Just Published - The end of American capitalism, Willem Buiter
- Constant returns, Tony Curzon Price
- Pakistan: the new frontline, Paul Rogers
- America’s election faultline, Godfrey Hodgson
- Reading Russia, rewiring the west, Roderic Lyne
- India’s war on terror: through the smoke , Ravinder Kaur
- Bolivia nears the edge, Justin Vogler
The end of American capitalism, Willem Buiter
This is what I read this morning, 17 September 2008, on FT.com: "The US Federal Reserve announced that it will lend AIG up to $85bn in emergency funds in return for a government stake of 79.9 per cent and effective control of the company - an extraordinary step meant to stave off a collapse of the giant insurer that plays a crucial role in the global financial system. Under the plan, the existing management of the company will be replaced and new executives will be appointed. It also gives... more »
Constant returns, Tony Curzon Price
The de-leveraging crisis--or the sub-prime crisis or the debtonation crisis--came about through the interaction of wicked plutophiles, genuinely useful financial innovations and lax, cowardly and confused regulators. It is important to untangle these in order to destroy what was genuinely bad in our financial arrangements. The spread of cheap computing, the theoretical understanding of how to price flexibility--option pricing--and the globalisation of supply and demand for capital set the stage... more »
Pakistan: the new frontline, Paul Rogers
By the end of August 2008 it was clear that Afghanistan was becoming the principal focus of the George W Bush administration's war on terror. Iraq was believed to be making a transition to some sort of peace after more than five years of war; but as the violence there at last showed some signs of diminishing, so the problems in Afghanistan were escalating.
Paul Rogers is professor of peace studies at Bradford University, northern England. He has been writing a weekly column on global... more »
America’s election faultline, Godfrey Hodgson
Wall Street has collapsed. Its fourth biggest investment bank, the 158-year-old Lehman Brothers, has collapsed, its shiny building bought at a knock-down price by the red coats from Barclays. Merrill Lynch, the thundering herd of people's capitalism, has been bought by Bank of America in a fire-sale.
Godfrey Hodgson was director of the Reuters' Foundation Programme at Oxford University, and before that the Observer's correspondent in the United States and foreign editor of the... more »
Reading Russia, rewiring the west, Roderic Lyne
Part one: Old hearts - or new heads?
What guides Russia?
"We are strong again - but we don't know what it's for", declared a Russian pundit at a recent conference (before the Caucasus conflict of August 2008).
This is the key question: for Russia, her neighbours, and the West. Or rather two questions: how strong is Russia; and what are its objectives?
We are coming towards the end of the crisis-management phase. No one has emerged from the conflict... more »
India’s war on terror: through the smoke , Ravinder Kaur
The five bomb-blasts on 13 September 2008 in New Delhi represent the latest in a series of such attacks in the country's main cities. The police and political experts described the bombs, which killed twenty-five people and injured at least ninety within a span of forty-five minutes, as "low-intensity" devices aimed less at inflicting maximum casualties and more at creating maximum terror at the heart of India's capital city.
Ravinder Kaur teaches at the University of... more »
Bolivia nears the edge, Justin Vogler
When both Evo Morales and his adversaries cried victory in the "recall referendum" on 10 August 2008, it was widely predicted that an already critical situation in Bolivia would get worse. Two months later, with the eastern half of the country in chaos and dozens dead, there is real fear in South American capitals that Bolivia could be on the verge of territorial disintegration and civil war.
Justin Vogler works as a freelance journalist based in Chile, teaches political science... more »
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