Category: capitalism

World : Life prognosis at stake

March 18, 2024 0

It’s always the same eternal questions that torment us when a bubble bursts and wreaks havoc on human, economic, and ecological fronts: How did we get here? What happened? Our world finds itself today in a critical situation with few historical precedents because we are now all hostages to multiple and repetitive bubbles. There’s the…

By Michel Santi

capitalism

A capitalism between consenting adults

April 16, 2022 0

“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…

By Michel Santi

capitalism corruption democracy

Corruption is a threat to national security

January 10, 2022 0

While 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…

By Michel Santi

capitalism China

China trapped by capitalism

October 28, 2021 0

China 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…

By Michel Santi

capitalism coronavirus international finance neoliberalism

My economic testament

November 10, 2020 0

In 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’…

By Michel Santi

capitalism Interest rates secular stagnation

700 years of interest rates to predict the future

June 8, 2020 0

The 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…

By Michel Santi

capitalism

The testament of a disillusioned economist

March 17, 2020 0

This 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…

By Michel Santi

capitalism speculation stock market crack

We, the barbarians

March 2, 2020 0

Economic 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…

By Michel Santi

capitalism Money

The Gospel according to Saint Money

November 30, 2019 0

It’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…

By Michel Santi

bubble capitalism neoliberalism

Welcome to the worst of worlds

October 31, 2018 0

How 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…

By Michel Santi

capitalism inequality

Has capitalism become obscene ?

September 20, 2018 0

Wealth 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…

By Michel Santi

capitalism stock market

Finance and stock markets: more and more, higher and higher!

March 1, 2018 0

Is 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…

By Michel Santi

capitalism inequality neoliberalism

1929, 1987, 2000, 2007 and 2018: haven’t we learned anything?

February 14, 2018 0

Notwithstanding 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…

By Michel Santi

capitalism Reformation

Capitalism doth owe it all to the Reformation

November 7, 2017 0

The 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…

By Michel Santi

capitalism

Gresham’s law

October 28, 2017 0

In 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…

By Michel Santi

capitalism guaranteed wage

Life beyond capitalism

August 12, 2017 0

The 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…

By Michel Santi

capitalism debt default

Where have the bankruptcies of yesteryear gone?

June 28, 2017 0

Adam 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…

By Michel Santi

capitalism inequality

We are not all equal in the eyes of justice

January 21, 2017 0

Might 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…

By Michel Santi

capitalism Central Banks European Union inequality

The year zero of Western depression

November 26, 2016 0

Up 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…

By Michel Santi

capitalism inequality neoliberalism

Capitalism: soon to be a barbaric relic?

October 6, 2016 0

By Michel Santi

capitalism inequality

Capitalism: soon to be a barbaric relic?

June 6, 2016 0

By Michel Santi

bubble capitalism inequality

Something’s got to give

April 21, 2016 0

The 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…

By Michel Santi

capitalism guaranteed wage

Life beyond capitalism

March 21, 2016 0

By Michel Santi

capitalism neoliberalism

Wall Street: how to finish off this vile beast?

February 11, 2016 0

What 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…

By Michel Santi

capitalism neoliberalism

Financial crisis are painfully commonplace

January 25, 2016 0

Blinder 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…

By Michel Santi

capitalism European Union inequality Luxemburg

Luxembourg: the worm in Europe’s apple

December 20, 2015 0

It 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…

By Michel Santi

capitalism Central Banks inequality

You don’t know it but you’re doing very well !

November 25, 2015 0

The 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…

By Michel Santi

capitalism

Apple, or capitalism with bite

November 10, 2015 0

Apple 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…

By Michel Santi

capitalism Volkswagen

Volkswagen? Not just an exception, but the rule of modern capitalism

September 27, 2015 0

Capitalism 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,…

By Michel Santi

capitalism China

China will have to go bankrupt to survive!

September 6, 2015 0

The 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…

By Michel Santi

capitalism guaranteed wage

To save the rich, relieve the poor!

April 29, 2015 0

A 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…

By Michel Santi