De Gokkers

Terwijl de Nederlandse politici en massamedia de andere opkijken schrijft Le Monde Diplomatique:

'An economy of buccaneers and fantasists Weapons of mass financial destruction.

Financial deregulation has produced a monster, and resolving the many
problems that have emerged is scarcely possible for those who deplore controls on making money. The Bank for International Settlement’s (BIS) annual report, released in June, discusses these problems and the triumph of predatory economic behaviour and trends “difficult to rationalise”. The sharks have outflanked more conservative bankers. “Given the complexity of the situation and the limits of our knowledge, it is extremely difficult to predict how all this might unfold” (22). The BIS does not want its fears to cause panic, and circumstances compel it to remain on the side of those who are not alarmist. But it now concedes that a big crash in the markets is a possibility, and sees “several market-specific reasons for a concern about a degree of disorder”.

An economy of buccaneers and fantasists
Weapons of mass financial destruction

Last month a major US hedge fund, Amaranth Advisors, lost more than half its assets in a week, speculating on natural gas prices. The company proved correct the chief worry of such major financial institutions as the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund: that financial reality is now out of control.

By Gabriel Kolko

GLOBAL financial structure is far less transparent now than it has ever been. A few decades ago daily payments for foreign exchange transactions were roughly equivalent to the capital stock of a major United States bank; today they exceed the combined capital of the top 100 US banks. Financial adventurers constantly create new products that defy nation states and international banks. This May the International Monetary Fund’s
(IMF) managing director, Rodrigo de Rato, deplored these new risks, which the weakness of the US dollar and the US’s mounting trade deficits have greatly magnified.

His fears reflect the fact that the IMF has been in both structural and intellectual crisis. Structurally, its outstanding credit and loans have declined sharply since 2003, from over $70bn to a little over $20bn, leaving it with far less leverage over the economic policies of developing nations, and a smaller income than its expensive operations require. The IMF admits it has been “quantitatively marginalised” (1). Many of its problems are due to the doubling since 2003 of world prices for all the commodities (oil, copper, silver, zinc, nickel, etc) which are traditionally exported by developing nations. So developing nations have been able to bring forward repayment of their debts, further reducing IMF resources.

Higher prices for raw materials are likely to continue because rapid economic growth in China, India and elsewhere has created burgeoning demand that did not exist before, when the balance of trade systematic- ally favoured rich nations. The US has seen its net foreign asset position fall, whereas Japan, emerging Asia and oil-exporting nations have become far more powerful over the past decade and have become creditors to the US. As US deficits mount, with imports far greater than exports, the value of the dollar has declined, falling by 28% against the euro between 2001 and 2005.'

Lees verder: http://mondediplo.com/2006/10/02finance