Paul Craig Roberts, PhD
Chairman of The Institute
for Political Economy
Special Guest: Paul Craig Roberts Ph.D. Paul Craig Roberts has had careers in scholarship and academia, journalism, public service, and business. President Reagan appointed Dr. Roberts Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Economic Policy and he was confirmed in office by the U.S. Senate. From 1975 to 1978, Dr. Roberts served on the congressional staff where he drafted the Kemp-Roth bill and played a leading role in developing bipartisan support for a supply-side economic policy. After leaving the Treasury, he served as a consultant to the U.S. Department of Defense and the U.S. Department of Commerce.
Dr. Roberts has held academic appointments at Virginia Tech, Tulane University, University of New Mexico, Stanford University where he was Senior Research Fellow in the Hoover Institution, George Mason University where he had a joint appointment as professor of economics and professor of business administration, and Georgetown University where he held the William E. Simon Chair in Political Economy in the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
31 Minutes
Dr. Paul Craig Roberts is extremely meticulous in examining the central problems facing America and the developed economies today. You may not like nor agree with what he says but there is little double as a former high level Treasury official, academic professor and Wall Street Journal editor, that he knows what he is talking about.
Financial Repression
"It is going on on several fronts conducted by different people for their own agendas, though they all seem to be mutually supporting.
- Financialation of the Economy by the Big Banks. - "What that means is that they are converting the entirety of the economic surplus to paying interest on debt. They are draining the economy of all vitality! There is nothing left for the expansion of consumer demand, business investment and old age pensions. It expropriates the economic surplus that is created beyond the maintenance of the current living standard into interest on debt."
- Off-Shoring of Middle Calls Jobs by Corporations & Wall Street - "What the Corporations and Wall Street have achieved by off-shoring manufacturing jobs and tradable professional job skills such as software engineering & information technology. What they have done by moving these offshore is to recreate the labor market conditions and wage exploitation of the late 19th century."
- Manipulation of the Bullion Markets by the Futures Market Bullion Banks - "There is no free market in the futures markets. These are markets that are manipulated."
Collusion Between Participants
"I think there is a lot of collusion. For example the government colluded with the banking system in financial deregulation. For example they repealed Glass-Steagall. They expressed this absurd claim that financial markets are self regulating."
"They turned the financial system into a gambling casino where the bets are covered by the tax payer and central bank."
The cancer which started in the US Financial System has spread globally. The carriers of the cancer has been the International Banks.
Washington Answers to Wall Street
"Some of the Financial Repression is collusion of government serving the financial interests because Wall Street is a huge supplier of political campaign funds which you are highly dependent on to get re-elected. So you answer to the donors. You don't answer to the public interest. It doesn't give you any money."
"You answer to:
- Wall Street,
- The Military-Security Complex,
- The Agri Business like Monsanto,
- The extractive Industries (Oil, Timber, Mining)
These are the powerful interest groups that use the government to serve their interests."
There are No Longer Counterveiling Powers in Washington
With the destruction of the manufacturing jobs in America through off-shoring, it has reduced the power of the unions and destroyed the Democrats independent source of campaign funds.
"You now have two parties with the same head and reporting to the same masters. There is no longer any countervailing power"
You no longer have the Democrats supporting workers against the Republicans supporting business. Both parties represent them.
"This is the reason you can't do anything about Financial Repression!"
Neo-Conservative Control of Foreign Policy - $6T Trillion in War Debt
We have been in 14 years of wars and added $6T of national debt to finance these wars "without adding five cents of investment for the country having taken place."
"We now have the Neo-Conservatives driving the conflict with Russia (which is insane), with China (which is insane). The United States doesn't have the power to try and dominate Russia / China. Especially now that the two countries have a strategic alliance."
"You have much of the world turning away from the United States because of Washington's
- Abuse of the Dollar as the World's Reserve Currency,
- Abuse of the dollar based payment system,
- Imposing unilateral sanctions which are acts of war,
- Threatening people with expulsion from the clearance mechanism and people saying we won't have any part of this,
- The BRIICS establishing their own version of the IMF,
- The Impact of the Spy Scandals and people saying they will build their own internet,
All of this is not only going to effect business it is going to effect American power. It is going to start shriveling!"
"If you have these crazed Neo-Conservatives demanding control of the world, faced with declining power, you don't know what they will do! It is a very, very dangerous situation. I'm surprised it has taken the world so long to realize the threat the US poses to the rest of the world."
"The US Dollar payment system is essentially a system for looting. This, Globalization and Neo-liberal economics are tools of American economic imperialism. Countries are beginning to realize this. The looting of countries by American imperialism has now reached the point where it is turning on itself - Greece for example."
