Warning: World is not safer after 2008 financial crisis – FT

EDINBURGH — The 2008 financial crisis, sparked by excessive debt and lax credit checks, hammered global markets and decimated jobs. A decade on, the world looks like it has recovered but be warned: it is not safer. As a respected British economist, Martin Wolf, notes, very little has changed since before the debt-induced shock rippled across economies. Instead of taking the opportunity to carry out reforms to improve the fabric of economies, decision-makers have reverted to type. As a result, the rich have got richer, the poor are poorer, with an elite of politically influential insiders benefiting the most. – Jackie Cameron

By Thulasizwe Sithole

Leading economic commentator Martin Wolf has warned global business leaders that the world is not safer after the 2008 financial crisis. Vested interests in a rent-extracting economy make countries vulnerable to another similar shock.

Writing for the Financial Times, Wolf asks what happened after the global financial crisis. "Have politicians and policymakers tried to get us back to the past or go into a different future? The answer is clear: it is the former."

To be fair, he continues, they have tried to go back to a better past. "That is what happened in 1918. Then they had just come out of a devastating war. So the new ideas were about peace — 'collective security' and a League of Nations. But they wanted to return to the prewar economy, especially the gold standard."

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