PRESS RELEASE
Corriere: `LaRouche and
Tremonti's Bretton Woods II'
Oct. 21, 2008 (EIRNS)—This release was issued yesterday by the Lyndon LaRouche Political Action Committee (LPAC).
Corriere della Sera Brussels correspondent Ivo Caizzi published a long article under that headline today, on page 2 of Corriereconomia, the weekly economic supplement of Italy's newspaper of record, Corriere della Sera. The translation follows:
LaRouche and Tremonti's Bretton Woods II
(La Bretton Woods 2 di LaRouche e Tremonti)
The contacts between the Economics Minister and the U.S. guru-politician, who calls for a "Firewall" against speculation.
by Ivo Caizzi
At the last Council of the EU heads of state and government in Brussels, acting president Nicolas Sarkozy proudly announced that the 27 member states had reached a consensus on his proposal for calling a "new Bretton Woods," preferably in November in New York, to reform capitalism, revive the world economy, and eliminate deformities, from speculative finance to tax havens. Shortly thereafter, Economics Minister Giulio Tremonti—who has for some time characterized financial speculation as "the plague of the century" and has announced anti-marketist policies aligned with Sarkozy's—claimed that the idea of a global meeting like the one in 1944 requested by British economist John Maynard Keynes (that allowed 44 countries to stabilize currency exchange rates and establish institutions such as the International Monetary Fund), was his.
Interviewed by Corriere in Brussels, Tremonti then specified that he meant that he was the first among government officials to propose a "new Bretton Woods," and that he was well aware that the idea had been pushed for many years by the American guru-politician Lyndon LaRouche, a historical enemy of financial speculation and deregulated free-marketism. The Economics Minister pointed out that he participated in a discussion with LaRouche in 2007 at a conference entitled "Marketism or New Deal," organized in Rome by Alfonso Gianni, from Rifondazione Comunista.
Tremonti said that he thinks highly of LaRouche's writings—LaRouche has been a perennial (unwelcome) candidate in the Democratic Presidential Primaries, an economist without a University degree, and, since the nineties, he has announced the "big crash" of speculative finance. Lega Nord MEP [Member of European Parliament] Mario Borghezio has invited LaRouche to speak at the European Parliament. Oskar Peterlini (SVP) and many other Senators from the Democratic Party and the UDC have asked the Berlusconi government to deal with the financial crisis by using the draft legislation circulated in the U.S. by LaRouche before the summer, when he announced that the banking collapse due to subprime mortgages was imminent.
LaRouche is anti-free market and anti-Marxist, 86 years old, and the son of an entrepreneur. He believes that the state should conduct bank rescues by putting them under a bankruptcy reorganization procedure. Public money should save only the commercial part, necessary to finance productive activities. Delinquent mortgage loans should be put into a public fund (renegotiating a fair rate with homeowners). A "firewall" should prevent state aid from being diverted by banks to funds and other speculative activities, which should be allowed to fail in order to clean out the financial markets.
Since the '70s, LaRouche has led a multinational movement of followers. He believes in the "New Deal" principles of President Franklin D. Roosevelt and in state intervention in the economy. The powerful U.S. lobbies of financial capitalism attacked him by publicizing controversial aspects of his activity. He was convicted and jailed for tax evasion and mail fraud in fundraising, committed by his associates (he stated that he was not aware of it). He was pardoned (sic) by President Bill Clinton and then concentrated on the fight against financial speculation. When LaRouche spoke to Tremonti about Eurasian mega-infrastructure projects, Tremonti called him "a crazy [eccentric] whose ideas should be spread." However, a clear division emerges between the two of them.
Tremonti is inspired by Keynes. LaRouche prefers Alexander Hamilton, the U.S. Secretary of the Treasury who, at the end of the 1700s, built a public banking system oriented towards developing production.
[The article is accompanied by a small picture of LaRouche with the caption: "Precision—Lyndon LaRouche: He has announced the crash of speculative finance for years."]
