Economy
Green shoots of economic recovery? Print E-mail
By Mick Brooks   
Monday, 08 June 2009
green.jpgSome economic commentators and financial journalists have divined the ‘green shoots’ of economic recovery’ growing out of the present crisis. Perhaps the wish is father to the thought. Are they right? Most obviously stock exchanges in Britain and all over the world have been booming since the beginning of March. We have to be careful here. Remember there were four 20% or more rallies on the NYSE between 1929-32, when the overall trend for share prices was definitely down. These are often described as suckers’ rallies that take place in a ‘bear market’.

 
GM goes bust: Capitalism continues to fail…… at the expense of the working class! Print E-mail
By Eddie Kacar   
Friday, 05 June 2009
gm.jpgGeneral Motors, the largest car manufacturer in the United States of America, which employs nearly a quarter of a million people world wide, has filed for bankruptcy. This has initiated the largest industrial insolvency the world has ever seen with debts of £105 billion! The firm, which owns Vauxhall and its European sister Opel, employs 5,500 workers here in the UK. The future of the British employees have entered into uncertainty with sale of the European arm of General Motors to a consortium led by Canadian car parts manufacturer Magna, backed by Russian investment bank Sberbank.
 
'Will there be a slump?': Still relevant today Print E-mail
By Steve Jones   
Sunday, 31 May 2009
thread.gifNearly fifty years ago, Ted Grant wrote a major article called 'Will there be a slump?' in which he outlined the nature and underlying reasons for capitalist crisis and why it would keep happening - a controversial statement given that it was made during the period of the post-war boom. This article from 1960 remains as relevant today as ever - if not more so given the world recession which has thrown the global economies into chaos. Here we see a real explanation for the failures of capitalism and why they want the working class to pay for their mess.
 
Inequality grows - Home and Abroad! Print E-mail
By Michael Roberts (additional reporting by Steve Jones)   
Sunday, 24 May 2009
scrapbook.jpgAlongside the waste of resources from capitalist slumps comes inequality and injustice. Michael Roberts goes beyond the facts and figures to see how capitalism in the 21st Century has ensured that the rich have got richer and the poor... well you can quess Our economics correspondent takes a closer look at some of the facts
 
The economic crisis and the poor countries Print E-mail
By Mick Brooks   
Wednesday, 13 May 2009
wallstreet.jpgThe 1920s were good years for the world economy. They were years of boom. Boom and speculation go together like strawberries and cream, and there was speculation aplenty as well. In such a period of ‘irrational exuberance’ the illusion spreads that the good times will go on for ever. Sound familiar? In a 'bull market' as in 1925-29 nearly all share prices go up and up. Over those years US industrial shares trebled in price!  We all know what happened next. What are the parallels with today?
 
Budget: Fifty per cent is too much! Print E-mail
By Michael Roberts   
Friday, 01 May 2009
darling.jpgIt makes your blood boil!  The only good news to come out of the UK budget announced by New Labour Chancellor Alastair Darling last week was the slight increase in tax rate that would now be levied on those earning more than £100,000 a year.  The rate was being raised from 40% to 50% to help raise a little more money from those who have benefited most from the credit binge that has now gone bust around the world.But what a barrage of criticism and rage has erupted from the great and good and from the news media on Darling’s action.
 
Scotland and the budget Print E-mail
By Ewan Gibbs and Patrick Orr   
Thursday, 23 April 2009
as.jpgAfter a budget speech that might as well have ended with Alistair Darling announcing to the speaker of the house that it was goodnight and goodbye from the Labour government it seems that the way is being paved for a Tory government and a bosses’ offensive. In Scotland the repercussions from the budget are already having an accentuated effect due to the different political set up of the country; namely the impact of this budget on that of the SNP administration’s at Holyrood. 
 
Budget: Where’s our bail-out? Print E-mail
By Mick Brooks   
Wednesday, 22 April 2009
darling.jpgThe budget figures show starkly how desperate is the position of the British economy, faced with what Darling called the ‘worst global economic turmoil’ in living memory. The amount the economy will shrink has been revised to a record 3.5% fall this year, the biggest drop since the Second World War.
 
Human nature, capitalism and the global crisis Print E-mail
By Michael Roberts   
Thursday, 16 April 2009
greenspan.jpgAlan Greenspan has just turned 83 years old.  He was Chairman of the US Federal Reserve Bank for over 19 years before he stepped down in January 2006, just before the great boom turned into the awful credit crunch and brought global capitalism to its knees. Greenspan presided over the biggest credit boom in capitalist history and the largest rise in property prices that the US had ever seen.  He was praised to the heights during those years and as the helmsman of capitalist success globally and in America.  Bob Woodward, one of the journalists who exposed the Nixon Watergate scandal back in the 1970s, wrote a book about Greenspan in the year 2000, in which he described him as ‘the maestro’. 
 
Super exploited but fighting back Print E-mail
By Mel MacDonald   
Friday, 03 April 2009
migrantworkerssmall.jpg'So far, we have observed the drive towards the extension of the working day, and the werewolf-like hunger for surplus labour, in an area where capital’s monstrous outrages, unsurpassed, according to an English bourgeois economist, by the cruelties of the Spaniards to the American red-skins.' Karl Marx Capital Vol. 1

Ethnic minorities make up a big part of the migrant work force and often fill low paid, low skill or temporary positions, despite often being educated and substantially skilled workers like teachers and accountants in their country of origin. They come here for many reasons but low wages, high unemployment and scarce job opportunities in their country of origin are the usual culprits.

 
What is financialisation? Print E-mail
By Mick Brooks   
Wednesday, 04 March 2009
cw1.jpgThe holy trinity of ideological concepts for the modern capitalist age are neoliberalism, globalisation and financialisation. Of these three concepts financialisation occupies a position akin to that of the holy ghost, as the least understood and least discussed of the three. Financialisation is a reality under modern capitalism. Marxists need to examine how much it has changed capitalism, and how far the system remains fundamentally the same.
 
The Great Depression Print E-mail
By Michael Roberts   
Friday, 20 February 2009

New York stock exchange - lowest in 6 yearsAs I write, the New York stock exchange index fell to its lowest level in six years as the big financial institutions and investors in company stocks slipped into the depth of despond about the state of the world capitalist economy. And these investors have every reason to feel depressed.  The world economy, by most estimates from the major international institutions, will contract this year for the first time since the 1940s.  And by the world, they mean everywhere, not just in the advanced capitalist economies. 

 
No more bail-outs – take over the banks. Print E-mail
By Socialist Appeal   
Friday, 30 January 2009
cw1.jpgIn January the Royal Bank of Scotland recorded the biggest loss in British corporate history - £28bn. Just three months ago New Labour bunged £20bn of our money at RBS to help prop it up. We have since made a £12.5bn loss on our holding as share prices headed south. Where did our money go? It seems to have disappeared in a puff of smoke.  So the government has decided to give them another £5bn of our money. The bank’s worth is disappearing by the day as its share price evaporates. At the time of writing the total share price of the 300 year old bank was just £4bn. In 2007 it was £78bn.

 

 
Banks in meltdown. Take them over. Print E-mail
By Mick Brooks   
Monday, 19 January 2009

hsbc.jpgStock exchanges in Britain and the USA have been on the slide over the past few days. The reason is not hard to seek. The FTSE has been spooked by bank shares collapsing. Barclays, for instance, saw 25% of its share price shaved off in one hour last Friday (16.01.09). This was the day after the bank announced 2,100 job losses.It’s starting to look like the time back in October when it seemed that banks such as Barclays and the Bank of Scotland (now HBOS) that had been in existence for hundreds of years would be destroyed by a share collapse in a matter of hours.

 
Does Keynesianism work? Print E-mail
By Mick Brooks   
Wednesday, 14 January 2009

jmk.jpgKeynesianism is the only serious economic theory that contends it can do away with the tendency of capitalism to move from boom to bust by stimulating the economy. If it could really perform that miracle and eliminate the contradictions of capitalism, then it could provide a sound platform for reformism and ever-improving living standards for the mass of workers under capitalism. If Keynesianism works, then reformism is practical politics.

 
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