June 11th, 2009
Ann Pettifor – 11th June 2009 – For the Guardian Online.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/jun/12/recession-economic-crisis
A banker, Alan Clarke of BNP Paribas, citing a NIESR report, confidently tells the Guardian that the recession is over. Should we take the word of any banker – especially one that claims to be an economist – seriously?
Given that the economics profession was blind-sided by the ‘debtonation’ of 9th August, 2007, I am deeply sceptical. Second, given that this is a banker-induced recession; that reckless and often fraudulent behaviour by bankers led to a loss of $60 trillion of yours and my wealth (in the form of pensions, equities, lost interest on savings, and lost income from job losses) last year, should we believe a banker’s particular spin on the crisis?
Continue reading… ›
December 4th, 2008
 4th December 2008
‘Financial writers’ and establishment economists seem to live in a different world. They often bring to mind bats, hanging upside down in the cavernous, soaring rafters of a barn, analysing the world from a great distance, and upside-down. Take one Diana Henriques – described as a ‘senior financial writer for the New York Times‘. She was on the Rachel Maddow Show on US TV last night, reviewing the gargantuan $700 billion bail-out of US banks. In defence of the opaque and unaccountable activities of the Treasury team dishing out taxpayer largesse she said this: “No-one could lay out a war-game for this (crisis) in advance”. (Ehem, correction: some were well prepared, and could have.) But it was the next remark that took my breath away:
Continue reading… ›
December 1st, 2008
 1st December 2008
Watching our British politicians squabble and spin this last week over the Pre Budget Report – while Rome burns – was depressing. Why are our politicians so off-beam? Why does their response to this crisis seem so petty and botched?
The answer may lie in their ties to the finance sector. The fact is we are experiencing what will be a prolonged Bankers’ Depression – born in the City of London, not in the US sub-prime market. Neither of our major political parties is willing to admit that; to analyse the crisis in those terms and therefore to lay the blame on the finance sector and to rein it in. They are too compromised.
Continue reading… ›
October 12th, 2008
12th October, 2008.
The news that Britain’s local authorities may have lost up to a £1 billion in the collapse of Iceland’s banks beggars belief. The competence of their highly paid chief executives must surely be challenged, and powers to borrow on international capital markets curtailed.
Continue reading… ›
October 10th, 2008
 9th October, 2008.
Central banks’ obsession with inflation is stopping them from tackling a far more pressing threat.
Read more here…
October 8th, 2008
Both the British Chancellor, Alastair Darling and the shadow Chancellor, George Osborne, have been on the radio this morning, resisting the idea that interest rates are political. Instead they have argued, vehemently, that the Bank of England is independent, and that the Bank must decide whether or not to lower interest rates.
Continue reading… ›
October 1st, 2008
 Wednesday 1st October, 2008
The massive deflation/de-leveraging of credit and debt that is now cascading through the banking system and rapidly deflating the value of housing and other assets in the Anglo-American economies will precipitate large-scale, global economic failure, for years to come.
Read more…
September 30th, 2008
 Tuesday 30th September, 2008.
Anglo-American finance ministers and central bankers, like little Dutch boys, try desperately to plug leaks in the bursting dyke that is the international financial system. In the US, treasury secretary Hank Paulson hoped for $700bn to plug the gaping hole in Wall Street’s banks. In the UK, the government is not just plugging holes, but setting aside competition rules to encourage the monopolisation of finance.
Read more…
September 30th, 2008
 Tuesday 30th September, 2008.
Sir, Your editorial “In praise of free markets” (September 27/28) conflates regulation of trade markets with that of financial markets.
This is a flawed analysis, one at the core of most economic orthodoxy – that money, like land, oil, soya beans, diamonds or gold, is a commodity, and therefore that trade and markets in money are no different from markets in, say, soya beans.
Read more…
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.
Continue reading… ›
|
In the September 2003 edition of openDemocracy I wrote:
Click here to read the full story in openDemocracy
BOOKS:
|
