Free Republic

While WWII raged in 1944, 44 delegations met to create a world currency, bank, and trade organization. They fell short of that goal, but what will happen this time?   Even by the rarefied standards of wealthy New Englanders, the Mount Washington Hotel at Bretton Woods, New Hampshire, is a luxurious retreat. Built in 1902 by 250 skilled artisans for the then-princely sum of $1.7 million, the sprawling Spanish Renaissance-style resort, nestled in the shadow of Mount Washington, the northeast's highest peak, has long been a favorite of celebrities and presidents. But even the man who built it, industrialist Joseph Stickney,...

Americans are piling into gold as national debt and inflation soar, says Philip Delves Broughton The national debt clock which ticks away over Union Square in Lower Manhattan, showing Americans the speed at which their country is sinking into the red, ran out of digits on Wednesday. The federal government's debt had tipped over $10 trillion and it will take until next year for the property developers who own the clock to update it. They promise to add two digits so that it can go up to a quadrillion. Meanwhile, in the city's streets and bars, the talk was...

Gold surged on Friday as world leaders gathered to battle the economic crisis, amid talk of a new Bretton Woods agreement to shore up the financial system, but calls to revisit the gold standard are unlikely. The gold standard, a monetary system of fixed exchange rates in terms of gold, had been the cornerstone of Bretton Woods, which created the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank, until President Richard Nixon took the U.S. dollar off the standard in 1971. Bullion, seen as a safe haven in market turmoil, has staged a $50 per ounce rally from Thursday's intraday low,...

UNITED NATIONS—Diplomats and economists are pressing for new global financial rules, seeking an update of the World War II-era system created at New Hampshire's Bretton Woods. Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph E. Stiglitz of Columbia University told the U.N. General Assembly that "this is a global crisis and it requires a global response." U.N. General Assembly President Miguel d'Escoto Brockmann convened a debate on the global financial meltdown to position the world organization squarely at the center of a possible fix. Development economist and former U.N. official Sakiko Fukuda-Parr of the New School said that "global solutions are needed." At the...

EU, US call for global summit to reshape banking as early as next month in New York The Group of Eight major industrial nations announced Wednesday they will hold a global summit -- perhaps as early as November in New York -- to forge common action to prevent another economic meltdown. French President Nicolas Sarkozy said all European Union nations backed radical restructuring of global institutions like the International Monetary Fund and World Bank. He called for a meeting "preferably in New York, where everything started" and said it should lead to "a new capitalism." Sarkozy said emerging economies such...

Critics have long believed environmentalists were planning global domination. The problem with making a credible case against such an ambitious plan was simple: no environmental leader had published one. Yet conflicts over global warming, world trade, multinational corporations, population control, sustainable futures, and transnational government left little doubt that environmentalists in fact shared the unspoken aim of wielding supreme power over a green future. But there was no proof. For years, critics, lacking hard evidence, were reduced to piecing together a jigsaw puzzle of suspicious environmentalist actions - funding from huge charitable trusts, ties to the broader "progressive" community, and...

Crisis and Repudiation A dollar crisis erupted in 1970-1971 when foreign central banks, who had been flooded with dollars funding U.S. deficits, began to demand payment for their dollars in gold according to the Bretton Woods agreement. The U.S. had printed so many dollars and borrowed so much money from foreign banks that U.S. gold reserves were rendered insufficient (by a ratio of over five to one!), making full payment in gold impossible. The crisis required an immediate solution to save America from default and bankruptcy. The U.S. resorted to immediately severing the link between the dollar and gold, making...

A hundred years ago it was called “dollar diplomacy.” After World War II, and especially after the fall of the Soviet Union in 1989, that policy evolved into “dollar hegemony.” But after all these many years of great success, our dollar dominance is coming to an end. It has been said, rightly, that he who holds the gold makes the rules. In earlier times it was readily accepted that fair and honest trade required an exchange for something of real value. First it was simply barter of goods. Then it was discovered that gold held a universal attraction, and was...

NEW YORK - Bode Miller knows he puts his life at risk when he skis drunk, but the outspoken Olympic favorite admits he may try the dangerous activity again. "Talk about a hard challenge right there. ... If you ever tried to ski when you're wasted, it's not easy," Miller told "60 Minutes" for a segment that will air Sunday. "Try and ski a slalom when ... you hit a gate less than every one second, so it's risky. You're putting your life at risk. ... It's like driving drunk, only there are no rules about it in ski racing."...

WHISTLEBLOWER MAGAZINE WND scrutinizes Council on Foreign Relations Special investigation exposes globalist assault on U.S. sovereignty Posted: May 13, 2003 1:00 a.m. Eastern © 2003 WorldNetDaily.com In the May edition of its acclaimed monthly Whistleblower magazine – titled "THE NEW WORLD RE-ORDER – WorldNetDaily dives into the murky waters of global government, taking direct aim at its many-tentacled hub called the United Nations, and explores, among other things, the pivotal role of the controversial Council on Foreign Relations. A topic avoided by many for fear of being labeled conspiracy theorists, the Council on Foreign Relations nevertheless has played a central...

HISTORICAL FACTS from Team Law The following 15 points are based upon factual historical evidence: 1st: In 1863, Lincoln instituted martial law. He ordered that the states (people) either conscribe troops and provide money in support of the North or be recognized as an enemy of the nation. This martial law Act of Congress is still in effect today - what it means is that the President has dictatorial authority to do anything that can be done by the government in accord with the Constitution of the United States of America. This is the foundation of Presidential Executive Orders. 2nd:...

When Dean Acheson, secretary of state to President Harry S. Truman, sought a title for his memoirs, he hit upon a quote from the 13th century Spanish king Alfonso The Wise: "Had I been present at the creation, I would have given some useful hints for the better ordering of the universe."It provided an apt name - Present at the Creation - for a book about a small group of policy-makers who, in the aftermath of the second world war, became midwives to a new world order.The Truman administration was witness to the creation of the state of Israel,...