The balloon of irresponsible debt on which globalisation floated started to burst in August 2007. A year on from “debtonation day”, Ann Pettifor surveys the wreckage, pinpoints the culprits, and outlines the solutions.
We now know that on 9 August 2007 – which I called “debtonation day“ – central bankers and regulators finally woke up to the scale of bad debts on the balance-sheets of banks and other financial institutions. On that day blindfolds were removed and scales fell from the eyes – of at least some of the key players in the finance sector. The “guardians of the nation’s and the world’s finances” finally began to emerge from a long period of stupid and unforgivable denial of the havoc wrought on the international economy by the privatised, deregulated and globally integrated finance sector.
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