Ann Pettifor

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Ann Pettifor

Political economist, author and public speaker

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Globalisation

The market for dystopia – my choice of a book for our time.

/ Globalisation, International Financial Architecture, International Financial System, Uncategorized

My review of Karl Polanyi’s The Great Transformation appeared in Nature magazine on 13 December, 2019. From the introduction to the editor’s choice of seven books: “From planetary change to geopolitical recalibrations, 2019 has been convulsive. The year saw millions worldwide protesting against governmental inaction on the cascading crises in the global environment. Anxiety over […]

The market for dystopia – my choice of a book for our time. Read More »

The City of London’s distress because real change may be coming…

/ Credit Creation, Fiscal Deficit, GDP, Globalisation, Growth, Uncategorized

Alarm bells are distress signals. As this election campaign reaches its climax the Financial Times registers high levels of investor distress as its wealthy readers panic over the possibility that real change is coming. The change they fear is not automation and AI. No, it’s the possibility that “If Labour come to power on this

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Quincy Jones, Bono, Willie Colón – and the burden of sovereign debt.

/ Debt, Globalisation, Sovereign debt, Sovereign Insolvency

  On the eve of the 2019 annual meetings of the World Bank and IMF, we are once again alerted to a rise in the debt burdens of low-income countries. Last year the total external debt of both low- and middle-income countries climbed 5.3 percent to $7.8 trillion, while net debt flows (gross disbursements minus

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The Green New Bill – making it happen

/ Globalisation, Green New Deal, Public Finance, Public Spending

The director of PRIME is a co-author of this new report by the Green New Deal group UK, published on the day a wave of schoolstrikes swept the world – demanding action to reverse the potentially catastrophic impacts of earth systems collapse . It accompanies the publication of the Decarbonisation and Economic Strategy Bill, a

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Of bollygarchs, gombeens & spivs: welcome to the world of financial corruption

/ Book Reviews, Globalisation, International Financial Architecture, International Financial System, Neo-liberal Economics

These reviews of books on financial corruption appeared in the Times Literary Supplement on 13 November, 2018. Ten years ago, just after the collapse of Lehman’s and as the Great Financial Crisis intensified, I complained in the Guardian about the globally coordinated 0.5% cut in interest rates by central bankers. It was too little too

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10 years after – and nothing has changed.

/ Anglo-American Financial Crisis, Bank Bail-outs, Capital Flows, Central Banks, Credit Crunch, ECB, Economic Orthodoxy, Federal Reserve, Financial Crisis, Globalisation, Interest Rates, International Financial System

The following is an interview with Yena Yoon – a financial journalist with Chosen Ilbo “the largest newspaper in South Korea” conducted on 12 February, 2018, but still relevant.

10 years after – and nothing has changed. Read More »

The BBC’s Cassandras of the Crash

/ Anglo-American Financial Crisis, Bank Bail-outs, Banking Crisis, Bernanke, Credit Crunch, Economic Orthodoxy, Federal Reserve, Financial Crisis, Globalisation, International Financial System

  On Wednesday, 19th September and again on 22nd September, the BBC broadcast an interview in which I participated. It was called Cassandras of the Crash. The programme is available on the BBC’s Radio 4 website, with the following introduction. “Ten years ago, in autumn 2008, the world watched as the biggest financial meltdown in

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The Treasury view and a sheep farmer in the Yorkshire Dales

/ BREXIT, Economic Orthodoxy, Globalisation, Public Spending

This was first published as a column in the Independent, on Sunday, 26th August, 2018 On holiday in the in the safe Tory seat of Richmondshire in the Yorkshire Dales this week, we watched as a dedicated sheep farmer demonstrated the skills and athleticism of his working dogs. Five generations of Richard Fawcett’s family have

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The Great Honour that is the Heinrich Boll Stiftung’s Hannah Arendt Prize

/ Financial Crisis, Globalisation, International Financial System

On 19th July, 2018, I was stunned and honoured to receive the following from Professor Antonia Grunenberg of the Heinrich Boll Foundation, Bremen, Germany.  Berlin, July 19, 2018 Dear Mrs. Pettifor, it is my great pleasure to inform you in behalf of the international jury of  the „Hannah Arendt Prize for Political Thinking“ that you

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Is It Unreasonable to Blame Bankers/Rentiers for the Rise in Populism?

/ Anglo-American Financial Crisis, Bank Bail-outs, Banking Crisis, British Banking, Globalisation

At the April Rethinking Economicsconference in Oslo  I pointed out that western politicians and economists are repeating policy errors of the 1930s. The pattern of a global financial crash, followed by austerity in Europe and the UK, led in those years to the rise of populism, authoritarianism and ultimately fascism. The scale of economic and political

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