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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Open Democracy: 27th October 2008
It is a small measure of the dramatic financial meltdown of 2007-08 that leading representatives of western liberal capitalism ransacked the past for reference-points to convey its scale…
In my contribution to the Green New Deal in July, 2008 I warned that corporate debt defaults were the next “big shoe to fall”. We are all aware of the devastating consequences of defaults by sub-prime borrowers. However their debts are miniscule compared to outstanding corporate debts. Now, I firmly predict,corporate debt defaults are about to cascade down on the global economy, leading to devastating impacts, not the least of which will be widespread unemployment. How can I be so sure?
I wrote a piece on Keynes and monetary policy for the Standard, which appeared on Thursday, 23rd October, 2008. You can read it below. Today a group of monetarist economists , supported by a range of bankers, have written to the Telegraph objecting to a public works programme to help economic recovery. They are right that excessive liabilities on the government’s balance sheet could cause interest rates to rise, but government spending has a multiplier effect, and very quickly pays for itself. They seem unaware of this economic fact. There is some overlap between our views on monetary policy as an effective tool, but I disagree with their view that UK government spending has been excessive.
24th October, 2008
The NS has published a short piece this week: “Economists simply would not accept that their model could fail“. An introductory sentence is not mine: “Who would have predicted..that prudent Gordon Brown (would) breach the EU cap on government spending?” Am writing to the NS to ask for a correction to be published.
21st October, 2008
A new Bretton Woods: To save economies and the planet, we must tame markets,upsize the state, and downsize the global single market. This piece is derived loosely from the book I edited at the new economics foundation “Real World Economic Outlook” (Palgrave, 2006). The proposal for an International Clearing Agency draws on John Maynard Keynes’ proposal for an International Clearing Union, but also on additional insights by Jane D’Arista of the Financial Markets Center in the US.
The World Tonight, Monday 14th October, 2008, 10.38pm.
9th October, 2008. Central banks’ obsession with inflation is stopping them from tackling a far more pressing threat.
Both the British Chancellor, Alastair Darling and the shadow Chancellor, George Osborne, have been on the radio this morning, resisting the idea that interest rates are political. Instead they have argued, vehemently, that the Bank of England is independent, and that the Bank must decide whether or not to lower interest rates.
Sunday 5th October, 2008
The decision tonight by Germany to guarantee 100% of all savings in German banks first flagged up by the BBC earlier this Sunday evening, but modified later, is a clear signal that there is panic afoot. A run on German banks must be imminent. Why? Because the only way to prevent a run on banks is to guarantee 100% of savings. The fact that Germany has done so, or hinted that she will do so, means that her government is taking urgent, unprecedented and unco-ordinated action, to prevent such a financial catastrophe occurring tomorrow morning. Others must now follow to prevent a systemic run on the global banking system. To avoid armageddon.
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Joined-up policies to solve the triple crunch of the credit crisis, climate change and high oil prices.
Click here for the first report of the Green New Deal Group.
Ann Pettifor is a political economist and author of 'The Coming First World Debt Crisis' (Palgrave, 2006) and editor of 'The Real World Economic Outlook' (Palgrave, 2003). She is a fellow of the new economics foundation (nef) in London and director of Advocacy International.