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Citizens Electoral Council of Australia

Media Release  4th of June 2010

Craig Isherwood‚ National Secretary
PO Box 376‚ COBURG‚ VIC 3058
Phone: 03 9354 0544 Fax: 03 9354 0166
Email: cec@cecaust.com.au
Website: http://cec.cecaust.com.au
 

More demands for Glass-Steagall

Barack Obama’s people can’t block the oil pipe, but on 20th May they did block the U.S. Congress from voting on the re-enactment of Glass-Steagall regulations to separate and protect people’s deposits and “real” economy banking functions from the speculators on Wall Street and in the City of London—knowing that if it came to a vote, Glass-Steagall would pass.

Now, as the global banking crisis intensifies, around the Spanish banks’ version of Guatemala’s “sinkhole”, more and more prominent voices have echoed Lyndon LaRouche’s demand for the immediate re-enactment of Glass-Steagall.

Economist Nouriel Roubini co-authored an op-ed in the 1st June Financial Times, emphasising the need for a Glass-Steagall overhaul of the international financial system—what he called “Glass-Steagall on steroids” (outside of LaRouche, Roubini is one of the few economists to see the global financial crisis coming). He assailed the bailout of the 2007-2009 financial bubble, which merely took a private financial bubble and turned it into a sovereign debt crisis. He began his Financial Times piece declaring, “The largest financial crisis in history is spreading from private to sovereign entities.” After calling for a “grand workout” in which banks write off a large portion of the sovereign debt of nations such as Greece, Spain, and Italy, Roubini declared, “it is time for radical reform of finance. The majority of proposals on the table are inadequate or irrelevant. Large financial institutions must be unbundled; they are too big, interconnected and complex to manage. Investors and customers can find all the traditional banking, investment banking, hedge fund, mutual fund and insurance services they need in specialised firms. We need to go back to Glass-Steagall on steroids.” [emphasis added]

U.S. Democratic Congressman Jay Inslee delivered the same message about the urgent need for Glass-Steagall in an op-ed on pnwlocalnews.com, headlined “The American public is outraged with Wall Street/ My Turn”. After expressing his disappointment with both the House and Senate banking reform bills, Inslee, who voted against the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) bailout and later backed legislation to establish strict oversight over the TARP funds, wrote, “I will continue to push for stronger measures to limit the risks of unregulated derivatives and end the problems of ‘too big to fail’. I have offered an amendment to cap the size of banking institutions, because if a bank is ‘too big to fail,’ it’s too big. I also offered an amendment to the House version of Wall Street reform to reinstate the Glass-Steagall Act, a measure born out of the Great Depression that prevents banks from engaging in risky investment activity, and separately co-sponsored a bill, The Glass-Steagall Restoration Act.” [emphasis added]

A senior Democratic Party figure reported to larouchepac.com on 1st June that the Roubini op-ed is indicative of a broad debate, now under way, among circles that both support and oppose LaRouche, over the need for the kind of reorganisation that LaRouche has been promoting for a very long time.

Meanwhile, the Inter-Alpha Group’s Banco Santander continues to lead the implosion of the Spanish banking sector. On 3rd June, the Madrid Stock Exchange collapsed for the third straight day with Banco Santander and Banco Bilbao Vizcaya Argentaria (BBVA) leading the way, with a decline of 2 per cent. Santander and BBVA have both now lost over 25 per cent of their market capitalisation in the last seven weeks.

Citizens Electoral Council leader Craig Isherwood observed today, “Australians need to understand that Spain is the centre of the global debt crisis, which because of Australia’s enormous debts, we are exposed to more than most nations.

“It is vital that the U.S. re-enact Glass-Steagall, so it can initiate a global bankruptcy reorganisation in which every nation can participate, Australia included.”

To find out about the massive fight to reinstate Glass-Steagall regulations in the U.S., click here.

Click here to receive a free copy of the DVD which details the measures Australia must take in parallel with “Glass-Steagall”, the Homeowners & Bank Protection Bill—The Only Solution.
(Or, click here to purchase a copy, $10.)

To buy a copy of What Australia Must Do to Survive the Depression, click here.

Click here to join the CEC as a member.

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