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Financial crisis 'caused by white men with blue eyes'

With Brown at his side, Brazilian leader apportions blame for global recession

By Andrew Grice, Political Editor

Gordon Brown greets Brazil's President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva in Brasilia

Reuters

Gordon Brown greets Brazil's President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva in Brasilia

A British minister warned leaders of the world's biggest economies yesterday that they must produce more than empty rhetoric at the crucial G20 summit in London next week.

Lord Malloch-Brown, the plain-speaking Foreign Office minister who is playing a key role in the negotiations ahead of the meeting, said: "We can't again engage in meaningless, empty commitments which don't survive the flight home." Leaders risked fuelling public dissent if they did not agree on action to tackle the recession, with dire consequences for the poorest nations.

But he said Thursday's summit may not have an immediate impact. "The global economy is going to go on descending on 3 April, the massive destruction of wealth that is going on is not going to be stopped by any leaders' communique. Stock markets may be arrested and turned around but we are in for a very tough 2009 under any circumstances – including a successful G20 summit."

In Brazil, Gordon Brown continued his pre-summit tour but there was embarrassment when his host, President Luiz Inacio Lula Da Silva, said the financial crisis was caused by "white people with blue eyes". He told a joint press conference with Mr Brown that he had never met a black banker.

"This is a crisis that was caused by people, white with blue eyes. And before the crisis they looked as if they knew everything about economics," he said. "Once again the great part of the poor in the world that were still not yet [getting] their share of development that was caused by globalisation, they were the first ones to suffer.

"Since I am not acquainted with any black bankers, I can only say that this part of humanity that is the major victim of the world crisis, these people should pay for the crisis? I cannot accept that. If the G20 becomes a meeting just to set another meeting, we'll be discredited and the crisis can deepen."

Downing Street sources suggested the controversial remarks were meant for "domestic consumption".

Mr Brown called on G20 leaders to set up a $100bn (£69bn) fund to revive trade and said that levels of trade credit, which exporters and importers use to settle accounts, must be increased. He said worldwide trade was set to fall for the first time in 30 years: "Literally thousands of businesses who want to trade around the world are being prevented from doing so by the absence of trade credit available to them."

Today Mr Brown will attend a conference of centre-left parties in Chile on the last leg of his tour. James Purnell, the Work and Pensions Secretary, will tell the meeting: "Over the last decade the British government has done more redistribution than any other developed nation. It [the crisis] means... we can't create equality in the old way.

"While we will always have a moral duty to tackle poverty as we find it we can't simply take money from one set of people and give it to another, and call that equality. That is a palliative.

"Instead, the left needs to remember that it started off as a movement about power. We need to recognise that income inequality is just part of a wider struggle against the inequality of power. The greatest injustice is when people cannot achieve their goals because someone else with power stops them."

Spot the banker: Workers told to ditch suits

City workers have been told by their employers to wear casual clothes instead of suits next week in anticipation of violent protests across London during the G20 summit.

Financial institutions including Barclays, Credit Suisse, JPMorgan, Citi and Deloitte have emailed employees instructing them to wear plain clothes to work to avoid being targeted by demonstrators, sources told The Independent yesterday. Workers have also been told not to carry sensitive data and electronic equipment, and to consider postponing important meetings until the following week.

Demonstrators plan to stage a carnival in the Square Mile on Wednesday, featuring live music, street theatre and the hanging of banker effigies outside the Bank of England. On Thursday they will march through London's other financial centre, Canary Wharf, heading for the ExCeL Centre where the G20 summit is being held.

Police are said to be more worried about the protests in the City since Canary Wharf is covered by an extensive network of CCTV cameras.

One investment banker said yesterday: "When you tell a bunch of bankers to dress down, they wear a shirt, jumper, chinos and deck shoes. It makes us stick out more than if we we're wearing suits."

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Was fatso listening?
[info]neil_mcgowan wrote:
Friday, 27 March 2009 at 02:00 am (UTC)
Did Britain's obese war-mongering unelected turd have to go all the way to BRAZIL to hear this?

I expect he had the bucket on his head as usual during the speech.
Viva Lula
[info]nounou_au wrote:
Friday, 27 March 2009 at 03:49 am (UTC)
Well its about time, someone has actually said it, and put the blame fair and square on the people who deserve it. I bet Gordon was very uneasy..lol
Good for you Lula.
White men with blue eyes.
[info]ralphmus wrote:
Friday, 27 March 2009 at 05:25 am (UTC)
"White men with blue eyes" eh? Isnt this racist?
Re: White men with blue eyes.
[info]cm999 wrote:
Friday, 27 March 2009 at 08:07 am (UTC)
Quite if some one had said it was caused by black people or muslims there would be a hell of a row errupting about it.
Re: White men with blue eyes. - [info]chanch5 - Friday, 27 March 2009 at 11:44 am (UTC) Expand
Re: White men with blue eyes. - [info]unlikelylad - Friday, 27 March 2009 at 01:20 pm (UTC) Expand
[info]drug_baron wrote:
Friday, 27 March 2009 at 05:36 am (UTC)
These banksters have done more damage than any so-called act of terrorism, whilst everyone was distracted by impeding terrorist attacks by "foreign looking" fanatics; the white blue-eyed bank-robbers were stuffing their coffers with other peoples hard-earned cash. The story repeated itself all around the Western World.

The big question is where are the caves where the banksters hid all the loot ? Who will have the courage to name the location ?............
Financial crisis 'caused by white men with blue eyes'
[info]andre_t wrote:
Friday, 27 March 2009 at 06:09 am (UTC)
TRUE
Financial crisis 'caused by white men with blue eyes
[info]losingstreak12 wrote:
Friday, 27 March 2009 at 06:19 am (UTC)
I work for one of the banks worst hit by recent events, and our debt trading and structuring area is so ethnically diverse that it must have been assembled by the BBC diversity controller. They are all incredibly bright people with more PHDs than you can wave a stick at and in my experience this type of collection of diverse people is the norm in most institutions that require very highly qualified mathematically orientated staff. These "brains of the world" are the people who have manufactured these various levels of fiendishly complicated financial arrangements which have caused so many problems. Credit where its due (if credit isn't a dirty word now) and surely responsibility and blame where it is due. But if you really want to analyse the people working in the problem product areas this is not a "white man with blue eyes" world, these teams are staffed by people from all corners of the earth.
Re: Financial crisis 'caused by white men with blue eyes
[info]drug_baron wrote:
Friday, 27 March 2009 at 06:45 am (UTC)
All criminal shafters have got together for this potion of crime and shafted us all.

Time to start hanging the culprits.
so the left are racist.
[info]dazt8 wrote:
Friday, 27 March 2009 at 07:29 am (UTC)
let me educate mr da silva....the former head of fannie mae is a BLACK guy, franklin raines. the clinton white house pressured those blue eyed bankers to lend to poor BLACK AND MEXICAN people to raise home ownership among the so-called minority communities. raymond j mcguire, BLACK, is the co-head of global investment banking at citigroup and a former top banker at both morgan stanley and merrill lynch, and was in charge of mergers and acquisitions. bernie madoff probably doesn't have blue eyes. and finally, we can now see what the leftwing really think about white people, and why they have their obsession with mass immigration and multi-culturalism. the leftwing has a genocidalists view of race, just as the nazis and the bolsheviks did.
Mind those soundbites, Lula
[info]dimlocator44 wrote:
Friday, 27 March 2009 at 08:13 am (UTC)
While Lula is right that the crisis is the fault of Western bankers, it's unfortunate that he couches this point in racist terms to get a soundbite. It's also is a bit rich coming from the leader of one of the countries in the world with the biggest gaps between rich & poor. I know Brazil, & there the rich feel as little social responsibility toward the poor as the toxic bankers. The wealthy white (yes, white - not many rich black people in Brazil other than footballers) elite by & large think the poor are scum, & even pay to have them murdered. Lula is the first leader in the country to try to do something about this, but he is battling a deeply ingrained culture of inequality.
We invented everything
[info]isaacbrown wrote:
Friday, 27 March 2009 at 08:30 am (UTC)
White men with blue eyes have been responsible for most of the advances in science, technology, art, etc. What did brown or black men with brown eyes ever invent?
Re: We invented everything
[info]chidi360 wrote:
Friday, 27 March 2009 at 08:55 am (UTC)
He
Re: We invented everything - [info]harkadahl - Friday, 27 March 2009 at 09:01 am (UTC) Expand
Re: We invented everything - [info]imogenlucy - Friday, 27 March 2009 at 09:02 am (UTC) Expand
Re: We invented everything - [info]chidi360 - Friday, 27 March 2009 at 09:24 am (UTC) Expand
Re: We invented everything - [info]gcarth - Friday, 27 March 2009 at 10:03 am (UTC) Expand
Re: We invented everything - [info]sara_sense - Friday, 27 March 2009 at 10:59 am (UTC) Expand
Re: We invented everything - [info]vhawk1951 - Friday, 27 March 2009 at 11:52 am (UTC) Expand
Re: We invented everything - [info]hanif001 - Friday, 27 March 2009 at 10:31 am (UTC) Expand
Re: We invented everything - [info]djangovsartana - Friday, 27 March 2009 at 01:21 pm (UTC) Expand
Re: We invented everything - [info]drlott - Friday, 27 March 2009 at 04:42 pm (UTC) Expand
Re: We invented everything - [info]brownskin1026 - Wednesday, 1 April 2009 at 06:35 pm (UTC) Expand
[info]drug_baron wrote:
Friday, 27 March 2009 at 09:22 am (UTC)
Whilst we all peered out of our living rooms scanning the skys for terrorist attacks; the enemy within was raiding our bank accounts reducing our savings to "zero"; putting a whole new meaning to the words "Ground Zero".

Beware of the fifth column within our midst; the blue eyed white banksters who come as friends but strike worse than our worst enemies when our backs are turned.

[info]drug_baron wrote:
Friday, 27 March 2009 at 09:23 am (UTC)
Beware of those who hatch from the cuckoo's nest !
[info]drug_baron wrote:
Friday, 27 March 2009 at 09:29 am (UTC)
White men with blue eyes have been responsible for most of the advances in science, technology, art, etc. What did brown or black men with brown eyes ever invent?
.
.
.
Absolutely true; the brown men called the Arabs are to blame for educating the pagans of Europe before they had the social and moral responsibility to embrace knowledge; all destructive weapons both physical and economic were developed by our newly educated blue eyed white friends who immediately enslaved the world for their own selfish needs once they had aquired their new found education from their Arab friends.

[info]jaffgyp wrote:
Friday, 27 March 2009 at 09:38 am (UTC)
aberden angus is a bit of an optimist if he thinks that financiers and bankers are readily re-deployable or ever were, regardless of eye colour- there are quite well known personality profiles that go with all the different graduate jobs , and these are just as important (if not more so) than abilities and aptitudes; personalities that suit finance and banking could actually be quite dangerous in any caring profession... work it out for yourselves!
Grow Up
[info]kanchenjunga wrote:
Friday, 27 March 2009 at 09:38 am (UTC)
The rubric, taken from his speech belies a belief rooted in victim culture. What is it that makes you believe that people who do not have blue eyes and white skins are not also capable of being greedy, corrupt, ignorant, tyrannical, intimidating morons. These traits are colour blind: get over yourself Mr Lula da Silva. This economic conflict is brought about by extreme capitalistic ideology and for no other reason and Brazil is also a player in the park.
What about Catholics?
[info]johnead wrote:
Friday, 27 March 2009 at 09:41 am (UTC)
We've blamed the bankers so let's blame an entire race, even though the victims come in all hues... I think we should tie in Catholicism as well but perhaps that wouldn't go down as well in Brazil.
Not Another One!
[info]rassendyl wrote:
Friday, 27 March 2009 at 09:52 am (UTC)
"Lord Malloch-Brown, the plain-speaking Foreign Office minister who is playing a key role in the negotiations ahead of the meeting, said:......."

How does a "Foreign Office minister" differ from a Foreign Secretary and why do we need both? Yet another un-elected Brown apparatchik setting and mouthing off on government policy. Under Brown, we have un-elected "ministers" like other people have mice. One of the major benefits in ridding ourselves of the nulab excuse-for-a-government at the next election will be sweeping all these Brown-appointees into the rubbish bin of history. We should look at a drag-back on all their publicly funded pensions too.
[info]positer wrote:
Friday, 27 March 2009 at 10:18 am (UTC)
I don't know if Gordon Brown knows anything about Brazilian body language, but I do. The photo above roughly translates as, Lula da Silva says to Brown: "I know you really really want to pretend we have something in common, but get your patronising hands off me you pathetic schmuck."
Racist
[info]falanf wrote:
Friday, 27 March 2009 at 10:39 am (UTC)
Goodness me, why are some of you writers calling this Brazilian bloke a racist?? Don't you know by now that only white people (with or without blue eyes) can be racists? All racist behaviour by every other race (and there is lots of it) is somehow acceptable and usually ignored by the chattering elite that frequent these pages.
Thanks Lula
[info]had_it wrote:
Friday, 27 March 2009 at 10:46 am (UTC)
Well, now we know. We can just concentrate on the blue-eyed whites, blaming and punishing them, and letting the rest of bankers of any other skin or eye colour just go about their business as usual, unfettered and unreformed. It wasn't their fault.
White men with blue eyes descend from Crusaders, Colonialists, Nazists !
[info]djangovsartana wrote:
Friday, 27 March 2009 at 11:14 am (UTC)
Why do especially white people from England with blue eyes like only white women with blue eyes if it wasn't racism. Does a white man not get bored of another white man? How fucking boring they are!!!
Do you remember the Germans wanting the pure white race. The same is happening in England!
White men with blue eyes are the root cause of all wars and trouble of the world!
White men with blue eyes devious and not to be trusted.
Re: White men with blue eyes descend from Crusaders, Colonialists, Nazists !
[info]falanf wrote:
Friday, 27 March 2009 at 11:26 am (UTC)
If you are right, why do all these non-white/blue eyed people want to come to live in England with all these trouble-making, untrustworthy, devious English people. And do you include the Scots and Welsh in your racist rant? - or was your post simply a wind-up?
Blue Eyes
[info]gheese wrote:
Friday, 27 March 2009 at 11:46 am (UTC)
George W Bush does indeed have blue eyes, but then again so do I
The bankers
[info]cunningtourist wrote:
Friday, 27 March 2009 at 11:54 am (UTC)
Jews introduced usury and they control the global banking system.
does who matter?
[info]vhawk1951 wrote:
Friday, 27 March 2009 at 12:02 pm (UTC)
it seems to this ignoramus that what caused the mess is what matters and ascribing blame is pointless. was it not the clever idea of selling you cash flow- or borrowing on the strength of it that caused it? is not the weakest link in the chain of lending the people that can't make the payment? - there were millions of them
Re: does who matter?
[info]sara_sense wrote:
Friday, 27 March 2009 at 12:17 pm (UTC)
Check out the post below yours - another recruit!
Re: does who matter? - [info]vhawk1951 - Friday, 27 March 2009 at 12:21 pm (UTC) Expand
Re: does who matter? - [info]vhawk1951 - Friday, 27 March 2009 at 12:22 pm (UTC) Expand
Re: does who matter? - [info]vhawk1951 - Friday, 27 March 2009 at 12:44 pm (UTC) Expand
Re: does who matter? - [info]sara_sense - Friday, 27 March 2009 at 01:26 pm (UTC) Expand
Re: does who matter? - [info]vhawk1951 - Friday, 27 March 2009 at 01:29 pm (UTC) Expand
Re: does who matter? - [info]vhawk1951 - Friday, 27 March 2009 at 02:27 pm (UTC) Expand
Eastern Europeans with hooked noses more like...
[info]blairsheaven77 wrote:
Friday, 27 March 2009 at 12:06 pm (UTC)
Deliberately, with malice aforethought.

Wake up folks. There were no "mistakes". It was planned.

When they tell you all the money has "gone", who will be left holding the deeds to your house, your business, and your children? Who will end up owning the real, physical wealth - land, productive assets etc?

Why, the banks of course.

Banks make money from thin air. They don't make the interest - we have to fight for that among ourselves.

When the banks decide to drastically reduce the amount of money they make from thin air, they are "putting on the squeeze" - the credit squeeze. And they end up owning everything. It's as simple as that.

Except, they already own everything. It's not about money, it's about power. What they want is declared world government.

Which all this talk of "global" soloutions" to "global crises" is telling you, if you pay attention.

Re: Eastern Europeans with hooked noses more like...
[info]vhawk1951 wrote:
Friday, 27 March 2009 at 12:34 pm (UTC)
er actually banks do create money..... as debt.. see "money as debt" MAD , for short

but you are right they end up owning EVERYTHING- we need to reform money not banks. the banks do not create the money to pay the interest -thus interest plus principal can NEVER be repaid- it's all a bit complicated for this old codger but he thinks he understands it

it was an Indian who came up with the zero- or so I am told, most people would say that some humans are too clever by half
Race is a red herring
[info]simonmcguinness wrote:
Friday, 27 March 2009 at 12:42 pm (UTC)
The "white men with blue eyes" sold him a pup and he is understandably angry with them. He should have listened to Fidel - perhaps its not too late. To judge from his language, he seems to be reading his 'reflections of the commander-in-chief' and adding his own earthy, even racisist, tones.

Even the Brits seem to be spouting socialism. Whats all this about workers and power stuff from the pensions secretary? Maybe they know that if they dont try to put clear blue water between themselves and the gringos they'd be shown the same cold shoulder that they get in Latin America these days, whatever their eye colour.

Don't get distracted class - this is not about race, its about power and Lula has it. He has just not used up to now.


Re: Race is a red herring
[info]vhawk1951 wrote:
Friday, 27 March 2009 at 01:33 pm (UTC)
of course it is. it is ideas that count, the idea of making money FROM money is a powerful one and appeals to our worst side; idleness and greed
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