International Currencies Increasingly Rejected in the Face of Inflation

From Activist Post,  February 16, 2012 

Currency collapse is hardly something new.  Especially when that currency is backed by nothing.  In G. Edward Griffin's seminal work, The Creature From Jekyll Island, he states that once the "business of banking" by fiat began:

This led immediately to what would become an almost unbroken record from then to the present: a record of inflation, booms and busts, suspension of payments, bank failures, repudiation of currencies, and recurring spasms o economic chaos. (pg. 184)

Since this story of banking is so oft-repeated, there are also a fair number of examples of how prosperity -- or at least stability and self-sufficiency -- was restored afterward. In nearly every case, it came from desperate, but determined individuals who shrugged off the shackles of central banking, and either returned to the currency they used previous to government hijacking, restored pre-money barter systems, or created something entirely new. 

The modern-day, planet-wide collapse of fiat currencies is providing additional real-time examples of how forsaken citizens are taking matters into their own hands.  Let us look at just the two most affected: Greece and Spain.

Greece

It is a travesty that the nation where democracy and gold-backed coinage was first developed should become the poster child of a whirling black hole of debt and dependency brought on by autocratic rule. Regardless, despite the austerity riots filling city streets to make demands, there are indications that some communities are finished with demanding anything from a provably corrupt government that is literally foreign to their best interests.

The video below illustrates the rebirth of diverse means of  exchange such as time banks, barter networks, barter currency, and "priceless" commodities in Greece:



Spain

The Daily Mail reports on a town of 3,000 called Villamayor de Santiago, where "rebellious" locals have reintroduced the peseta in a project to thwart the failing euro after inflation has driven up the price of essential goods 43 per cent. The cost of bread is up by 49 per cent, milk 48 per cent, and the price of potatoes is up 116 per cent.  All while a third of this small town is out of work.

Around 30 shops in the historic town, 75 miles south-east of Madrid, started accepting pesetas last month after urging customers to dig out any old notes and coins they had forgotten about.

(...)

News quickly spread, and shoppers from neighbouring villages and towns have been flocking there to spend the old currency.

After a one-month field test, the enthusiasm for the plan has ensured its renewal.  Meanwhile, four other Spanish towns have reintroduced the peseta, as the country goes through an employment crisis worse than that of Greece, and the country's credit rating has been knocked down another two notches.

America

The two modern examples of Greece and Spain, echo America's own colonial history. Following China, America was the second location in the world to test fiat currency at the behest of the British Empire.  The story is fully recounted in Chapter 8 of The Creature From Jekyll Island and is well worth a full read, but the salient point is that once colonists were repeatedly subjected to hyperinflation and depression through the overprinting of money, as well as having been subjected to broken promises and tyrannical rule by the Bank of England through the removal of coins, barter became a means of exchange and survival.  Tobacco was the first commodity, but nearly anything of intrinsic value served equally well in restoring a semblance of power to individuals as a means for their self-determination.

Later, the colonists who disobeyed government dictates brought out their limited supplies of hoarded coins and re-built from the ground up using sound economic principles.  Those colonies which used sound money, such as Massachusetts, won trade from fiat-money colonies like Rhode Island.

As Griffin states:

After the colonies had returned to coin, prices quickly found their natural equilibrium and then stayed at that point, even during the Seven Years War and the disruption of trade that occurred immediately prior to the Revolution.  There is no better example of the fact that economic systems in distress can and do recover rapidly if government does not interfere with the natural healing process. (pg. 160)

And Ben Franklin proclaimed that King George III taking away the ability of the colonies to create their own currency was the true reason for the Revolutionary War:

The colonies would gladly have borne the little tax on tea and other matters had it not been that England took away from the colonies their money, which created unemployment and dissatisfaction. The inability of colonists to get power to issue their own money permanently out of the hands of George III and the international bankers was the prime reason for the Revolutionary War.

And this is the good news: what's old seems to be new again; citizens within collapsed economies are once again turning their backs on centralized international government, ignoring their unjust policies, and instead are returning to the far simpler and more logical means of self-sufficiency and prosperity -- their own inherent community strength built upon real production and trade between individuals.  In short, decentralization.

Americans would do well not to forget that the actions taken by individuals in other severely collapsed countries are those also entrenched in America's history.  Let us all observe closely, then, how the first dominoes that have fallen in the latest cycle of depression are choosing to right themselves; for it would be at our peril to ignore history, and the momentum that already has pushed others toward the same foregone conclusion.

Our forgetfulness is perhaps the root cause of our repeated inability to sustain ourselves, until another collapse scenario forces us to take action.

For an instructive case study in the risks imposed on nations by international banking interests, as well as how anyone can survive the inevitable aftermath, please view the story of Argentina below:



Additional sources and resources about barter and alternative economies:

Truly Revolutionary: Greek city starts “rebel” barter economy and alternative currency 
Alternative Markets, Barter Systems, & Local Co-ops are the Lifeboats That Will Save Us  
Easy First Steps To Building Your Barter Network 
New Decentralized Currency Stimulating Underground Barter Economy
_______-


Related:

Sprott's John Embry:“The Current Financial System Will Be Totally Destroyed“

Gold Demand Hits New Records as Europeans Stockpile

Free "Syrian" Army stronghold equipped with Milan missiles

From Voltaire Network, 16 FEBRUARY 2012

The Battle of Homs was particularly deadly for the belligerents on both sides, as well as for civilians. During the first three days, the Syrian Arab Army was warded off by the rebels that blocked all entry points to their neighborhood. They destroyed all approaching armored vehicles using Milan missiles. Ultimately, the Syrian Arab Army had to resort to multiple rocket launchers to bombard the Milan firing posts, at the risk of causing heavy civilian casualties.

Each Milan shooting station, located on every street going into Bab Amr costs 100,000 euros, and each missile about 12,000 euros. The missiles were fired at a rate two to three rounds per minute. This equipment is manufactured by North Aviation (France) and MBB (Germany). It is supposed to have been given to the Free "Syrian" Army by the United Kingdom and Germany.

In April 2011, Doha officials acknowledged that Qatar had delivered Milan missiles to Libyan insurgents from Benghazi to help overthrow the Arab Jamahiriya, by way of the UN resolution that allowed the delivery of "defensive weapons " (sic) to the Libyan opposition.

________

Related:

Free Syrian Arms: US gives guns to Al-Qaeda protege

End of game in the Middle East

For eleven months, the Western powers and the Gulf States have lead a campaign to destabilize Syria. Several thousand mercenaries infiltrated the country. Recruited by agencies in Saudi Arabia and Qatar within the Sunni extremist community, they came to overthrow the "usurper Alawite" Bashar al-Assad and impose a Wahhabi-inspired dictatorship.
This has been falsely portrayed to the Western public as a political revolution crushed in blood by a ruthless dictatorship. Of course, this lie has not been universally accepted. Russia, China and the Latin American and Caribbean member states of ALBA repudiate it. They each have a historical background that allows them to readily grasp what is at stake. The Russians are thinking of Chechnya, the Chinese of Xinjiang, and the Latin Americans of Cuba and Nicaragua. In all these cases, beyond ideological or religious appearances, the methods of destabilization by the CIA were the same.

West plots to wage Syria war’

High-Tech Trickery in Homs?

Policy of targeted killings in Damascus

Libyan militias torture detainees to death

Gold Standard Good? ... or Another Power Elite Meme?

From The Daily Bell, February 16, 2012 – by Staff Report

 

Let's return to the gold standard ... It might be said that a simpler approach than Mr. Lehrman's might be the most likely way to get back to a gold standard. The Ron Paulstrategy is more direct, but at the same time more subtle. In early 2011, the Texas Congressman introduced H.R. 1098, a refreshingly short (three pages) bill which he called "The Free Competition in Currency Act of 2011." It would repeal the legal tender laws of the United State Code which give the Federal Reserve a legal monopoly on money creation. – American Spectator


Dominant Social Theme: A gold standard is good! Let's build another Bretton Woods?


Free-Market Analysis: The American Spectator, an often truculent, right-wing publication that sees American enemies everywhere in the world, is out with an article on an impending return of a gold standard. (See excerpt above.)
The article focuses on gold-standard prescriptions of "gold bugs" Ron Paul and Lewis Lehrman. When these two served (with many others) on a US Gold Commission to evaluate the role of gold in the monetary system during the Reagan years, they wrote a minority report recommending a return to some sort of gold standard for the US and perhaps the West.
The Spectator article is written by George Melloan, who, we learn, is a "former columnist for the Wall Street Journaland author of The Great Money Binge: Spending Our Way to Socialism." He recommends a return to a global gold standard in the process of profiling the ideas of Paul and Lehrman.


The question is ... what kind? The answer (if "Austrian" free-market logic is to be adequately and logically extended) is one WITHOUT CONSTRAINTS. This is a logical outcome of the modern anarcho-capitalism movement founded by free-market economist Murray Rothbard himself. Ron Paul, a longtime gold backer, admits these days that money ought to operate in a competitive environment.


Murray Rothbard, who helped invent the modern Libertarian movement, was a proponent of a full-gold standard for most of his professional life. But even he was moving toward a similar viewpoint (competing monetary units via free-banking) before his death.
Rothbard apparently hewed to a full-gold standard in part out of loyalty to his teacher, Ludwig von Mises. But von Mises himself was no free-market slouch. He was the modern proponent/author of two of the most significant monetary theories in the world, "human action" and the central-bank driven business cycle.


Human action shows us definitively that government cannot mandate behavior because people will take their own actions to contravene or respond to those mandates. That's why laws are for the most part useless or result in what can be considered anti-social behavior.
As a result, American regulatory democracy now houses up to six million prisoners under lock and key. Up to 30 percent or more of all US citizens have had some sort of criminal legal interaction by the time they are in their early 20s. You can see our article on this astonishing fact here: Is It a Prison Planet? ... One Out of Three Now Face Arrest in US.


The theory of the business cycle shows us that central bank monopoly money printing eventually causes tremendous booms and then ruinous busts. It is impossible for anything other than the market itself to mandate the amount of money an economy needs.
Anything else is just a price fix. When human beings themselves print and distribute monopoly money (rather than allowing the market to create and distribute it), inevitably this leads to a transfer of wealth from those who create it to those who haven't and are not apt to utilize it efficiently.


All schemes that suggest human beings can print and distribute monopoly money using various mathematical or demand-based formulas are likely doomed to failure. If money is not market-based, it is likely distortive and ultimately ruinous.
Of course, even within a market economy, money can distort dependent on supply and demand. But at least within a market environment, people have the ability to respond quickly and are not constrained by the force of laws. That's why during the free-banking era of the United States in the 1800s there were often varying interest rates on money from region to region.


There were numerous different kinds of money ratios during the American free-banking, "wildcat" era. The trouble with free banking, as Murray Rothbard showed, was that many banks were forced to purchase municipal bonds as part of their larger charter.
These bonds often lost considerable value due to the corruption of town affairs, collapsing the bank as well, and causing bank runs. Additionally, many banks were apparently forbidden from setting up more than one branch, introducing artificial fragility into the system.
We can see from this quick summary that modern Western environments have rarely if ever been divorced from some sort of artificial restraint. Lehrman's prescriptions would seem to continue this trend.


According to Lehrman – the rich Rite Aid scion apparently involved with the Bilderbergs – a kind of reverse Bretton Woods is called for. He has it all worked out. The elites will set the price of gold convertibility and central banks will continue to exist, though only to print currency linked to gold at a pre-set ratio. They will be constrained, in other words.
Melloan is less expansive about libertarian congressman Ron Paul's vision of a gold standard. He mentions that Ron Paul has sponsored legislation that would "reinforce the Constitutional mandate in Article 1, Section 10, that forbids states from making anything but gold and silver coin a tender in payment of debts."


In other words, H.R. 1098 would make Federal Reserve notes subject to domestic competition. Should it become law, who knows what would happen, but most likely Americans would gravitate toward a more reliable form of money, quite likely based on a precious metal.


Probably so, but even in the US money did not operate without constraints. The US Constitution itself apparently created various restrictions when it came to gold and silver along with what was called the "Spanish Dollar." Such a dollar was to contain 371.25 grains of fine silver.


There was seemingly a bias in the Constitution to insist that silver and perhaps gold coin was to be legal tender for debts, certainly state debts. Thus, even when it comes to the US – perhaps a country with some of the freest modern money – we can see that money was still subject to certain monopoly laws.


In fact, as modern, neo-Austrian free-market economists have observed, money is whatever people choose to make it. However, throughout history, for various reasons, cultures have often chosen silver and gold as money.


In fact, silver and gold have floated against one another so that if the ratio becomes distorted, the average person will know that the powers-that-be are fiddling with one metal or the other. It's a free-market solution to protection against insolvency.


The logical extension of modern anarcho-libertarianism is competing money without ANY government constraint. Anything else is a price fix and inevitably distortive, though certainly a convertible gold standard might damp the destructive inflation that is such a feature of the current ruinous system.


A metals standard would surely help constrain the current criminal, Anglosphere power elite that is driving the world toward global governance using the resources of central banks that it controls. Put limits on money and Money Power itself will begin to wither.


That's because the power elite has shown us historically that (for one thing) IT WILL NOT SPEND ITS OWN MONEY, certainly not within the context of creating world government. Constrain central banking and Money Power itself will gradually become increasingly impotent.
When those great Anglosphere families that apparently run central banks try to manipulate the market within a free-money environment, they will find it increasingly difficult. They will try to reduce the circulation of gold to raise prices and people will dishoard, as Murray Rothbard has argued. Or mines will open back up.


It is seemingly impossible to maintain a coercive monopoly in a free-market environment. Some have argued that the monetary elites will then turn to force. But the Anglosphere cannot even win in Afghanistan. Those involved with the current horrible system will likely surrender to the inevitable if a real free market in money were somehow to be implemented.


These shadowy forces only survive based on the dominant social themes they have disseminated through such agencies as Tavistock. By brainwashing people into believing that government – especially expansive government – is necessary to civil society, they create the necessary conditions for the mercantilism they need to control whole societies. Kill expansive government and you kill mercantilism.


Government is dangerous and powerful as fire. There are few examples in later Neolithic history of minimalist governments that existed for long periods of time. Nevertheless, minimalist government (not involved in money at any level) is devoutly to be wished for. It allows people to exercise the human action necessary to live confident and increasingly comfortable lives.


Just as importantly, free-market money (perhaps a free-market gold and silver standard) would reduce the violence of price inflation. As Rothbard showed clearly, technology gradually reduces prices while expanding savings.


Gentle deflation within the ambit of a prosperous, free society is perhaps the best of all worlds. It is unfortunate that there is so much ignorance about money and that so many these days are floating various manipulative schemes that ultimately will involve government coercion. There are those, too, who conflate depressions with deflation. Historical bunkum?


Lehrman's schemes are yet coercive, in our view. A new Bretton Woods gold-standard conference and an additional role for central banks provides Money Power with yet another opening. Austrian, free-market academics generally, to the extent they move toward a model of competing currencies and free-market money, are on the right track.


Set money free. Let people use the monies they wish to use. All of them. Gold and silver will likely be a feature of such a system anyway. Would such a system work? We would tend to believe it is the coming default if the current system is not "rescued" by a new Lehrman-like Bretton Woods.


Some have suggested the natural price of gold is ALREADY US$10,000 per ounce, absent the shenanigans of central banks and the commercial banks they control. Whatever it is, the current system cannot last. If the elites themselves are not able to create a new, international "consensus" it will crumble as it should and a new, free-market money will emerge.


Freedom! Free our money. There is nothing to fear from it. Those in Iceland overcame their fears. It's strange that so many people have such a hard time conceiving of it. Perhaps, as we have suggested previously, it has something to do with damaged childhoods.


What we call the Internet Reformation has provided the world with an ideal opportunity to start over with free-market money. The Internet is a great educative device. Absent those who are distorting the history of money (intentionally or not), the Internet will provide people with a great education about how money REALLY works.


It's not complicated. Money is what people to choose to use in order to trade and save. Throughout history people have used free-market money freely within a free-market environment and hopefully, as the Internet Reformation continues to unfold, such environments shall spring forth again.


Conclusion: The need to suggest schemes that control people's behavior seems overwhelming to some. Too bad. It is keeping us from realizing our dreams, our destinies, our true desires – the ability to build authentic, happy lives for ourselves and our families.

poster child for paradise

From Twelfth Bough: 

The Maldives is the tiniest Muslim nation on the whole earth, and it's in the middle of the ocean, a tropical paradise.... or something else....?

http://www.diving-world.com/imagescompressed/maldives/MaldiveMap.jpg

You can see from the following map that the Maldives are strategically located roughly equidistant from the Strait of Hormuz in Iran and the Strait of Malacca in Indonesia.

CLICK TO ENLARGE

http://caqijeq.host56.com/arabian-sea-gulf.php

The Maldives are also north of Diego Garcia, an island whose native population was completely displaced, by the UK, to make room for the US military.

Unlike Diego Garcia, however, the Maldives straddle many profitable shipping routes.

http://www.shiplink.lk/srilanka-maps.html

LOOK AT ALL THAT TRAFFIC.

We are talking a small country of little islands, with a population of about 300,000 and another 80,000 expat workers, according to the US State Department. A country with a tourism economy catering to the rich and famous. A country of islands straddling some of the most profitable and important shipping routes on the planet. It's not exactly off the beaten path, but it is very exclusive. You need a lot of money to vacation there.

Naomi Campbell, Vladislav Doronin and friends in the Maldives

http://www.zimbio.com/Vladislav+Doronin/articles/14/Naomi+Campbell+Russian+Hunk+Maldives

Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes on their honeymoon in the Maldives

http://maldivescomplete.com/blogs/maldivescomplete/archive/2009/02/05/best-of-the-maldives-celebrity-watching-reethi-rah.aspx

Just last October various celebrities traveled to the Maldives for a "Slow Life Symposium," where they discussed climate change and carbon footprints.

"[He said]...it was easier to educate a few billionaires than the entire population of a country such as the US, distracted from the issue by Xboxes and cable TV. “Billionaires have a vested interest in keeping the [planet sustainable], because they have enough money enjoy the planet,” he suggested." ~ UK environmentalist Jonathan Porritt 

Just for context, Mr. Porritt advises Prince Charles and believes that there are way too many humans. We guess he is fine with the idea that the planet should be kept nice for the billionaires.

The president of the Maldives, Mohamed Nasheed, seemed totally on board with the whole climate change program. He was at the meeting too.

“For us, this is not just an environmental issue. We need to become carbon neutral even if there was no such thing as climate change, simply because it is more economically viable. We spend more than 14 percent of our GDP on fossil fuel energy, which is more than our education and health budget combined.”
The most important adaptation measure, Nasheed said, “is democracy. You have to have a responsive government to discuss this issue. When I do something people do not believe in, they shout at me. But they are not doing this on this issue.”
The government had reformed its economic system and introduced new taxes “so we can fend for ourselves. We cannot endlessly rely on the international community.”

Even if there was no such thing as climate change, Nasheed supports carbon neutrality, ie: carbon tax credits, ie: a globalist agenda. But Nasheed, elected in 2008, faced a parliament stacked with the opposition. Gridlock ensued, and he not been able to accomplish much. Which is a shame because evidently, the Maldives might be one of the most important places in the world to the globalists, a poster child for paradise.

Tim Smit of the Eden Project also attended the Slow Life Symposium and said:

“The Maldives has captured the imagination, and the elected political elite are showing charisma and leadership on the issue [of climate change]. The danger is that we listen to too many middle aged white people, and miss the point. I see an incredible moment when the story of Maldives becomes the story of us all – but it needs to be delivered with a pirate grin that says f*** it, we’re going to do this thing. I hate idealists. I like unreasonable people who do things.”
There was, Smit said, a danger that the Maldives would lose sight of its goal, and “lose the moment when the Maldives could become the most important place in world. The goal is open but the moment will be gone, and suddenly the bright future is no longer there, just a job – and not a job in the spotlight.”
The Maldivian people needed to be given the independence to make their own decisions, such as installing solar, and given control so that they knew the impact of flipping the light switch.
“Trust in the people of the Maldives to get excited of a picture of the Maldives reborn,” Smit suggested.

But something happened, and president Mohamed Nasheed was just overthrown last week, in the Maldives, and various US State Department officials rushed to intervene. At first they expressed support for Nasheed's vice president, Mohammed Waheed Hassan Manik, but then a day later the situation looked murky.

Poor Victoria Nuland, who found the vote to admit Palestine to UNESCO "regrettable," and "premature," had to walk back her support for the new Maldivian president after one day.

“I got myself in a place yesterday that was not borne out by the facts. We will work with the government of the Maldives, but believe that the circumstances surrounding the transfer of power need to be clarified. And we also suggest that all parties agree to an independent mechanism to do that.” 

Oh dear.

Top ten facts about the Maldives crisis.


^^^^^^^

The Maldives has a trafficking problem. All those islands make the nation porous. As many as 35% of the youth are hooked on drugs.

The Maldives has struggled to bring the use of narcotics among it’s youth under control. The narcotics trade is big business and the law enforcement authorities have few answers due to the easy and varied accessibility to the myriad of atolls.The number of youth using narcotics is deemed to be as high as thirty five percent. The Maldives attracts a near full complement of tourists at the high end but the small local population have not enjoyed the fruits of this boom though the blame cannot be laid at the feet of deposed President  Nasheed. It was Gayoom who set the trend to avoid the trickle down of  benefits from the tourism boom. The Maldives was the beneficiary of the lackadaisical attitude to tourism by Sri Lankan politicians of yesteryear.

Trafficking, as we know, indicates the presence of organized crime.

We have discussed before that traffickers use existing networks for multiple products. If the network has been set up for drugs, it can also be used for humans, for guns, for anything. By its nature the organized crime network is corrupt. The people involved don't care what they traffic as long as they continue to benefit ($$$). They have economies of scale.

If the Maldives has trafficking problems, and the Maldives is a hotspot for celebrities and wealthy people, and the Maldives is strategically located for the US military and many profitable shipping routes, we can put two and two and two together and infer that the Maldives may be a hub of organized crime? As such, it would need to be under the control of friendly leaders.

Was President Nasheed friendly to organized crime? How friendly?

Very friendly. Evidently he is a pet of the West.


Rehmat's World: Maldives: 'Pro-Israel President booted out'

Mohamed Nasheed, a secularist politician in a 100% Sunni Muslim population (400,000), is a darling of the West. In order to get the support of western anti-Muslim Zionists’ – Nasheed now claims that he was dumped on gunpoint by the pro-Islamist security forces for ordering the arrest of Chief Justice of Criminal Court, Abdullah Mohamed. Nasheed claims that Abdullah Mohamed had released one of Nasheed’s critics, Dr. Mohamed Jameel Ahmad. Dr. Jameel Ahmad was arrested for accusing Nasheed’s government being cahoot with the Zionist regime and that Israel tourists were corrupting country’s Islamic culture.

(Reminds us of Goa, India.)

Continuing, and worth reading in full, including the links:

The diplomatic relations between Maldives and the Zionist entity were established in 1965 – but severed by the president Maumoon Abdul Gayoom in 1980 who after deposing Sultan Mohamed Farid I, declared the Island nation as a republic. The links were re-established on September 25, 2009 by the new president Mohamed Nasheed. Israeli military officials were reinvited to train Maldives’ security agencies. In 2010, Islamic group protested against the arrival of Israeli surgeons to work at the government run Indhra Gandhi hospital. They claimed Israeli doctors are notorious in organ harvesting for Israel.
Nasheed who initially headed a colliation government, later turned into a civilian dictator. He awarded millions of dollars of contracts to his family members and close friends and wealthy supporters. Nasheed’s family has fleed the Island and country’s highest court has issued warrant for his arrest.

...Maldives opposition party, Dhivehi Rayyithunge Party (DRP), has always criticized Nasheed’s ruling MDP for its relation with the Zionist entity. The leader of DRP’s religious wing asserts that it is “expressly forbidden” to give any assistance to Israel as “they forced Palestinians out of their homes and brutalised them only because they say ‘We are Muslims’.”

...The Zionist regime has issued travel warning to Jewish tourists against visiting Maldives which is turning into a battle-ground for the US-China domination of the Indian Ocean.

Separa


^^^^^^^

Nasheed was on board with climate change and carbon neutrality.

The Maldives also had a special role to play applying pressure on Iran.


In 2011 the UN appointed Ahmed Shaheed of the Maldives as special rapporteur on human rights to Iran. However, he has been denied access to the country. Source: Financial Times 2/12/12

Lack of access apparently did not prevent Ahmed Shaheed from releasing a report in October 2011 alleging that rights violations had increased in Iran. Iran denounced the report as full of lies. Source: Press TV 2/3/12

And the Maldives judiciary is of special concern to some people in London.

Just before the coup, MPs in the UK raised alarms about the judiciary in the Maldives:

02 February 2012, Male’; Members of Parliament in Britain have expressed their growing concern over the state of the judiciary in the Maldives, labelling sitting judges 'under qualified, often corrupt and hostile to the democratically elected regime'.

In a recent debate in Parliament, John Glen, an MP from Prime Minister David Cameron's ruling Conservative Party, called on the Leader of the House to urgently make time for a debate on judicial reform in the Maldives.

It certainly seems to us an ODD CONCERN for UK MPs. What could be so urgent about judicial reform in the Maldives, so urgent to David Cameron's Conservative Party?

The latest protests in this Indian Ocean nation known for its lavish beach resorts erupted after Nasheed ordered the military to arrest Abdulla Mohamed, the chief judge of the Criminal Court. The judge had ordered the release of a government critic he said had been illegally detained. Source: Daily Mail, 2/8/12

The judge is allegedly close to former President Maumoon Abdul Gayoom, who ruled for 30 years until being defeated by Nasheed in 2008.

The judge ordered the release of a Mohamed Jameel Ahmed. 

Mr Jameel, who served in the cabinet of former President Gayoom, was arrested several times after issuing detailed pamphlets accusing Mr Nasheed of undermining Islam by conspiring with Christians and Jews.

There's a lot more to the story of the Maldives.

What exactly goes on there on those private islands with the rich tourists?

Nasheed was a star just last year, ready to save the planet.

 Now he's been thrown out on his ear?

The new unity government is now backed by the UN and the US, and Nasheed has been given four days to join.


Updates to follow.

Martin Armstrong: Greece – The Prelude to the Fall

Greece 02-15-2012 ____-

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Greece is Not Lehman 2.0... As I'll Show, It's Much Much Worse

The European Punishment Union

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Silver and Opium Wars

From 24hgold, February 16th, 2011
By Antal E. Fekete 

The opium wars do not belong to the glorious episodes of Western history. Rather, they were instances of shameful behavior the West still has not lived down. Mercantilist governments resented the perpetual drain of silver from West to East in payment for Oriental goods (tea, silk, porcelain) that were in high demand in the Occident, facing low demand in the Orient for Occidental goods. From the mid-17th century more than 9 billion Troy ounces or 290 thousand metric tons of silver was absorbed by China from European countries in exchange for Chinese goods.

 

The British introduced opium along with tobacco as an export item to China in order to reduce their trade deficit. Under the disguise of free trade, the British, the Spanish and the French with the tacit approval of the Americans continued sending their contraband to China through legitimate as well as illegitimate trade channels even after the Chinese dynasty put an embargo on opium imports. Because of its strong appeal to the Chinese masses, and because of its highly addictive nature, opium appeared to be the ideal solution to the West's trade problem. And, indeed, the flow of silver was first stopped, and then reversed. China was forced to pay silver for her addiction to opium smoking that was artificially induced by the pusher: the British.

 

Thus silver was replaced by opium as the mainstay of Western exports. In 1729 China, recognizing the growing problem of addiction and the debilitating and mind-corrupting nature of the drug, prohibited the sale and smoking of opium; allowing only a small quota of imports for medicinal purposes. The British defied the embargo and ban on opium trade, and encouraged smuggling. As a result, British exports of opium to China grew from an estimated 15 tons to 75 by 1773. This increased further to 900 tons by 1820; and to 1400 tons annually by 1838 -- an almost 100-fold increase in 100 years.

 

Something had to be done. The Chinese government introduced death penalty for drug trafficking, and put British processing and distributing facilities on Chinese soil under siege. Chinese troops boarded British ships in international waters carrying opium to Chinese ports and destroyed their cargo, in addition to the destruction of opium found on Chinese territory. The British accused the Chinese of destroying British property, and sent a large British-Indian army to China in order to exact punishment.

 

British military superiority was clearly evident in the armed conflict. British warships wreaked havoc on coastal towns. After taking Canton the British sailed up the Yangtze River. They grabbed the tax barges, inflicting a devastating blow on the Chinese as imperial revenues were impossible to collect. In 1842 China sued for peace that was concluded in Nanking and ratified the following year. In the treaty China was forced to pay an indemnity to Britain, open four port cities where British subjects were given extraterritorial privileges, and cede Hong Kong to Britain. In 1844 the United States and France signed similar treaties with China.

 

These humiliating treaties were criticized in the House of Commons by William E. Gladstone, who later served as Prime Minister. He was wondering "whether there had ever been a war more unjust in its origin, a war more calculated to cover Britain with permanent disgrace." The Foreign Secretary, Lord Palmerston replied that nobody believed that the Chinese government's motive was "the promotion of good moral habits", or that the war was fought to stem China's balance of trade deficit. The American president John Quincy Adams chimed in during the debate by suggesting that opium was a "mere incident". According to him "the cause of the war was the arrogant and insupportable pretensions of China that she would hold commercial intercourse with the rest of mankind not upon terms of equal reciprocity, but upon the insulting and degrading forms of the relations between lord and vassal." These words are echoed, 160 years later, by president Obama's recent disdainful pronouncements to the effect that China's exchange-rate policy is unacceptable to the rest of mankind as it pretends that China's currency is that of the lord, and everybody else's is that of the vassal.

 

The peace of Nanking did not last. The Chinese searched a suspicious ship, and the British answered by putting the port city of Canton under siege in 1856, occupying it in 1857. The French also entered the fray. British troops were approaching Beijing and set on to destroy the Summer Palace. China again was forced to sue for peace. In the peace treaty of Tianjin China yielded to the demand to create ten new port cities, and granted foreigners free passage throughout the country. It also agreed to pay an indemnity of five million ounces of silver: three million to Britain and two million to France.

 

This deliberate humiliation of China by the Western powers contributed greatly to the loosening and ultimate snapping of the internal coherence of the Qing Dynasty, leading to the Taiping Rebellion (1850-1864), the Boxer Uprising (1899-1901) and, ultimately, to the downfall of the Qing Dynasty in 1912.

 

The present trade dispute between the U.S. and China is reminiscent of the background to the two Opium Wars. Once more, the issue is the humiliation and plunder of China as a "thank you" for China's favor of having provided consumer goods for which the West was unable to pay in terms of Western goods suitable for Chinese consumption. The only difference is the absence of opium in the dispute.

 

Oops, I take it back. The role of opium in the current dispute is played by paper. Paper dollars, to be precise. In 1971 an atrocity was made that I call the Nixon-Friedman conspiracy. To cover up the shame and disgrace of the default of the U.S. on its international gold obligations, Milton Friedman (following an earlier failed attempt of John M. Keynes) concocted a spurious and idiotic theory of floating exchange rates. It suggests that falling foreign exchange value of the domestic currency makes it stronger when in actual fact the opposite is true: it is madeweaker as the terms of trade of the devaluing country deteriorates and that of its trading partners improves. Nixon was quick to embrace the false theory of Friedman. No public debate of the plan was permitted then, or ever after. Under the new dispensation the irredeemable dollar was to play the role of the ultimate extinguisher of debt, a preposterous idea. The scheme was imposed on the world under duress as part of the "new millennium", shaking off the "tyranny of gold", that "barbarous relic", the last remnant of superstition, the only remaining "anachronism of the Modern Age". The ploy was played up and celebrated as a great scientific breakthrough, making it possible for man to shape his own destiny rationally, free of superstition, for the first time ever. Yet all it was a cheap trick to elevate the dishonored paper of an insolvent banker (the U.S.) from scum to the holy of holies: international currency. The fact that fiat paper money has a history of 100 percent mortality was neatly side-stepped. Any questioning of the wisdom of experimenting with is in spite of logic and historical evidence was declared foggy-bottom reactionary thinking.

 

The amazing thing about this episode of the history of human folly was the ease with which it could be pushed down the throat of the rest of the world, including those nations that were directly hurt by it, such as the ones running a trade surplus with the U.S. Their savings went up in smoke. The explanation for this self-destructing behavior is the addictive, debilitating and mind-corrosive nature of paper money, in direct analogy with that of opium. The high caused by administering the opium pipe to the patient (read: administering QE) had to be repeated when the effect faded by a fresh administration of more opium (read: more QE2).

 

If the patient resists, like China did in 1840, then a holy opium war must be declared on it in the name of the right of others to free trade. 170 years later a New China once more demurred against the paper-torture treatment it was subjected to by the American debt-mongers and opium pushers.

 

But beware: if the West starts another Opium War, this time it is not China that will be on the losing side.

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