Crisis opening in 2007

Marxist economists on the crisis, 2nd round: 5. David Laibman - The Onset of Great Depression II: Conceptualising the Crisis

At this writing (January 2009), firms in all sectors of the U. S. economy are cutting their payrolls; unemployment and homelessness are soaring; and the working class is taking the biggest hit to living standards in several generations, raising deep doubts about the capacity of our capitalist society in the near term to ensure overall social reproduction. Similar trends are evident around the world, reflecting a heightened degree of interconnection and transnationalisation. Mountains of debt -- consumer, business, government, offshore -- continue to accumulate, and the fragility of the...

Marxist economists on the crisis, 2nd round: 4. Andrew Kliman - The level of debt is astronomical

Do you think a markedly new regime of capitalism is going to emerge out of this crisis? I don't think we can assume that capitalism will emerge from this crisis. Things are still very dicey. There is an acute lack of confidence. There are acute problems with the availability of credit. The Fed, the Treasury, and so forth have been able time and again to stop the panic from breaking out into more severe panic, but only temporarily, and the underlying problems are getting worse. Much of what is happening is unprecedented. The future will largely be shaped by the exigencies that emerge in the...

What the money supply figures show

The Financial Times of 05/01/09 surveys the US money supply figures for 2008. The "monetary base", M0, doubled during 2008. That's the stock of notes and coins in circulation plus bank reserves held at the central bank. Lots of things are paid for by debit cards or cheques, of course, so the economists also measure M1 - currency (notes and coins in circulation) plus funds held in demand or current accounts plus travellers’ cheques. An even broader measure, M2, brings in savings and longer-term deposits below a certain size, plus individuals’ money-market mutual funds. In normal times there are...

Marxist economists comment again on the crisis: 3. Leo Panitch - The chain broke at the weakest link

The world economic crisis took a sharp turn for the worse in September 2008. Some of the Marxist economists who had discussed the crisis in our first series of interviews, March-July 2008 , have commented again. No.3: Leo Panitch. Last time we talked, you said that out of this crisis we will see more directive oversight by capitalist states, and we might even see something you called "the social-democratisation of globalisation". Do you see things going that way? And what will it look like? With all the calls for regulation; with states buying shares in banks, not taking any directive control...

Marxist economists comment again on the crisis: 2. Fred Moseley - The bondholders and the taxpayers

The world economic crisis took a sharp turn for the worse in September 2008. Some of the Marxist economists who had discussed the crisis in our first series of interviews , March-July 2008, have commented again. No.2: Fred Moseley. 1. Do you think that the recent extensive measures of nationalisation and bailing-out, and talk by governments of increased regulation of the financial sector, mark a serious change in the shape of capitalist development? What sort of new regimes might emerge from the crisis? I think we should nationalise the banks , and really and truly nationalise them, not the...

Marxist economists comment again on the crisis: 1. Michel Husson - The crisis of neo-liberal capitalism

The world economic crisis took a sharp turn for the worse in September 2008. Some of the Marxist economists who had discussed the crisis in our first series of interviews, March-July 2008 , have commented again. No.1: Michel Husson. 1. Do you think that the recent nationalisations and big bail-outs signify a major change in the configuration of capitalism? What sort of new regime could result from the crisis? The nationalisations are only pseudo-nationalisations. They are partial, provisional, and almost unconditional. They are aimed at re-establishing the profitability of the banking system...

Lessons from three workers' struggles in the USA

Every now and again, American workers issue a blunt reminder to the bosses, and to themselves, that the steady and moderate tone transmitted by their nation's great public-relations dream-machine can never fully lull them to sleep. The factory occupation at Republic Windows and Doors in Chicago on December 5th emerged as the most salient of recent reminders, no doubt owing to the widespread opposition to the federal bailout of Wall Street. For radicals and trade-unionists and the 260 rank and filers of UE Local 1110 who, to be sure, lost their jobs, the sit-in must be counted a victory. After...

Taxpayer-aided banks pay huge bonuses

Solidarity and Workers' Liberty have argued for sacking all the top bank bosses, nationalizing the finance sector without compensation for the big shareholders, and reorganizing it as a public banking, mortgage, and pension service. The case for this has been made again by a report in The Observer (21 December): "City bankers at four major firms shared in an estimated £6.4bn of bonuses last week". The Observer further reports that Goldman Sachs, which is paying out a bonus pot of $2.6bn (£1.73bn), has taken $10bn of taxpayer funds to help it in the crisis. Morgan Stanley's bonus pool of around...

Sack the bank bosses! Bring finance under democratic social control

Bank of England and government support for the banks so far totals something like the equivalent of £18,000 for every child, woman, and man in the UK. The Bank of England's Financial Stability Report of 27 October 2008 gives the figures: a total of £1107 billion. It can’t be right? After all, the average household in the UK is about 2.4 people. That average household doesn't have £43,000 (£18,000 times 2.4) to give to the banks, even if it wanted to. Indeed, the Government and the Bank of England have not been packing up £1107 billion in banknotes to hand over to the banks. The entire total of...

Don’t pay for the bosses’ crisis!

The sharp increase in oil prices, and now the credit crunch, has led to sales of large cars and people-carriers falling by 30% in Europe. SUV sales have fallen by 45%. The industry giants have responded to the crisis with massive layoffs. Volkswagen, for example, has announced 25,000 job losses; Rolls Royce, Peugeot and Chrysler are also making swingeing cuts. The first instinct of most socialists will be to defend workers' jobs; that instinct is correct, but the situation calls for a far more thoroughgoing response that isn't limited to defending the pre-crisis status quo. attacks on workers...

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