December 19, 2007 (LPAC)--The European Central Bank, Federal Reserve, Bank of England $548-billion-in-one-day bailout of European and British banks on Dec. 18, may have the financial world agog. But it's "ineffective, useless, amateur hour" said a New York Republican economist yesterday, while in discussion with LPAC correspondents.

What has to be written off is not 10%, but 80-90% of the "value" of the trillions in these banks' securities assets. Citibank is at the head of a parade of big banks at the point of insolvency right now as these writeoffs are gradually forced upon it. In this situation, the economist said, lending these banks, however many hundreds of billions in short-term loans--piling up their liabilities, against bad assets--will produce no result except hyperinflation.

The action of protecting chartered banks from the current financial crash--LaRouche's "firewall" against bank insolvency--is diametrically opposite to the policy of central banks' printing any huge volume of bailout loans to try to "liquify" the trillions in toxic securities these banks hold as assets, the economist said. This firewall idea must be grasped by members of Congress, who are now paralyzed in the face of the crash.