International Viewpoint - online socialist magazine

An ultra-parasitical global financial system that enjoys unwavering protection

François Chesnais — 2020-07-24T11:06:31Z

During the evolution of the pandemic in Europe, the financial system has received little attention in the media. It was only at the end of February/beginning of March that a very sharp fall in the stock markets made the front page of newspapers and television broadcasts. Indeed, between February 20 and March 9 we saw a collapse in prices of between 23 per cent and 30 per cent, depending on the financial centres. We now know that it is thanks to the intervention of the Fed (Federal Reserve, the central bank of the United States). Today, the support it provides to financial investors is without fail.

- IV546 - July 2020 / Economy, Covid-19 Pandemic

The roots of the world economic crisis

François Chesnais — 2012-02-15T15:18:31Z

The European financial crisis is the expression in the sphere of finance of the situation of semi-paralysis in which the world capitalist economy finds itself. It is at this moment the most conspicuous expression of it, but by no manner of means the only one. The austerity policies that are being conducted simultaneously in the majority of the countries of the European Union (EU) contribute to the world recessionary spiral. They are not the single cause of it. The chapter headings of the OECD note on perspectives of September 2011 were eloquent: “World activity is close to stagnation”; “World trade has contracted, world imbalances persist”; “In the job market, improvements are less and less perceptible”; “Confidence has been degraded”, etc. Following on the projections of Eurostat in mid-November of an economic contraction of the EU, to which even Germany would not be an exception, the most recent note of the OECD (November 28, 2011) spoke of a “considerable deterioration”, with growth for the OECD as a whole of 1.6 per cent, and 3.4 per cent for the world economy.

- IV445 - February 2012 / Europe, Economy, European Union

The G20, the symptom of impotence

François Chesnais — 2011-11-21T10:02:04Z

The leaders of the G20, the twenty largest economies in the world, met on November 3 and 4 for the sixth time in three years. Their meeting, supposedly prepared meticulously for months, has painfully produced a final communiqué that is virtually empty. The insignificant results are not only "because of Greece,” as the media have sought to explain, central though it is to what is happening. They reflect the fact that, to cut a long story short, world capitalism does not have an "alternative growth model."

- IV442 - November 2011 / World, Economy, G8/G20

“The crisis is combining with the climate and food crises”

François Chesnais — 2008-11-05T12:16:46Z

"The speed with which climate change is advancing and affecting the populations of the poorest and most vulnerable countries will subject them to the combined impact of the world recession, global warming and the effects of the agricultural policies imposed on so many countries."

- IV406 - November 2008 / Ecology and the Environment, Economy

“The climatic crisis will combine with the crisis of capital…”

François Chesnais — 2008-11-05T08:44:46Z

The point of view that I will defend is that the crisis which started in August 2007 represented a real break which put an end to a long phase of expansion of the world economy. This break heralds the beginning of a process of crisis whose characteristics in terms of the number of intermingled factors are comparable with those of the crisis of 1929, although this one takes place in a very different context and these factors are necessarily different.

- IV406 - November 2008 / Ecology and the Environment, Economy