In response to a piece by Martin Wolf on 16th June 2016, entitled Lunch with the FT: Adair Turner
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/bc424150-3165-11e6-ad39-3fee5ffe5b5b.html?ftcamp=crm/email/follow/author/Q0ItMDAwMDkwMA==-QXV0aG9ycw==/product#axzz4BgHyfMOT
An impressive CV:
“Turner, who is 60, has been a banker, a director of the McKinsey management consultancy, director-general of the Confederation of British Industry and head of the Financial Services Authority… a vice-chairman at Merrill Lynch…a double first in history and economics at Cambridge…” - Martin Wolf
Which led to this:
“I’d forgotten that banks create credit, money and purchasing power and that they can create too much. But once you return to the fundamentals, you realize that it’s very dangerous to construct a currency union that doesn’t have enough of a political union to make it work” - Adair Turner
A guy who’d done all that had ‘forgotten’ about the existence of the ‘Magic Money Tree’? Here’s what I think Mr. Wolf:
I’m willing to bet that every single economist, commentator, investor and business person that warned Robert Rubin and Larry Summers about the consequences of scrapping Glass-Steagall, knew about the Magic Money Tree…every one that warned Alan Greenspan prior to the tech bubble, knew about the MMT… every one who warned Ben Bernanke about the housing bubble knew about the MMT.
Those people knew about the glorified Ponzi scheme we call a monetary system; they warned about how it was being abused by profligate politicians and crooked bankers, and they described the effects this was having on the real economy – it’s there in the warnings that they provided at the time. Steve Keen did, Jim Grant did, the ‘Austrians’ did, Roubini did…the people who predicted the crisis did not have to be informed or reminded of how the monetary system worked…they knew…
Ditto with the euro – the people who warned it would lead to trouble knew that putting Greece on what was effectively the Deutschmark, without a consolidated bond market…was a guaranteed disaster. Why? Because they did not need to be told how capital markets work…they already knew.
How many of those guys are being asked for help with policy right now do you think Mr. Wolf? On the other hand how many ‘forgetful’ souls are still advising on policy do you think?
Secondly, the next time you make snide and patronizing comments like this one:
“He embodies the international economic and policymaking elite — at a time when many Brexiters and Donald Trump supporters see this as the ultimate term of abuse”
…think on this: You sit in a room in Davos each year with individuals and organizations that have been ‘fined’ $30 billion over the past couple of years, in order to make the further investigation of their criminal activities simply go away. These people rub shoulders with other people at the same meetings whose job it should be to put them behind bars…if they were ‘normal’ people. There are still other people who sit in those rooms, perhaps including yourself, who are well aware of the fraud and the market rigging that goes on, but who, for whatever reason, decide to look away.
When the Gambino family pays to make a criminal investigation go away it’s called a ‘bribe’, when a Wall Street bank does it, it’s called a ‘fine’. I call it fraud however well dressed, educated or connected the crook is.
So by all means get on your high horse about ‘Brexiters and Trump supporters’…but if you do please be aware that you will simply attract more ‘abuse’ towards the company you keep and the elites you defend. And in my opinion, some of them thoroughly deserve all the ‘abuse’ they get.
Finally, please know this from me personally:
- I don’t want Trump in the White House, I want Jimmy the Diamond in jail
- I don’t want Bernie Sanders in the White House, I want Hillary Clinton indicted by the FBI
- I want an honest man or woman in the White House, someone who knows how the real world works and is not prepared to tolerate criminals running the banking system
- And if the UK does vote to stay in the EU, I want ALL legislation originated and overseen by an elected parliament, not by a group of unelected bureaucrats headed by a second rate ex politician and self-confessed liar. And I want the TTIP brought out of the cellar where it has been locked up to prevent people realizing that it is glorified ‘corporatism’ and ‘cronyism’, not a deal that could remotely be described as ‘free trade’.
Instead of defending your pals in the elite Mr. Wolf, help wake them up before it’s too late, if it’s not already – buy them a mirror: They’ve presided over an economy that has created the conditions for someone like Donald Trump to rise. You want someone to blame for Trump Mr. Wolf? Blame the people in Dresden you spent last week with. They’ve been in charge. Donald Trump has been on TV.