Ann Pettifor

Bank Bail-outs

Knowles needs to listen more carefully to ‘hero’ Clinton on deficit reduction

The austerity brigade is rattled. Young Daniel Knowles over at the Daily Telegraph is so worried, he has had to rise to the defence of the Treasury and Office for Budget Responsibility – and then resorts to proposing Greece’s economic strategy for the UK. Why? Because orthodox economic ideology has been challenged by none other than Daniel’s […]

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An open letter to the people of Greece: restore the Drachma

Unemployment poster ‘jobless men keep going, we can’t take care of our own’, 1931. We write to encourage you – to urge you on in your resistance. In your defiance, you understand Greece is slave to the interests of private wealth. You must understand too that it is private wealth that needs Greece. Greece does

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Bankers: draining funds from taxpayers courtesy of finance ministers

Irish Finance Minister Noonan and Luxembourg Treasury Minister Frieden attend an EU finance ministers meeting in Brussels. Image source: www.reuters.com I find it hard to write about the crisis in Greece….because the tragedy unfolding there is so reminiscent of the tragedies that unfolded in Africa, Latin America and South East Asia in the 80s and

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Austerity: OECD economists show clear signs of ‘cold feet’ for austerity

(Photo: REUTERS / Yiorgos Karahalis ) A Greek riot policeman stands in front of graffiti written on the wall of a bank during violent demonstrations over austerity measures in Athens, May 5, 2010. Greece faced a day of violent protests and a nationwide strike by civil servants outraged by the announcement of draconian austeristy measures.

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Crisis? What crisis?

Apropos the last post: we dissidents are not alone. Have belatedly come across David Malone’s  excellent post (written earlier but somehow missed by me) on the same theme –  the airbrushing of the financial crisis from all political discourse. David goes further and highlights the implications for democracy and the rule of law.  I hope

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Is the banking system broke, as well as broken?

Much of the news of the last few weeks – the financialised commodities mania; the disgraceful abuse by the banks of payment protection insurance; the mortgage fraud which led US banks to rush through foreclosures without proper process and evict people from their homes;and their  decision reported  in the WSJ to offer a miserly $5 billion to

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‘Debtonation’ – why it’s still relevant

Welcome readers, to my newly refreshed blog, and thanks to Georgia Lee and Maz Kessler for making it look so good, and work so well. I had thought that the title needed refreshing too. After all, I am fond of defining 9th August, 2007 as ‘debtonation day’, and that is now long past. To refresh

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After Iceland’s Referendum, What Next?

4th March 2010 With Saturday’s Iceland referendum due in just a couple of days (6th March), Advocacy International’s directors have an op-ed article critical of the UK and Netherlands governments in today’s Morgunbladid, Iceland’s main daily newspaper. English version> Icelandic version> Press release> Full text of the article: So the negotiations have broken down, British

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Women talking macro-economics

5th February 2010 My conversation earlier this week with Elena Sisti – of Italy’s Altreconomia on macro-economics, reform of the finance sector, money, and yes, how we women have left the all-important matter of finance to the boys. Big mistake. It’s time to get in there, and exercise influence. Too much is at stake.

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Osborne’s puppet-masters: Société Générale.

15th January, 2009. Patient readers this blog is triggered by Jeff Randall’s column in the Daily Telegraph today. In it he inadvertently discloses the identity of the puppet-masters dictating the Tory political agenda around public spending cuts. In a somewhat histrionic column in which he describes the public deficit as a ‘disaster’ ( he should

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