US existence at a turning point: Marcia Backer

Press TV has conducted an interview with Marcia Backer, an economic expert with the Executive Intelligence Review, about a short-term extension of the US debt limit to avert a possible default.

What follows is an approximate transcription of the interview.

Press TV: How do you assess this temporary measure that may be put in place to stave off at least this US debt default?

Backer: Yes, you are right. In the next few hours it is very likely that the actions will be taken between the White House and Congress, perhaps in the next twenty four hours to go towards stopping the government shutdown temporarily by raising the debt ceiling and have negotiations over the coming weeks about the United States fiscal situation.

But there are three important points. One, this will not stop the breakdown of the actual physical economy that is underway in the United States because we have here less and less physical production of food and machinery and water projects and necessities and more and more gambling with financial instruments, in Chicago, on the exchange or between the Mega Banks, the famous banks.

So the point is there is no solution to this even if the government in Washington resumes unless there is an action of restoring the law we have for sixty years from the 1930’s Great Depression which is a law called after its sponsors, Mr. Glass and Mr. Steagall, and that would disallow backing up gambling gets by major banks by federal money.

Stop the bailout is what I am saying. Now I hope people know that what happened is the American population has been terrorized really. There has been an attempt to scare them by the White House and Senate Republicans because London and Wall Street met with President Obama on October 2nd including that the chief officers of J.P. Morgan, Goldman Sachs, Bank of Americas, they met with Obama and they do not want the reinstatement of this 1933’s Glass-Steagall law that was eliminated in 1999.

So we have fear tactics against this about how the world will come crashing down and the only thing we can do is raise the debt limit and have more and more austerity.

Federal spending is what is going to be discussed in the coming weeks. People have to live, the poor should get less, the old should get less health care. So we are at a turning point for the existence of the United States not merely the question of whether the government will go back in recession, that is what is at stake right now.

Press TV: I wanted to ask is this issue really an issue of politics and partisanship at this point or is it really an issue of economics?

Backer: The underlying issue is economic policy and the future for the United States. If we go ahead and put in this Glass-Steagall reinstatement bill and by the way in the House there is a bill and in the Senate there are two bills and twenty five state legislators have been raising this issue.

If that would go back into effect, then United States can stop bailing out the gambling debts of the Mega Banks and issue credit for major projects including resuming nuclear power in United States, water project and having a foreign policy based on this.

That is what is at stake. That is the fight here in Washington D.C.