LaRouche Interviewed
In Russian Magazine

The December 2003 issue of Valyutny Spekulyant (Currency Dealer), the Russian financial monthly, carries interviews with regular authors—including EIR Founder and Contributing Editor Lyndon LaRouche, whom VS asked to answer their questionnaire on behalf of the many EIR authors published in Valyutny Spekulyant.

In the one-page interview, LaRouche zeroes in on the unique role of the U.S. Presidency at a moment of world economic breakdown, and of his own candidacy, given that the Baby-Boomer generation, holding power in most countries, suffers from the debilitating effects of the same 1960s cultural paradigm shift that caused the economic crisis. A return to the policymaking principles of Franklin Delano Roosevelt means "a virtual revolution," LaRouche tells the Russian readers, but it is "the only visible option" for the United States and the world.

Dennis Small's Oct. 10, 2003 EIR article on the vulture funds picking over Argentina appears in the same issue, under the headline, "What Do Vulture Funds Eat?" An editorial note of introduction reminds readers that the (now soundly defeated) Russian neo-liberals attempted to impose the "Argentine model" on Russia in 1998.

The December issue of VS, which went to the printer on the eve of Russia's Dec. 7 State Duma elections, also carries an article on the initiative by Rodina (Homeland) electoral bloc leader Sergei Glazyev, to increase the "natural rent" fees for companies exploiting Russian raw materials.

Excerpts from LaRouche's interview follow below.

Valyutny Spekulyant's authors are not geographically limited to Russia and the CIS. Our magazine regularly publishes articles written by citizens of Australia, Germany, the Netherlands and the U.S.A. Of special interest are the contributions from analysts at the American weekly Executive Intelligence Review (www.larouchepub.com). During 2003, VS readers could enjoy the offerings of Lothar Komp, expert in European economics and finance; Cynthia Rush and Dennis Small, whose lessons on "bankers' arithmetic" demonstrate why the foreign debt of many countries will never be paid; Jeffrey Steinberg, with his unrivalled knowledge of the U.S. political scene; banking analyst John Hoefle; Marsha Freeman, expert on energy policy and space exploration; and Richard Freeman, known for his exposés of fraud in official economic statistics. At the request of these authors, Lyndon LaRouche, director of EIR, agreed to answer our questionnaire.

Lyndon LaRouche is a U.S. candidate for the 2004 Democratic Party's U.S. Presidential nomination, editor, and economist; born Sept. 8, 1922 in the U.S. Federal state of New Hampshire; married to German national and political figure Helga Zepp-LaRouche. Since the end of wartime military service, in 1946, has been a dedicated opponent of the policies of nuclear-warfare utopian Bertrand Russell, and also an opponent of those changes, away from the policies of President Franklin Roosevelt, associated with Presidents Truman, Nixon, Carter, Reagan, both Bushes, and also Clinton.

1. [Omitted. Question about Valyutny Spekulyant, as such.]

2. What is your forecast for the Russian [American] economy in 2004 (as well as the next two-three years)? What do you view most positively, what puts you on guard? Will the upcoming Parliamentary and Presidential [in the U.S., Presidential] elections affect the Russian [American] economy?

LaRouche: The existing world monetary-financial system (e.g., IMF floating-exchange-rate system) is in the end-phase of a process leading toward an early, general breakdown-crisis, unless a new, fixed-exchange-rate monetary-financial system is installed to prevent such a political-economic breakdown from reaching maturity.

This breakdown, while formally datable from the 1971-72 changes in the monetary system, developed as a by-product of a cultural paradigm-shift which was brought about by the combined after-effects of the succession of the 1962 missiles crisis, the 1963 assassination of President Kennedy, and the launching of the official U.S. 1964-1972 Indo-China war. The result of those 1962-1972 developments, was a shift of the social values of a growing, younger portion of the emerging adult population, away from the values of a U.S.A. as the world's leading producer society, to a U.S. descent into the role of an increasingly economically predatory, "post-industrial"/consumer society, echoing the post-Second Punic War decadence of ancient Rome into an predatory imperial power relying upon the substitution of bread-and-circuses for production in Italy itself. This cultural paradigm-shift devolved into the self-doomed, hyperinflated world monetary-financial system of today.

Since the end of the 18th Century, the world has been repeatedly threatened by a banker-directed force which became known as that Synarchist International which gave us the Mussolini, Hitler, Franco, etc. fascist regimes of the 1922-1945 interval. Today, U.S. Vice-President Cheney's self-styled "neo-conservative" circles represent the leading U.S. element of that same Synarchist network. This Synarchist current, long identified with that Bertrand Russell-like nuclear-utopian circles within the U.S.A. and London which President Eisenhower termed a "military-industrial complex," is the most immediate, most dangerous threat to civilization as a whole today.

For various reasons, the way in which the U.S. political institutions turn during the immediate weeks and months ahead, will largely predetermine history, as much or more than Hitler's assumption of dictatorial powers during late February 1933 determined much of the trend of world affairs over the 1933-1945 interval. The only visible option, would be a return to the policy-shaping outlook which President Franklin Roosevelt brought to the U.S. government in March 1933.

3. What is your forecast for world markets in 2004 (you may choose the sector you are most interested in—stock, commodities, spot or currency markets)?

LaRouche: Virtually all of this will be swept away, in one form or another.

4. What would you personally desire for yourself in 2004?

LaRouche: As the only Presidential candidate who has a grasp on the current realities, I must become President. During 1962-2003, the U.S.A., and also much of the world at large, has undergone a profound cultural paradigm-shift. The habituated values of most of those in the 30s-50s age-interval in the U.S. (as elsewhere) are the political-cultural knee-jerk reflexes which have caused the present world crisis; only a leader who recognizes that the long-term cultural trend of the 1962-2003 era is virtually dead and rotting, is capable of making the kinds of crucial responses to crises which would address any of the leading problems now facing the world at large. Any workable solution will therefore appear to most observers, as President Franklin Roosevelt's actions did, as a virtual revolution. Only such a revolutionary is of much use to either the U.S.A. or humanity at large under the presently erupting circumstances.