The feebleness, impotence and tardiness of the Government in dealing with the banks could hardlybe more starkly highlighted. Everyone (almost) agrees that the UK finance sector is far too big – its liabilities equal 5 times Britain’s GDP – and the economy urgently needs to be rebalanced away from the City towards a revival of manufacturing. […]
Posts under ‘Finance’
Expect the government to shrink the banks? Think again. But the markets….
Dec 30th, 2011 by Michael Meacher.
The odds for the euro are shortening in 2012
Dec 23rd, 2011 by Michael Meacher.The take-up by the eurozone banks of €489bn from the European Central Bank (ECB) ought to be good news as a sign that the ECB is now at last, having refused to do so in 2011, ensuring eurozone banks can fund themselves adequately next year. The ECB believes they will need €720bn of loans in […]
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Burglars get jail, Goodwin gets a £342,500 pension. Why?
Dec 13th, 2011 by Michael Meacher.RBS crashed in 2008, costing taxpayers £45.5bn to bail it out. The FSA (Financial Services Authority) report published today (482 pages long!) indicts everyone – Blair, Brown and Balls for insisting on ‘light-touch regulation’ (i.e. the bank could do whatever it wanted), Cameron and Osborne for demanding even less regulation, and itself – the FSA […]
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Cameron’s No 1 priority: protecting the City of London
Dec 9th, 2011 by Michael Meacher.How does Europe manage to do it? It’s demolishing the Tory party far more effectively than the Labour Party is. Can you believe it – Cameron is going to Brussels this weekend to save one thing – the City of London. No other industry, not the rest of us – only that part of the […]
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Golden rule of banking – don’t kill off your customers
Dec 9th, 2011 by Will Howley.First Golden rule of banking is: ‘don’t kill off your customers‘. But as the BBC 2 TV documentary Inside Job broadcast on Wednesday night confirmed, top bankers don’t care and live in a arrogant-elitist cocoon of their own making away from the reality the rest of the 99% who have no choice but to endure […]
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Standard & Poor’s is right, ‘austerity’ has no economic clothes
Dec 8th, 2011 by Ann Pettifor.So European politicians want to shoot the messengers? Sure, ratings agencies haven’t always been reliable, decent or honest. And sure, like Eurozone politicians Standard & Poor is just following events, not shaping them. But on this occasion S&P’s analysis, if not their solution, is right. Credit Crunch 2.0 is fast accelerating and squeezing life out of […]
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Not much grand about this EU bargain
Dec 8th, 2011 by Michael Meacher.The praeternatural calm that has descended on the financial markets after Merkel-Sarkozy declared a ‘comprehensive’ bargain on Monday is unlikely to survive the Friday summit as the details sink in about what is involved, and even more about what is left out. Meanwhile back in Britain there is sound and fury from the Tory Right […]
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It’s not the public, but the private finance sector, stupid.
Dec 5th, 2011 by Ann Pettifor.The Autumn Statement revealed but one thing: the Chancellor and his advisers are both ill-advised and dangerously ill-prepared for the forthcoming prolonged Depression. And if you think I exaggerate, let me remind you that 20 years after the Japanese debt bubble burst, Tokyo house prices are still falling, and the stock market is worth 60% less […]
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Osborne still doesn’t get it
Nov 28th, 2011 by Michael Meacher.Plan A has certainly been junked. But of course in the classical political tradition that the Government never faces up to an error, we shall not be offered on Tuesday an admission of crass folly that has dragged Britain down from a recovery of growth in mid 2010 to a double-dip slump now which will […]
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The terrifying intentions of Eurozone technocrats
Nov 22nd, 2011 by Ann Pettifor.As the world economy fails to recover, and instead threatens to implode we are now witness to political and social developments in Europe that are deeply alarming, even if inevitable. It is important that we understand and prepare for the implications of recent events. The good news is that both politicians and official policymakers at […]
