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Financial crisis

The Persistence of Global Capitalism’s Long Depression

8 August 2024 - by Ashley Smith, Michael Roberts

While the Biden administration and its liberal apologists crow about the economic recovery, in reality US capitalism, and indeed global capitalism, remain stuck in a slump with seemingly no end in sight. Spectre’s Ashley Smith interviews Michael (...)
Goldilocks and the last mile

8 December 2023 - by Michael Roberts

Last week, the second estimate for the US real GDP in Q3 of 2023, i.e. national output, was released. It came in at 5.2% on an annualised basis. That seemed a very strong figure, only surpassed in the recent period by Q4 2021, when the US (...)
National and International Conference on Central Banks, the Financial System and Economic Development

6 December 2023 - by Eric Toussaint, Pablo Laixhay

Éric Toussaint was invited to open the second day of the National and international conference on central banks, the financial system and economic development, held in Bogota on 23 and 24 November 2023 with the active participation of the (...)
When President Joe Biden says that the US never denounced any debt obligation it’s a lie to convince people that there is no alternative to a bad bi-partisan agreement

Debt ceiling: Radio Silence Concerning United States President Franklin Roosevelt’s Repudiation of Debts

28 May 2023 - by Eric Toussaint

During your education, did you learn that during the 1930s the government of the USA unceremoniously repudiated a central provision of debt contracts that represented phenomenal sums? Do any history books analyze that act? Historical narratives (...)
First Republic – the case for public ownership

4 May 2023 - by Michael Roberts

The collapse of First Republic Bank is the latest chapter in the rolling banking crisis in the US. This was the second largest banking collapse in US financial history. It demonstrates yet further the case for public ownership of the banking (...)
Well founded pessimism

17 April 2023 - by Michael Roberts

Only last February, I posted that there would be a ‘mild recession’ in US economic activity this year. And according to economists at the Bank of America, there are plenty of signals that suggest a recession in the US has not been avoided and (...)
The Mechanics of a Bond Market and its Impact on the Banking Crisis

10 April 2023 - by Michael Hudson

Why the Bank Crisis is Not Over The crashes of Silvergate, Silicon Valley Bank, Signature Bank and the related bank insolvencies are much more serious than the 2008-09 crash. The problem at that time was crooked banks making bad mortgage loans. (...)
Banking crisis: is it all over?

28 March 2023 - by Michael Roberts

Bank stock prices have stabilized at the start of this week. And all the key officials at the Federal Reserve, the US Treasury and the European Central Bank are reassuring investors that the crisis is over. Last week, Fed Chair Jerome Powell (...)
Silicon Valley Bank’s Collapse Shows Little Has Changed for Big Banks Since 2008

14 March 2023 - by Branko Marcetic

The spectacular collapse of Silicon Valley Bank was caused by corruption, financial recklessness, and poor decision-making. With its bailout echoing 2008’s eager bailouts for the rich, it begs the question: How much longer will Americans put up (...)
Monetary tightening, inflation and bank failures

13 March 2023 - by Michael Roberts

Last week, US Fed Chair Jay Powell gave testimony to the US Congress on inflation and Fed monetary policy. He spooked financial markets when he appeared to say that the latest data on the economy would probably require further interest-rate (...)
SVB: from the valley to the chasm

13 March 2023 - by Michael Roberts

On Friday, Californian bank Silicon Valley Bank (SVB) became the largest bank to fail since the 2008 financial crisis. In a sudden collapse that shocked financial markets, it left billions of dollars belonging to companies and investors (...)
Submission to the Independent Expert on Foreign Debt and Human Rights

7 March 2022 - by Collective, CADTM Pakistan

This submission to the Independent Expert on Foreign Debt and Human Rights comes at a crucial juncture in Pakistan’s socio-political and economic history. In 2018 after the general elections no single party could gain an overall parliamentary (...)
‘There is no money left’: Covid crisis leaves Sri Lanka on brink of bankruptcy

2 February 2022 - by Minoli de Soysa, Hannah Ellis-Petersen

Sri Lanka is facing a deepening financial and humanitarian crisis with fears it could go bankrupt in 2022 as inflation rises to record levels, food prices rocket and its coffers run dry. The meltdown faced by the government, led by the (...)
Back to stagflation?

31 January 2022 - by Tomasz Konicz

The end of the financialization of capitalism looks confusingly similar to the beginning. In recent weeks, a great retro fever has broken out in the business press. In the face of rapidly rising inflation and a mixed economic outlook, memories (...)
Whither the global economy?

20 November 2021 - by Michael Roberts

How is the global recovery after the COVID pandemic going? The economic consensus is that the major economies are recovering fast, driven by rising consumer spending and corporate investment. The problem ahead is not a return to sustained (...)
What kind of austerity after the Covid crisis?

9 July 2021 - by Eva Betavatzi

The present circumstances seem to rule out – for a time – using public debt considered to be excessive as a pretext for drastic austerity measures. The illusion of having escaped the vicious circle of debt to austerity is reinforced by the (...)
A country is entitled to refuse to repay a debt

26 November 2020 - by Eric Toussaint, Revista Mugica

The following interview, given by Éric Toussaint to the Argentine review Mugica, has been adapted to make it accessible to readers who are not necessarily aware of the details of what is going on in Argentina. The arguments used in the article (...)
The crisis triggered by the pandemic and the economic policy of the European Union

19 November 2020 - by Daniel Albarracín

This chapter will address the pandemic crisis at the level of political economy and, in particular, the fundamental decisions that the European Union is adopting, whose measures will take precise form once its particular institutional procedure (...)
Deficits, debt and deflation after the pandemic

6 July 2020 - by Michael Roberts

The Great Lockdown enforced by the COVID-19 pandemic has driven governments across the globe to apply extensive bailout and fiscal stimulus programmes. On average, these measures of wage supplements, furlough payments, loans and grants to (...)
The DiEM25 Plan to Confront the Covid-19 Crisis in Europe

27 May 2020 - by Eric Toussaint, Olivier Bonfond, Eva Betavatzi

Strengthen the European Union and its institutions, include the ECB; increase public debt as much as possible in order to save the private sector; not question the legitimacy of public debt; pay €2,000 into the bank account of each European (...)
Millions forced to choose between hunger or Covid-19

26 May 2020 - by GRAIN

On the eve of May Day 2020, in full coronavirus pandemic, the International Labour Organisation (ILO) released some hair raising statistics. About 1.6 billion workers from the informal sector are in dire straits because of the lockdowns (...)
The downward journey of stock markets, repurchase of shares and the story of fictitious capital

12 May 2020 - by Sankha Subhra Biswas

A severe crisis has gripped the world financial markets since early March 2020 and needless to say, India has not escaped this onslaught. The Indian stock markets are unable to halt this deep slide. On certain days the markets shows some (...)
The debt dilemma

11 May 2020 - by Michael Roberts

I have mentioned many times on this blog that rising global debt reduces the ability of capitalist economies to avoid slumps and find quick way to recover (and see ‘Debt Matters’ in my book, The Long Depression and also in World in Crisis). As (...)
The scarring

4 May 2020 - by Michael Roberts

Optimism reigns in global stock markets, particularly in the US. After falling around 30% when the lockdowns to contain COVID-19 virus pandemic were imposed, the US stock market has jumped back 30% in April. Why? Well, for two reasons. The (...)
Self-Extinction of Neoliberalism? Don’t Bet on It

4 May 2020 - by Gilbert Achcar

This article was first published in New Politics, the nickname that the IMF adopted to designate the huge economic crisis resulting from the consequences of the Covid-19 pandemic, has already sunk to far lower depths than the Great Recession, (...)