The following is part of a discussion between Lyndon LaRouche and his associates on Oct. 20 on the significance of the recent Russia-China agreements as a stepping-stone to LaRouche’s proposed Four Powers Alliance. QUESTIONER: One of the things you said in response to this Russia-China partnership, was that the action by China to invest in these development projects in the […]
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Question from China from September 8, 2009 Webcast
Transcript:
SPOKESWOMAN:
"And the first few questions, actually, come from China, from a major think tank in China, that has been following Lyn very closely. The question is prefaced by a request to forward to Lyn good wishes on his 88th [sic] birthday, and to wish him many happy returns of this day. The questioner notes that 8, as a number in China, symbolizes luck — and we are sure going to need it. [laughs]
"His question: "Mr. LaRouche, as you know, China holds more than $2 trillion in foreign currency. This has led to a great debate about the dollar as a reserve currency, etc., etc., but really, what I wish to ask you, is, if you think that such a practice, a practice of holding such a large sum of money in foreign currency, is a safe practice. And if not, what you would indicate as a more reliable option for nations."
LAROUCHE:
"The greatest asset we should seek, at this moment of world history, is the establishment of a relationship among a group of sovereign nation-states, which can be considered keystone, sovereign nation-states, which represent sufficient power, to force the world as a whole to come to its senses. Now, what I've indicated, there are four nations, which are most obvious candidates for that: Our own United States, presumably, under a President Obama who has accepted my proposals, today. Otherwise, we got a problem. Secondly, Russia, which is not only a major Eurasian state, but which has the keystone in technology — not just in territory, but in technology — an historically developed technology, to develop the mineral resources of the tundra and related areas of Siberia and northern Russia. Because these resources are the richest resources now available — apart from what's in the ocean; the ocean's a basic source of all mineral resources, of mankind, today — but this is key, particularly in respect to China's proximity to Asia. Because South Asia, and Central Asia, such as China, requires a very large increase of the powers of productivity, of its population.
"The problem of China, today, with this sudden collapse of the U.S. and other markets which has occurred, is that there's a large part of the Chinese population and territory which has not been sufficiently developed, to have any sort of autonomy, in terms of its position in the world economy. And therefore, that has to be fixed.
"Despite the changes in government in Japan, the interest of Japan clearly remains, the technology of Japan and its participation in a role in respect to cooperation with China, in cooperation with Russia, and in that region. Because the development of Siberia, particularly of the Pacific section of Siberia, is very crucial for this entire area.
"So therefore, then, you have to have, the next largest nation in the world, India. China and India, and the United States and Russia: These four nations, not excluding others, represent a crucial combination of nation-states, which, if in cooperation, with this kind of intention that I've indicated, is the basis for a change in the world system. I think, without such cooperation, the possibility of saving the world from a new dark age, is highly questionable. The role of these nations is crucial, their cooperation, is crucial.
"We have to understand, of course, that there are differences in policy and culture among these nations. But that is not important. Because this is a part of the problem: We do not need a homogenized world. One of the great problems today, which I did not reference, but I think I should reference it here, is globalization.
"The reason for the danger we face today, is a process which was actually launched in 1968, but especially over the period, '68-'73, the process leading to globalization. We destroyed the functioning concept of the sovereign nation-state. Today, we ship production from nations which had high technology, into nations which do not have high technology, and use cheap labor, as the offset for the difference in productivity in those nations.
"Thus we destroyed the technological capability, of a higher-level, in the United States, Germany, and so forth, and shipped production into other parts of the world. The effect has been, that the idea of national economic security no longer exists on this planet at this time. Nations do not have any degree of self-sufficiency. We used to have a degree of self-sufficiency in basic food supplies, in basic industrial requirements, and so forth. We no longer have that, as a result of globalization.
"Worse! The policy of the international system today, has been to shift production from nations which do not consume that production, to nations which will not produce that, but will consume it. So therefore, the international monetarist money-men are able, thus, to control both nations, because they control the food supply of one and the industrial production of the other. That sort of thing.
"You no longer have sovereign nation-states in the economic sense. Therefore, for this reason, the collapse of the United States, or the internal collapse of China, because of this loss of employment which has recently occurred, will be sufficient to blow the whole planet up into a dark age! As a chain-reaction effect. There are no nations, which could survive a collapse of the U.S. economy today. The collapse of the U.S. economy would mean a total collapse of the world as a whole, in a chain-reaction effect, in a very short period of time. Hmm? And China is the leading target for this, right now. If the United States goes down, China goes down. If China goes down, Russia goes down. Europe goes down. South and Central America become a joke, but a bad joke.
"So therefore, if we do not end globalization, if we do not enter into a system of cooperation among sovereign nation-states, to end globalization, by reversing this process, then there's no chance of civilization on this planet, for generations still to come.
"The question of the $2 trillion debt to China, is exemplary of this. China has no external markets to make up for that! And if the credit of the United States is no good, then China has to eat those $2 trillion! And lose everything that goes with it. That sets off quite a time-bomb, inside the United States itself, as well as China, and the world as a whole.
"So therefore, we can no longer stand for globalization. Monsanto will give up this fake patent rights it has! No one will be allowed to patent a food. They didn't invent it, they can't patent it. Let Monsanto — get 'em out there: "Okay, Mr. Monsanto, you can have all the inorganic ingredients you want! You can not have any living thing in there. And I want you to show, that you can take these inorganic elements, and combine them in such a way, that suddenly you have produced grain, viable, living grain, that can hatch, and produce more grain. If you can't do that Mr. Monsanto, I think we have to consider your patent rights a fraud — and they're cancelled." [applause]
"This is the kind of problem we face.
"Now, what we have to do, to deal with this: We really have to have some competent economics in this: We need a 50-year contract, essentially, among the leading nations of the world, which will be a credit system, shared among the nations of the world. Each will have their own credit system, but we'll have them in a fixed-exchange-rate relationship. We will then make agreements between governments, which allow for investment in long-term cooperation.
"Now, take the case of China, which is the specific question here. China can not put its entire population, on the world market for export, today. It won't work! The market isn't there. The market has been destroyed — it was artificial anyway. What China requires, is a long-term capital development of its own internal technology. That means capital investments over a period of about 50 years—50 years, mean. So therefore, you have to have an international system, a fixed-exchange-rate system, based on long-term credit for these kinds of projects, which will enable China, for example, to develop its capabilities, to enter in with full partnership, and full equality on the world market, for its entire population — which is going to increase. And to maintain an increasing population on this planet today, requires a very rapid, and very aggressive bit of scientific and technological progress. So China must have a participation in that part of scientific and technological progress, which enables it to catch up, so to speak — for its whole population to catch up, to international standards. And within 50 years, that's about two generations, we can do that.
"So China requires a system of international credit, at reasonable rates — we're talking about 1.5 to 1% internationally, under agreements between sovereign nation-states, which have the purpose of ensuring that every nation-state is going to come to a point, 50 years from now, where the system is more or less in balance, as nation-states. And we have to eliminate globalization, to do that. No more globalization: Cancel it! Go back to the sovereign nation-state.
"China has to be a key part, precisely because China has this problem! And because China, at the same time, is a very important part of any international combination of change. Therefore the rights of China, the interests of China must be served, in any such agreement. Without such an agreement, there's no chance for the world as a whole: China, India, Russia, United States.
"Because Europe presently, has no function in the world scale, because the British have gobbled up Europe, with the euro. There is no sovereign nation between the Atlantic Ocean, and the Russia border, to speak of. Doesn't exist. They've all been gobbled up by the euro! And therefore, we have to restore sovereignty of nation-states in Europe, in order to qualify them, to be free to participate fully in this type of reorganization.
"In the meantime, in my view, the United States, Russia, China, and India: These are four nations which have differences in cultural outlook, differences in perspective, but have a common interest: to unite around the common interest as a sovereign nation-state, and to create a nucleus, to overpower the British Empire in the world. [applause.]"
Webcast Excerpt: LaRouche Updates Triple Curve
Transcript:
"To get at some of the technical questions here: Let’s talk about this, just a minute from now. This Triple Curve, which I’ve used as a pedagogical device since about the beginning of 1996. I’ll discuss some of these difficult matters here. It explains itself, and this will be on the website [www.larouchepac.com] in many ways, again and again. The point is, you have three basic parameters you have to look at, In order to understand how our economy is functioning. The lower curve, the one that’s descending – These are all in terms of per capita rates – We have been descending in terms of employment in productive labor, such as agriculture, infrastructure, basic physical production, over this period, per capita. The percentile of the total throughput of the economy has been declining in these terms. We’ve also had an increase in the monetary aggregates, and the financial aggregates. Now, what has happened is, we are building up a monetary debt, built at a skyrocketing rate, relative to a declining actual physical output in production,which you can see in any community. How many factories are there? How many farms are there? What’s the level of productivity? What is it? Is it backward, or is it progressive? Is it technological progress? What’s the effect of the loss of the automobile industry, in this physical output relationship? Now, at the same time, we have had essentially, since 1966, we have had a skyrocketing increase, under the influence of the Vietnam war economy, a skyrocketing increase in the amount of monetary obligation. We have also had an increase in the financial aggregates. What has happened now, is, that we have moved to a period, which these values – as you will see, the financial aggregates have begun to fall. This decline in financial aggregates, which has occurred just recently, in this last period, is the onset of the breakdown crisis. So, we are dealing with this kind of situation, not what you are reading in the newspapers. This is also what I presented, back in 2007, in defining the problem which we face now. Either we fix this problem, as I described it, or we don’t make it as a nation."
August 1, 2009 Webcast Excerpt: “We Must Return to a Credit System!”
Transcript:
"Look, now: Here we are! Go back to 2007, where I made this proposal, for reform. I said, we propose a reform, on the basis of the authority of the Constitution of the United States. That would have worked. Anybody who's intelligent, who understands the system, would have known, that what I proposed {then}, would have worked. We would not be in the mess today!
"But, who the hell, came up with this other idea? Of getting the United States into debt, for obligations it didn't owe?! In order to bail out London, to bail out the international monetary system! At the expense of the United States! To loot the United States and its Treasury, for the benefit of an international monetary cartel! What about "bail out"! To whom, did we bail out? Did we bail out our industries? Did we save the auto industry, or put it into equivalent form, something else besides autos? Did we {save} the American farmer? Did we {save} the infrastructure, of the cities of the United States and the states? {Whom did we bail out?}
"We bailed out the London bankers and their New York extension. We don't owe them anything: We just happen to have a government that says that.
"This is our nation. And the law of bankruptcy of our nation is our authority. If I were President, I would end this thing right now. And I'm sure, I could get the support of the great majority of American citizens, very quickly, simply by making clear what I intend to do: Put the whole thing in bankruptcy.
"You guys are going to live. We're not going to kill you – like Obama's doing. We're not cutting you off from health care, we're not trying to accelerate your death, we're not trying to get you to kill yourself. You're going to live. You're going to be employed. We're going to rebuild our industries. We going to {cancel} this filthy debt! Which we never really owed in the first place. Only some crooked traitors, or traitorous kinds of people, gave us this kind of debt -- it's not real. We don't owe it. We're going to go back to a credit system.
"And we're going to get some power. How're we going to get power? We're going to have Russia as a partner. And Russia needs a credit system, desperately, to solve its problems. But Russia can do a lot of things for us. Russia has vast mineral resources, in Siberia and related areas. These mineral resources are required, for the development of nations, because the Russians are very good at this; they're sitting on top of territory that has rich mineral resources. We have below, in the south of that, we have China, and other countries, which have a shortage of these mineral resources. Therefore, the development of Russia, its building up as a power, for power of {science} and {development}, is necessary, for Europe, for Russia itself, for China, and so forth. Japan's possibility of existing, depends upon this success of China and Russia. China requires cooperation with us and Russia. We require cooperation with China.
"For example, what about the debt of the United States to China, the dollar debt? The unpaid debt to China? What happens to the world if the unpaid debt to China is written off, because the United States dollar collapses? What happens to the world,then? If China collapses; China goes into a crisis, under those conditions, what happens? India's destroyed, not so much by an economic crisis, but by the chaos engendered throughout the world, where the spillover from what you're seeing in Afghanistan and Pakistan, and so forth, now spreads into there, and causes chaos there.
"So what we simply do, is, we take these four great nations, we use these four great nations as a pivot. Japan will jump in immediately. South Korea will jump in immediately, other nations will jump in immediately. But we have to get the four big nations to cooperate on an agreement, and the others will gather, and we'll have enlarged agreement.
"We then create a new international system, entirely a {credit system}, consistent with the design of the credit system built into the U.S. Constitution. All monetarism is {cancelled}!
"The only honor, is the honorable debt, which can be converted to a debt in a {credit system}. And the world will operate under an international credit system based on cooperation, on a fixed-exchange-rate system, among credit systems of nations of the world. We will, then, generate, in the range of 1.5-2% basic long-term loans, among nations, based on credit systems. These loans will be directed to, largely, to the driver of technological progress in basic economic infrastructure."
“The Future Of Africa”
Transcript:
“Then you look at Africa: We get the British out of Africa! The British are perpetrating genocide in Africa!—they and their accomplices. Get them out of Africa! Give Africa back to the Africans. Repeal decisions made by the United States in the middle of the 1970s. Restore Africa to its right, as a collection of sovereign states. Which means we must assist them, assist them in developing the infrastructure which is needed, to take a population in Africa, which is largely unskilled, in a modern sense, and to utilize infrastructure and other features, to increase the productive powers of labor effectively, per capita and per square kilometer.
"Africa has a great agriculture potential; but disease and other factors destroy that. The lack of infrastructure means that the utilization of improvements needed to realize that, are not there. Africa has large sources of natural resources: Enable Africa to use its territory, its agriculture potential, and its related resources, to become a positive factor in world economy. The world needs it!
"This fact was understood by President Franklin Roosevelt. In the midst of the Second World War, Roosevelt turned his thoughts towards a better future, a new era of post-colonialism to replace what he called the “18th-century methods” of the British Empire. Roosevelt’s son Elliot, in the book As He Saw It, related his father’s plans during a trip to Casablanca in January 1943:
“Over coffee, he got back on the theme of the development of colonial areas, increasingly one of his favorite topics. For a man who had never been in Africa before, he had picked up an amazing amount of information, geographical, geological, agricultural. Of course, I thought I knew the country pretty well: I had flown over a good bit of it, months before, photographing it from the air. But somewhere he had had a chance to learn even more than I had. We discussed the great salt flats in southern Tunisia, which must have at one time been a vast inland sea. He reminded us of the rivers that spring up in the Atlas Mountains, to the south, and disappear under the Sahara, to become subterranean rivers. “Divert this water flow for irrigation purposes? It’d make the Imperial Valley in California look like a cabbage patch!” And the salt flats: they were below the level of the Mediterranean; you could dig a canal straight back to re-create that lake—one hundred and fifty miles long, sixty miles wide. “The Sahara would bloom for hundreds of miles!” It is true. The Sahara is not just sand, it has an amazingly rich potential. Every time there is a rain, there is a consequent riot of flowers for a few days, before the dryness and the sun kill them off. Franklin and I winked at each other: Father was having the time of his life, his active mind and quick imagination working overtime as we all speculated on what intelligent planning could do for this land.
“Wealth!” he cried. “Imperialists don’t realize what they can do, what they can create! They’ve robbed this continent of billions, and all because they were too short-sighted to understand that their billions were pennies, compared to the possibilities! Possibilities that must include a better life for the people who inhabit this land…”
"By the time Roosevelt had spoken these words, Africa had already been subjected to hundreds of years of colonial oppression aimed at extracting raw materials, while stifling internal improvements. Railroads were built straight from foreign-owned mines to the coast for export, and even the gauge of the tracks between countries were made incompatible.
"Erasing this colonial legacy begins with fully integrating the continent with high-speed and magnetically-levitated rail, from Cairo in the North to Capetown in the South, and Dakar in the West to Djibouti in the East. These transportation routes would serve as the backbone of new corridors of development, including gas pipelines, telecommunications, and new industrial-city centers powered by fourth generation high-temperature nuclear reactors. Rather than resorting to unskilled labor to build what environmentalists call “appropriate technologies” we can upgrade the skill and productivity of the labor force through high-technology investments. Large-scale infrastructure itself raises the productivity of the individual worker or farmer, simply by transforming the environment he operates in. As in the case of the transcontinental railroad in the USA, the development of inland areas represents a historic shift away from the legacy of maritime control by the British Empire, as well as human mastery over the biosphere.
"…rail system, or maglev system, into Africa!" As a gift! From the other nations of the world, we're going to give them—as a gift!—a railway or maglev system, which is the basic system which means, that in these countries, they have the basic means to transport goods from one place to the other.
"That, and also power systems, and so forth, delivered to them, will enable them to do the rest. And that's the point.
"Combined with mass transportation and power development, large-scale water management can make the deserts bloom. The Congo River is second only to the Amazon, in terms of volume of water. Canals could divert water drawn off from the Congo, and channel it northward, to refresh and expand the dry Lake Chad basin, opening up vast new stretches of land for cultivation. Nuclear desalination means an almost limitless supply of fresh water from the oceans, water that can transform the arid landscapes of the Sahel region and the Sahara above it into garden spots through massive irrigation. Greening the deserts could turn some of the most under-populated areas of the planet into thriving agro-industrial centers. The rich soils of Sudan alone could feed the continent.
"The way you develop a people, is not by coming in and telling them how to do everything. You give them the things which will enable them to do something for themselves. And you help them do it.”
"Given the past century’s discovery of nuclear and space science, and the coming breakthroughs in fusion energy, it is long past time to realize that the only limits to growth for the human species come from self-imposed limits on the imagination. Along with the advance of science has come the proof that mankind survives only by changing nature, by unlocking the potentials inherent in nature, potentials which are realized only through creative reason.
"What potential geniuses, who today are being lost to childhood diseases, starvation, and war, might this African renaissance give to humanity? What new Mozarts or Einsteins in art and science among the children of today await only the chance to unleash their inherent human creativity? More than mere material wealth, this is the true notion of wealth embodied in Roosevelt’s vision for the post-war world."
Emergency Statement to President Obama
Transcript:
"You may recall that I was the only person, back in July 25th 2007 who warned of exactly what has happened to the world economy since. Now, more recently, a few leading economists have come forth, to, in their own way, support views which coincide with my own. I say, as an expert, as people who said the contrary over the intervening years, that this policy, which has been foisted upon the President of the United States, can sink the United States and his Presidency very quickly. There is no way the President could expect to survive, politically, from this policy even in the relatively short term.
"First of all, it is incompetent, it is un-Constitutional, and it will destroy the United States. And the people out there -- not the liberals he is listening to, from the higher paid liberals, but the typical citizens out there, the lower 60% to 70% of the population will turn against him harshly, if he does not abandon this foolish policy. There is a solution, and there always has been one solution, since I specified that between July 25th, 2007 and September of 2007: Put this entire system into bankruptcy reorganization. Take all the crap and throw it away! Reconstruct the banks according to Glass-Steagall standards. Bail out the banks. Don't bail out the creditors! Bail out the banks, by providing them credit, government credit, which enables them to build their way back to solvency. Don't buy out the speculators! Don't bribe the speculators! Otherwise, you're not going to be President much longer, Mr. President.
"I've been doing everything I can, to help you survive as President, and succeed. But this, this mistake you've make now, under bad advice -- under incompetent advice, can sink you, and sink the Presidency, and sink the United States. Because if you go down now, you're going to take the United States down with you. And you are going to get increasingly unpopular over the coming days and weeks. So change, now. Abandon this policy which is un-Constitutional, in any case. And it is not only un-Constitutional, it is immoral! So, be a moral President: Reject this! And I am sure, that you will find that the great majority of the American citizens will come to your aid, if you do this. Cut it out, now, Mr. President -- it's a terrible mistake. I'm the expert: I'm the best-qualified expert. Yeah, there are other people who agree with me, more or less, among leading people today. But, I'm the expert, and I am telling you: Don't make this mistake. It's like political suicide. Stop it, now!"
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