Larry Summers and the Secret "End-Game" Memo - By Greg Palast

[kpete]

Last edited Thu Aug 22, 2013, 06:15 PM - Edit history (1)

Larry Summers
and the Secret "End-Game" Memo

Thursday, August 22, 2013
By Greg Palast for Vice Magazine


When a little birdie dropped the End Game memo through my window, its content was so explosive, so sick and plain evil, I just couldn't believe it.

The Memo http://www.gregpalast.com//vulturespicnic/pages/filecabinet/chapter12/Geithner_Summers%20Memo.pdf confirmed every conspiracy freak's fantasy: that in the late 1990s, the top US Treasury officials secretly conspired with a small cabal of banker big-shots to rip apart financial regulation across the planet. When you see 26.3% unemployment in Spain, desperation and hunger in Greece, riots in Indonesia and Detroit in bankruptcy, go back to this End Game memo, the genesis of the blood and tears.


The Treasury official playing the bankers' secret End Game was Larry Summers. Today, Summers is Barack Obama's leading choice for Chairman of the US Federal Reserve, the world's central bank. If the confidential memo is authentic, then Summers shouldn't be serving on the Fed, he should be serving hard time in some dungeon reserved for the criminally insane of the finance world.

The memo is authentic.

http://www.gregpalast.com/larry-summers-and-the-secret-end-game-memo/

To get that confirmation, I would have to fly to Geneva and wangle a meeting with the Secretary General of the World Trade Organization, Pascal Lamy. I did. Lamy, the Generalissimo of Globalization, told me,

"The WTO was not created as some dark cabal of multinationals secretly cooking plots against the people…. We don't have cigar-smoking, rich, crazy bankers negotiating."

Then I showed him the memo.


It begins with Summers’ flunky, Timothy Geithner, reminding his boss to call the then most powerful CEOs on the planet and get them to order their lobbyist armies to march:

"As we enter the end-game of the WTO financial services negotiations, I believe it would be a good idea for you to touch base with the CEOs…."

To avoid Summers having to call his office to get the phone numbers (which, under US law, would have to appear on public logs), Geithner listed their private lines. And here they are:

Goldman Sachs: John Corzine [phone]
Merrill Lynch: David Kamanski [phone]
Bank of America, David Coulter [phone]
Citibank: John Reed [phone]
Chase Manhattan: Walter Shipley [phone]

Lamy was right: They don't smoke cigars. Go ahead and dial them. I did, and sure enough, got a cheery personal hello from Reed–cheery until I revealed I wasn't Larry Summers. (Note: The other numbers were swiftly disconnected. And Corzine can't be reached while he faces criminal charges.)

It's not the little cabal of confabs held by Summers and the banksters that's so troubling. The horror is in the purpose of the "end game" itself.

more:
http://www.gregpalast.com/larry-summers-and-the-secret-end-game-memo/

[snappyturtle]

1. This was posted earlier but I'm K&Ring for exposure...hope everyone

has time to read this. It explains the banking crisis...it was
planned! imho

[Fire Walk With Me]

2. Every single DUer and their family and friends need to see this and understand it. We must fight

back and take back our country, our planet.

[Berlum]

3. "You smelly proles need to STFU. There's massive MoneyBuck profits to be made." L. Summers

[librechik]

4. K&R!

[HangOnKids]

5. K&R

Palast nails it with this:

"After all, every evil starts with one bite of an apple offered by a snake. The apple: The gleaming piles of lucre hidden in the FSA for local elites. The snake was named Larry."

[ohheckyeah]

6. I have the utmost respect for Palast....

but I have to admit, I don't understand economics enough to get exactly what is and has been going on with the WTO.

[questionseverything]

16. worthless loans bundled =derivatives

The year was 1997. US Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin was pushing hard to de-regulate banks. That required, first, repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act to dismantle the barrier between commercial banks and investment banks. It was like replacing bank vaults with roulette wheels.

Second, the banks wanted the right to play a new high-risk game: "derivatives trading." JP Morgan alone would soon carry $88 trillion of these pseudo-securities on its books as "assets."

Deputy Treasury Secretary Summers (soon to replace Rubin as Secretary) body-blocked any attempt to control derivatives.

But what was the use of turning US banks into derivatives casinos if money would flee to nations with safer banking laws?

The answer conceived by the Big Bank Five: eliminate controls on banks in every nation on the planet – in one single move. It was as brilliant as it was insanely dangerous.

How could they pull off this mad caper? The bankers' and Summers' game was to use the Financial Services Agreement, an abstruse and benign addendum to the international trade agreements policed by the World Trade Organization.

Until the bankers began their play, the WTO agreements dealt simply with trade in goods–that is, my cars for your bananas. The new rules ginned-up by Summers and the banks would force all nations to accept trade in "bads" – toxic assets like financial derivatives.

[Guy Whitey Corngood]

7. Why would any sane person seek the advice or input from this fucking assclown Summers? That is

truly beyond comprehension.

[bvar22]

8. The Banking Crisis, Extortion Scam, and Bailout WAS Planned....

...right down to the perfect timing during the Change Over from Republican to Democratic Administrations, giving BOTH the Republicans & the Democrats "Plausible Deniability".

[font size=4]Paulson with Co-Conspirators

[font color=white]...................[/font]Now THIS is Bi-Partisanship!!![/font]

The coordinated Media Blitz Marketing of the DISASTER & CHAOS that would surely follow if we if we didn't immediately "hand over the CASH,
No Questions & No Strings Attached" was a thing of beauty,
if you can admire a well planned heist.

The BIGGEST Extortion Scam EVER,
but still just a $TRILLION DOLLAR BONUS$ to these guys.
They want it ALL, and they are Getting it.

The REAL goal is THIS:

50% of Working Americans NOW make less than $27,000/Yr.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10023308914

Right now, forty percent of Americans make less than the minimum wage from 1968.
http://pac.petitions.moveon.org/sign/raise-the-minimum-wage-19/?source=search


Daily CEO Pay Now Exceeds the Average Worker's Annual Salary –
http://thecontributor.com/daily-ceo-pay-now-exceeds-us-workers-annual-salary




76% of Americans are living paycheck-to-paycheck
http://money.cnn.com/2013/06/24/pf/emergency-savings/index.html


New Rule (Passed by Congress and signed by President Obama) signals Kiss of Death for Pensions
http://www.cnbc.com/id/100694955


Corporate Profits Have Grown By 171 Percent Under Obama -- Highest Rate Since 1900
http://www.alternet.org/news-amp-politics/corporate-profits-have-grown-171-percent-under-obama-highest-rate-1900

Wealthy win lion's share of major tax breaks
http://www.boston.com/business/news/2013/05/29/wealthy-win-lion-share-major-tax-breaks/Ua0UyYle21EUXub7g1suCI/story.html

Half of America is in poverty, and its creeping toward 75%
http://www.alternet.org/economy/real-numbers-half-america-poverty-and-its-creeping-toward-75-0

Wealth gap widens as labor's share of income falls
http://www.nbcnews.com/business/wealth-gap-widens-labors-share-income-falls-1B6097385

As the Economy Recovers, the Wealth Gap Widens
http://www.usnews.com/news/blogs/rick-newman/2013/03/11/as-the-economy-recovers-the-wealth-gap-widens

Top One Percent Captured 121 Percent Of All Income Gains
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/02/12/top-one-percent-income-gains_n_2670455.html

Corporate Profits Hit Record High While Worker Wages Hit Record Low
http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2012/12/03/1270541/corporate-profits-wages-record/?mobile=nc

These things ^ do NOT happen by accident.
They take careful planning, preparation, marketing, buying the right politicians, message control, courts packed with Conservative Corporate Rights Judges, and the marginalization and suppression of Opposition and Whistle Blowers.




You will know them by their [font size=3]WORKS.[/font]

[Fire Walk With Me]

9. Bravo! Should be its own thread! n/t

[WillyT]

10. HUGE K & R !!! - Thank You !!!

[Martin Eden]

11. GREED this excessive is Financial NIHILIISM

... and the Perpetrators are still at the helm

[rhett o rick]

12. I hope the anti-CT posse recognizes that there are conspiracies. This is a conspiracy

that should be taken very seriously.

The tyranny train has left the station.

As far as Pres Obama, he either cant stop the train or decided to jump aboard.

[ChangeUp106]

13. It's just scary

I'm not a conspiracy guy (maybe JFK...) but we all knew this type of thing was happening and then to get this plus Obama pushing for Summers as Fed Chair...To see it playing out in real life is scary.

[Wilms]

14. ^

[JDPriestly]

15. Puts new meaning to the words, "I got this."

[Aerows]

17. Who is shocked by this?

Every 7 years we have a meltdown. Review the prior one (before the mortgage bubble), the dot.com bubble. We have a new one brewing. Who wants to guess what the new bubble is going to be?

I don't know. I just look at high dollar industries, and who profits when they get severely shorted. I think a few defense contractors will probably fall. Maybe a tech giant or two that is over valued. A whole lot of small fish under those will crash, too, though.