full article: https://eraoflight.com/2018/03/28/michael-chossudovsky-financial-warfare-triggers-global-economic-crisis/

As financial markets continue to tumble and as national economies sink deeper into recession, it is clear that the East Asian crisis has developed into a global economic crisis. The international money managers whose speculative activities have heavily contributed to this development, have been abetted by the IMF with its push for the deregulation of international capital flows. After having whittled away the capacity of national governments to effectively respond to such ‘financial warfare’, these powerful forces are working to secure even greater control of the Bretton Woods institutions and a more direct role in the shaping of the international financial and economic environment.

‘PRACTICES of the unscrupulous money changers stand indicted in the court of public opinion, rejected by the hearts and minds of men.’ (Franklin D Roosevelt’s First Inaugural Address, 1933)

Humanity is undergoing in the post-Cold War era an economic crisis of unprecedented scale leading to the rapid impoverishment of large sectors of the world population. The plunge of national currencies in virtually all major regions of the world has contributed to destabilising national economies while precipitating entire countries into abysmal poverty.

The crisis is not limited to South-East Asia or the former Soviet Union. The collapse in the standard of living is taking place abruptly and simultaneously in a large number of countries. This worldwide crisis of the late 20th century is more devastating than the Great Depression of the 1930s. It has far-reaching geo-political implications; economic dislocation has also been accompanied by the outbreak of regional conflicts, the fracturing of national societies and in some cases the destruction of entire countries. This is by far the most serious economic crisis in modern history.

The existence of a ‘global financial crisis’ is casually denied by the Western media, its social impacts are downplayed or distorted; international institutions, including the United Nations, deny the mounting tide of world poverty: ‘The progress in reducing poverty over the [late] 20th century is remarkable and unprecedented….’1 The ‘consensus’ is that the Western economy is ‘healthy’ and that ‘market corrections’ on Wall Street are largely attributable to the ‘Asian flu’ and to Russia’s troubled ‘transition to a free- market economy’.

Evolution of the global financial crisis

The plunge of Asia’s currency markets (initiated in mid- 1997) was followed in October 1997 by the dramatic meltdown of major bourses around the world.

In the uncertain wake of Wall Street’s temporary recovery in early 1998 – largely spurred by panic flight out of Japanese stocks – financial markets back-slided a few months later to reach a new dramatic turning point in August with the spectacular nose-dive of the Russian ruble. The Dow Jones plunged by 554 points on 31 August (its second largest decline in the history of the New York Stock Exchange) leading in the course of September to the dramatic meltdown of stock markets around the world. In a matter of a few weeks (from the Dow’s 9,337 peak in mid-July), $2,300 billion of ‘paper profits’ had evaporated from the US stock market.2