Chapter 56 2. The Bank for International Settlements: The Bank of Central Bankers

The famous currency expert Franz.Pique once said: The fate of the currency will eventually become the fate of the country. Similarly, the fate of the world's currencies ultimately determines the fate of the world. Although the Bank for International Settlements is actually the earliest international banking organization in the world, it deliberately keeps a low profile and is hardly noticed by the public, so the research work on it in the academic circle is very insufficient. Except for August and October, ten times a year, a group of well-dressed and mysterious people from London, Washington and Tokyo come to Basel, Switzerland, and then quietly live in the Yura Hotel.They're here for the most secretive, low-key, but high-impact regular meeting in the world.Each of these dozens of people has his own office and a secret dedicated phone line leading to his own country.A fixed team of more than 300 people provides them with a full range of services from drivers, cooks, guards, messengers, translators, shorthand, secretaries and research work. At the same time, they are also equipped with supercomputers, fully enclosed country clubs, tennis courts, Swimming pool and other facilities.

Those who can join this super club are strictly limited, and only those central bankers who set the daily interest rates, credit scale, and money supply of countries are eligible to join.They include the directors of the Federal Reserve, the Bank of England, the Bank of Japan, the Swiss National Bank and the German Central Bank.This institution has 40 billion US dollars in cash, government bonds of various countries, and gold equivalent to 10% of the world's total foreign exchange reserves. Its gold holdings are second only to the US treasury.The profits from the lending of gold alone can fully cover all the expenses of the bank.The purpose of the monthly secret meetings is to coordinate and control the monetary activities of all industrial nations.

The headquarters building of the Bank for International Settlements has an underground building that can withstand nuclear attacks, complete hospital facilities, and three sets of complicated fire protection systems. Even in the event of a fire, there is no need to use external firefighters.The top floor of the building is a lavish restaurant reserved for the dozen or so super VIPs attending the Basel weekend.Standing on the huge glass observation deck of the restaurant, you can have a panoramic view of the beautiful scenery of Germany, France and Switzerland. In the computer center of the building, all computers are directly connected to the network of the central banks of various countries through dedicated lines, and the information of the international financial market can be displayed on the screen in the hall in real time.Eighteen dealers dealt with non-stop short-term loan transactions on the Euromoney market.Another layer of gold dealers is almost always on the phone delivering inter-central bank gold positions.

The Bank for International Settlements has almost no risk in various transactions, because all loans and gold transactions have the deposits of various central banks as collateral, and the Bank for International Settlements charges high fees in the transactions.The question is, why are these central banks willing to hand over these uncomplicated businesses to the Bank for International Settlements and allow it to earn extremely high fees? There is only one answer: secret transactions. The Bank for International Settlements was established in 1930, when the Great Depression sweeping the world was at its worst, and international bankers had already begun to conceive of an enlarged version of the Federal Reserve, establishing a central banker's bank.According to the Hague Agreement of 1930, it operates completely independent of governments, and is completely exempt from paying taxes to governments in war or peace.It only accepts deposits from national central banks and charges a hefty fee for each transaction.In the 1930s and 1940s when the world economy was in severe recession and turmoil, the central banks of European countries deposited their gold reserves in the Bank for International Settlements. Correspondingly, various international payments and war compensation were also settled through the Bank for International Settlements. .

The planner of the whole plan is Halma from Germany.Schachter, this very Schachter, had conspired in 1927 with Strong of the New York Fed and Norman of the Bank of England to engineer the stock market crash of 1929.He began following the Nazi faith in 1930.The purpose of the Bank for International Settlements he designed is to provide an untraceable platform for central bankers of various countries to transfer some secret funds.In fact, during the Second World War, it was through this platform that the international bankers of the United Kingdom and the United States provided Nazi Germany with a large amount of financial support to help Germany prolong the war as long as possible.

After Germany declared war on the United States, a large number of strategic materials from the United States were shipped to fascist Spain under the banner of a neutral country, and then transferred to Germany.Many of the financial services are settled through the Bank for International Settlements. The board of directors of the Bank for International Settlements turned out to be composed of bankers from both sides of the war, Thomas of the United States.Machlick and the Nazi German Industrial Trust I. G． Herman, the head of Farben.Schmitz, German banker von.Kurt.Baron Schroeder, Worthy of the Reichsbank.Funk and Emil.Poole served as directors together, and the latter two were even nominated by Hitler himself.

In March 1938, when the German army occupied Austria, they looted gold in Vienna. The gold was stored in the vault of the Bank for International Settlements together with the gold looted in the Czech Republic and other European countries occupied by Germany. middle.The directors of Nazi Germany forbade the discussion of the issue on the board of directors of the liquidation bank.Among them, the Czech gold had been transferred to the Bank of England before the German occupation. The Nazi occupying forces forced the Czech Bank to demand the gold from the Bank of England. Norman of the Bank of England immediately complied. The gold was used by Germany to purchase a large number of strategic supplies.

When the news was disclosed by a British reporter, it immediately attracted public attention.U.S. Treasury Secretary HenryMackinsar personally to the British Secretary of the Exchequer John.Simon called to check the situation, Simon tried every means to evade.Later, when Prime Minister Chamberlain was asked about this matter, Chamberlain's answer was that there was nothing.It turned out that Chamberlain was the major shareholder of Imperial Chemical Industries, and the company and Nazi Germany's I. G． Farben is a close business partner. Kirkran, who was sent by the U.S. Treasury Department to check the situation of the Bank for International Settlements, described the relationship between the directors of the Bank for International Settlements hostile countries:

The atmosphere in Basel is entirely friendly.Most central bankers have known each other for years, and a reunion is a delightful and highly profitable affair.Some of them suggested that we should give up the mutual criticism of each other, and maybe we should go fishing with President Roosevelt, overcome our pride and complicated emotions, and enter into a good state, so as to simplify the current complicated political relationship. Later, the Bank of England was forced to admit the fact that the Czech gold was transferred to Germany. Their explanation was that it was only a technical operation, and the physical gold never left the UK.Of course, due to the existence of the Bank for International Settlements, sending gold to Nazi Germany only needs to change a few digits in the accounts of the Bank for International Settlements.People have to admire Halma.Schacht could have devised such an ingenious financial platform in 1930 to support Germany's future wars.

In 1940, American McKitrick was appointed as the president of the Bank for International Settlements. He graduated from Harvard University and served as the chairman of the British-American Chamber of Commerce. He is proficient in German, French and Italian. Carried out a lot of loan business.Shortly after taking office, he went to Berlin and the German Central Bank, and held secret meetings with the Gestapo to discuss how banking operations should continue should the United States enter a state of war with Germany. On May 27, 1941, U.S. Secretary of State Hull, at the request of Treasury Secretary Mokinza, sent a telegram to the U.S. ambassador to the United Kingdom to investigate in detail the relationship between the British government and the Bank of International Settlements under the control of the Nazis. .The findings made Mokinsa furious, and Norman of the Bank of England had been a director of the Bank for International Settlements.In fact, the banking institutions of the United States, Britain, and France, and their bitter enemies in the field, the Germans, were friendly and cordial on the boards of the liquidation banks, and this strange relationship lasted until the end of the war.

On February 5, 1942, two months after Japan's surprise attack on Pearl Harbor, the United States had entered into a full-scale war against Germany. It was strange that the German Central Bank and the Italian government agreed that the American McKitrick would continue to be in charge of international settlements. The bank's president until the end of the war, while the Fed remained in business with the BIS. The British Labor Party has always been skeptical of the unclear relationship between the Bank of England and the Bank of International Settlements, and has repeatedly urged the Ministry of Finance to make a statement. The Ministry of Finance explained: This country has multiple rights and interests in the Bank of International Settlements. These arrangements All based on agreements between governments.It is not in our best interest to sever ties with this bank.In an era of wars full of wars and smoke, even non-aggression treaties between countries can be abandoned at any time, but the British Ministry of Finance strictly abides by the agreements between bankers of various countries. Serious attitude.The problem is that in 1944 it was finally discovered that Germany had received most of the dividends from the Liquidation Bank, and that Britain's generosity was dubious. In the spring of 1943, McKitrick traveled between the warring countries regardless of personal safety.Although he was neither an Italian citizen nor an American diplomat, the Italian government still granted him a diplomatic visa, and he was escorted by Himmler's secret police to Rome, the capital of the belligerent country, and then returned to the United States via Lisbon on a Swedish ship.In April, he came to New York for consultations with Federal Reserve officials, and then he went to Berlin, the German capital, with an American passport, to convey confidential financial intelligence and the attitude of top US officials to officials at the German Central Bank. On March 26, 1943, California Congressman Jerry.Voorhis introduced a proposal in the House of Representatives to investigate the BIS, trying to understand why an American citizen served as the head of a bank designed and run by the Axis powers. Neither the US Congress nor the Treasury Department were interested in conducting an investigation. By January 1944, another good thing, Congressman John.Kaufei angrily stated: The Nazi government has 85 million Swiss gold francs deposited in the Bank for International Settlements.Most of the directors are Nazi officials, and our American money keeps going there. People have never understood why Switzerland can maintain neutrality in an environment of war on all sides, while Belgium, Luxembourg, Norway, and Denmark, which are equally weak, cannot escape the iron heel of the Nazis even if they want to remain neutral.In fact, the problem is that the Bank for International Settlements is located in Switzerland, and its actual function includes the bankers of the United States and Britain providing war financing to Germany in order to make the war longer. On July 20, 1944, at the Bretton Woods Conference, the issue of abolishing the Bank for International Settlements was finally put on the table.The two chief architects, Keynes and White, initially supported the abolition of the BIS in view of its dubious behavior in the war, but their attitudes soon changed.When Keynes knocked on the door of U.S. Treasury Secretary Mokinsa Mokinsa, Mojinsa was surprised to see that Keynes, who was usually impeccable in attitude and demeanor, was agitated and blushed. He said in as calm a tone as possible that he Mrs Keynes also lobbied Mokinsa on the sidelines, arguing that the BIS should continue to operate until the new International Monetary Fund and World Bank were established.Sensing that Mokinsa was under intense political pressure to dissolve the BIS, Keynes stepped back and admitted that the bank should be closed, but that the timing of the closure was also important.Mo Jinsa insisted that the sooner the better. Frustrated, Keynes returned to his room and immediately called an emergency meeting of the British delegation. The meeting lasted until 2:00 in the morning. Keynes personally drafted a letter to Morkinsa, asking the Bank for International Settlements to continue to operate. At the next day's meeting, Mojinsa's delegation surprisingly passed a resolution to dissolve the Bank for International Settlements. When he learned of this decision, McKitrick immediately wrote to Mokinsa and the British Chancellor of the Exchequer, emphasizing that the Bank for International Settlements still had a great role after the war, but he also said that the accounts of the Bank for International Settlements could not public.In fact its accounts have never been released to any government in the seventy-six years from 1930 to the present. Despite his dubious behavior during the war, McKitrick was admired by international bankers, and he was later appointed by Rockefeller as vice president of Chase Manhattan Bank.And the Bank for International Settlements was not dissolved in the end. After the war, the activities of the BIS became more secretive.It is made up of half a dozen central bankers called the Inner Club, among them are the directors of the Federal Reserve, the Swiss National Bank, the Deutsche Bundesbank, the Bank of Italy, the Bank of Japan, the Bank of England, the Bank of France and others. Central banks are excluded from the inner circle. The most important philosophy of the core club is to firmly exclude governments from the international monetary decision-making process.The Swiss National Bank is originally a private bank, completely free from government control.Deutsche Bundesbank is almost as independent as Swiss Bank, and it does not greet the government at all on major decisions such as interest rate changes. Its president Poole is not even willing to take a government-arranged plane to Basel for a meeting. He would rather sit in his luxury car to Switzerland.Although the Federal Reserve is subject to certain procedures of the government, the White House and Congress have no say in the decision-making on monetary issues.Bank of Italy must be controlled by the government in theory, but its president has never been at odds with the government. In 1979, the government even threatened to arrest the president of Bank of Italy Paro.Bafei, under the pressure of international bankers, the government has nothing to do.The situation of the Bank of Japan is rather special, but after the collapse of Japan's real estate bubble in the 1980s, the Ministry of Finance's intervention in the Bank of Japan was described as the chief culprit, and the Bank of Japan took this opportunity to break free from the government's grip.The Bank of England is closely watched by the government, but its presidents are all powerful figures, so they are also counted as core members. The Banque de France was not so lucky. It was regarded as a puppet of the government and was firmly excluded from the core.