4. THE GREAT DEPRESSION AND ILLUMINISM
5. MENTAL ILLNESS AND ABORTION
6. Dalai Lama threatens to stand down over violence as China calls him a liar
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Catholics recognize that when Pope Benedict XVI comes to our country he does so as the successor of St. Peter. As Peter was chosen to be the head of the first Apostles and chief shepherd of the newly born Church, so Pope Benedict is the head of the Apostolic College, that is, the head of all the bishops throughout the world who are in communion with him. As such, he is also the chief shepherd and supreme pastor of the entire Church.
When Jesus asked his disciples who they thought he was, it was Peter who responded without any hesitancy. He clearly professed: “You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God.” In turn, Jesus did not hesitate to tell Peter: “Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah. For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my heavenly Father.” Notice that Jesus first tells Peter that he is “blessed.” Peter is blessed because he knows the truth of who Jesus is as the anointed Son of God. Moreover, this blessing did not come from some human source but by revelation directly from Jesus’ heavenly Father. It was the Father himself, through the Holy Spirit, who revealed to Peter that Jesus was his eternal Son. It is precisely because of this divine revelation and Peter’s profession of it that Jesus continued to say to him: “And so I say to you, you are Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church, and the gates of the netherworld shall not prevail against it” (Matthew 16:16-18). It is upon the rock of Peter’s profession (his name means “rock”) that Jesus will build his Church. It is the truth of who Jesus is, as the Son of God, and the truth of his Gospel that is the rock-solid foundation of the Church itself. Nothing or no one, not even the devil himself, will ever succeed in distorting or falsifying the truth Jesus’ Gospel as professed by Peter.
As the successor of St. Peter, Benedict is today’s rock upon which the truth of the Church’s profession of faith is assured. Benedict, as did Peter, stands ever ready to profess and guard the Gospel of truth. Thus, the Pope, together with the bishops in union with him, is the guarantor that what we believe and profess as Catholics is the truth of Jesus Christ – his Gospel of life and salvation. We can confidently proclaim with Peter and the Apostles and all Catholics throughout the centuries that Jesus is indeed truly the Son of God. He became man and died for our sins and rose that we might have eternal life.
We can be assured that through baptism we have received the divine life of the Holy Spirit and have become members of the Body of Christ, the Church, and thus we are sons and daughters of the Father. Without doubt we know, in faith, that our sins are forgiven in the Sacrament of Reconciliation and that Jesus is truly and really present in the Eucharist. Our assurance in all that we believe is founded upon the essential truth that as the Father, through Holy Spirit, revealed to Peter the truth of who Jesus is and the Gospel that he proclaimed, so the Father continues to reveal to his successors, through the same Holy Spirit, the truth of Jesus Christ and his Gospel.
In this we, as Catholics, can rejoice and be glad. As the successor of St. Peter, Pope Benedict still proclaims and guards the Gospel of truth and so we are assured that we live the truth of the Gospel of Jesus Christ through divine life of the Holy Spirit.
Father Thomas G. Weinandy, O.F.M., Cap.
Executive Director for the Secretariat for Doctrine
USCCB
Frà Matthew Festing Elected Grand Master
http://www.orderofmalta.org.uk/news.htm
Rome, 11 March 2008
Frà Matthew Festing, 58, an Englishman, becomes the 79th Grand Master of the Sovereign Military Hospitaller Order of St John of Jerusalem of Rhodes and of Malta, elected this morning by the Council Complete of State (the Order’s electoral body). In accepting the role, the new Grand Master swore his Oath before the Cardinal Patronus of the Order, Cardinal Pio Laghi, and the electoral body. He succeeds Frà Andrew Bertie, 78th Grand Master (1988-2008), who died on 7 February.
The new Grand Master affirms his resolve to continue the great work carried out by his predecessor. Frà Matthew comes with a wide range of experience in Order affairs. He has been the Grand Prior of England since the Priory’s re-establishment in 1993, restored after an abeyance of 450 years. In this capacity, he has led missions of humanitarian aid to Kosovo, Serbia and Croatia after the recent disturbances in those countries, and with a large delegation from Britain he attends the Order’s annual pilgrimage to Lourdes with handicapped pilgrims.
Educated at Ampleforth and St. John’s College Cambridge, where he read history, Frà Matthew, an art expert, has for most of his professional life worked at an international art auction house. As a child he lived in Egypt and Singapore, where his father, Field Marshal Sir Francis Festing, Chief of the Imperial General Staff, had earlier postings. His mother was a member of the recusant Riddells of Swinburne Castle who suffered for their faith in penal times. He is also descended from Sir Adrian Fortescue, a knight of Malta, who was martyred in 1539.
Frà Matthew served in the Grenadier Guards and holds the rank of colonel in the Territorial Army. He was appointed OBE (Officer of the Order of the British Empire) by the Queen and has served as her Deputy Lieutenant in the county of Northumberland for a number of years.
In 1977 Frà Matthew became a member of the Order of Malta, taking solemn religious vows in 1991.
As well as his passion for the decorative arts and for history, for which his encyclopaedic knowledge of the history of the Order is legendary, as is his very British sense of humour, Frà Matthew spends any free time possible in his beloved Northumberland countryside.
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By the summer of 1942, King George had already awarded Malta the George Cross for the bravery of its civilians.
But military planners knew Malta would be forced to surrender if fuel, grain and ammunition did not get through before the end of August.
Operation Pedestal would involve 14 merchant vessels guarded by 64 warships, almost more than the current Royal Navy has in active service.
Britain had improved the odds slightly with a number of successful runs by aircraft carriers to deliver more air support to Malta.
But waiting to greet the flotilla were Italian and German air forces based in Sardinia and Sicily, and u-boats prowling the depths. On 10 August 1942, the convoy passed the Straits of Gibraltar in three groups.
Within 24 hours disaster had struck when a u-boat slipped around four destroyers to torpedo HMS Eagle, one of the three aircraft carriers in the formation.
Within six minutes she sank, taking 160 men and a large part of the air defences with her.
Many of the attacks were against the SS Ohio, an American oil tanker essential to the mission’s success.
Ohio was torpedoed on 12 August and then caught by two more bombs the following day.
Although crippled, she did not immediately sink, giving the forces one last chance to bring her in. HMS Ledbury, working with other warships, came alongside.
Through a combination of trial, error and sheer determination, the ships succeeded in propping up the Ohio and towing her into port before she could be hit again.
As the Ohio was dragged into Valletta Grand Harbour, the sailors were greeted by scenes of jubilation on the medieval battlements around the capital. Malta knew it had been saved.
Within months, the Axis powers had effectively given up trying to take Malta and the way was open for the Allies to go on the offensive.
‘Pedestal made a difference’
Peter Smith, author of the definitive book on Operation Pedestal, said that the mission’s importance could not be underestimated.
“It was one of the small number of operations of the Second World War where you can say, without a doubt, that it alone made a difference,” said Mr Smith.
“You have to look at Pedestal from the point of view of what might have happened if they had not succeeded.
“If Malta had fallen, the first impact would have been that General Rommel in north Africa would have been able to ship in supplies.
“He may have taken the Suez canal and opened the route for Hitler to the oil fields.
The whole nature of the war would have changed. “Malta was a lynchpin. After Pedestal’s success, the taking of Sicily was easy by comparison.”
Mr Smith said that the bravery of the servicemen involved had been a key part of the success.
“At all times the axis powers were just minutes away from Malta. The Royal Navy and merchantmen had to come thousands of miles and then run through submarines, bomber lines and then mine fields.
“But it was the determination that got them through, determination from the likes of Capt Roger Hill of the Ledbury and his men who refused to let the Ohio sink.
“I don’t think we can imagine what it would have been like out there.
“Yet all these men who survived are very modest. If I did half of what they did in Pedestal, I would be a very proud man.”
SANTA MARIA CONVOY
”Blessed Virgin Mary: Enmity and War” (c) USA 2008
In 1942, during one single month, in an attempt to stem out the attacks on their supply lines to Africa, the Luftwaffe dropped 6,500,000 Kilos of bombs upon the Maltese Islands. If the Maltese Islands were to serve as a British base, food supplies were badly needed for the survival of the starving population. On August 15, 1942, the American Texaco Tanker ‘Ohio’ entered the port of Malta, the event was seen as a grace obtained by Our Lady and the starvation on the Islands was averted. ‘Operation Pedestal’ referred to by the Maltese as ‘Il-Convoy ta Santa Maria’ or ‘Saint Mary’s Convoy,’ initially consisted of two battleships, four aircraft carriers, seven cruisers, sixteen destroyers, and fourteen Merchant ships. By the time this convoy reached the Islands of Malta, off Southern Sicily, fifteen ships were destroyed; many were damaged and left for Gibraltar. Into the Maltese port entered the Tanker SS-Ohio, HMS Penn, HMS Ledbury, HMS Branham, MV Melbourne Star, MV Brisbane Star, Aircraft Carrier Furious, MV Port Chalmers and MV Rochester Castle. The SS-Ohio was towed into port; the convoy brought fifty-five tonnes of supplies, including ammunition and aviation oil. The significance and success of this Allied mission was greater than initially observed. Apart from restocking the garrison of Malta and disrupting the usual supply lines to Africa, the spitfire fighters from the aircraft carrier ‘Furious,’ were transferred onto the Island. These planes were instrumental at blocking Axis supplies to Africa before the second Battle of El Alamein (October 23 – November 3, 1942) which success was a turning point for the Allied forces in the Western Desert Campaign. During the first centuries of Christianity, November 3, was one of the calendar dates reserved for the commemoration of Saint George of Lydda, (Georgian writer George Zosimo also indicates April 23 and November 23 as dedicated to this saint). On September 19, 1946, the SS-Ohio was towed ten miles from shore and sunk by gunfire, Captain Dudley Mason of the Ohio was later awarded the George Cross. So was Malta awarded the George Cross, which is proudly incorporated within the Maltese flag.
On December 7, 1943, President D. Roosevelt in Malta commemorated the second anniversary of the entry in the war of the American People: “In the name of the people of the United States of America I salute the Island of Malta, its People and defenders, who in the cause of freedom and justice and decency throughout the world have rendered valorous services far above and beyond the call of duty. Under repeated fire from the skies, Malta stood alone but unafraid in the center of the sea, one tiny bright flame in the darkness, a beacon of hope for the clearer days which have come. Malta’s bright story of human fortitude and courage will be read by posterity with wonder and gratitude throughout all the ages. What was done in this Island maintains all highest traditions of gallant men and women who from the beginning of time have lived and died to preserve civilization for all mankind.”(5) The following day on December 8, 1943, the Feast commemorating the Immaculate Conception was celebrated throughout the Christian world. A votive procession of the Icon of Our Lady of Carafa was organized in Malta; the procession exited Saint John’s Co-Cathedral in Valletta and passed through the city streets. The Archbishop and Bishop of Malta solemnly read the Act of Consecration by His Holiness Pope Pius XII (October 30, 1942). The telegrams exchanged between the Vatican and the Maltese Curia read as follows: “Cardinal Maglione – Vatican City – Occasion Consecration of Malta and Gozo Immaculate Heart Mary we beg assure HH filial devotion Clergy and Laity two Dioceses fervent prayers His August Person and Peace He desires – Archbishop Caruana, Bishop Gonzi.” The reply, “Archbishop Caruana – Malta – Holy Father acknowledging kind message paternally blesses Pastors Clergy Faithful Dioceses Malta and Gozo – Cardinal Maglione.”(6)
In August the Federal Reserve begins to tighten the money supply. On 24th October the big New York bankers call in their 24 hour broker call loans. This means both the stockbrokers and their customers have to dump their stocks on the stock market to cover their loans, irrespective of what price they have to sell them for. As a result, the stock market crashes on a day that will go down in history as “Black Thursday.”
In his book, The Great Crash 1929, John Kenneth Gailbraith makes the following shocking statement, “At the height of the selling frenzy Bernard Baruch brought Winston Churchill into the visitors gallery of the New York Stock Exchange to witness the panic and impress him with his power over the wild events on the floor.”
Republican Congressman Louis T McFadden is as usual, quite candid as to who is responsible; he states of this crash, “It was not accidental. It was a carefully contrived occurrence…The international bankers sought to bring about a condition of despair here so that they might emerge as rulers of us all.”
Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s son-in-law, Curtis B. Dall, is working for Lehmann Brothers as a broker on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange on the day of the crash. In his 1967 book, F. D. R. My Exploited Father-In-Law, he states, “Actually, it was the calculated ’shearing’ of the public by the World-Money powers triggered by the planned sudden shortage of call money in the New York Money Market.”
Despite the claims of how the Federal Reserve would protect the country against depressions and inflation, they continue to further contract the money supply. Between 1929 and 1933, they reduce the money supply by an additional 33%. Even Milton Friedman, the Nobel Peace Prize winning economist will make the following statement in a radio interview in January 1996, “The Federal Reserve definitely caused the Great Depression by contracting the amount of currency in circulation by one-third from 1929 to 1933.”
In only a few weeks from the day of the crash, $3 billion vanishes; within a year, $40 billion of wealth. However, it does not simply disappear, it just ends up consolidated in fewer and fewer hands. An example of this is Joseph P. Kennedy, John F. Kennedy’s father. In 1929 he is worth $4 million, in 1935 that had increased to over $100 million.
Germany, who is dependent upon foreign trade and American loans is also sent into a severe depression. The German government begins to unravel as Hitler and his German/US industrialist and capitalist backers see the perfect opportunity for capturing the attention of the German people and safeguarding (if not maximizing) profits. Millions of American dollars are spent on rebuilding Germany from damage sustained during WWI. Louis T. McFadden states the following in relation to this, “After World War I, Germany fell into the hands of the German International Bankers. Those bankers bought her and now they own her, lock, stock, and barrel. They have purchased her industries, they have mortgages on her soil, they control her production, they control all her public utilities.
The international German bankers have subsidized the present Government of Germany and they have also supplied every dollar of the money Adolph Hitler has used in his lavish campaign to build up a threat to the government of Bruening. When Bruening fails to obey the orders of the German International Bankers, Hitler is brought forth to scare the Germans into submission…
Through the Federal Reserve Board over 30 billion of dollars of American money…has been pumped into Germany…You have all heard of the spending that has taken place in Germany…modernistic dwellings, her great planetariums, her gymnasiums, her swimming pools, her fine public highways, her perfect factories. All this was done on our money. All this was given to Germany through the Federal Reserve Board. The Federal Reserve Board…has pumped so many billions of dollars into Germany that they dare not name the total.”
The money pumped into Germany to build her up in preparation for World War II goes into the Thyssen banks, which are affiliated with the Bushes and Harrimans in New York.
by Eustace Mullins
CHAPTER TWELVE
R.G. Hawtrey, the English economist, said, in the March, 1926 American Economic Review:
“When external investment outstrips the supply of general savings the investment market must carry the excess with money borrowed from the banks. A remedy is control of credit by a rise in bank rate.”
The Federal Reserve Board applied this control of credit, but not in 1926, nor as a remedial measure. It was not applied until 1929, and then the rate was raised as a punitive measure, to freeze out everybody but the big trusts.
Professor Cassel, in the Quarterly Journal of Economics, August 1928, wrote that:
“The fact that a central bank fails to raise its bank rate in accordance with the actual situation of the capital market very much increases the strength of the cyclical movement of trade, with all its pernicious effects on social economy. A rational regulation of the bank rate lies in our hands, and may be accomplished only if we perceive its importance and decide to go in for such a policy. With a bank rate regulated on these lines the conditions for the development of trade cycles would be radically altered, and indeed, our familiar trade cycles would be a thing of the past.”
This is the most authoritative premise yet made relating that our business depressions are artificially precipitated. The occurrence of the Panic of 1907, the Agricultural Depression of 1920, and the Great Depression of 1929, all three in good crop years and in periods of national prosperity, suggests that premise is not guesswork. Lord Maynard Keynes pointed out that most theories of the business cycle failed to relate their analysis adequately to the money mechanism. Any survey or study of a depression which failed to list such factors as gold movements and pressures on foreign exchange would be worthless, yet American economists have always dodged this issue.
The League of Nations had achieved its goal of getting the nations of Europe back on the gold standard by 1928, but three-fourths of the world’s gold was in France and the United States. The problem was how to get that gold to countries which needed it as a basis for money and credit. The answer was action by the Federal Reserve System.
Following the secret meeting of the Federal Reserve Board and the heads of the foreign central banks in 1927, the Federal Reserve Banks in a few months doubled their holdings of Government securities and acceptances, which resulted in the exportation of five hundred million dollars in gold in that year. The System’s market activities forced the rates of call money down on the Stock Exchange, and forced gold out of the country. Foreigners also took this opportunity to purchase heavily in Government securities because of the low call money rate.
“The agreement between the Bank of England and the Washington Federal Reserve authorities many months ago was that we would force the export of 725 million of gold by reducing the bank rates here, thus helping the stabilization of France and Europe and putting France on a gold basis.”89 (April 20, 1928)
On February 6, 1929, Mr. Montagu Norman, Governor of the Bank of England, came to Washington and had a conference with Andrew Mellon, Secretary of the Treasury. Immediately after that mysterious visit, the Federal Reserve Board abruptly changed its policy and pursued a high discount rate policy, abandoning the cheap money policy which it had inaugurated in 1927 after Mr. Norman’s other visit. The stock market crash and the deflation of the American people’s financial structure was scheduled to take place in March. To get the ball rolling, Paul Warburg gave the official warning to the traders to get out of the market. In his annual report to the stockholders of his International Acceptance Bank, in March, 1929, Mr. Warburg said:
“If the orgies of unrestrained speculation are permitted to spread, the ultimate collapse is certain not only to affect the speculators themselves, but to bring about a general depression involving the entire country.”
During three years of “unrestrained speculation”, Mr. Warburg had not seen fit to make any remarks about the condition of the Stock Exchange. A friendly organ, The New York Times, not only gave the report two columns on its editorial page, but editorially commented on the wisdom and profundity of Mr. Warburg’s observations. Mr. Warburg’s concern was genuine, for the stock market bubble had gone much farther than it had been intended to go, and the bankers feared the consequences if the people realized what was going on. When this report in The New York Times started a sudden wave of selling on the Exchange, the bankers grew panicky, and it was decided to ease the market somewhat. Accordingly, Warburg’s National City Bank rushed twenty-five million dollars in cash to the call money market, and postponed the day of the crash.
The revelation of the Federal Reserve Board’s final decision to trigger the Crash of 1929 appears, amazingly enough, in The New York Times. On April 20, 1929, the Times headlined, “Federal Advisory Council Mystery Meeting in Washington. Resolutions were adopted by the council and transmitted to the board, but their purpose was closely guarded. An atmosphere of deep mystery was thrown about the proceedings both by the board and the council. Every effort was made to guard the proceedings of this extraordinary session. Evasive replies were given to newspaper correspondents.”
Only the innermost council of “The London Connection” knew that it had been decided at this “mystery meeting” to bring down the curtain on the greatest speculative boom in American history. Those in the know began to sell off all speculative stocks and put their money in government bonds. Those who were not privy to this secret information, and they included some of the wealthiest men in America, continued to hold their speculative stocks and lost everything they had.
In FDR, My Exploited Father-in-Law, Col. Curtis B. Dall, who was a broker on Wall Street at that time, writes of the Crash, “Actually it was the calculated ’shearing’ of the public by the World Money-Powers, triggered by the planned sudden shortage of the supply of call money in the New York money market.”90 Overnight, the Federal Reserve System had raised the call rate to twenty percent. Unable to meet this rate, the speculators’ only alternative was to jump out of windows.
The New York Federal Reserve Bank rate, which dictated the national interest rate, went to six percent on November 1, 1929. After the investors had been bankrupted, it dropped to one and one-half percent on May 8, 1931. Congressman Wright Patman in “A Primer On Money”, says that the money supply decreased by eight billion dollars from 1929 to 1933, causing 11,630 banks of the total of 26,401 in the United States to go bankrupt and close their doors.
The Federal Reserve Board had already warned the stockholders of the Federal Reserve Banks to get out of the Market, on February 6, 1929, but it had not bothered to say anything to the rest of the people. Nobody knew what was going on except the Wall Street bankers who were running the show. Gold movements were completely unreliable. The Quarterly Journal of Economics noted that:
“The question has been raised, not only in this country, but in several European countries, as to whether customs statistics record with accuracy the movements of precious metals, and, when investigation has been made, confidence in such figures has been weakened rather than strengthened. Any movement between France and England, for instance, should be recorded in each country, but such comparison shows an average yearly discrepancy of fifty million francs for France and eighty-five million francs for England. These enormous discrepancies are not accounted for.”
The Right Honorable Reginald McKenna stated that:
“Study of the relations between changes in gold stock and movement in price levels shows what should be very obvious, but is by no means recognized, that the gold standard is in no sense automatic in operation. The gold standard can be, and is, usefully managed and controlled for the benefit of a small group of international traders.”
In August 1929, the Federal Reserve Board raised the rate to six percent. The Bank of England in the next month raised its rate from five and one-half percent to six and one-half percent. Dr. Friday in the September, 1929, issue of Review of Reviews, could find no reason for the Board’s action:
“The Federal Reserve statement for August 7, 1929, shows that signs of inadequacy for autumn requirements do not exist. Gold resources are considerably more than the previous year, and gold continues to move in, to the financial embarrassment of Germany and England. The reasons for the Board’s action must be sought elsewhere. The public has been given only the hint that ‘This problem has presented difficulties because of certain peculiar conditions’. Every reason which Governor Young advanced for lowering the bank rate last year exists now. Increasing the rate means that not only is there danger of drawing gold from abroad, but imports of the yellow metal have been in progress for the last four months. To do anything to accentuate this is to take the responsibility for bringing on a world-wide credit deflation.”
Thus we find that not only was the Federal Reserve System responsible for the First World War, which it made possible by enabling the United States to finance the Allies, but its policies brought on the world-wide depression of 1929-31. Governor Adolph C. Miller stated at the Senate Investigation of the Federal Reserve Board in 1931 that:
“If we had had no Federal Reserve System, I do not think we would have had as bad a speculative situation as we had, to begin with.”
Carter Glass replied, “You have made it clear that the Federal Reserve Board provided a terrific credit expansion by these open market transactions.”
Emmanuel Goldenweiser said, “In 1928-29 the Federal Board was engaged in an attempt to restrain the rapid increase in security loans and in stock market speculation. The continuity of this policy of restraint, however, was interrupted by reduction in bill rates in the autumn of 1928 and the summer of 1929.”
Both J.P. Morgan and Kuhn, Loeb Co. had “preferred lists” of men to whom they sent advance announcements of profitable stocks. The men on these preferred lists were allowed to purchase these stocks at cost, that is, anywhere from 2 to 15 points a share less than they were sold to the public. The men on these lists were fellow bankers, prominent industrialists, powerful city politicians, national Committeemen of the Republican and Democratic Parties, and rulers of foreign countries. The men on these lists were notified of the coming crash, and sold all but so-called gilt-edged stocks, General Motors, Dupont, etc. The prices on these stocks also sank to record lows, but they came up soon afterwards. How the big bankers operated in 1929 is revealed by a Newsweek story on May 30, 1936, when a Roosevelt appointee, Ralph W. Morrison, resigned from the Federal Reserve Board:
“The consensus of opinion is that the Federal Reserve Board has lost an able man. He sold his Texas utilities stock to Insull for ten million dollars, and in 1929 called a meeting and ordered his banks to close out all security loans by September 1. As a result, they rode through the depression with flying colors.”
Predictably enough, all of the big bankers rode through the depression “with flying colors.” The people who suffered were the workers and farmers who had invested their money in get-rich stocks, after the President of the United States, Calvin Coolidge, and the Secretary of the Treasury, Andrew Mellon, had persuaded them to do it.
There had been some warnings of the approaching crash in England, which American newspapers never saw. The London Statist on May 25, 1929 said:
“The banking authorities in the United States apparently want a business panic to curb speculation.”
The London Economist on May 11, 1929, said:
“The events of the past year have seen the beginnings of a new technique, which, if maintained and developed, may succeed in ‘rationing the speculator without injuring the trader.’”
Governor Charles S. Hamlin quoted this statement at the Senate hearings in 1931 and said, in corroboration of it:
“That was the feeling of certain members of the Board, to remove Federal Reserve credit from the speculator without injuring the trader.”
Governor Hamlin did not bother to point out that the “speculators” he was out to break were the school-teachers and small town merchants who had put their savings into the stock market, or that the “traders” he was trying to protect were the big Wall Street operators, Bernard Baruch and Paul Warburg.
When the Federal Reserve Bank of New York raised its rate to six percent on August 9, 1929, market conditions began which culminated in tremendous selling orders from October 24 into November, which wiped out a hundred and sixty billion dollars worth of security values. That was a hundred and sixty billions which the American citizens had one month and did not have the next. Some idea of the calamity may be had if we remember that our enormous outlay of money and goods in the Second World War amounted to not much more than two hundred billions of dollars, and a great deal of that remained as negotiable securities in the national debt. The stock market crash is the greatest misfortune which the United States has ever suffered. The Academy of Political Science of Columbia University in its annual meeting in January, 1930, held a post-mortem on the Crash of 1929. Vice-President Paul Warburg was to have presided, and Director Ogden Mills was to have played an important part in the discussion. However, these two gentlemen did not show up. Professor Oliver M.W. Sprague of Harvard University remarked of the crash:
“We have here a beautiful laboratory case of the stock market’s dropping apparently from its own weight.”
It was pointed out that there was no exhaustion of credit, as in 1893, nor any currency famine, as in the Panic of 1907, when clearing-house certificates were resorted to, nor a collapse of commodity prices, as in 1920. What then, had caused the crash? The people had purchased stocks at high prices and expected the prices to continue to rise. The prices had to come down, and they did. It was obvious to the economists and bankers gathered over their brandy and cigars at the Hotel Astor that the people were at fault. Certainly the people had made a mistake in buying over-priced securities, but they had been talked into it by every leading citizen from the President of the United States on down. Every magazine of national circulation, every big newspaper, and every prominent banker, economist, and politician, had joined in the big confidence game of urging people to buy those over-priced securities. When the Federal Reserve Bank of New York raised its rate to six percent, in August 1929, people began to get out of the market, and it turned into a panic which drove the prices of securities down far below their natural levels. As in previous panics, this enabled both Wall Street and foreign operators in the know to pick up “blue-chip” and gilt-edged” securities for a fraction of their real value.
The Crash of 1929 also saw the formation of giant holding companies which picked up these cheap bonds and securities, such as the Marine Midland Corporation, the Lehman Corporation, and the Equity Corporation. In 1929 J.P. Morgan Company organized the giant food trust, Standard Brands. There was an unequaled opportunity for trust operators to enlarge and consolidate their holdings.
Emmanuel Goldenweiser, director of research for the Federal Reserve System, said, in 1947:
“It is clear in retrospect that the Board should have ignored the speculative expansion and allowed it to collapse of its own weight.”
This admission of error eighteen years after the event was small comfort to the people who lost their savings in the Crash.
The Wall Street Crash of 1929 was the beginning of a world-wide credit deflation which lasted through 1932, and from which the Western democracies did not recover until they began to rearm for the Second World War. During this depression, the trust operators achieved further control by their backing of three international swindlers, The Van Sweringen brothers, Samuel Insull, and Ivar Kreuger. These men pyramided billions of dollars worth of securities to fantastic heights. The bankers who promoted them and floated their stock issue could have stopped them at any time, by calling loans of less than a million dollars, but they let these men go on until they had incorporated many industrial and financial properties into holding companies, which the banks then took over for nothing. Insull piled up public utility holdings throughout the Middle West, which the banks got for a fraction of their worth. Ivar Kreuger was backed by Lee Higginson Company, supposedly one of the nation’s most reputable banking houses. The Saturday Evening Post called him “more than a financial titan”, and the English review Fortnightly said, in an article written December 1931, under the title, “A Chapter in Constructive Finance”: “It is as a financial irrigator that Kreuger has become of such vital importance to Europe.”*
“Financial irrigator” we may remember, was the title bestowed upon Jacob Schiff by Newsweek Magazine, when it described how Schiff had bought up American railroads with Rothschild’s money.
The New Republic remarked on January 25th, 1933, when it commented on the fact that Lee Higginson Company had handled Kreuger and Toll Securities on the American market:
“Three-quarters of a billion dollars was made away with. Who was able to dictate to the French police to keep secret the news of this extremely important suicide for some hours, during which somebody sold Kreuger securities in large amounts, thus getting out of the market before the debacle?”
The Federal Reserve Board could have checked the enormous credit expansion of Insull and Kreuger by investigating the security on which their loans were being made, but the Governors never made any examination of the activities of these men.
The modern bank with the credit facilities it affords, gives an opportunity which had not previously existed for such operators as Kreuger to make an appearance of abundant capital by the aid of borrowed capital. This enables the speculator to buy securities with securities. The only limit to the amount he can corner is the amount to which the banks will back him, and, if a speculator is being promoted by a reputable banking house, as Kreuger was promoted by Lee Higginson Company, the only way he could be stopped would be by an investigation of his actual financial resources, which in Kreuger’s case would have proved to be nil.
The leader of the American people during the Crash of 1929 and the subsequent depression was Herbert Hoover. After the first break of the market (the five billion dollars in security values which disappeared on October 24, 1929) President Hoover said:
“The fundamental business of the country, that is, production and distribution of commodities, is on a sound and prosperous basis.”
His Secretary of the Treasury, Andrew Mellon, stated on December 25, 1929, that:
“The Government’s business is in sound condition.”
His own business, the Aluminum Company of America, apparently was not doing so well, for he had reduced the wages of all employees by ten percent.
The New York Times reported on April 7, 1931, “Montagu Norman, Governor of the Bank of England, conferred with the Federal Reserve Board here today. Mellon, Meyer, and George L. Harrison, Governor of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, were present.”
The London Connection had sent Norman over this time to ensure that the Great Depression was proceeding according to schedule. Congressman Louis McFadden had complained, as reported in The New York Times, July 4, 1930, “Commodity prices are being reduced to 1913 levels. Wages are being reduced by the labor surplus of four million unemployed. The Morgan control of the Federal Reserve System is exercised through control of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, the mediocre representation and acquiescence of the Federal Reserve Board in Washington.” As the depression deepened, the trust’s lock on the American economy strengthened, but no finger was pointed at the parties who were controlling the system.
NOTES:
* NOTE: Ivar Kreuger, we may recall, was occasionally the personal guest of his old friend, President Herbert Hoover, at the White House. Hoover seems to have maintained a cordial relationship with many of the most prominent swindlers of the twentieth century, including his partner, Emile Francqui. The receivership of the billion dollar Kreuger Fraud was handled by Samuel Untermeyer, former counsel for Pujo Committee hearings.
89 Clarence W. Barron, They Told Barron, Harpers, New York, 1930, p. 353
90 Col. Curtis B. Dall, F.D.R., My Exploited Father-in-Law, Liberty Lobby, Wash., D.C. 1970
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/health/article3559486.ece
Royal college warns abortions can lead to mental illness
Women may be at risk of mental health breakdowns if they have abortions, a medical royal college has warned. The Royal College of Psychiatrists says women should not be allowed to have an abortion until they are counselled on the possible risk to their mental health.
This overturns the consensus that has stood for decades that the risk to mental health of continuing with an unwanted pregnancy outweighs the risks of living with the possible regrets of having an abortion.
MPs will shortly vote on a proposal to reduce the upper time limit for abortions “for social reasons” from 24 weeks to 20 weeks, a move not backed by the government. A Sunday Times poll today shows 59% of women would support such a reduction, with only 28% backing the status quo. Taken together, just under half (48%) of men and women want a reduction to 20 weeks, while 35% want to retain 24 weeks.
Some MPs also want women to have a “cooling off” period in which they would be made aware of the possible consequences of the abortion, including the impact on their mental health, before they could go ahead.
More than 90% of the 200,000 terminations in Britain every year are believed to be carried out because doctors believe that continuing with the pregnancy would cause greater mental strain.
The Royal College of Psychiatrists recommends updating abortion information leaflets to include details of the risks of depression. “Consent cannot be informed without the provision of adequate and appropriate information,” it says.
Several studies, including research published in the Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry in 2006, concluded that abortion in young women might be associated with risks of mental health problems.
The controversy intensified earlier this year when an inquest in Cornwall heard that a talented artist hanged herself because she was overcome with grief after aborting her twins. Emma Beck, 30, left a note saying: “Living is hell for me. I should never have had an abortion. I see now I would have been a good mum. I want to be with my babies; they need me, no one else does.”
The college’s revised stance was welcomed by Nadine Dorries, a Conservative MP campaigning for a statutory cooling-off period: “For doctors to process a woman’s request for an abortion without providing the support, information and help women need at this time of crisis I regard almost as a form of abuse,” she said.
Dawn Primarolo, the health minister, will this week appeal to MPs to ignore attempts to reduce the time limit on abortion when new laws on fertility treatment and embryo research come before parliament.
Dr Peter Saunders, general secretary of the Christian Medical Fellowship, said: “How can a doctor now justify an abortion [on mental health grounds] if psychiatrists are questioning whether there is any clear evidence that continuing with the pregnancy leads to mental health problems.”
Royal College of Psychiatrists statement on abortion and mental health, 2008
The college’s stance on the psychiatric factors in abortion, 1994
The grace period may sound like an excellent idea, but will this result in a better decision being made? Most women do not make their decision overnight about having an abortion. It becomes a labor some process for them and their significant other, should they be present.
It is the responsibility of the patient to seek help, with depression and/or other illnesses. The physician is there to help the patient, not to tell the patient was is best. Therefore, if the situation doesn’t present itself, then the physician need not discuss it. The literature on abortions side effect (ie. Depression) is out there. It is the patients responsibility to seek advice, not the physicians to provide information that may not be sought or warranted.
Ron Baptiste, Washington, DC
Some people due to political and social beliefs, ignore the fact that most…MOST women who have had an abortion will experience mild to suicidal depression, anxiety, and require medication to hide not relieve not rid,,, thier guilt. Which is what it is. In todays PC environment no one is allowed to speak what the truth is. So women suffer. The same women that “pro-choice” groups are fighting to “protect” are being sent … impressionable girls like lambs to slaughter in order to keep and protect a political and social view. There are not nor were there ever back alley abortions that killed millions of women. It is all lies. Just like the lie that an abortion is a minor surgical procedure. You don’t suffer through years of torment guilt and dispair as the result of having a tooth pulled. That is a minor surgical procedure. If abortion is not murder… why do women feel the guilt and pain as if it is….and I mean women who never hear terms such as murder who live in PC communities.
Tony, Tucker, Ga.
First of all I think that information about pregnancy and avoiding falling pregnant should be enforced at an early age therefore there would be less abortions and unwanted children. Children are eager to grow up and therefore are carrying out acts they know little about.
This also goes for the women who have abortions. The ‘cooling off’ period spoken about seems ideal and would benefit many women. Perhaps if the artist Emma Beck had this she would still be alive.
The reduction of time given to have an abortion would only put more pressure on women therefore leaving it at 24 weeks will rouse less aggravation than changing it to 20 weeks.
It is inevitable a woman who is faced with this difficult decision will have an aftermath of emotion that leaves them distraught and scarred.
http://extras.timesonline.co.uk/abortion.pdf
Position Statement on Women’s Mental Health in Relation to Induced Abortion
14th March, 2008
In the Government Response to the Report from the House of Commons Science and Technology Committee on the Scientific Developments Relating to the Abortion Act 1967, the following request was made:
“In view of the controversy on the risk to mental health of induced abortion we recommend that the Royal College of Psychiatrists update their 1994 report on this issue”
The College has undertaken a literature review to inform the following position statement, which includes the recommendation that a full systematic review around abortion and mental health is required.
The Royal College of Psychiatrists is concerned to ensure that women’s mental health is protected whether they seek abortion or continue with a pregnancy.
Mental disorders can occur for some women during pregnancy and after birth.
The specific issue of whether or not induced abortion has harmful effects on women’s mental health remains to be fully resolved. The current research evidence base is inconclusive – some studies indicate no evidence of harm, whilst other studies identify a range of mental disorders following abortion.
Women with pre-existing psychiatric disorders who continue with their pregnancy, as well as those with psychiatric disorders who undergo abortion, will need appropriate support and care. Liaison between services, and, where relevant, with carers and advocates, is advisable.
Healthcare professionals who assess or refer women who are requesting an abortion should assess for mental disorder and for risk factors that may be associated with its subsequent development. If a mental disorder or risk factors are identified, there should be a clearly identified care pathway whereby the mental health needs of the woman and her significant others may be met.
The Royal College of Psychiatrists recognises that good practice in relation to abortion will include informed consent. Consent cannot be informed without the provision of adequate and appropriate information regarding the possible risks and benefits to physical and mental health. This may require the updating of patient information leaflets approved by the relevant Royal Colleges, and education and training to relevant health care professionals, in order to develop a good practice pathway.
These difficult and complex issues should be addressed through additional systematic reviews led by the Royal College of Psychiatrists into the relationship between abortion and mental health. These reviews should consider whether there is evidence for psychiatric indications for abortion.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/health/article3559486.ece
Royal college warns abortions can lead to mental illness
Women may be at risk of mental health breakdowns if they have abortions, a medical royal college has warned. The Royal College of Psychiatrists says women should not be allowed to have an abortion until they are counselled on the possible risk to their mental health.
This overturns the consensus that has stood for decades that the risk to mental health of continuing with an unwanted pregnancy outweighs the risks of living with the possible regrets of having an abortion.
MPs will shortly vote on a proposal to reduce the upper time limit for abortions “for social reasons” from 24 weeks to 20 weeks, a move not backed by the government. A Sunday Times poll today shows 59% of women would support such a reduction, with only 28% backing the status quo. Taken together, just under half (48%) of men and women want a reduction to 20 weeks, while 35% want to retain 24 weeks.
Some MPs also want women to have a “cooling off” period in which they would be made aware of the possible consequences of the abortion, including the impact on their mental health, before they could go ahead.
More than 90% of the 200,000 terminations in Britain every year are believed to be carried out because doctors believe that continuing with the pregnancy would cause greater mental strain.
The Royal College of Psychiatrists recommends updating abortion information leaflets to include details of the risks of depression. “Consent cannot be informed without the provision of adequate and appropriate information,” it says.
Several studies, including research published in the Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry in 2006, concluded that abortion in young women might be associated with risks of mental health problems.
The controversy intensified earlier this year when an inquest in Cornwall heard that a talented artist hanged herself because she was overcome with grief after aborting her twins. Emma Beck, 30, left a note saying: “Living is hell for me. I should never have had an abortion. I see now I would have been a good mum. I want to be with my babies; they need me, no one else does.”
The college’s revised stance was welcomed by Nadine Dorries, a Conservative MP campaigning for a statutory cooling-off period: “For doctors to process a woman’s request for an abortion without providing the support, information and help women need at this time of crisis I regard almost as a form of abuse,” she said.
Dawn Primarolo, the health minister, will this week appeal to MPs to ignore attempts to reduce the time limit on abortion when new laws on fertility treatment and embryo research come before parliament.
Dr Peter Saunders, general secretary of the Christian Medical Fellowship, said: “How can a doctor now justify an abortion [on mental health grounds] if psychiatrists are questioning whether there is any clear evidence that continuing with the pregnancy leads to mental health problems.”
Royal College of Psychiatrists statement on abortion and mental health, 2008
The college’s stance on the psychiatric factors in abortion, 1994
The grace period may sound like an excellent idea, but will this result in a better decision being made? Most women do not make their decision overnight about having an abortion. It becomes a labor some process for them and their significant other, should they be present.
It is the responsibility of the patient to seek help, with depression and/or other illnesses. The physician is there to help the patient, not to tell the patient was is best. Therefore, if the situation doesn’t present itself, then the physician need not discuss it. The literature on abortions side effect (ie. Depression) is out there. It is the patients responsibility to seek advice, not the physicians to provide information that may not be sought or warranted.
Ron Baptiste, Washington, DC
Some people due to political and social beliefs, ignore the fact that most…MOST women who have had an abortion will experience mild to suicidal depression, anxiety, and require medication to hide not relieve not rid,,, thier guilt. Which is what it is. In todays PC environment no one is allowed to speak what the truth is. So women suffer. The same women that “pro-choice” groups are fighting to “protect” are being sent … impressionable girls like lambs to slaughter in order to keep and protect a political and social view. There are not nor were there ever back alley abortions that killed millions of women. It is all lies. Just like the lie that an abortion is a minor surgical procedure. You don’t suffer through years of torment guilt and dispair as the result of having a tooth pulled. That is a minor surgical procedure. If abortion is not murder… why do women feel the guilt and pain as if it is….and I mean women who never hear terms such as murder who live in PC communities.
Tony, Tucker, Ga.
First of all I think that information about pregnancy and avoiding falling pregnant should be enforced at an early age therefore there would be less abortions and unwanted children. Children are eager to grow up and therefore are carrying out acts they know little about.
This also goes for the women who have abortions. The ‘cooling off’ period spoken about seems ideal and would benefit many women. Perhaps if the artist Emma Beck had this she would still be alive.
The reduction of time given to have an abortion would only put more pressure on women therefore leaving it at 24 weeks will rouse less aggravation than changing it to 20 weeks.
It is inevitable a woman who is faced with this difficult decision will have an aftermath of emotion that leaves them distraught and scarred.
http://extras.timesonline.co.uk/abortion.pdf
Position Statement on Women’s Mental Health in Relation to Induced Abortion
14th March, 2008
In the Government Response to the Report from the House of Commons Science and Technology Committee on the Scientific Developments Relating to the Abortion Act 1967, the following request was made:
“In view of the controversy on the risk to mental health of induced abortion we recommend that the Royal College of Psychiatrists update their 1994 report on this issue”
The College has undertaken a literature review to inform the following position statement, which includes the recommendation that a full systematic review around abortion and mental health is required.
The Royal College of Psychiatrists is concerned to ensure that women’s mental health is protected whether they seek abortion or continue with a pregnancy.
Mental disorders can occur for some women during pregnancy and after birth.
The specific issue of whether or not induced abortion has harmful effects on women’s mental health remains to be fully resolved. The current research evidence base is inconclusive – some studies indicate no evidence of harm, whilst other studies identify a range of mental disorders following abortion.
Women with pre-existing psychiatric disorders who continue with their pregnancy, as well as those with psychiatric disorders who undergo abortion, will need appropriate support and care. Liaison between services, and, where relevant, with carers and advocates, is advisable.
Healthcare professionals who assess or refer women who are requesting an abortion should assess for mental disorder and for risk factors that may be associated with its subsequent development. If a mental disorder or risk factors are identified, there should be a clearly identified care pathway whereby the mental health needs of the woman and her significant others may be met.
The Royal College of Psychiatrists recognises that good practice in relation to abortion will include informed consent. Consent cannot be informed without the provision of adequate and appropriate information regarding the possible risks and benefits to physical and mental health. This may require the updating of patient information leaflets approved by the relevant Royal Colleges, and education and training to relevant health care professionals, in order to develop a good practice pathway.
These difficult and complex issues should be addressed through additional systematic reviews led by the Royal College of Psychiatrists into the relationship between abortion and mental health. These reviews should consider whether there is evidence for psychiatric indications for abortion.
************************
6.
Dalai Lama threatens to stand down over violence as China calls him a liar
The Dalai Lama responded to charges from China that he orchestrated deadly riots in Lhasa to sabotage the Olympics with a pledge to resign as temporal leader of Tibet’s Buddhist people if the violence — on both sides — did not stop.
Police and paramilitary squads, firing teargas to disperse gathering crowds, raided dozens of homes across Lhasa to arrest suspected demonstrators who failed to surrender by a deadline of midnight on Monday. Sources close to the Government told The Times that 900 people had been detained over the weekend. The Chinese media reported that 105 people had surrendered to the police.
Residents of the Tibetan capital tried to return to a semblance of daily life after the riots in which Tibetans opposed to Beijing rule stabbed and hacked to death ethnic Han Chinese and burnt shops and schools. However, the unrest spilled over into more Tibetan communities in neighbouring provinces, leaving several dead and wreaking yet more devastation.
Wen Jiabao, the Chinese Premier, said at his annual news conference that ample evidence existed to prove that the unrest had been “organised, premeditated, masterminded and incited by the Dalai clique”. He charged that claims by the Dalai Lama that he wanted autonomy and not independence for the Himalayan region he fled in 1959 during a failed uprising against Chinese rule were nothing but lies.
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A Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman even said that the Dalai Lama should stand trial. But, in one of his most powerful and significant statements, the Nobel laureate offered to resign his temporal position as leader of the Tibetans, saying that independence was out of the question.
“I say to China and the Tibetans — don’t commit violence.” Much of the violence over the last week appears to have been committed by furious young Tibetans although Chinese security forces, after holding back at first to reassert control in Lhasa, have begun to exact retribution.
China says that 13 people were killed in Lhasa. Tibet’s government-in-exile in Dharamsala, where the Dalai Lama has made his home since 1959, put the death toll at 99.
The 72-year-old monk, the 14th reincarnation known as the Ocean of Wisdom, told a news conference in Dharamsala yesterday: “Whether we like it or not, we have to live together side by side.”
He issued his strongest statement against the frenzy of racist violence that rocked Lhasa on Friday. “We must oppose Chinese policy but not the Chinese. Not on a racist basis.”
He denied the Chinese charges against him and invited the Chinese to check his person, saying: “If things become completely out of control then my only option is to resign.”
Technically, the Dalai Lama cannot resign because he is revered as the reincarnation of his predecessor but he has often suggested that he will not return again. His comments appeared to be designed to reassert his moral authority and to quell the unrest.
Witnesses to the arrests yesterday said that the police appeared to have carefully chosen their targets. In one residential area near the Potala Palace, a group of police and paramilitary officers raided an apartment block and dragged out a man aged about 50, believed to be a civil servant, along with two young men.
The paramilitary officers fired three rounds of teargas to disperse a crowd that had swollen rapidly, witnesses said. One said: “The man came out with his head held high. He was proud and seemed to show he was unafraid. They beat him with clubs.”
The violence spilled over into other areas. In Maqu in northwestern Gansu, which borders Tibet, large numbers of ethnic Tibetans took to the streets on Sunday, burning shops and businesses.
From Monday night all Government offices had been ordered to remain on duty around the clock. A government order said: “Without a notice, no one may leave their posts.”
It could be suggested to the Dalai Lama and his Buddhists to stop reciting the useless ’OM’ and other mantras ; rather to start praying the Rosary if they wish for a swift Independence of Tibet which otherwise would take another 100 years.
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