Chavez/Venezuela bypasses IMF, forms new Bank of the South

[Jim Warren]

Good for them, I hope they can sustain themselves against the IMF(otherwise known as the collection agency for the money changers).

Hugo Chavez dropped a bomb shell in which the reverberations can still be felt along the corridors of the various Third World lending institutions head-quartered in Washington D.C. Not only was the Bank of the South going to become a reality, but the nations of Bolivia, Ecuador, Argentina and Paraguay were already signed on to it. It didn’t stop there, either. There was the strong possibility of the South American giant, Brazil, fully joining as well. The real kicker of it all was that the commencement of loans issued by the Bank of the South could begin as early as 2008. Now this was indeed shocking news. The experts are now taking Chavez’s new plans very seriously.

http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2007/03/30/18385834.php

[loudsue]

1. Woo boy! This is sure to create the "Exorcist" head spinning among bankers

The world bank people are the ones who hold the puppet strings on every major country, their leaders and their policies. They finance both sides of war, in every war, and try to keep it going as long as possible.

Chavez is hitting them where it really hurts here, and it's going to be a whole new ballgame. They (the MAJOR powers that be) are going to be gunning (literally) for this dude. But I'm glad to see someone AT LAST tries to beat them at their own game.

This could be a VERY good thing for South America, if Chavez & his allies could pull it off, and it is in keeping with the new mood of independence that most of the PEOPLE of South America are feeling. Those folks have had it up to here ( ? <high place> ) with being exploited and controlled by outside forces -- forces mostly enabled by the huge United States political/financial machine.

In fact, most regions of the world need to start taking back control of their destiny by doing similar things, in order to untangle the web they find themselves in.

:popcorn: This is just getting interesting-er and interesting-er.

:kick::kick::kick:

[Jcrowley]

2. Good stuff

K&R

[Warren Stupidity]

3. I can't wait to be told how this is a very bad thing.

And another example of the stalinist dictatorship of venezuela.

The bolivarian movement is the only hope we have these days of a better world than the dreary future that the neocon/neoliberal washington consensus has in mind.

[Jim Warren]

5. The bolivarian movement is the only hope we have these days of a better world

I agree with that assessment.
If I were younger I would seriously consider emigrating to VE. myself and my 18yo son is himself keenly
interested in the developments of the New South.

[Jim Warren]

23. kick for the evening Chavistas

[Jim Sagle]

28. He's an eeeeeeevullllll dicktater - the kind who wins elections just to fool us.

:-)

[Saboburns]

Thanks, again, Hugo Chavez

I love Hugo Chavez.

Watching his villification right here in America has told me Oh So Much about the history of my Country.

[Vincardog]

4. That damn socialist left leaning Chavez. How dare he interfere with our Dick-Tater's plans?

[Solo_in_MD]

6. However he is also looting the Venezuelan equivalent of the FDIC

which is not a good thing. Banking runs on trust and standards. His approach compromises that, which in the long run will make things harder for his people.

As for his regional bankk, if I were I one of his neighbors, I would ride the gravy train fed by Venezuelan petro dollars, but be ready to jump when the spigot gets cut off.

[Warren Stupidity]

14. Really? Do you have credible links for that assertion?

The one I found was David Horowitz's fascist screed frontpage magazine, with a hit piece by By Richard W. Rahn The Washington Times | January 24, 2007, the Washington Times being of course a notorious fascist propaganda outlet owned and operated by the vile Rev. Moon.

I won't link to the horowitz hate-screed, so here is the moonie link: http://www.washingtontimes.com/commentary/20070121-102603-4793r.htm

Google Richard W. Rahn for some background on the credibility and objectivity of this source.

[Solo_in_MD]

15. AP via a Huston Chronicle

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/ap/fn/4674101.html

[Gabi Hayes]

16. and the AP is credible.....how?

jesus

nice try; just the tip of the iceberg:

Daily Howler: The AP's bungling on Social Security defines the ...THE DAILY HOWLER is the first post-Socratic press corps review and applies the simplest rules of thought to the exertions of the celebrity press corps.
www.dailyhowler.com/dh032505.shtml - 16k - Cached - Similar pages

Michael Moore called Bush a bad name. And the AP misstated the factsLast week, we noted the way the press ignored the story of Bush’s National Guard service when he ran for president in 2000 (see THE DAILY HOWLER, 1/15/04). ...
www.dailyhowler.com/dh012004.shtml - 17k - Cached - Similar pages
< More results from www.dailyhowler.com >

Daily Howler: When ''liberal spokesmen'' keep their mouths shut ...THE DAILY HOWLER is the first post-Socratic press corps review and applies ... If the AP poll is halfway right, UNC faces a powder-puff road all the way to ...
www.charm.net/~somerby/dh031705.html - 17k - Cached - Similar pages

eRiposte Media: Mainstream and Conservative Press/Media Bias ...WP, AP, USA Today, others, The "Internet", Daily Howler. Phil Agre ... News Channel), Gore on his father's civil rights record, Daily Howler ...
www.eriposte.com/media/bias/media_bias_gore.htm - 64k - Cached - Similar pages

eRiposte Media: Mainstream and Conservative Press/Media Bias ...the general public", 3, Daily Howler, 6/04. Jodi Wilgoren. Nedra Pickler, New York Times. Associated Press. Kerry's wealth: "fishing vessel", ...
www.eriposte.com/media/bias/media_bias_kerry.htm - 107k - Cached - Similar pages

memeorandum: THE LIBERAL WAR ON SCIENCE! … (The Daily Howler)Bush Warns Dems to Take Offer in Firings — WASHINGTON (AP) - President Bush ... Daily Show: Dissecting the Iraq Spending Bill — As we noted yesterday, ...
www.memeorandum.com/070320/p100 - 87k - Cached - Similar pages

Media Cover-Up of Gore VictoryBerke embellished some tales and he beat on Gore’s mom, Bob Somerby, The Daily Howler ... (AP) - A media review of uncounted Florida ballots in the 2000 ...
www.makethemaccountable.com/coverup/index.htm - 42k - Cached - Similar pages

Unclaimed Territory - by Glenn Greenwald: The "credibility" of the ...UPDATE V: E&P reports on the response to all of this from AP's top Editor, ... subject "Unintended howler" -- which, as it turns out, was an understatement. ...
www.inblogs.net/glenngreenwald/2007/01/credibility-of-right-wing-blogosphere.html - 64k - Cached - Similar pages

The Washington MonthlyAnd yet, he we are, six years later, and the AP is still going for the cheap ... However, as Bob Somerby has thoroughly documented in The Daily Howler, ...
www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2006_12/010457.php - 99k - Cached - Similar pages

[Gabi Hayes]

17. even I can go through a typical story of theirs and see what lousy garbage they print:

AP story on Rudy, bringing up some negatives about him, yet defending him with a load of disingenuous, ommissive BULLSHIT:

http://www.cnn.com/2007/POLITICS/03/30/giuliani.911.ap/index.html

contrast what's in the story with a few points I noticed:

they IGNORE Giuliani's insistence at the time that the air around Ground Zero was not unhealthy, which everybody knows to be a huge lie

the Firefighters in South Carolina are a FRONT established by some guy who's a CAMPAIGN WORKER for Giuliani! nice reporting, AP.

http://www.tpmcafe.com/blog/electioncentral/2007/mar/09...


.........



worst of all, in their rush to praise Giuliani, and how he was lionized by 911 commissioners, they ignore this:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/911_Commission#Claims_of_g...

Commissioners Thomas Kean, a Republican, and Lee Hamilton, a Democrat, disclosed in their 2006 book Without Precedent: The Inside Story of the 9/11 Commission (ISBN 0-307-26377-0) that the Commission did not pursue a tough enough line of questioning with former New York Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani because its members feared public anger if they challenged him.

"It proved difficult, if not impossible, to raise hard questions about 9/11 in New York without it being perceived as criticism of the individual police and firefighters or of Mayor Giuliani. We did not ask tough questions, nor did we get all of the information we needed to put on the public record," they wrote. As the New York Times reported, "The commission’s gentle questioning of Mr. Giuliani during his May 19, 2004, testimony at the New School University in Greenwich Village was "a low point" in its handling of witnesses at its public hearings, they wrote."<21>

The authors assert that the commission had failed to ask Giuliani more probing questions partly because of criticism of a comment by fellow commissioner John F. Lehman. At the hearing on 18 May, the day before Giuliani's testimony, Lehman stated that New York’s disaster-response plans were "not worthy of the Boy Scouts, let alone this great city." The following morning, the cover of The New York Post displayed a photograph of a firefighter kneeling at the World Trade Center site, captioned with the single word "Insult" above.

this is what we have to expect from the media, WRT Giuliani. even as they report some negative information about him, they DEFEND him with inaccurate, misleading, and incomplete information.

[Gabi Hayes]

29. yep.. when I want the truth, I always check the AP. their take on Kerik:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6643776/

[Warren Stupidity]

18. "Strip" as in take with compensation.

From the same article:

"Chavez added Fogade has a "long list" of acquired properties that are not being put to use. "This cannot be. Pass me (the list) and I'm going to pass it on to the people," he said.

Chavez said the government would compensate the fund "little by little" for any assets that it loses.

He also said banking deposits would remain insured but did not say how."

As usual our media runs editorials masquerading as objective journalism. At least the moonie times doesn't bother pretending.

[Gabi Hayes]

19. Warren, the first time I see anything constructive posted by certain entities will be the....

first.

dunno why they're here

see what I mean?

[Solo_in_MD]

20. Banking is all about confidence, would we believe Bush ior any pol

if they said would fund something but did not say how or would compensate a banking institiution "little by little".


IMO Chavez is just another pol, with a tin ear for how his pronouncements play overseas.

[Warren Stupidity]

21. Venezuela has a huge underground pool of liquid assets.

At this point in time I do not think they are too worried about solvency.

[Gabi Hayes]

22. you're wasting your time....

he's just another pol, see?

forget that he's been overwhelmingly elected, overcome a coup, and a recall (wonder who was behind that? ask Otto Reich, for starters), proving that those poor, ignorant Venezuelans have no clue that having the fastest growing economy in South America is inimical to their interests

and as for "things aren't so swell in Venezuela...bad crime, bad this, bad that, high inflation, etc.": for how many hundreds of years has the feudal/colonial system held sway? how long will it take for the wheels of economic justice to turn in favor of most of the people in Venezuela, in the region

[Solo_in_MD]

25. You are right, I resist the adoration you heap upon Chavez

forget that he's been overwhelmingly elected, overcome a coup, and a recall
Sounds a lot like many rulers down there, Peron for one.

and as for "things aren't so swell in Venezuela...
I never said anything about how things are in Venezuela. Given the press restrictions its not clear what is really happening there.

Some of his moves sound like real progress, and some of his moves seem anti progressive. Other still seem foolhardy and over reaching. Some of his statements are excellent and others are right up there with Baghdad Bob. That said, I do not wish him ill, but IMO he is yet to prove himself to be anything more than yet another South American strongman. Lets see how he does over time before we nominate him for sainthood. Until then, he is indeed just another pol.

[Warren Stupidity]

26. "Given the press restrictions its not clear what is really happening there."

You just keep making stuff up, or rather you are deliberately misstating things to paint an absurd picture of the situation. Venezuela is a rather open society. There is no problem getting information about what is going on in Venezuela. And Chavez simply is not Juan Peron.

Nobody nominated Chavez for sainthood, unless you are confusing him with the late pope.

[1932]

27. Have you seen The Revolution Will Not be Televised?

[rman]

31. Most dictatorial rulers down there were propped up by the US,

Most of the coups down there were backed by the US, to overthrow democratically elected 'nationalist' (US-unfriendly) leaders.
The history of US foreign policy is quit clear about that.

[MyNameGoesHere]

32. Now i got it

i just noticed You're a SMIB. Let's see Lusby....that might make you a SMURF

[Solo_in_MD]

33. SMIB you say?

That from someone from West by gawd VIrginia?

The locale is temporary, in fact I am not in Lysby/no longer a Lusbian. I moved north went the family went home to CA to cheaper and more convienent hovel.

[MyNameGoesHere]

35. Oh well no more

Blue Crabs for you.

[WinkyDink]

38. A "South American strongman" USUALLY refers to those dictators sending out RW DEATH SQUADS.

How is aggressively HELPING the poor (IOW, following Christian principles) being "yet another...strongman"??

[Solo_in_MD]

40. Peron and others also said they were for the people...

My point is that depite the clamor of the hardcore Chavez worshippers here, I don't think he has deserves the pedestal some are putting him on at this point. His talk and walk are mixed. Lets see how he does in the long run. Yes its cool that he goes after the Bushies hard, but the concept of enemy of my enemy is my friend really does not work that well. Chavez needs to perform over the long haul and stay progressive. The latter is really my concern, since the temptation towards strongman politcs runs strong in South America.

[rman]

30. your opinion, not fact.

[Laughing Mirror]

36. He's restoring the country's wealth to its people

to the detriment of a private insurance fund. Why are you opposed to this, may I ask?

[Solo_in_MD]

41. That is the equivalent of emptying the FDIC to pay for general welfare assistance

The confidence issues that it would raise in the banks would be enormous. Remember, not just the massively rich have bank accounts. When those people (or even the well off) lose confidence runs will start on the banks, and they start failing, panic breaks out, inflation gets massive on a daily basis, and the economy is in turmoil. Should that happen, the oil exports wont begin to cover it. Even a state take over of the economy could not stop that. When that breaks out, the international money transactions will cease because of the lack of a stable currency.

[Laughing Mirror]

42. Well the sovereign people of Venezuela don't agree with you apparently

And they are a sovereign people aren't they?

If a handful of private foreign investors find themselves jumping out of windows because they are not making money off property that isn't theirs maybe they will land in a better place.

[SoCalDem]

7. United States of South America, anyone

It sounds like they are getting their ducks in a row, and looking to each other...finally..

perhaps they have figured out that there is strength in unity.

[Jim Warren]

8. Yes

and getting past three hundred hundred years of servitude including the last century of usury by big capital.

[Selatius]

9. It is apparent that Venezuela under Hugo Chavez has become a serious threat to American...

corporate interests in the western hemisphere. With this bank, it will be even more difficult to gain economic leverage over Latin America. The IMF was the champion of neoliberalism. Nations that took loans from the IMF/World Bank complex had to abide by privatization clauses in the loan agreement.

Water, power, and other sectors of the economy were privatized, and often American corporate interests were there to buy up these state-run companies and transform them into profit-generating enterprises. Most of the privatizations were done fraudulently, and of the ones that were done legally, no real benefit came to the poorest segments of Latin America's people.

The fact that Hugo Chavez has done this represents a threat to the bottom-line interests of Wall Street because it could mean that Latin America is no longer America's "resource colony," where wealth and resources are sucked out to be traded on Wall Street or stashed in a bank account in the Caymans or Switzerland. For over a century, Latin America lived under American economic domination.

[Vidar]

10. Chavez is making all the right moves. I only hope that our evil

empire continues to be too preoccupied to stop him.

[Greyhound]

43. Maybe that is one of the greater purposes of the slaughter of Iraq.

It has effectively neutered us and we just can't follow the script that has served us so well for over a century down there.

We've tried the covert incitement, it didn't work.

We tried the coup, it didn't work.

Our "dependable allies" in country have turned out to be just as cowardly and inept as their domestic counterparts.

Normally the next step is an invasion, either overt or preferably by proxy, well we don't have any proxies that are capable (thanks to our "drug war", if Columbia moves any of it's military assets out of the country for even a day, they won't have a country to come back to) and thanks to our crimes in the middle east we don't have the forces to do it ourselves.

I think Chavez is much brighter than our leaders ever believed him to be. This just might work.

[malaise]

11. Yes

Down with the IMF.

[Laughing Mirror]

12. Where can I open an account?

[Marie26]

13. Great move! nt

[Clark2008]

24. LOL!! Great name, too.

When it comes to the US, many Southerners might think it's a Georgia firm and use it. :)

[ellie]

34. Oooh, I can't

see the powers-that-be liking that one bit. Rock on Hugo!

[EFerrari]

37. Too late to rec but kick!

[Jim Warren]

39. Update on IADB

From the article:

"So far the establishment banks like the IADB are reacting rather coolly to the situation."

Wiki IADB:

The Inter-American Development Bank was established and headquartered in Washington, DC, United States, in 1959 to support Latin American and Caribbean economic/social development and regional integration by lending mainly to governments and government agencies (including State corporations).

The Bank is owned by 47 sovereign states, which are its shareholders and members:

Argentina, Austria, The Bahamas, Barbados, Belgium, Belize, Bolivia, Brazil, Canada, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Croatia, Denmark, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, Finland, France, Germany, Guatemala, Guyana, Haiti, Honduras, Israel, Italy, Jamaica, Japan, Mexico, The Netherlands, Nicaragua, Norway, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Portugal, Republic of Korea, Slovenia, Spain, Suriname, Sweden, Switzerland, Trinidad and Tobago, United Kingdom, United States, Uruguay, and Venezuela.

Of the 47 member countries, 26 are borrowers:

Argentina, The Bahamas, Barbados, Belize, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Guyana, Haiti, Honduras, Jamaica, Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Suriname, Trinidad and Tobago, Uruguay, and Venezuela.

The IADB calling some countries members kind of reminds me of Walmart calling hourly wage earners "associates". The real breakdown between borrowers and bankers is:

Lenders:
Austria, Belgium, Canada, Croatia, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Israel, Italy, Japan, Netherlands, Norway , Portugal, Republic of Korea, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, United Kingdom, United States.

Borrowers:
Argentina, Bahamas, Barbados, Belize, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Guyana, Haiti, Honduras, Jamaica, Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Suriname, Trinidad and Tobago, Uruguay, and Venezuela.

Hmmm, see any pattern?

[tkmorris]

44. Bingo

And this is exactly why Chavez saw the need for the Bank of the South. South American and Caribbean countries have historically been held as slaves to their international debt, debt owed to the United States and Europe. We have used that debt to force them to privatize industries and utilities they otherwise would have not, and allow foreign ownership of same. They have long needed an alternative financing source, and this is it.