Argentine President Fernandez Intervenes

Hey Harlem NY dudes, not all Western and South American leaders are on LSD.  Look at what Pres. Fernandez of Argentine is up to.  In two separate speeches in Cannes, one to the official G-20 gathering and one to the "B-20" business forum, Argentine President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner delivered a useful attack on the global financial system's rampant speculative practices, and slammed the insane austerity measures now being imposed on Greece. She also highlighted the role that rating agencies had played in recent years, in creating the "fiction" that Greece was able to pay its debt, while "punishing" Argentina for not playing by their rules.




Other than backing for a financial transactions tax, provided that it be global in nature, she didn't propose specific solutions, but argued that there must be "regulation of those who provoked the problem in the first place."



Why are we trying to impose "adjustment" on countries, and control their spending, she asked, when the real source of the problem is the world financial system itself? Rather than trying to calm the markets, she added, we must address the needs of people, of real human beings, and create jobs and ensure consumption. Speaking to the B-20 forum, Fernandez called for a return to "serious capitalism" instead of the "anarchistic capitalism" which rules the world today. Today, financial markets are involved in commodities, but "tomorrow they'll be into oil...and maybe the next day, into the candy market, if they think they can make one more peso without working, without producting or investing, in order to perfectly speculate."



"Are we going to continue financing the brokers who only produce financial derivatives, or are we going to finance those who produce food, goods and services? This is key," the Argentine President said to the business gathering.



Fernandez said she knew full well where decisions on monetary policy are made. "I know who runs the world... but they don't offer clear and concrete solutions to the system of financial regulation if they only continue to focus on what each country spends, but don't control what each investment bank does, or each rating agency, or each movement of the stock markets." What have world leaders been doing, Fernandez asked. It has been three years, and the situation grows worse due to the failure to act. The only "medicine" offered is the "billions of dollars and euros injected into the financial system!"



The Argentine leader warned that there is not a lot of time left to make necessary changes. To the business conference, she warned that the situation is such that, should viable solutions not be put on the table, the world — and Europe in particular — could see the emergence of totalitarian governments, as populations begin to question democracy's fundamental principles. "I think there's still time, and a way to establish solutions, but they must be solutions that have to do with the regulation of those who provoked the problem" in the first place.