Banks

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: first, the very large increase in corporate private (...)
Battling bankers: grassroots insights on financial power

14 February 2019 - by Transnational Institute

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. Worldwide, countless activists are engaged in (...)
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 came to power, with strong popular support. And yet (...)
What we have learned from the US indictment on odious loans to Mozambique

23 January 2019 - by Tim Jones

Yesterday (3 jan 2019) three former employees of Credit Suisse were arrested in London over $2 billion of odious loans to three state owned companies in Mozambique, given in 2013. The loans were given to companies with no revenue, and were not agreed by the Mozambique parliament, making them (...)
‘Outrageous’ Mozambique debt deal could make 270% profit for speculators

8 November 2018 - by Tim Jones

People of Mozambique to pay $1.7 billion to $2.2 billion on original loan of $760 million, which was not agreed by Mozambique parliament, and which has been of no benefit The government of Mozambique has announced it has reached an agreement on a new debt payment plan to holders of some of (...)
Ten years on, the crisis of global capitalism never really ended

3 October 2018 - by Jerome Roos

With inequality on the rise, global debt higher than ever and international tensions intensifying, the political backlash to the crash of 2008 has only just begun. This weekend marks the tenth anniversary of the collapse of Lehman Brothers, the once-mighty US investment bank whose dramatic (...)
Corporate capture in Europe - When big business dominates policy-making and threatens our right

25 September 2018 - by Alliance for Lobbying Transparency and Ethics Regulation (ALTER-EU)

This report examines the extreme and undue influence of big business on European Union (EU) and member state decision-making processes. It has been produced by the Alliance for Lobbying Transparency and Ethics Regulation (ALTER-EU) as a response to the distortions we witness in policy and law (...)
Crisis after crisis: Why financial sector reform is not enough – A Post-Capitalist Alternative

18 September 2018 - by Walden Bello

It is now clear that financial crises are not discrete events but are linked phenomena that have been unleashed on the globe ever since the financial markets were liberalized during the Reagan-Thatcher era in the early 1980’s. To take just the three most prominent crashes, surplus capital that (...)
The Next Crash

17 September 2018 - by Robert Reich

Trump and his Republican enablers are now reversing regulations put in place to stop Wall Street’s excessively risky lending September 15 will mark the tenth anniversary of the collapse of Lehman Brothers and near meltdown of Wall Street, followed by the Great Recession. Since hitting bottom (...)
Financial Crisis 10 years on – How the response to the last crisis laid the foundations for the next

13 September 2018 - by Bodo Ellmers

Ten years ago, on 15 September 2008, the US investment bank Lehman Brothers collapsed. This collapse is largely seen as a key event of the North Atlantic financial crisis, which also had spillover effects on the rest of the world. Around the globe, this decade-long crisis has caused massive (...)
Royal Bank of Scotland in the lion’s den of the financial crisis

28 June 2018 - by Chiara Filoni, Christine Berry

10 years following the bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers’ and the European financial crisis, we publish an interview with Christine Berry, formerly a researcher at the New Economics Foundation and campaigner against the bailout and the privatization of the Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS). The bank (...)
How to Socialize the Banking Sector

14 June 2018 - by Eric Toussaint, Patrick Saurin

Because capitalists have demonstrated just how far they are willing to go, taking risks (risks whose consequences they refuse to be held accountable for) and committing crimes for the sole purpose of increasing their profits, because their activities regularly result in heavy costs borne by (...)
What measures should a popular government take towards banks?

11 June 2018 - by Eric Toussaint, Patrick Saurin, Jeanne Chevalier

Economic heterodoxy and the programmes of deliquescent social democratic parties lack a structured project for the constitution of an alternative banking system. To remedy this, this contribution attempts to move towards a shared, coherent and operational proposal for an organizational plan for (...)
Asie du Sud : Nouveaux créanciers et nouvelles formes de péonage pour dette

25 avril 2018 - par Nathan Legrand

Le 7e atelier régional du CADTM Asie du Sud s’est tenu avec succès à Colombo, au Sri Lanka, du 6 au 8 avril 2018. Une quarantaine de délégué-e-s représentant divers mouvements sociaux (mouvements paysans, féministes, syndicalistes, etc.) se sont réunis, venant du Sri Lanka, mais aussi d’Inde, du (...)
Crony capitalism looms large on the Indian banking horizon

18 April 2018 - by Sushovan Dhar

The $1.77 billion Punjab National Bank (PNB) scam, possibly the biggest financial chicanery to have hit the Indian banking sector, is rocking the nation. Perpetrated by a diamond tycoon in collusion with bank officials, defrauding India’s second largest bank in such a manner seems astonishing. (...)
Understanding the crisis is too important to be left to specialists alone. This is why “Bankocracy” is so important

16 April 2018 - by Avishek Konar

The Great Recession, from the middle of 2007 onwards, has rocked the global economy. This has led to at least a couple of things. The legitimacy of neoliberalism in the west—qua ‘there is no other alternative’—has been shattered, and vast majority of people are now looking for other political (...)
Socialising the banks: some historical examples

21 March 2018 - by Eric Toussaint

How well a country controls its banks has a profound effect on its history. The Paris Commune was wrong to spare the Bank of France. Its main reserves and its governing body were within the territory of the Paris Commune. It was absolutely necessary to take control. By not doing so the (...)
Open doors for forces of finance

25 October 2017 - by Corporate Europe Observatory

ECB advisory groups are used as lobby platforms by the financial industry, as our new report shows. ’Open door for forces of finance at the ECB’ reveals that the advisory groups counselling the European Central Bank are dominated by representatives of some of the most influential global financial (...)
Time to dump greed for need

11 June 2017 - by Suresh Seshadri

A political scientist explains how banks and governments across the world are colluding to enlarge public debt For a country whose most famous son M.K. Gandhi once said, “The world has enough for everyone’s need, but not enough for everyone’s greed,” India’s contemporary banking sector crisis (...)
Opening the vaults: the use of tax havens by Europe’s biggest banks

7 April 2017 - by Oxfam

This report from Oxfam on the EU banking sector provides just a glimpse into the harm that tax abuse is causing across the world. The findings are stark: The 20 biggest European banks register around one in every four euros of their profits in tax havens, an estimated total of €25bn in 2015. (...)
The battle over Sweden’s Bank Resolution Fund

1 April 2017 - by Daniel Munevar

Over the last few weeks a public battle has erupted between the Swedish government and the largest bank in the country, Nordea. The struggle between government and bank revolves around the intention of the former of increasing the contribution of financial institutions to a special resolution (...)
2007-2017: Causes of a Ten-Year Financial Crisis

30 March 2017 - by Eric Toussaint

The first institutions specializing in mortgage loans started to default in the US in February-March 2007. According to a report published by the Union of Swiss banks (UBS) in March 2017, “between 2002 and 2008, global debt of the corporate, household, government and financial sectors (...)
A Review of Bankocracy

27 March 2017 - by Collin G. Matton

Financial experts, political pundits, the popular press, and even Hollywood directors have dissected the financial crisis of 2008. Sadly, not much has changed since then to prevent it from occurring again. So why read yet another autopsy report, even one as well documented as Eric Toussaint’s (...)
The colossus with the feet of clay that was Monte dei Paschi di Siena

9 March 2017 - by Chiara Filoni

A little over a year after the bail-in [1] of four small banks in central Italy, the country’s banking problems are far from solved. On 23 December, Italy awoke to €20 billion in additional public debt on its balance sheet: a hangover from which they will not be able to recover if the authorities (...)
“The Greek government and banks try to take away our homes every Wednesday at civil tribunals”

26 January 2017 - by Eva Betavatzi, Filippos Filippides

Prior to Greece’s joining the EEC (European Economic Community) in 1981, Greek banks granted mortgages with very high interest rates, reaching up to 25%. With the country’s entry into the EEC, rates dropped to 16%. Then, as soon as the euro was adopted, mortgages grew exponentially, allowing (...)