World Silk Road of Development and Peace—Going ‘from Concept to Action’

Today, Chinese President Xi Jinping met with Kazakhstani Pres. Nursultan Nazurbayev, in Astana, where in September, 2013, Xi had announced his proposed Silk Road Economic Belt initiative. In an article Xi wrote for his present visit, he said that the proposal has succeeded in going “from concept to action,” and that it now functions as a “global public good.”

In the United States today, the same implicit public-good principle was presented, as the concept of rebuilding the United States, in a presentation made by President Trump, speaking on the banks of the Ohio River in Cincinnati.

Trump called for upgrading U.S. infrastructure and creating jobs. One focus was on refurbishing the locks and dams on the Ohio system, and throughout the 12,000 miles of U.S. inland and intracoastal waterways. He recounted past U.S. infrastructure accomplishments, including building the Hoover Dam in five years, and the Golden Gate Bridge in four years. Look at the Erie Canal—which was a dream of New York Gov. DeWitt Clinton. Thomas Jefferson, Trump said, thought it couldn’t be done. But, ‘tell that to a New Yorker, and he will find a way to do it!’ Trump said, “We used to be a nation of builders…[but] we don’t do it anymore…Not even fix things…” This must change, he said.

Our challenge in the United States, is to succeed in bringing about the “action” part of “from concept to action.” We must force a U.S. breakout from the collapsing, monetarist mess of the Wall Street/City of London system, and create conditions for nation-serving banking, credit and advancement in productivity and science. We have two initiatives in that this week.

First, a new plan for the United States is being released by LaRouchePAC science team member Jason Ross, titled, “A Future Platform of U.S. Infrastructure—Case Study: New York.” (EIR, cover date June 9, 2017; and other postings). Ross has collaborated with Dr. Hal B.H. Cooper, a transportation engineer, and others, on specifics for New York City, which is an infrastructure disaster. Ross states in his introduction, “We begin by posing answers to overlooked questions about the role of infrastructure in the economy. Equipped with those concepts, we approach U.S. national infrastructure needs in light of international infrastructure developments in China. Finally, we return to New York City, situated in its national and international context, and discuss the necessary next stages of its infrastructure development, looking not ten or twenty years into the future, but several generations ahead.”

Secondly, there is action on the necessary pre-condition to make this economic lift-off happen—to restore the 1933 Glass Steagall Act, which worked for 66 years, to set apart and protect commercial banking from speculative finance, until it was wrongfully repealed in 1999. Two principal sponsors of the bill to restore Glass Steagall (H.R. 790, Return to Prudent Banking Act of 2017) in the House of Representatives — Marcy Kaptur (D) and Walter Jones (R) — briefed the House Rules Committee last evening, on the necessity of Glass Steagall, and the need to get a fair debate in the House on re-instating it. Kaptur’s 8-minute presentation is now circulating nationally on social media. (See it on LaRouchePAC.com, “Reinstate Glass-Steagall to Restore ‘Golden Age’ of American Growth.”) Kaptur is expected to speak up for it on the floor of the House in the June 8 debate on H.R. 10, the Financial CHOICE Act—a stupid bill to further unleash Wall Street.

There is no time to lose; the dangers are many. As far as domestic infrastructure, we have entered a “Minneapolis Bridge” phase of decrepitude, referring to the disaster 10 years ago (August 1, 2007), when a bridge over the Mississippi River suddenly collapsed during rush-hour, killing 13 and injuring 145 more in the crash. Not only in New York City, this can happen anywhere, anytime, cross country.

Internationally, the situation in Southwest Asia is chaotic, complicated, and dangerous. Today, terrorists struck at the Parliament of Iran, leaving 12 dead. As Russian President Putin reiterated, in sending condolences to the people of Iran, the attacks “once again corroborate the need to step up international cooperation in fighting terrorism.”