Ideology, self-interest, populist politics, and sheer incompetence have left the U.S.
economy on life support. As we attempt to resolve the present crisis, careful balancing is required. If decisive action is taken today, we can
shorten the length of the downturn and build a durable foundation for economic health, writes Joseph Stiglitz
Rather
than seeking to restore the health of Wall Street’s private
institutions, a proper plan would seek to rid Wall Street of its purely
predatory elements - while dismantling and reassembling its useable
institutions to create a new system accountable to the needs of Main
Street, says David Korten.
The bailout burden for the financial crisis will not be equally shared unless there is
strong and dedicated mobilisation and campaigning across the world
- which makes a common cause across issues such as house repossessions, food price
rises, and the unaccountability of the financial system. By Alex Wilks.
The turmoil in the financial markets and the
resulting slump in the global economy has highlighted the stark
inequality in the European Union, reports David Cronin.
The US is poised to lose its role as a global financial “superpower” in the wake of the financial crisis, Peer Steinbrück, German finance minister, said on Thursday as he called for a regulatory crackdown on financial markets. By Bertrand Benoit.
The one trillion dollar bailout package that President Bush is promising could have wiped out the last traces of poverty, hunger, malnutrition and squalor from the face of the Earth - if only our global leadership prioritised the poor with the same level of urgency as the financial crisis, writes Devinder Sharma.
We are in the midst of the most serious financial crisis since the 1929 Wall Street crash. When viewed in a global context, taking into account
the instability generated by speculative trade, the implications of
this crisis are far-reaching, argues Michel Chossudovsky.
