On behalf of Matterhorn Asset Management, Lars Schall talks with bestselling author Nomi Prins about current developments in finance and geopolitics, such as: the strength of the US dollar; the Chinese-lead Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank; the relationship between Wall Street and the City of London; and the planned free-trade zones in Asia and Europe with the United States.
By Lars Schall
The following interview was conducted for and orginally published here by Matterhorn Asset MGMT in Zurich.
The World is in Play
Note: the remarks made by Martin Wolf (Financial Times) on the Chinese-lead Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, that are mentioned during the interview, can be found here.
For more information on Nomi Prins latest book, “All the Presidents’ Bankers,” listen to the Matterhorn Interview of May 2014, “Finance is a Power Game.”
You can also find translations of that interview in French, Portuguese, Spanish and Italian:
“La finance n’est qu’un jeu de pouvoirˮ
at: http://www.tlaxcala-int.org/article.asp?reference=12400
“Finança é jogo de poderˮ
at : http://www.tlaxcala-int.org/article.asp?reference=12336
“La financia es un juego de poderˮ
at : http://www.tlaxcala-int.org/article.asp?reference=12395
“La finanza è un gioco di potere”
at : http://www.tlaxcala-int.org/article.asp?reference=12394
Nomi Prins, who grew up in the US state of New York, worked after her studies in mathematics and statistics for Chase Manhattan, Lehman Brothers, Bear Stearns in London and as a Managing Director at Goldman Sachs on Wall Street. After she left the financial industry in 2001/02, she became an outstanding financial journalist who has written by now five books including: “It Takes a Pillage: Behind the Bailout, Bonuses, and Backroom Deals from Washington to Wall Street,” that was published in September 2009 by Wiley. Furthermore, she is a Senior Fellow at “Demos” in New York City, gave numerous interviews to international outlets such as BBC World, BBC, Russia Today, CNN, CNBC, CSPAN and Fox, and her articles appear in The New York Times, Fortune, The Nation, The American Prospect and The Guardian in Britain. The website of Nomi Prins can be found here: http://www.nomiprins.com/. She lives in Los Angeles, USA.
Rights of the Privileged Corporate Sector Enshrined in Trade Deals
Every asset, capital, expectation of profit, assumption of risk. It takes very little imagination to see how far this might go.
The Carlyle Group’s David Rubenstein speaks frequently of his firm’s ability to achieve 30% annual returns on investment. This number is gamed by not including Carlyle’s failures or by rolling them up before their annual anniversary. as Carlyle recently did with two mutual funds. Yet, it clearly is Carlyle’s marketing spiel to investors.
What happens if a government action, based on the legal framework of local citizens and their elected leaders, negatively impacts Carlyle’s investment? Can Carlyle can take that to arbitration based on an unfulfilled expectation of profit?
America walks back in time to the Magna Carta, a treatise from forty barons.
Magna Carta was written by a group of 13th-century barons to protect their rights and property against a tyrannical king. It is concerned with many practical matters and specific grievances relevant to the feudal system under which they lived. The interests of the common man were hardly apparent in the minds of the men who brokered the agreement.
President Obama’s trade deals are on behalf of 21st century robber barons to protect their rights of commerce and profit against constitutional governments. The interests of the common man are hardly apparent if the common man has no right to see or view the deal.
Will members of Congress and the President violate their oath of office in approving trade deals that make the U.S. Constitution irrelevant? It appears to be a bipartisan effort, fully supported by America’s two royal families, Bush and Clinton. Even Prince Charles visited the U.S. recently to talk about a new Magna Carta for the world. It appears we have it in Obama’s secret trade agreements. .
http://peureport.blogspot.com/2015/04/rights-of-privileged-corporate-sector.html