APRÈS LA CRISE FINANCIÈRE DE 2008: Royaume-Uni: les riches 64% plus riches, les pauvres deux fois plus pauvres

L’EXPRESS.fr: Une étude publiée ce mardi par un think tank britannique souligne le creusement des inégalités entre les 20% les plus riches et les 20% les plus pauvres du Royaume-Uni, depuis la crise financière de 2008.

Le fossé entre riches et pauvres ne cesse de se creuser au Royaume-Uni. Non seulement la crise financière de 2008 n'a pas porté préjudice aux 20% des Britanniques les plus riches, selon une étude publiée ce mardi par la Social Market Foundation, mais elle leur a profité. Ils sont bien moins endettés qu'auparavant. Leur richesse financière s'est en moyenne accrue de 64% entre 2005 et 2012-2013, selon l'étude de ce think tank "favoralble à la libre entreprise mais soucieux de justice sociale", comme il se définit sur son site. » | Par L’Express.fr | mardi 10 mars 2015

SOCIAL MARKET FOUNDATION: Following the financial crisis, UK households experienced the longest period of falling real wages since records began » | Nida Broughton, Ricky Kanabar, Nicole Martin | Tuesday, March 10, 2015

Obama Issues Warning to Bankers
BBC: US President Barack Obama has warned bankers against complacency, saying that some in the industry are ignoring the lessons of the financial crisis.

"We will not go back to the days of reckless behaviour and unchecked excess at the heart of this crisis," he said.

He called on Wall Street to support "the most ambitious overhaul of the financial system since the Great Depression".

The financial system was returning to normal but had not recovered, he added.

"There are some in the financial industry who are misreading this moment," said President Obama in a speech to mark one year since the collapse of Lehman Brothers bank.

"Instead of learning the lessons of Lehman and the crisis from which we are still recovering, they are choosing to ignore them. They do so not just at their own peril, but at our nation's."

He told Wall Street that it could not resume taking risks without regard for consequences and said they should not expect US taxpayers to bail them out again.

The speech came as UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown said that he was "appalled" that some financial firms had been continuing or even extending their bonus culture.

In a BBC interview, Mr Brown said he was determined that world leaders meeting in Pittsburgh next week would "complete the unfinished business" of cleaning up banks - including establishing rules on bonuses. New powers >>> | Monday, September 14, 2009

Barack Obama: "We intend to pass regulatory reform through Congress" >>> | Monday, September 14, 2009

Schwarzseher Soros / Soros the Pessimist
Video: Investor George Soros: «Die Krise hat schlimmere Ausmasse angenommen als die der 30er Jahre.» >>> Impulse Spezial vom WEF 2009 (auf englisch) | Interview: Marco Metzler Mittwoch, 28. Januar 2009
NZZ Online: «Die Krise ist gravierender als die der 30er Jahre»: George Soros pessimistisch angesichts der wirtschaftlichen Herausforderungen

Angesichts des riesigen Rekapitalisierungsbedarfs der Banken hält der amerikanische Milliardär und Investor George Soros die Finanzkrise für schlimmer als die Depression der 30er Jahre.

Der amerikanische Milliardär George Soros hält die jetzige Finanzkrise für schlimmer als jene in den 1930er Jahren. Denn das Kreditvolumen im Verhältnis zum Bruttoinlandprodukt (BIP) sei derzeit viel grösser. >>> sda | Donnerstag, 29. Januar 2009

The Dawning of a New Dark Age (Paperback & Hardback) – Free delivery >>>

Financial Crisis: Banks Nationalised by Government
THE TELEGRAPH: The Government has begun nationalising the British banking industry, pumping £37 billion of taxpayers' money into HBOS, Royal Bank of Scotland and Lloyds TSB.


RBS will receive £20 billion of capital from the Government - leaving taxpayers holding a 63 per cent stake in the company. Its chief executive, Sir Fred Goodwin, is to resign.

A further £17 billion is to be injected into the merged HBOS-Lloyds TSB, meaning 41 per cent of the new "superbank" will effectively be owned by the public.

Before the merger, taxpayers will own around 58 per cent of HBOS after the Treasury bought shares worth £8.5 billion and preference shares worth £3 billion and 30 per cent of Lloyds TSB after buying shares worth £4.5 billion and preference shares worth £1bn.

Gordon Brown said the "unprecedented but essential" move was "something that matters for every family and business in Britain."

"We must, in an uncertain and unstable world, be the rock of stability on which the British people can depend," the Prime Minister said.

"To let the chips fall where they may would be the height of irresponsibility," he told a Downing Street news conference.

"The Government can not just leave people on their own to be buffetted about."

Describing the move as a reaction to "exceptional, extraordinary" times, the Chancellor, Alistair Darling, admitted that Government borrowing would have to soar to fund the deal. However he insisted that taxpayers would get their money back.

He said that the intervention was a crucial step in the international fight-back against the financial crisis, and that other governments would now follow Britain's example.

"We are living in extraordinarily turbulent times," he told BBC Radio 4.

"This is a model that other countries are going to adopt, because this is a truly global problem."

Mr Brown confirmed that as part of the deal, the Government will appoint directors to the banks' boards of directors, with three being sent to RBS and two to Lloyds TSB-HBOS. No bank executives will receive bonuses this year, he said. Financial Crisis: Banks Nationalised by Government >>> By Andrew Porter, James Kirkup, Gordon Rayner and Jon Swaine | October 13, 2008

The Dawning of a New Dark Age – Dust Jacket Hardcover, direct from the publishers (UK) >>>
The Dawning of a New Dark Age – Paperback, direct from the publishers (UK) >>>

Financial Crisis: Hank Paulson Warns that More Banks and Businesses Will Fail
THE TELEGRAPH: Hank Paulson, the US Treasury Secretary, has warned that more banks and businesses will fail amid the financial crisis despite America’s $700 billion bail-out plan.

Mr Paulson said US companies will continue to collapse in the coming weeks and months despite efforts by the American government to rescue its ailing economy and financial markets.

Mr Paulson called for patience, saying: “the turmoil will not end quickly and significant challenges remain ahead”.

He added: “Neither passage of this new law nor the implementation of these initiatives will bring an immediate end to current difficulties.”

Speaking after the Federal Reserve’s decision to cut interest rates by half a per cent, Mr Paulson said: “US and global financial markets continue to be severely strained.”

He said it would be several weeks before the bail-out plan makes its first purchases of troubled assets, and warned that even when the plan is implemented more banks are likely to fail. Financial Crisis: Hank Paulson Warns that More Banks and Businesses Will Fail >>> By Gordon Rayner and Jonathan Sibun October 8, 2008

The Dawning of a New Dark Age – Paperback (US) Barnes & Noble >>>
The Dawning of a New Dark Age – Hardcover (US) Barnes & Noble >>>

Financial Crisis: Republicans and Democrats Agree £380 Billion Bail-out Deal
THE TELEGRAPH: A £380 billion deal to save the world's economy has been struck in the US after Republicans and Democrats reached a "fundamental agreement" to bolster America's banks.

Standing alongside his Republican counterpart, Senator Chris Dodd, the Democratic chairman of the Senate Banking Committee, said a deal on a set of principles to be voted on by Congress would be to be passed within the "next few days".

The bill represents a dramatic attempt to prevent the global economy plunging into a deep recession.

The outline deal came as President George W. Bush, the two candidates vying to replace him and congressional leaders were preparing a crisis summit at the White House to hammer out final details.

Representative Barney Frank, Democratic chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, said he would tell Mr Bush there "really is not much of a deadlock to break" because a skeleton package had been agreed by both parties in Congress.

Dana Perino, Mr Bush's press secretary, said that "significant progress" had been made.

"We have a framework that we can try to close on and we hope that we can get it done quickly."

She would not, however, outline specifics about provisions the Bush administration saw as deal breakers. "We have made a few steps forward and they've come a few steps our way. So we're reaching a consensus and we're going to try to drive that to a conclusion today."

The summit came after Mr Bush issued a portentous warning that "America could slip into a final panic", triggering a deep recession in which "millions of Americans could lose their jobs" without "immediate action" by Congress.

Mr Bush's proposed bailout plan involved the federal government buying up the assets of tottering financial companies, an intervention designed to keep credit markets open and heading off economic disaster on the scale of the Great Depression of the 1930s. Financial Crisis: Republicans and Democrats Agree £380 Billion Bail-out Deal >>> By Toby Harnden in Washington | September 25, 2008

The Dawning of a New Dark Age – Dust Jacket Hardcover, direct from the publishers (UK) >>>
The Dawning of a New Dark Age – Paperback, direct from the publishers (UK) >>>

Larry Elliot: This Week's Financial Crisis Marks the End of an Epoch
THE GUARDIAN: Only rarely is there a palpable public mood swing in Britain; the Winter of Discontent in 1978-9 was one; this is another

This was the week the world changed. It started with the US authorities trying to rescue Lehman Brothers. It ended with the US taxpayer preparing to pick up the tab for the mistakes of Wall Street's elite. It started with the prime minister sipping cocktails with financiers in Canary Wharf.

It ended with the government slapping a ban on short-selling and Gordon Brown pledging to clean up the City. Britain's biggest lender was rescued and the Chinese government lined up to take a 49% stake in Morgan Stanley, one of the last US investment banks left after a week of carnage. Ben Bernanke, the chairman of the Federal Reserve and Hank Paulson, the Goldman Sachs tycoon who became US Treasury secretary, have done more for socialism in the past seven days than anybody since Marx and Engels.

Over and above the extraordinary individual events, there was the capitulation of the prevailing economic model. History will show that the great experiment with financial deregulation lasted from the first post-war oil shock in 1973 to the third oil shock in 2008.

Between those years the constraints on capital that were imposed after the Great Depression were whittled away, leaving a world of easy credit, complex financial instruments, stratospheric salaries and supine regulators. Like a spoiled child, what big finance wanted big finance got. This week saw the arrival on the scene of Supernanny; big finance now faces a long spell on the naughty step.

The revenge of Middle Britain

The changed mood is evident from the media backlash against hedge funds and short-sellers. One headline this week screamed: "Don't let the spivs destroy Britain". It appeared not in the Socialist Worker but in the Daily Express. For Middle Britain, the traders who bragged about their £1,000 bottles of Krug have now become as loathed as the bolshie shop stewards of the 1970s. Only rarely is there a palpable public mood swing in Britain; the Winter of Discontent in 1978-9 was one; this is another. This Week's Financial Crisis Marks the End of an Epoch >>> By Larry Elliott, Economics Editor | September 19, 2008

The Dawning of a New Dark Age – Dust Jacket Hardcover, direct from the publishers (UK) >>>
The Dawning of a New Dark Age – Paperback, direct from the publishers (UK) >>>