Re: <nettime> Follow the money...Dirty money

[ernie yacub <yacinfo@mars.ark.com>]

On Friday 10 May 2002 21:10, you wrote:
> One of the ways that so much unaccountability happens in society is that
> money has no history... we never know what we are inadvertently supporting
> by passing along particular currency.

The article below describes "dirty" money, but even "clean" money sucks and 
corrupts.  It is a deliberately scarce commodity that, by it's very nature, 
exploits people and resources (nature) until both are exhausted.  People will 
do anything to get money, especially when desperate.  It is the fuel that 
feeds the corporate machine.

Fortunately, there is a solution - free money - as in free speech, not free 
beer.  A different kind of money - created by us as a medium of exchange, 
sufficient to our needs - . www.openmoney.org

ernie yacub
ey@openmoney.org

"Dirty Money" Foundation of US Growth and Empire

Size and Scope of Money Laundering by US Banksby James Petras 
Professor of Sociology, Binghamton University
La Jornada, Mexico, 19th May 2001 
Posted at globalresearch.ca 29 August 2001

[...]

In other words, an incomplete figure of dirty money (laundered criminal and 
corrupt money) flowing into U.S. coffers during the 1990s amounted to $3-$5.5 
trillion. This is not the complete picture but it gives us a basis to 
estimate the significance of the "dirty money factor" in evaluating the U.S. 
economy. In the first place, it is clear that the combined laundered and 
dirty money flows cover part of the U.S. deficit in its balance of 
merchandise trade which ranges in the hundreds of billions annually. As it 
stands, the U.S. trade deficit is close to $300 billion. Without the "dirty 
money" the U.S. economy external accounts would be totally unsustainable, 
living standards would plummet, the dollar would weaken, the available 
investment and loan capital would shrink and Washington would not be able to 
sustain its global empire. And the importance of laundered money is forecast 
to increase. Former private banker Antonio Geraldi, in testimony before the 
Senate Subcommittee projects significant growth in U.S. bank laundering. "The 
forecasters also predict the amounts laundered in the trillions of dollars 
and growing disproportionately to legitimate funds." The $500 billion of 
criminal and dirty money flowing into and through the major U.S. banks far 
exceeds the net revenues of all the IT companies in the U.S., not to speak of 
their profits. These yearly inflows surpass all the net transfers by the 
major U.S. oil producers, military industries and airplane manufacturers. The 
biggest U.S. banks, particularly Citibank, derive a high percentage of their 
banking profits from serving these criminal and dirty money accounts. The big 
U.S. banks and key institutions sustain U.S. global power via their money 
laundering and managing of illegally obtained overseas funds.

U.S. Banks and The Dirty Money Empire

Washington and the mass media have portrayed the U.S. as being in the 
forefront of the struggle against narco trafficking, drug laundering and 
political corruption: the image is of clean white hands fighting dirty money. 
The truth is exactly the opposite. U.S. banks have developed a highly 
elaborate set of policies for transferring illicit funds to the U.S., 
investing those funds in legitimate businesses or U.S. government bonds and 
legitimating them.....
http://globalresearch.ca/articles/PET108A.html

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