Интересная статья экономического обозревателя Al Jazeera Samah El-Shahat: В экономике, как и в моде, появляться спрос на стиль "ретро", только разница в том, что старые экономические теории себя уже скомпроментировали: Economics, like fashion, has many theories that come and go and then make a come back retro style. The problem is some of them have been largely discredited but they still make a return becaue they serve the interests of those with influence and power. During the 1980s and 1990s, the World Bank and the IMF believed that something called the 'trickle down effect' could save the world's poor. In rough terms, 'trickle down' means if you give the rich tax breaks and support their industries, the wealth they create will ultimately benefit poorer people. That is, money, just like rain, will start trickling down to us all. This theory never worked, African and South American countries that were made to pursue it got poorer not richer, and the poorer of those countries ended up paying a very high price.Собственно, главный вопрос, которым задается автор, почему государство (тут без разницы - хоть Америка, хоть Россия) поддерживает банки и всякие прочие разорившиеся финансовые институты? Вот, например, у нас миллиарды долларов направили на спасение "КИТ-Финанс" и "Связь-банк" - а толку-то, предприятия эти уже никому на рынке не нужны.
"Why is so much effort being put into propping up those at the top of the economic pyramid — the money-centre banks, the insurance companies, the hedge funds and so forth — when, during a period of deflation like the one we are in, any recovery will come only by restoring the confidence of the people down at the bottom of the pyramid." But given that a lot of these banks are ZOMBIES - and by this I mean they are dead, but are walking among the living thanks to taxpayers' money - I believe resting our economic futures on their resurrection is taking optimism a step too far. Look how much bad debt they have on their balance sheets. Economists such as Ann Pettifor and John Kenneth Galbraith believe that the banks will use all the taxpayer money that comes their way to recapitalise themselves. The banks will try to cover huge holes in their balance sheets due to the toxic debt they have. They should, instead, be using this money to start lending to us again - you know, the real economy. This is what the banks are supposed to be doing.
Samah пронозирует печальный итог всех этих антикриисных мер - дальнейшее усугубление кризиса. Я бы добавил: если какой-то бизнес стал банкротом, то не надо ему в этом мешать. Особенно, за счет средств налогоплательщиков. Как не мешали в начале 90-ых банкротиться неконкурентоспособным советским предприятиям, и, несмотря на временные трудности, пережили это и построили новую экономику. Но, в отличие от начала 90-ых, сейчас по всюду лоббисты продвигают свои интересы, словно Сусанин заводя всю экономику в ещё больший тупик: The 'trickle down' has been captured by the banks and this will continue slowing down our recovery, and I find that very frightening. So how could this happen? Governments are trying to find solutions to this problem that are dictated by the interests of the banking and financial sectors. But when did the interests of the financial sector become the interest of the country?
