According to the
propaganda of government and big business we have come through the worst of the
recession and are now set to prosper as the “green shoots” of recovery start to
grow. A recent survey by the Bank for International Settlements has shown that
for some this is clearly the case.
Global currency
trading has risen by 20% in the last 3 years. In real terms this means that $4
trillion are gambled across the currency exchanges every day, that’s more than
the GDP of Germany. In total the entire GDP of the whole world is exchanged
every two weeks meaning that the market is worth 26 times as much as annual
global output every year!
The BBC News website explains
that “Growth in dealing has been driven by a
combination of hedge funds, insurance firms, central banks and other non-bank
financial institutions.” (BBC News 1/9/10) That is to say exactly the same
people that our money paid to save from financial ruin in 2008 on the grounds
that they were “too big to fail”. This binge has only been furthered by the
Bank of England’s £200billion ‘quantitative easing’ program-which in effect
amounts to printing money and handing it to the banks.
London alone is responsible for 37% of
international currency trading. At the same time we are facing a raft of public
sector cuts and a crisis in manufacturing investment. Despite most of the banks
supposedly having been “nationalized” they continue to operate in the interests
of their major shareholders and their bosses continue to have their snout in
our trough! Despite Lloyds £37 billion bailout in 2008 this March it
unashamedly gave its Chief Executive Eric Daniels a £2.83 million bonus (BBC
News 28/3/10)
If this is the basis of recovery for most
working class people it will continue to feel like a recession. Underemployment
is now at an all time high, with a record high 7.82m workers now in part time
employment, representing a quarter of the whole workforce. On top of this the
number of unemployed 16-17 year olds continued to rise in the last quarter.
(Guardian 14/7/10)
The message is clear; for
the banks it’s business as usual and we have to pay for a crisis of their making through
attacks on our public services, unemployment and job insecurity. The only way
out is to nationalise the banks and monopolies under democratic workers control so that their capital
can be used to invest in services and people as part of a socialist plan of production based on providing employment and meeting social needs not the
private profit of a few.
