Andre Gouin has kindly presented us all with a new source of information -
take a read of the following paragraph if you want to evaluate the quality
of writing and depth of thought - I like it - thanks.
Thomas Lunde
Quote
Faced with the power of these giants of the financial world, States can do
very little. The recent financial crisis in Mexico, which began in late
December 1994, demonstrated this clearly. What weight do the cumulative
currency reserves of the United States, Japan, Germany, France, Italy, the
United Kingdom and Canada that is, the seven richest countries in the world
- have when faced with the financial attacking force of private investment
funds, for the most part British or Japanese? Not a lot. Just as an
example, let us consider that in the greatest financial elilort made in
modern economic history in favour of a country - in this case Mexico - the
great States of the world (including the United States), the World Bank and
the International Monetary Fund managed, together, to raise about 50
billion dollars. A considerable sum of money. Well, the big three American
pension fund managers, Fidelity Investments, Vanguard Group and Capital
Research and Management control 500 billion dollars. The managers of these
funds hold in their hands a financial power of indescribable proportions -
one that no government minister or central bank governor in the world
possesses. In a market that has become instantaneous and planetary, any
sudden movement from one of these veritable financial giants can cause the
economic destabilisation of any country. Political leaders of the major
world powers meeting with the 850 most important economic decision-makers
in the world at the Davos International Forum in Switzerland last January,
clearly stated the degree to which they feared the superhuman power of
these fund managers whose fabulous wealth has freed itself from government
control and who act as they wish on the cyberspace of world finance. The
latter represents a kind of New Frontier, a New Territory on which the fate
of a large proportion of the world depends. With no social contract. No
sanction. No rules. Except for those arbitrarily drawn up by the main
protagonists. For their greater profit.
