News & Analysis
The BRICS Take Over
New alliance poised to emerge from the rubble of America's collapsed empire ... The alliance of Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa, also known as BRICS, has been watching the death throes of the American empire and is reacting by creating the groundwork for a post-American global construct. Following the recent BRICS summit on Hainan island in China, Brazilian Finance Minister Guido Mantega told the International Monetary Fund in Washington that the United States and other western countries were attempting to "export their way out of difficult economic situations" by printing money and driving down interest rates – which is the core principle of quantitative easing. It was clear that Mantega was speaking for the other BRICS nations in warning Washington that business as usual is approaching an end. – Strategic Culture Foundation Online Journal / Wayne Madsen
Dominant Social Theme: In the coming brave, new world, the US shall be diminished and a new order shall dawn.
Free-Market Analysis: The BRICS received a lot of attention for their recent summit on Hainan island and now famous alternative media reporter Wayne Madsen has penned an article that suggests the BRICS are going to take over as a new world power and give the United States a good deal of competition. Madsen refers to the group as the BRICS to include South Africa, so we will too, though traditionally the acronym has been BRIC, for Brazil, Russia, India and China.
While Madsen is a courageous writer and a topnotch independent, "alternative media" analyst with a US intelligence background, we don't necessarily agree with his entire analysis and in this article we will try to explain why. The idea that the world is built of competing nation states and regions is increasingly a suspect one so far as we are concerned. In fact it is a kind of dominant social theme: that the West and especially the US are in decline and the larger countries of the developing world are in the ascension.
No ... with the possible exception of China and a few Muslim countries, the Anglo-American power elite still runs the world in the 21st century as it did in the 20th in our view. It is a fact that the big banking families funded the Red Russians against the White to create the USSR. And there are various reports that we have read in the past that Western financial elites were favorably disposed to the Red Chinese.
Western elites, in their centuries' long campaign to tame, control and diminish Western middle classes have always needed to establish enemies. Without enemies there is no need for large governments and even larger armies. And without big governments, there are no legislative levers for elites to pull – giving them advantages that others cannot enjoy.
In our view, the latest countervailing force is also a manipulated one. In fact, this BRICS group of large countries was actually pulled together via an acronym created by a Goldman Sachs' banker. Madsen, nonetheless, finds the story convincing. He writes that while the American empire is faltering, the BRICS are becoming more solvent and formidable. America, Madsen suggests in his article, is trying to preserve its foundering empire through military means. It is engaged in "military adventurism" around the world, from Central America, to the Middle East and of course in Afghanistan.
But America is more like Rome in its last days, Madsen suggests like Rome, the US is engaged in a desperate attempt to secure its overseas borders, an effort that is ultimately doomed to failure. The US's aggressive program of monetary debasement in order to resuscitate its internal economy is also doomed to failure. The result has not benefitted the US economy very much but has increased unemployment and price inflation elsewhere, especially among the BRICS.
At the summit, Madsen reports, Brazilian Finance Minister Guido Mantega let U.S. Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner and IMF chief Dominique Strauss-Khan know that nations like Brazil would not be dictated to. "Such rhetoric will become more commonplace as the BRICS nations assert their power and peel other countries away from Washington's economic and political orbit," he writes.
And Madsen reports that the IMF itself came in for pointed criticism from South African Trade Minister Rod Davies who lambasted the agency for the way it went about "rescuing" economies on the brink, with privatizations, higher taxes and lower public spending that usually proves both ineffective and punitive. The results can be seen these days mostly in Europe where the IMF's so-called austerity has led to violent civil unrest in Europe's PIGS.
Madsen even forecasts that the sway of the IMF and Word Bank may be coming to an end as the sun sets on British and American hegemony. He believes that countries such as Brazil are about to step up and act as a "counterweight to the IMF-linked G-8 and G-20, which have operated under the virtual tutelage of the Western central bankers and the governments of the United States, Canada, France, Britain, Germany, and Japan."
The BRICS countries, Madsen reports, agreed to use their own currencies for trading purposes rather than the dollar, which has been increasingly diminished by Federal Reserve overprinting via its so-called quantitative stimuli. "The message ... the era of an elite group of Western tycoons dictating international economic policy is going to soon be a thing of the past."
Madsen ends his article with some projections. He claims the BRICS nations, which, by 2015, will represent 43 per cent of the world's population and 23 per cent of the world's gross domestic product, are flexing their economic and political weight. The BRICS will eventually peel away from NATO he predicts, possibly taking Germany with them. "A neutralist Germany would see an alignment with the BRICS bloc as an advantageous step for Germany's economy, especially if the euro collapses and there is a return of the Deutsche mark." Turkey is another powerful state that might cast its lot with the BRICS.
Such a multi-polar world will greatly diminish the power of the current Anglo-American power elite axis and put an end to Western world hegemony. This is indeed a most persuasive case, but as indicated at the beginning of this article we are suspicious of it. We write regularly of the setbacks that Western money power is undergoing in the era of the Internet, but we have also speculated that some of it is for show. We are not so sure that the BRICS are going to provide legitimate competition to Western powers-that-be any time soon. We would tend to see it more or less as a controlled opposition.
When it comes to the BRICS, we see a series of countries that have either been dominated in the past by the Anglosphere or which currently have close ties to the West. Brazil is obviously within the sphere of influence of America and Russia is but a shadow of what she once was as the military-powerful USSR. India is a former protectorate of Britain as is China. The British also ran South Africa after several bloody wars.
All five BRICS, then, have had very close ties to the Western world. We would argue (hypothetically) that for public consumption a show of independence is necessary. But because of a long history of colonialism and other relationships, the ties between the BRICS leadership and Western leaders may yet run deep. In fact, the more independent role that the BRICS are now taking may suit the Anglo-America elites just fine, as would a new currency.
Even the US Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner has expressed the willingness of the US to support a more globalized currency that would diminish the importance of the dollar. Of course the currency that is being readied to take the place of the dollar is none other than the IMF's SDR, perhaps upgraded to "bancor" status.
The main way that Anglosphere elites are controlling the world these days is via military might. But who knows what the relationships are like right at the top? The combination of military power and money power is a potent one. We have a feeling that projecting a multi-polar world engaged in active pushback against the West is perhaps too neat a paradigm. We see it as leading inevitably to more globalization not less. It will seem inevitable, of course, and part of a multi-polar rivalry.
The BRICS will continually confront the US in particular with more and more international actions. The Anglo-American elites will not be seen as responsible for what is rising around them. But in the end the infrastructure will expand nonetheless. We can already see much of it: the UN, The Hague Courts, the WHO and NATO. These are the facilities that the BRICS will use to confront Western powers-that-be.
Those even within the West that are uncomfortable with a uni-polar world will support the BRICS aggressive use of the tools at hand to restrain the Western goliath. But ironically, the result will be ever-strengthened global institutions. The biggest uni-polar political power of all will be built under the pretense of confronting the West. Yet it is the West that has built the modern economic and political infrastructure and its significant strengthening will in no way inconvenience the Anglosphere.
Conclusion: Ultimately perhaps the BRICS will build the New World Order that the Anglosphere seeks. But once it is fully constructed, it will become clear who runs it. And it won't be the BRICS. One might surely believe in Madsen's perspective (a dedicated and even brilliant investigative reporter) but we would argue that it does no harm to observe international events from the point of view we have just offered. One needn't be wedded to any approach – just wait and see ...
l 
|
You must be a site member to submit suggested edits or post feedback. In addition to submitting edit suggestions and posting feedback, your Free Membership to The Daily Bell gives you access to our Member Zone where you will discover a plethora of other member benefits. Want to learn more? click here |
|||||
|
|
||||
 |
Posted by JC78 on 04/21/11 05:39 PM
I've been enjoying your compelling and well-researched articles for some time now. At first, two per day was a bit overwhelming amidst all my other "news emails", and I would only read a few per week, but more and more I'm finding the Daily Bell at or near the top of my "must-read" list!
You have such a wealth of great articles now, you should streamline your website to better facilitate searching, by category, for example (forgive me if I'm just overlooking such a function somewhere). Also, I would LOVE to see an iPad app of some kind. Put some good competition out to Murdoch's rag "The Daily". :-)
Reply from The Daily Bell
Thanks for the kinds words and for reading.
|
Posted by Axis on 04/21/11 10:26 AM
This is a global financial coup
(Click to view link so I would agree with the idea that the BRICs' competition would be more for show than anything.
Great piece. Thanks for posting it.
|
Posted by R Hart on 04/21/11 07:02 AM
"Madsen even forecasts that the sway of the IMF and Word Bank may be coming to an end as the sun sets on British and American hegemony".
Sunset? Believe me, from over here it feels like midnight already.
RH UK
Reply from The Daily Bell
Not for the City of London though, only for you and others who are presumably not operating within the ambit of trillion-dollar banking families.
|
Posted by Erikviking on 04/20/11 05:33 AM
lends credence to this article
IMF-ing the World. I am F-ing the world..? LOL
Click to view link
Change? dont count on it.
|
Posted by Gavin on 04/20/11 05:24 AM
The Phoenix in the picture at the top of this article reminded me of the same on the back of the Japanese Y10,000 bill. Suitable for the ashes of Fukushima.
Click to view link
|
Posted by Cat Writer on 04/20/11 03:46 AM
@DB
Proposed candidates for Huns (and other 'barbarian' groups):
Latin Americans--the whole mess reminds me of the relationship between Germans, Slavs and the Romans. The Germans especially tried to imitate Rome at all levels, especially with the Third Reich. They experienced the authoritarian Rome, never knew the free Rome a thousand years before. The same is true of the Latin Americans. See Carroll Quigley's work Tragedy and Hope.
Muslims and other Asians--Clearly outsiders. Islam provides a rather easy-to-understand system of personal and social discipline. This is its unique selling proposition and thus has gained much ground. Islam has previously fostered civilizations in its own right while the ancestors of Americans and the Power Elite were grunting around in caves. It has a long history of respecting other faiths, especially Judaism, compared to Christianity.
Finally another candidate for the Hun role would be the Americans themselves. The nation is definitely one of barbarians, albeit and currently mostly passive-aggressive. We can only look to the gangs of and in America with many members entering military service, considering such service as continuing professional education.
I favor this group, simply because it is very difficult to amass an invasion force to sail across oceans and take over half a continent. If I were an invader, I would want to take over productivity. What do Americans make besides trouble and debt? There are better things to do with my resources, like creating productivity at home.
Therefore, with the increasing social illness spreading like a radioactive cloud from the USA, I would favor that nation simply imploding and destroying itself from within, unless other people are threatened or harmed from the action. The rest of the planet can just watch or better, go about their own business.
Reply from The Daily Bell
We are getting so many answers to a rhetorical question! But very thought-provoking ones ...
|
Posted by Gavin on 04/20/11 01:58 AM
The elves are the top guns. I'll settle for a job as ground crew though, as long as it comes with a flash pair of pointy shoes.
|
Posted by Gavin on 04/20/11 01:31 AM
@Mountainview
"Look at the Chinese-Russian trade (oil and gas from Russia for consumer goods from China) is already cleared in Renminbi and Rouble... No US Dollars no SDR... The Anglo-American elite is left alone.. A sign or a trend?"
A sign? Playing the devil's advocate; assuming all the BRIC leaders are in cahoots with the Anglo-American PE could it be that they are now trading in their own currencies because...
The PE want to reenforce the death of the dollar and the BRICs trading in roubles/renminbi would hasten this. It would also be a way for the Russian/Chinese elite to look good to their own peoples and hedge their bets by keeping their own economies growing and as stable as possible. It's also probably a good way to help stave off problems at home caused through economic problems etc.
Perhaps one reason China or Russia are not selling their US treasuries at this time is because timing is crucial to the demise of the dollar and ultimately the world economy. Keep spinning it out till they are ready to pull the plug?
Lastly, maybe the BRICs are not currently trading in SDRs because it's a Western creation and, ostensibly, they have to play the sovereign nations that they still are and can't rush into things. It would be too obvious. The SDR/single currency will come later when there is 'no choice' and the solution will be that we have to come together as one to save the world economy from collapse?
Looking at that sentence from the Telegraph again...
"Were the yuan and possibly the ruble to be included, the BRICs say, then the SDR could ultimately replace the dollar."
Problem, reaction, solution? I'm probably way off track but there you are.
Reply from The Daily Bell
Very good. You are promoted to meme-watcher "top gun."
 |
Posted by Reader on 04/20/11 01:24 AM
@DB "Ha, who are the Huns?"
That would be us... the Muslims. :/
|
Posted by Bob on 04/20/11 01:00 AM
The BRICS association has just one thing in common: they all suffer from the Anglo-American PE and the US$ as the reserve currency. Otherwise, all these countries have different geopolitical interests and agendas.
Consequently, the BRICS association is so loosely organized that they are not presently (if ever) capable of developing any cohesive course of action. Furthermore,
- China and Russia are in a state of internal crises. It is not clear that Russia as a state will be around 5-7 years from now. China is also at a very pivotal junction of choosing their future. I would expect that, during of an upcoming Russian disintegration, China is preparing itself to get a piece of Russia.
- India, Brazil, and S. Africa (in my humble opinion) are too much preoccupied with their own internal affairs.
Finally, I am not a specialist on EU, however, there is no doubts that America is in a deep economic and demographic crisis resulting in a very deep polarization of the entire American society and wide society unrests.
The bottom-line: the present geopolitical situation is too fluid to predict a future with any degree of certainty.
|
Posted by PB on 04/20/11 12:50 AM
I agree with DB's assessment in regards to Madsen. All major countries listed in the article, with the exception of Brazil, are printing fiat currency like it's going out of style.
Click to view link
This includes China. Even if China is manufacturing more than the US, any country that actively participates in wild currency, will fall into the single denomination world currency trap, only I don't believe it to be a trap but intentionally setup. Silver @ 43 and gold at one point reached 1500. Things are going to get really interesting in the next 20 months.
|
Posted by MetaCynic on 04/19/11 11:37 PM
The BRICS challenge to the Anglosphere can be taken seriously when they adopt a gold backed currency. Better yet would be the emergence of competing private currencies following the repeal of their legal tender laws. That would not only be a change in which we can believe in, it would also spawn new places where the world's risk takers will scramble to invest.
Absent such a seismic paradigm shift, the BRICS's distracting heaving and grunting will produce only a new arrangement of the deck chairs while the Power Elite quietly fill the life boats and sneak away.
|
Posted by Erik Viking on 04/19/11 10:21 PM
I commend you on an excellent analysis of the brics-bats. Thank you. I mean these elites don't just diminish because of the fall of the USD or Euro. They have their roots from the money-changing tables and BRICS will just be another brick in their wall. Excellent conclusion, 'staff writer' " whomever he/she is.
 |
Posted by Wayne on 04/19/11 09:44 PM
@WorkingClass
"I dunno DB. I just can't bring myself to believe that the Rothschilds or the Banking Cartel or the Anglo American power elites are omnipotent and eternal. They may have been calling the shots for a very long time but unless they are divine they are not eternal. In this world things change. We call it history.
Your power elites have millions upon millions of enemies all over the globe. They are doomed. This earth is not a "thing" to be owned. Humans who would be gods are on a fools errand."
They don't have to own the world as such. All they have to do is get you to pay them for the privilege of letting you live in this globe.
And when you must pay me to live, I control your world. They have always ruled the people they can kill, and that is most of the world.
Call it tithes, taxes, fees, or any other label you can think of.
You pay, or you die! It's just been one long unending line of thugs using different names to shear their sheep.
|
Posted by Wayne on 04/19/11 08:40 PM
@DB
"Ha, who are the Huns?"
Good question. and the answer depends on your definitions, or perhaps I should say the definitions "they" taught us. Remember, those who control the language control your mind! But this is another subject.
As to the "Huns"
You may have the answer right in front of you.
Ask who has the courage to tell the PE to kiss off?
Iceland has already done so, and now Finland may have thrown down the gauntlet. Remember that Old Norse is still spoken in Iceland.
And the the Gaelic are also in their bloodline.
The PE would definitely call these "Huns"
Click to view link
And this group's concert just sold out Madison Square Garden
Click to view link
There is an undercurrent now that the MSM is definitely ignoring, and for good reason. The young people have nothing to lose, and they have to fight for their freedom, and they know it.
Pain is in the forecast for the Western World, and I think this is overdue, but I believe in taking care of business when a problem first arises. Now this has gone so far that only extreme measures can work!
 |
Posted by William3 on 04/19/11 07:57 PM
I share DB's skepticism of Madsen's thesis.
Every one of the BRICS is a relative newby in international economics and finance. The West has been at it for several centuries, quite often exploiting resources of those very same BRICS. It's doubtful the BRICS are anywhere near ready to take on the Western banking, political and military establishment, even as a group.
The BRICS' bravado likely could not happen without tacit approval from the Power Elite. This action could be one of several to distract people from focusing on the real economic issues of the West's biggest players, the US and Europe.
I think the largest initial loser of the BRICS' ascension would be the US. The present world reserve currency would be read its last rites as they emerge on stage. This would perhaps set the stage for a the UN/IMF/World Bank to emerge as world leader to replace the US.
BUT, can the BRICS and the rest of the world or the PE for that matter, really survive a collapse of the US economy? How can the PE police the world without a well-funded US military? Ah... the questions never end...
|
Posted by Wayne on 04/19/11 06:21 PM
@S S Mcdonald
"...But America is more like Rome in its last days, Madsen suggests like Rome, the US is engaged in a desperate attempt to secure its overseas borders..." Madsen should read up on his history; Rome imploded from its moral decline. It imploded from beastiality, perversion, murder of its young (abortion), Roman citizen's I-got-mine / me-first attitude, a treasury that gave away more than it took in, and a decimation of its military. On reflection, Madsen is right, America today is just like the end of Rome."
This is funny. Yep. We have Panem et Circenses. see link
Click to view link
And Caligula is in the White House. Right on schedule.
Guess what the future looks like?
Reply from The Daily Bell
Ha, who are the Huns?
|
Posted by Wayne on 04/19/11 05:48 PM
@Bill Ross
"I further argue that this is elites girding their loins to achieve "meet the new boss, same as the old boss", yet another false illusion of "change we can BELIEVE in" to suck on the false hope of the governed so they tolerate being slaves for just a bit longer in the false hope that some new "leader" will save their sorry and irresponsible (for their OWN survival) asses.
Meanwhile, our servitude and inability to survive because of the costs of elite predations deepens. We are now at the point that we, collectively are eating our seed corn. This cannot go on. Once the slaves can no longer survive by servitude, Plan B becomes an unavoidable neccessity.
REAL consequences are being determined by the grim reaper of "Mathematics of Rule". On present course, our collective fate is inevitable:
Click to View Link
Ever since (and perhaps before) Manhattan was purchased with valueless trinkets, elites have known that the most profitable trades are illusions and false hopes for REAL goods and services. There is a sucker born every minute. PT Barnum."
It's sometime depressing to realize that they always go for the sucker bait. Many people criticize George Soros, but he said it this way, "there are no real trends". There is only the appearance of wealth to be had, and then then the realization that it's not true. Fear and Greed is all that exists. So you get in when the herd first notices "their chance" and scurries about to find a way to get aboard the "gravy train". And then you sell out before reality drops on their heads.
"REAL consequences are being determined by the grim reaper of "Mathematics of Rule". On present course, our collective fate is inevitable:
Click to View Link"
This is the truth they are all hiding from. The bill for their behavior is coming due, and they can't pay it. So their behavior will become even more delusional. The collective is incapable of correcting it's survival threatening behavior. Only individuals can make rational course corrections. Selective Adaptation strikes again!
Just the facts!
|
Posted by Shorty Dawkins on 04/19/11 05:17 PM
@Lbeards
"could someone please name some of the current rothschild family members,mainly for my enlightenment? thanks!"
Do a search for Baron Rothschild. There is a Baron Rothschild in England, Another in Austria (Baron de Rothschild)
There are branches of the family in Germany, France, Austria, England, Italy and also in the US. They are all over the place. They own vast numbers of businesses all over the world.
Shorty Dawkins
|
Posted by Anonymous Economist on 04/19/11 02:26 PM
Don't lose sight of the treaty that India, China and Russia closed, setting up their ability to clear international settlements and accounts between them in gold. I believe it was 1997 or 1999 when they signed the treaty between them.
|
|
