THIS WEEK YOU NEED TO KNOW
LaRouche Issues Pre-Conference Discussion Document
On July 21, Lyndon LaRouche sent the following message to subscribers, staff, and supporters of his political movement, introducing the document below for background discussion for the upcoming international conference of the Schiller Institute and the International Caucus of Labor Committees, to be held in Northern Virginia over the Labor Day weekend, Aug. 31-Sept. 1.
Click here for information on the conference.
LaRouche said: "During the past several weeks, the world has experienced an expected phase of the collapse of the present world monetary-financial system. The following addresses one of a set of strategically crucial topics, which will be addressed by me, among the arguments to be reported in my August 31st address. The elements reported here, are presented now, because they must also be leading themes of our organizing activity during the immediate month preceding that event."
THE BIG CRASH: SUBSTANCE & SHADOWS
by Lyndon H. LaRouche, Jr.
Monday, July 22, 2002
Although the financial collapse of the recent weeks to date has not completed its rounds, the sum-total of these weeks already represents an global, historical phase-shift. The appropriate Biblical image is not "Armageddon," but rather the ominous moment the triumphal laughter stopped, during Belshazzar's Feast.
With this ongoing global phase-shift which erupted a few weeks ago, the world has entered a turning-point in modern world history. We have now entered fully, into a collapse as ominous as that which struck President Herbert Hoover's U.S.A. in 1929-1933, but one which is worse, deeper, and far more ominous for mankind as a whole. From this point on, persisting efforts by leading nations to continue to adapt to the U.S.A. utopian strategic doctrines unleashed by Richard Nixon's 1966-1968 campaign for the U.S. Presidency, would push the world over the brink, into the global catastrophe waiting below.
I ask you to focus on the individuals who now believe, during recent days, that my forecasts were right, and their doubts were mistaken. For just a moment, put to one side the cases of those fellows who still refuse to face the reality of the present situation, even after the events of the recent three weeks. What is the problem you must now face, in dealing with most among those persons who now admit I was right?
Before bringing the actors on stage
The presently onrushing global collapse of the 1971-2002 monetary-financial system is not something which just happened; it is something which has been in the process of happening since President Nixon's wild-eyed monetarist's lunacy of August 15-16, 1971. My warnings to this effect were circulated in print, and other ways, first in the U.S.A., and, then, around the world, increasingly, from the early 1970s onward.
Merely drop my name in any meeting of politically active persons, not only in the Americas and Europe, but around much of other parts of the world. The mere mention of my name is sufficient to electrify the room, even to break up the meeting. Wherever that reaction to even the mere mention of my name occurred, during the recent decades, the existence of my long-range forecasts was a crucial issue of the crowd's reaction. Moreover, during those thirty-five odd years, every published long-range forecast of mine has been correct; no other known economist world-wide can match that professional success.
Look back, for example, to my year 2000 campaign for the Democratic Party's U.S. Presidential nomination. I warned that certain developments during the period of my campaign would promptly unleash a process leading toward a collapse of the "new economy" bubble in such areas as the spill-over of a collapse of the Dulles beltway into Loudoun County, Virginia. By March 2001, what I forecast a year earlier was hitting Loudoun and its vicinity hard. The Winstar fantasy is now last year's laughing-stock. The impact of the bankruptcy of WorldCom on the Loudoun County area's real-estate bubble is about to become awesome.
The presently onrushing collapse of the global monetary-financial system, is not an event which I "predicted." It was something which was already happening as I spoke. What I forecast, referenced a new phase of the folly which was being added to those phases I had reported as in process earlier. In this universe, it is impossible to make any competent forecast unless the development being forecast was already in process. Competent forecasters never predict events dropping out nowhere; they report actually existing processes of development which, if continued, will lead to certain included, notably relevant types of events.
A good forecast is a report on the current state of a system. In a relatively simplistic sort of explanation of this point, we might say that any successful theorem in Euclidean geometry, can be forecast on the basis of knowing the system based upon the set of definitions, axioms, and postulates which defines that geometry as a system, which, therefore, defines the unfolding development of that type of geometry as a knowable process. My work in economics has a far more challenging complexity than any classroom geometry, but the proper notion of forecasting can be defined similarly for both cases.
In other words, my forecasting has always been premised on both a rejection of all "ivory tower" teachings about economics. The consistent success of my forecasting, in contrast to the expressed opinions of all of my putative rivals, is that their failure is caused by their reliance upon "ivory tower" doctrinal assumptions, whereas my forecasts are derived from study of the existing systemic characteristics of the political-economy in question (e.g., only adolescent mothers are likely to have daughters who are younger than one of that mother's grandsons).
Therefore, when that fellow who is wearing egg on his face today, said, a few Clinton years back, that my forecast collapse of the "new economy" would not occur, he was not doubting the occurrence of a future event, he was refusing to accept the reality, that that future event was already an inevitable price to be paid if society insisting on continuing certain developments already in progress back then. ("Stop driving when you are roaring drunk," for example.)
Now, let the play begin. Bring that fellow on stage. What is passing through his mind right now?
Two Typical Mistakes
Jack may have been pretending to know that my forecast was wrong, or, instead of saying that outright, he was resorting to conventional methods of lying, as a way of avoiding having to make an apparently rational form of argument. "Sorry, I have to catch a bus," is one typical lie. Another typical lie, "I know all about your man; my ex-mother-in-law's nephew is an expert on LaRouche." Whereas, the passerby walking the invisible straight line down the sidewalk, might have given away the condition of his mind at that moment, moving his hand in an uncertain gesture, "I gave at the office."
Henry was different. He gave you an argument. He was trying to give the appearance of proving that you were wrong. However, that was a show. What Henry was really doing, was defending his fantasy; he had to believe you were wrong, but if he did not, that would have spoiled his illusory faith in the repertoire which he thought might work for him over coming weeks and years.
Earl would have explained Henry's attitude more honestly. "Look. It's a lousy world, but I have to live in it. So, I will just going on seeing the world as I wish to believe it works. So, as far as I am concerned, you just have to be wrong."
Then, there was Mabel, whose face turned white as she said, "If my husband knew I was talking to you...!" and, with that, scurried away, leaving the truculent kibbitzer to put in, "As far as I am concerned, Alan Greenspan's my man, and you guys are nuts."
People are often like that, aren't they? They might say that that is what "makes the world go round," and there is no point in telling them that Kepler and I disagree with that statement.
Behind all those diverse objections, there is a commonly underlying madness to their method. Their minds dwell in a "buggered-up" world, quite literally. The usual arguments against the possibility of what actually happened these past several weeks, are based on the crazy religious beliefs of a medieval religious cult which English tradition refers to as "the buggers," the superstition otherwise known as the "Cathars." Typical "buggers" appear in religious teachings like those of New York banker Aaron Burr's grandfather, the charlatan Jonathan Edwards, or Rev. "Diamond" Pat Robertson. The same "buggered-up" religious ideas turn up in college economics textbooks and classrooms disguised by phrases such as "free trade" and "supply and demand."
The Cathar argues, as Jonathan Edwards did, that there are the equivalent of little green men operating from under the floorboards of the universe. Some call them "god," as Jonathan Edwards did; some call that god "statistics." The assumption is, that if a fellow can get on the good side of those little green men, they will fix the roll of the dice to grace that fellow with riches and happiness, while the rest of humanity will have to lear to put up with bad luck. Sometimes that is called religion. Sometimes it's called "statistics." Sometimes it takes the form recognized as a mental disorder we recognize as gambling for money, either on the stock market, in mutual funds, or a back-alley crap-shoot.
At that turn in the situation, a second problem commands our attention.
As during 1929-32, people are now coming to recognize that their faith in Wall Street's little green men was a mistake. At that point, we are faced with the fact, that getting people to give up belief in Wall Street's version of buggery, is not enough to solve the problem. You will wonder, what could be passing through their minds, now?! Once they agree that the past thirty-five years changes in U.S. economic policy have been a bummer, you might think that they will make the obvious step: Forget the system that did not work, and return to the one that did, return "To the house that FDR built." About that time, you will begin to hear weird objections to FDR. Weird populist schemes, usually centered around magical systems of money, are mixed with wild nonsense about FDR and his reforms.
The common mistake, in the effort to deal with the types of problems I have described, is to attempt to play the part of either "Miss Marple" or "Bozo the Clown." Impotent Miss Marple tries to "explain things nicely," whereas "Bozo" prefers Dubya's "Do as I ask you nicely, or I may have to kill you." There is a third choice: leadership. Don't lure or prod people; lead them as I do. After all, the record of my forecasting is, that I have been leading people in a better direction for more than thirty-five years, and no known forecasting has been able to match that.
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