Financial Times Watch (13 January 2023)

State Corporate Crime Watch

It is straight into the Regulator /Recession /War on labour Watch today for the latest on the Fed’s mission to discipline workers. And it is relatively good news as the European edition has a story on the front page about the Fed’s willingness to slow rate rises as inflation falls. The FT notes that the US central bank is mulling over a move down from interest rate rises of 0.75% to 0.25%. The inflation drop is put down to a fall in petrol prices of nearly 10%, but clothing, recreation and personal care services continued to increase. To me this suggests wages are still increasing, and as I have mentioned previously the Fed’s mission is primarily to discipline labour through high interest rates when salaries start to go up. So while the Fed may slow the rises in the near future, I don’t think we are out of the crisis yet.

Indeed, only last week one column in these here pages alluded to the idea that we may be locked into a system of higher inflation targets, 3-4% instead of the old target of 2%. That means the Fed will need to adjust interest rates up and down depending on the environment. One reason for this, that academic Mark Blight notes, is that as the Fed raises rates it encourages all the surplus capital in the system to flood back to the US looking for higher returns. But the strain on the system caused by this is not sustainable, forcing the Fed to slow rises or reverse them. That is until labour’s gains push the Fed into raising rates again. This all leaves the global economy in a vicious circle that nobody is sure; as Gillian Tett, notes in her option piece on page 17; how to exit from.

Moving on, we have a few reports to muse over on straight up criminal tip (watch). First consumers are being scammed in Europe as the European Union notes the 53% of “environmental claims used to advertise products” are false.

Meanwhile in South Africa we have a good example of what in critical criminology is called the State Corporate Symbiosis. While the FT’s angle is one of “criminal cartels” doing bad things, without collusion with state elements this type of phenomena would be a lot harder. In my view the collusion is obvious. For one, they are straight up just swapping out coal for rocks. Second, the man sent to fix this mess André de Ruyter, head of the nations energy monopoly, was then fired by the government and subsequently almost murdered by cyanide in his coffee; both on the same day. On my, how 16th century! Nevertheless, this shows just how deadly corruption in the GS is compared to the northern nation’s version. But in both parts of the world we should never forget that it is the capitalist state in its desire to reproduce capital that lets all this occur in the first place.

Continuing with the SCC Watch, we have another example of the State Corporate Symbiosis in an option piece by Toby Nangle. Though, this version is instructive in how the phenomena operates in a legal manner to discipline labour. In the article Nagle talks about how authoritarian states have about $10tn tied up in global asset funds, around 9% of the what the sector manages. This he notes, in effect, makes fund managers “outsourced treasury officials” for states that are often subject their working populations to harsh discipline. The example he uses is China, a nation where workers have little or no rights, and minority populations are subject to severe repression, see the Uyghurs and the Tibet region. So next time you listen to an American or European politician or bureaucrat take aim at an authoritarian state, remember they through the financial system they are the same people enabling that repressive states around the world. You got to love it!

Anyway that’s enough for me for today, see you all soon.