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wartime chronicles 2 -
pole of control over world financial flows: banks, private and public pension funds,
transnational firms, elite leadership bodies, investment companies, lobbies, states,
mafia networks, off-shore financial zones, international public organizations...
note 1 - The Transatlantic Business
Dialogue is one of the major world lobbies, a non-democratic organization seeking
"to boost transatlantic trade and investment opportunities through the removal
of barriers — including costly inefficiencies caused by excessive regulation, duplication
and differences in the EU and U.S. regulatory systems and procedures... The TABD
entirely supports the rules and principles of the World Trade Organization"
(TABD, April 2000). According to Jérôme Monod, copresident of the Transatlantic
Business Dialogue (1999), governments accept almost 50% of the proposals made by
the TABD.
note 2 - For international exchanges only two clearing houses exist. One is called
Euroclear (Brussels), and the other CEDEL (Luxembourg). Since 1999, CEDEL has changed
names and is called Clearstream. According to Conor Leason, the communications officer
of Euroclear, an average of approximately 60, 70 or 80,000 transactions are processed
by the company every day, for a total daily value of 180 billion euros.
note 3 - The right to vote in the IMF is proportional to the economic might of the
participating countries. The United States therefore has the majority. To the contrary,
all the African countries have only 3% of the votes between them, the equivalent
of Belgium. If a country does not meet IMF criteria, not only does the organization
refuse any loans, but no other lending organization (World Bank or private banks)
will trust the country and therefore none will loan money. The IMF calls its policies
"structural adjustment" or "stabilization."
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