Fidel Always Knows Best…

On September 7, 2000, in an address to the United Nations Millennium Summit in New York, then President of Cuba, Fidel Castro, foretold the collapse of the world's financial system, a collapse currently unfolding before our eyes.

He said that the virtual economy created by speculation would implode "within a fairly short period of time". He was, of course, derided at the time, not least by Irish politicians who showed their contempt by staying away from the session entirely. Pity, he was right, they were wrong.

The Irish ministers who missed the speech, Prime Minister Bertie Ahern and Foreign Minister Brian Cowan, returned from the summit only to follow their neo-liberal ideological masters in Washington in cranking up the liberalisation of credit, further inflating the economic bubble that Castro had spoken of.

Cuba did the opposite.

Within 12 months of Castro's speech the Cuban Central Bank had divested itself of all foreign currency holdings denominated in US dollars in preparation for the impending collapse of the dollar.

As a result of these divergent approaches, the Cuban people will survive the collapse, their society intact. Others will not be so lucky.


Non-Cubans will have to hope that the "new world political and economic order" that President Castro spoke of will eventually emerge from the ashes of the current chaos, an order which will, for the first time, regard them as sovereign citizens who's interests need to be safeguarded by their elected government, not sacrificial lambs to be slaughtered in the interests global capitalism.

Here is an extract of the relevant part of Fidel's speech:

The Role of the United Nations in the 21st Century

"There is no longer a real economy. There is a virtual economy. World exports total somewhere over six trillion dollars a year. However, everyone knows that 1.5 trillion dollars are involved in currency speculation operations, following the elimination of the gold standard in 1971, precisely at the time when the United States' gold reserves had dropped from the initial 30 billion dollars to just 10 billion. With those 30 billion, it was able to maintain stability buying gold when there was a surplus and selling gold when there was a deficit.

Everyone knows that, but in 1971, after so many hundreds of billions of tax free dollars had been spent in the Vietnam War, Nixon simply made the unilateral decision, without consulting anyone, to eliminate the gold standard for the U.S. dollar. This led to instability in all currencies. De Gaulle was opposed to this; of course, he was opposed because he knew what would follow: the unleashing of speculation. Today, 1.5 trillion dollars are involved in currency speculation operations every day, in addition to another 1.5 trillion in speculation with all sorts of stocks and shares. This has absolutely nothing to do with a real economy.

For example, some stock markets have turned 1000 dollars into 800,000 dollars in a period of just eight years. This is more of a perception, something in the realm of imagination, based on prospects even if the companies involved register losses. A colossal virtual economy has been created. An enormous bubble has been inflated and one day it will burst. This is absolutely inevitable. Then, we will be faced with the major crisis that might help to create a new world political and economic order.

Meanwhile, we can build awareness, delve more deeply into these problems and spread ideas like all those that have been expressed here. Because everything that has been said here and many other ideas should be disseminated. We cannot be pessimistic.

I am convinced that this will happen within a fairly short period of time."