October 6, 2008

LaRouche in Dialogue with Ecuador’s Páez

Repercussions and Alternatives
To World Financial Crisis

Editor’s Note: This article first appeared in EIR Vol. 35, No. 41, Oct. 17, 2008, pp 46-55.

Lyndon LaRouche was interviewed on Quito, Ecuador Radio 530 AM on Oct. 6, along with Pedro Páez, Ecuador’s Minister of Economic Policy Coordination. Their host was Patricio Pillajo. LaRouche appeared on the same program with Mr. Páez on Jan. 30, 2008 (see EIR, Feb. 7, 2008). Translation from Spanish was supplied by EIR’s Dennis Small. Here is an edited transcript.

Patricio Pillajo: Greetings to everybody. The subject we are going to be dealing with today is: “Repercussions and Alternatives to the World Financial Crisis,” with the American statesman and economist Lyndon LaRouche, who is in touch with us by phone from Washington; and in Quito, with economist Pedro Páez, the Coordinating Minister for Economic Affairs of the government of Rafael Correa.

Greetings, Mr. LaRouche.

The repercussions of the financial crash are global. We have been informed about the impact on Wall Street, but there have been bank bailouts in England, Ireland, Germany. France is proposing the creation of a fund of €300 billion for banks that are in trouble, and the United States recently approved an aid package of $700 billion.

We reiterate our welcome to our distinguished guests. We would like to begin by asking the economist Lyndon LaRouche, who has been a constant critic of this process of bailouts, and the role played by the financial system in the world economy: What will happen to the global economy when this $700 billion bailout of the financial system goes into effect?

Lyndon LaRouche: The result, if it’s allowed to continue, will be insanity and a new Dark Age. This is the attempt of the thieves to rob the factory, and then, you don’t get production.

The South Will Not Be Forced To Pay

Pillajo: We’d like to reiterate our welcome today to economist Pedro Páez, and ask him: What actions can be expected from the Ecuadorian government in the face of this phenomenon, about which the President of the Republic himself has said, in reference to the financial crisis, that he doesn’t care?

Pedro Páez: Thank you very much for the opportunity to converse again with our friends in the United States.

What we had talked about a few months back, is now hitting strongly. This crisis goes way beyond being a mere problem of corruption in a few sectors, of a few imprudent investors. This is a crisis which demands profound changes. It’s a crisis which is contaminating about 40% of the world’s GNP, and it is not only in the United States; it’s not only in the housing or construction sector of the United States. It has fundamentally contaminated capitalism’s way of acting, of operating, internationally. And, undoubtedly, it requires a most proactive response by the countries of the Third World.

This time—various Presidents have said this, along with Ecuador’s President [Rafael] Correa—this time the North is not going to make us pay for the crisis. They did it in the crisis of the ’60s and the ’70s, by aggressively indebting us, and with the recycling of petrodollars, which was the antecedent of the foreign debt crisis, as a fundamental lever for the blackmail of the neoliberal policies in our countries. Which has meant, through the imposition of the conditionalities of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank, the dismantling of the productive apparatus over recent decades in Latin America, above all in Ecuador. And also, a process of unprecedented social polarization, which has generated levels of frustration and despair whose most visible symptom is the expulsion of 3.5 million compatriots, who are now working as migrants in Spain, Italy, and the United States itself.

Pillajo: So this does affect us; and should we be concerned?

Páez: I think that it does affect us. It affects us and it should concern us. And, in fact, we’ve been developing a series of measures to protect the Ecuadorian economy in the face of a situation as serious as what we are discussing here.

What President Correa said, and he was emphatic, is that we have taken all sorts of precautions, so that the country, the economy, can be calm. We have various security buffers so that today this won’t mean perturbations of the macroeconomic stability of the country.

But without a doubt, we are defining the urgency of those proposals for a new regional financial architecture, and for a new domestic financial architecture, which are going to be the response in the face of a crisis which is as important as the one we are seeing.

The Bailout: Unleashing Hyperinflation

Pillajo: Mr. LaRouche, could you please be a little more specific about what the bank bailout is going to mean for the global economy? What’s going to happen to the dollar? What’s going to happen with inflation? What’s going to happen with the banking system and the productive apparatus?

LaRouche: What was done by Secretary Paulson and his accomplices, was to unleash a form of international hyperinflation, comparable to what happened in Germany in 1923. The current policies of the United States government are clinically insane from the standpoint of U.S. interests, as well as international interests.

However, it’s extremely important to understand, that the direction of the causes for this crisis, are not coming originally from the United States: The mistake is made of assuming that the United States is the world imperial power. That is not true. Since 1968, there has been a change in the world policies. The actions taken under President Nixon: U.S. President Nixon passed the authority over the world economy from the leading role of the United States, to the United Kingdom’s financial system.

This is typified by a single case, that of George Soros. George Soros is an agent of the British Foreign Office, and as you probably know, he controls much of life in the Caribbean area and South. Since the breakdown of the Bretton Woods system under Nixon, and then, the British and Saudi Arabian creation of the floating-exchange-rate market for petroleum, the U.S. dollar has been a plaything of the British Empire. And the role of George Soros in controlling the U.S. elections, as well as much of the international drug trade, controlling Russia, controlling large sections in Europe, and controlling other parts of Eurasia—this is characteristic of the present situation.

The changes made in 1971 through 1973, that is, through the repeal of the Bretton Woods system and the establishment of the spot market in petroleum, has created an international monetary-financial system, which is now exploding out of self-destruction.

You can understand the problem best, by looking at what the solution is: As I have proposed, the United States must approach Russia, China, and India, for collaboration, and setting into motion a solution for this global problem. This is a return, in a sense, to the Franklin Roosevelt policy of a Bretton Woods system, which was destroyed between 1968 and 1973.

Pillajo: Mr. LaRouche, is the role of the dollar-standard in the world economy in danger? You have said that we’re at the edge of a process of disintegration never before seen. Is the role of the United States dollar itself in the world economy threatened?

LaRouche: Well, it is not the U.S. dollar anymore, but it is the dollar. It’s the Anglo-American dollar, and it’s controlled from London. That’s the significance of this past measure taken recently in the United States, and dictated by London. President George W. Bush is a puppet of London. And you have a revolt in the United States, where probably only about 10% of the population actually would support the agreement, the legislation that was just enacted in the United States. You have a situation in the United States, which is comparable to the beginning of the French Revolution. It’s like the King of France, who, at that time, paid no attention to the feelings of the people, or Lafayette, and thus destroyed France. You have a terrified membership of the Congress, which is submitting to orders from London!

A New Financial Architecture

Pillajo: Minister Páez, do you agree with this evaluation? How do you see the future of the dollar, not only as the standard of the world economy, but, in the case of Ecuador [which is dollarized—ed.], and what would we be facing in those circumstances?

Páez: Look, what I’m saying here is that the North is trying get someone to pay the bill for this crisis. Latin America has said, this time, Latin America is not going to do it. One of the alternatives which we are building, is, in fact, the new regional financial architecture, which is going lay the basis for what we can be, as is being mentioned here: a multipolar international agreement, which will allow us to build a new international financial architecture, and a new world order, which would have much more solidarity and be much more sustainable.

I believe that the oligarchies of different nationalities who are profiting from the current situation, of this excluding capitalism, this speculative capitalism, this capitalism which has asphyxiated the productive apparatus, which was in fact its own raison d’être, its own greatest achievement in creating the golden years, especially after the Second World War. This speculative and rentier capitalism which lives off financing economies, has prevented the productive apparatus from actually fulfilling the needs of the world, which the scientific and technological revolution would permit. So, here we are, in the 21st Century, facing the danger of starvation, facing an energy crisis, and not only monetary-financial issues, threatening the very existence of our societies.

And to pose that the only profitable alternative for these great world oligarchies is to bet on war, to bet on plunder, to bet on robbery such as we are experiencing right now—this has to be replaced by a great alliance of peoples to rebuild the world order, to establish new rules of the game.

And what is being done modestly now from South America, with this new regional financial architecture, that is to say, the Bank of the South, as the heart of a network of development banks, which would allow us to return to the view that the productive apparatus, not only in terms of our current international role as suppliers of raw materials, but which begins to develop the internal markets, and places the satisfaction of the basic needs of the population of Latin America as the first priority.

And to have, along with this network of development banks, a network of central banks with a heart, with a Southern Monetary Fund, as an alternative to the International Monetary Fund, and to break with this neoliberal view, and which makes the subject of development and the reduction of structural asymmetries a central element in the construction of macroeconomic sovereignty on a continental level.

And linked to this, the possibility of having a different type of approach based on a system of settlement of accounts, which would allow us to better lubricate trade and financial transactions among the countries of Latin America, and which would allow us to protect the region, in the face of this international turbulence. This is going to establish the possibilities of a new type of international financial architecture, a network of networks, which would put us in a position of equality in this multipolar world, in order to reestablish the functioning of a monetary system which would be at the service of production, both here in Latin America, and also in the North.

And I see a problem in the United States, which has led it to losing its hegemony, which is that it has asphyxiated the productive apparatus, in order to serve the interests of multinational financial capital.

The alternative which is now being posed, is to produce, produce, produce.

From that standpoint, I think that a new pact can be established, a new pact of coexistence among peoples, a new relationship between the North and the South which would pose the perspective of peace and solidarity.

Pillajo: Leaving aside the issue of whether the great powers reach an agreement or not, can Latin America contribute to this vision?

Páez: We cannot influence, we cannot control the agenda of the great powers. But we can, based on our own decisions, based on what we can achieve relying on our own strength, transform the correlation of forces, and establish a new path, a new approach, in which we believe there will be much better circumstances for the great powers in the North to come to their senses and be reasonable, and realize that the best alternative is this proposal for peace.

Is There a ‘Plan B’?

Pillajo: Mr. LaRouche, what will happen if there is not an international agreement, which you have so widely promoted, to reorganize the world economy? Is there a “Plan B” to the decision already made by the United States government to implement the multibillion-dollar bailout package?

LaRouche: You don’t talk about Plan B, because there is no Plan B.

What you have is a different situation: You underestimate the danger. You have to look at this from the top down, from the world as a whole, top down, not from nations up. There is no possibility that South America could independently survive under the conditions that are coming down now. This is not a problem of South America: It’s a problem that hit South America.

Unless we can get the kind of four-power agreement that I have prescribed, and which the Russians have now indicated they’re willing to go along with, we’re on the edge of a situation, in which the entire population of the planet will collapse, from over 6.5 billion people to less than 2 billion, in a fairly short time! Unless we put the world system into bankruptcy reorganization, in every part, and take the same approach that Franklin Roosevelt took in the United States in 1932-33, and unless we assemble enough power to crush the British Empire, which has been controlling the world for the past decades, there’s no chance for any part of civilization today.

Look at the solution: The Russian government has recognized its problem, and recognized the problems of other nations, and is willing to play a key part, to bring the United States, Russia, China, India, and other countries into a coalition to create a new international financial architecture immediately. Such an agreement is indispensable for providing the kinds of conditions needed to deal with the problems in each part of the world.

As you know, the problem is not only a financial problem; it’s a breakdown of the productive powers of labor in most countries of the world. Without high-technology infrastructure development on a massive scale, we can not solve the problems of this planet. We need to assemble this, and assemble nations together to each take their part of the world. For example, you have a special problem in the Americas: Large-scale capital improvements in technology are required to deal with these problems. So we have to create a new system of organization, as in South America, with North America, and in Africa, and so forth. We need to create these systems under an umbrella of international power to protect these systems.

The food crisis of the world today, alone, is awesome! We’re on the edge of mass death, merely because of hunger. The lack of infrastructure for development is enormous! The lack of access to capital markets is a real crisis. So, you need to have a rallying point of the world’s effort to save itself from this crisis.

LaRouche’s New Bretton Woods
Is the Solution

Pillajo: The president of the European Union, [French President] Nicolas Sarkozy, issued a call last week for a reorganization of the financial system. What is your view of President Sarkozy’s statement? Is there a willingness in Europe as well, to take that great step?

LaRouche: Well, Sarkozy is doing a useful job. But he’s not the source of the job. As the Russians have understood, and others have understood: We have to turn the United States situation around, because you’ve got to control the United States. And you have to use the fact that the United States government, the present administration, is totally self-disintegrated in the eyes of its own citizens. If you can not bring Russia, China, India, and the United States [together], at the time that George Bush and his administration are already discredited, then you can not save the system.

And you have, from last Sunday [Oct. 5], from the Russian leading TV, with about 70 million viewers, the Russian government’s representatives presented an acceptance of my proposal for a new initiative. Certain forces in Europe, including Sarkozy, people in Italy, and so forth, are moving in the direction of adapting to that. The conception of a New Bretton Woods system of the type I’m talking about, is the solution.

Pillajo: Mr. LaRouche, economist Páez would like to add something.

Páez: It’s very important to recognize that we’re at a civilizational crossroads that can move very rapidly towards much worse conditions, that could plunge the world into a truly calamitous situation from which we would not be able to emerge in the short term, and that it could take a long time to implement an alternative. I believe it’s fundamental to have a quick response, in light of the gravity of the crisis.

I also agree, that reference points, such as Franklin Delano Roosevelt and Bretton Woods, are very important in this conjuncture, obviously changing things based on the needs and technological capabilities of the 21st Century. These details are very important.

It’s fundamental that, in the recomposition of this world process, the recomposition of the world order, that every one of the countries, every one of the regions, be empowered to be able to stop the toxic unipolarity which has been leading world affairs into this dead end.

What I cannot agree with, is that the South should sit around and do nothing, or light candles to the Virgin, to just wait until the great world powers are enlightened and can come to an agreement. We believe that there has to be proactive, propositional action by the South. As for South America, this issue is fundamental in the construction of a space of supranational monetary-financial sovereignty that would allow us to join the international discussions based on a different correlation of forces. The arrogance and the arbitrary relations with which the North has dealt with the South, cannot continue to exist, based on legitimizing and consummating a situation which is leading humanity to a very painful situation, to an absolutely calamitous dynamic.

The alternative, without doubt, is along the lines of what is being posed here, what the economist LaRouche and Dennis Small have been presenting: the need to pose the idea of the foundation of a new international monetary and financial order, adopting many of the principles of Bretton Woods, adopting many of the alternatives which Keynes proposed at the time, but incorporating as well, a new organization of international trade. If we have an ordering of international trade which exacerbates the asymmetry and world imbalance, with structural deficits for certain countries, which is a result of neoliberalism, of deregulated savage capitalism, then it’s obvious that those asymmetries will also be confirmed and exacerbated by the financing of those gaps, which come through foreign debt and through foreign direct investment, which is increasingly more onerous for our economies.

It’s essential that this refounding of the international financial order should have as a counterpart, a refounding of the international division of labor, under conditions that are much more equitable, and under conditions of fair trade, which allow us to relaunch production on a much more inclusive and sustainable basis. That this be the material basis of a world political and social order which places its bet on peace and solidarity.

We Have To Change the Institutions

Pillajo: What is required for that?

Páez: I believe it is essential to move forward on the transformation of the world institutions. We need a new international monetary and financial order with, for example, what the Bank of the South has, a payments system, and the Southern Monetary Fund contributing to the autonomy, to vaccinating ourselves against the kinds of measures which can be taken by this Anglo-Saxon dollar, which Mr. LaRouche has mentioned. And which allows us to defend the space we have for production in the continent.

It’s fundamental to prevent the logic, the dynamic, of profit-mongering and speculation to contaminate the solution.

A large part of the problem of this $700 billion, which is the package which the United States is trying out, and which is going to be recycled in Europe and Japan, is that there is nothing to stop this going to reinforce the speculative tendency. The real alternative is to strengthen the productive apparatus in the North and the South, on a sustainable basis.

We have to change the World Trade Organization, we have to change international financing relations; we have to re-pose the issue of the debt. The foreign debt is a drug for the Third World, and we have to re-pose the international order, to have a “Jubilee” [debt forgiveness—ed.] as was proposed a long time ago, as the path to follow.

Pillajo: Mr. LaRouche, your comments, please?

LaRouche: Well, the point is, left out of the discussion so far, is the most crucial issue of all: First of all, you can not negotiate in a market that doesn’t exist. If we do not get the kind of reform that I’ve prescribed now—and I’m talking in the immediate period head—there will be no significant cooperation among nations of any part of the world. Also, we have not discussed—

Páez: My dear Mr. LaRouche, my dear Dennis: We agree completely. We would be willing to support that kind of reform. In fact, we would applaud the fact of the United States, Russia, China, and India—the great world actors—converging on some type of agreement of this sort. But, a small country like Ecuador can not decide those kinds of things. What we can do is change the world correlation of forces from our small space that we have on the world stage. We are a totally marginal country; probably many Americans don’t even know where Ecuador is. What we can do—

LaRouche: I know—

Páez: What we can do, is, we are not going to sit around and do nothing. We have decided to be subjects of history, and what we are doing, purposefully, is setting the course as far as we can, with significant advances in matters having to do with the agenda of the new regional financial architecture, changing the correlation of forces, and stopping unipolarity from proceeding with impunity in the world. It’s essential that all voices be raised with a call to reason, and fight for peace and solidarity.

‘I Am Your Advocate’

Pillajo: Mr. LaRouche?

LaRouche: I say, you need advocates. I’m your advocate. Other people could be your advocates. You need protection for your rights. The Bank of the South, for example, is a very interesting idea, to assist in that process. But you also need the credit for a large-scale infusion of higher technologies, which are needed to raise the productive powers of labor, physically, in these countries. You have to examine more carefully exactly how your country and other countries were raped, during the 1970s and 1980s. I was involved in this problem. I fought it then, it exists still today! That is the problem we have to beat. You must be given the right to have access to credit, on reasonable terms, and long-term assistance, especially in the infrastructure development which is necessary for the transformation of your country, and complete access to modern technology on reasonable terms.

Páez: I agree completely, but those are rights which we have to win. They will not come to us as generous gifts from the same sectors which have been profiting from the misery of the rest of the world. These are conquests which the Third World, which the South, have to achieve. And we have to do it, not based on autarchy, by any means, but in the spirit of what you are talking about, a new type of North-South cooperation, in which we are able to construct a world, a global space, of universal citizenship.

LaRouche: First of all, you have to have a revolution in the North. We must have a Eurasian revolution as well. We must have a shift of power, as the kind of revolution that Franklin Roosevelt made in 1932-33. He fought the same British imperial interests that we’re fighting today. He continued the fight until he was betrayed by his successor, Truman. Truman supported Britain in reinstituting colonialism. We’re on the verge, where we can seize power again, for the kind of thing that Roosevelt represented.

We have to make a revolution: a revolution of the nations who have been misled or abused, who have power. And that’s why I’m in trouble, because I make that threat. For me, it’s the only solution.

We Need a Credit System,
Not a Money System

Pillajo: Mr. LaRouche, many people mistrust the plan that you propose, because they talk about the cost, the price that would have to be paid for a bankruptcy reorganization of the financial sector, and also for the great world accord of which you speak. What is the price of the plan that you’re proposing, Mr. LaRouche?

LaRouche: Well, what we’re doing, is we’re going back to the United States system, which the Russians will join, and others will happily join. We’re going back to revolutionize, to get rid of the corruption that came in after the death of Franklin Roosevelt.

And, I’m not impressed by money, at all. Money’s a piece of paper! Today, with electronics, it’s not even paper anymore. We’re going to have to put the world into bankruptcy, and simply cancel most of what is called debt today. We’re going to have to create a credit system, rather than continuing the old monetary system, creating international credit, which individual countries can turn into currency and so forth. And we have to have a set of priorities on development goals, which are largely social and physical economic goals.

In order for the countries which are weaker and smaller to do their own development, we must create a protective screen of great power, around that principle, that we’re not going to allow this insanity to continue anymore. And when you look at the possibility—

Pillajo: Minister Páez has another question.

Páez: I’m very glad to hear this. Because in fact, the design of the new regional financial architecture which was approved by the ministers of Latin America on May 3, 2007, points in that direction, with that spirit, of a new international organization of credit with countries that are free of debt, and with a more just trade.

Pillajo: Excuse me, Minister Páez, are these medium-term or long-term plans? Because the crisis is now. That is, the basis of the financial market is disappearing.

Páez: Well, we’re taking immediate, concrete steps with the matter of UNASUR [Union of Nations of the South] and the signing of the Bank of the South at the end of 2007, yes. Recall, that in the case of Bretton Woods, the Bretton Woods design was ready at the beginning of 1944, but the World Bank and the IMF began operation only in 1949. So we’re in the same type of situation. So we’re moving at a much more rapid pace, and we believe, we hope, that the gravity of the crisis will accelerate concretizing this internationally.

Pillajo: Mr. LaRouche?

LaRouche: I would say, that you have to realize that you’re also on the edge of global thermonuclear war. The crowd in London—and don’t say “United States”; yes, there are forces in the United States, but the crowd is centered in London: The greatest strategic error you could make is to think that the United States is the center of the problem. It is not. It is London. The United States, today, is a puppet of London, from the top down, and has been since 1973, since the establishment of the floating oil exchange.

What you have, is, you have China, India, Russia, the United States, as nations, which have the interest in defending themselves. About 90% of the Americans hate this bill that was just adopted in the United States, for example, which was adopted from London! This—you have to understand, that that crazy piece of legislation just adopted in the United States, came from London, not from United States!

And thus, we need great power, which changes the world policy back in the direction of what Franklin Roosevelt represented, while he was alive, to guarantee, to the various parts of the world, the freedom and right to follow their own course. To eradicate all traces of imperialism from this planet.

Leading people in these countries, as the Russian leadership has expressed it, two days ago, is presently in agreement with that perspective. Today, all of Western Europe is in panic. The national monetary-financial systems of these countries of Western Europe are all collapsing, just as the United States. At this rate, the international impact will be a shutdown of the economy, of every economy of the world. The world is at a point of decision: Either it makes this choice that I’ve indicated, or the world is going to Hell for a while.

I know the ambitions in South America. They’ve had my sympathy for a long time. But these nations need the power, to be able to do what they wish to do.

Ecuador’s Role

Pillajo: Minister Páez, you recently discussed these matters in a meeting with the President of the country. What conclusions did you reach? What actions are you going to take in this complex situation where, apparently, a change lies in the decision of the great powers?

Páez: The alternative is, on the one hand, to think globally and act locally. But also the urgency, the gravity of the crisis, demands that we act globally. And it’s necessary to be able to influence this from where we can, with the modest possibilities that come from being a small country on the world scene. To make these kinds of proposals, on which I find many points of agreement with what we are hearing from Mr. LaRouche, as well as other progressive forces around the world.

Now we have to open our minds to generate a broad front, to generate a summation of forces that are able to destroy those who augur disaster, those who augur violence and a scenario of greater confrontation. Mr. LaRouche has already even mentioned the possibility of a nuclear war. I would not rule out that barbarism might rule the world, because there are those increasingly anti-democratic oligarchical groups, which are increasingly involved in sinister and corrupt circumstances.

I think this should be the Springtime of the peoples of the world. We have to have great joy and hope for the future before us, based on the possibilities of communication, of understanding among the peoples, in order to be able to act jointly. Here in Ecuador, we’re doing everything we can in terms of banking regulation—

Pillajo: The new Constitution?

Páez: Yes, the new Constitution is an advance. In the first place, because it is an affirmation of life, a demonstration that here the people in Ecuador are saying, “We are going to fight for happiness.” We have every right, taking up some of the historically most important elements of the American Revolution: the right to the pursuit of happiness. That is what is being shown in the matter of our new Constitution. This, without question, is being made concrete, is materializing in a series of changes in economic policy, in the economic structure of the country, in the change in the method of accumulation, which point to the satisfaction of the basic needs of the population. And they point towards a new type of international organization of the economy and of society.

I think what is being done here with a modest effort is fundamental. For example, the idea of the network which will allow the cooperatives and the communal banks to cooperate in the farthest reaches of the country. This is totally compatible with this hopeful vision of a new future for all humanity. We have to work in the parishes, based on what we do daily; the most humble people have to recognize that they are subjects of history. We have to, of course, think and be provoked by the fact that the great powers, those that have the power to decide, that they return to their senses. But we can not set aside our tasks and our responsibilities, here and now.

Here in Ecuador, we’re working on a new domestic financial architecture, on economic policies of a new type, on recovering a series of tools of trade policy, on recovering a series of tools that have to do with international negotiations, with new fiscal management to create a new economic model which will relaunch motion in the direction of greater influence and more sustainability.

We believe that with this process of bringing forces together internationally—all progressive forces—we will be able to pose a different future, in which we bet on peace, bet on solidarity in taking up the possibility of production to satisfy basic needs worldwide. The world food crisis, the world energy crisis, do have an alternative to what is being presented by this oligarchical gang, who are betting on war, on ending justice in an absolutely terrible situation.

Pillajo: You are saying that the government can collaborate with political positions of sectors such as those led by Lyndon LaRouche in the United States?

Páez: Look, I think that convergence of sensible, progressive, and humanist sectors internationally, occurs precisely in the flourishing of various schools of thought. What Mr. LaRouche is saying has often been echoed, even before other people knew of his proposals, and there are a number of people who are working in the same direction.

And this is a demonstration of the fact that we can move forward with the hope that people will return to their senses in the world, because there are many people working from different standpoints: from the standpoint of the economy, from the standpoint of ecology, of fair trade, of freedom from the drug of foreign debt, from the standpoint of a popular economy with solidarity, from the standpoint of the possibility of constructing a different kind of society, of political structures around the world. Not only here in Ecuador, there are people who are working and moving forward.

I think we should definitely not understate the gravity of the situation: It is fundamental to realize the seriousness of the situation, and the urgency of having a quick response, an immediate response by the great powers. It is necessary to stop those war-mongering forces that have taken control of the apparatus which controls the fate of the world.

I believe, I salute the efforts being carried out by people like the economist LaRouche and Dennis Small there in the United States. And I hope, I am sure that there are progressive forces also in Russia, China, Europe, and other parts of the world. It is necessary to promote a process of convergence, a process of agreement, which will close the door on war-mongering positions, on those who have entrenched themselves in financial speculation, in looting wars, in the control of non-renewable natural resources, in order to define a logic of capitalism in extinction, of discriminatory capitalism, of looting capitalism.

LaRouche: Let Us Proceed To Win!

Pillajo: Our time is running out. We would like to hear a final comment, a message perhaps, from the economist Lyndon LaRouche.

LaRouche: Well, as I say: We have a crashing international monetary-financial system, which will not continue to exist in its present form much longer. It is impossible to estimate dates of events, because human will does change the course of events. It is only possible to estimate the various potentials of the situation. And sometimes, the commander holds his forces in a fixed position, to wait to see what the enemy does, and then, to exploit the flanks which the enemy creates for himself.

We’re in such a situation. I am proceeding aggressively internationally. There are forces moving as a result. I’m just waiting for the effect of the next mistake of the enemy to give us a new advantage. And I know that in Ecuador, and in other, neighboring countries of Ecuador, this is also understood. So, if we are wise and courageous at the same time, I think we can win. I can’t guarantee it, but I think we can win. So let us proceed to win!

Pillajo: Very good. Our thanks to the American economist and statesman Lyndon LaRouche for his presence in this informational exchange. To Mr. LaRouche and Dennis Small, thank you both very much for your presence. And also to Minister Páez for being on this news show.

Páez: Thank you very much: And I also have an equally hopeful message, but also of being on constant alert. This is the moment for all voices, in which organization, conscience, and empowerment of all territories, communities, will show the way to what can be a new kind of more human civilization, with more solidarity, with a strong force for peace.