financial crisis

If we’re printing money it should go to poor people who spend not bankers who hoard.

    Imagine being asked to pay your bank for the privilege of depositing your money in it. Most of us think that we are victims of reverse bank robbery already. But actually give them money to take our money? The Bank of England moved rapidly yesterday to insist that the policy of negative interest … Continue reading →

Banks and horses. Food and financial products contaminated by greed.

There are striking similarities between the horse-burger affair and the international banking scandal that broke in August 2007. The financial crash was caused the sale of toxic financial products called Collateral Debt Obligations that were composed of mortgage bonds that had been “sliced and diced” into new products that were then marketed as cheap and … Continue reading →

Catalonia. Bankrupt. Scotland next?

    Scottish nationalists could be forgiven for cursing fate this week. Both Ireland and the autonomous Spanish region of Catalonia, the two most admired constitutional role models for a post-union Scotland, are sinking under the weight of their debts. Today, Ireland’s voters are expected to vote reluctantly for an EU financial austerity package that … Continue reading →

The economic living dead: misery of the middle earners.

Where is the anger?  Where is the resistance? Five years into the worst economic crisis since the 1930s and earnings – apart from those of the top ten percent – have fallen year on year. A raft of studies has shown that ordinary families in Britain are suffering the longest squeeze in living memory, yet the … Continue reading →

Epitaph for the Age of Irresponsibility

     “An epitaph for an age of irresponsibility”, is how the Chancellor, George Osborne, described the Barclay’s Libor-fixing scandal in the Commons last week. It was, he went on: “symptomatic of a financial system that elevated greed above all other concerns and brought our economy to its knees”. If even a Tory Chancellor has … Continue reading →

 It’s the biggest poker game in history. On one side of the table, the dowdy, conservative German Chancellor, Angela Merkel, on the other, youthful, radical Alexis Tsipras, leader of the Greek left wing coalition, Syriza, which is expected to win increased support in today’s Greek elections. Could ever a financial crisis have thrown up an … Continue reading →

Spanish debt crisis is a crisis for all of us.

     Capital Flight may sound like the name of a new budget airline – in fact it’s what happens when a country loses trust in itself. In the first three months of the year, Spaniards exported a total of e100 billion to London, Frankfurt, Paris – anywhere. The biggest flight of funds since records … Continue reading →

Party’s over for the public sector.

It’s open season on ‘pen-pushers’. The Chancellor, Alistair Darling, is now calling, not just for a freeze, but for actual reductions in bureaucrats’ pay. The Scottish government has launched an assault on bonuses for highly-paid public quangocrats. The Tories want pay cuts across the board. Everyone says the end is nigh for public spending and that with … Continue reading →

Let’s have some capitalism for capitalists.

My Big Idea for 2010? Simple. Bring back capitalism. No, I’m serious. I may be a superannuated socialist who thinks the banks should be nationalised and has always supported the redistribution of wealth. But right now, we need a bit of capitalist rigour to sort out the mess left by the financial crisis. It’s time … Continue reading →

Brown’s Tobin tax bombshell.

   Shake me, I must be dreaming.  I could have sworn that Gordon Brown just called for a “Tobin tax” on international financial transactions to curb the excesses of the banks and  provide funds for developing nations and climate change.   Can’t be true, surely.  I must have nodded off, somewhere.      This is … Continue reading →