential that we seek for ourselves our scientific and technological
autonomy."
South Africa
has also just announced that it is resuming its nuclear program, with plans to
build six new nuclear plants (see article in this section).
It is of note
that China has the largest nuclear construction program in the world today—a
distinction which in the 1970s went to the Roosevelt-created Tennessee Valley
Authority. In fact, of the 66 nuclear plants currently under construction
worldwide, 50 of them are in the BRICS countries. In other words, 43% of the
world's population is constructing 75% of the world nuclear plants; or, the rate
of nuclear construction is 4.3 times greater per capita in the BRICS than in the
rest of the world.
The reality
is, of course, much starker than those simple numbers indicate, because nuclear
energy is being actively destroyed in much of the trans-Atlantic sector
(and Japan), as a direct result of the British Empire's suicidal green policies.
The BRICS and allies have made it clear that will have none of it: They have
taken the British Queen's green agenda, as reflected in the Copenhagen
Resolution, and thrown it in the trash can.
LaRouche put
a fine point on it:
"What about
Frau Merkel of Germany?" he asked July 18. She represents the worthless view of
value; she's tearing down nuclear energy, destroying her economy and making it
absolutely worthless, he said. "What's the value of her opinions? Not much." The
BRICS and Ibero-America are building a world market based on real value, and
they are already far more productive than Europe and the United States, which
insist on values being set by some crazy judge—Scalia in the Argentine
case.
Great Infrastructure
Projects
Also
reflective of the BRICS' focus on real value, was the emphasis placed on
creating a credit system to fund major infrastructure investment. Two important
such projects moved forward in and around the BRICS Summit.
The first was
the idea of fulfilling the centuries-old dream of building a transcontinental
railroad to connect the Atlantic and Pacific coasts of South America
(Figure 3). This took shape in the discussion between Chinese
President Xi and Peruvian President Ollanta Humala, and then with Brazil's
President Rousseff. An agreement was reached to open bidding for foreign,
including Chinese, companies, to participate in the construction of one critical
segment of that project: the "T"-shaped
Palmas-Campinorte-Annapolis/Campinorte-Lucas route in central Brazil.
The
importance of that segment within the overall project is clear from
Figure 4, a schematic map first published by EIR back
in 1988. The northern terminus of Palmas is a stone's throw from the famous
Carajás project in the middle of the Amazon jungle, the world's largest (and
purest) iron ore deposit, which is now connected by rail only to the Atlantic
port of São Luis. Once built, the western rail terminus of Lucas would then be
halfway to the Brazil-Peru border, where the projected rail line would link up
with a Peruvian branch that would cross the Andes at Saramirisa—the lowest pass
in that giant mountain range—and from there, to one or more Peruvian ports for
shipment across the Pacific Ocean. This would drastically cut shipping time and
costs from Brazil (and other Southern Cone countries like Argentina) to Eurasian
powerhouses like China, India, and Russia.
Even greater
efficiencies and growth and productivity can be achieved as this South American
Transcontinental Railroad is able to connect directly by rail with
Asia, as high-speed maglev rail lines are constructed and opened up through the
Darién Gap and the Bering Strait (Figure 3).
There are
various possible routes for a South American Transcontinental Railroad. (The one
under discussion among China, Brazil, and Peru centers on São Paulo-Santa Fé do
Sul-Cuiabá-Porto Velho-Pucallpa-Saramirisa-Bogotá-Panamá. Another viable option
is São Paulo-Santa Fé do Sul-Santa Cruz-Desaguadero-Saramirisa-Bogotá-Panamá,
which has long been studied.) In fact, earlier versions of precisely this
project were drawn up by the Intercontinental Railway Commission, started by
U.S. Secretary of State James Blaine, which employed U.S. Army engineers to
survey and project lines tying the United States through to Argentina and
Brazil, presenting a completed map of the intended route project to President
William McKinley in 1898 (Figure 5). The strongly pro-American
System McKinley commemorated Blaine's plans as the future of humanity, speaking
in 1901 at the Pan-American exposition in Buffalo—where McKinley was shot dead
in a British-run operation.
Another great
project, the construction of an Interoceanic Canal through Nicaragua
(Figure 6), was announced on July 9 by Nicaraguan President
Daniel Ortega. The massive project will be carried out by the Chinese company
HKND, but President Putin also made an unannounced stopover in Nicaragua on July
12, on his way to the BRICS Summit, to offer Russia's support. The canal will
run 173 miles from the mouth of the Brito River on the Pacific Coast in
southeastern Nicaragua, to the mouth of the Punta Gorda River on the Caribbean
side. It will include two locks, and 65 miles of it will pass through Lake
Nicaragua, and have a projected passage time of 30 hours, coast to coast, for
the 5,100 of the largest ships in the world that will be able to use this
canal.
Project
engineers report that over 50,000 construction workers will be required, and
that once in operation it will generate 200,000 jobs, including its sub-projects
(airport, two ports, tourist center, etc.).
President
Ortega, in announcing the selected route, stated that the country's entire
educational system was being revamped to produce the engineers and skilled
workers that the project will require, He also held up a book containing the
feasibility studies for constructing such a canal produced by the United States
government and adopted by the U.S. Congress 118 years ago, in 1896, detailing
the benefits such a canal would bring.
The irony was
lost on no one. China is actively involved in massive job-creating economic
projects in Central America—the United States' proverbial "back yard"—while the
U.S. under Obama has helped destroy that area with his policy of drug
legalization, on top of decades of the British Empire's free-trade economic
devastation. Today, one-third of the population of El Salvador has been forced
to emigrate to the U.S., in a desperate search for the means of survival; while
official unemployment in neighboring Honduras now surpasses 60%.
The broader
commitment to infrastructure development was emphasized in the last of the
multiple historic summits which took place in Brasilia in mid-July, that of the
heads of state and special representatives of the Community of Latin American
and Caribbean States (CELAC), who met with Chinese President Xi and the Unasur
heads of state on July 17. Their joint declaration (see below) emphasized the
"important opportunity for mutual development" which exists, announcing
"the
establishment of a broad partnership of equality, mutual benefit, and common
development between China and Latin America and the
Caribbean."
The New Development
Bank
There is
little question that the New Development Bank (NDB) and Contingent Reserve
Agreement (CRA) are the seed crystals of an entirely new, international
financial architecture—although a major political battle lies ahead in order to
force this policy through, over the violent objections of the City of London and
Wall Street, including their agents within some of the BRICS countries. The
founding document of the NDB cautiously sticks to the idea that the NDB and CRA
are only meant to "complement" existing institutions like the IMF; but the
principles on which they were founded not only contradict those of the IMF, but
mutually exclusive.
Most
significant, the NDB is clearly geared to lend money for real development,
without the hated austerity conditionalities and green policies associated with
the IMF and World Bank. For example, the CELAC-China joint declaration contains
a radical departure from IMF/World Bank conditionalities, calling "to make good
use of the concessionary loans granted by China, in accord with the necessities
and priorities of the recipient countries.... We stress the importance of
building and modernizing infrastructure."
Argentine
President Fernández, who was given featured billing (after host Rousseff) at the
BRICS-Unasur Summit, issued the clearest call for a new world financial order:
"We, sirs, are posing then, a new global financial order, one that is not just
fair and equitable, but indispensable.... What we demand from the world, is
precisely the creation of a new global financial order which will permit
sustainable and global economic growth.... Thus, the appeal to all nations is to
join forces in this real crusade for a new global political, economic and
financial organization that will have positive social, political, economic, and
cultural consequences for our nations."
President
Putin—who, like Argentina's Fernández, is no stranger to being the target of
economic warfare—presented a complementary proposal: "BRICS nations should
cooperate more closely in commodities markets. We have a unique resource base:
Our nations hold 30-50% of global reserves of various resources. Therefore, we
believe it is imperative to develop cooperation in mining and processing, and
organize a center for training experts in the metals industries in BRICS
nations."
Such an
agreement would break the British Empire's stranglehold on world commodities,
and their ability to speculate with nations' livelihood and their very
existence.
To be viable
for these purposes, the NDB and CRA would have to function with a firewall
against the cancerous dollar-denominated system. It is noteworthy that the NDB
is authorized to both receive additional capitalization in non-dollar currencies
in the future, as well as to issue loans to BRICS and other nations in
non-dollar currencies.
Once three,
four, or more countries are involved in great projects receiving such non-dollar
loans, a new currency will have in effect been created, in which fixed exchange
rates among the national participants will also follow. That step alone would
instantly bring about a return to the pre-1971 Bretton Woods system of fixed
(predictable) exchange rates, wiping out, with the stroke of a pen, trillions of
dollars of speculation on currency futures.
But for the
NDB to be able to truly take on the tasks of global reconstruction, the United
States must become a full partner in its capitalization and functioning as the
centerpiece of a global Hamiltonian credit system, of the sort specified in LaRouche's
Four Laws. Today's "dollar," which is no longer the
sovereign currency of the United States, but rather a supra-national betting
instrument under the control of the British Empire, must also return to its
proper role as the Treasury-issued "greenback."
In short, the
central strategic question posed by the mid-July BRICS Summit, is: When will the
United States rid itself of President Obama, and return to the American System
policies it was founded on, and which half of humanity, led by the BRICS, is now
implementing?
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