{"product_id":"9781908374561","title":"Brothers, Sisters.. Trilogy 2: The Advance","description":"Five years ago Jonas Cleary asked me to write a foreword for “Brothers,\u003cbr\u003esisters.. with a focus on the socio-economic aspects of the book. As\u003cbr\u003e“Brothers, sisters.. is now republished as a trilogy, he has asked me for a\u003cbr\u003enew, revised foreword to the book or better, an updated one mirroring the\u003cbr\u003eprevailing socio-economic environment relative to what he has written.\u003cbr\u003eIn that original foreword I had not only outlined how the then economic\u003cbr\u003efactors determining the world’s financial system would inevitably lead to its\u003cbr\u003ecollapse, but could do so in a frighteningly short space of time.\u003cbr\u003eI mentioned that seemingly bedrock behemoths from General Motors to\u003cbr\u003ethe House of Saud would be swept away in the wake of such a breakdown.\u003cbr\u003eThat the only beneficiaries of the AAA rated bonds, then flooding the\u003cbr\u003efinancial markets, were bankers skimming fat fees from peddling them, but\u003cbr\u003eotherwise, they were worthless ‘paper’ puffed up with ‘air money’.\u003cbr\u003eThese years later, the world’s financial system has narrowly escaped - yet\u003cbr\u003eagain - from implosion. Those supposedly secure bonds have indeed been\u003cbr\u003efound to be worthless, and General Motors swept into insolvency, as have\u003cbr\u003emany financial institutions, whose gluttony for ever higher profits were\u003cbr\u003elargely responsible for bringing about this latest financial crisis. However, the\u003cbr\u003eprediction I made, and has not - as yet - materialised is fall of the House of\u003cbr\u003eSaud (although it too, is now being buffeted by the storms, unleashed by\u003cbr\u003ejobless graduates, sweeping through the Middle East).\u003cbr\u003eFinance ministers across the world believe that their immediate\u003cbr\u003eintervention in, and assistance to, the financial markets staved off this\u003cbr\u003eimpending breakdown. In this they are deluded. It was money, more than\u003cbr\u003e$13 trillion of it - equal to the US’s GDP - high-handedly taken from\u003cbr\u003eordinary peoples’ tax payments by those ministers’ governments, and\u003cbr\u003erushed to the outstretched hands of the then desperate, near as destitute\u003cbr\u003ebanks, which prevented a worldwide economic collapse.\u003cbr\u003eNone of these ministers have acknowledged that their administrations’ -\u003cbr\u003eindividually and collectively - lax monetary policies and laissez faire attitudes\u003cbr\u003etowards the financial markets were largely responsible for precipitating the\u003cbr\u003ecrisis. Nor has there been admission from a single financial institution that\u003cbr\u003etheir irresponsible wagering and employees’ greed for ever higher\u003cbr\u003eremuneration were also responsible for the near collapse of financial markets.\u003cbr\u003eSince the near breakdown in 2008, and despite politicians’ and bankers’\u003cbr\u003epronouncements to the contrary, nothing of substance has changed. The\u003cbr\u003esole product of the much vaunted inter-government regulatory oversight of\u003cbr\u003ethe banks is the ‘Basel III Accord’.\u003cbr\u003eThis Accord called on banks to increase their capital reserves and clean\u003cbr\u003eup accounting procedures. Basel III is a beefed-up successor to Basel II,\u003cbr\u003ewhich banks cheerfully ignored and was itself created in an attempt to stop\u003cbr\u003ebanks avoiding the similar tenets of Basel I.\u003cbr\u003eGallingly for governments, most major banks neglected to comply with\u003cbr\u003eBasel III. Moreover, many of them, or so it appears, also quickly found ways\u003cbr\u003eof circumventing it.\u003cbr\u003eHaving handed over so much of their taxpayers’ money too bail out the\u003cbr\u003ebanks, many governments’ treasury cupboards are bare. In increasingly\u003cbr\u003edesperate bids to stave off the consequences of their own wastrel ways, they\u003cbr\u003ehave been forced to borrow from the money (bond) markets.\u003cbr\u003eWhile much of the finance provided by these markets is usually puffedup\u003cbr\u003eleveraged ‘air money’, interest on the bonds is paid with [taxpayers’] real\u003cbr\u003emoney. However, increasing amounts of the sums governments borrow is\u003cbr\u003enot for the benefit of their countries’ economies but is spent on paying back\u003cbr\u003etheir earlier bond borrowings.\u003cbr\u003eBecause most governments are for all intents insolvent, bond markets,\u003cbr\u003eled by banks and rating agencies, exact ever harsher terms on the money\u003cbr\u003elent. In so doing these markets exercise ever greater power over countries’\u003cbr\u003eeconomies than do their governments.\u003cbr\u003eAlso unchanged by","brand":"Mammas Manon","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47137409171696,"sku":"9781908374561","price":9.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0737\/7593\/9824\/files\/9781908374561_p0.jpg?v=1763621036","url":"https:\/\/shop-qa.barnesandnoble.com\/products\/9781908374561","provider":"Barnes \u0026 Noble (DEV)","version":"1.0","type":"link"}