Global Financial Crisis

Spare a few change, Sir? While 2 and 3 digit billion dollar amounts are being thrown around at banks in Europe and America these days, many people in “third world” countries, like Nepal here, are still struggling to get a few rupees for a daily meal.

(Second part of my naïve investigation of “global issues”)

What the heck’s going on here? It seems that all markets in all parts of the world are plummeting now. The global financial crisis wasn’t entirely global before, now it is. Iceland’s economy is heading towards bankruptcy. Governments are desperately trying to turn the tides, pumping money into bad markets and slashing interest rates. It seemed to work for a while this week, but the negative tendency has picked up again.

Let me just try and get a fix on some of the facts here:

US came up with a 700 billion dollar rescue package, following 200b$ in March and an 85b$ “loan” to AIG in September. UK an 88b$ package and an additional 692b$ on stand-by. ECB first tried with 95 billion (9/8 last year), BeNeLux countries poured in 11b$ (28/9’08) and Germany has presented a 50b$ bank rescue package. Australia cut interest rates with 1 percent point, (from 7 to 6, actually 14%!) US and European national banks slashed 0.5% points. All this after previous interest rates cuts since the credit crunch started. The Iceland currency is down 23% in a few days. All Asian stocks seem to be loosing 5-10% of their value each day this week. Think it’s a similar picture in Europe and on Wall Street. And that’s not even all of it, just the main headlines. Hope I got it somewhat right.

Clearly, something isn’t right here!

I think (the Danish economist of sorts) Ross Jackson is on to something when he says that there are some inherent problems in the way the global financial market work. Some of the problems he mentions are the free flow of capital across borders and the domination of short term speculations. He also warns of an even worse economic crisis coming when we start running out of oil. Or more exactly: When we can no-longer produce enough of the stuff to keep up with demand. Historical evidence is that a 5% drop in supply gives a 400% increase in prices (there’s an interesting article on it here). Think everybody agrees on this point, the question is more of a “When?” than an “If?”. It could be as soon as in 5 years time! Are you ready?

I know what it’s like – from living in Kathmandu where fuel and electricity are in constant short supply. Drives me nuts at times…

So, what’s going to happen now? Long-term effects?

I actually doubt Americans will learn the lesson here. Instead of fixing inherently flawed market mechanisms, they’ll probably invade some more countries. China, perhaps! Just over the Himalayan hills from here in Kathmandu, the Chinese banks don’t seem to be bleeding so much. They could do with some better quality control though. And they also seem to be needing more and more energy.

Well, maybe it’ll be China who takes over America. One way or the other. Of course, no-matter what happens in the US election next month, I think it’ll be a political improvement. But how much is the American president actually capable of deciding? I mean, a lot is decided by lobbyists and those financial interests in the USA, isn’t it? Clearly, the current president (and the VP) is closely tied in with oil interests.

If they wanted to stem those short term speculations, they could have implemented the Tobin Tax, as suggested in the 1970’s. If you’re not familiar with it, it’s worth taking a look at. It’s simply a small tax, a 0.1% surcharge or so, on financial transactions. Currency trade, primarily, but why not stock trade as well. The effect? Theoretically at least, it should have little impact on normal peoples money transactions and put a huge damper on speculations aimed at making short term profits. Markets would be more stable, an extremely desirable trait, and a good amount of money would still be generated by the surcharge. They could go into a fund and be used for economic “bail-outs”, easing economic difficulties, perhaps even primarily for poor countries. Making funds available to be used for providing opportunities for the world’s poorest to make a decent living for themselves. I’ve always liked this idea, instead of nationalizing, making new trade barriers, closing down borders and such. If you’re more interested, have a look at the “Association for the Taxation of financial Transactions to Aid Citizens”, in short: ATTAC! - an organization trying to get it implemented.