Crisis opening in 2007

In autumn 2008 big banks in the world’s richest countries went bust. Governments bailed them out or nationalised them. The sharp end of the crisis was swivelled to point at governments, and their ability to manage debt, rather than at the banks. The governments have managed the sequel by giving priority to getting banks profitable and independent again, and making the working class pay. That is the story behind the “bail-outs” of Greece, Ireland, and Portugal, and Greece’s second “bail-out”, currently being negotiated. On the estimate of most economists, the “bail-outs” of Greece will not stop...

Greece now faces a threat that its tax collection and privatisation programme could be taken out of the hands of its elected government and put under the control of commissioners appointed by the international banks. It would be a throwback to the days of high imperialism, when from 1881 onwards the financial affairs of Turkey and its subject nations were controlled not by its own government but by an internationally-appointed Ottoman Debt Administration. In a way it would be only a formalisation and nailing-down of what already exists informally. In Greece, Portugal, and Ireland, the three...

The latest austerity measures by the Pasok government were fully expected. This recipe for dealing with the Greek debt, under the guidance of the IMF and the European Union (EU), is the main cause of the problem. Called neoliberalism, it is a well-known failure. But every time the measures fail to give the expected result they insist on an even more harsh application of the same logic. It is like a doctor who insists on increasing the dose of a failing cure. It is torture without end for the Greek people! The new austerity programme is 50 billion euros in cuts by 2015. According to the IMF and...

At the start of May, Portugal followed Greece and Ireland into a European Union/ IMF financial “bailout”. At about the same time, the clamour of economists predicting that Greece’s bailout cannot possibly work became deafening. “This effort has failed: the cost of borrowing [for Greece, etc.] has risen, not fallen... The chances of renewed access [for Greece] to private lending on terms that the country can afford are negligible” (Martin Wolf). “Here’s a hint for Europe’s politicians: if the math says one thing and the law says something different, it will be the law that ends up changing”...

The AWL is right to demand “democracy at every level” of society ( Solidarity 200). It’s important, because as well as opposing cuts, we should be demanding a more greater say in how our workplaces and communities are run. If there was more genuine democracy in the UK, then maybe the credit crunch might not have happened. The financial system has revealed itself as accountable to nobody. A deregulated system meant that the banks operated like gambling casinos. Governments have been too timid in monitoring and controlling the system. And we’re paying the price in lost jobs. We need a banking...

The unspoken assumption by union and Labour Party leaders, that the Tory/ Lib-Dem cuts are inevitable and can only be alleviated by negotiating voluntary redundancies and used as grist for electoral agitation, is being proved reckless. Evidence is mounting that the cuts will bring not only their obvious immediate damage, but also some degree or another of "double-dip" downturn in the whole economy. The crisis of September 2008 came from overaccumulation of debt. An intricate network in which one capitalist borrowed from another, who borrowed from yet another, and then yet another, with...

The Tory/ Lib-Dem line that their cuts are only a fair and necessary price to pay for private-sector prosperity has been demolished by economic figures for October-December 2010. GDP had been rising modestly since the end of 2009, after crashing in 2008-9. It dipped against in October-December, at a rate indicating economic decline of two per cent a year. The Tories say it was just the snow. Hard-headed capitalists don't think so. The pound fell on financial markets. The Financial Times quoted bank economist Bob Carnekll: "With public spending cuts set to bite this year into what already looks...

The bosses' offensive against the working class is accelerating. Unemployment will be 2.7 million by the end of 2011, as 120,000 public and 80,000 private sector jobs are scrapped. Click here for the full-length pamphlet , or read the bullet-point summary below . Billions are being slashed from public services. VAT is up, and wages will rise by 2 percent, well below every measure of inflation, cutting deep into most workers’ incomes. University applications are up 20 percent, as young people scramble to avoid higher fees and the dole queue, but one in three - a quarter of a million - will not...

Questions and answers on the eurozone crisis. This version of the article is longer than the one in the printed paper Why isn't the EU/ IMF rescue plan for Ireland working? The plan is not to rescue Ireland, but to rescue the banks (German, French, British, etc.) which lent money to Irish banks. Social cuts for the people of Ireland are supposed to allow the Irish government to use resources instead to make good its guarantee (given in 2008) to cover all the debts and deposits of those banks. On condition of harsh cuts, the EU and the IMF provided the Irish government with long-ish-term loans...

Questions and answers on the eurozone crisis. Why isn't the EU/ IMF rescue plan for Ireland working? The plan is not to rescue Ireland, but to rescue the banks (German, French, British, etc.) which lent money to Irish banks. Social cuts for the people of Ireland are supposed to allow the Irish government to use resources instead to make good its guarantee (given in 2008) to cover all the debts and deposits of those banks. On condition of harsh cuts, the EU and the IMF provided the Irish government with long-ish-term loans to "increase confidence", and to cut short the process of Irish banks...