Don’t bank on the Government

Guardian - Of course! Why didn’t we think of that before? It’s the state which should be running banks, with civil servants on the boards instead of those bonus-fixated businessmen. While we’re about it, why stop at the banks? What about nationalising the supermarkets? How could we let people profit out of the [...]

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‘Capitalism Has Degenerated into a Casino’

Spiegel - Nobel Peace Prize laureate Muhammad Yunus says that greed has destroyed the world’s financial system. SPIEGEL ONLINE spoke with him about the profit motive, social consciousness and what should be done to end the financial crisis.

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Native American tribes see profit in wind power

IHT - Native American tribes like the Rosebud Sioux now seek to claim that inheritance. If they succeed in building turbine farms to harness some of the country’s strongest and most reliable winds, tribal officials like Ken Haukaas believe, they could create a new economic underpinning for the 29,000 tribal members whose per capita [...]

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Insurance industry joins banks on the hot seat

IHT - Months after the stocks of big Wall Street financial firms first came under attack, insurance companies are now being battered, suggesting that a similar round of consolidation and recapitalization may be in store for that industry. Insurance stocks have plunged more than 30 percent in the last five days, with Prudential Financial the [...]

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Über-rich count their losses in billions

Times - More than £100 billion will be wiped off the personal fortunes of Britain’s wealthiest industrialists and entrepreneurs in the coming months as tumbling stock markets and sliding property prices take their toll. Steel magnates, City brokers, hedge fund managers and the owners of Premier League football clubs will see their spending power [...]

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History can guide, yet there are new limits of the possible

Guardian - Keynes’s words in 1931 still ring true. “Banks and bankers are by nature blind,” he wrote. “The present signs suggest that the bankers of the world are bent on suicide. At every stage they have been unwilling to adopt a sufficiently drastic remedy. And by now matters have been allowed to [...]

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What happens when the money runs out?

New Statesman - Banks need the confidence of the public to survive and they have lost it for years to come. The danger is that if governments take on their role, they too will lose the trust of the people.

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