24th November 2008
Its extraordinary. The Credit Crunch ‘debtonated’ on 9th August, 2007. Today, fully fifteen months later politicians and policy-makers in both the US, the UK and Euroland are still facing crises at banks - and don’t appear to grasp the real nature of the crisis, addressing symptoms instead of causes.
So far, their recapitalisation of banks and injections of liquidity have failed to halt the slump, and once again this week is dominated by the news that a bank too-big-to-fail - Citigroup - has effectively been nationalised by the US government.
Lets try and help politicians and policy-makers, by detailing the causes of the crisis in laywoman’s terms. After all, it is not very complicated.
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24th November 2008
This morning 5 of us were asked to comment ahead of Alistair Darling’s pre-budget report. In it I call for the Bank of England to lower interest rates across the board. Read all of the recommendations here.
The New Statesman: 20th November 2008
“The joint statement issued by the 20 world leaders borders on the delusional. The phrase “We must… ensure… that a global crisis, such as this one, does not happen again” implies that they are avoiding the next war when they are still losing this one”.
The New Statesman asked key economists and politicians including myself, Vince Cable, Will Hutton and others to comment on the outcome of the Washington G20 meeting. Read the full piece here, or the rest of my comment below.
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Al Jazeera: 19th November 2008
On Wed. Riz Khan hosted a discussion on the financial crisis. I was surprised to disagree with economist and panelist James Galbraith over why it is that IOUs (or debt) issued by the Federal Reserve replaced gold as the world’s reserve asset. Watch the discussion on Al Jazeera’s site here.

National Public Radio: 14th November 2008
I spoke to Kai Ryssdal of Marketplace about the debt crisis in the first installment of a new series of extended interviews “Taking Stock”. You can listen to the broadcast interview here, including an extended version. It was broadcast Thursday evening in the US.

7th November 2008
Paul Mason economics editor of the BBC’s Newsnight hosted an interesting event at the Frontline Club on Thursday 7th November. In attendance: Gillian Tett of the Financial Times, Michael Blastland, a freelance writer, Paul Lashmar, and yours truly. The theme was, and I paraphrase: “Why did the media fail to predict the crash? And what can editors do to prevent such myopia in the future?” Self-flagellation was in evidence all evening to the credit of the journalists present.
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7th November 2008
Yesterday’s dramatic Bank of England 1.5% rate cut was an extraordinary admission of analytical failure. The Monetary Policy Committee of orthodox economists (with Danny Blanchflower the honourable exception) is well behind the curve. While it is tiresome to beat one’s own drum, I am obliged to point out that on the 12th July I wrote a short piece for the Guardian beseeching the Bank of England not to “sacrifice the economy on the cross of inflation targeting”. Today’s numbers from the Insolvency Service reveal that more than 4,000 companies have been sacrificed. Company insolvencies have risen by 26.3% over a year ago, and by 10% over the last quarter. This represents the loss of a great deal of productive activity, and of thousands of jobs.
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Speigel Online: 5th November 2008
My hope is that the next US president will help build a new, more just, stable and sustainable global financial architecture, vital for balance and stability in the world economy, but also for the eco-system…
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