Debt is capitalism’s dirty little secret

1. Posted 4 months ago • SourceComments & 5 notes • July 2nd, 2009

   FT.Com
   By Ben Funnell
   Published: June 30 2009
   
   

   Just why is there so much debt in the Anglo-Saxon world? Bankers and regulators know well that it is in nobody’s long-term interests to have allowed borrowing to escalate to a position where the US now owes far more, as a multiple of the economy, than at the start of the Great Depression.
   
   The answer is capitalism’s dirty little secret: excessive lending was the only way to maintain the living standards of the vast bulk of the population at a time when wealth was being concentrated in the hands of an elite. The amount by which the elite has benefited is startling, and illustrates the problem with lightly regulated free markets: the rich get much richer while the rest do not get richer at all. According to Société Générale economists, the inflation-adjusted income of the highest-paid fifth of US earners has risen by 60 per cent since 1970, while it has fallen by more than 10 per cent for the rest. As was recently pointed out in the New York Review of Books, the Walton family, of Wal-Mart fame, is wealthier than the bottom third of the US population put together – about 100m people.

   This comes from the worlds most respected financial journal, not a leftest rag.
   Read entire article —- Via: Global Guerrillas

1. auditinprogress reblogged this from sarahbeara and added:

   But isn’t anything other than capitalism (i.e.: Socialism) evil? That’s what the Republicans and Libertarians have told...

2. sarahbeara reblogged this from poobah
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5. poobah reblogged this from tsparks and added:

   ••••• Quite sobering —BP...30 2009 Just why is there so much debt in the Anglo-Saxon...

6. tsparks posted this