Panel 1 – Dialogue: Questions & Answers

European Petition to President Trump To Implement Glass-Steagall

Transcript

Liliana Gorini: My name is Liliana Gorini. I’m the chairwoman of Movisol, LaRouche’s organization in Italy, and a close collaborator of Mrs. Helga Zepp-LaRouche and Mr. LaRouche for the last forty years. I say this, because I haven’t been at conferences for physical reasons, and now I’ve finally made it: So many people may not know me.

I wanted to commend what Zanni just said about the situation in Europe, and particularly my country, Italy, and confirm fully what he said about the effects of this crazy policy of the European Union on the population, and in particular, about the bail-in. There are already victims in Italy of this bail-in policy and the Banking Union: Two pensioners took their lives because they lost all their savings. These were not rich people. These were normal people who had saved money throughout their lives, which was simply stolen with the bail-in. It is not a solution; it is actually creating more problems.

After the problem with the Veneto banks, we now also have one of the main cooperative banks in Genoa, Carige, which is going broke, and people are scared. They not only are losing jobs, and the economy appears to continue, only because of people living on their savings. Italians tend to save money, but if they also lose their savings they will not only not have a job, but they will also not be able to survive. So the Greek nightmare is becoming very, very close for all Italians.

But, in the Spirit of the New Silk Road, there is a solution, so I want to bring the good news to everybody in the spirit of optimism which Mrs. LaRouche gave in her opening speech: We in Italy have been having a discussion which we started many years ago, based on the Four Laws of LaRouche, and particularly on the first one, on Glass-Steagall. The debate created by Movisol—by us—has now brought eight bills for GlassSteagall into the Italian parliament; in the meantime, it is being debated in four regional councils. Recently, there was a discussion in the Finance Committee on this.

Last month, we decided, because the European Union forbids the discussion, to bring the discussion from Italy to the United States. In what way? We wrote a letter to President Trump, to remind him about the promise he made during the election campaign, to reinstate Glass-Steagall. One hundred-thirty members of parliament signed it—of the Italian Parliament, the European Parliament, including Mr. Zanni, who collected eight signatures from members of parliament for this letter, and state legislators: regional councilmen from Lombardy, Veneto, and people from Southern Italy.

Many other people signed this: Important economists, journalists, leaders of newspapers, myself—I was also among the first signers, of course.

Our idea is to bring this letter to Congress in January, in order to move the bipartisan bills forward which have been proposed in the U.S. Congress.As you know, a few Republicans and many Democrats introduced [or co-sponsored] bills. Glass-Steagall was in the party platforms of both the Republican and the Democratic Party, as it is in the party platform of most Italian parties. We in Italy will have national elections, probably in May. All of the banking separation and Glass-Steagall [proposals] are in the party platforms of all these parties in Italy, from left to right.

This is thanks to our campaign in Italy. In particular, I want to introduce you to this young man – who is the reason why I am here, because he drove me – Massimo Coldamassaron [ph]. He’s the one who collected the signatures, going to politicians and beating them over the head, saying, “I want to save the future of my children, and you have to enact Glass-Steagall, otherwise, we will be without a country very soon.” He has this collection of petitions, and he asked—and I’m doing this, since we’re here—if there are any of you, like for sure, Hussein Askary, Ulf Sandmark, Jacques Cheminade, whoever has a position, some kind of prominent political role, we would like to add names to these 130 Italians, a few people from France, from Germany, from Sweden, from Denmark, so that when we go to Washington, it will be clear that not only Italy, but all of Europe, all of Europe wants LaRouche’s Four Laws and Glass-Steagall. So, please come to me or to Massimo, and we will add your signature, and we will make sure that this petition ends up in the hands of President Trump: We will make sure. Thank you. [applause]

Zepp-LaRouche: I want to fully endorse this idea. I think that’s a very useful proposal, so anybody from any country who wants to support this initiative should really contact Liliana and Massimo. I think the Europeans have not gotten their voice together, and I think what Representative Zanni expressed, that there is this discrepancy between the policy of the European Union and the ability of the European nations to defend their own interests, is very clear. I think that this conference can be a very good starting point to escalate such a demand.

I would urge all of you, go to Liliana and help this campaign, not just by giving a signature, but by making a commitment to do what Massimo did.All of us can go to the politicians, to mayors, to parliamentarians, and demand that they defend the common good.

Just to reinforce what was said on the financial crisis: We are sitting on a complete powder keg. The signs that the crisis of 2008 is repeating itself on a much larger scale are overwhelming. The debt crisis is bigger than in 2008; all the parameters—the derivatives, the indebtedness of states, of corporations, student debt, the real estate crisis—all the parameters are about 40-80% worse than in 2008. And the European Union has just issued a guideline that they have no tools, other than stealing the money of the citizens. This is really a very dangerous moment which we should use as a starting point to go into a real mobilization, to get these Four Laws implemented.