To mark the release of the new bookThe Global Casino: How Wall Street Gambles with People and the Planet, we are delighted to present Ann Pettifor, a long-time friend of DGI and one of the most important voices in contemporary political economy.
Please join us for a conversation between Ann Pettifor and the writer, economist, and researcher Grace Blakeley. Together, they will discuss the ideas behind the book and explore the broader questions of power, debt, and democracy that shape our present moment.
Grace Blakeley is a writer, researcher, and political economist whose work focuses on capitalism, corporate power, and alternatives to neoliberal economics. She is a columnist for The Guardian and a frequent commentator on contemporary economic and political issues.
Ann Pettifor is a political economist, author, and one of the leading voices on debt, finance, and economic justice. She is the director of the advocacy organization PRIME (Policy Research in Macroeconomics) and was a key figure in the Jubilee 2000 campaign, which successfully pushed for the cancellation of debts of the world’s poorest countries.
notes/quotes from livestream:
nika: intro.. much changed since book written
grace: looked up to ann for a very long time.. excellent to see book coming out at a perfect time.. fin having impact on all our lives.. what is casino metaphor
ann: analogy is lift from susan strange in 80s.. understood this stuff more than anyone else.. to show system is like a gambling culture.. trump is casino president.. owned 3 of them and all 3 went bust.. he stole money from little people.. meaning of term.. mission of book: don’t think this is remote.. impacts us on daily basis.. on monday.. global oil market went carzy for 23 hrs.. these people messing w something fundamental to your living.. on day to day.. energy and food.. fixed in these markets.. trying to show this is relevant to every housewife of the land
grace: i love taking back housewife ness.. how has global casino impacted war and who is benefitting
ann: night before war announced.. lots of people/financeers making money.. not the majority.. not us.. not even the traders.. basically those working the saloon/casion
grace: taking apart myth that fin market happens somewhere else.. in book.. say impact daily.. so what ways
ann: cost of living.. also.. tethered to our central bank.. to our taxation.. so that we have to bail them out.. 1% doing really really well.. as they did during covid.. people can see this great injustice.. so also to our public resources.. and have to discuss tax policy to deal with it.. before fin crisis wall street banks could go bust.. today they can’t.. given wall street a confidence/power they’ve never had before.. that’s what bugs me a lot.. this isn’t capitalism.. this is soviet style capitalism.. no soviet bank ever went bust.. ie: capitalist is not taking risk.. investing.. deserving profit.. et al.. where the market disciplines him if losses.. that’s what’s so evil about this form of capitalism
grace: this idea that c looks like central planning.. how investors/markets wield power?
ann: they have immense power over our politicians.. whole congress bought by wall st for so cheap.. want us to sell soul.. but worse.. want us to sell it for so cheap.. they’ve bought up our political system.. enables them to access state and state resources.. what bugs me about that.. politicians say we can’t spend money.. because.. and that is such bs.. we’ve got to start slinging insult of ‘pretend powerlessness’.. saying not enough money et al.. ie: not enough money for you.. but enough for bezos.. so politicians been bought.. and now they love to blame others.. happily disempowered.. it’s crazy
grace: on diff dimensions crisis in making.. private credit, ai, crypto, climate.. let’s start with shading banking system esp in private credit..
ann: very worried about this.. i think ai is the bigger one.. but you’re right.. but i don’t think enough to blow up systeml. what i think is fascinating is in the middle east and ai.. iran trying to cripple .. easily done.. ie: oil refineries et al.. what’s important.. thinking about this when thinking of news.. in reality really awful thing happening.. 80% of food (more than 20% of oil) go thru the straight.. so gulf straights in terrible trouble.. if you harm gulf states.. petro dollars funneled into ai.. blackrock.. trump’s accounts.. crypto accounts.. rather than back into gulf states.. that strengthens the dollar.. for me global fin system is at stake.. when strip global petro state.. i didn’t see this coming
grace: are we in an ai bubble .. if it busts.. what will the impacts be
ann: a bubble because invested w expectation of massive financial returns.. yet nobody can show that it will.. chatgpt is beginning to advertise.. can’t see where they will make money.. so beginning to advertise.. using chatgpt to get close to people.. so now personal info channeled into ads.. sign of .. where does money come from.. so bubble will burst.. what quantity of losses do people make.. and what do banks do.. i think they’ll put up interest rates.. so i invest in ai borrowing from crypto.. but then can’t flog collateral to repay.. so people start panicking.. people are borrowing to gambel.. that’s what happened in 1929 crash.. ie: houses used to be 1/5 mill..not 200k.. so debt is going to rise.. imbalances.. with falling collateral.. talking world wide crisis.. very disturbing
grace: i remember reading what you wrote about 2008.. and how it catalyzed so many crises.. neg feedback cycle.. it’s crazy
ann: this is my defn of evil really.. crypto is such a criminal ponzi scheme.. i go home to s africa.. my fam not wealthy.. telling me they made a lot of money out of crypto.. but they are going to be victims of this collapse.. they were lured into by pres of us.. lot of people are going to get hurt
grace: on bitcoin .. losses across all cryptos over trillion dollars.. how did we get so many investing in worthless w no protection
ann: all comes down to defn of money.. whether a commodity or a social construct.. communists.. not a commodity.. but right can’t thin of it.. economists expected to make money out of it.. so this argument (c or sc) is what led to the birth of crypto.. it’s not a coin.. it’s numbers on computer.. they give it name coin to give it legitimacy.. but these numbers can do nothing.. doesn’t have any value.. people are putting faith in this.. because coin/commodity so scarce.. if money is social construct there are limits to individuals.. but no limit to creation of money.. and no limit to big powerful state for central bank to create credit country needs for recovery.. they don’t do it because they say.. money is scarce.. they’re asking you to promise to pay in future.. then they enter #’s into computer.. when go into shop to buy something.. no money in card.. it just says you promise to pay in future.. so becomes money.. all you’ve done is to wave card at him.. this is the magic we are creating the money supply.. if you pretend money is scarce like bank of england or crypto.. ‘no we can’t do that’.. until ie: we go to war.. then we can.. just not for you.. drives me wild.. comes down to this defn money and the arguments we have about it.. the heyekian ghost haunts me in the middle of the night
grace: they don’t seem to be arguing from direct fiscal constraints so much any more.. where is this coming from.. politicians advocating for big state
ann: you’re so right about approach to this.. they do understand the power of the fed reserve.. and they want that power.. but at same time using state for all evil purposes.. they’ve discovered power of state and using it for own ends.. that illuminates powerless ness of democrats et al.. they never used power.. and now trump is using it to do bad things.. you’re right.. they’re capturing state like never before.. power of bank derives from work of millions of americans.. working hard.. paying taxes.. 2 jobs.. taking care of kids.. all that work reps power.. in us power is actually derived for millions of ordinary workers.. because we don’t understand how system works..
grace: not the us that ends up suffering..
ann: i worked on sovereign debts.. that’s what gave me this eagle eye view.. ie: countries owing millions.. yet britain and us owing trillions.. so what am trying to bring out in book.. how international trade works.. what’s happened is americans benefitted for long time.. when gulf states flog oil they invested in wall streett.. sttrengthens dollar.. but hurts americans trying to export.. americans have woken up to this including trump and would like to see a lower dollar.. bring me to way international system is structured.. class wars at home lead to trade wars lead to global wars.. we have to change that system.. overproduction and underconsumption.. massive imbalances.. we’ve got to change the whole system.. that’s another message of the book
grace: how fin markets could increase climate.. then we’ll go to solutions
ann: insurance sector is very big.. big inside shadow banking system.. rate of interest reps c’s rate of return.. esp creditors rate of return.. evil thing is that credit is a social contract.. doesn’t cost much to create.. create credit.. freed up to set price for repay.. interest can rise expo to infinity but nature doesn’t grow that way.. if can’t make connection with interest and extraction.. at a great loss
grace: finite aspects of nature and how you can make a loan.. esp when look at solutions.. i want to end by talking about solutions.. in book you talk about how to democratize
ann: i have one solution.. that’s capital controls.. managing flow.. not taking control.. i haven’t really developed (a way).. for me.. the key issue is to manage the flow of money.. let ideas/music/arts be international and goods homespun and above all let money be national.. that’s what we need.. that’s the foundation of a new system.. that’s fundamental.. become more self sufficient
be you. 