The budget figures show starkly how desperate is the position of the British economy, faced with what Darling called the ‘worst global economic turmoil’ in living memory. The amount the economy will shrink has been revised to a record 3.5% fall this year, the biggest drop since the Second World War.

The holy trinity of ideological concepts for the modern capitalist age
are neoliberalism, globalisation and financialisation. Of these three concepts
financialisation occupies a position akin to that of the holy ghost, as the
least understood and least discussed of the three. Financialisation is a
reality under modern capitalism. Marxists need to examine how much it has
changed capitalism, and how far the system remains fundamentally the same.

Stock exchanges in Britain and the USA have
been on the slide over the past few days. The reason is not hard to seek. The
FTSE has been spooked by bank shares collapsing. Barclays, for instance, saw
25% of its share price shaved off in one hour last Friday (16.01.09).
This was the day after the bank announced 2,100 job losses.It’s starting to look like the time back in
October when it seemed that banks such as Barclays and the Bank of Scotland
(now HBOS) that had been in existence for hundreds of years would be destroyed
by a share collapse in a matter of hours.