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Estimates are that the current magnitude of out-

standing derivatives claims accumulated as aproduct of speculative financial practices, nowmeasures in the hundreds of trillions of dollars,perhaps reaching even to quadrillions. Even whencompared to the current nominal global GDP, esti-mated at around $70 trillion, it becomes immedi-ately apparent that this debt can never be paid.The vast majority of these outstanding claims areof a purely speculative character, with absolutelyno connection to legitimate, necessary, productiveeconomic activity. To continue to bail out this vastbubble of gambling obligations on the back of acollapsed and rapidly shrinking real economy,

would be to create, rapidly, Weimar-style hyperin-flation on a global scale and an economic crisis ofDark Age proportions.

Glass-Steagall halts this catastrophe. By restoringthe separation between commercial and invest-ment banking, Glass-Steagall divides the obliga-tions in question into two distinct and separatecategories: legitimate and illegitimate, the latterbeing far greater than the former. Immediately, wedeclare that the government has no responsibilityto pay back losses accrued through speculativeactivity, thus transferring these trillions in liabili-

ties off of the governments books. We force themegabanks JP Morgan Chase, Citigroup, MorganStanley, etc. to split themselves in two parts: theso-called investment arms on one side, and plainold-fashioned commercial banking on the other.Under the original Glass-Steagall law, only com-mercial banks receive federal guarantees;investment houses do not enjoy such protection.Though their trillions in outstanding assets

might not be explicitly cancelled or eliminated bylaw, we will simply declare that these debts aretheir own, their responsibility, and not the Ameri-can peoples. Not one penny of bailout goes to pay

them off, and without this artificial protection,these assets will quickly dry up on their own. Weas a nation are freed from this cancer, and ourcommercial banking system is restored to its nec-essary and indispensable function. This was thestated intention of Franklin Roosevelts original1933 Glass- Steagall Act.

Glass-Steagall Goes On to Declare:

No member bank shall act as the medium or

agent of any non-banking corporation, partner-ship, association, business trust, or individual inmaking loans on the security of stocks, bonds, andother investment securities to brokers or deals instocks, bonds, and other investment securities...

After one year from the date of the enactment of

this Act, no member bank shall be affiliated in anymanner with any corporation, association, busi-ness trust, or other similar organization engagedprincipally in the issue, flotation, underwriting,public sale, or distribution at wholesale or retailthrough syndicate participation of stocks, bonds,

debentures, notes, or other securities... After the expiration of one year after the enact-

ment of this Act it shall be unlawful for any person,firm, corporation, association, business trust, orother similar organization, engaged in the busi-ness of issuing, underwriting, selling, or distribut-ing, at wholesale or retail, or through syndicateparticipation, stocks, bonds, debentures, notes, orother securities, to engage at the same time to anyextent whatever in the business of receiving de-posits.

From and after January 1, 1934, no officer or di-

rector of any member bank shall be an officer, di-rector, or manager of any corporation, partner-ship, or unincorporated association engaged pri-marily in the business of purchasing, selling, ornegotiating securities, and no member bank shallperform the functions of a correspondent bank onbehalf of any such individual, partnership, corpo-ration, or unincorporated association, and no suchindividual, partnership, corporation, or unincorpo-rated association shall perform the functions of acorrespondent for any member bank or hold ondeposit any funds on behalf of a member bank,unless in any such case there is a permit therefor

issued by the Federal Reserve Board; and theBoard is authorized to issue such permit if in itsjudgement it is not incompatible with the publicinterest.

What Exactly Is Glass-Steagall?By restoring Glass-Steagall we declare: The FederalGovernment has no obligation to bail out gambling

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In its preamble, Glass-Steagall stated its intent: To provide for the safer andmore effective use of banks, to regulate interbank control, to prevent the un-due diversion of funds into speculative operations... The full Act, in just un-der forty pages, established that the banking system must be made to serve

the public interest, to serve the general welfare of the American people as awhole, affirming the principles enshrined in the US Constitution and out-

lawed anything to the contrary.

Glass-Steagall at a glance...

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The Committee for the Republic of Canada has initi-

ated a nationwide mobilization to win support for the

following emergency resolution.

In 2007-2008, the governments of the trans-Atlanticregion missed the opportunity to attack and eliminatethe speculation based financial system. The financialbubble created over decades had finally burst, but pro-posals to protect the real economy from the collapse offictitious asset values were ignored or blocked.

The failure to implement available solutions in the selfinterest of nations led to a continuous series of financialbailouts by European governments and by the Bush andObama administrations in the United States. In Canada(1) bank bailouts were also the norm, but disguised asliquidity support. These decisions forced Federal gov-

ernments to initiate and carry out severe austeritymeasures on behalf of the speculative investment banks.Hospitals, schools, police forces, and other forms of vitalsocial infrastructure have continued to disintegrate, andmillions of families have lost their livelihoods, includinglong-term employment in productive jobs, life's savings,and homes. In the United States, as a consequence of thecontinued bailout policy of 2007-2012, the last vestigesof the machine-tool sector, heavy industry, and otherpotential infrastructure building capacities have almostentirely disappeared. The American economy has now

little time left to utilize the productive legacy of an oldergeneration once central to great national undertakings,and pass this knowledge to new generation.

Canada is also facing a dire situation: an overvaluedhousing market has driven consumer debt to an all timehigh of 153% of average household income. Ontarios

industrial belt is facing high unemployment while manu-facturing is collapsing across the country. Advancedsectors are in serious difficulties with the near shut-down of our nuclear industry and budget slashing inCanadian aerospace. Highly qualified workers are nowretiring and our young generations cannot find work,are mostly unskilled and wholly unprepared for thefuture.

A continental plan of action must be implemented whichcan also make up for decades of lack of investment ininfrastructure and industry, utilizing the skill and tech-nological capacities which still exist before they finallyvanish, and address the immediate crisis threatening theexistence of both the Canadian and American economieswith the imminent blowout of the Euro-zone, by insti-gating emergency measures creating adequate financialbarriers and banking regulation. Such a plan is immedi-

ately available, as presented in the Committee for theRepublic of Canada Special Report NAWAPA XXI (2)(North American Water and PowerAlliance XXI), whichproposes:

a) reviving the separation between commercial bankingand the securities business by enacting legislation mod-eled on Franklin Delano Roosevelts 1933 Glass-Steagall

Act; to be immediately followed by,

b) establishing a System of Public Credit in the UnitedStates, Canada and Mexico by means of the constructionand requisite methods of funding of NAWAPA XXI. TheNAWAPA XXI plan consists of the following:

i) A water and power proposal employing a vast numberof industries involved in material and machine produc-tion which are vital for Canada and the United States todevelop and salvage, as well as new infrastructureroutes stretching most of the continent, providing mil-lions of Canadians and Americans long-term employ-ment, and training a new generation of highly skilledworkers; its construction will provide the basis to indus-trialize northern Canada and Alaska for the first time,while reviving the once proud rust belt state economiesof the U.S.

ii) The utilization of 11% of the runoff of Alaska, Yukon,

and British Columbia, as a permanent source of water todouble food production in the U.S. Southwest and North-ern Mexico, and turn would-be flood waters in one areainto the means of fighting drought in another, to bringwater to the dry Canadian Prairie provinces, to create anetwork of barge canals stretching from Vancouver tothe Great Lakes-St. Lawrence Seaway, the deep-waterport at Churchill, as well as James Bay and Labradoropening a vast resource potential for Canadas develop-

ment, and halt the water wars between the westernstates.

iii) This project would massively increase the economicactivity of Canada, the U.S. and Mexico for a generation.Mexico has already initiated water projects that would

connect with NAWAPA XXI, while previous generationsof political leaders in Canada, such as Prime MinisterLester Pearson, (3) viewed the opportunity to movesome of our abundant water resources down South asone ofthe most important developments in our history asimportant as exporting wheat, or oil or anything else.NAWAPA XXI would provide a model for cooperationbetween sovereign nation states that would benefit allparties involved.

Emergency ResolutionNAWAPA XXI: Applying a System of Public Credit

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iv) In the System of Public Credit, existing or newly cre-ated Public Debt by the government is funded accordingto the timetable required for industrial and infrastruc-tural growth, through the means of the Bank of Canadaand related branches serving as credit lending institu-tions for internal improvements and industry. In thissystem, the anticipated future value of Public Debt asso-

ciated with the infrastructural and industrial projectscirculate as currency in the present. This system has beenused in past American infrastructure and industrial mo-bilizations to build the United States and combat finan-cial oppression, and was established by Alexander Hamil-ton in his success in turning monetary debts into circulat-ing credit through the use of the Constitutional Powers ofCongress and the Bank of the United States, and later ap-plied in Nicholas Biddle's directing of the second Bank ofthe United States under President John Quincy Adams,Abraham Lincoln's Greenback-based national bankingsystem, and Franklin Roosevelt's use of the Reconstruc-tion Finance Corporation.

Under the proposed plan, the government's coordinationof the vast economic activity and provincial and federalrevenues which NAWAPA XXI's construction will create,will generate enough activity to make feasible sufficientcredit emissions through a new credit lending institutionto revive our economy as well as actualize any validdebts after Glass-Steagall and an associated banking re-organization.

Therefore be it resolved, that

___________________________________

hereby endorses the NAWAPA XXI plan, and that a

copy of this resolution shall be forwarded to Mem-bers of Parliament representing our Federal Ridings

in the Province (or Territory) of

___________________________________

and also delivered to the Prime Minister of Canada.

Notes:

(1) David MacDonald: "The Big Banks Big Secret"

Estimating government support by Canadian banks dur-ing the financial crisis. April 2012. Canadian Center forPolicy Alternatives. (www.policyalternatives.ca)

(2) NAWAPA XXI Report

http://www.committeerepubliccanada.ca/IMG/pdf/RapportCanada.pdf

(3) Canadian Broadcasting Corporation Free Time

Broadcast No. 4 on October 15, 1965 at 8:00 P.M., citedin correspondence of U.S. Senator Frank E. Moss.

Glass Steagalls progress

internationally

Already sponsored by 78 bipartisan co-sponsors

(as of August 2012) , Glass-Steagall has been

introduced into the American House of Repre-

sentatives under Marcy Kapturs HR 1489

Return to Prudent Banking Act.

Similar legislation has been introduced in

Europe under the Peterlini resolution in Italy

and in Iceland as well.

In France, former presidential candidate

Jacques Cheminade brought Glass-Steagall to

the attention of all French citizens by making

this the foundation of his campaign in April

2012, and former Prime Minister Michel Rocard

joined Cheminades call by forming the

FDR2012 and demanding a European Glass-

Steagall.

As of July 2012, major establishment figures

such as former head of Citibank Sandford Weill,

who led the destruction of Glass-Steagall in

1999, declared that the restoration of bank sepa-

ration is the only way to ensure the avoidance ofa general economic meltdown.