Larry Summers was Karen Hudes' neighbor, children attended 'school' together & evidently his memory has holes in ITS' brain

Credit Ratings, NATO and Democracy: Too Big for Transparency?

by Karen Hudes

The World Bank and its next door neighbor, the International Monetary Fund (IMF), stand at the crossroads of the international financial system.  Both organizations are referred to as the “Bretton Woods” institutions, named for the site in New Hampshire where the founding conference of 44 countries was held in 1944.  The Bretton Woods institutions were created to prevent the “beggar thy neighbor” policies responsible for World Wars I and II.

The World Bank’s membership has now grown to 188 countries.  The World Bank and IMF share a Board of Governors comprising the Ministers of Finance of member countries.  They each have resident Boards of 24 Directors; seven Directors are appointed by 7 countries with the largest economies and 17 Directors are appointed by groups or “constituencies” of the remaining member countries.

Because of its crucial role at the heart of the world’s financial system, problems at the World Bank are going to have consequences for the world’s financial system.  I know “up close and personal” because I served as Senior Counsel for the World Bank for 21 years.  My qualifications included a J.D. from Yale Law School and M.Phil. in economics from the University of Amsterdam.  I know the institution inside and out.  And I have been blowing the whistle on improper practices at the World Bank that threaten the world’s fiscal integrity.

Reporting Corruption up the Chain of Command

 

I worked in the Legal Department of the World Bank from 1986-2007.  But in 2007, I was fired in retaliation for reporting corruption at the Bretton Woods institutions up the chain of command at the World Bank, through the US Treasury Department, and to the US Congress.

My report was quite specific, namely:  that the World Bank is out of compliance with the law, because its financial statements to the holders of its $135 billion in bonds, which are denominated in 52 currencies, are not in accord with Generally Acceptable Accounting Principles and Auditing Standards.

I never imagined how intractable the corruption at the World Bank was. A reliable stakeholder analysis, based on game theory modeling, shows that failure to adhere to the rule of law by the World Bank will bring about a world-wide currency war that will make what we lived through in 2008 pale by comparison.  The stakeholder analysis began predicting success in bringing the World Bank into compliance after the European Parliament invited me to testify on May 25, 2011. My testimony included a chronology of the cover-up. President Kim has already prompted Germany to repatriate the equivalent of $36 billion in gold.  As I told Sen. Harry Reid in 2008, “the greatest security risk to the US is in alienating its partners by acting as a hegemon”.

The Failure of Press Coverage

 

One reason it is so difficult to end the corrupt regime at the World Bank is because there has been virtually no press coverage.  It is possible to conclude from this that democracy in the United States has been weakened by the reduction in the number of corporations who own the bulk of US media outlets (from 50 to 5 in less than twenty years.)  Barclays Bank, JPMorgan Chase & Co, The Goldman Sachs Group along with a few others use interlocking corporate ownership to control 40 percent of total wealth and 60 percent of global revenues.

This concentration of power rests on disproportionate corporate investments of one percent of all corporations.  Theorists at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich, using natural systems mathematical modeling and comprehensive data on the actual corporate ownership of 43,000 transnational corporations, discovered this concentration of power.  When questions are raised about “who controls the world”, this one percent looks like a very promising candidate. The crux of the matter is that the corporations control the mass media and, through the mass media, control the politicians.

Although there have been occasional articles about these issues, where some of my commentaries about them have appeared in print, for the most part, interest in these questions from the public has been few and far between, where recent interviews with Deanna Spingola and with Jim Fetzer, who are alternative media radio hosts, have been the exception. Here are some links to our recent interviews:

http://www.veteranstoday.com/2013/03/27/the-world-bank-rejecting-the-rule-of-law/

http://kahudes.net/

http://www.gregpalast.com/larry-summers-goldman-sacked/

Then, at another meeting, Summers said it again:  What would Goldman think?A shocked Stiglitz, then Chairman of the President's Council of Economic Advisors, told me he'd turned to Summers, and asked if Summers thought it appropriate to decide US economic policy based on "what Goldman thought."  As opposed to say, the facts, or say, the needs of the American public, you know, all that stuff that we heard in Cabinet meetings on The West Wing.

This Morning’s Must-Watch: Larry Summers on the Danger of a Japan-Like Generation of Secular Stagnation Here in the North Atlantic By Brad DeLong | November 16, 2013,

http://equitablegrowth.org/2013/11/16/759/this-mornings-must-watch-larry-summers-on-the-danger-of-a-japan-like-generation-of-secular-stagnation-here-in-the-north-atlantic

  

[SIDEBAR:  The tragedy is Americans are really and truly, via 'media/news/information', deprived.  Therefore, too ignorant in a majority, to realize what is actually going on.  This is definitely a crime.  When does the crime/s get solved?  This is the real question and, according to Karen Hudes Americans are owed a lot of money.  I concur.  It is obvious the Federal Reserve System was and is a cabal of foreign investors that used/use, the United States as a gambling casino.  Blacks and Indians, Irish, Women, Et Al, slaves now can discuss reality?  'White' people of America, who get what has happened?  The Fed must get the money back to the American people, now.  Then we can see the recovery, that should not have had to happen - should the honor in Article I, Section IX, Clause VII, U.S. Constitution, be.]