Unless there is a radical reform of the global financial system, it will continue to be conducive to financial crises and the necessary reforms are looking increasingly unlikely. Government rhetoric and actions can often influence in desirable ways both the speculative actions that now determine...

This paper examines the financial crisis of 2007/9 and the downturn in the U.S. We argue that effective demand over the 2001–2006 expansion was maintained by credit. The role of credit in a Vector Error Correction Model and Granger-causality between aggregate spending, credit, disposable...