STWR - Share The World's Resources

A small tax on financial speculation will not single-handedly prevent another economic crisis, but it could take us a long way towards reining in Wall Street and meeting urgent social and environmental needs, says a report by the Institute for Policy Studies.

Borrowing is not the only alternative to spending cuts for governments trying to promote a sustainable economic recovery. The redistribution of income through progressive taxation can provide a similar growth stimulus and help to reduce inequality, writes Tim Bending.

Since the 1970s, socially useless trading and speculation has become the most lucrative and dominant function of the financial system. New regulation needs to ensure that banks return to their legitimate role of providing capital to households and enterprises, writes Robert Kuttner.

As Europe frantically shores up an unravelling economic system, popular protests are erupting against adjustments made to placate the finance markets. Austerity measures and bailouts may keep the banks happy, but what about the people? By Anna White.

The recent global economic crisis has revealed the contradictions of privatised finance. If taxpayers have to prop up the system when it fails, why should they not also have control over the supply and allocation of money in the first place? By Mary Mellor.

The goal of financial reform should not be to avoid another Wall Street collapse, but rather to create an entirely new system – one that provides honest and efficient banking services to the Main Street economies that create real wealth. By David Korten.

The present crisis should lay to rest any belief in the ‘invisible hand’ of the market. Keynes’s insights into the role of regulation and reform are needed once again if capitalism is to take on a more human face, writes Joseph Stiglitz.