May 3rd, 2012 In this interview and Q&A session broadcast on C-Span2′s Book TV‘s In Depth Chris Hedges provides a devastating analysis of what what’s gone wrong with America and, by extension, the world. It is long, but I can assure you it is rewarding viewing. Hedges, a former Pullitzer Prize-winning New York Times foreign correspondent [...]
By Ian Fraser Published: QFINANCE Date: March 9th, 2012 The “Washington Consensus” ought to have been consigned to the scrapheap of history by now. The consensus – also known as neo-classical economics – supported global macroeconomic policy including financial (de)regulation and central bank policy, for most of the past three decades. But the Panglossian assumptions about financial [...]
December 28th, 2011 The Jolly Roger – originally flown from pirate ships to frighten their victims into surrendering without a fight – is a strangely appropriate flag for the Royal Bank of Scotland to sail under. The bank’s approach to rewarding its top staff, more than 100 of whom were paid in excess of £1 million in 2010 [...]
By Ian Fraser Published: QFINANCE Date: November 10th, 2011 The wild swings in global liquidity that continue to distort economies around the world might, if left unchecked, trigger the end of open capital markets and free trade, Bank of Canada governor Mark Carney warned in a recent speech. Carney, named head of the G20’s Financial Stability [...]
By Ian Fraser Published: QFINANCE Date: November 4th, 2011 What’s up with Barclays chief executive Bob Diamond? In January, the US-born investment banker, who had recently taken over as Barclays boss, seemed in denial about the role of banks in the destruction of the global economy. Speaking to the Treasury Select Committee in January 2011, Diamond told [...]
November 4th, 2011 By John Fullerton Despite the media’s portrayal, Occupy Wall Street is all about taking back democracy Let’s be clear. The Occupy movement is not a product of frustration, as President Obama, Treasury Secretary Geithner, and now Eric Cantor have suggested. Frustration is passive; anger is active. Martin Luther King was not frustrated. [...]
October 30th, 2011 Calls for a radical rethink of the political and economic system from the “HBOS whistleblower”, Paul Moore, could not have come at a more appropriate time. Moore — who was personally fired by HBOS chief executive Sir James Crosby in November 2004 after seeking to warn the bank’s board that its sales-mad [...]
By Ian Fraser Published: QFINANCE Date: October 20th, 2011 There may be a good few Maoists, Trotskyists, Anarcho-Syndicalists and even the odd deluded benefit scrounger among them, but it is simply wrong to characterize the Occupy Wall Street protestors who are camping out in 1,500 cities worldwide as wanting to overthrow capitalism, in the same way [...]
October 8th, 2011 Pullitzer prize-winning war correspondent and author Chris Hedges last week spoke to RT’s Washington correspondent Alyona Minkovski to give his views on the fast-growing Occupy Wall Street movement. Standing amongst protesters from the Occupy D.C. protest, Hedges explained the deep sense of frustration that is giving the movement impetus in the US [...]
October 8th, 2011 How well or badly has the mainstream media done with its Occupy Wall Street coverage? In my view they started out very poorly, with attempts to mock and belittle the protesters from the likes of blogger Nathalie Rothschild, then an Orwellian virtual black out, followed by shockingly slanted coverage from the likes of CNN [...]