The International Monetary Fund and the European Central Bank are violating their charters in order to bail out French, German, and Dutch private banks. The IMF is only empowered to make balance of payments loans, but is lending to the Greek government for prohibited budgetary reasons in order that the Greek government can pay the banks. The ECB is prohibited from bailing out member country governments, but is doing so anyway in order that the banks can be paid. The German parliament approved the bailout, which violates provisions of the European Treaty and Germany’s own Basic Law. The case is in the German Constitutional Court, a fact unreported in the US media.This opening paragraph is only one of many hypocrisies that he cites, however it brings to my mind some important insights regarding the way the capitalist class rules to serve their interests while only pretending to follow the rule of their own laws. I will comment only with regard to key financial institutions, but the same principles (securing the private interests of the owning class) apply to the other hypocrisies he writes about.
First, although they always claim to follow a system of laws, not people, this is always a cover to hide their use and misuse of laws to serve their class interests. When it is in their class interests to flout their own laws, they do so through a variety of methods: they put pressure on their appointed legal authorities to provide favorable interpretations of the laws or completely redefine what the laws mean (for example, corporations became "persons" via the US Supreme court in 1886). And, at other times, they simple ignore their laws and do what they want.
Laws designed by the owning class have always been designed, interpreted, and enforced to serve their class interests regarding the ownership of private property, and the key feature of which is the right of ownership and control over the wealth produced by working people.
Second, notice that once again (similar to the Federal Reserve) we see institutions that have a veneer of governmental participation in order to create the appearance of legitimacy, but in reality serve the private interests of the owning class. (See this, this, this, and this.) Here we see these quasi-governmental institutions serving private banks which are owned and controlled by the capitalist class who represent less than 1% of the European population.
We are living in a debt ridden world, and who "owns" all this debt (i.e., the creditors)? The tiny minority of people who benefit from their system and who rule much of the world.
