A WIN meeting with Michael Roberts – September 2022
102) THE DARKENING ECONOMIC OUTLOOK – with Michael Roberts – YouTube
Having been hit in rapid succession by the first pandemic since 1918, the deepest slump since the 1930s, the closest threat of world war since 1945, and the worst nuclear risk since 1962 – to say nothing of the growing environmental catastrophe – we are now faced with the return of yet another old nightmare, this time from the 1970s: rampant inflation. Growth has stalled in the world’s three largest economies: the USA, China and the Eurozone. The IMF has warned that “the global outlook has already darkened significantly… The world may soon be teetering on the edge of a global recession, only two years after the last one.” How deep and lasting will the coming recession be? What is the explanation for the resurgence of the hybrid disease of the 1970s: “stagflation”? What is the real cause of the soaring prices of the basic necessities of human life: food and energy? Is it an accidental by-product of purely extraneous factors like the COVID pandemic or the Ukraine war? Is the current cancer of inflation caused by “excessive demand”, or on the contrary by a squeeze in supply due to a standstill in productive investment? And what is the solution? What will bring inflation down? Since “quantitative easing” and low or even negative interest rates did nothing during the pandemic to boost productive investment, inflation and growth, what hope can there be that the traditional monetary remedies of fiscal surgery – higher interest rates and a squeeze on liquidity – will cure the problem? We were proud to host another meeting with this leading Marxist economist, who will offered his sharp insight and answer questions on this crucial issue of our times.