Message to Emmanuel Macron : Prove that you are not just a puppet of the Banking system

Yesterdary, in the second round of the French Presidential elections, Emmanuel Macron succeeded in getting 20,753,798 people to vote for him. That's 43.63% of those eligable to vote, 58.47% of those who voted, and 66.06% of those who chose to vote for one of the two candidates in the second round.

There's no denying that this is a truly remarkable performance for someone who is only 39,  has never held an elected office, has no official support from any of the traditional French Political Parties, and had to launch his own "En Marche" movement (with the same initials as his name) little more than one year ago, on the 6th of April 2017.

It's truly spectacular, and I'm not surprised that many people are feeling more optimistic about the future with Emmanuel Macron as president. It could be the new blood that we desperately need.

But many people have criticised him for having spent a period of over over 3 and half years from September 2008 to May 2012 as a Banker with Rothschild and Co. And it's true that this is an invitation to those who like conspiracy theories.  Could it be that he could be secretly working for the banking system? After all, the ability of Banks like Goldman Sachs to infiltrate the highest echelons of the Political system is impressive, as pointed out in a recent article in Yahoo Finance. Just as a quick reminder (thanks to Wikipedia) here is a partial list of how just one bank has managed to get its alumni into a huge number of key positions:

• Olusegun Olutoyin Aganga – Former Nigerian Finance Minister, current Nigerian Minister for Trade and Investments
• Claudio Aguirre – Led most of the privatization of Spanish government assets in the 1990s, including Telefónica, Repsol and Endesa
• Erik Åsbrink – Minister for Finance of Sweden (1996–1999)
• Ziad Bahaa-Eldin – Deputy Prime Minister of Egypt (2013–)
• Stephen Bannon - Former executive chairman of Breitbart News LLC, and Chief Executive Officer of the Donald Trump presidential campaign, 2016
• Joshua Bolten – Former White House Chief of Staff
• Mark Carney – Governor of the Bank of England (2013–) and former Governor of the Bank of Canada (2008–2013)^[3]
• Efthymios Christodoulou – Governor of the Bank of Greece (1991–1993)
• Petros Christodoulou – General Manager of the Public Debt Management Agency of Greece (2010–2012) and Deputy Chief Executive Officer of the National Bank of Greece (2012–)
• Michael Cohrs – Member of Court and the Financial Policy Committee at the Bank of England
• Jon Corzine – Former CEO of MF Global, Inc., former Democratic Governor (2006–2010) and U.S. Senator (2001–2006), New Jersey
• Guillermo de la Dehesa – Secretary of State of Economy and Finance of Spain (1986–1988)
• Vladimír Dlouhý – Minister of Industry and Trade of the Czech Republic (1992–1997)
• Mario Draghi – President of the European Central Bank (2011-)
• Rahm Emanuel – Mayor of Chicago (2011–)^[4]
• Henry H. Fowler – Former United States Secretary of the Treasury (1965–1969)
• Judd Gregg – Governor of New Hampshire (1989–1993) and United States Senator from New Hampshire (1993–2011)
• Guy Hands – CEO of Terra Firma Capital Partners
• Jim Himes – member of the House of Representatives (2009–present), representing Connecticut
• Reuben Jeffery III – Under Secretary of State for Economic, Business, and Agricultural Affairs (2007– )
• Neel Kashkari – Former Interim Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Financial Stability (2008–2009)
• Gianni Letta – Secretary to the Council of Ministers of Italy under the governments of Silvio Berlusconi
• Ian Macfarlane – Governor of the Reserve Bank of Australia (1996–2006)
• Tito Mboweni – Governor of the Reserve Bank of South Africa (1999–2009)
• Karel Van Miert – European Commissioner for Transport and Consumer Protection (1989–1993) and European Commissioner for Competition (1993–1999)
• Carlos Moedas – European Commissioner for Research, Science and Innovation
• Mark Patterson – Chief of Staff to the Secretary of the Treasury of the United States (2009–)
• Henry Paulson – Former United States Secretary of the Treasury (2006–2009)
• Romano Prodi – Prime Minister of Italy (1996–1998, 2006–2008) and President of the European Commission (1999–2004)^[6]
• Robert Rubin – Former Secretary of the Treasury of the United States, ex–Chairman of Citigroup
• Gene Sperling – Director of the National Economic Council (2011–)^[7]
• Lawrence Summers – Secretary of the Treasury of the United States (1999–2001)^[8]
• Peter Sutherland UN representative for refugees; former EU commissioner; former attorney general of Ireland; Chairman Emeritus of GS International.
• John Thain – Former Chairman and CEO, Merrill Lynch, and former chairman of the NYSE
• Massimo Tononi – Treasury Undersecretary of the Ministry Of Economy and Finance of Italy (2006–2008)^[6]
• Malcolm Turnbull – Prime Minister of Australia (2015- )
• Robert Zoellick – United States Trade Representative (2001–2005), Deputy Secretary of State (2005–2006), World Bank President (2007–2012)
• Elisha Wiesel - chief information officer of Goldman Sachs

But I'm prepared to give Emmanuel Macron a chance to prove that he is truly independent.

Here's how he could do it.

First, he should join the chorus of distinguished economists who are calling on Mario Draghi to put an end to the scheme where he uses his power as President of the European Central Bank to create money to flood the financial markets with liquidity. The €80 billion that Draghi has been pumping into the financial system every month for the last year has been of virtually no utility to Eurozone Citizens. Instead, he should be using that money creation intelligently - for example to finance renewable energy projects, or providing direct payments to Eurozone citizens. The arguments can be found on the QE4citizens website.

Second, he should accept that the current system in which commercial banks have a virtual monopoly on money creation in the real economy, and where essentially all the money we use is created as interest bearing debt, is insane. It would be far more intelligent to allow governments to create at least some of the money we use debt free. This is what I have been proposing with the idea of the N-Euro - a parallel electronic currency that can be used to pay public sector salaries, pensions and benefits, and which has parity with the conventional Euro because it can be used to pay taxes - one N-Euro being exactly the same value for paying taxes as one standard Euro. The huge difference is that the N-Euros are not created as debt and therefore do not require interest payments. Progressively replacing Euros with N-Euros would allow us to avoid paying the absurb interest payments on public sector debt that French taxpayers have been paying to the commercial banks and pension funds. As I reported recently, those payments that have totalled over €1 trillion since 1995. French taxpayers can reasonably say - we want our €1 trillion back.

Third, he should push for the introduction of a tax on financial transactions. This is something that has been blocked by the banking lobby for years, but is totally unjustifiable. Everytime I make a financial transaction using my credit card outside the Euro area, I get charged a financial transaction tax of around 2.75% - for multiplying the value in sterling or dollars by the current exchange rate. At the same time, the banking sector and its allies makes over 5 trillion dollars worth of foreign exchange every day, and for free. Let's have a level playing field. I'm happy to pay exactly the same transaction fees as the bankers.

If Emmanuel Macron was prepared to take the lead on either of this issues, he would convince me that he is not simply a smooth and manicured front man for the Banking System. If he fails to do anything, then I'll always have doubts about his true motivations.

I'll be following developments with much interest in the months and years to come.