September 20th, 2008
19th September, 2008: My comment for the Guardian’s site, part of a debate on the Credit Crunch organised by the new economics foundation, of which I am a fellow…
Bankers have gone to great lengths to damage our confidence in the banking sector. And loss of confidence and trust on this scale can’t be fixed by banning a few short-selling speculators or by nationalising a bank here, an insurance company there. Nor is confidence restored when ministers meet up with bankers on the quiet, and grant them monopoly powers (as with Lloyds).
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September 16th, 2008
15th September, 2008.
 To address this very grave global financial crisis effectively, one needs to analyse it correctly. A wrong analysis results in wrong conclusions and solutions, just as a wrong medical diagnosis can lead to wrong, often life-threatening treatment. Orthodox economists, who have for so long turned a blind eye to the finance sector, to privatised credit creation and its role in fuelling asset bubbles, do not understand this crisis. They did not predict this crisis. And their deeply flawed economics mean they cannot therefore resolve this crisis. Indeed they are supremely irrelevant to this crisis.
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September 15th, 2008
15th September, 2008.
Today’s news – of the collapse of Lehman Brothers, the sale of Merrill Lynch and of the difficulties of AIG – are momentous and of truly historic significance. While there is much more to be said about what is going on within the financial system, today I want to stand back and look at the bigger picture.
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September 7th, 2008
You have to admire the spin. The US Treasury Secretary, Comrade Hank Paulson, pictured here, announced today, Sunday 7th September, 2008 that the US government is natonalising two huge US banks, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Which means in effect that Comrade Paulson is socialising the losses of the shareholders and investors in these banks - $5.4 trillion of guaranteed mortgage-backed securities (MBS) (mortgage backed securities) and debt outstanding. These liabilities are equal to all the publicly held debt of the United States. This in the words of Prof. Roubini is ‘socialism for the rich, the well connected and Wall St.” (see below).
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September 3rd, 2008
 A Mr. David Smith in a letter to the Financial Times, (29 Aug 08) has suggested we brand this global recession ‘the bankers’ recession’. He has my support and enthusiastic commitment to raising awareness of the brand. Especially after today’s UK news.
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