International Bankers Operate on a Level of Their Own

By MARK ANDERSON

Sponsored since 1978 by the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City, the Jackson Hole, Wyoming, annual Economic Symposium, this year, included an August address by Bank for International Settlements General Manager Agustin Carsten—who called for “a better and more sustainable form of globalization.” The former Bank of Mexico chief also decried “protectionist and populist” tendencies that threaten the esteemed “rules-based international trade and finance system.”

Besides paying perpetual interest on unrepayable debts, nation states — far from enacting key protectionist measures, such as creating an interest-free national currency — pay a more indirect form of tribute to the banking system via government promises to stay out of monetary policy-making.

And while the Federal Reserve System’s Federal Open Market Committee meetings, where monetary policy is formulated, remain off limits to the President, all members of Congress etc., the Basel, Switzerland-based Bank for International Settlements, or BIS—the opaque central bank of the central banks—long ago entered into an agreement with the Swiss government that gives BIS unbelievably broad latitude to defy any effective attempt to hold the bank accountable.

This agreement — “hidden in plain sight” on BIS’s website — is entitled: “Agreement between the Swiss Federal Council and the Bank for International Settlements to determine the Bank’s legal status.” The agreement turned 35 in 2022 (est. Feb 10, 1987) and was amended in early 2003. Its roots go back over 90 years.

The “agreement” quickly clarifies who’s boss:

“Inviolability: The buildings or parts of buildings and surrounding land which … are used for the purposes of the Bank shall be inviolable. No agent of the Swiss public authorities may enter therein without the express consent [of top bank management or their designees].

“The archives of the Bank and, in general, all documents and any data-media belonging to the Bank or in its possession, shall be inviolable at all times and in all places (suggesting that even things that don’t actually belong to the bank, but the bank happens to possess, are off limits).

Furthermore:

“The Bank, its assets, income and other property shall be exempt from direct Federal, cantonal and communal taxes [nor shall the bank] be subject to taxation on the rent it pays for premises . . . occupied by the Bank.

“The Bank shall [also] be exempt from indirect Federal, cantonal and communal taxes.”

The pact also states that BIS officers, for all intents and purposes, cannot be arrested: “The members of the Board of Directors of the Bank, together with the representatives of those central banks which are members of the Bank [meaning visiting bankers who aren’t even employed by BIS] shall enjoy while carrying out their duties in Switzerland and throughout their journey to or from the place where a meeting is held, the following privileges and immunities:

“Immunity from arrest or imprisonment and immunity from seizure of their personal baggage, save in flagrant cases of criminal offence; and

“Immunity from jurisdiction, even after their mission has been accomplished, for acts carried out in the discharge of their duties, including words spoken and writings.”

As if these examples of the bank’s sovereign immunity aren’t flagrant enough, even retirement does not matter “The Officials of the Bank, whatever their nationality, shall enjoy immunity from jurisdiction for acts accomplished in the discharge of their duties, including words spoken and [written] even after such persons have ceased to be [bank] Officials . . .”

Banks basically are businesses, not governments unto themselves, and should never be granted the latitude to be a superior state within a state, but that’s the state of affairs in a European nation long thought to be highly sovereign. More recently, the UK entered into a nearly identical “agreement” with BIS.

Since the entire Western banking cartel — BIS consists of 63 central-bank members, including the Federal Reserve, the Bank of England and the Bank of Canada — operates on the same wavelength as BIS itself, this look at the BIS-Swiss and BIS-UK pacts indicates where nation states stand in the grand scheme of things — an ultimate example of plutocratic control of the people and what remains of their governments.

Mark Anderson is a veteran journalist who divides his time between Texas and Michigan. Email him at truthhound2@yahoo.com.

From The Progressive Populist, November 15, 2022

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