Russian-Language Media: LaRouche Warned of Crisis

Oct. 6 (EIRNS)—Articles from many sources are appearing in Russian-language media, on the theme that Lyndon LaRouche accurately warned about the current crisis a long time ago. Among these are:

* A dispatch from the Russian service of China's People's Daily, covering an Oct. 3 article in a U.S.-published Chinese-language newspaper, which said the current crisis could have been avoided. The People's Daily headline is, "American Paper: Financial Crisis Was Avoidable." Among other things, the dispatch says, "The well-known economist and member of the Democratic Party Lyndon LaRouche has also been forecasting the crash of the international financial system, represented by the U.S.A., for a long time." It cited LaRouche's warning of "unimaginable negative consequences," if the government did not act.

* The news service of a North Ossetian TV and radio channel, broadcasting also into South Ossetia, quoted from a 2006 article in the Russian weekly Zavtra, in which writer Maxim Kalashnikov had cited LaRouche's April 20, 2006 warning that the world was on a course towards Weimar-style hyperinflation. "This forecast was stated almost three years ago by the founder of the 'physical economy' movement," writes Osradio.ru, "the well-known U.S. dissident Lyndon LaRouche: 'The world monetary system, centered around the dollar, has reached a dangerous breaking point. Without a change of policy in the U.S.A. and Europe, the world will enter the breakdown of the current monetary and financial system.'"

Citing LaRouche also on the danger of war, related to the collapse, Osradio.ru reports that "LaRouche calls on Americans to move to a non-liberal model of development, which will bring real progress for America, rather than total collapse. Only that can save the U.S.A. from chaos or a new fascism, into which it could slide as a result of the financial and economic collapse, in LaRouche's view." The dispatch notes that LaRouche has support inside the Democratic Party.

Yakunin: The Agenda Is New Financial System

Oct. 10 (EIRNS)—Vladimir Yakunin, CEO of the state-owned Russian Railways and co-founder of the World Public Forum-Dialogue of Civilizations, told an Oct. 8 Moscow press conference that a new financial architecture would be front and center at this year's Rhodes Conference, which opened yesterday on the Greek island. RIA Novosti put out a wire highlighting this element of what Yakunin said.

At the top of the agenda, he said, is "finances and the economy." The financial crisis, Yakunin stressed, "derived not from financial management in any one country, but from the international financial architecture." Last month, Yakunin told the business daily Kommersant that American economist Lyndon LaRouche was the one who had warned him beforehand, that such a systemic financial crisis was going to break open.

Now, said Yakunin, there is "an enormous pyramid," but "the Russian leadership, the Persian Gulf countries, and Asian nations are thinking about an alternative.... In the near future, we shall see a financial system that is different from the one we are used to," and Russia "can be a full-fledged member of this new world economic system."

Medvedev at Evian Endorses Sarkozy Proposal

Oct. 8 (EIRNS)—Russian President Dmitri Medvedev took up three themes, in his address to the conference on World Politics, held in Evian, France, today. They were: the global financial crisis, the lessons of the Caucasus War, and his own initiative for a new European security pact. On the first and third topics, he presented five-point policy agendas. Most important, he endorsed French President Nicolas Sarkozy's intention to convene a conference of the Group of 8, plus China, India, Brazil, South Africa, Mexico, and possibly other nations, to address the financial crisis.

Speaking about the economic crisis, Medvedev cited his own attack on "economic egoism," back in June at the St. Petersburg Economic Forum. He noted that he had brought up the imminent crisis threat also at the G-8 summit in Japan. Now, said Medvedev, he proposes a five-point agenda: 1) reorganize international regulatory functions; 2) move away from the enormous imbalance between financial instruments and "the real yield of investment programs"; 3) improve risk management on the broadest scale, abandoning "illusions that any asset can appreciate infinitely"; 4) improve transparency; and 5) allow all countries to benefit, when trade barriers are lowered.

Medvedev said that "globalization" would henceforth entail an increased role by states, to guarantee real national development of each country. He reemphasized the importance of bringing China, India, Brazil, Mexico, and South Africa into efforts to change the international financial system, and said he was glad that some American officials now recognize that the G8 alone cannot handle it.

Medvedev denounced the push for NATO expansion, as well as Georgia's attack on South Ossetia and the U.S. ballistic-missile-defense deployments in Europe, as Cold War policies. He said that "a part" of the U.S. government evidently suffers from "Sovietological" thinking, which he called a form of paranoia, "a very dangerous illness."

Medvedev concluded by outlining his five principles for a new European security pact, emphasizing adherence to the UN Charter, commitment to the non-use of force, and equal security for all.

Putin Boosts Real Economy; Errs on Role of U.S.A.

Oct. 10 (EIRNS)—In an Oct. 9 discussion with Gennadi Zyuganov, leader of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation (CPRF), Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin emphasized his commitment to restoring physical economic growth in Russia, and the importance of the Franklin Roosevelt precedent in that regard. At the same time, Putin risked making what Lyndon LaRouche called "a very serious mistake" in his conception of what a U.S. role in solving the current systemic financial meltdown should be.

Zyuganov gave his view of the global crisis: "The policy of monetarism has essentially suffered defeat.... My personal opinion is that the U.S.A. will not soon be able to slip out of the noose they tied themselves, when they turned their economy and finances into a big world casino. They've put out $643 trillion of financial obligations, paper, notes. $700 billion is not going to save them, and neither is $2 trillion."

Zyuganov demanded that Putin get rid of Finance Minister Kudrin, in particular, and bring in a different economic team. He cited the short tenure of the Primakov-Maslyukov government in 1998-99 (CPRF member Yuri Maslyukov still heads the State Duma Committee on Industry), as having laid the basis for what Putin achieved in the past decade. Zyuganov cited the importance of abrupt changes in policy, such as Franklin Roosevelt implemented, upon replacing Herbert Hoover—"who was a lot like George Bush"—during the Great Depression. (Zyuganov ignored the American System roots of the New Deal, instead offering an old communist analysis, that FDR's moves to defend the poor and regulate finances came chiefly from study of the Soviet system.)

In reply, Putin underscored his own remarks on monetarism, and on FDR, the real economy, and the current financial crisis, as the most important things he wanted to say.

On monetarism: "A pure monetarist policy, and even then not entirely pure, was implemented in the early-to-mid-1990s. And I think you'll agree with me, that recently we have not had some laboratory-pure monetarist policy. Otherwise, we would not have development institutions, a Development Bank, special economic zones, an investment fund, etc. We would not have our industrial sector programs, which we have formulated and to which we have allocated a level of funding never before committed by the states. To infrastructure, first and foremost."

About the current world economic situation: "You mentioned U.S. Presidents H. Hoover and F. Roosevelt, and I think you did that on purpose.... This is related to the lawful cyclical development of the world market economy. As soon as there's an economic upswing, you get a free market that's under nobody's control. In any event, it is promoted and passed off as the panacea for all ills. And when the cycle goes into minus, goes down, then everybody starts talking about the need for state regulation. What do we see today? The same thing as with Roosevelt before World War II."

"Where you are absolutely right," Putin continued, "is that confidence in the United States as leader of the free world and a free economy, confidence in Wall Street as the center of that world, has been undermined forever, I think."

Here, LaRouche responded, is where Putin risks making a serious mistake: dismissing the U.S.A.—the real, historical U.S.A. with its unique constitutional system for the generation of credit for real economic growth—as the decisive factor that it must be, for a solution to the current existential threat to humanity. Said LaRouche, "Culturally, the only thing that can save this planet, is that legacy of the United States."

Is Soros Financing British Asset Yushchenko's Snap Election?

Oct. 10 (EIRNS)—Ukraine President Victor Yushchenko dissolved the parliament of Ukraine yesterday, and called "snap" elections for Dec. 7. There is every indication that George Soros will be buying this election in more of his dirty British Foreign Office-backed operations through the Open Society Institute and the Soros Fund. On Sept. 25, when Yushchenko was in New York for the UN General Assembly, he was treated like royalty, with interviews with the New York Council on Foreign Relations, the New York Times, and an audience with Soros, during which he asked Soros to continue to provide funding for "democracy" in Ukraine.

The following day, Yushchenko met with Georgia's President Mikheil Saakashvili, along with John McCain and Sarah Palin.