Spiritual Forum

As a result of the budget dispute, some 23,000 of roughly 36,000 state employees have been laid off without pay until a future notice.

The dispute will mean that the state will lose millions of dollars in revenues untill the issue is settled, and expenses will increase for every week that the shutdown of the state government remains.

To shed more light on the issue, Press TV talks with Rodney Shakespeare, Professor of Binary Economics in London.

Press TV: Is what is happening in Minnesota a struggle between the Haves and Have-Nots?

Shakespeare: Minnesota, the land of 10,000 lakes is under banker occupation, and the banker occupation, a tiny financial elite, are essentially sucking up wealth from the mouth of the population, and this is going to go on and get worse. It's two of every state in the United States, with perhaps one exception which I will come to, later.

So, we are talking about rich-poor [division], but what we are really talking about is financial elite which is a parasite and which has got control, not just of financial control, but actually has political control. Until there is an uprising against those elite and its practices, and its control over politics, there will be no solution. And this situation in Minnesota and the other states over time will get worse.

Press TV: If the US went back to the spending techniques in they way they were dealing with things a few years ago, they would not have a deficit?

Shakespeare: That's what exactly the other two guests are saying. They are going back to a more traditional view, which is that all you have to do is to cut back the spending programs, and the problem solves itself.
But things have changed, particularly over the last 20 years, and now what you have is what is being called rigged market capitalism, but in fact, it is a financially elite endlessly creating more and more money upon which compound debt is interest.
In the case of Minnesota, the debt at the moment is USD 41 billion and it is immediately going up to USD 46 billion, but by the time they get through these negotiations it will be up to USD 56 billion. It is banker occupation, and unless you challenge that, which is the whole of the economy, [which] today now runs on the postulate that the more up you lend of the compound interest, the better off you are.

The fact of the matter is that the cities of the United States are now going bankrupt. I mean someone who used to work with Rolland Amore, Meredith Whitney who by the way was sack by Rolland's company; I hope it wasn't Rolland who sacked her, she has been pointing out the terrible debt situation of the cities.

The towns are in debt, , the states are in debt, and there is only one state in the USA which is not in debt and that is North Dakota, and I will come to that perhaps in a minute.

Press TV: What is your take on Rollin Amore answer's to -do you see any role in the financial institutions and what is happening in the individual states, in the country?

Shakespeare: Well, that was 30 years ago, and Rolland has missed the point, things have changed very much. Secondly, he mentioned the countries after the fall of communism. Well, they did have a particular lift, and in fact money got lent and lent until house prices were 10, even 15, times average earning, and they have had property collapses, and they are all in trouble, and all the time all these countries are being put into more and more debt.

The remedy for Europe, Greece is the example, is that it should take on more debt. The national government debt was 115 percent of GDP (gross domestic product), and now it has gone to a 160 and a 170 percent, and that just in one year.

Now look! There is one state in the USA which is prospering and enduring very well, and it is next to Minnesota, just on the west and it is North Dakota. And I'm going to recommend to Paul and Rollin that they look at that, because you see North Dakota has its own bank, it has a public bank, and all the time it can in fact borrow from its bank, either in interest and the interest goes back and does not get ripped off to Wall Street and New York or wherever, it stays locally and within North Dakota, and I recommend that matter.

It's an idea which is being take up slowly, 15 legislator are starting to consider that, because if they don't consider that matter the future is of ever-increasing state debt, and they don't know how to get out of it, unless they stop the grip of the elite bankers, the banker occupation, and they turn around and use their own banks, insuring the money, taking it back, and cancelling it.

Press TV: What about what our guests have said, which it is a matter of simple mathematics and just a matter of the state spending more than they have?

Shakespeare: Well, they are not looking at the bigger issues. There is the rich-poor division; there is a shift from capital technology shift, so jobs are being knocked out. You have to look at all these matters, and what you mustn't do is stay 30 years in the past.

The reality is that at this moment in America, the rich-poor division has massively increased, and neither Paul nor Rolland can deny that, and at the same time, the amount of debt has massively increased and America is not going to cut its military spending.

I mean if you want to talk about cutting back spending, why doesn't America stop its war on the whole of Islam, is it seven countries it is involved in now in war? It's got its troops in 70 countries; it got 700 bases around the world. Those two [guests] talk about cutting back spending, the one thing they won't do is to stand up and say that the United States must cut its military spending, nobody in America seems to say that.
Press TV: What do you think is the answer to the situation in Minnesota?
Shakespeare: Very quick, with my remake, and respect Paul foot, yes I do accept that he is against the military expenditures on aggressions abroad. The answer is to use the state bank mechanism for all your state capital projects, the money being created interest free and not at compound interest, and [North] Dakota is in fact in practice in a way, public bank, giving a lead in that respect.

REZ/MB

Source: PressTV.ir