The Global Financial Crisis: Niall Ferguson

[m1trekker]

Ferguson has been proven wrong on the petro-powers, where' the 25 dollar barrel ? wrong on the BRICS too, China has accelerating growth during the Western downturn.

[Idahya]

As a matter of fact ,the global financial crisis has been fabricated so as to form a new world order .

[SenorBastardo1348]

hmm hes wrong wrong wrong...since he has made these statments I'm up 30%, my cousin on wall street who buys into this bullshit is down 10%. Like the ancient proverb: "wisdom is proved right by its works"

[shevchenkoTV]

Moscow: Responsibility of the GLOBAL FINANCIAL CRISIS is Russian. Recognition on "shevchenkoTV".

[misterMagoo4]

Niall seems to have done a complete volte face with reference to China havig decoupled fromAmerica and the end of his 'Chimerica' hypothesis. Look for Niall's 2010 vox pox.

[elemental12345678900]

What are the potential and actual problems for the financial systems and how might these problems impact on the real economy, globally and nationally?

[TheLadyEmma]

I'm a tutor in Sri Lanka these days Im doing a research on the impacts of global financial crisis, I'd love to have some suggestions from educated scholars. The thing is Sri Lanka's case is unique and different. tourism is rising and the stock market boom is also there. One cant really see any negative impact, Government continue to reduce prices of commodities O_o just don't understand how to tackle this problem...

[00dfm00]

Ferguson ignores the off-balance sheet liabilities that are coming due now and increasing fast: social security, medicade, medicare. They add an additional forty - sixty trillion. Each year the US generates a surplus will decrease that amount by the amount of the surplus - a situation that ain't going to happen.

So, the real debt to GDP is closer to 5x GDP, not 0.5x GDP. US is screwed. End of yet another empire.

[hoodoo961]

The world will continue to absorb American debt because it is the safest investment in the world, that is why interest rates on T securities are so low.

[existentialvoid]

@hoodoo961 yup

16 trillion dollar economy, second is china at 4.8 trillion, third is japan at 4.5 trillion and so on - the US is so dominant in economic terms that 1.7% growth still outpaces growth of china (7.6%) or Japan (1.8%) - basically to make gains to that kind of head start, you need to top 15% and maintain it for 2 generations - which is difficult at best.

[myroseaccount]

Ferguson is already behind! The price of oil is already rising.

[vikramkrishnan]

exactly he is ignoring the fact that China is shifting from currency to commodities in a big way

[klaotha]

: "the largest imaginable deficit in peacetime"

Peacetime?

I guess,then, that this brit-style fellow( look at the awe-striken audience!) considers the two present - or should we say three- US-wars against 200 million people "peacetime".

Thats a stand!

[carlfinkle]

Hes a Scot, I guess the difference between peace time and war time is that in peace time your house gets blown up in wartime my house gets blown up.

[beancube2008]

All analysts need to explain why printed money dominates in trade and nobody is able to promote new vehicles? Is money being controlled similarly like combustion engines need cruel oils that handicap our accessing options and labor effort? Why should human effort be suppressed by printed cash for accessing basic necessity when trade credit can be extended to points beyond recoverable repeatedly? How cash legal such context? Automate first our access (don't rip us off), then trade.

[702decatur]

I kinda like his take on the "Petro Powers" countries like Dubai are totally dependent on oil money. They are trying to create a trouist destination, but this global crisis is bad timing for them. I think UA has built up a bubble and will pop with no one to save them.

[bobsnowman]

To date, $656.1 billion dollars have been allocated to the war in Iraq by America. To comment on message boards you must have a second grade education

[MajNorberg]

Why is the 800 billion dollars bailout such an issue when America spends 3-4 trillion per month in Iraq?...

[rosebank]

My understanding is more like $50b a mth for iraq but thats still $600b a yr!!!! but who knows as the US govt does alot of creative accouting!!!!!

[Csaboska]

Exporters always do badly at the beginning of a recession or depression, but then as production volumes and inventories fall, the importers actually suffer more - because they can no longer deficit spend.

[kamartian]

I never knew Ferguson was more than an historian, but this is good talk.

[vicar2]

He's not anything more than a historian really. He's just a historian of financial and imperial history, which puts him in a perfect position to comment about the modern financial crisis. Indeed he's more qualified than an economist, because most economists only tend to acknowledge the last 50 years of financial history. Don't forget historians are also economists, geographers, anthropologists, political scientists etc depending on what field of history you work in.

[kamartian]

Hmm...I obviously didn't think of it that way, but that does make a fair bit of sense.

[NearAbbeyRoad]

@vicar2

"most economists only tend to acknowledge the last 50 years of financial history". Look at Fred Harrison, do a search on him.

Land ownership is tax free in increased values. The study of land, the wealth it creates, its ownership and taxation should be fully understood by all. The solution is tax land by its value, LVT. It reclaims community created wealth to pay for community services, leaves private wealth in private hands, no income tax promoting growth, clears derelict city plots

[bigphill424]

He's an ECONOMIC historian, so that is to say his historical lens is that of finance. In a sense he is an economist with historical observances. He doesn't work in a history department either. He works in harvard's buisness shcool.