The global economic elites have every intention of maintaining the status quo. From Central Banks to big banks, they universally fear change. And why shouldn't they? The game is so heavily skewed in their favor. The defeat of the Scottish succession is a prime example. There was a huge campaign that included everyone from Goldman Sachs to Alan Greenspan to David Cameron pulling out all the stops to sow fear about independence as much as possible. Global bankers vowed to punish Scotland, declaring they would move out of Scotland if independence were declared. From the Ludwig von Mises Institute: A Deutsche Bank report compared it to the decision to return to the gold standard in the 1920s, and said it might spark a rerun of the Great Depression, at least north of the border. When it comes to predictions of economic doom, it doesn't get much more hysterical than that. Except that it does. David Cameron nearly burst into tears begging the Scots not to vote for independence. The elite onslaught against secession employed at least two strategies. The first involved threats and "for your own good" lectures. Things will "not work out well" for Scotland in case of secession, intoned Robert Zoellick of the World Bank. John McCain implied that Scottish independence would be good for terrorists. The second strategy involved pleading and begging, which, of course, betrayed how truly fearful the West's ruling class is of secession. In addition to Cameron's histrionics based on nostalgia and maudlin appeals to not break "this family apart," Cameron attempted (apparently successfully) to bribe the Scottish voters with numerous promises of more money, more autonomy, and more power within the UK. The threats that focused on the future of the Scottish monetary system are particularly telling. The very last thing that governments in London, Brussels, or Washington, DC want to see is an established Western country secede from a monetary system and join another in an orderly fashion. Political secession is bad enough, and is a thorn in the side of the EU which clearly hopes to establish itself someday as a perpetual union with no escape option. A successful withdrawal from a major global currency, even if to join the EMU later, would imply that countries have monetary options other than being absorbed wholesale (and permanently) by the EMU. When the winds of economic change start blowing, there's an awfully big, powerful contingent always ready to turn off the fan. |
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