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The central bankers’ dilemma

20 December 2021 - by Michael Roberts

“The inflation that we got was not at all the inflation that we were looking for,” US Federal Reserve Chair Jay Powell said in his press conference after the Fed’s monetary policy committee decided to accelerate the ‘tapering’ of its bond purchases (...)
Development banks have no business financing agribusiness

19 October 2021 - by Collectif

On the eve of an annual gathering of public development banks in Rome, groups from around the world have signed a letter slamming them for bankrolling the expansion of industrial agriculture, environmental destruction and corporate control of (...)
Paris Commune 150: the economics

18 March 2021 - by Michael Roberts

Today is the 150th anniversary of the beginning of the Paris Commune. The Commune (Council) was formed as result of what should be considered the first uprising and revolution led by the working class in history. This new class was the product (...)
The Paris Commune of 1871, banks and debt

18 March 2021 - by Eric Toussaint

On the occasion of the 150th anniversary of the extraordinary experience of the Paris Commune, it is fundamental to draw a number of lessons from it. The measures a government takes regarding its Central Bank, the debts of working class people, (...)
India: Proposals against new attempts to privatise state-owned banks

11 March 2021 - by Eric Toussaint, Sushovan Dhar

Public sector banks account for more than two-thirds of the banking market in India. Currently, they are subjected to a systematic smear campaign launched by the reactionary Narendra Modi government, big media including the international press (...)
India: from loans to credit since 4000 years and the existence banks for 2500 years

24 February 2021 - by Eric Toussaint, Sushovan Dhar

The first credit in India dates back 4000 years. The existence of loans is proved to exist during the Vedic period, which is between 2000 and 1400 BC. The existence of banks in India dates back to 500 BC. A treatise on the art of politics of (...)
Haemorrhaging Zambia: Prequel to the Current Debt Crisis

25 November 2020 - by Andrew M. Fischer

Following a stand-off with commercial creditors and protracted but unresolved negotiations with the IMF, Zambia defaulted on its external sovereign debt on 13 November this year. While most commentary has focused exclusively on the government’s (...)
Zambia edges towards debt default, but bondholders could make millions

3 November 2020 - by Tim Jones

Zambia will go into debt default on the 14th November if a resolution is not reached with their private creditors following a missed interest payment in October. The southern African country has requested a six-month extension on interest (...)
Development banks must be held accountable for their disastrous oil palm plantation investments in the Congo

25 September 2020 - by GRAIN

The remains of assassinated Congolese leader Patrice Lumumba are finally on their way back home from Belgium. But this brings no closure to the anti-colonial struggle he led and was ultimately killed for. Foreign powers continue to loot the (...)
Some historical illustrations of decisive actions relative to banks

16 August 2020 - by Eric Toussaint

What a government does or fails to do relative to banks has far-reaching consequences on the course of a country’s history. The Paris Commune made the mistake of not taking control over the Bank of France The seat of the Bank of France, its (...)
Against the bankocracy: how a socialized banking system could function?

30 June 2020 - by Eric Toussaint, Philippe Poutou

Conversation between Philippe Poutou (NPA) and Eric Toussaint (CADTM) Éric Toussaint : Karl Marx wrote a famous text in which he stated: “If you want to know what the dictatorship of the proletariat looks like? It is the Paris Commune”, (...)
Coronavirus, fictitious capital and financial crisis

25 April 2020 - by Sankha Subhra Biswas

The world has seen a spectre of corona virus! This deadly virus has already affected 2.84 million people with a death toll of almost two hundred thousand around the world. The number of people affected in India are 24,942 out which 779 persons (...)
Banks are weapons of mass destruction

To confront capitalism’s multifaceted crisis the bankers must be expropriated and the banks socialised

26 March 2020 - by Eric Toussaint

Bank shares have been plunging since mid-February 2020. If the big and institutional holders are selling these urgently, it must be because they are at risk. Governments and banking authorities systematically lie about the results of banks’ (...)
Another look at the Federal Reserve’s panic in September 2019 and solutions to the crisis

28 October 2019 - by Eric Toussaint

You may recall that from 17 September 2019, the United States Federal Reserve injected massive amounts of liquidity into banks due to a quite abnormal situation on the repo market [1]. The repo market designates a mechanism used by banks to (...)
New bubbles, mounting debt: preparing for the coming crisis

24 October 2019 - by Ben Reynolds

A new global recession looms on the horizon, pointing to a new era of financial crisis, government bailouts and popular outrage. Financial markets roil and the banking system groans. The US Federal Reserve cuts interest rates, even as Chairman (...)
Corporate debt, fiscal stimulus and the next recession

23 October 2019 - by Michael Roberts

The debt owed by corporations in the major economies has risen since the end of the Great Recession in 2009. With global growth slowing and the prospect rising of an outright global recession recurring ten years after the last one, the debt (...)
Swiss Franc Mortgages: Illegitimate and Illegal

8 October 2019 - by Eric Toussaint

In Poland and France, along with Croatia, Hungary, Slovenia, Greece and other Balkan countries, the scandal of household mortgages made out in Swiss francs has hit over a million victims of big grasping private banks. The Court of Justice of the (...)
The Credit Crunch is Back and the Federal Reserve Panics on an Ocean of Debt

25 September 2019 - by Eric Toussaint

In a state of panic and under pressure from big capital and President Trump, on Tuesday 17 September 2019, the Fed (the US Federal Reserve) pumped $53.2 billion into the banks because they were short of day-to-day funding available from the (...)
ECB: You can take a horse to water but….

18 September 2019 - by Michael Roberts

Last Thursday, Mario Draghi, the current head of the European Central bank, soon to be replaced by Christine Lagarde from the IMF, announced a parting gift to banks and financial markets. The ECB decided to reintroduce its bond purchasing (...)
Finance: fiddling, fetish and fiction

14 August 2019 - by Michael Roberts

Nothing changes in the finance sector globally, despite the catastrophic impact of the banks on the world capitalist economy in the global financial crash and the ensuing Great Recession. [In previous (...)
How Wall Street Colonized the Caribbean

12 July 2019 - by Peter James Hudson

The expansion of banks such as Citigroup into Cuba, Haiti, and beyond reveal a story of capitalism built on blood, labor, and racial lines. This essay is featured in Boston Review’s Spring 2019 issue Racist Logic. Buy a copy and receive a (...)
China’s Corporate Debt: On the Way to Crisis? Part 3

Challenges Posed by Recent Shifts in the Composition of Chinese debt

21 May 2019 - by Alice Jetin Duceux

As we have seen in the previous part of this study, despite the government’s spectacular stimulus plan, growth has been continually slowing over the past decade. Massive investment and growing corporate debt can no longer maintain a high rate of (...)
The Economic Crisis and the Central Banks

25 March 2019 - by Eric Toussaint

Everything is in place for a new international financial crisis to occur. We don’t know exactly when it will break out. But it will, and its impact will be felt all over the planet. The major factors contributing to the crisis situation are: (...)
STATE OF POWER 2019

Battling bankers: grassroots insights on financial power

14 February 2019 - by TNI

Three inspiring activists — from Spain, UK and Kenya — share their experiences of taking on bankers and the lessons and insights from their ongoing struggles. This essay is part of the Transnational Institute’s “State of Power 2019” report. (...)
The Challenges for the European Left regarding Debt and the Banks

23 January 2019 - by Eric Toussaint

Second part of the interview given to LVSL. Here, the first part “Break the Taboo on Odious Debts and their Repudiation”. LVSL – If we look at the case of Greece in 2015, we see that there was a change of regime when Syriza and Alexis Tsipras (...)