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1 week ago | 
annpettifor.substack.com | Ann Pettifor
Will another failure of the shadow banking system blow up what I call the Global Casino? And what will be the impact on households, firms and governments? The US bond market is tanking as the Bloomberg chart below shows. We need to stop talking trade, and start talking US Treasuries. Trump has aimed a wrecking ball at the global financial system Everyone is talking trade. Trade imbalances, trade tariffs and trade tensions. Trade it turns out, is truly scary. Trade wars lead to real wars.
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2 weeks ago | 
annpettifor.substack.com | Ann Pettifor
Do not underestimate the gravity of the Trump Shock of 2nd April, 2025. Above all, do not underestimate the impact it will have on your pension, your investments, possibly your job, and your economy - wherever you may be. System Change is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.
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1 month ago | 
annpettifor.substack.com | Ann Pettifor
As my ever-so-patient readers know, I am writing a book, that if I had the rights, would be titled: Fight the Power of the Global Casino. My publisher demurs, and is consulting the marketing department. In the meantime the truly back-breaking graft of writing about economics in an intelligible way keeps me away from this site.
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1 month ago | 
annpettifor.substack.com | Ann Pettifor
This image is lying to you. The two mentally unstable men shown here are desperate for your attention, but are not what they purport to be. They claim to be ‘logging’ professionals hell bent on hacking away at the thick undergrowth of government red tape and regulation, excessive state spending and waste. They are lying. These two men are acting on behalf of global capital and using their money, power and metaphorical chainsaws as demolition tools to smash up democratic states - across the world.
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2 months ago | 
annpettifor.substack.com | Ann Pettifor
The world is on the verge of a climate abyss, the UN has warned. Yesterday’s Guardian survey of climate scientists concluded that “the stakes could not be higher” and that scientists suffer “personal anguish at the lack of climate action” by world leaders. Mohamed Adow, from Power Shift Africa, agrees: It’s good to see the experts who follow climate most closely sharing their horror at the lack of action from governments.
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2 months ago | 
annpettifor.substack.com | Ann Pettifor
A film company is preparing to make a biopic of John Maynard Keynes, and I have been invited to help deepen their understanding of his economics - a great honour. As part of my preparation I have been re-reading his great classic: The Economic Consequences of the Peace- a text that has been translated into a large number of languages, and that over the last hundred years is the only economic text never to have fallen out of print. Quite an achievement.
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2 months ago | 
annpettifor.substack.com | Ann Pettifor
By choosing JD Vance as his vice-presidential pick, Trump has made crystal clear his anti-globalisation, anti-establishment, anti-strong dollar, anti-democracy, anti-abortion and pro-Wall St. credentials. What does not make sense to many is why Trump’s vice-Presidential choice of the ‘blue collar’ senator, JD Vance, is backed so enthusiastically by libertarian billionaires Peter Thiel and Elon Musk - both massive beneficiaries of financial globalisation.
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2 months ago | 
annpettifor.substack.com | Ann Pettifor
Before I begin, may I wish you, my subscribers, hearty thanks for your support through 2024. May I also offer my sincere hope that every one of you will have a safe, peaceful and fulfilling year in 2025. This post is about the third great challenge likely to confront the global economy in 2025.
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2 months ago | 
annpettifor.substack.com | Ann Pettifor
I have been working on a chapter about ‘The Asset Economy’ in my new book - a theme already tackled in these columns. As is my habit, I walk out every morning for a breather from the book, some fresh air, and an espresso, preferably at some start-up artisanal coffee maker. To accompany my coffee I have been reading a chapter a day from a book by Lionel Barber, ex editor of the Financial Times. It is the ‘pacy biography’ of richest billionaire: Gambling Man: the Wild Ride of Japan’s Masayoshi Son.
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2 months ago | 
annpettifor.substack.com | Ann Pettifor
In the run-up to the Great Financial Crisis I repeatedly warned that high real central bank rates of interest were like ‘a dagger aimed at a bubble of debt’. As I wrote on the Open Democracy site in 2003 in a piece titled The Coming First World Debt Crisis: When interest rates begin to rise again, when debt costs soar both for corporates and households, when defaults and bankruptcies increase more rapidly than now, then the tipping point will be reached.
