Panic! Panic! The world's stock markets had their sharpest fall since 9/11 on Monday 21 January. It is supposed to be the most miserable day in the year in the Northern hemisphere, where the daylight is short, the weather is bad, people have colds and flu and they have run up debts from Christmas. But this year, it really was a Black Monday for capitalism.
Thoughts on the dawn of a New Year As the New Year begins Alan Woods comments on the state of world affairs, highlighting the impasse facing humanity, a direct consequence of capitalism in its phase of senile decay. At the root of the present world turmoil is private property of the means of production, a system based on greed for profit. In the next period the workers of the world are faced with the task of removing the system.
Credit crunch! Everywhere the cry is: credit crunch! You can smell the sweat on the brows of bankers as their necks are squeezed by the tightening credit noose. In all the offices of the great investment banks of Wall Street, the City of London and gnomes of Zurich, you can hear the hissing sound of the global financial bubble bursting and deflating.
