A WIN meeting February 2025. See the recording HERE.
This week we once again invited the leading Marxist economist Michael Roberts, publisher of the widely acclaimed blog The Next Recession, to speak to us on prospects for the world economy, including these vital questions…
· Hundreds of billions of dollars are currently being invested in the development of artificial intelligence. What impact will this new technology have on jobs and wages?
· To what extent has the creation of China’s new AI tool DeepSeek ata fraction of the cost destabilised the investment plans of US technology companies?
· Will Trump’s cavalier slogan Drill baby drill! doom efforts to reduce dependence on oil and develop alternative energy sources?
· What will be the consequences of Trump’s imposition of tariffs on imports from the USA’s main trading partners? Is the world on the brink of a wholesale trade war?
· What will be the economic impact of Trump’s programme of mass deportations of migrants and mass sackings of government employees?
· How will Europe’s economy be affected by the substantial increase in defence expenditure demanded by Trump?
· Are we on the brink of a new surge in inflation?
· It is expected that within a decade there will be five dollar trillionaires. In 2024 alone, the wealth of each of the world’s richest ten men has grown on average by almost US $100 million a day. What will be the political and social effects of this grotesque concentration of wealth?
· And what are the prospects for Britain’s floundering Starmerite government amid this economic turmoil?
Link to Michael’s slideshow. world-economy-in-2025.pdf