John Bellamy Foster: Can the financial crisis be reversed?

John Bellamy Foster: Can the financial crisis be reversed?

``Will it work? Can they avoid a massive devaluation of capital across
the board? I doubt it. It is likely too late to stabilise things in this
way. Things have gone too far. The crux of the matter is that the whole
"Atlantic" economy is in trouble, not just the financial sector.
Consumption is collapsing in the United States, where it represents more
than two thirds of total demand, and a good part of world demand.
Fifteen per cent of the population is under water with their mortgages.
Real wages in the United States have not risen since the 1970s and
people are deeply in debt and their circumstances are eroding.
Unemployment is way up and jobs are vanishing. Where the productive base
of the economy is weakening drastically, a falling financial
superstructure, finding the ground shifting under it, is unlikely to be
able to right itself.

``As for the politics of nationalisation of banks in the US and UK, one
should not confuse this -- as is all too common -- with socialism or
even radicalism, unless one is talking about socialism for the rich.
This is just another desperate stop-gap measure aimed at preventing a
full scale debt deflation. But as a sign of the total collapse of the
"US model" of "free market" finance capitalism, the moral and political
consequences are vast.''

Full article at http://links.org.au/node/677