8th January, 2009 This piece appeared on the Guardian’s Comment site: “Today the people of Iceland, a country whose population, at 317,000, is somewhat smaller than Leicester’s, are required by the British political, financial and economic establishment to carry the full burden of the losses suffered by Landsbanki’s depositor programme Icesave. We consider this to […]
31st December, 2009 Dear Readers. First, thank you for the support you have given this blog, and for your helpful and insightful comments over this eventful year. I have much appreciated our conversations, and your loyalty. May 2010 bring you all peace of mind and economic stability. And may we together begin to grow a
Wishing readers a stable and peaceful New Year in 2010 Read More »
9th December, 2009 It has been an extraordinary day this day, and something to witness: this frenzy of pre-election fisticuffs. Extraordinary because Conservatives, like mindless bullies, are fighting a phoney war against the victims of this crisis. The fact is the Tories are spineless scaredy cats, too timid to take on the perpetrators, who have
The pre-budget report: bullies in the playground Read More »
29 October, 2009 Dan Roberts has a great column in the Guardian today. He asks the right questions. First, why is the Treasury spending £8 billion of taxpayers money reinflating the housing market? Second, why is the Treasury encouraging this now nationalised bank to increase mortgage lending, when the productive sector of the economy – companies,
The Motley Fool, September 2nd, 2009 Motley Fool blogger TMF Sinchiruna spotlights the Times interview, describing me as “once ridiculed, later vindicated…” TMF Sinchiruna goes on to say: “Peter Schiff, Jim Rogers, Niall Fergusson, Ann Pettifor … these are the voices that I believe investors need to hear. Turn off the tv and look deep
Article Published in the Times, September 1st 2009. Photo by Jon Enoch. Ann Pettifor predicted a painful end to the good times. Now she says that only radical action can prevent further gloom Phil Thornton Ann Pettifor is a member of a select club — the seers who saw it all coming. Now the economist,
Times: Worst of slump yet to come, says economist Read More »
From Open Democracy: August 13, 2009 “A single day, 9 August 2007, will go down in history as ‘Debtonation Day’ – the beginning of the end of the deregulation and privatisation of finance that marks the era of globalisation.” I wrote these words on 13 August 2007, in anticipation that the great stock-market collapse of
How globalisation ends: Debtonation Day, plus two Read More »
Ann Pettifor – 12th May 2009 Have just returned from a flying visit to Iceland, where I was mightily impressed by the warmth and strength of the Icelandic character. Also struck by the pride Icelanders have in the way the financial crisis deepened and strengthened their democracy – leading to the ousting of a corrupt
7th December, 2008 On friday 5th December the Financial Times finally acknowledged that ‘real borrowing costs remain high‘. For those readers that may have missed it let me recap: UK interest rates are now at 2%. The three-month Libor rate (the London inter-bank offer rate – fixed by a committee of the British Bankers Association)
7th November 2008 Yesterday’s dramatic Bank of England 1.5% rate cut was an extraordinary admission of analytical failure. The Monetary Policy Committee of orthodox economists (with Danny Blanchflower the honourable exception) is well behind the curve. While it is tiresome to beat one’s own drum, I am obliged to point out that on the 12th
