The following are Three related News Items on the ongoing dialogue in France on the adoption of LaRouche's New Bretton Woods Economic Reorginization Policy.

Leading French economists challenged by LaRouche's NBW

October 10, 2008 (LPAC)--Paris --Three leading French economists gave a conference at the French Foreign Affairs Press Centre (CAPE) in Paris, drawing forty journalists. Patrick Artus, director of studies at the French Natixis bank explained the madness of the current speculative bubble. A single stock of Natixis, on the market is worth around 2.4 euros. Artus said that if he sold his bank tomorrow morning, he would get at least 10 euros for every stock. However, nobody today buys stocks of Natixis for mere fear it could drop from 2.4 to 2.1!

Then Jean-Hervé Lorenzi spoke, president of the Cercle des Economistes and Christian de Boissieu who heads the Conseil d'Analyse Economique (CAE), the economic advisory council to the French Prime Minister. Lorenzi and de Boissieu jointly signed a call for "a New financial Bretton Woods" published by Le Monde on October 7. The call says that "since the complexity and the gravity of the current situation we're brought to call for the early convening of new "financial" Bretton Woods". But its program is nothing but a full set of regulations and a new role for the IMF, etc. At the press conference, de Boissieu was crystal clear: "Let's see if we can survive this week" Then, "once the markets and the situation are calmed down" we can calmly meet and redefine the rules! Worse, de Boissieu says "financial innovation" should be regulated, "but not too much", since stronger regulation causes stronger innovation, and financial innovation was not always good...

Then, Karel Vereycken, for Nouvelle Solidarité, presenting himself as a collaborator of (Lyndon LaRouche collaborator) Jacques Cheminade, briefed the audience. One: there is no law in economics obliging tax payers to bail out criminal speculators. Two, people should study the difference between Hoover bailouts and FDR bailouts: the current bail-outs are the opposite of the FDR bailouts of the thirties: States should only save regular banking. Time of transfusions is over, time of amputation has started. Are you in favor of a full return to Glass-Steagall today? Three: since you are experts of modesty you should mention the NBW which Lyndon LaRouche and Cheminade have been promoting over the last decades and not two weeks as you have been! As the room became electricified, de Boissieu angrily said "that's not nice to say." Though later, he briefed the room in detail how Glass-Steagall functioned, and said the idea seemed interesting and is discussed among high level circles, though he remains sceptical. Since de Boissieu had answered Karel's question, the organizers of the debate decided against throwing him out of the room. Other journalists said they couldn't believe nobody saw the crisis unfolding in time. A London-based African journalist, who later jumped on our literature, told de Boissieu that even in a sucker game, you can innovate, but if you refuse to abide by the rules, you're thrown out of the game. Wouldn't we be better off today, if nations had done the same thing with financial players?

The Rats Debate Their Own NBW

October 10, 2008 (LPAC)--Paris--An AFP wire reports that managing director of the IMF Dominique Strauss-Kahn said he was "sceptical" about organizing a 1944-style New Bretton Woods conference. "If it could be organized that easily, it wouldn't be necessarily a bad solution. I fear that it would be a little bit too complicated to deal with the problem". His solution? "Once the crisis is over" (by magic?) we have to change regulation practices as well as the organization and control of the financial system."

Pascal Lamy, current boss of the WTO called for a NBW. "If that means to have world powers sitting at the table, i.e. the US, Europe, China, India, Brazil, Indonesia and the Saudis and if they adopt the objective of fixing the rules of world finance", I'm for it. Two days ago, Lamy had underlined that a NBW should be far different that the original 1944 Bretton Woods that sanctified the dollar and US world domination.

Tuesday, October 7, in Le Monde's economics section, Philippe Chalmin, an economics teacher in Paris, writes an article "The illusion of a New Bretton Woods". Since the seventies, each time the world monetary system starts cracking, "voices are raised to call for a New Bretton Woods". For him, Bretton Woods faded away with US power. But today, "who would dream today about a fixed parity system, and which country would accept to be its protectee?". Chalmin was one of the key economists that set up the derivatives speculation market in Paris.

King of Denial: Valéry Giscard d'Estaing Says "Calling for a NBW Would Be Absurd"

October 10, 2008 (LPAC)--Paris--In an exclusive interview to the French economic daily La Tribune, former French President Valéry Giscard d'Estaing, visibly hired for the job, tries to talk down the financial crisis and, while calling for Glass Steagall says calling for a New Bretton Woods would be absurd.

In a typical anti-Gaullist fit, after saying that the current crisis is aggravated by "incompetence and agitation" which transformed worry into panic, he lies that "The French people, at no moment in time, had their bank deposits endangered". He then accuses PM Fillon, George Soros and Alan Greenspan for comparing the current crisis too much to 1929: "If they go on making the comparison with the thirties, they will finish getting it!" D'Estaing then, without naming it, calls for the re-enactment of the Glass-Steagall act: "We have to re-establish the distinction between commercial banks having a real banking activity" and investment bankers who operate "on the markets with behaviour of investors even of speculators". "This regulation can only be adopted on a national level. It is up to central banks to correct all of this." To solve the problem of speculative financial products sold over the counter, D'Estaing has the luminous idea of creating a "real market" for them!

In general, D'Estaing thinks the financial bubble collapsed or can be re-regulated, but that the monetary system is still sound. To solve the liquidity crisis, he says to support the banks "I prefer the American solution of the Paulson plan of buying the banks toxic assets rather than the British solution of states entering the banks capital"

In a final state of lunacy, D'Estaing says "It would be even more absurd to call for a "New Bretton Woods": the problem of the international monetary system is inexistent. To evoke it only adds to worry and unreason. The current difficulties of the banks have no impact in any fashion with the international monetary system. To organize such a summit would mean taking the risk of organizing an international meeting which wouldn't produce any result."