Back in 2021, Guglielmo Carchedi and I published a paper in Historical Materialism called The Economics of Modern Imperialism.  The paper focused exclusively on the economic aspects of imperialism. We defined that as the persistent and long-term net appropriation of surplus value by the high-technology advanced capitalist countries transferred from the low-technology dominated countries.  We identified four channels by which surplus value flows to the imperialist countries: currency seigniorage; income flows from capital investments; unequal exchange (UE) through trade; and changes i ..read more

A general election in India starts today.  970m Indians, more than 10% of the world’s population, will head to the polls in what will be the largest election in history for the Lok Sabha (House of the People) parliamentary elections.  The poll will spread across India and take up to 4 June to complete.  Opinion polls suggest that Prime Minister Narendra Modi, leader of the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), and his coalition will win a third successive 5-year term, and win by some distance. The main challenge to the BJP comes from a coalition of political parties he ..read more

The semi-annual meeting of the IMF and World Bank starts this week.  The agencies and their invited guests will discuss the state of the world economy and the challenges ahead and present policy solutions.  At least that’s the ostensible idea.  Kristalina Georgieva, managing director of the IMF, has just been re-appointed for another five-year term unopposed.  In previewing the meeting, she outlined how the IMF sees the world economy in 2024 and through the rest of this third decade of the 21st century. She offered a dismal analysis.  Ahead was a “sluggish and disappoi ..read more

The recent nonsense issued by the US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen on China’s ‘overcapacity’ and ‘unfair subsidies’ to its industries is particularly pathetic.  As Renaud Bertrand put it: “the so-called threat of China’s industrial overcapacity” is a buzzword that actually means that China is simply too competitive, and by asking it to address this, what Yellen is truly asking of China is akin to a fellow sprinter asking Usain Bolt to run a less fast because he can’t keep up.” Indeed, let me quote Bertrand’s rebuttal of Yellen’s claims of ‘overcapacity’.  “Let’s start with capacity ..read more

In Q1 2024, global stock markets recorded their best first-quarter performance in five years, buoyed by hopes of a soft economic landing in the US and enthusiasm about artificial intelligence.  A MSCI index of worldwide stocks has gained 7.7% this year, the most since 2019, with stocks outperforming bonds by the biggest margin in any quarter since 2020. This global surge has been helped mainly by the US stock index, the S&P 500, which closed at a record high on 22 separate occasions during the last quarter. The AI hype has fuelled the market’s gains, with the major AI chip designer Nv ..read more

Last week, Sam Bankman-Fried was sentenced to 25 years in prison.  He ran the highly successful FTX bitcoin hedge fund that supposedly made millions for his clients.  But Friedman was exposed and convicted of stealing $8 billion from his FTX customers. He was found to have siphoned billions in customer funds into FTX’s sister hedge fund, Alameda Research, to keep it solvent and line his pockets with his clients’ money. Friedman lived the good life, spending more than $200m in Bahamas real estate and in speculative investments.  “Sam Bankman-Fried perpetrated one of the biggest ..read more

Current IMF chief Kristalina Georgieva is seeking a second five-year term as IMF managing director after being nominated by a string of European countries to lead the institution.  In doing so, she recently delivered a number of speeches outlining what she sees the IMF will be trying to achieve over the rest of this decade.   She said the major economies are experiencing slowing and low real GDP growth and, according to her, the reason for this is soaring inequality of wealth and income.  “We have an obligation to correct what has been most seriously wrong over the last 100 yea ..read more

US corporate profit margins are at record highs, despite slowing price inflation and rising wage increases.  Looking at the whole US economy, non-financial sector profit margins are at their highest level in the 21st century (over 16%) and not far short of the record levels of the ‘golden age’ of capitalist growth in the mid-1960s. And just looking at the net profit margins (that’s after deducting all unit costs of production) for the top 500 companies in the US, it’s the same story. Source:  CSI The evidence is overwhelming that the post-COVID inflationary spiral enabled many comp ..read more

Today Russians are set to head to the polls for their country’s presidential election over three days – with only one expected outcome. Incumbent President Vladimir Putin will win comfortably.  The Russian president is elected by direct popular vote. If no candidate receives over 50% of the vote, then a second round is held between the two most popular candidates three weeks later. It’s the first time that multi-day voting has been used in a Russian presidential election, as well as the first allowing voters to cast ballots online.  There is no serious opposition candidate that can w ..read more

In 2023, US real GDP grew by 2.5% after inflation – much better than expected.  This has been heralded by the media and mainstream economists as refuting the doomsayers that the US economy was heading into a slump.  Now in 2024, the pundits claim that we can expect more of the same – reasonable real GDP growth but this time with a return to lower inflation and thus falling interest rates.  Corporate bankruptcies will be avoided and the growing impact of new technologies and AI will raise the rate of growth in labour productivity, setting the scene for a strong period of improved ..read more