Karen Hudes studied law at Yale Law School and economics at the University of Amsterdam. She worked in the USExport Import Bank of the US from 1980-1985 and in the Legal Department of the World Bank from 1986-2007. She established the Non Governmental Organization Committee of the International Law Section of the American Bar Association and the Committee on Multilateralism and the Accountability of International Organizations of the American Branch of the International Law Association.
In 2007 Karen warned the US Treasury Department and US Congress that the US would lose its right to appoint the President of the World Bank if the current American President of the World Bank did not play by the rules. The 66 year old Gentlemen’s Agreement that Europe would appoint the Managing Director of the IMF and US would appoint the World Bank President ended in 2010.
Joining John B. Wells, former World Bank attorney and whistleblower Karen Hudestalked about how she uncovered corruption in the World Bank.
Who is Karen Hudes?
Karen Hudes studied law at Yale Law School and economics at the University of Amsterdam. She worked in the US Export Import Bank of the US from 1980-1985 and in the Legal Department of the World Bank from 1986-2007. She established the Non Governmental Organization Committee of the International Law Section of the American Bar Association and the Committee on Multilateralism and the Accountability of International Organizations of the American Branch of the International Law Association.
What did Karen Hudes blow the whistle on?
In 2007 Karen warned the US Treasury Department and US Congress that the US would lose its right to appoint the President of the World Bank if the current American President of the World Bank did not play by the rules. The 66 year old Gentlemen’s Agreement that Europe would appoint the Managing Director of the IMF and US would appoint the World Bank President ended in 2010http://www.imf.org/external/np/cm/2010/042510.htm
In 1999 Karen reported the corrupt take-over of the second largest bank in the Philippines. Lucio Tan, a crony of Joseph Estrada, then President of the Philippines, acquired stock owned by government employees in Philippines National Bank (“PNB”) valued more than 10% of PNB’s outstanding capital without disclosure, as required by Philippines securities laws. Tan owned Philippines Airlines, in default on its loans from PNB. The government of the Philippines loaned $493 million to PNB after PNB’s depositors made heavy withdrawals. $200 million of a loan from the World Bank and a $200 million loan from Japan were cancelled. Estrada was ultimately impeached, and in 2007 an anti-corruption court in the Philippines required Estrada to refund graft he had plundered. The Bank’s Country Director in the Philippines reassigned Karen when she asked him to sign a letter warning the Philippines’ government that the Bank could not disburse its loan without a waiver from the Board of Executive Directors since the loan conditionality was not met. The World Bank’s Internal Audit Department refused to correct the satisfactory evaluation of the Bank’s supervision performance or the flawed report of the Institutional Integrity Department to the Audit Committee of the Board of Executive Directors. When the Audit Committee requested an audit of internal controls over financial reporting, KPMG, the external auditors, circumscribed the scope of their audit in violation of Generally Accepted Accounting Principles and Generally Accepted Auditing Standards.
Two days after informing the Board’s Audit Committee of the cover-up in the Philippines, Karen was reprimanded and placed on probation. The Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs requested the World Bank’s Audit Committee to look into the cover- up. Instead, the Chair of the World Bank’s Audit Committee requested an inquiry into the World Bank’s Institutional Integrity Department. The Senate Committee on Foreign Relations followed up with three letters to the World Bank. The World Bank forged documents and fired Karen in contempt of Congress. The World Bank also fired the Staff Association’s lawyer. The Staff Association stated that what had happened to Karen had damaged staff morale and prevented others from reporting misconduct. The World Bank’s Ethics’ Officer left in frustration after her request for an investigation by the World Bank’s Institutional Integrity Department was turned down.
Mr. Paul Volcker headed the 2007 inquiry into the Institutional Integrity Department. The Volcker Panel was discredited after sixteen staff employed in the Institutional Integrity Department received significant damage awards in compensation for abuses of authority to intimidate them during the Volker Panel investigation. A staff-member of the EU’s anti-fraud agency, Office Lutte Anti-Fraude, on the Volcker Panel wrote to Karen:
“My Director General and I met with a number of European Executive Directors of the World Bank a few weeks ago to discuss the Volcker Panel report. At the meeting there was also discussion about governance issues. My impression was that the European Executive Directors are well apprised of all relevant issues at the Bank and no further comment by OLAF is warranted even if it was within our legal competence.”
Karen informed Senator Bayh, “[t]he ongoing cover-up is an indictment of the probity of US oversight at the Bank and I would encourage the Senate to request GAO to look into it.” Senators Richard Lugar, Evan Bayh and Patrick Leahy requested GAO to investigate “internal resistance to increased transparency and accountability at the World Bank.” http://citizenoversight.com/pdf/blwb.pdf In 2008 Karen’s Congressman, Representative Chris Van Hollen, noted “that [Karen’s] claims and concerns have already been provided to the GAO…. and to the relevant congressional committees.” In 2009 GAO stated that it could not commence the inquiry “because of challenges we recently faced in gaining access to World Bank officials.” Senator Lugar asked what was delaying the GAO review during hearings on the World Bank’s capital increase.
Mr. Pieter Stek, then Executive Director for the Netherlands, and Chair of the Board Committee on Development Effectiveness, said:
“In a multilateral institution which should be governed by the rule of law and high standards of probity the charge of concealment from the Board of Executive Directors of information relevant to the exercise of its duty of supervising management and the persecution of the person who brings this to light is extremely serious. If correct, which I believe, this poisonous cocktail undermines good governance and ultimately the effectiveness of the Bank in fulfilling its mandate. I shall continue to assist Ms. Hudes in her efforts to have due process brought to bear, preferably by the Bank itself, on these issues of governance.”
David Brooks wrote:
“Then there are violations, when someone intentionally breaks the rules. Errors can be very hard for outsiders to detect. It was people inside the companies who were most likely to report fraud, because they have local knowledge. And yet 80 percent of these whistleblowers regret having reported the crimes because of the negative consequences they suffered. This is not the way to treat people who detect error.” http://brooks.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/06/13/living-with-mistakes/?comments#permid=34
RESPONSE to Motion re 15 MOTION to Dismiss for Lack of Jurisdiction filed by Karen Hudes. Replies due by 04/30/2010. (elts, Deputy Clerk) [Transferred from Maryland on 8/26/2010.] (Entered: 04/30/2010)
AMENDED COMPLAINT against AETNA LIFE INSURANCE CO., INTERNATIONAL BANK FOR RECONSTRUCTION AND DEVELOPMENT, MARK E. SCHREIBER, KPMG LLP filed by KAREN HUDES.(rdj) (Entered: 10/19/2010)
Memorandum in opposition to re 58 MOTION to Dismiss and Sever MOTION to Sever MOTION for Hearing, 57 MOTION to Dismiss Second Amended Complaint, 59 MOTION to DismissPlaintiffs Second Amended Complaint, 54 MOTION to Dismiss Plaintiff’s Second Amended Complaint filed by KAREN HUDES. (Attachments: # 1 Memorandum in Support, # 2 Exhibit)(Hudes, Karen) (Entered: 01/17/2011)
ORDER granting 54 Aetna Life Ins. Co.’s Motion to Dismiss; granting 57 Mark Schreiber’s Motion to Dismiss; granting 58 KPMG’s Motion to Dismiss; granting 59 IBRD’s Motion to Dismiss. The Court ORDERS that: (1) Defendants’ Motions to Dismiss are GRANTED WITH PREJUDICE as to all federal claims against all Defendants, and as to Plaintiff’s wrongful-termination claim against the World Bank; and (2) Defendants’ Motions to Dismiss are GRANTED WITHOUT PREJUDICE as to all other Maryland and state common-law claims. Signed by Judge James E. Boasberg on 8/30/2011. (lcjeb1) (Entered: 08/30/2011) Hudes v. Aetna Life Ins. Co., et al, 806 F. Supp 2d 180
Alternative Currencies is something I have been interested in for awhile now that I have been enlightened about the Federal Reserve system and the IMF or International Monetary Fund run by private corporations who want to run the world and control the New World Order. I’m working on putting together a page or categories for the best source for Alternative currency‘s or systems of Trade and Barter. AntiNWOParty is also trying to through our hat in the ring at some point. We are trying to create our own currency and Trade system for our community. The Question I and I’m sure many other Truthers want to know is Bitcoin a NWO operation? Bitcoin is an experimental new digital currency that enables instant payments to anyone, anywhere in the world. Bitcoin uses peer-to-peer technology to operate with no central authority: managing transactions and issuing money are carried out collectively by the network. Bitcoin is also the name of the open source software which enables the use of this currency. The software is a community-driven open source project, released under the MIT license. Satoshi Nakamoto is the pseudonymous person or group of people who designed and created the original Bitcoin software, currently known as Bitcoin-Qt. His involvement in the original Bitcoin software does not appear to extend past mid-2010.
A global currency the exact thing the New World Orders “end game”. Despite what we see here about Mr. Nakamoto’s views on central banking (https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Satoshi_Nakamoto), what if he (it?) is really using bitcoin as a test bed for a global currency? With global concerns of hyper-inflation and currency wars, it makes sense to me for something like bitcoin to become successful. What if talk of the “Sheeple” getting “chipped” just means their Bitcoin private addresses will be implanted so they can’t be stolen?
Max keiser says in an interview that there will only be 21 million bitcoins ever made and says nothing at all about them being divisible, it comes off as him trying to mislead people who know nothing about bitcoins to think these will be a rare item adding to the peoples desire to join in ? How can you have a Hard limit of about 21 million Bitcoins and have a global currency with world population total number of living humans on Earth. As of today, it is estimated to number 7.073 billion by the United States Census Bureau (USCB).[1] The USCB estimates that the world population exceeded 7 billion on March 12, 2012.[2] According to a separate estimate by the United Nations Population Fund, it reached this milestone on October 31, 2011.[3][4][5]
One Bitcoin is divisible down to eight decimal places. There are really 2,099,999,997,690,000 (just over 2 quadrillion) maximum possible atomic units in the bitcoin design.
The value of “1 BTC” represents 100,000,000 of these. In other words, each is divisible by up to 10^8.
As the value of the unit of 1 BTC grows too large to be useful for day to day transactions, people can start dealing in smaller units, such as milli-bitcoins (mBTC) or micro-bitcoins (μBTC).
Alternative currency is a term that refers to any currency used as an alternative to the dominant national or multinational currency systems (usually referred to as national or fiat money). Alternative currencies can be created by an individual, corporation, or organization, they can be created by national, state, or local governments, or they can arise naturally as people begin to use a certain commodity as a currency.
Mutual credit is a form of alternative currency, and thus any form of lending that does not go through the banking system can be considered a form of alternative currency. When used in combination with or when designed to work in combination with national or multinational fiat currencies they can be referred to as complementary currency. Most complementary currencies are also local currencies and are limited to a certain region.
Barters are another type of alternative currency. These are actually exchange systems, which only trade items; thus without the use of any currency whatsoever. Finally, LETS is a special form of barter which trades points for items. One point stands for one man-hour of work.
Often there are issues related to paying tax. Some alternative currencies are considered tax-exempt, but most of them are fully taxed as if they were national currency, with the caveat that the tax must be paid in the national currency. The legality and tax-status of alternative currencies varies widely from country to country; some systems in use in some countries would be illegal in others.
List of alternative currencies
Barter clubs or corporate barter organizations are an example of alternative currency systems.
Time Dollar is a state-sponsored alternative currency in the U.S, designed to encourage the independence and productivity of welfare recipients.
Toronto Dollar is another example of a backed local currency.
Tumin: alternate currency used in the Espino municipality of the Mexican state of Veracruz. One Tumin has the same value as 1 Mexican peso. To use Tumin, an entrepreneur of the municipality must join the Tumin network. Upon doing so, that person is given 500 Tumin, which can only be used in shops that belong to the network.
Ven is a social currency used in Hub Culture, a private social network that operates a network of Pavilions which accept the currency for products and services. Ven is traded among members and is one of the most advanced alternative currencies in existence, with live market pricing derived from a basket of commodities and currencies that make up the value of Ven.[1]
WIR Bank – One of the oldest and most successful complementary currencies, founded in 1934, oriented towards small and mid-sized corporations, with 62,000 members.
I have been saying that the Global Financial Meltdown was just around the corner for years now! It finally looks like we are on the verge of this happening this year. I would not be surprised if this happens in October 2012! This is a case of history repeating itself! “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” George Santayana
A bank run occurs when a large number of bank customers withdraw their deposits because they believe the bank might fail. As more people withdraw their deposits, the likelihood of default increases, and this encourages further withdrawals. This can destabilize the bank to the point where it faces bankruptcy.[1]
The stock market crash of October 1929 left the American public highly nervous and …at the time, making it the largest single bank failure in American history.
In December 1931, New York’s Bank of the United States collapsed. The bank had more than $200 million in deposits at the time, making it the largest single bank failure in American history.
The bank runs of 1930 were followed by similar banking panics in the spring and fall of 1931 and the fall of 1932. In some instances, bank runs were started simply by rumors of a bank’s inability or unwillingness to pay out funds. In December 1930, the New York Times reported that a small merchant in the Bronx went to a branch of the Bank of the United States and asked to sell his stock in the institution. When told the stock was a good investment and advised not to sell, he left the bank and began spreading rumors that the bank had refused to sell his stock. Within hours, a crowd had gathered outside the bank, and that afternoon between 2,500 and 3,500 depositors withdrew a total of $2 million in funds.
The Global Financial Meltdown has dramatically worsened as Corporations and China Jump Aboard The “Institutional” Global Bank Run As Banks Fall Apart As Their Seams.
Earlier today the world saw a global financial meltdown as investors dumped everything from stocks to commodities and literally everything in between.
Major Stock Market Indexes, Commodities, Currencies And Everything In Between Is Being Dumped By Investors Across The Globe In The Midst Of A Global Financial Meltdown.
The financial markets across the globe are facing one of the most massive sell-offs in recent memory.
The Dow Jones Industrial average has sold off over 467 points today. When and when you add that on top of 284 point drop following yesterday’s crash FED’s statement, which announced operation ‘twist’ and warned of significant downside risk and strains in global financial markets, we have a 751 point drop in the DOW since 2:45 PM est yesterday, which is the largest 2 day slump since 2008.
There are an endless parade of economic statistics many of which are the worse since the Great Depression and World War 2 era. We have also seen 111 of the s&P 500 hit fresh 52 week lows, a drop in global currencies – beside the dollar, oil dropping into the high $70 per barrel range and gold plummeting over 5% to trade in the low $1,700 per ounce range.
Business Week points out the massive crash in U.S. stocks immediately below while CNBC points out further below that this in fact a global meltdown – investors are dumping everything.
While today’s sell off was monumental and in fact is on course for the 3rd worse week on Wall Street ever, the sell-off was on the heels of the FED’s economic outlook. Today’s Global Financial Meltdown is about to become much worse as a slew of news reports out today reveal the run on the European banks has spread to include corporations and institutions pulling their money out of banks and China finally arriving at the party.
As a backdrop, the IMF warned the entire global financial systems is more vulnerable to collapse than at any other time since the 2008 financial crisis. The alarm is being sounded with the stern warning the European debt crisis could trigger the complete collapse of the entire global financial system at any minute. On the other hand, the alternative media and independent economists warn we are in fact in of a great depression style collapse. The only difference is this time around we would be facing a global depression. But as the ship their countrymen sail on continues to sink, bureaucrats continueto play politics and put their partisan interests above the interest of their constituents.
The run on European banks has already began with from the customers pulling their money from banks some time ago. While the corporate media kept the run on the Greece banks on the hush the media blackout didn’t stop the run nor did it stop the run from spreading to other nations. Simply put, the public is learning they can’t trust their governments and they can’t trust the media. Indeed the withdrawal of deposits from the banks in Greece has quietly spread across the other European nations only to spread into some of the supposedly most stable banks in the Euro-zone, the French banks.
Now we have learned the run on the banks that was originally limited to customers has now spread to include corporate and institutional clients withdrawing their money from the banks. First, we caught wind of the rumor that Siemens pulled its cash from one of the French banks. Then came theconfirmation came that Siemens pulled $500 million Euros from Societe Generale. Siemens of course is a huge conglomerate. For such a huge corporation to lose trust in one of the supposedly most stable of the French banks is clearly a very significant development. To be clear, the ramification have simply rocked the markets and the many more corporations soon will follow. In fact, some corporations and nations have followed their lead.
Consider the breaking news that The Bank of China has stopped doing business with four major European banks. To be exact thy have stopped trading swaps and foreign exchange forwards with the Societe Gnerale, BNP Paribas, Credit Agricole and the Swiss banking giant UBS.
Speaking of BNP Paribas, Reggie Middleton – who long predicted the collapse of Lehman’s and Bear Stearns far ahead of anyone else because of their shady banking practices – has been warning for months BNP Paribas is ripe for a Lehman style collapse. Reggie argues that BNP Paribas is engaging in the same practices and fraud that caused Lehman’s and Bear Stearn’s to collapse.
While on the subject of China, we learn today they are not immune to the bank run either. China Securities Journal reveals that 420 billion yuan have been pulled out of the big four state-owned Chinese bank during the 15 days of September. Even bank employees are pulling their deposits from the banks as it is estimated that three trillion yuan has been diverted to illegal money lenders which pay interest rates 10 times higher than the one-year Chinese bank deposit rate.
Today we also learn that Insurer Lloyd’s of London confirmed it’s withdrawing deposits from all of the European banks for fear they may collapse. The rationalization for their withdrawal is quite simple – if world is worried about the European governments themselves collapsing then on must assume the sovereign debt collapse will also cause the banks themselves to collapse.
Still that message doesn’t seem to be reaching the retail banking client and the corporate owned media is to blame for repeatedly assuring the public there bank deposits are safe because the banks are insured by their respective European government.
When we see corporations not buying the propaganda being pushed by the media and instead withdrawing their deposits that should be a clear sign to the retail client it is time to withdraw their deposits. Unfortunately, too many people believe their governments and the media would never lie to them so some of them will unfortunately need to learn the hard way.
However, anyone keeping up with the details of latest financial news that doesn’t quite make the headlines knows that banks across the world have been hit with a parade of credit rating cuts warning of their risk of collapse. Those same cuts have been coupled with recent credit rating cuts of the sovereign of nations themselves, most notably the credit downgrades of the United States and Italy.
Adding to the bleak reality a global financial collapse may be imminent is the fact that 9 Banks failed last years EU stress test and another 16 barely passed the test. Yet instead of being proactive and shoring up capital to assure the survival of financial turmoil, we have seen many banks continue to conduct business in absolute denial they were at risk. In ignorance of reality the banks have sat around for over a year knowing they are at risk of collapse while doing little to nothing the improve their situation. Why should they act? They know when shit hits the fan taxpayers will be bent over the barrel and be forced to give the banks billions in bailouts from which the executives will collect lavish bonuses.
Now we have warnings from top economists and the FED that there is significant downside risk and strains in the global financial system that threatens the entire system. The is coupled with warnings from the IMF and EU leaders to immediately recapitalize the banks or face collapse. The calls for recapitalization have persisted for weeks with no action taken to stave off the collapse. Meanwhile, the consequences of not acting immediately continue to become more severe by the day.
The EU credit markets have frozen up and the situation is now beyond the point of dire. The question is which bank will be the first to collapse.
While all eyes seem to be focused on the Euro banks across the pond, banks back in the US are not immune from the crisis and neither are the Chinese banks.
In fact, Bank of America has been hammered by the alternative media as needing capitalization but BAC has denied those allegations and the corporate media has dismissed the alternative media reports as comments from fringe blogs. Until today that is.
Pimco’s Mohamed El-Erian raised the alarm today about the health of French banks and went on to point out there is an institutional run on thosebanks.
CNBC, went on to use the metrics El-Erain used to measure the health of the French banks to measure the health of US banks and found US banks aren’t nearly as healthy as Wall Street would like to believe.
“Nothing Happens That Hasn’t Been Planned ” Franklin Roosevelt
Decentralized money, does not mean its out of government control. What we need free market money, where the market sets the values and picks what the currency. The reason why gold and silver are the best is they follow the Principle of Sound Money (google it). Banks should be ran like any other business. They are free to enter without the control of the government. This means less regulations and more freedom.
All the fiat and T-bills are going to come back to the U.S and European Union. Economy going to implode hardcore, the ‘West’ is going to fight this as hard as possible, they will not accept it until they are forced to realize their defeat.
RON PAUL was RIGHT! This CAN be good for the US because MAYBE this will wake the American people up and stop them from watching the BOOB TUBE! So the question is who makes up the new fiat paper money and then collects the interest on it. Same crap different mob. Its called the IMF.
I see a future where the US plus the Europeans on one side and the BRICS on the other side engaging in a non ending economic cold war that may turn into indirect military confrontations using proxy countries like Syria, Iran, Israel and others. The rest of the world will create a non aligned economic and political movement. You are dreaming if you think the US will ultimately go down. They will always create a situation where they will come on top.
What I have detected, in the Video are mis-leading in this report. In saying World Bank & IMF has outlived its “USEFUL”ness and a New World BRICs Bank, is deceptive, because what they don’t explicitly say, is that the Federal Reserve Bank, will have to bail out any of those BRIC bank “loans” [that never get paid back] with USA denominated dollars. So the USA taxpayer will still be on the hook. WE MUST get back to silver and gold, and close the Federal Reserve Bank.
The fact that these countries are now talking about and getting ready to leave the US Dollar and it’s crooked IMF behind is now showing that these people have both guts and brains. The American people could learn valuable lessons from them regarding how to get an allegedly crooked president and monetary banking system out of their country and out or their lives.
This is the best news and the first true sign of hope I’ve seen in ions.
Daniel J Leach
Anti Deep State Party 