Jean-Claude Trichet

Who is he: Jean-Claude Trichet 2003 has been the president of the European Central Bank (ECB) since 1993, and is also on the Board of Directors of the Bank for International Settlements (BIS) – the central bank of central banks.

Jean-Claude Trichet, like any prudent public servant, has chosen to focus on difficulties in the financial markets that cannot be attributed to the ECB. What is evidently and obviously apparent, however, is that central banks around the world, and especially in America, have contributed to the weakness and near ruin of the financial system.

For Trichet, like other central bankers (power elite servants), the problems have more to do with an under-valuation of risk by large financial institutions than the consistently low rates that central banks have offered throughout the world for years.

These low rates combined with inflationary money printing are the real culprits behind the world's current financial problems. Unfortunately, they persist. Meanwhile, central bankers such as Jean-Claude Trichet call for more transparency within the banking system and less short-term emphasis on profits.

The idea that the private sector, such as it is, is responsible for the breakdown of the world's financial system is simply not credible. The institutions that print the money, set the rates and demand certain monetary ratios for bank lending are the central banks and the BIS.

Unfortunately, the Anglo-American elites that stand behind the institution of central banking will not tolerate nor enunciate the truth. Thus the world, via the elite-dominated mainstream media, is left with a false diagnosis. If the world's financial system can be classified as a kind of sickness, Trichet and those like him should surely be seen as its enablers.

Background: Jean-Claude Trichet was born in 1942 in Lyon, France, and attended the École des Mines de Nancy.  Trichet then attended the Institut d'études politiques de Paris and finished his education at the École nationale d'administration (1971). These latter two institutions of French higher education were focused on sociopolitical and public policy issues.

Trichet held numerous civil service jobs and then in 1987 joined David Rockefeller's prominent Group of Thirty. In 1993, Jean-Claude Trichet became governor of Banque de France and then, in 2003, Trichet became president of the European Central Bank. In 2008, Trichet received the Vision for Europe Award for working toward further European integration.

In January 2003, Trichet went on trial with others over problems at the big French bank Crédit Lyonnais. Jean-Claude Trichet was declared innocent and subsequently joined the ECB where he as presided over a tumultuous time for the EU, including the 2008 financial crisis, which dragged on throughout the decade and into the next one.

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