October 29th, 2009
 29 October, 2009
Dan Roberts has a great column in the Guardian today. He asks the right questions. First, why is the Treasury spending £8 billion of taxpayers money reinflating the housing market? Second, why is the Treasury encouraging this now nationalised bank to increase mortgage lending, when the productive sector of the economy – companies, small businesses et al – are being starved of loans from taxpayer-bailed-out-banks, or else having to borrow at usurious rates?
A superb report from the Centre for Research on Socio Cultural Change at Manchester (“An alternative report on UK banking reform”) suggests the answer: The nationalisation of Northern Rock is being treated as an “equity style turn around”, with the overarching objective of protecting and creating value for the taxpayer as shareholder.
“It is not clear whether the banks have been nationalised or the Treasury has been privatised as a new kind of investment fund.”
It makes perfect sense doesn’t it, given that the Treasury is advised on these matters (some would say it has been captured) almost exclusively by bankers? Get reading the CRESC report -its excellent - the first piece of independent, academic thinking on reform of the banking sector to have crossed my path.
September 25th, 2009
Ann Pettifor: September 24, 2009
As world leaders meet in Pittsburgh and then Istanbul (for the World Bank and IMF meetings) expect much self-congratulation and back-slapping for having got the world through the post-Lehman crisis.
But behind the cacophony of self-praise, watch out for three alarms flashing red:
- The escalating foreclosure and rising mortgage delinquency rates in the US
- The dramatic contraction of credit in the US over the summer – putting paid to any hope of the US acting as the ‘engine’ of a global recovery
- That big accident waiting to happen to the European economies –Spain
With the help of a great new book – about to be published in the US – let’s take a look at why there is no room for complacency.
“No way to run an economy” (Pluto Press, 2009) is by a man whose research and analyses I have come to respect and rely upon – Graham Turner of GFC economics. While the book is full of solid facts and data – it is eminently readable for those prepared to unleash their inner wonk.
Continue reading… ›
September 3rd, 2009
Ann Pettifor: September 3rd, 2009
I have just listened to the excellent Dr. Paul Woolley on Radio 4′s the Today programme…He of the aptly named Centre for the Study of Capital Market Dysfunction – like it. But what bothered me was his remark that the finance sector only acts as ‘intermediary’ between those with savings and those needing investment….
The truth that will not speak its name is that banks do not even do that….I learned all this at the feet of Dr. Geoff Tily, author of an important book on Keynes as first and foremost a monetary economist.
Because banks are licensed to create credit, and because bank money is such a wonderful human invention – there is no need for an investor to dip into someone else’s savings – or to hire an agent to act as an intermediary…..as I explained in a recent letter to the Guardian. (below my unedited version). I was responding to a piece by J Freedland, urging us all to join Zopa, and share our savings with those needing to borrow…..
“While I welcome Jonathan Freedland’s determination to sideline the banking sector, his remedy – the exchange of savings and loans via Zopa at interest rates in the region of 8% – is based on a profound misunderstanding of bank credit (Don’t howl with rage. Try an idea that does away with banks altogether, 19 August).
Continue reading… ›
September 2nd, 2009
The Motley Fool, September 2nd, 2009
Motley Fool blogger TMF Sinchiruna spotlights the Times interview, describing me as “once ridiculed, later vindicated…” TMF Sinchiruna goes on to say: “Peter Schiff, Jim Rogers, Niall Fergusson, Ann Pettifor … these are the voices that I believe investors need to hear. Turn off the tv and look deep into the events of last year and consider for yourselves whether anything more than a hail-mary reflationary maelstrom has been heaped upon the fire that started it all.”
Read the Motley Fool article >
Also just did an interview for You and Yours on Radio 4 which was broadcast Wednesday. You can listen to it here.
September 1st, 2009
Article Published in the Times, September 1st 2009. Photo by Jon Enoch.
Ann Pettifor predicted a painful end to the good times. Now she says that only radical action can prevent further gloom
Phil Thornton
Ann Pettifor is a member of a select club — the seers who saw it all coming. Now the economist, who predicted the credit crunch as far back as 2003, believes that the worst is yet to come unless there is radical reform of the financial system.
Six years ago she parodied the International Monetary Fund’s annual economic forecast with her own — The Real World Economic Outlook. Then, in 2006, her book The Coming First World Debt Crisis, warned that rich countries were heading for a debt crisis that would overshadow anything seen in the developing world. Both were ridiculed.
With the British and world economies languishing in the worst recession since the Great Depression and with once-mighty banks reliant on government life support, she could be forgiven for being a little smug. Not a bit of it: “No, being Cassandra is not something I wish for. I hate this role of being a gloomer and doomer, as I’m an optimist by nature. But I am very pessimistic now.”
Continue reading… ›
August 18th, 2009
 From Open Democracy: August 13, 2009
“A single day, 9 August 2007, will go down in history as ‘Debtonation Day’ – the beginning of the end of the deregulation and privatisation of finance that marks the era of globalisation.”
I wrote these words on 13 August 2007, in anticipation that the great stock-market collapse of four days earlier presaged the end of the era of neo-liberal globalisation.
So it has proved.
Read Open Democracy article>
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… ›
May 13th, 2009
Ann Pettifor – 12th May 2009
Have just returned from a flying visit to Iceland, where I was mightily impressed by the warmth and strength of the Icelandic character. Also struck by the pride Icelanders have in the way the financial crisis deepened and strengthened their democracy – leading to the ousting of a corrupt government, and the election of a progressive coalition.
Continue reading… ›
March 27th, 2009
 by Ann Pettifor This is a short piece that appears in the Guardian today, 27 March 2009.
“Next week, at the G20 summit, G8 leaders will work very hard to defend and fortify globalisation – an economic system that has brought about the first flly synchronised global economic failure.
Even as they plan the meeting, the G8 seem to have run out of steam. There are suggestions that enough has been done to defend globalisation and steer the global economy back to stability. The remedies considered adequate are: unfettered capital mobility (with limited regulation); inflation targeting; substantial bail-outs of the finance sector; the bolstering of the IMF and its policies: free trade in the face of global trade imbalances, and partial, if inadequate, fiscal stimuli.
In other words, the tried-and-failed policies that prolonged the Great Depression and that will inevitably fail again.
Continue reading… ›
March 17th, 2009
Debtonation Readers: This is the full version of my latest blog for Huffington Post:15th March, 2009
Once a-ponzi time, millions worshiped at the feet of the Wizards of Finance. These Wizards preached an economic religion that promised security and an abundance of riches from the ‘Emerald City’ — Wall St.
Investors following this religion were led to believe that they could make capital gains effortlessly and endlessly.
To make these gains, it was argued, there was no need for protection from the authorities. 401(k) plans were safe in the hands of the Wizards. There was also no need for investors to engage in hard work: to invest in research; to engage more labor; to sweat at making goods or delivering services.
There would be no need to save. Money would be made effortlessly.
Continue reading… ›
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In the September 2003 edition of openDemocracy I wrote:
Click here to read the full story in openDemocracy
BOOKS:
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