The New Statesman has included a contribution from yours truly to this week’s edition. The cover of the magazine declares: “Austerity has failed. Inside nine of the world’s top economists tell the Chancellor how to save Britain. This is Plan B.” Exclusively for my readers, the following is the unedited version. How to move to Plan B […]
Osborne: Speaking truth to wealth and power? Really?
Oct 6th, 2011 by Ann Pettifor.George Osborne was presumably aiming at himself and his friends when he vowed “to speak truth to power and wealth” at the Tory party conference this week, but dare he speak economic truth to the rest of us? On the narrowest of bases, he might still claim he spoke “truth” to the weak and powerless […]
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Greece as whipping boy for ‘Troika’ bullies
Sep 24th, 2011 by Ann Pettifor.As mayhem breaks out on stock markets; as Eurozone banks freeze up; and as the global financial system approaches a frightening ‘danger zone,’ the champions of the globalised ‘free market’ and of the Euro are in search of a scapegoat. Instead of accepting that it is the broken banking system; the de-regulated financial Eurozone, and […]
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Let them default
Sep 20th, 2011 by Ann Pettifor.I recorded this interview with Australia Broadcasting ’s daily show. This went out on 15th September.
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Argentina/Greece: De-fault lines?
Sep 16th, 2011 by Ann Pettifor.So, five of the world’s biggest central banks have decided on co-ordinated action to bail out – once again – the European private banking sector. In other words, central bankers are hoping to shore up private bankers, help them defer their losses, and prevent them being disciplined by market forces for their reckless lending to EU […]
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The euro lurches towards the abyss, does the Left have a Plan B?
Sep 14th, 2011 by Ann Pettifor.The eurogame is up. The banking crisis that started with the unpayable debts of the US sub-prime sector, and has now moved on to include the unpayable debts of sovereigns. It is increasingly clear there is declining political and institutional support for further private bank bailouts.
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Mr Osborne steers the ship towards an iceberg
Jun 23rd, 2010 by Ann Pettifor.When a small Canadian cruise ship hit an iceberg in 2007 its 154 passengers were nonchalant. Initial reports suggested only a small hole was punched into the hull and so they refused to panic. Twenty hours later the ship ‘had sunk beneath the waves’. Today the public and particularly the Liberal Democrats appear nonchalant as […]
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Darling’s Deception and Disloyalty
Jun 14th, 2010 by Ann Pettifor.Bear the following in mind, those Labour Party members intending to vote for David Miliband. There is a story in the weekend papers planted by a “colleague” of one of David’s major backers: Alastair Darling. We must assume that David intends to reward Alastair Darling for his support, by re-appointing him as Shadow Chancellor. If […]
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The bankers set out to destroy industry – and Vince Cable
May 25th, 2010 by Ann Pettifor.So Sir James Sassoon has joined the Eton boy, Osborne, and the Barclays banker, David Laws, at the Treasury, as Commercial Secretary – a post invented and designed for him. Sir James was vice chairman Investment Banking at UBS Warburg between1985-2002, where he specialised in privatisations. The capture of the Treasury by the City of […]
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Public Sector Cuts hurt the Private Sector too!
May 23rd, 2010 by Ann Pettifor.I am writing this in Ljubljana (pronounced Loobleeyana) in Slovenia, where I am addressing a Consumer Rights conference…..One of the speakers is from the British Bankers Association (BBA), and, although I have already had my morning espresso in the gorgeous market square by the river, and read the only FT on sale in the little […]
