A capitalism between consenting adults
April 16, 2022“The great struggles of the twentieth century between liberty and totalitarianism ended with a decisive victory for the forces of freedom—and a single sustainable model for national success: freedom, democracy, and free enterprise. In the twenty-first century, only nations that share a commitment to protecting basic human rights and guaranteeing political and economic freedom…
Corruption is a threat to national security
January 10, 2022While the events in Kazakhstan have taken a dramatic turn due to the dictatorial regime in place ordering troops to fire on and kill protestors, it would not go amiss to remind ourselves that it is indeed President Kazakh Nazarbayev who was the first of the post-Soviet era to weave a methodical web of…
China trapped by capitalism
October 28, 2021China has thus far functioned by building 15 million homes a year, which is 5 times more than the US and Europe combined. After the collapse of the 300 billion dollar Evergrande, the biggest real estate company in China, the issue – albeit not a recent one – of the country’s ghost towns has…
My economic testament
November 10, 2020In my book, Le testament d’un économiste désabusé [Testament of a disillusioned economist], that is in fact a glossary of economies in crisis, you will not find under the letter C the term ‘Coronavirus’, nor the economic and social consequences of this health crisis or of its management by our authorities. While this ‘testament’…
700 years of interest rates to predict the future
June 8, 2020The bankers of Florence – the inventors of modern finance –imposed a two-figure interest rate in return for their loans. The usurer Shylock, in Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice, was happy with 8%, whereas this service charge on debt had fallen to around 4% at the start of World War One, and is now at…
The testament of a disillusioned economist
March 17, 2020This is my testament. My economic testimony. It’s been 12 years now that I’ve been analysing the crisis. All in all, I’ve been writing about the economy and finance for thirty years. However, it’s from 2007 that I’ve been trying tirelessly, through my books and my articles, to denounce what has come to be…
We, the barbarians
March 2, 2020Economic science is up for the chop, and the profession has been put on the defensive. Those who imposed austerity during the last great crisis called on what they thought made up the fundamentals of the economy. The rare ones who rejected this stringency pleaded, for their part, for action in this discipline that…
The Gospel according to Saint Money
November 30, 2019It’s a history condemned to repeat itself forever because, since the dawn of time, the enrichment of some has basically always been to the detriment of others. Inequality has often been described by the upper class as an inevitable side effect, systemic almost, of the prosperity and innovation that is however meant to benefit…
Welcome to the worst of worlds
October 31, 2018How could we not recall the British cult TV series from the ‘60s, The Prisoner, where a giant bubble frantically pursued the hero played by Patrick McGoohan? Our world now finds itself in a similar situation: we are all hostages to the now-plentiful bubbles, and not only the speculative bubbles that infect our markets. It’s…
Has capitalism become obscene ?
September 20, 2018Wealth and income distribution have become grotesque in our Western nations. Collusion between political and economic powers has now become obvious, and it is of public notoriety that employment is nothing more than an adjustable variable in today’s capitalism. The tacit and consensual agreement on which our prosperity has been built thus far is crumbling…
Finance and stock markets: more and more, higher and higher!
March 1, 2018Is the Federal Reserve kick-starting a cycle of interest rate hikes? Are the European Central Bank and Bank of Japan – also – imminently about to announce the end of their monetary creation? Never you mind, because no one will mention that the euphoria of financial markets and irrational stock market take-offs have had their…
1929, 1987, 2000, 2007 and 2018: haven’t we learned anything?
February 14, 2018Notwithstanding the drastic adjustment to the stock markets in the way of 10%, the world’s biggest economy, the one that’s always ahead of everyone else in growth and also depression, the one that serves as the ultimate example of neoliberalism – America – has made a spectacular recovery since the 2007-08 crisis. With its property…
Capitalism doth owe it all to the Reformation
November 7, 2017The Reformation is five centuries old. It transformed Europe’s economy and greatly contributed to the Western world’s dominance over morals, culture and resources. Its rise was a tipping point for the West, whose gains in wealth and development were inversely proportional to the influence of the Catholic Church which had been beaten into submission, at…
Gresham’s law
October 28, 2017In economics, the bad always drives out the good. This is the main point of the law derived by Gresham, a financial advisor to Elizabeth I during the 16th century. At the time, in England and elsewhere, silver coins were in circulation but were not of equal purity. Consumers and retailers would greedily keep hold…
Life beyond capitalism
August 12, 2017The economy is no longer a job supplier. This paradigm has now come to pass because, in the era of globalisation and the financialisation of our economies, growth no longer goes hand in hand with honourable and fairly paid work but for a minority. The subprime crisis came about fundamentally due to huge loans given…
Where have the bankruptcies of yesteryear gone?
June 28, 2017Adam Smith said it: governments never pay back their debts. Owing to the industrialisation, modernisation, and globalisation of economies, the private sector has also joined the public sector in rarely paying back its debts. Throughout the history of governments – and history itself – defaulting on payment was a sort of smaller common denominator which…
We are not all equal in the eyes of justice
January 21, 2017Might justice – or rather the deficiencies of justice – be about to destabilise the economic and financial system? Haven’t you noticed how the bosses of small businesses are ruthlessly pursued – sometimes to the point of harassment – while criminal justice scrambles to find legal justifications and motives when it has to deal with…
The year zero of Western depression
November 26, 2016Up to the present moment, peace, democratic values and even happiness have been intimately linked to economic growth. It is thus public notoriety that economic depression is the royal path that leads to war, or to extreme and extremist situations and stances in any case. Negative interest rates now seem to be one of the…
Capitalism: soon to be a barbaric relic?
October 6, 2016“The great struggles of the twentieth century between liberty and totalitarianism ended with a decisive victory for the forces of freedom—and a single sustainable model for national success: freedom, democracy, and free enterprise. In the twenty-first century, only nations that share a commitment to protecting basic human rights and guaranteeing political and economic freedom will…
Capitalism: soon to be a barbaric relic?
June 6, 2016“The great struggles of the twentieth century between liberty and totalitarianism ended with a decisive victory for the forces of freedom—and a single sustainable model for national success: freedom, democracy, and free enterprise. In the twenty-first century, only nations that share a commitment to protecting basic human rights and guaranteeing political and economic freedom will…
Something’s got to give
April 21, 2016The secular stagnation that is infecting our economies brings with it the germs of instability and financial torment. Since interest rates and monetary creation are the only weapons still at the disposal of the only public institutions that still wield some sort of power in our modern world, their initiation with a view to relaunching…
Life beyond capitalism
March 21, 2016The economy is no longer a job supplier. This paradigm has now come to pass because, in the era of globalisation and the financialisation of our economies, growth no longer goes hand in hand with honourable and fairly paid work but for a minority. The subprime crisis came about fundamentally due to huge loans given…
Wall Street: how to finish off this vile beast?
February 11, 2016What is the deeper, intimate reason for financial crises? How do cracks appear and why do bubbles implode? It is always for a simple and unique reason, which is that irrational and outlandish bets undertaken by the world of finance are done so with borrowed money! In this regard, the last serious crisis – subprimes…
Financial crisis are painfully commonplace
January 25, 2016Blinder is no one than he who refuses to see. The main factors responsible for the torments of these last few years are still at large, when they haven’t been magnified despite declarations coming from the financial community and authorities claiming to be reassuring. According to them, systemic reforms would have in fact been made…
Luxembourg: the worm in Europe’s apple
December 20, 2015It is the backbone of European tax evasion. A financial colony. One of the most fervent representatives of the money empire at the heart of Europe. It has been a systematic saboteur of the fight against tax fraud for several decades. Luxembourg is still the leading nation for secret banking benefits, a genuinely barbaric relic…
You don’t know it but you’re doing very well !
November 25, 2015The Venezuelan stock market has rocketed up by 200% this year and finds itself sitting atop global stock markets in terms of this exceptional performance. Is this to say that Venezuela is enjoying exceptional growth and that its positive repercussions are being felt by its people? Far from it in reality, since unemployment in Venezuela…
Apple, or capitalism with bite
November 10, 2015Apple makes money – a lot of money! In fact, Apple makes more money than any company has ever made and now finds itself, logically, with mountains of cash. As high as some 200 billion dollars, and more than the US Treasury. Of course, it’s the shareholders who are the ultimate owners of these monumental…
Volkswagen? Not just an exception, but the rule of modern capitalism
September 27, 2015Capitalism must become the business of everybody again because it is in the hands of a miniscule minority who have taken charge. An imperceptible shift has occurred since the beginning of the ‘80s: the power of money having passed from the hands of the captains of industry to those of high finance. Because of this,…
China will have to go bankrupt to survive!
September 6, 2015The severe damage that China is currently suffering is not necessarily what it may appear to be. It’s actually these “zombie” companies that are degrading the economic fabric of the nation; they are the failing businesses that the Chinese government is nevertheless keeping alive on artificial respirators. The easy money and low prices which have…
To save the rich, relieve the poor!
April 29, 2015A debate rages on, mostly in the United States, regarding the secular stagnation of our economies. This secular stagnation is due, in my opinion, to the extraordinary productivity of capitalism. The very low, zero-boundary or even negative interest rates are simply the consequence of capital’s very efficient productivity. As for unemployment, it is itself a…