Don't Let Wall Street Sabotage the New Presidency: Glass-Steagall Now!

January 23, 2017

LaRouchePAC Policy Committee - January 23, 2017

Lyndon LaRouche issued a strong warning today that there could be toxic influences seeking to sabotage the incoming Trump presidency, exemplified by Treasury nominee Steve Mnuchin's opposition to Glass-Steagall. After the exchange in the Senate confirmation hearings between Senator Maria Cantwell and Mnuchin in which he misrepresented and opposed Glass-Steagall (watch video), Lyndon LaRouche issued the following statement: Steven Mnuchin is a "destructive force" who should be kept out of the Trump Administration Treasury. LaRouche stated: "He can't be accepted for what he was claiming to be; he's not qualified, he'll make a mess in the Trump Administration. Trump could come out successfully on the Glass-Steagall issue; but this guy will mess it up. [mnuchin] is doing dirty work which can lead to a deadly collapse in the United States and elsewhere. With what he was pushing, he could cause a crisis which would rapidly bring down the U.S. economy as a whole. We have a new financial system coming about [referring to the international development institutions of China and the BRICS-allied nations]; and here, that begins with restoring Glass-Steagall. So this is international, not only national, in importance. I think there is no other option but to state that he must be gotten out." Sign the petition demanding Trump fully commit and follow through on his promise to restore Glass-Steagall: http://lpac.co/trumpsotu


MATTHEW OGDEN:  Good afternoon, it's January 23, 2017.  My name is Matthew Ogden and you're joining us for our discussion with the LaRouche PAC Policy Committee.  I'm joined in the studio by Jason Ross and via video by the six members of our Policy Committee:  Bill Roberts from Detroit, Michigan; Dave Christie from Seattle, Washington; Diane Sare from New York City; Kesha Rogers from Houston, Texas; Michael Steger from San Francisco, California; and Rachel Brinkley from Boston, Massachusetts.

I think it is very clear this is the very first Policy Committee show with the new presidency.  Obviously,  Donald Trump was inaugurated and sworn in as President at the end last week, last Friday, Jan. 20th; and we've now officially come to the end of 16 years of a Bush-Obama era.  And that can't be a bad thing. There's a lot of potential.  There are a lot of open questions. As Mr. LaRouche said on Friday following Trump's inaugural speech, there's a lot of lack of clarity when it comes to principle.  But there's also a great hope around the world that this could, in fact, be the shift of global proportions of the magnitude of what we've already seen over the last year to two years, in terms of what's happening with Russia, China and a new development paradigm that is being inaugurated by other people around the world.

Mr. LaRouche just this morning in discussions that we had with him and Helga LaRouche said that there is a lot of potential, but there is also a danger of poisonous toxic influences penetrating the new Trump Presidency which threaten to sabotage any potential for this presidency from the inside. There are two strong indicators of that: 1. A Wall Street influence mostly seen and very clearly seen by Treasurer Secretary nominee, Steve Mnuchin (and we will get into that more), but Mr. LaRouche has called that Mnuchin not be allowed to be nominated or to be voted in as Treasury Secretary, because of a very real danger that he represents, as seen clearly by his opposition to the strict Glass-Steagall banking separation.  2. The danger that there could be a very real British influence on the incoming Trump administration.  The very first head of government that Trump will meet with will be Prime Minister Theresa May from Great Britain, who is scheduled to come to Washington, I think as soon as this Friday.  So, those are two very dangerous influences, and they represent a danger that any potential that we could see in this new presidency could be sabotaged from the inside.

Let me begin with a short excerpt of a statement that Helga LaRouche issued just over the weekend which I think sums up an overview of exactly the situation now, and then I will give you Mr. LaRouche's analysis of the necessity of torpedoing this Treasury Secretary Mnuchin nomination.

What Helga LaRouche said in her statement is the following: "Donald Trump's inaugural address contained a mixture of interesting promises, reminiscences of earlier periods of American history, and impracticable announcements, as well as the unfortunately very widespread idea in the United States that the world beyond the American continent does not really exist, as expressed in his slogan 'America First.' It will be seen in the following days and weeks how he intends to implement his promise to massively relaunch the economy, and how he will shape his foreign policy, above all toward Russia and China.....

"Trump's statement that 'We will build new roads and highways and bridges and airports and tunnels and railways all across our wonderful nation,' can lead to a real reversal of the economic decline. But the absolute crucial issue is whether he will honor his electoral promise in North Carolina to re-enact Glass-Steagall and thus to end the casino economy."

Then Helga LaRouche goes on to say the following:  "Lyndon LaRouche stresses expressly that only the original Glass-Steagall law, as applied by FDR in 1933, could reorganize the hopelessly bankrupt financial system. Of course, there would be a lack of liquidity, when the illegitimate debts, derivatives and toxic paper of all kinds are written off. That's why Glass-Steagall is only the first step and would absolutely need to be completed by the other three points of LaRouche's 'Four Laws,' which are the creation of a national bank in the tradition of Alexander Hamilton, a credit system to reconstruct the physical economy and a crash program to develop fusion energy and international cooperation on space research. That is the only way the urgently needed rise in productivity of the labor force could be accomplished...."

As I said, at the end of last week on Thursday afternoon, there was a confirmation hearing in the United States Senate for Steve Mnuchin, the designated or nominated Treasury Secretary. Senator Maria Cantwell very clearly expressed her eagerness to find his position on Glass-Steagall.  We're going to play a clip of that exchange for you right now and then I will read what Mr. LaRouche's statements are directly following that on the need to block, at all costs, the nomination of Steve Mnuchin on the very point that he opposes the strict banking separation that was instituted in 1933 by Franklin Roosevelt's original Glass-Steagall.

So here's the clip for you, and we're playing this directly from the C-SPAN website.

C-SPAN VIDEO CLIP: [https://www.c-span.org/video/?c4649624/senator-cantwell- questions-mnuchin-glass-steagall]

SEN. MARIA CANTWELL:  Mr. Mnuchin, I caught some of your testimony but I apologize for being at the hearing with Energy Secretary Governor Perry for most of the morning, so missed most of your—

STEVE MNUCHIN:  Appreciate it's a busy day and you're accommodating lots of us, so thank you.

CANTWELL:  Thank you.  I wanted to ask you, do you support returning to Glass-Steagall?

MNUCHIN:  I don't support going back to Glass-Steagall, as is.  What we've talked about with the President-elect is perhaps we need a 21st Century Glass-Steagall. But no, I don't support going back as is of taking a very old law and say we should adhere to it as is.

CANTWELL:  So, is that the position of what the Republican platform was, because I thought it was Glass-Steagall?

MNUCHIN:  Again, the Republican platform did pass at the convention Glass-Steagall and the President-elect, and when we talked about policy with the President-elect, our view is we need a 21st Century Glass-Steagall.

CANTWELL:  So, when did that change?

MNUCHIN:  Oh, again, that's been part of the campaign.  It's been in some of his speeches.

CANTWELL: So, what? Like October? Or —  but after the convention?  At the convention, it was Glass-Steagall.

MNUCHIN:  At the convention, the Republican position was Glass-Steagall.

CANTWELL:  And so, his position was never Glass-Steagall? Is that what you're saying?  Or all along he meant a different version?

MNUCHIN:  Again, I can only tell you that post-convention, this is an issue that he and I have discussed, OK, and something that we will be looking at, but no—

CANTWELL:  And do you think Mr. Manafort's leaving had anything to do with the change?


CANTWELL:  Okay, so you think—  To me this is a very important issue.  In fact, I would have said at some point in August that the Republican platform had a stronger position on Glass-Steagall than the Democratic platform. But now I understand that the President-elect doesn't really support Glass-Steagall; he supports some modern version, which I don't understand.  So, maybe you could help me: Tell me what that modern version is.

MNUCHIN:  Again, I think that separating out banks and investment banks right now under Glass-Steagall would have very big implications to the liquidity in the capital markets, and banks being able to perform necessary lending.  I think in terms of looking at a lot of regulatory issues, the administration will look at Glass-Steagall and what I refer to as the "21st Century Glass-Steagall" as part of regulatory reform—have a view as to what is appropriate.

CANTWELL:  So, I just want to be clear, because I think in your testimony that I heard, you did allude to the damage that was caused by the implosion of our economy brought on by toxic financial instruments that did not have the backing that they needed.  According to the Dallas Fed, it's a $14 trillion hole in our economy.  So I think you alluded to the damage that that caused —.  So, now, what I also — I think you answered (at least some of the notes I have here about some of my other colleagues) that you believe in the concept of proprietary trading did not belong with the bank.

MNUCHIN:  That's correct.

CANTWELL:  Okay.  Where does that go, then?  So you're saying you don't think today there is a clear prohibition and you want to see a clear prohibition?

MNUCHIN:  No, no.  What I said was that in the Volcker Rule—  Today, we have a clear prohibition of proprietary trading in banks.

CANTWELL:  With loopholes. With loopholes.

MNUCHIN:  The problem that we have, is that the definition of that was left to the regulators to decide.  And so the first issue is— and again, I'm a believer in proper regulation, but I'm also a strong believer, in people need to understand the regulation. So we need to be able to explain to banks what's proprietary trading and what's not proprietary trading.  I think we would all agree, if we were all sitting in this room and just betting on things, that's proprietary trading.  What I referenced is the Federal Reserve had their own independent report on a lack of liquidity in many of the important markets, so what I'm in favor of is that we have clear definition around the Volcker Rule, and that the regulators come out with that and do it in a way that it doesn't eliminate liquidity in many of the important markets.

CANTWELL:  So, you would basically just tighten what you think are the rules that are out there.  You would lessen the rules that are already passed in Dodd-Frank?

MNUCHIN:  No, that's not what I've said. I want to be very clear.  What I've said is that I support the Volcker Rule, but there needs to be proper definition around the Volcker Rule, so that banks can understand exactly what they can do and what they can't do, and they can provide the necessary function of liquidity in customer markets. Again, I'm referencing a problem that the Federal Reserve has independently raised.

CANTWELL:  I think (to me), I think this election was a lot about the frustration of the American people on the implosion of our economy and the fact that they haven't recovered.  I think the President-elect whether he directly or meant to—I was pleased that his party adopted coming up with a very bright line, of separating commercial from investment banking.  So now, I think where we are today, we're not sure.  Hopefully, we'll get a chance to vote on this, all of our colleagues, now that our colleagues have to answer to platforms and committees, hopefully, we'll get an answer where our colleagues are on this.  But I will tell you that not only is this an issue of people wanting to see a bright line and be protected from this ever happening again.... [END VIDEO CLIP]

OGDEN:  Now the full committee hearing is obviously available on the C-SPAN website and we'll put a link to that clip in the description of this video.  It's very important for people to see this in his own words and a lot of credit goes to Sen. Maria Cantwell for asking that question and asking it a very rigorous way.

Mr. LaRouche's statement, which was just published on the LaRouche PAC website this morning is as follows, and this is a very important statement which must be circulated as widely as possible.  What Mr. LaRouche said is the following: [https://larouchepac.com/20170122/larouche-keep-mnuchin-out -treasury-avoid-economic-collapse]

"After misrepresenting and opposing the Glass-Steagall Act in his confirmation hearings, Steven Mnuchin is a `destructive force' who should be kept out of the Trump Administration Treasury, ...  LaRouche said, `He can't be accepted for what he was claiming to be; he's not qualified ... he'll make a mess in the Trump Administration. Trump could come out successfully on the Glass-Steagall issue; but this guy will mess it up.'"

Mr. LaRouche continued as follows:  "Senator Cantwell's presentation of the case was valid, and it was a case by which she is trying to save this nation. We're on the fringe of what could be a terrible collapse."  And then he concluded by saying the following:  Mnuchin is "doing dirty work which can lead to a deadly collapse in the United States and elsewhere. With what he was pushing, he could cause a crisis which would rapidly bring down the U.S. economy as a whole. We have a new financial system coming about [referring to the international development institutions of China and the BRICS-allied nations]; and here, that begins with restoring Glass-Steagall. So this is international, not only national, in importance.


So let me put up on the screen right now, the link to the petition that is being circulated.  This is http://lpac.co/trumpsotu .  This is the petition holding Trump to his word to immediately reinstate the original Glass-Steagall, as it was passed in 1933 with no modifications.  And we need you to sign this petition now and become active in our campaign.  Again, sign the petition, http://lpac.co/trumpsotu and circulate it as widely as you can. Our goal is 10,000 signatures in the next few days.

So with that said, let's open this up for discussion.

DIANE SARE:  Well, I'd like to begin just as Senator Cantwell reflected on what happened with the election, because 1. It is definitely unhelpful, and I do think as some people have raised, the U.S. news media in particular are playing a seditious role in challenging the legitimacy of election which is still going on in some cases with a phony hysteria funded by George Soros and others.  What occurred, as Mr. LaRouche stressed, is that there's an international revolt against the policies of this neoliberal, which also is neoconservative, free-trade, globalized system, in the trans-Atlantic world.  And the results of these policies, particularly the last 16, 18 years of these policies has been a complete immiseration of the population of the United States among others.

So the question of what happens with our economy, what direction we go is a very crucial direction.  Many people voted against Hillary Clinton for two main reasons:  One is her closeness and loyalty to the British Empire through Wall Street, her Goldman Sachs connections and so on; the other one was their legitimate fear that Hillary Clinton, with her proposed no fly zone over Syria would put us in danger of a war with Russia, a potential thermonuclear war.

So that's clear.  The question now is can we get the follow-through in terms of what the American people want, and Trump did say in his inauguration that the idea of government by, for and of the people is something that he intends to uphold. So, 1. It's very urgent that Americans inform themselves on these matters, and perhaps reflect as to how we could have been so insane as to go along with trillions upon trillions of dollars of bailouts of institutions that were engaged in criminal practices against the interests of the United States; and why none of these people have gone to prison?  And also how do we organize a solution from the top?

So I just want to say that so we're very clear where we are, because what we are facing right now is a very real danger of an implosion of the trans-Atlantic financial system in the very near term.  I understand Nomi Prince is warning of a collapse some time toward the end of year, and Mr. LaRouche in response to that, said, "no, it's likely to be earlier."  So the question of Glass-Steagall being passed as a first step to protect the population from the consequences of such a collapse and to create the first phase of the condition where we could have a Hamiltonian system of credit to actually direct investment into those things which will increase the productivity of our population, is a burning and urgent matter which Americans must inform themselves of and must take action in.

Michael STEGER:  Yeah.  The point that Diane just raised on this, and as Maria Cantwell raised on this election, you have to ask the question, "who does Steve Mnuchin work for at this point?"  The American people clearly voted against Wall Street, whether it was in the Democratic primary or it was in general election, both political parties [audio loss 20:22:0] representative of most of the American people, are largely people engaged in partisan politics at some grassroots or statewide level, yet they were largely in favor of a Glass-Steagall bill to shut down this Wall Street racket.  The President of the United States, now, President Trump, in October made it very clear that to deal with the inner-city problem and the economic breakdown that has taken place there for decades, we have to go back to a Glass-Steagall program.

And now, the nominated Treasury Secretary Mnuchin, seems to be saying, "I'm with Obama.  I'm with Wall Street.  I'm not in favor of this.  I've had discussions with the President and we're essentially convincing him that this isn't the direction to go in."

Now it is interesting that the first interview following the election, with Mr. LaRouche, by a Trump advisor, Roger Stone, the first question Roger Stone asked Mr. LaRouche was, "Why is Glass-Steagall so important, because I think President Trump will and should pass it.  Tell us the importance of this legislation." And it is true this is the necessary first step of a full economic recovery: You have to wipe out this pyramid scheme, this financial fraud.  And it is a shock front effect on the entire trans-Atlantic system, it clears our all of the worthless financial debt and it orients the real debt towards the potential for reconstruction and development.  So the legitimate question is:  Who is Steven Mnuchin working for? Because he doesn't seem like he's working for the American people, or the currently elected President of the United States.  And if you want to make this President legitimate you should abide by his policies and the policies of the American people on what they voted for.  And I think that's really what's at stake  in these coming days and weeks ahead.

Rachel BRINKLEY:  Right, and I think that was illustrated by the fact that he said, Look, I'm worried about a liquidity crisis. Well, where is that "liquidity crisis?"  That's in the investment banks.  As LaRouche has said in the Four Laws, all you need to have enough credit is to have a physically productive economy.  Wall Street is not worried about physical production, but the point is, you don't need Wall Street.  So, yes, absolutely, I think he betrayed that he's worried about Wall Street, when the truth is he needs to be worried about the population and the future of the United States.  And so these are very important matters.  And LaRouche said, look, this is a very serious matter:  If we have a moment of opportunity to completely transform the United States, and we have a Wall Street plant in the U.S. administration, this is unacceptable.  He's got to be rooted out.  And the real issue is the Four Laws, because there is still not a scientific conception of economy in the majority of the people in this country.

And you saw that with these insane protests this weekend, when people — that's just about as low as you can get, compared with what China is doing with announcing their next step to bringing back samples from the Moon; there's a serious discussion in other countries.  What's happening right now in the United States, is a joke!  So absolutely, I think the Four Laws are the essential discussion.

Dave CHRISTIE:  I think also the desperation you have from Wall Street is that they're trying to maintain their fraudulent values, in the context of a world that is moving into the new paradigm, as Lyn and Helga LaRouche have defined over a 40-year period.  And that is the advancement of the physical economy, it's based on what Rachel just referenced with the Chinese lunar program as just one example of their commitment to the true high-technology, their commitment to fusion; but on their infrastructure development that we see with the Silk Road, that this is extending beyond their borders and bringing nations into a truly collaborative effort.  And it should be noted that China itself has a Glass-Steagall type policy, where they're making this commitment towards the idea that financial value has to be wedded to the physical economy.

And the problem is, is you have Wall Street which has done nothing different since the 2007-2008 collapse.  They have only expanded the toxic financial instruments that are the source of all their great numbers on their balance sheets, but in reality there's nothing to back them up. And I think that that desperation to maintain those values are what has driven the geopolitical crisis: That they see the rise of the BRICS process, this poly-centric world as Sergey Lavrov just referred to it in his year-end press conference, they see that as a press, because if they were to acknowledge what is actually known which is that those values are actually fraudulent, and that the United States is going to restore itself and is to return to the Four Laws beginning with Glass-Steagall, but to do this in a context of this international collaboration that is already sweeping the globe; and that is going to be the foundation of peace.

And so therefore, I think if the Trump administration is saying, let's have peaceful relations with Russia, we should have peace with other nations, unless you root out what Mnuchin represents in trying to salvage Wall Street's fraud, there's no way you can have decent relations with other nations.  So I think that has to be put very clearly to them: If you want world peace, dump these fraudsters like Mnuchin.

OGDEN:  Look, one thing that has to be said, is that we are in a completely different political paradigm in the United States right now:  Everything has changed, this is not business as usual.  What people have been conditioned to think and expect over the last 16 years has got to be thrown out the window, and you are a lot more powerful than you think you are right now!  I mean, look at the political shifts in this country over the past year, and I think we, as LaRouche PAC, as the LaRouche movement here in the United States, the core group that has made Glass-Steagall the central issue of the survival of the United States, we have to claim the authority that we legitimately have at this moment in political history; and nothing can be political commentary at this point.  It has to be  — it's deadly serious, because we have to be thinking in terms of shaping the agenda, shaping the policy of the Presidency of the United States.  And it is, it's a battle.  It's a hand-to hand battle right now to make that happen.

But if you think about the authority that LaRouche PAC has right now, Michael said it very well, and Maria Cantwell even acknowledged, you know, what was this election about?  Whether it was people voting for Bernie Sanders in the Democratic primaries or it was people voting for Trump in the Republican primaries and in general election, what were people voting for? They were voting for Glass-Steagall!  They were voting against World War III, a confrontation with Russia which would lead to World War III; they were voting to rebuilding American industry, the "forgotten man and woman" of the United States, to rebuild that productive capability, the pride that they feel in the productive powers of their own labor, voted against this neoliberal globalization and free trade, and people voted for, as was a major issue in both sides, a major FDR-style investment in the infrastructure of the United States.

So that's what the American people want! That's what LaRouche PAC has been providing for years; that's the leadership, we've shaped the discussion.  Now we have to take the next step. And I think as Mr. LaRouche is very clear, his voice has a lot of weight among people in this country.  And what he's saying about Steve Mnuchin is deadly serious; it must be communicated and acted on.  But what he's saying about Glass-Steagall, and the rest of his Four Laws, are also very important.  Because as Helga LaRouche said in the statement I read in the beginning of this broadcast, of course, if we were to have a strict Glass-Steagall, there would be a lack of liquidity — but this is poisonous, toxic liquidity!

Mr. LaRouche has addressed this problem, by saying Glass-Steagall is only the first step.  It cannot be just enacted in isolation, because you need to immediately write off the toxic paper, and write off the derivatives, and you need to replace that with legitimate, Hamiltonian credit, coming directly from a Third National Bank.  Exactly the way that Hamilton did it, this is the way that Franklin Roosevelt did it too: you recapitalize an economy with credit, with liquidity that has real value.  And the way you give that credit value, is you invest it directly in infrastructure and in technology that has real economic value — the skills, improving the productive powers of labor, and that cannot be done piecemeal.  This is not Obama "stimulus" stuff.  It has to be done from the standpoint of an eye towards the future and a view that we are driving this economy in the present, by a goal: we are going to achieve controlled thermonuclear fusion.  This should be our "Moon shot" for today.  We should say:  By the end of this decade, fusion will be a reality.  We are going to collaborate with China and other countries, on exploring space. These are the things that we are going to do as a nation, and that is the LaRouche Four Laws.

So it's the authority, it's the voice of authority that we need to speak with, and that everybody who's viewing this broadcast needs to speak with, because obviously, we're the only people on the scene with an actual understanding of the science of economics.

Kesha ROGERS:  Again, the belief in the system of monetary value, or money as having some intrinsic value, really has to be eliminated from the thinking in our population.  And this is what has been the stranglehold over our political institutions, over both parties in Congress, even today, that those people who continue to say we cannot put forth Glass-Steagall because it's going to affect "my profits," it's going to affect in my investments in the markets.  Well, the investments in the markets don't have any basis on reality.

If you look at, as we've said here on various occasions, look at the number of people who are suffering.  There is no money out there to actually address the needs of population; it's only going to be through, as we continue to emphasize the recommitment to a Hamiltonian, an Alexander Hamilton conception of physical economy, as Mr. LaRouche has clearly continued to define in his Four Laws; and this really puts on the table, the challenge to the American people to start to study and understand what constitutes a truly productive economy.  And the example of that has been stated thus far already: You look at what China has been doing, and nations joining with the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, nations joining with the new paradigm that has been set into motion, that this is not a "U.S." policy: This is a global phenomenon under way, and the Glass-Steagall fight is going to be instrumental in bring the United States into that global phenomenon which we have to win.

And on the Glass-Steagall fight, I have to say, it really has to take place with the understanding that we're going to break the backs of Wall Street, to eliminate the stranglehold and the power of Wall Street over the American people and over the institutions in the way that Franklin Roosevelt did, and in the way that the Attorney under Franklin Roosevelt, Ferdinand Pecora did.  That these guys still have to pay.  A lot of people have suffered under the grip of the speculation and control of Wall Street that had set our economy back for some time to come.  And this is not just a fight over separation of banking; this is that, never again will we allow for this criminal apparatus to destroy the lives of the people as it has done thus far.  And therefore, if we're going to have a real vision for the future, the commitment towards space cooperation, the commitment toward joining China with understanding that a mission to the far side of the Moon is not going to be done by some crumbs being thrown in or by a commercial sector.  But by a completely reorganized national effort based on a credit system outlined by Alexander Hamilton.

And Mnuchin understands nothing about this.  And LaRouche, if you want to get it right, he knows what to do.

Jason ROSS:  And LaRouche has put that in terms of a transformation of the productivity of the nation.  If you replace monetarism with another basis for value for what productivity really means, that gets you somewhere.  And you think about the potential that we've got with the National Banking approach to do the kind of financing that's necessary to rebuild the country and to develop the next levels of technology, the next platforms for the development of the human species.  Both China and Japan have over $1 trillion Treasury holdings.  The Chinese Investment Corp. head has pointed out that the returns on these are very low right now.  Interest rates on these Treasuries are not very high, assume that's the ones they already own, they'd like to get a better return on these things.  Well, how do you do that?  You do that by using them to capitalize a National Bank, a national infrastructure manufacturing bank, in a way that's similar to, although not exactly the same as what Alexander Hamilton did in setting up the Bank of the United States in the first years of the creation of our republic.

So by bringing in these available holdings, by setting up a bank that's directed towards developments in avenues that will change the productivity of the nation; and by making it possible, for example, to offer financing and loans for industries or contractors involved in developing new scientific breakthroughs such as fusion, by doing that, we really set the basis for the next level of where the human species can go.  Because, let's look at this: When we consider things like China pulling 600 million people out of poverty over the last three decades, that's a tremendous accomplishment!  It's wonderful.  China deserves great credit and great accolades for having accomplished that.

We've got to ask, how do we create the next level of potential development:?  Because at this stage of globalization a great deal of the growth that's occurring in what we used to call the Third World, or the developing countries of the world has come from implementing technologies, from implementing a platform that has been brought into existence already, through technologies which in many cases had existed for decades; so we have to ask ourselves, what's the potential for that next layer of growth?

And we're not going to get it simply in the IT world.  You know, 50 years ago, people were imaging a future of flying cars and supersonic transportation, and instead, we have Tweets.  We can't get places quicker than we could 50 years ago.  We used to have the Concorde — we don't now.  There's no commercial supersonic transportation on the planet.  So, our space program, right?  China in November of this year is planning to launch the Chang'e-5 sample return mission, and then the following year, go to the far side of the Moon.  A sample return, that's a wonderful development for China.  It is something that's happened before; that doesn't mean it shouldn't be done.  You know, when we look at China going to the far side, here we're talking about something really new, and the United States can play a very important role in the world in developing those scientific breakthroughs as through fusion and others, that can really bring us to a new platform, on which the next level of development of the planet as a whole can be based.

And, you know, the world is eager to see the United States play that sort of a role.  And we've got a great potential, in the Congress, with the new administration, despite Steven Mnuchin, to really force through Glass-Steagall and then continue on with LaRouche's Four Laws; get a National Banking approach that will make it possible to finance all of these very expensive, long-term projects, that are not going to be paid for by public-private partnership, or buidling a bunch of toll roads, or only improving airports.

We need a great deal of credit.  We know how to do it.  We have got the proposed legislation; we're organizing in the Congress for this.  We need a greater understanding of these principles among the people of the United States, to be able to organize for them.  But we really do know what to do, and it's our job to make that happen.

OGDEN:  I think if you take the concluding segment of Trump's inaugural,  you know, there was a series of three items which he listed there, which, if that was serious, that's something that's worthwhile.  He said, we're on the verge of a new millennium, and we need to unlock the mysteries of space; we need to cure disease around the world; and we need harness the new energy and power technologies, new technologies as a whole, for the benefit of mankind.  That's real!  And that's something that can be taken seriously.  But it can't be just "said" into existence.  This is not rhetoric.

You have to have an understanding of principle and Mr. LaRouche was clear: The clarity of principle is what is lacking here, and great Presidents do not get by without a clarity of principle.  So the principle of Alexander Hamilton is there for the taking.  The principle which was established with the founding of the United States is there, but it has to be applied in a way that understands the science of economics as a very real science.

I think the other thing you said, Jason, which has to be also stated, and which Helga LaRouche was clear on, is that the only way that we can achieve these great breakthroughs at this stage in human history, is through collaboration with other countries.  There must be a sense of a shared and common destiny, mutual interests between nations which Helga LaRouche said, you know, Donald Trump's emphasis on so-called "American First" is a dangerous idea if you take it, instead of the idea that international cooperation of all nations in the world is to the advantage of all. And I think Xi Jinping's understanding of that, as he expressed it at the Davos summit, that we are at a point that we need to have a common destiny of all mankind. That's the type of understanding that we need to have.

SARE:  You know, today, the talks are going on in Kazakhstan, in Astana, — Turkey, Iran, Russia, over the future of Syria; and then various representatives of Syria, the government, certain opposition groups and so on.  So you take this as a very important potential which now has greater potential since Obama is no longer President.  And Michael Flynn, for example, has talked about the question of a Marshall Plan for the region, because the only way to actually secure peace, is to create the conditions for the population is secure in their standard of living.  So you don't say, "well, first, we'll get peace and then we'll have reconstruction." But no, and it shouldn't even be reconstruction which is the question, also, of how we think about the development that we need  in the United States.  Given what China has done with high-speed rail, for example, you wouldn't want to go back to using horse-drawn carriages if that was the level you were at before the war, and I'm not saying Syria was, or the U.S. was.

But our modes of transportation have been relatively primitive, compared to where we could be right now.  So if the United States were to commit itself to be involved in something as noble and inspired as the development of not just Syria, but Syria as part of the Belt and Road, that also would have major implications for what we have to do in the U.S. economy here. For example, what could we be producing for this?  What are our capabilities?  How would we have to transform our workforce to participate in that?

And then that, once again, comes back to the question of Glass-Steagall, because who wants to put credit into a banking system where there's a revolving door between a savings account and whether it's going to be used as collateral to bail out some kind of speculative gambling Ponzi scheme?

So I just think it's very important for Americans now to think these things through, and this is one of the reasons why our publications like the Executive Intelligence Review are going to be running on a weekly basis, papers that Lyndon LaRouche has written over the last decades, because he is the leading economist on the planet, and he has an understanding of principle beyond what any other person on the planet has.  And it is by mastering these questions that we can make it possible for this Presidency to succeed.  And I can't stress how urgent it is that the United States succeeds right now, under the Trump Presidency.  It is not a personal question.  It is a question of the needs of mankind, and the fact that we have a potential, given what's happened with the BRICS, what's happened in Asia, what Putin is doing and the fact that the Bush-Obama legacy was rejected by the American people, that we have a potential to go in this new direction.  But it is not going to be arbitrary and people should not be under the illusion that you can sit around and wait and see, because I can assure you that George Soros and is spending a great deal of money, among others to turn things in the other direction.  But we should not forget where we are situated in the scope of everything that's occurring on the planet right now.

STEGER: Yeah, this potential for a world change is very real.  I think it's worth stating that guy Mnuchin, this nomination should be stopped.  It's evident that this guy who worked for George Soros directly, his Dune Capital Management hedge fund was backed up by George Soros directly with hundreds of millions of dollars — this is so-called Bloomberg News.

So the question of what is actually infiltrating the Trump administration at this point, on the crucial issue, we've raised it here before, Lyndon LaRouche, in his fight over the last 50 years should be the high flying banner of U.S. policy today.  And his policies on the Four Laws are the basic, basic minimal steps to address the kind of economic crisis we face. The British Empire, the Queen of England, her agents, like George Soros, like Barack Obama, will do anything to stop this program and orientation.  And the fact that this guy Mnuchin was directly backed by Soros, shows that there's a real threat, or there's at least a panic, as Dave said earlier — there's a panic and desperation to shut down this clearly new world potential.

And if Trump's going to win this fight, he's got to orient, as Helga said, globally, but he's also got to be clear: That this is a real operation to undermine his Presidency, and the vital issue. You can shut down TPP; he shut down TPP today, it was already probably dead, but he signed off on it, because that was his stated policy.  He clearly going to orient — his whole administration's largely opposed to this global warming fraud. This is the first time, since the global warming fraud was pushed by Al Gore and others, that you have an executive administration in the United States that's opposed to it!  That's critically important, if you're actually going to develop mankind.

But on the critical, immediately steps to address this economic crisis, you now have a Treasury nominee backed by George Soros!  That's a problem.  It's the very thing George Soros is attacking Trump's Presidency in court already; it's the Soros who was funding these so-called anarchist operations in the streets on Inauguration Day.  This is George Soros, this is the pro-drug lobby, that attacked our organization, and is attacking the Trump administration.  So who does Steve Mnuchin actually work for?  It seems like he works more for George Soros than he does the American people.

Bill ROBERTS:  That's a very good point, because — think about — this has come up before, but Trump was elected because he largely gave people a sense that he wasn't part of the team that has been running the trans-Atlantic world.  Why is the establishment so freaked out, and concocting all sorts of  — I mean this is like a 24-hour news media  — I don't know if anyone's turned on their TV recently, but this is like a 24-hour attack Trump on anything we possibly can!  And as Helga Zepp-LaRouche pointed out, last week, this is purely because Trump is not part of the team of the globalists.  He clearly wants to end these regime-change policies, and you know, some of what this America First thing is, when he talks about it, is "we want to repeal these crazy trade deals that don't benefit us," and there's a certain legitimacy to that.

But I would just say, what's clear, is that if this Presidency is going to succeed in getting this country, this government out of the clutches out of this completely failed and suicidal system, there has got to be a victory, immediately on Glass-Steagall.  So I think much of what you're seeing out there, as far as the chaos operation is to distract, and distract and distract, away from that central issue of how it is that you actually will put to bed this crazy Wall Street/British Monarchy system. So I would really implore people to focus: Glass-Steagall is not — you could see how Mnuchin was trying to make Glass-Steagall seem like a subtle issue of financial regulation.  And he did — this was sophistry! I mean, just watching this video again, it struck me that this was a real sophist argument that he was making, wrongly referring to a Federal Reserve report about liquidity problems with the Volcker Rule, but instead substituting Glass-Steagall instead of the Volcker Rule instead of the supposed subject of that report!  I mean, this is real sneaky stuff!

And when you combine it with all the other crazy claims that Trump is not a legitimate President, you can see exactly why it is that we have to work very hard to focus the American people's minds, on yes, Glass-Steagall, but Glass-Steagall as an expression of the General Welfare principle and how it is that with the Four Laws and the orientation to build up productivity of the country, that we actually succeed in defining  the United States' place in a new world paradigm, which is not at all an America First idea, but as we will begin to see more and more, depends upon our American people's recognition that much of the driver for where our own benefit is going to come from, is from the parts of the world that have been making very important advances for all of humanity.

OGDEN:  Excellent.  Thank you, very much Bill.  I think that's right to the point. And if you take Lyndon LaRouche's statement, which was published on the website this morning, and it will be sent out as a email to the entire LaRouche PAC email subscriber base, this needs to be circulated as widely as possible:  And believe me, this can cause a very big impact inside Washington as these confirmation hearings continue.

If you haven't yet become a subscriber to that LaRouche PAC email list, this is a very important example of why you need to be on the email list, to be able to get these up-to-minute statements as soon as possible, directly into your In Box, so that you can know what the marching orders are.  It'll be even more critical over the coming hours and days as we engage in this fight.  The second point I would make, let me put up again on the screen, http://lpac.co/trumpsotu , this petition.  We need to accumulate at least 10,000 signatures on this.  It currently stands a little bit above 1,000 and that campaign has got to be very real: This also will have a major impact on policy over the coming days and weeks.  And I know, in New York City, the emphasis on the Manhattan Project deployment of the LaRouche movement, a focused concentration on New York City has put us in a position where we have a very real input and a very real influence on the discussions that continue to be ongoing inside this new Trump team. And it's all that much more important that there's real clarity from the LaRouche PAC activist base on this question, on these kinds of questions, so that we can speak with the kind of authority that we have in this moment of history.

So, are there any other additional comments that need to be made by the Policy Committee before we end? If not I would reference you to the full video of that exchange:  The link is available in the description of this video between Maria Cantwell and Steven Mnuchin https://www.c-span.org/video/?c4649624/senator-cantwell-questions-mnuchin-glass-steagall — that should be circulated, so that the American people can see that, and know what's being said in these hearings.  And circulate that in conjunction with the statement that Mr. LaRouche put out on this question.

So thank you very much for joining us here today.  Thank you to the Policy Committee.  And please stay tuned to larouchepac.com.  We have a lot of work to do. We'll see you soon.