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have had that status without the developments in the markets that began in the 1960s and accelerated in the 1970s. This chapter will trace both market developments and the macro-economic and regulatory environment in which the transition from the informal to the formal use of LIBOR as a universal benchmark took place. Its purpose is to explain why both the establishment of LIBOR and its oversight by the BBA seemed entirely logical at the time, when its informal use was so well established, owing in part to the dominant and colourful market participants who
in credit contraction. Moreover, currency depreciation further adversely affects the balance-sheets of corporations by inflating the value of liabilities in domestic currency terms, thereby precipitating a currency and banking crisis. The Korean crisis also illustrates the fact that, although the alliance between the government, the chaebols and the banks had been in place since the 1960s, it was no longer compatible with Korea’s integration into the global financial market. In sum, the Korean crisis reflected a fundamental structural misallocation of resources to
The well-being of Europe’s citizens depends less on individual consumption and more on their social consumption of essential goods and services – from water and retail banking to schools and care homes – in what we call the foundational economy. Individual consumption depends on market income, while foundational consumption depends on social infrastructure and delivery systems of networks and branches, which are neither created nor renewed automatically, even as incomes increase. This historically created foundational economy has been wrecked in the last generation by privatisation, outsourcing, franchising and the widespread penetration of opportunistic and predatory business models. The distinctive, primary role of public policy should therefore be to secure the supply of basic services for all citizens (not a quantum of economic growth and jobs). Reconstructing the foundational has to start with a vision of citizenship that identifies foundational entitlements as the conditions for dignified human development, and likewise has to depend on treating the business enterprises central to the foundational economy as juridical persons with claims to entitlements but also with responsibilities and duties. If the aim is citizen well-being and flourishing for the many not the few, then European politics at regional, national and EU level needs to be refocused on foundational consumption and securing universal minimum access and quality. If/when government is unresponsive, the impetus for change has to come from engaging citizens locally and regionally in actions which break with the top down politics of ‘vote for us and we will do this for you’.
the launch of Telecel in Zaire, the country had only a monopoly fixed-line incumbent telephone company. There were only twenty-four thousand phone lines for a country of thirty million people. Calls often failed to go through, and when they did the quality was very bad. Most of the company's infrastructure had not been updated since the 1960s and people often stole and sold parts of the copper network. The brains behind the idea for the new mobile network was Miko Rwayitare, a Rwandan who had completed his education in Zaire. He teamed up with
fall, and this would not be borne out. Blaug argues that ‘the full employment and overall employment conditions of the 1950s and 1960s were everywhere attributed to the deliberate pursuit by governments of Keynesian policies, although it was in fact private investment that filled the postwar gap in effective demand’ ( 1997 : 649). Of course, private investment itself involved high levels of planning within firms that Keynes’s General Theory orientation on individual entrepreneurs tended to overlook, and this too might therefore be understood to go beyond its
car ownership, although government policy – to instruct BR to hold down fares – did not help its financial position. 12 By the 1960s, the government’s impatience with BR’s continued losses led to it imposing a new strategy on the company: instead of giving it money to invest in its services to generate increased income, BR would now have to make massive cuts to the network to reduce costs. In 1961 the government brought Richard Beeching into the management of BR. Beeching was an axeman, and the government
back to the relevant section in the text to see whether they agree with the conclusions reached. and structured investment vehicles (SIVs) We would add two other examples of financial innovations occurring since the 1960s. These are high-frequency trading (HFT) and sovereign wealth funds (SWFs). The role of HFT is controversial and is examined in section
the UK has been created by the government. 2 Figure 3 illustrates the exponential growth in money created by privately owned banks (M4) from the 1960s onwards and compares it to the base money (money created by the government): Figure 3 Average figures for broad money (quarterly) and base money (monthly
combination of a supportive welfare state, high taxes and regulations, and a mixed economy of private enterprise and nationalized industry. Governments, unions and corporate managers cooperated to manage the UK economy. Keynesian demand-side management oversaw it all and had presided over a lengthy post-war boom period. But come the late 1960s this formula began to break down. UK rates of growth and productivity slowed. The nationalized industries were increasingly uncompetitive and costly to government. Unions became more powerful
increasingly open, competitive and financialised international environment soon saw other countries following suit. Keynesianism as university economics beat an ignominious retreat. This chapter’s discussion qualifies this view. Many of the practices which had come to characterise rich-country economies in the 1950s and 1960s endured. Government spending fell at most modestly and, despite many attacks on the most vulnerable, the welfare state remained largely intact. ‘Automatic stabilisers’, the rise in welfare payments and fall in taxation in times of slump, remained