Ibero-American News Digest

Brazil's Collapsing Inter-Alpha Ponzi Scheme Panics Government

Jan. 6 (EIRNS)—The new government of President Dilma Rousseff, sworn in on Jan. 1, has announced measures to try to mitigate the disastrous impact of the vast speculative capital flows flooding Brazil as a result of the Inter-Alpha Group's carry trade. The measures not only won't work; they will make the problem worse.

The Central Bank announced that banks operating in Brazil will have to set aside with that entity, 60% of the value of their derivative bets on the exchange rate of the dollar to Brazil's currency, the real. This particular gambling bet seems to be the flavor-of-the-month among international speculators, with some $17 billion of derivatives betting that the dollar will keep devaluing against the real on the books as of Dec. 30. Central Bank bean-counters such as director Aldo Mendes argue that the measure is designed to halt any further revaluation of the real, which has risen 37% against the dollar since January 2009.

But Mendes openly fretted that, if the banks were allowed to retain large dollar positions, billions in hot money could also flee Brazil quicker than you can say Jacob Rothschild, "if volatility in global markets" arises.

"If?"

To try to placate London's financial vultures, the government also announced that steps to privatize chunks of the air transport system were underway, promising that "everything is on the table" for cuts in the 2011 budget.

None of these measures will affect the carry trade. Brazil's interest rates, which are the highest in the world, suck in international capital and provide spectacular returns, looted out of the living standard and the natural resources of the Brazilian people, while starving the domestic economy for operating capital. Rousseff doesn't dare touch the interest rate issue, because she knows that it is a casus belli for London and other banking interests. In fact, she is widely expected to raise current rates from 10.75% to 12.75% in February—at precisely the point that the government has to roll over about $30 billion in bonds in the next month.

Brazil High Court: Human Dignity Comes Before Santander's Usury

Jan. 7 (EIRNS)—Brazil's Superior Court of Justice, the nation's highest court for non-constitutional matters, today ruled that the preservation of human dignity must be considered, in enforcing debt collection. The assertion of the fundamental principle that life comes before contracts, asserted here in limited fashion, would bring the entire British monetarist system to a quick end, were it to be rigorously applied. As it is, the decision, issued in a case brought against the Inter-Alpha Group's Santander Bank, deals another blow to the giant Brazilian consumer bubble, by placing limits on the Brazilian banks' current collection of usurious debt, at all costs.

The ruling came in response to a suit filed by a public sector worker against the Santander Bank, which has been deducting nearly 50% of her paycheck for debt payments before she ever sees it. The law says that banks cannot deduct more than 30% (already outrageously high!) under the automatic payroll-deduction loan scheme created in 2002, which has driven millions of poorer Brazilians into debt slavery, but created the wildly lucrative securitized consumer-loan bubble, which is now popping. Santander and other banks have been sucking everything they could out of people's salaries—in some cases up to 100%!—to feed the international carry trade, and the Inter-Alpha Group Ponzi scheme in particular.

A Brazilian state court had ruled that Santander was acting within its rights, but the Superior Tribunal overturned that decision, and, in a press release today, stated that "the primary nature of wages and the principle of reasonableness have to be taken into account, to reach a balance between the objectives of a signed contract and the dignity of the person."

Haiti's Prime Minister: 'We're Tired of Counting Deaths'

Jan. 4 (EIRNS)—In a Dec. 27 interview with the BBC, Haiti's Prime Minister Jean-Max Bellerive pointed to the criminal nature of the British-directed international "aid" apparatus, which has flooded his country with over 12,000 money-grubbing NGOs, the majority of which, have done nothing remotely connected to Haiti's needs as a sovereign nation.

Bellerive's interview occurred against the backdrop of a worsening cholera epidemic, which is producing a catastrophic death rate in rural areas. The contrast with what might have been, had Lyndon LaRouche's February 2010 call for the emergency mobilization of the Army Corps of Engineers to relocate Haiti's homeless and begin a real reconstruction program, is stark. More than 3,300 people have died from cholera, and 16,000 have been infected.

In response to the BBC reporter's insinuation that the Haitian government is responsible for the slow progress in rebuilding the country following the Jan. 12, 2010 earthquake, Bellerive replied that Haiti has only received 20% of what it should have received, after international donors pledged $500 billion over a three-year period. "We, as a government, don't receive the money. It goes to the NGOs," he said. "But then, we're accused of corruption!"

Look at the insane U.S. legislators who demand that humanitarian aid be cut off until Haitian politicians show they deserve it, the Prime Minister said. This is a form of "blackmail" against Haiti. And, in light of recent Presidential elections, whose results were questioned by opposition parties, he predicted that "some people will say, since we don't know who is [legitimately elected], let's go back to business as usual, and let's continue working with the NGOs."

What about sovereignty? Yes, we need the NGOs, he said. "But what I need is to have control over what they do in my country, where they do it, and with whom they are doing it, and at what cost." Noting that he's constantly asked why there are no "visible results" from donated money, he replied, "[I]t's very difficult to give an explanation for the use of money that I never see."

Goldman Sachs in Bed with the Empire's Fascist Ecologists

Jan. 10 (EIRNS)—It should surprise no one that Wall Street criminal Goldman Sachs, which founded London's crazy BRIC (Brazil-Russia-India-China) scheme, is in bed with some of the British Empire's fascist environmental groups, to ensure that, under the guise of "preserving nature," large tracts of land in South America are "protected" from economic development for the betterment of the citizens of those nations.

In both Chile and Argentina, Goldman has partnered with the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) and The Nature Conservancy to create national parks and wildlife preserves in the oil and mineral-rich Tierra del Fuego and Patagonian regions of these nations. This is supposedly to ensure that millions of acres can be handed down to future generations in their pristine state, untouched by such projects as hydroelectric plants, transportation, housing, agriculture, or development of the wealth of natural resources found in these regions.

To understand what's involved here, look at the origins of the WCS, which was founded in 1895 as the New York Zoological Society—later the Bronx Zoo. Its founder, Henry Fairfield Osborn, was curator of the American Museum of Natural History, whose racist outlook was shared by British agent Teddy Roosevelt. As President, "TR" locked up much of the western United States in national parks that could not be developed economically, and was one of the key figures involved in the Zoological Society's founding. In 1904, it was Bronx Zoo director William Hornaday who put African pygmy Ota Banga on display in a cage in the zoo's monkey house, as an example of Africa's "emblematic savages!"

It is this bestial conception of man that Goldman Sachs shares with WCS.

In 2004, the Goldman handed over 700,000 acres in Chile's Tierra del Fuego region to the WCS, after acquiring the land when it bought the distressed assets of a U.S. company. The WCS website notes that what is now Chile's Karukinka reserve "is a major accomplishment for the conservation of Patagonia as a whole," protecting it from exploitation of natural resources, commercial fishing, oil production or mining, livestock grazing and other human activity. Through public-private partnerships, the region will now be safe for such "sustainable" activities as eco-tourism, WCS brags.

In Argentina, WCS reports it has actively promoted the creation of parks and reserves since the 1960s, and has established several in the vastly underpopulated and mineral-rich Patagonia. The Nature Conservancy, whose current chief executive is Mark Tercek, former head of Goldman Sachs' Center for Environmental Markets, is also up to its ears in Argentina's Patagonia, where it boasts of preserving 40 million acres.

The Nature Conservancy's British pedigree is striking. It was established under a royal charter in 1949, becoming one of four official research bodies under the British Privy Council, which reports directly to the Queen. In the post-war period, the Conservancy became one of the most powerful of the Crown's covert operations, later spawning the World Wildlife Fund (WWF), among other groups.

With good reason, Argentine writer Jorge Orduna, author of the book Ecofascismo, concludes from his own investigation of these same groups, that their purpose is to depopulate all the "useless eaters" from the developing sector, to ultimately reduce the world's population down to 1 billion.