From: Biniam Haile \(SWE\) (eritrea.lave@comhem.se)
Date: Sat Feb 21 2009 - 15:51:46 EST
Brzezinski warns of riots in US
Sat, 21 Feb 2009 15:34:12 GMT
Zbigniew Brzezinski, a former national security advisor, has warned that
the US could witness riots if economy continues its downward spiral.
"There's going to be growing conflict between the classes and if people
are unemployed and really hurting, hell, there could be even riots!"
said Brzezinski, President Jimmy Carter's national security advisor, in
a recent interview with NBC.
"In 1907, when we had a massive banking crisis, when banks were
beginning to collapse, there were going to be riots in the streets," he
added.
At least 3.6 million jobs have been wiped out throughout the US since
the recession began in December 2007. The jobless rate officially
reached a 16-year high of 7.6% (11.6 million people) last month.
Earlier this week, a new Federal Reserve report said that US
unemployment could increase to 8.8%, causing the economy to contract for
a full calendar year for the first time since 1991, when a contraction
of 0.2% was registered.
The Obama White House has put forward an array of measures, including a
$787 billion stimulus package, in the hopes of reviving the flagging
economy.
Brzezinski, meanwhile, made some recommendations to the young
administration.
He proposed the creation of a voluntary national solidarity fund, whose
contributors would be those who became wealthy in recent times.
"Where is the moneyed class today? Why aren't they doing something: the
people who made billions, millions. I'm sort of thinking of Paulson, of
Rubin [former treasury secretaries]. Why don't they get together, and
why don't they organize a national solidarity fund in which they call on
all of those who made these extraordinary amounts of money to kick some
back?" he argued.
"I was worrying about it because we're going to have millions and
millions of unemployed, people really facing dire straits. And we're
going to be having that for some period of time before things hopefully
improve," said Brzezinski.
AGB/MD
<http://www.americanprogress.org/events/2007/06/nsconf/img/Brzezinski_1.
jpg>
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