The coming financial crisis

The 2007–2008 international financial crisis was the worst since the 1929 Wall Street Crash – triggering the 1930s Great Depression, the rise of fascism and Hitler in Europe, and the Second World War. In the 1930s there were reforms to tackle the causes – particularly in the US with Roosevelt’s New Deal – including splitting banks’ ‘casino’ from ‘high street’ operations, and strengthening trade union rights. Following the Second World War, there were global reforms, including exchange controls to prevent cross-border financial speculation. But in the post-1980s era of privatisation and deregulation, these reforms were lobbied against and generally abandoned. The resulting speculative orgy, accompanied inevitably by increased inequality, led to the 2007–2008 international financial crisis. Reforms were promised, including increasing the degree of corporate diversity in the financial services sector, and creating ‘resolution’ plans for banks to prevent their collapse. However, the promised reforms regarding corporate diversity were reneged upon. Resolution plans were adopted in the UK, but in Europe this is being driven in a way that will strengthen the power of finance that created the problem in the first place. And the UK Government wants the regulator to promote the ‘competitiveness’ of financial services, which was tried before, and didn’t end well.