Spekulationens pris

Västs giriga banker hotar att stanna upp fattigdomsbekämpningen menar Kemal Dervis, chefen för FN:s utvecklingsprogram UNDP (United Nations Development Programme). Han menar att de tre senaste ekonomiska storkriserna i världen, den asiatiska 1997, IT-bubblan 2001 och den senaste amerikanska sub-prime lånekrisen har orsakats av en oreglerad finansiell sektor med på tok för mycket makt.

“It is the super-bankers, hedge fund managers and owners of private equity firms that have become the new barons of 21st-century capitalism,” the former Turkish finance minister and vice-president of the World Bank said in India. “It is almost unbelievable: 40 per cent of total corporate profits in the US in recent years went to the financial sector that in itself does not ‘produce' ... but intermediates and organises' the resources that do produce.”

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He added that herd-minded financiers profit hugely from the inflation of asset bubbles, “but pay very little personal penalty when the bubble bursts”. Instead, ordinary people bear the costs through government bailouts and higher inflation stoked by aggressive cuts to interest rates.

Bloggar om: girighet, ekonomi, FN, finansbubblor