As this goes to press, global capital markets appear to be stabilizing after another period of intense, and scary stock market volatility. This set the context for the arrival in Britain of Adam McKay’s The Big Short – a film about the American sub-prime mortgage meltdown, based on the book by Michael Lewis. It could […]
Posts Tagged ‘Debt crisis’
Escaping “Stockholm syndrom – Stop fessing up to errors Labour didn’t make
Oct 4th, 2015 by Ann Pettifor.Mr Osborne’s most striking political achievement, with the connivance of the economics profession and media, is to reframe the debate about the most severe crisis in living memory away from finance and towards the welfare state – identified as causal of the crisis. In reframing the debate he has succeeded in ‘capturing’ some of his […]
In Greece, debt means death – they must vote ‘No’
Jul 1st, 2015 by Max Shanly.Yesterday’s Guardian revealed a trio of leaked documents from the International Monetary Fund, the European Central Bank, and the European Union that revealed the true extent of Greece’s debt crisis. The documents – written by the tripartite collective commonly known in Greece and now much of the world as the troika – revealed that the […]
The Eurozone should respect Greek sovereignty
Jul 1st, 2015 by Michael Meacher.The bullying by Greece’s creditors continues. The latest ploy is to try, unilaterally, to interfere in Greece’s internal politics by re-defining the terms and purpose of Sunday’s referendum. It is patently clear that Tsipras called the referendum to ask the Greek people whether they accepted the latest bailout terms laid down by the creditors, yet […]
Wages, profits & investment In Greece
Jun 28th, 2015 by Michael Burke.The IMF has placed a road-block in the way of a deal with the Greek government and it remains unclear whether any agreement can be reached. The prior agreement which the IMF rejected was itself already very onerous. But the IMF wants to shift the burden of paying for the crisis away from taxes on […]
Global economic crisis: has Labour dodged a bullet?
May 18th, 2015 by Ann Pettifor.While Labour and LibDem activists mourn, and political opportunists seize the moment, is the loss of the election such a bad thing? Might this be a good time to lose an election? I think so. The reasons can be found in both domestic and global financial imbalances, in the advance of de-globalisation trends that are […]
Fake US & British recoveries are damaging the global economy
Feb 16th, 2015 by Michael Burke.Official economic opinion from the IMF is that the US and the British are the only industrialised economies that are growing strongly and that their growth model should be reproduced generally. The reality is very different. Both recoveries are the weakest on record and are fuelled by an unsustainable (debt-fuelled) rise in consumption. The international effects […]
With ballooning debt and oversized banks, another financial crash isn’t far off
Feb 8th, 2015 by Michael Meacher.In election Britain this last week has been consumed with business and finance, mainly the hedge funds, lambasting Labour for being ‘anti-business’, as though massive indulgence in tax avoidance and continued insistence on de-regulation of finance were the conditional requirements of a successful global economy. Actually they are the forerunners of the next financial collapse […]
Tory own goal on debt and the deficit pledges
Jan 23rd, 2015 by Michael Burke.The Tory Party has decided to make public finances a key battleground for the election. Key supporters of austerity such as the FT’s economics editor Chris Giles have echoed that, arguing that the “defining battle of the 2015 general election [is] over borrowing and public spending“. It is only possible to stake out political ground on […]
Why are we so obsessed with the deficit?
Jan 12th, 2015 by Michael Meacher.In general election year 1970 a last-minute delivery of two US civil aircraft to the UK arguably changed the course of the election. The great issue that year was the adverse balance of payments, and the sudden and unexpected import cost of these two planes was seen to tip the scales against the incumbent government […]
