Financial crisis

Coronavirus Pandemic in the Shadow of Capitalist Exploitation and Imperialist Domination of People and Nature

31 March 2020 - by Siyada

The Coronavirus pandemic is threatening to truly become a humanitarian disaster at a global scale. It coincides with and exacerbates a multifaceted global crisis: political, economic, social, environmental and climatic. In other words, we are currently experiencing a crisis of a patriarchal, (...)
This is a Global Pandemic – Let’s Treat it as Such

31 March 2020 - by Adam Hanieh

In the face of the COVID-19 tsunami, our lives are changing in ways that were inconceivable just a few short weeks ago. Not since the 2008-2009 economic collapse has the world collectively shared an experience of this kind: a single, rapidly-mutating, global crisis, structuring the rhythm of (...)
Liberate South African public pension from stock market

27 March 2020 - by Dominic Brown

Globally, stock markets are reported to have lost more than $13-trillion dollars over the past month. South Africa was not spared. On March 12 and 13 the Johannesburg Stock Exchange (JSE) dropped by 10%, the biggest single fall in the JSE since 1997. The all share index (the largest 164 (...)
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’ stress tests. Mainstream media relay the false (...)
The Capitalist Pandemic, Coronavirus and the Economic Crisis

19 March 2020 - by Eric Toussaint

A public health crisis The coronavirus pandemic is a serious public health problem and the human suffering caused by the spread of this virus will be enormous. If it massively affects countries of the Global South with very fragile public health systems that have been undermined by 40 years (...)
The People of Colombia Are Cracking Up the Walls of War and Authoritarianism

20 January 2020 - by Justin Podur

The protests that started with the national strike called by Colombia’s central union on November 21 to protest pension reforms and the broken promises of the peace accords have persisted for two months and grown into a protest against the whole establishment. And the protests have continued (...)
Haiti 10 years after the earthquake: the fight for social and economic justice continues

13 January 2020 - by Iolanda Fresnillo

On January 12 2010 an earthquake of magnitude 7.3 on the Richter scale ripped through Port-au-Prince metropolitan area and other parts of Haiti. More than 1.5 million people, representing 15 per cent of the country’s population, were directly affected by the earthquake. According to the (...)
Le défaut de paiement de dette de Infrastructure Leasing & Financial Services (IL&FS) : Privatiser les profits, socialiser les pertes ?

31 décembre 2019 - par Sushovan Dhar

Même lorsque l’effondrement de Lehman Brothers a secoué l’ensemble du monde financier, les élites politiques indiennes et la classe capitaliste étaient tout à fait convaincues que la contagion ne se propagerait pas à l’Inde. Il est vrai que les banques et les institutions financières indiennes n’ont pas (...)
The fantasy world continues

29 November 2019 - by Michael Roberts

The fantasy world continues. In the US and Europe, stock market index levels are hitting new all-time highs. Bond prices are also near all-time highs. Investment in both stocks and bonds are delivering massive profits for the financial institutions and companies. Conversely, in the ‘real’ (...)
Global Economic Volatility and Socio Political Reactions

16 October 2019 - by Eric Toussaint, Patrick Bond, Ishmael Lesufi, Lisa Thompson

Trade and currency wars, financial volatility and economic turbulence are now the most important features of the world economy. The elements of a new international financial crisis are in place. Although we do not know when it will break out, it is unavoidable, and its impact on world economy (...)
South African Special Economic Zones : History of Limited Successes

8 October 2019 - by Eric Toussaint, Patrick Bond, Ishmael Lesufi, Lisa Thompson

Given both short- and longer-term trends in the world and South African economies, there is a danger of government and society placing inordinate hopes in what are variously termed Export Processing Zones, Industrial Development Zones and Special Economic Zones (SEZs), as sources of economic (...)
The mountain of corporate debt will be the seed of the next financial crisis

3 May 2019 - by Eric Toussaint

The scene is again set for a new major international financial crisis. Central bankers, leaders of institutions such as the IMF, the OECD and the Bank for International Settlements are all aware of the situation. Many articles in the specialized press proclaim it. One of the factors is the (...)
Things to watch in 2019: Debt and emerging debt crises

18 January 2019 - by Bodo Ellmers

More than a decade after the last global financial crisis hit, the next wave of defaults is lapping at our shores. Financing conditions will become more difficult in 2019. The world’s major central banks ‘normalised’ their monetary policies last year, meaning that the times of cheap and abundant (...)
The Infrastructure Leasing & Financial Services (IL&FS) Debt Default: Privatize Profits, Socialize Losses?

15 January 2019 - by Sushovan Dhar

Even when the Lehman Brothers collapse shook the entire financial world, the Indian political elites and the capitalist class were quite confident that the contagion would not spread to India. True, the Indian banks and financial institutions did not weather similar tsunamis as their Western (...)
Economic crisis and global disorder – An increasingly chaotic globalization

9 January 2019 - by Michel Husson

Ten years after the bankruptcy of Lehmann Brothers, more and more analyses are being produced centring on two questions: how did it happen? Can it happen again? But they are almost all centred on the workings of finance, past or future. The point of view adopted here is a little different, (...)
Argentina in turmoil

24 October 2018 - by Jérôme Duval

After Argentine President Mauricio Macri announced, on 3rd September, a brutal austerity plan under IMF supervision, the people hit the streets to express their anger at rising prices and budget cuts. Seventeen years after the 2001 crisis in Argentina, the Macri government, which came to (...)
The euro project and the international integration of the South-Eastern European economies

13 October 2018 - by Ana Podvršič

In the recent years, scholars in critical international political economy have considerably explored the differences and similarities between the countries of the European periphery. Most of the studies, however, have focused on the structural characteristics of the so-called Southern Eurozone (...)
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 (...)
Bailing out Banks after Lehman Brothers: A Holy Union for a Deuce of a Swindle

17 September 2018 - by Eric Toussaint

In this text, first published in 2008, Éric Toussaint exposed as inadequate governments’ responses to the international banking crisis and anticipated what actually occurred in the following years: a significant increase in public debt and an acceleration of austerity measures. He also explained (...)
A new global credit crunch to come?

4 August 2018 - by Michael Roberts

At the time of the general election in Turkey, I pointed out that Turkey was near the top of the pile for a debt and currency crisis. It was running a massive current account (trade and payments) deficit with other countries and its external debt (what it owes to other countries in credits) was (...)
How mainstream media deal about public debt issues

3 April 2018 - by Eric Toussaint

Éric Toussaint, spokesperson for the CADTM, refers here to the partial approach to the public debt issue developed by mainstream media at an international level: they never include the deleterious consequences of repaying public debt on people’s lives and on human rights in heavily indebted (...)
Dancing on the Volcano

22 November 2017 - by Eric Toussaint

The statements of Mario Draghi, Jean-Claude Junker, and Donald Trump remind us of all the past crises. They could very well have participated in the 1825, 1875 and 1929 crises without changing a single word. Capitalism is not yet on the brink of collapse. Too bad, we would like to see the end (...)
The euro crisis and contradictions between countries in the periphery and centre of the European Union

17 November 2017 - by Eric Toussaint

The crisis that started in the United States in 2007-2008, hit the European Union head on in 2008, and has been causing major problems in the eurozone since 2010. Banks from the strongest European countries are responsible for spreading this plague from the United States to Europe, because (...)
Panama and the Criminalization of the Global Finance System

20 April 2016 - by Michael Hudson, Sharmini Peries

Sharmini Peries: Within a week the 11 million documents called the Panama papers, published by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, has become a household name. The documents are connected to the Panama law firm Mossack Fonsesca that helped establish offshore accounts for (...)
The Subprime Specter Returns: High Finance and the Growth of High-Risk Consumer Debt

21 January 2016 - by Jennifer Taub

With more than half of American consumers classified as having subprime credit scores, it is no surprise that subprime lending is once again on the rise. Making expensive loans to the underemployed and overextended may help fuel economic growth; however, it is neither just nor sustainable. (...)