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#153.Sceptics, Further Discussion.

This article From Ellen Brown in Truth Dig puts the Chinese and US Trade war into a context, of the Japanese Crisis in 1997 ( For a full history of that Prof Richard Werenrs Film, Princes of the Yen is Essential Reading ( The Book, and the Film based upon the Book)

Neoliberalism Has Met Its Match in China

State-guided capitalism provided for the general welfare without destroying capitalist incentive. Engdahl wrote:

The Tiger economies were a major embarrassment to the IMF free-market model. Their very success in blending private enterprise with a strong state economic role was a threat to the IMF free-market agenda. So long as the Tigers appeared to succeed with a model based on a strong state role, the former communist states and others could argue against taking the extreme IMF course. In east Asia during the 1980s, economic growth rates of 7-8 per cent per year, rising social security, universal education and a high worker productivity were all backed by state guidance and planning, albeit in a market economy — an Asian form of benevolent paternalism.

Just as the U.S. had engaged in a Cold War to destroy the Soviet communist model, so Western financial interests set out to destroy this emerging Asian threat. It was defused when Western neoliberal economists persuaded Japan and the Asian Tigers to adopt a free-market system and open their economies and companies to foreign investors. Western speculators then took down the vulnerable countries one by one in the “Asian crisis” of 1997-8. China alone was left as an economic threat to the Western neoliberal model, and it is this existential threat that is the target of the trade and currency wars today.

For a Longer View of the Neo-Liberal Ordo Liberal and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dirigisme
Then the Review of; Globalists: The End of Empire and the Birth of Neoliberalism by Quinn Slobodian, by Alexander Zevin
https://www.lrb.co.uk/v41/n16/alexander-zevin/every-penny-a-vote

Gives a Geo-Political view from the Fall of the Austro Hungarian Empire and Messrs Von Mises’, Von Hayeck’s and Schumpeter’s influences across the Jockeying for position in the Great Game of Monopoly Finance Capitalism.
“Neoliberalism is often conceived as a system of self-regulating markets, shrunken states and crudely rational individuals. Early neoliberals, however, didn’t believe in markets’ self-correcting properties. Instead, as Quinn Slobodian argues in Globalists: The End of Empire and the Birth of Neoliberalism, they were concerned above all with establishing governments, laws and institutions in which markets could be embedded in order to make them work as they should – not only at a national but at a global level.”

Mises saw himself as the ‘economic conscience’ of a civilisation on the verge of collapse. He recommended corporate tax cuts, balanced budgets, the violent repression of unions and the cutting of wages, which had risen as a result of the war and had to be reduced ‘far below their prewar level’ to restore competitiveness to Austrian industry on the world market. As finance minister, Joseph Schumpeter, his brilliant and erratic classmate at the University of Vienna, wanted to tackle inflation with a capital levy, which shocked Mises. When the socialist foreign minister, Otto Bauer, another former classmate, put forward a plan for limited state takeovers, Mises tried to sink it by arguing that central planning could never be implemented. Without markets to set prices, he said, there could be no efficient allocation of resources, no tallying of gains and losses; socialist management, he wrote later, would be ‘like a man forced to spend his life blindfolded’.

It is an often-quoted Aphorism, “Give me control of a Nations Money and I care not who makes its Laws”. The underlying battle here is for Democracy itself, which even at its best is a rather threadbare suit of emperors new clothes masking the Various Brands of Wage Slavery on offer under various Central Banking regimes.

Finally, the French Referendum of 1969 and De Gaulles resignation should be brought to mind

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_constitutional_referendum,_1969

Recognition of the People’s Republic of China
In January 1964, France was, after the UK, among the first of the major Western powers to open diplomatic relations with the People’s Republic of China (PRC), which was established in 1949 and which was isolated on the international scene.[214] By recognizing Mao Zedong’s government, de Gaulle signaled to both Washington and Moscow that France intended to deploy an independent foreign policy.[214] The move was criticized in the United States as it seemed to seriously damage US policy of containment in Asia.[214] De Gaulle justified this action by “the weight of evidence and reason”, considering that China’s demographic weight and geographic extent put it in a position to have a global leading role.[214] De Gaulle also used this opportunity to arouse rivalry between the USSR and China, a policy that was followed several years later by Henry Kissinger’s “triangular diplomacy” which also aimed to create a Sino-Soviet split.[214]

France established diplomatic relations with the People’s Republic of China – the first step towards formal recognition without first severing links with the Republic of China (Taiwan), led by Chiang Kai-shek. Hitherto the PRC had insisted that all nations abide by a “one China” condition, and at first it was unclear how the matter would be settled.[215] However, the agreement to exchange ambassadors was subject to a delay of three months, and in February, Chiang Kai-shek resolved the problem by cutting off diplomatic relations with France.[216] Eight years later, US President Richard Nixon visited the PRC and began normalising relations—a policy which was confirmed in the Shanghai Communiqué of 28 February 1972.[217]

As part of a European tour, Nixon visited France in 1969.[218] He and de Gaulle both shared the same non-Wilsonian approach to world affairs, believing in nations and their relative strengths, rather than in ideologies, international organisations, or multilateral agreements. De Gaulle is famously known for calling the UN the pejorative “le Machin”[219] (“the thingamajig”).

Reform Yes Shit in Bed No.
May 1968
Main article: May 1968 in France
De Gaulle’s government was criticized within France, particularly for its heavy-handed style. While the written press and elections were free, and private stations such as Europe 1 were able to broadcast in French from abroad, the state’s ORTF had a monopoly on television and radio. This monopoly meant that the government was in a position to directly influence broadcast news. In many respects, Gaullist France was conservative, Catholic, and there were few women in high-level political posts (in May 1968, the government’s ministers were 100% male).[248] Many factors contributed to a general weariness of sections of the public, particularly the student youth, which led to the events of May 1968.

The mass demonstrations and strikes in France in May 1968 severely challenged De Gaulle’s legitimacy. He and other government leaders feared that the country was on the brink of revolution or civil war. On 29 May, De Gaulle disappeared without notifying Prime Minister Pompidou or anyone else in the government, stunning the country. He fled to Baden-Baden in Germany to meet with General Massu, then head of the French military there, to discuss possible army intervention against the protesters. De Gaulle returned to France after being assured of the military’s support, in return for which De Gaulle agreed to amnesty for the 1961 coup plotters and OAS members.[249][250]

In a private meeting discussing the students’ and workers’ demands for direct participation in business and government he coined the phrase “La réforme oui, la chienlit non”, which can be politely translated as ‘reform yes, masquerade/chaos no.’ It was a vernacular scatological pun meaning ‘chie-en-lit, no’ (shit-in-bed, no). The term is now common parlance in French political commentary, used both critically and ironically referring back to de Gaulle.[251]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dirigisme

Dirigisme or dirigism (from French diriger, meaning ‘to direct’) is an economic doctrine in which the state plays a strong directive role, as opposed to a merely regulatory role, over a capitalist market economy.[1] As an economic doctrine, dirigisme is the opposite to laissez-faire, stressing a positive role for state intervention in curbing productive inefficiencies and market failures. Dirigiste policies often include indicative planning, state-directed investment, and the use of market instruments (taxes and subsidies).

Embedded energy in the circular economy is the key to building a monetary system that people as citizens and not as slaves can believe in. So its three impossible things before breakfast or the truth?

“America’s exorbitant privilege“

US dollar crisis[edit]

In the Bretton Woods system put in place in 1944, US dollars were convertible to gold. In France, it was called “America’s exorbitant privilege“^[221] as it resulted in an “asymmetric financial system” where foreigners “see themselves supporting American living standards and subsidizing American multinationals”. As American economist Barry Eichengreen summarized: “It costs only a few cents for the Bureau of Engraving and Printing to produce a $100 bill, but other countries had to pony up $100 of actual goods in order to obtain one”.^[221] In February 1965 President Charles de Gaulle announced his intention to exchange its US dollar reserves for gold at the official exchange rate. He sent the French Navy across the Atlantic to pick up the French reserve of gold and was followed by several countries. As it resulted in considerably reducing US gold stock and US economic influence, it led US President Richard Nixon to unilaterally end the convertibility of the dollar to gold on 15 August 1971 (the “Nixon Shock“). This was meant to be a temporary measure but the dollar became permanently a floating fiat money and in October 1976, the US government officially changed the definition of the dollar; references to gold were removed from statutes.^[222][223]

https://notthegrubstreetjournal.com/2019/02/23/redefining-fiscal-conservatism-the-terra-energy-based-fiscal-unit-fores-and-lagom-white-paper-boundary-conditions-for-a-fiscal-conservatism-based-upon-circular-economics-part-one-scope-2/