THE BANK of America’s March survey has openly warned that another 2008-type worldwide crash is on the way. Its March survey polled 200 investors with $592bn in assets under management with 81% saying that they are overpriced.
US stocks are now breaking record after record on the strength of President Trump’s pledges of historic tax-cutting and massive deregulation for big business and the banks creating super-profits.
Global fund managers are saying that stock markets are more overpriced today than they were before the 2008 crash. Their response however is to carry on gambling, buying equities aggressively and betting that the crash could be some way off yet. In fact, the turning point has been reached, with US stocks suffering their biggest fall since Trump became president on Tuesday, when the Dow Jones fell by 1.24%.
As the next crash approaches, the British banks are already completely discredited, with the Bank of England governor Carney admitting, ‘A series of scandals ranging from mis-selling to manipulation have undermined trust in banking, the financial system and, to some degree, markets themselves.’
He added: ‘Global banks’ misconduct costs have now reached over $320 billion.’ However, scandal, theft and illegality are at the heart of modern banking, as are its periodic crashes when all are ruined except a section of the bankers.
This has been hammered home by the latest UK banking scandal, now rapidly emerging, where Britain’s banks have processed nearly $740m from a vast money-laundering operation run by Russian criminals.
HSBC, the Royal Bank of Scotland, Lloyds, Barclays and Coutts are among 17 banks based in the UK, or with branches here, that are facing questions over what they knew about the international scheme and why they did not turn away suspicious money transfers.
On Tuesday, Labour MP John McDonnell asked an urgent question on this massive banking criminality, a question that Chancellor Hammond declined to answer by staying away. McDonnell said: ‘One of those banks, HSBC, is an institution that has previously faced money-laundering charges in the US and across the globe. The direct intervention of this government helped to block a 2012 US investigation on the purported grounds of its potential risk to financial stability.
Money laundering through London and elsewhere threatens the stability of our financial sector and our economy. ‘In the case of another bank, RBS, the government directly own a 72% stake. A third bank, Barclays, has been under investigation for its role in LIBOR rigging.’
Another MP Helen Goodman (Bishop Auckland; Lab) asked, ‘Has the Minister discussed the matter with the former Chancellor, the right hon. Member for Tatton (Mr Osborne), who the US House of Representatives found intervened with the American authorities to prevent HSBC from being prosecuted in 2012? What has the FCA specifically done since the “global laundromat” was discovered in 2013?’
Another MP, Jonathan Djanogly (Huntingdon; Con) shed light on the relations between the UK government and Russian oligarchs when he said: ‘It seems to me, and to many others, that there is an unwritten deal here: that Russians and others of dubious or illegal means can essentially come to this country, send their kids to our schools, buy our real estate or our sports clubs and get involved in this country on the basis – this is the other side of the deal – that they do no wrong while they are here. That is not an acceptable way forward, if it ever was. Is it not now time to rethink this issue?’
It is very clear that the bankers and capitalist governments are unreformable, and their iniquities are neverending. The only way that humanity can be saved from another banking disaster is through the working class carrying out socialist revolutions in the UK and the major capitalist countries to replace the criminal anarchy of capitalism with a nationalised and planned socialist economy that will work to satisfy people’s needs, and not to superexploit them, before ruining them!