[Music]
okay
I
welcome to Sputnik orbiting the world
with me George Galloway and me gri HSBC
bestrides the banking world like a
Colossus but it's in big trouble it has
paid penalties of millions of dollars
for doing business with Mexican drug
cartels and other doy dealings and that
was before that Old Reliable of scandals
a Swiss banking IM brolio burst upon on
the scene like a box of rotting
eggs a dirty laundry list as long as
Oxford Street has been revealed
involving some big names and even some
members of parliament of course I'm not
one of them but Lords have been a
leaping Lords we didn't know existed who
knew that Britain was in part governed
by someone called Lord thinkink I'm not
making that up but he was one of the tax
Dodgers along with other Lords and
beneficiaries of trust funds set up by
their billion
fathers it was not the attraction of
Swiss cheese which drew them to Geneva
but rather the opportunity to either
evade or avoid hex joining us now to
survey the mountain of troubles
surrounding this as an alternative
Economist of great distinction Professor
Steve Keen is the author of a wonderful
book debunking economics and the head of
school at Kingston University Professor
Keen thanks it's an honor for you to
join us you saw all this coming survey
the rotting eggs for us if you will oh
it's the banking sector is as as Marx
and Canes both separately put it is a
great servant and a terrible master and
what we've allowed happen in the last 50
years is they've gone from the days when
the banks were effectively the Servants
of the the industrial sector providing
the money they needed for investment and
so on through to the stage where the
Masters not just of the industrial
sector but the politicians as well
indeed so and uh David Cameron ennobled
the head of HSBC even though he must
have known that this and other scandals
were either in the pipeline or had bust
wide open already well there have been
plenty of scandals in the financial
sector all the way through if you go
back and look at even the the formation
of City Bank that formation broke the
law in America at the time and if you
know that hilarious photograph of Bill
Clinton signing a document with a big
smile on his
face as big as other times and I'm sure
is surrounded by a whole bunch of people
smiling Financial faces he was
legalizing an illegal act of forming a
merger now the the classic statement
about Bankers I think was made by Wester
stragen uh Premier many many years ago
talking about a particular uh Ponzi
schema called lri Connell and he was
known as last resort lri in Western
Australia the last person if you needed
money lri would provide it but it would
cost you an arm and a leg and a couple
of other useful parts of your body and
uh Lori you see the premier said he
wouldn't want to stand between lri
Connell and a bucket of money now banks
are by definition buckets of money and
this sort of behavior is just endemic in
them when you let them to get to be as
big and as politically powerful as
they've come under neoliberalism that's
what it is isn't it uh you put your
finger on it it's systemic it's not
because you have a particular scoundrel
heading this bank or another the only
thing I just say did did wrong was being
caught yeah how were they caught by the
way by a whistleblower and this is where
it comes down to individuals having a
sense of Ethics that's far stronger than
these institutions themselves have who
had access to the computer records had
the the the intelligence to know how to
pull those records out and then got
arrested in in Switzerland managed to
get out on bail and then jumped
countries got to France and here you
have to have great respect for the
French authorities when they saw what he
had they wouldn't get get extradited
back to Switzerland where it would have
all completely disappeared had they
taken him back there so the French
looked at it and they they saw the
amount of evasion going on and the
French said this is a is in sense a gold
mine for us we know we haven't been
getting the tax revenues from the
wealthy now we know a large part of the
reason why let's prosecute this and the
English who normally I respect for the
extent to which they allow political
liberalism pretty much completely
ignored the information coming across
from the French until the Press broke it
in the last few months well this is
another important point you've put your
finger on because the contradiction here
is that the state
any state needs this money really badly
so they're caught uh in a kind of uh
Paradigm in which their neoliberal
instincts are to allow the rich to run
rampant yeah but their bills their uh
debits as states require going after
these tax avoiders I know and what it
tends to happen is they don't go after
them instead they impose strictures upon
the working class and the middle class
who can't get away way and they cut back
on the services we get so they have le
less of a gap between their their
Taxation and their and their spending so
this is a classic case where I I look
back and see many brilliant statements
in the past remember of course the
phrase the military industrial complex
was coined by President Eisenhower of
all people of all people I think he was
wrong unfortunately because the military
industrial complex is a far better beast
to run you than what I call the
political Financial complex we now have
there's more real jobs uh there's more
real jobs at least they they make stuff
and they blow it up later but in the
case of the financial sector they create
nothing they create Ponzi schemes and
the the politicians have now got so used
to a financial sector at the scale of
the sector we now have that they can't
imagine it any other way so we go
through a financial crisis and what is
their first response after the Panic
spending that stopped us going into a
complete Great Depression their first
response is to rescue the financial
sector and get it back to the sky back
to what it was before before it brought
us to the edge of the cliff and yet at
the same time when you try to talk about
policies which might actually benefit
the ordinary person things like like
what I call quantitative easing for the
people or a modern debt juilee you told
that's going to raise moral hazard what
on Earth do they think they've been I
don't know if there's any Minister left
with the HSPA to use the phrase moral
hazard because morality was the first
casualty of all of this we're trapped in
what someone once called the Great money
trick the great money illusion yeah tell
us what an alternative economy would
look like well I mean there's plenty of
people putting out proposals which
effectively trying to stop the financial
sector having the capacity to create
money which is where this largely
emanates from uh and what that means is
who else creates money and that gives
you the government as the only other
possible source of money creation and
the government has been deliberately
falling down on its job because they
don't think they should do that anymore
so they've handed the whole
responsibility over the Neal because of
neoliberal ideology the nonsense
economic Vision that conventional
economics has which talks and tells us
how to run the monetary system while the
models themselves largely ignore the
existence of banks debt money completely
it's ironic that they do that but there
is nonetheless a need for private money
creation and a need for government money
creation we live in a mixed economy you
need both of them to happen but you want
that money creation to be done sensibly
wisely the trouble is the bigger these
Banks get the less they know about the
customers they deal with they go from
back in the old days of the Jimmy
Stewart style Bank where he knew
everybody in the town he knew whose idea
was likely to be a good one and who he
knew their dog he knew their granny yeah
and this was a large part of the old
glass deagle act uh by breaking American
Banks down making them Regional and
giving them just just a very tiny
physical Thief over which they had the
capacity to cre issue loans and
therefore create money they largely did
it for successful businesses businesses
they had some feeling were going to be
successful so there personal knowledge
and the half of the the managers and so
on and I've come to realize over time I
didn't think it was all that important
looking back on it but when you look at
what's happened now you've gone from
that level to where it's credit scoring
and point systems and I've been
contacted by people who write the
software that does the point scoring
system for some of the banks in
Australia and they're now selling it
globally and they tell me that it's a 20
second process to go from somebody
applying for it to working how much
collateral they have to deciding to give
them alone that is the sort of thing
that gives you Bubbles and Ponzi schemes
and the capacity of the banks to behave
illegally and call it management call it
banking so I I think we have to go back
to the days when Banks were
small the whole idea of large Banks
itself is a problem and we have to go
back to the point where Banks largely
only make their money by lending to
genuine businesses because instead what
they're doing they're creating money we
need them to do but they're creating
money into the housing sector into the
share markets etc etc all they're doing
is inflating asset Bubbles and a
remainder washes over into the real
economy but we don't get that creative
generation of new businesses that we
should be getting out of their capacity
to create money everybody should know
what a pzi scheme is but they don't uh
is it a kind of pyramid selling a Ponzi
scheme is a is a scheme where you make
money by getting more money coming in
than you're dealing out but you're
actually not producing anything in the
middle or largely so Charles Ponzi who's
the of course the classic for it believe
that he worked out a way to make money
through Arbitrage of St STS back in the
19 late 1910s and what he realized was
there these the stamp uh authorities
globally enabled you to buy a stamp with
an American dollar and then get a stamp
in Italy when you sent to get a return
post and he realized that because of the
change in currency values after the
first world war there was a huge gap it
was cheaper to buy them in Italy and
bring them to America so there was his
actually way to try to make money he
never managed to organize it he promised
people a 50% return in 45 days is and
the 46th day elaps before it even worked
out the scheme so the next the First
depositor turns up wanting his money
back he gave him the money from the
second and third depositor so they grow
and then they collapse and that's in the
sense I see the housing sector is the
same thing no it's a pretty good uh
description of of our
situation having said that the HSBC
Scandal is systematic HSBC being the
largest bank in Britain which bank is
next and can be I mean we Bank houses in
its bowels a ethical honest
whistleblower with access to computer
technology it's just simple as I don't
know that's all it comes down to the
British government is blocking an
inquiry into the HSBC Scandal yeah can
you imagine not holding an inquiry into
something that might be done by labor
Council somewhere of course they'll do
it when you get this huge thing by
people who are donors to the political
party in power oh why bother
well you've identified several key
points and a way that's the one we'll
have to close on this is entirely
circular politicians go and work for
these Banks when they cease being
politicians yeah the bankers make huge
donations to the politicians when
they're politicians and the politicians
legislate for a framework and inquiry or
no inquiry to the benefit of the people
who help them get into power in the
first place and Will employ them later
yeah it's a rotten uh box of eggs this
isn't it it is indeed but if they're
going to go work for Jimmy Stewart they
wouldn't get paid enough and it wouldn't
happen we need to get back to small
Banks Professor I really encourage
everyone to get this book it's published
by Zed and it's called debunking
economics uh the now there's a question
mark it says the emperor dethroned
question mark it's the question mark
that interests me if I were if we were
lucky enough still to be here in 20
years are we still going to be in this
mess well Yannis ver farcus being a good
friend of mine caught in the same
situation the feeling you might still be
caught there as why he's pushing for
reform rather than Revolution and I
think the same thing I think I'm going
to stuck with a question mark I'd like
to have an exclamation mark one of these
days but I'm never confident about that
me too I'm looking forward to that
exclamation mark Professor Steve kin
you're a real star turn I must say you
make economics understandable to
Ordinary People and that's not common
thanks for joining us on the Sputnik
coming up after the break it's almost 50
years since the Killing Fields in
Indonesia my own country Millions were
murdered and if you want to know by whom
and what happened next it's all coming
up after the
[Music]
break welcome back to Sputnik in 1967
Indonesia's Founding Father president
sukaro was overthrown in a US organized
school one of the organizers Henry
Kissinger still alive the the military
cease power appointed the dictator
suharto who then proceeded to Massacre
millions of sukarno supporters the act
of killing a film by Joshua Oppenheimer
which has won awards all over the world
represents the only International
recognition of the crimes against
humanity which were carried out in those
days it is a part of world history
however that we are determined to
recover and to try and hold to account
the perpetrators alive or dead joining
us now is Dr suen marching who's working
on a memoir of that period Dr Sue thank
you for joining us uh the Act of Killing
brought to an international audience for
the first time in 50 years the
massacre which has not been seen since
the Holocaust of millions of people yes
in an important country uh the uh one of
the most populous countries in the world
yet almost nobody knows anything about
it that adds insult to injury doesn't it
oh yes of course and not only that um
even now they're still in power even and
they as a vice president even yeah yes
exactly and the victims and their
families are still stigmatized and even
prosecuted you know tell us what
happened in 1965 what happened was there
was um in um on the 1st of October there
was a murder of generals and the
Communist Party was blamed for that and
then the blame was not only on the
Communist party but also the Communist
as a whole and also the Laughing
sympathizers and my father was one of
the victims he was
imprisoned and there was basically
murder squads uh room in the streets
looking for first people who were
Communists and second people who were
Indonesians of Chinese
ethnicity they to be the base of the
left yes and left being sympathizers and
not only sympathizers actually anyone um
could be murdered or could be imprisoned
if if the the official say the official
just point their fingers to them that's
it they they would be booked and um the
the number of the people murdered is
still not really known now some mention
1 million some two million some 3
Millions but the commander one two or
three million ex these numbers are are
almost
incomprehensible uh to people in the Act
of Killing we saw some of the
perpetrators not only describe what they
did but act it out they boast they
boasted of it and they acted it out how
they killed people with piano wire and
decapitate they tell and they tell about
this while walking about in a shopping
mall with their family yes that's a
problem because they are proud of it
because they are seen as Heroes and they
see themselves as Heroes that's the
problem right because the victims are
still victim IED are still um
stigmatized so that's why the perers
have this opportunity to say that we are
heroes and this is the problem for me if
the government hasn't done anything and
doesn't want to do anything then that's
why we have to do something and um at
the moment that's why we we have um
established this uh organization called
ip65 International people tribunals
against the um genocide in
1965 and this tribunal is based where
it's based in um in the Netherlands so
it started there it actually it started
um because of the film um by Jos
appenheimer The Act of Killing and then
we just thought look is this all we must
do something after this right we must
take action and if the government
doesn't do anything then we the people
have to do something so that's why
that's what we did we um established
this and by RPD 65 it means that this is
a court case held by the
people yes a people's tribunal of course
I'm familiar with the with the with the
model the how did it come to pass that
the Communist Party in
Indonesia which was one of the biggest
in the whole world third third biggest
Communist Party outside of Russia and
China yes yes after Russia and China
Indonesia's party was the biggest it had
millions of supporters many millions of
supporters because Indonesia is a big
place yes uh uh how was it able to be
crushed so
comprehensively still illegal doesn't
exist the left doesn't exist in
Indonesia 50 years later there is no
left uh and when one talks as I have to
a Indonesian Chinese I asked them if
they were Chinese they were really
shocked scandalized that I would ask
them they were instinctively afraid of
that question because The Witch Hunt
against people of Chinese they would say
no no I'm Indonesian yeah yeah how did
this happen was it like salami the the
people were taken one by one in small
slices why did the party why was the
party not able to defend itself they
were not ready and they didn't know that
this would happen I think because uh my
my my father this is this is the story
of my father my mom kept telling me that
he was not involved in the Communist
Party he was only in the um leting organ
ganization he didn't really know what
happened only two years ago my mother
told me something else she called me and
she said look your father was actually
one of the committee members of the
Indonesian communist they kept this from
you all this time they kept this as a
secret one of the community members it's
not like a big one he's not like an
important one and that's why he was not
murdered and he was just appointed um
just before the genocide happened so not
many people found out about it and my
mom burned all of the papers so that's
why he was not murdered but he didn't
know anything so they weren't ready they
didn't know what was going on so when
the genocide happened they got confused
also the people well it's the job of a
communist to know what's going on why
did no one come to their aid why did
China not come to their aid why did the
Soviet Union not come to their aid was
it impossible in the world balance of
power at that time I think it was it was
just a matter of benefit if it didn't
disadvantage them they wouldn't they
wouldn't do anything I think and it
didn't really you know Advantage anyone
to defend Indonesia at that time I think
why was the US so determined to get rid
of
Sarno well because Indonesia was really
in a way you know it it was a big
country and if it became communist it
was dangerous for the west and for China
and Russia to oppose the West maybe it
was just too impossible for them they
they have they had to consider the gain
then because in sano's time Indonesia
was really something yeah it had hosted
the bandong conference it had become a
poll around which much of the so-called
non-aligned movement uh was uh was uh
orbiting uh and uh therefore a decision
was made in Washington I mean I know you
want to instinctively you want to blame
the actual perpetrators but the
masterminds of this massacre were in
Washington you can say that yes we can
say that that this is actually in
Washington because the CIA had been
planning it for years and years and
years but um with the IP actually we
don't concentrate on the perpetrators
and who who who was um in a way who was
The Mastermind or everything we
concentrate on the victims to
rehabilitate them that's that's more
important for us at at the moment get
back in society yes to get back the
society and to to basically to be
admitted you know to for the government
to admit that they are victims and stop
stigmatizing them because um you know
I've seen the movie The Railway Man
actually and there the victim met meets
the perpetrator he can only forgive the
perpetrator when the perpetrator says
yes you have been victimized and I am
sorry for that before then it's
impossible what about compensation uh
people lost their fathers their husbands
their brothers mothers sisters they lost
property they lost their businesses yes
uh Indonesia is a very rich country yes
shouldn't people be financially
compensated I think so I do believe in
that that people have to be compensated
but that's a long way from what what we
expect this like we you know if if if
the victims are still stigmatized they
have to be acknowledge first as victims
and they're still really angry they you
know a lot of them are depressed and I I
mean I can't really blame them for being
angry what about the new president now
uh he's not a leftist uh but uh he leans
in the direction of sano's ideas uh
although his vice president is one of
the criminals yes I'm quite disappointed
with it yeah uh are you likely to get
any justice from the new president of
Indonesia I was hopeful to be honest but
now I start doubting him he is still
much much better than his opponent you
know than pra OB you know much better
and I I I I don't regret um electing him
voting for him but
um I start doubting it and I think um
you know doubting doesn't mean that you
don't do anything we have to do more you
know we have to make an effort because
well he he he'll only be able to do
anything if there's a big swell of
popular we have to do something we have
to keep fing whatever you know um we
believe in and and to push the the
government and that's why this is the
the function of ipd um 1965 we want to
put pressure on the government and on
the United Nations look you know this is
important and why you keep quiet yeah
well Indonesia was once great under Saro
let's hope it can return to center stage
in world events in the next period good
luck with your tribunal there's anything
we can do to help we're more than happy
to do so thank you George thank you Dr
CH marching thank you very much indeed
for joining us on the
Sputnik
and now it's your turn to tell us what
you think through the portals of social
media what's ratling gri well we
received the tremendous response on the
Act of Killing that we promoted on
Twitter which is good so a lot of people
have seen it and Oliver vuler says this
film is excellent I was in it was in
German TV last year no one is
accountable of course because the
killers were on our side like Blair and
Bush it's important to emphasize the Act
of Killing is a film like no other it is
the cine Chapel of films it is Michel
Angelo Joshua Oppenheimer is a genius he
has captured in a movie a story of such
epic proportions and bizarre and
perverse character he's captured this in
a movie if there's anybody out there who
has not yet seen the Act of Killing I
beg them to see it I tweeted at the time
as you'll recall I'm rarely speechless
but after watching this film you were in
tear am literally speechless as well as
you say with tears running down our face
well it's needless to say that it was of
course not allowed it was bent Indonesia
so it was you know underground it was
shown underground but obviously only to
targeted people the mass audience the
mass the public Indonesia they just
don't know about it it's been completely
kept the M of the public everywhere
don't and that's why Jack Tipple says an
anti- pki film was shown every year on
national TV in Indonesia until very
recently P being the Indonesian
Communist Party and that's the problem
that's the norm in Indonesia which is
obviously very
saddening and that's all that we've got
for this week which means alas that's
the end of the show you can stay in
touch with us on Twitter rtor Sputnik
and on Facebook Sputnik on Russia today
it's goodby from me and from me George
Galloway it's been
marvelous
oh