AN ATTEMPT AT INTERPRETATION OF VARIOUS FORECASTS
Predictions, rumors and warnings are flying in thick flocks in media space. Hopeful visions of recovery, backed by assurances that "the worst is behind us" are vying for attention with ominous alarm calls about the tidal wave that may be heading our way. What are some of the most reasonable and prudent conclusions we can draw, without painting a target for the often spurious but effective charge of "conspiracy theorizing"?
Naturally that accusation is used most by detractors bereft of any more specific and arguable reasons to contradict inductions that they do not like so that we should not be intimidated by it but we can make our points without needing to assume the existence of hidden and unproven factors and thus we should remain broadly unassailable.
A FACT CHECK
At the outset, we should point out that, in spite of the official self-serving noises coming from Western capitals and from Wall Street about the "green shoots" of recovery being visible at many places and in spite of Lawrence Summer's recent boast of "having stepped back from the brink", there is no quantifiable, demonstrable reason for such an imminent or incipient recovery. Governments have not eliminated the causes of the crisis and have merely temporarily tried to make up for the astronomical bank and corporate losses by injecting enormous but still insufficient amounts of public money into the largest financial and industrial houses that they decided needed to survive. Otherwise the system has been left broadly intact and in a country like Britain the biggest banks still owe amounts three times higher than the nation's GDP, while in the USA official sources estimate the cost of the crisis at 23 trillion Dollars, about twice the American GDP. This is not surprising if we consider the total face value of derivative financial products that has been emitted - in the range of 550 trillion.
As significant is the fact that both the USA and Britain, following the logic of neo-liberal globalization have de-industrialized and turned as a result into "rentier", mostly financial economies, outsourcing most of their production to poorer countries where labor is cheaper and less organized. Hence all attempts that either of those two countries now may make to revive their production sectors will translate into exporting even more know-how, capital and jobs to nations like China for subsequent import of the finished goods against borrowed capital, thereby increasing the public debt even further, with no end in sight.
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