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The Ghosts of 1968
The Ghosts of 1968
The hope of 1968 that public demonstrations can actually change the power structure has been lost.
1968 was a tumultuous year globally and domestically. The Prague Spring in Czechoslovakia–a very mild form of political and cultural liberalization within the Soviet bloc–was brutally crushed by the military forces of the Soviet Union.
The general strikes and student protests of May 1968 brought France to a standstill as demands for social and political change called the entire status quo into question.
On the other side of the planet, the Cultural Revolution was remaking China’s still-youthful revolution, to the detriment of the political status quo, the intelligentsia and the common people.
The U.S.was convulsed with assassinations, civil unrest and mass demonstrations against the war in Vietnam and the political status quo (the Democratic Party convention in Chicago).
Ironically, much of the world was benefiting from two decades of rising prosperity and the demise of colonialism. When expectations exceed actual opportunities, discontent is the result. When the power structure is deaf to the discontent, a cycle of repression and disorder feed on each other.
Fifty years on, the ghosts of 1968 are still with us. With the advantage of hindsight, 1968 was the culmination of the belief that it was still possible for the common people to change the political and social order in a positive fashion– to remake the status quo power structure into something more humane, accessible, just and fair.
The Western status quo bent but did not break. Nothing in the developed-world power structures actually changed. The status quo did break down in China, but the breakdown was not liberating; it was a catastrophe of injustice and destruction without precedent.
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Why Central Banks Hate Physical, Love “Earmarked” Gold, And What Is The Difference
Why Central Banks Hate Physical, Love “Earmarked” Gold, And What Is The Difference
Several days ago we showed the dramatic conclusion of what happened to Czechoslovakia’s gold which had been placed at the Bank of England for safekeeping days after Germany annexed the central European republic ahead of the start of World War II. We hate the spoil the punchline for those who haven’t read the post yet, but the her it is: it was gone; it was all gone.
And all of this happened with the explicit assistance of the Bank of International Settlements which was formed in 1930 to promote the free flow of capital and global economic growth. Instead, time and again, what the BIS has proven its only mission to be, is to facilitate the spread of intangible assets and fiat currencies while it quietly confiscates, sequesters and aggregates (for a select group of individuals) he world’s physical assets. Mostly gold.
In fact, until the advent of the BIS, gold held by central banks came in one version. Physical.
It was only after the BIS arrived on the scene did gold’s macabre doppelganger, so-called paper, registered or “earmarked“, gold emerge for the first time.
Courtesy of Adam LeBor’s book exposing the history and inner workings of the BIS, “The Shadowy History of the Secret Bank that Runs the World“, below is a brief story of how earmarked gold came into being.
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The Czechoslovak gold affair also highlighted how the bank’s increasingly sophisticated gold operations were growing in reach and importance. The BIS’s gold trades were a primitive forerunner of today’s globalized economy where vast sums instantly fly back and forth at the touch of a keyboard. The technology available in the 1930s was far more primitive, but the principle of buying and selling assets sight unseen and without taking physical possession is the same.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
What Happens When You Hand Over Your Gold To The Bank Of England For “Safekeeping”
What Happens When You Hand Over Your Gold To The Bank Of England For “Safekeeping”
“The Bank for International Settlements is the bank which sanctions the most notorious outrage of this generation— the rape of Czechoslovakia.”
— George Strauss, Labor MP, speaking in the House of Commons, May 1939
“the Bank for International Settlements should be liquidated before it
furnished any more sinews of war to Germany, and that the odd
relationship between the British government and the Bank of England
should be re-examined without delay.”
— “Sees British Hands Tied on Czech Gold,” New York Times, June 6, 1939
When Nazi Germany annexed the Czechoslovak border province of the Sudetenland in September 1938, it immediately absorbed a good part of the country’s banking system as well as most of Czechoslovakia’s strategic defenses. By then the country’s national bank had prudently transferred most of its gold abroad to two accounts at the Bank of England: one in the name of the BIS, and one in the name of the National Bank of Czechoslovakia itself. (Countries had deposited some of their gold reserves in a sub-account at the BIS account in London to ease gold sales and purchases.) Of the 94,772 kilograms of gold, only 6,337 kilograms remained in Prague. The security of the national gold was more than a monetary issue. The Czechoslovak reserves, like those of Republican Spain, were an expression of nationhood. Carved out of the remains of the Austro-Hungarian Empire in 1918, the Czechoslovak Republic was a new and fragile nation. A good part of the gold had been donated by the public in the country’s early years. Josef Malik, the governor of the national bank, and his fellow Czechs believed that, even as the Nazis’ dismembered their homeland, if the national gold was safe, then something of the country’s independence would endure.
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Our Freedom Is Endangered
Our Freedom Is Endangered
Liberty …
… is a fundamental human right; it is the cornerstone of our existence. But liberty is under attack from all directions, whether through higher state control or individuals themselves. Liberty is in search for its protector.
We were given the opportunity to talk to a vanguard of liberty, former President of the Czech Republic, Prof. Ing. Václav Klaus. Mr. Klaus shares with us how he embraced the values of classic liberalism and free markets while growing up under communism and the challenges he faced. Of course, we were eager to hear his account on the peaceful split of Czechoslovakia which took place during his years as Prime Minister and also about the transition of the currency system, which was successfully initiated at the same time.
We were keen to find out his stance on the situation in Greece and if a potential exit of countries like Greece from the Euro zone would be really such a disaster. We are happy to share with you the thoughts and perspectives of a man who says about himself that he “never intended to be a politician or office-seeker”. His motivation was to establish the rules of a market economy after the fall of communism but he never wanted to plan its outcome. Mr. Klaus has valued and protected the ideas of liberty and freedom for many years to this day.
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