As retail investors launched a short squeeze on large hedge funds, forcing large stock-market movements and frenzied recapitalisation, many commentators heralded it as a victory for “the little guy” against Wall Street. However, the truth is far from that simple. “The biggest owners of Gamestop: Fidelity (14%), Cohen’s RC Ventures […]
Tag: Finance Capital
The EU and Covid-19
Writing in the Irish Times on 17 April, the Spanish academic Javier Cercas described the EU’s response to the covid-19 pandemic as having been slow, stingy, and fearful. It is a view shared by many, especially those in southern Europe. Indeed the Italian prime minister, Giuseppe Conte, went so far […]
On supernovas and milkshakes
The economist John Smith of the University of Sheffield caused a lot of debate with his recent article “Why coronavirus could spark a capitalist supernova,” in which he offered a powerful rejection of mainstream and Keynesian analysis of the bond market. For years now, “core” capitalist economies have been suffering […]
The crisis of late imperialism
Understanding imperialism is vital to our understanding of the world today, enabling us to chart a path forward to tackle the environmental crisis and to move humanity towards a system of equality and common ownership—socialism. Unfortunately, many on the left either reject the existence of imperialism in favour of a […]
Signs of the next economic crisis
Over the past two months we’ve been reminded constantly about the supposed health of our economy. Unfortunately, things are not as healthy as cherry-picked statistics might suggest—as anybody looking for a hospital bed or a home can clearly see. We’re highly vulnerable as a small, open economy to the vagaries […]
Debt, austerity, and the European Union
Towards the end of November the Irish media published reports of comments made by Prof. Christian Kastrop, a former associate of the German minister of finance, Wolfgang Schäuble, one of the architects of the debt crisis. Kastrop now works for the Bertelsmann Foundation, a think tank sponsored by the Bertelsmann Group, one of the principal German transnational
corporations.
Pensions: another stealth tax
In the last issue of Socialist Voice it was shown that, as part of the liberal agenda, the period of wage-slavery was being extended to the degree that it is unlikely that most people forced to work until seventy years of age or beyond will be able to enjoy their […]