by Ellen Brown

Global Research, August 14, 2008
webofdebt.com

I’m in show business, why come to me?"

"War is show business, that’s why we’re here."
– "Wag the Dog" (1997 film)

Last week, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac had just announced record losses, and so had most reporting corporations. Unemployment was mounting, the foreclosure crisis was deepening, state budgets were in shambles, and massive bailouts were everywhere. Investors had every reason to expect the dollar and the stock market to plummet, and gold and oil to shoot up. Strangely, the Dow Jones Industrial Average gained 300 points, the dollar strengthened, and gold and oil were crushed. What happened?

It hardly took psychic powers to see that the Plunge Protection Team had come to the rescue. Formally known as the President’s Working Group on Financial Markets, the PPT was once concealed and its very existence denied as if it were a matter of strict national security. But the PPT has now come out of the closet. What was once a legally questionable "manipulator" of markets has become a sanctioned stabilizer and protector of markets. The new tone was set in January 2008, when global markets took their worst tumble since September 11, 2001...

George Washington's Blog: Jim Wilkinson and the Plunge Protection Team
Remember the Bush-Cheney supporters who pretended to spontaneously protest the Miami-Dade 2000 election recount, but were really high-level Republican aides and staffers?


Well, Jim Wilkinson was there:

"Jim Wilkinson, a spokesman for the Bush recount team who was present at the protest outside the Miami-Dade canvassing room, says that there was nothing orchestrated about the protest. 'There were between 80 and 100 of us' outside the room, Wilkinson said, 'and it was a very emotional group of young people. But they thought the election was being held behind closed doors.' Hence they all walked outside the canvassing room and protested -- emotionally, but spontaneously, Wilkinson said."

The same Wilkinson "helped to manage the program of embedding reporters in combat units" during the Iraq War, and has been a part of numerous other Bush administration propaganda and dirty tricks efforts. He's so bad that a reporter from Texas said Wilkinson "used techniques first perfected by Stalin".

Would you give someone like Wilkinson the keys to your car? Would you give him the keys to the economy?

Well, it turns out that Wilkinson is one of the key players of the Working Group on Financial Markets (better known as the "Plunge Protection Team" or PPT).

As the Telegraph notes, the PPT has broad powers:

It appears to have powers to support the markets in a crisis with a host of instruments, mostly by through buying futures contracts on the stock indexes (DOW, S&P 500, NASDAQ and Russell) and key credit levers. And it has the means to fry "short" traders in the hottest of oils.

Indeed, Treasury Secretary Paulson, the head of the PPT, appointed Wilkinson as his chief of staff and:

"Ordered Jim Wilkinson ... to 'oversee the creation of a Treasury Command Center to track markets world-wide and serve as an operations base in a crisis'! (Wall Street Journal)"

Given that shady characters like Wilkinson are part of the PPT, I agree with journalist Danny Schetcher when he calls for a probe of the PPT by Congress and the press and writes:

In actual fact, this secret branch of government has a sophisticated war room using every state of the art technology to monitor markets worldwide. It has emergency powers. It doesn't keep minutes. There is no freedom of information access to its deliberations.

What is happening here is that we are entering in to a new era, the era of the global market economy. In order for this to happen they must collapse 99% of the world's monetary systems and narrow it all down to 3 or 4 currencies. This has to happen if they truly desire a global marketplace, there are simply too many currencies in play for it to work at this time. The dollar will soon be merged in to a currency that will serve the North American Union and it will compete with the Euro and a new Asian Union currency to be named later. The problem is that for this to happen and for the people to accept it, another world war must be fought, new lines drawn up and new power brokers put on to the thrones. That is what is going on as we speak, the third world war is being manufactured and both sides will be working towards the same outcome, it will be a classic hegelian dialectic, a problem will be manufactured to create fear and uncertainty in the people, the people will respond by demanding change and new leadership, a solution will then be introduced and the people will accept it without question.

These things MUST take place and they are taking place as we speak. There is no better time to be invested in precious metals and other commodities and indeed the recent DROP in commodities prices are merely a reflection of the PTB driving the prices down so that they can load up cheaply before the world war breaks out and the prices skyrocket through the roof.

One of two things will happen. Obama will be elected and the Brezinski faction will take over, and indeed this recent breakout of hostilities with Russia has Brezinsky written all over it, OR, major war will breakout just before the election and the Bush/Cheney neo-cons will remain in office beyond their term. But make no mistake, ww3 is coming and the lines are being drawn and the sides chosen as we speak and the main objective of it all is to introduce new semi-global currencies and take the next big leap towards a new world order.