The Tower of Basel

[jochen stremmel]

Karl Kraus 1915:

»Es handelt sich in diesem Krieg –« – »Jawohl, es handelt sich in diesem
Krieg!«


2013/9/4 Dave Monroe <against.the.dave at gmail.com>

> The world's most exclusive club meets every other month at 7pm on
> Sunday evening in a circular tower block whose tinted windows overlook
> Basel railway station. Its members include some of the most powerful
> men in the world. They are central bankers, who have come to
> Switzerland to attend the Economic Consultative Committee of the Bank
> for International Settlements, the bank for central banks.
>
> Set up in 1930 by an international treaty, the BIS and its assets are
> legally inviolable. The Swiss authorities have no jurisdiction over
> the bank or its premises. The BIS has just 140 customers but made
> tax-free profits of $1.17 billion in 2011-12.
>
> Under Thomas McKittrick, the bank's American president, the BIS
> continued operating throughout the Second World War. The BIS accepted
> looted Nazi gold, conducted foreign exchange deals for the Reichsbank
> and was used by both the Allies and the Axis powers as a secret
> contact point to keep the channels of international finance open.
>
> After 1945 the BIS—behind the scenes—for decades provided the
> necessary technical and administrative support for the trans-European
> currency project, from the first attempts to harmonize exchange rates
> in the late 1940s to the launch of the Euro in 2002.
>
> The bank is now at the centre of efforts to build a new global
> financial and regulatory architecture. Yet despite its central role in
> the history of the last century and during the current crisis, the BIS
> remains largely unknown - until now.
>
> Tower of Basel is the first unauthorised investigative history of the
> world's most influential global financial institution. Based on
> extensive archival research in Switzerland, Britain and the United
> States, and in-depth interviews with key decision makers including
> Paul Volcker, the former chairman of the US Federal Reserve, Mervyn
> King, governor of the Bank of England and former senior BIS managers
> and officials, Tower of Basel tells the story of the secretive
> institution at the heart of the global banking network: the central
> bankers' own bank.
>
> http://www.adamlebor.com/books/tower_of_basel/
>
> http://www.c-spanvideo.org/program/Basel
>
> "Don't forget the real business of the War is buying and selling."
>
> http://books.google.com/books?id=GGPm4I3BbxAC&pg=PT82#v=onepage&q&f=false
>
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