VHeadline's Washington DC-based commentarist Chris Herz writes: Remember: You read it last week in VHeadline, and in this column. The G20 leaders have apparently failed to agree to any large new initiatives. To deal with the stricken economy only the same old tired methods will be deployed.
To the legions of unemployed workers they say "Suck it up! We're not doing anything more for you!"
To the tax-havens they say "You are bad boys ... but you are our bad boys, and this new Chinese money needs you and the rest of us find you a useful stash for our own drug and gun money. Just keep it a little more quiet ... no more Sir Alan Stanfords."
To the police they now say "It is you we now depend upon for the security of the states. We will give you all kinds of new toys and legal powers." Perhaps one day soon the police and army will realize they now ARE the state.
The one area of agreement was to augment the funding and powers of the International Monetary Fund. This to enforce still higher levels of barbaric cruelty on the peoples of Africa and Latin America.
Above all there will be no real internationalization of bank and other financial regulation.
Only a lot of pious nonsense.
The one person who could have made a real impression chose silence instead. What would have happened had Lula da Silva left the meeting and went outside to talk to the people, as he has done with the World Social Forum?
Everything else was just as expected, and this London Conference joins with that of 1933 as a failure to address the Great Depression, version 2.0.
History indeed repeats itself as farce.
Now on to the NATO summit meeting in Strasbourg. This is where we will see real action, as the US side tells all others that they are required to get on board for Afghanistan and Iraq. The USA will have no difficulty in organizing new military units -- our jobless are volunteering for the military in heavy numbers. But to move and equip these new troops will require the industrial and economic power of the alliance. This will be the subject of the conference. This is our new command economy at work.
The idea is that the IMF's prescriptions will be taken as directed, or the Marines will come: In British and French ships, paid with German money.
Crude as that.
From the imperial capital
Chris Herz
chris.herz@vheadline.com
