The current crisis cannot be corrected without war. How do such problems threaten an ordinary citizen? List of sources used

The market economy, say socialists and interventionists, is the best system that can be tolerated in peacetime. But when a war breaks out, such tolerance is unacceptable. It will jeopardize the vital interests of the nation solely for the selfish gain of capitalists and entrepreneurs. War, and in any case modern total war, categorically requires state regulation of production.

No one has yet mustered the courage to challenge this dogma. During both world wars, it served as a convenient pretext for countless government interventions in the economy, which in many countries gradually led to full military socialism. When hostilities ceased, a new slogan was put forward. It has been argued that the period of transition from war to peace and reconversion requires even more state control than the period of war. Besides, why go back to a social system at all, which if it works, then only in the periods between wars. The most reasonable line of conduct would be to constantly remain loyal to government control in order to be ready at the right time for any emergency.

A study of the problems faced by the United States in World War II has clearly shown how flawed this line of reasoning is.

To win the war, America needed a radical conversion to a war footing of all of its manufacturing activities. And all civilian consumption, which was not vital, had to be curtailed. From that moment on, factories and farms were supposed to produce only the necessary minimum of non-military goods. In all other respects, they must fully devote themselves to the task of supplying the armed forces.

The implementation of this program does not require the establishment of governing bodies and the setting of priorities. If the state collected all the funds needed to wage the war, by collecting taxes from citizens or by placing a loan among them, then everyone would be forced to radically reduce their consumption. Entrepreneurs and farmers would reorient themselves to producing for the government, because the sale of goods to private citizens would be sharply reduced. The state, being the largest buyer in the market thanks to the influx of taxes and borrowed money, would be able to get everything it needs. Even the fact that the state decides to finance a significant part of military spending by increasing the amount of money in circulation and loans from commercial banks does not change the state of affairs. Inflation, of course, should lead to higher prices for all goods and services. The state is forced to pay higher nominal prices. But it will still remain the most solvent buyer on the market. It will always be able to outbid the prices of citizens who, on the one hand, do not have the right to print the money they need, and on the other, must pay huge taxes.

Instead, the state deliberately adopts policies that do not allow reliance on the operation of the free market. It resorts to price regulation and makes it illegal to raise the price of goods. Moreover, the state has been very slow in taxing inflation-inflated income. It succumbs to the demands of unions to maintain real wages workers after all deductions at a level that will allow them to maintain their pre-war standard of living during the war. In fact, the most numerous class of the people, which in peacetime consumed most of the total amount of goods consumed, had so much money on hand that its ability to buy and consume was even greater than in peacetime. Wage laborers and, to some extent, farmers and factory owners that worked for government orders, nullified all attempts by the state to orient industry for the production of military products. They encouraged businesses to produce not less, but more of those goods that in wartime are considered an unnecessary luxury. It was these circumstances that forced the American government to resort to a system of priorities and rationing. The shortcomings of the adopted methods of financing military expenditures made it necessary to regulate the economy by the state. If inflation had not been created and taxes cut the incomes (after taxation) of all citizens, not just those with higher incomes, and made them slightly below peacetime levels, then regulation would be redundant.

Support for the doctrine that the real income of wage earners in wartime should be even higher than in peacetime made it inevitable.

It was not government decrees or the paperwork of dozens of people on government salaries, but the efforts of private enterprises that produced the products that enabled America's military to win the war and equip the allies with the necessary weapons. The economist does not draw any conclusions from these historical facts. But it is appropriate to mention them whenever the interventionists try to make us believe that the decrees prohibiting the use of steel for the construction of residential buildings were automatically produced by airplanes and battleships.

The source of profit is the adaptation of production activities to changes in consumer demand. The greater the discrepancy between the previous state of production and that corresponding to the new structure of demand, the more adjustments are needed and the more profits are earned by those who are most successful at it. The sudden transition from peace to war drastically changes the structure of the market, necessitates a radical reorganization and thus becomes a source of high profits for many. Planners and interventionists find such gains shameful. In their opinion, the primary duty of the state during a war is to prevent the appearance of new millionaires. It is unfair, they say, to let some get rich while others are killed and maimed.

Nothing is fair in war. It is not fair that God is on the side of large armies and that those who are better equipped defeat less well equipped opponents. It is unfair that unknown soldiers shed their blood on the front lines, while commanders, comfortably housed in headquarters hundreds of miles from the trenches, gain fame and glory. It is unfair that John is killed, Mark remains crippled until the end of his days, and Paul returns home safe and sound and enjoys all the privileges of veterans.

It may be considered dishonest that war increases the profits of those entrepreneurs who supply the warring army with the best equipment. But it is foolish to deny that a profit-based system produces the best weapons. Not socialist Russia helped America under lend-lease; the Russians suffered terrible defeats until American bombs began to fall on Germany and until they received weapons produced by America's big business. In times of war, the most important thing is not to avoid high profits, but to provide your soldiers with the best equipment. The worst enemy of the nation is the malicious demagogues who put their envy above the vital interests of their country.

Of course, in the long run, war and preservation market economy incompatible. Capitalism is essentially the program of peace-loving countries. But this does not mean that a country forced to repel an attack from an external aggressor should replace the system of private entrepreneurship with state regulation. If she did, she would deprive herself of herself. effective means protection. Socialist countries never won capitalist countries... For all their glorified military socialism, the Germans lost both world wars.

The incompatibility of war and capitalism actually means that war and a highly developed civilization are incompatible. If the state aims the effectiveness of capitalism at producing instruments of destruction, then the ingenuity of private business will produce weapons powerful enough to destroy anything. War and capitalism are incompatible with each other precisely because of the unparalleled efficiency of the capitalist mode of production.

The market economy, subject to consumer sovereignty, produces products that make the individual's life more enjoyable. She tries to satisfy the individual's demand for more comfort. It is for this that the apostles of violence despise capitalism. They revere heroes, destroyers and murderers, and despise the bourgeois and his small shopkeeper psychology (Sombart). At present, humanity is reaping the seedlings, the seeds of which were sown by these people.

Ludwig von Mises. "Human activity. A treatise on economic theory "

Analysis of the American market is a daily practice of experts from different countries of the world working in private financial businesses, as well as in government agencies. Where do analysts from different countries of the world agree at the beginning of 2008? First of all, it is the beginning of the recession and the exhaustion of "points of growth" in the real US economy. Globally, this is a manifestation of the "limits to growth".

They began to actively write about the limits of growth back in 2001. "A new Great Depression is inevitable. The global market is approaching the limits of its growth, this has already been shown by the Pacific crisis," Gazeta.ru noted after 11.09.2001. The world media has consistently emphasized that global GDP growth in 2001 is the lowest growth rate in the world economy over the past 20 years. Analysts recorded a decline in business activity simultaneously in the three largest world markets - the US, Japan and the UK. At the beginning of 2008, the topic of limits to growth is even more acutely discussed.

It is necessary to note such an important sign as steady growth external debt USA: "The growing American debt is a very unpleasant tendency, which devalues ​​the foreign exchange reserves of other countries and forces them to maintain the deficit of the US state budget," Yasin said. This assessment fixes the aspect of the relationship between the state of the US economy and the economies of most countries of the world.

Another important sign of the approaching crisis is the complete exit of the global financial and economic sphere from the control of politicians. In 2000, G. Schroeder at the conference "Modern Governance in the XXI Century" said: "We do not want the dominance of the market over politics, but strive for a balance of power on a national and international scale ... We will take care of the return of the political component, especially in the aspect of globalization. and the problems associated with it "(Deutschland, No. 4, 2000). Alas, in the first years of the new millennium, the influence of political institutions on the globalization process has practically disappeared.

Moreover, the process of “disappearance” of the influence of key players in the global market has begun. OPEC has practically no effect on the world oil price, and the hour is not far off when the remnants of the Fed's influence on the world monetary and financial system will be exhausted. D. Soros in 2007 in one of his interviews asserted that the recession in the American economy would be severe and unexpected. He stressed that it will be difficult for the European Union and most countries of the world. Soros also suggested that Southeast Asia would become the "weak link".

The global financial crisis is closely related to key sectors of the economy, and when it occurs, the main pressure falls on the production of various goods and services. The 2008 financial crisis was notable for both its depth and scope - perhaps for the first time since the Great Depression, it engulfed the entire world. The crisis mechanism was triggered by the problems in the US mortgage market. However, the crisis is rooted in more fundamental causes, including macroeconomic, microeconomic and institutional ones. The leading macroeconomic reason was the excess liquidity in the US economy, which, in turn, was determined by many factors, including:

General decline in confidence in emerging market countries after the 1997-1998 crisis;

Investing in American securities by countries accumulating foreign exchange reserves (China) and oil funds (countries of the Persian Gulf);

The low interest rate policy pursued by the Federal Reserve in 2001-2003, trying to prevent a cyclical downturn in the US economy.

Under the influence of excess liquidity, the process of the formation of market bubbles - a distorted, overestimated estimate of various types of assets - intensified. In some periods, such bubbles formed in the real estate, stock and commodity markets, which became an important component of the crisis mechanism. Credit expansion is one of the typical conditions of financial crises, according to data from cross-country studies covering long periods of time. Thus, the risks of the development of the crisis as a result of the weakening of the monetary policy, which were realized in 2008, are not an exception, but a general rule.

2.1 Causes of the 2008 global financial crisis

The economic crisis is an imbalance between supply and demand within the country for goods and services. World economic crisis is the spread of such an imbalance to a large part of the world economy.

The crisis manifests itself:

in an absolute drop in production;

underutilization of production facilities;

in the growth of unemployment;

in violations in the monetary and monetary and financial spheres

A sociological survey was conducted in the United States, among the population, in which the question was asked: "Where do you see the signs of the global financial crisis?" The respondents' answers are presented in Figure 1:

Rice. 2. Signs of the global financial crisis

It can be concluded that a person is more interested in those indicators that affect his well-being.

All socio-economic processes are interconnected. The economy of one country in the era of globalized commodity-market relations cannot do without the participation of another. That is why as soon as the crisis manifested itself in one of the countries (in particular, one of the leading world economies), a chain reaction of its manifestation began in others. It is worth noting that it is the country's strong economic position that causes the crisis to manifest itself equally. Advancement, wealth, striving forward, powerful development with inadequate social organization gives more intense crisis results. This applies fully to the United States, which today occupy a leading position in the world economy.

The main reason for the global economic crisis is the overproduction of the main world currency - the US dollar and the cheapness of mortgages in the USA, fueled by the annual growth in property prices, in the period from 2001 to 2005 led to an unprecedented demand for housing, including the one that the population planned use as a short-term investment. Requirements for borrowers were reduced, as all banks were confident that in case of default on the loan, the real estate could be withdrawn and sold with great profit. In addition, a huge amount of money from insurance companies was spinning in this area, providing insurance, both to borrowers and banks in the event of a loan default.

The crisis began with a panic in Western stock markets and a decline in oil prices. The first led to an outflow of Western capital from the Russian market and a decline in the value of shares, the second - to a direct decline in the value of shares. As a result, cheap money immediately became scarce. Considering that the decline in the value of shares registered as collateral for loans to Western banks entailed a number of payment requirements, then there was not enough money. This is the very same liquidity crisis - bank assets are simply not enough for effective work. The result is the curtailment of lending programs for the population and business, an increase in interest rates and other measures to retain assets.

The impetus for the crisis was the collapse of the US mortgage system. The number of home sales began to fall and the number of loans increased. October 2005 was marked by significant inflationary pressure: the average cost of borrowed funds for non-standard lenders grows by 2.25 percentage points in 40 days. As early as November 2005, lenders raised interest rates for borrowers, as loans with low interest rates became uninteresting for investors. Against the backdrop of the beginning of the crisis, the US housing market is re-evaluating the ability of borrowers to service non-standard loans and lending conditions are tightening.

Rice. 3. The beginning of the recession in the US economy - 2007

Gradually, the financial crisis in the United States began to spread throughout the world. American corporations have begun an urgent sale of assets and the withdrawal of money from other countries.

Events in the US economy negatively affected the stock markets in developed and developing countries. Figure 2 shows the dynamics in 2007-2008. one of the main American stock indexes S&P 500 and the stock index for emerging markets MSCI ЕМ, developed by Morgan Stanley bank (the data in the figure does not reflect within the monthly dynamics of the indices).

Figure 4. Stock indices in the US and emerging markets

In 2007, stock markets in developing countries grew at a faster pace than in developed countries, which was facilitated by portfolio investments from the world's leading economies. In 2008, the massive inflow of funds from abroad to emerging markets stopped, and the dynamics of the stock index for developing countries practically repeats the dynamics of the leading American stock index. In 2008, the S&P 500 index fell by almost 40%, and the MSCI EM index - by more than 50%.

One of the reasons for the current global financial crisis is the inconsistency of the principles of the world monetary system with the conditions of reproduction and the new configuration of forces in the world economy. Historically, the dollarization of the world economy has taken place and another imbalance has clearly manifested itself - the overproduction of the main world currency - the US dollar. Since the mid-70s, in the process of transition from the Bretton Woods to the Jamaican monetary system and with the abolition of the dollar peg to gold content, the FRS began to print dollars for the whole world (except for the United States!) In unlimited quantities and control over the emission of the American currency did not have neither the countries of the world, nor the US government. The expansion of paper money loses its connection with the needs of the turnover of real goods and services. From 1971 to 2008, the volume of the dollar supply in the world increased tenfold, many times exceeding the real volume of goods and services. This situation is extremely beneficial for the United States, which for almost 40 years has been living largely at the expense of the rest of the world.

According to some economists, with a GDP of 10 trillion. dollars (20% of world GDP), the United States consumes 40% of world GDP, in the same amount it releases hazardous waste into the atmosphere and into the environment. Who pays the difference is clear. This is the rest of the world, which in exchange for Natural resources goods produced in different countries that required the expenditure of labor, resources, capital, receive unsecured pieces of paper, called dollars. This is reminiscent of the exchange of the conquerors of the American continent with the natives, when Manhattan was bought for candy wrappers and beads worth $ 24, every square millimeter of which is more expensive today. In the future, dollars earned on the export of natural resources, goods and services by other countries form temporarily free financial resources private entrepreneurs and governments (in the form of gold and foreign exchange reserves and government stabilization funds, known as sovereign wealth funds - SWF), which are sent to buy US stocks and bonds. And then, in the process of financial turmoil, US debt obligations are getting cheaper and, as the practice of the 2000s shows, the rest of the world finances US $ 5-7 trillion free of charge. dollars.

The global financial and economic crisis of 208, on the one hand, had the following reasons:

out-of-control growth of securities;

distribution of deliberately irrecoverable mortgage loans;

multilevel "risk repackaging" that insured the risks of investors.

On the other hand, the reasons were:

the greed of the American economy (and, accordingly, of the world economy as a whole) - the increasing inflation of the "speculative financial bubble";

the wrong course of conducting the economy by the government;

orientation of humanity towards technological progress, in the absence of orientation towards self-development (intellectual, spiritual, etc.)

From the above, we can draw conclusions about the causes of the global financial crisis in 2008, more specifically:

The main reason for the global economic crisis is the overproduction of the main world currency - the US dollar. It was from 1971, when the dollar was removed from the gold content provided by the US gold reserve, that dollars began to be printed in unlimited quantities. The purchasing power of the dollar was provided not only by the GDP of the United States (as it happens in every normal country), but also by the GDP of countries around the world. Everything would be fine, but those states, whose economies began to provide the strength of the dollar, never had and do not have control over the volume of emission of the dollar. The US government does not really have this control either. Only the US Federal Reserve has this right.

The US Federal Reserve (in other words, the US Central Bank) is a private organization owned by 20 private US banks. This is their main business - to print the world's money. To achieve this, the current owners of the Fed spent a lot of time - decades, or rather centuries, and efforts - here the 1st and 2nd World Wars and the Bretton Woods agreements of 1944, etc. and, of course, the very creation of the Fed in 1907. Thus, a group of private individuals finally acquired the right to issue dollars into circulation, determine the volume, release dates, etc. From 1971 to 2008, the volume of the dollar supply in the world increased tenfold, exceeding many times the real volume of the commodity supply in the world.

This state of affairs was extremely beneficial, first of all, to the owners of the FRS as a private organization, and secondly to the USA itself as a state. And also among the benefits of the United States is the possibility in general since 1944, and especially since 1971, i.e. over the past 37 years, living beyond our means, i.e. largely at the expense of the rest of the world.

So the US GDP is 20% of the world GDP, and it consumes 40%, then does someone have to pay for this? Really paying, this someone is the rest of the world giving America its goods in exchange for unsecured bills. At the same time, there is a huge redistribution of world wealth in favor of the United States.

The next reason, or rather a step into the abyss of the crisis, is the bursting of the bubble of unsecured mortgages.

Another version is the theory of large cycles by N.D. Kondratyev. At a certain period, the economy opens up opportunities for intensive growth - improving technologies, increasing the efficiency of using available resources - and then, as a result of this process, opportunities open up for extensive growth, covering new markets and territories, while efficiency is of little interest.

Then again, extensive growth hits the wall, the frontier is mastered - and the intensive cycle begins. This is what is observed today. A change in growth models is a change in business strategies, a 90-degree turn, which is almost always accompanied by large-scale crisis phenomena. The extensive cycle began in the 1970s, the previous intensive one in the 1930s with the great and terrible depression. And now, in fact, the same natural process of rebuilding in an intensive way. The only question remains in the duration and intensity of this process.

Summarizing the many views on the cause and nature of the 2008 crisis, it can be stated that the global financial and economic crisis is a multifactorial process that is formed under the influence of the cyclical nature of scientific and technological progress and the scientific and technological revolution, a set of monetary factors, the ratio between supply and demand. at the macro level of the economy, as well as many other factors.

Indisputable, in our opinion, is the conclusion that as a result of the 2008 crisis, there was another large-scale redistribution of world wealth from countries affected by the crisis in favor of the United States due to the special role of the dollar in the world economy.

2.2 Fundamental problems of modern economic development

The economic crisis reflects acute tensions in the socio-economic environment. The aggravation of the political situation can also serve as signs of an impending crisis. Problems in politics always develop into problems in the economy, since all attention is focused on solving the former, while the latter remain in the background.

There are also a number of key problems, the significance of which was especially acutely felt by humanity in the 20th century. and which will greatly affect the life of mankind in the XXI century.

The first of these problems is the growing gap between the richest and poorest countries in the world (Figure 4):

Rice. 5. "Scissors of inequality" between the inhabitants of the richest countries in the world and the rest of the world's population

Share in population Share in consumption

The richest inhabitants of the Earth The rest of the inhabitants of the Earth

The fact is that the populations of the poorest countries are growing at a faster rate than their gross domestic product. Although the latter is growing even faster than in the most developed countries of the world (3.2 and 2.3% per year, respectively, during 1965-1987), the high birth rate negates all the results of production growth. As a result, according to the UN, if in 1960 the incomes of 20% of the world's citizens living in the richest countries exceeded the incomes of 20% of the world's poorest countries by 30 times, then in 1989 this excess was already 59 times.

If we use the criteria once proposed by Ernst Engel (see "Pages of the Economic History of Humanity"), you will find that the poorest countries in their development lagged behind the richest by about four centuries. Therefore, two civilizations actually coexist on the planet: one entered the 21st century, and the second only in the 17th century.

This inequality in wealth levels is an increasingly important cause of global instability. It is against the background of poverty that those local military conflicts and wars are born that became a disaster for humanity at the end of the 20th century. and on the elimination of which the largest countries of the world have to spend more and more significant funds, taking them away from their own economies. This problem is acutely felt in Russia, which also has to spend a lot of money to prevent the escalation of wars in its neighboring poor countries, otherwise these wars threaten to spill over into its territory, and refugees have become a problem today.

In the XX century. the world's richest countries have tried to break the "underdeveloped cycle" by lending to the poorest countries Money on development programs. However, the results of such financial assistance programs were not particularly significant. On the other hand, developing countries, among other things, found themselves in a huge debt to developed countries and international financial organizations - their creditors (Fig. 5).

Rice. 6. Debt dynamics of developing countries

This problem directly affects Russia as well. Our country inherited from the USSR the rights to nearly $ 150 billion in debt from a number of developing countries. Consequently, almost 11% of the total debt of these countries is debts to Russia (which itself owes more than $ 100 billion to the developed countries of the world).

There are other possible causes of the crisis related to the general characteristics of the world economy.

First of all, it is necessary to point out the unprecedented pace economic growth, which allowed for five years (2000-2005), to increase the world GDP by a quarter.

A rapid rise inevitably accumulates systemic contradictions that are invisible behind the growth of welfare. But even with the realization of these contradictions, it is very difficult to intervene and fix anything: every time in such boom situations someone begins to express warnings or to doubt the correctness of the course, confident voices begin to sound from all sides, insisting that “on this time it's different. ”Kenneth Rogoff and Carmen Reinhart pointed out that the“ this time it's different ”trap for politicians dates back to the 14th century English default. And the crisis of 2008 can be fully considered innovative, since it is based on the emergence and rapid spread of financial innovations - new derivatives of the financial market.

It should be noted that at the present stage of the global development of capitalism, the financial sphere functions independently, breaking away from production, from the real sector of the economy, where, in fact, money is earned and increased. The scale of such a "detachment" of finances became critical by the beginning of 2008. Some experts believed that only 2-3% financial transactions were associated with material production, the rest of the money circulated and gave "live" profit - in the service sector, in banks, insurance, etc. It is estimated that, on average, for every dollar that measures the value of the real sector of the world economy, about $ 50 circulated in the financial sector at the beginning of the 21st century. Based on the foregoing, there is reason to assert that one of the sources of the global crisis was its separation from the "development" real economy, that is, from the economy for the production and sale of goods and services that meet the final needs of society.

Another, fundamental cause of the crisis was the formed global imbalance, which for a decade was considered as the basis for the sustainability of global growth. Today, this problem plays an important role in the global financial system. In a narrow sense, the problem of global imbalances was discussed earlier in the context of the US trade deficit, accompanied by an increase in its external debt, and, directly opposite, the situation in China and a number of other countries of Southeast Asia. In a broad sense, the problem of global imbalances affecting the economies of the USA, China, Japan, and the European Union manifests itself in the dynamics of the rates of major currencies and the value of foreign exchange reserves of different countries.

As a result, a regime has developed that is opposite to the model of globalization at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries. If, a hundred years ago, capital "moved" from developed countries to developing countries, now emerging markets have become centers of savings, and the United States and other developed countries have become predominantly its consumers.

The unfolding crisis had another fundamental prerequisite. In recent decades, the objective tendency of corporations consolidation and the consequent strengthening of the role of top managers have intensified in the world economy. As a result, an objective-subjective contradiction has developed, when the interests of the managers do not coincide with the interests of the owners. There has been a tendency to increase the gap between the interests of owners and managers, whose behavior and motivation are sharply different. The target function of the business has also undergone a major transformation. Capitalization growth has become a key benchmark for the development of corporations. It was this indicator that interested shareholders most of all, and it is by this indicator that the effectiveness of management is assessed today. Meanwhile, the desire for maximum capitalization comes into conflict with the real basis of socio-economic progress - an increase in labor productivity. Capitalization growth is, of course, associated with it, but only in the final analysis.

However, it is necessary to report to shareholders annually, and to obtain beautiful annual reports, to maintain the current growth in capitalization, it is not at all the same that ensures productivity growth. For good reporting, mergers and acquisitions are needed, since an increase in the volume of assets contributes to an increase in capitalization. And, of course, backward enterprises should not be closed, since in the current period this leads to a decrease in capitalization. As a result, many large industrial corporations retain their old inefficient production facilities. Thus, the strengthening of the role of managing managers with their inherent interests that do not coincide with the interests of the owners, as well as the transformation of the target function of the business, led to an increase in the level of management risks and was one of the fundamental causes of the current crisis. Added to this is the obvious failure rating agencies supplying low-quality information products that led to incorrect risk assessments of financial market participants. This situation also developed in Russian corporations by the beginning of the crisis.

Main conclusions:

Along with the problems of the functioning of individual markets for resources and goods, as well as the national economy as a whole, each country has to participate in one way or another in solving global economic problems. The first of these problems is the huge differences in living standards between the richest and poorest countries in the world. The growth of this difference is coupled with the impossibility for the poorest countries to increase their GNP faster than the population is growing. The huge difference in living standards has both economic and political consequences and leads to increased tensions in the world. Therefore, in the XXI century. humanity will have to make tremendous efforts to prevent a global economic catastrophe fraught with the death of tens of millions of people from hunger and epidemics. It can be prevented only by accelerating scientific and technological progress, improving economic systems in the world's poorest countries and reducing military spending, with the subsequent use of the saved funds for economic development.

Currently economic problems humanity is exacerbated by the fact that more and more resources have to be spent not on the development of production, but on saving the environment. Otherwise, its pollution begins to slow down the growth of the gross national product and the efficiency of investments in its increase falls. However, only the richest countries in the world can afford large-scale environmental rescue programs. The poorest countries cannot afford it. As a result, humanity is faced with the need to choose one of the options for economic policy: either accelerate economic growth and increase the material well-being of people with a decrease in the duration and quality of their life due to environmental pollution; or an improvement in the state of the environment and an increase in the life expectancy of people with a slowdown in the growth rate of their material well-being. It is this dilemma in the 21st century. will determine economic policy many countries and humanity in general.

Financial crisis is a crisis that systematically encompasses financial markets and financial sector institutions, money circulation and credit, international finance (country segment), state, municipal and corporate finance; having a medium- and long-term negative impact on economic activity in the country and on the dynamics of the well-being of the population; manifested: in the financial sector and financial markets - a sharp increase in interest, an ever-increasing share of problem banks and non-bank financial institutions, bad debts, a significant reduction in loans to the economy and households, chain bankruptcies, the transition to a loss-making model of banking and other financial activities, the predominance of speculative over investment financial activities, a large-scale drop in securities prices, delays in settlements with a growing collapse payment system, the emergence of massive losses in the derivatives market, the termination of liquidity financial markets and financial institutions with a domino effect, banking panic; in international finance - an uncontrolled fall in the national currency exchange rate, a massive outflow of capital from the country, an uncontrollable increase in external debt and overdue payments by the state and commercial organizations, the transfer of systemic risk to international market and financial markets of other countries; in the area of money circulation- a sharp uncontrollable rise in prices with the transition to chronic inflation, flight from the national currency, rapid introduction into the domestic solid foreign currency, the massive emergence of money surrogates; in the field of public finance - a sharp drop in the value of international reserves and government stabilization funds, the emergence of a deficit or
aggravation of the budget deficit brought about by the crisis, a rapid reduction in tax collection, a fall in budget financing of public expenditures, an uncontrollable increase in domestic public debt.
Local financial crisis - a crisis based on an intracountry or intraregional concentration of risks, affecting one country or several countries, does not develop into a global or interregional financial crisis, limited in its impact on world economy and global finance by short-term turbulence, risks and losses that do not break the main course of the global economy.
Local crises permeate the life of developing economies like Russia, with a frequency of 1 - 2 times in 10 - 15 years.
Insert
Markets are like war
The market was born a disheveled Anglo-Saxon, with a tulip-loving dad from Amsterdam and a Semitic Italian mom. Therefore, he is a globalist, hippie, magician and marine, hugging the world like a red-haired girl.
He was born to transfer money smoothly from those who are always full to those who are sadly smart but hungry. He rolls out money like dough.
It is a social elevator to the 107th floor.
He converts things into capital by trading the rights to them like seeds.
He makes a steady transformation of time into money.
He grinds knowledge about reality, straightening information asymmetries.
He, laughing, trades risks, rolling them across human space.
And it is He who gives everything its price - as the fourth monetary dimension.
The market is a substitute for war. In a noiseless way, without the howling of cannons, he collects tithes from any state that brandishes its rattles, waving a pen to him goodbye. Currency attacks and capital flight? Manipulation, financial infections, speculative trading? Crises like storms and hurricanes? The matter of the profession. Nothing personal. Business only. Darwinism is friendly. Hunt for big and stupid turtles. The loser rushes to feed the dogs, and the winner receives a ticket for the right to live and bear children.
In moments of market fluctuations, the exchange floor is like boiling water. He makes the noise of an oncoming train. And to the faces of the terminals, similar to time mines, rises: “Sell it! Sell ​​it, for God's sake! Sell ​​it! "
But buyers cringe in corners like mice, waiting for the market disaster.
The market is a hidden movement of human and political bodies seeking to break each other's spines. Money is power. Markets are money. Power is life collecting another life as soon as it is ripe.
Therefore, markets are a war.
Developing economies are weaker, riddled with deformations, external dependencies, and less stable. Their product and technological structures are more simplified and more backward. Economies are small (BRIC countries are an exception). Higher social and political risks. Financial systems are more often imbalanced (shortage of monetary resources, higher volatility and risks, inflation, interest, profitability financial assets, lower monetization, weaker and limited in volume financial markets, banks, institutional investors, in the worst condition public finance, huge impact foreign investors and foreign markets, speculation is excessive). IN financial policy often borrowed (and sometimes imposed) international solutions that are not tied to local conditions, permeated with myths produced by schools theoretical economics leaving local financial markets unprotected, outside the golden mean of "openness, liberality - reasonable financial protectionism."
The consequence is periodic market shocks, financial infections, capital flight, crises.
The Mechanism of the Financial Crisis: From Private Crises to General Crises
Systemic risks, arising in one link of the financial market (private crises), then spread to its other links, triggering the mechanism of systemic risk and causing - in the most acute situations of the "domino" effect - the collapse of the entire financial and credit system countries. Private crises include: stock crises - market shocks in the securities market (large-scale falls in securities prices, breaks in market liquidity, a sharp rise in interest), leading to a further escalation of crisis phenomena into a full-scale financial crisis. They can be associated with "soap bubbles", speculative play for a rise - fall, with the movement of prices for stock values ​​beyond the limits established market value the business they express. May arise in connection with speculative attacks on parallel markets of basic and derivatives financial instruments;
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A bubble on the stock market (other assets) is a situation in which stocks (other assets) grow in value for a long time and quickly, a rush demand for them and optimistic expectations of investors are growing, fueled by loans from brokers and banks for the purchase and on the security of shares (other assets ), a general speculative bull market, including on the derivatives market; the price of shares (other assets) is increasingly detached from its real basis - the value of the business, which they represent; at the peak, the slightest unpleasant news (often decisions of the government, central bank) is interpreted as a harbinger of a future market fall, a massive fixation of paper profits begins with a rapid decline in demand; a catastrophic chain reaction of a fall in the value of shares (other assets) follows, aggravated by the demands of brokers and banks to repay loans - everyone is trying to sell shares (other assets), no one buys them; the decline is exacerbated by massive speculative short play, including derivatives market... debt crises that are the initial cause of financial crises ( financial situation when a group of the largest borrowers (for example, countries, if we are talking about the international debt crisis, or the largest commercial and investment banks), are unable to pay their debts and / or generate losses that bring them to the brink of defaults; the largest international debt crisis erupted in the 1980s. XX century (debt insolvency of a large group of developing countries in repayment of loans received from high-income countries); currency crises that form growing crisis phenomena in other segments of the financial market (sharp changes in the exchange rate of one currency in relation to others, leading to a significant restructuring of the system of economic interests in international finance and in the domestic economy and the sphere of finance of countries affected by the currency crisis, balance of payments crises) ;
-bank crises (crises of the banking sector, based on the domino effect, in which the accumulation of problem assets in a limited number of banks and the termination of their solvency leads to banking panic, to massive withdrawals of deposits, to a sharp reduction in bank lending to each other, etc. and - against the backdrop of a developing crisis of mistrust - a massive suspension of payments by banks begins, followed by the collapse of the payment system and financial markets); liquidity crises (acute, short-term inability to make payments due to the onset of liquidity risk, negative financial condition... At the macroeconomic level - the disorder of the payment system, the onset of a state of illiquidity in the banks that make up its basis, an acute shortage of funds in the economy to maintain uninterrupted settlements in the economy).
Each of these crises, which can occur against the background of the relatively prosperous state of other segments of the sphere of finance, money and credit, can become a “trigger” that translates local crisis phenomena into a large-scale financial crisis. “Currency crises can trigger banking crises. Rapid depletion of foreign exchange reserves under the fixed exchange rate can push the central bank to reduce the money supply, to reduce monetary aggregates, thereby initiating a banking crisis ... Banking crises can cause currency crises. When investors become confident in the inevitability of a banking crisis, this forces them to revise their portfolios, replacing local currency assets with foreign assets. When central banks transfer liquidity to the banking system to keep troubled banks afloat, the excess money created can initiate foreign exchange.
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speculation and put pressure on foreign exchange reserves ”.
Typology of scenarios for financial crises
Financial crises are caused by: internal causes (national economic cycles(secondary to global), over-concentration of individual risks, political risk); external influences (cycles of the world economy, financial infections, speculative attacks).
The cyclical mechanism of the financial crisis
The economic crisis is a combination of social, economic and political entities. They are part long cycles(large waves in several decades), on their surface - waves of the second and third order. The crises associated with them can be no less devastating than crises on the soles of long cycles. Crises cannot be undone. They are inevitable from time to time. They can be diagnosed in advance, mitigated, made less painful, but cannot be canceled. They are part of the objectively existing life cycles of societies.
Time after time, on long rises and in soap bubbles, the crowd entering the market believes that this is a brave new world, always growing, always promising progress, at new heights of prices from which it will never fall.
But deep down in my soul, with a bestial instinct, I am unconsciously sure that this is self-deception and bluff, that, pushing, you need to flee from the market at the first concentration above the horizon, because there is a thunderstorm front behind it.
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Greed is cursed by all. Greed is branded. "The greedy man will upset his home." When markets collapse and economies collapse, there are no more hated creatures than money people who once again drown the world. "We cannot allow the burden of the endless greed of the few to fall on the shoulders of all."
But we chuckle. We know that five years will pass, another ten will pass, and the new communities will again believe in eternal growth, in the unprecedented power of markets, in a galaxy of capitalizations that is constantly gaining weight. Eagerly examining the curves, rapidly creeping upward.
Because money is a method of being. This is the possibility of free being on the periphery of working humanity.
Greed is the engine of humanity. The heart of greed is risk. We accept them, we collect them in our baskets, briefcases and sacks. We need new risks to live. We digest them like wolves on the go.
And suddenly we realize that a greedy and self-interested person has opened a new world with his money.

Many experts compare the current economic crisis with the crisis of 2008-2009: we coped with that, we will cope with this too. But not everything is so simple. "Economically speaking, in 2008 the Americans managed to force the world to buy their crisis. But this year the world is no longer able to buy the US crisis," — saidwebsiteeconomist Said Gafurov.

"In the third world war, it is not guns that speak, but finances"

- Said,hHow is the current crisis different from other recent ones?

- The main thing is that the current crisis cannot be corrected without a war, and this is very bad. The methods that were used to deal with the 2008 crisis just don't work now. There are not enough of them. This applies not only to Western countries, but also to us.

Last year, senior officials of the Central Bank and the Ministry of Finance said that we are not afraid of the crisis, because we have gained experience in 2008-2009, the tools are ready, tested, worked out, it remains only to put them into action. No, it didn't work, because the situation is completely different.

Economically speaking, in 2008 the Americans managed to force the world to buy their crisis. But this year the whole world is no longer pulling - not in a position to buy the crisis of America. Although the United States has begun to creep out a bit, this creep is only going on for the top third of the population, while the poorest third of the population is slipping into greater and greater poverty.

There is an even deeper reason behind this, which has to do with China. In 2002, at the next congress of the Communist Party, the task was set to quadruple the level of well-being of the population and consumption by 2020.

The Chinese are about a quarter of the world's population. If a quarter of the world's population quadruples its consumption, accordingly, the consumption of all world resources increases, and the production of these resources in the world is not growing at such a rate. Therefore, if the Chinese consume more, then someone will have less.

This crisis reflects a very deep political and economic reality. And we, unfortunately, know that the easiest way out, which the masters of life usually use when they cannot cope with a crisis, is war. There is an old adage, very cynical, that war raises credit. We see that the Americans have tried to use this more than once, but the recent wars are no longer helping them.

- But the most striking manifestation of the crisis is the collapse of the Chinese stock market.

- It was not that big. Before that, in a year it grew by 150 percent, then in three weeks it fell by a third. So - it's still more than it was. The Chinese are not very interested in the stock market at all. They restrict him in every way, do not let him. They have Hong Kong, which has its own economic system, its own stock Exchange... And the Shanghai Stock Exchange, where everything is very limited. It does not affect the main manufacturing industries. They are formally listed there, but this does not oblige you to anything.

Their stock market turnover is less than a third of GDP, although it is much higher worldwide. The stock market is there because it is supposed to be. After all, the purpose of the stock market is to collect, accumulate funds and channel them into production. According to a cynical brokerage adage: The small investor is always wrong. That is, they collected all the money, put it into the economy, and then staged a collapse.

The exchange has practically no effect on the economy at all. We can have influence there, because we can get a loan in Europe and the USA against the security of shares. The system is such that loans are given within the framework of such a centralized system.

In China - state banks... The first private bank opened only this year, it is quite small, intended for lending retail... In Hong Kong, yes, the system is different there and the exchange is strong. And in China itself, there are much more serious problems with the real sector. So far they have begun to fight with law enforcement methods, but in fact, everyone understands that the problems cannot be solved this way. It is now very important which line Xi Jinping will choose.

- Already more than half of the turnover of the oil market is trading in paper futures, and oil prices on the stock exchange are actually determined on two small sites in Texas and Rotterdam by several large players who sit primarily on collecting orders. The real deposits of Brent oil have practically exhausted themselves. And in general, big banks those who own information rule the show, that is, not even the oil giants Shell or Exxon, these are banks like JP Morgan, and ours, including those that trade.

All our attempts, not only ours - the Iranians, Venezuelans, the Saudis tried to create alternative sites in their country - are unsuccessful. Something is being traded in India, but in fact they are failing precisely because of the huge speculative capital. That is, Americans are printing more dollars than they need to, and therefore they are creating this pillow that we cannot create. Exchanges operate on futures and other derivatives, there are options - a lot of all sorts of water that is far from reality.

However, there is also a real sector. The expansion of oil production is underway, now the old theory of marginal utility is working, new oil is becoming more and more expensive. Getting oil is getting hard. New technologies belong to the Americans and Europeans, while the production itself has largely gone to national companies.

The cheapest oil is produced by the Arabs, and the most expensive by the Americans. They began to close their shale oil projects - unprofitable. Several are already unprofitable large companies... If they go bankrupt, then the bankers who gave them loans will go bankrupt.

This is already a strong blow to the world financial system... Because now it really turns out that bad for US finances - bad for everyone. And they are again trying to sell their losses to the world. But there is already a big crisis in Europe, everyone is already having a hard time ...

- The fall in world oil prices is a natural process, and there is no such anti-Russian conspiracy here?

- Well, of course ... Although there is a conspiracy, it is not large-scale, and not to destroy Russia, but to earn a lot of money on the redistribution of property. We are too small for them. In addition, there is a very murky, completely incomprehensible story that in a very opaque oil business, even technically, the most closed part is gas stations. And oilmen get the main real living profit there.

- Is the Maidan revolution a consequence of the desire of the Americans to sell their debts, to get out at the expense of Europe and Russia?

- To a very large extent it is. But the question here is that Europe also played in this situation. Yes, the Americans, of course, supported it, but it would not be entirely correct to think that the Americans initiated it. The Ukrainian oligarchs pressed a button, who thought that the elections were coming soon, Yanukovych could put his own candidate who would win, and Azarov had already begun to lead Ukraine out of the crisis.

Of course, they went to Washington to agree, and they were given the go-ahead. Then the moment came when Washington began to play a coordinating role. They coordinated with the Americans and received support, but the Americans began to play a direct coordinating role later, and at the first stage the Europeans coordinated. It was later that the Europeans discovered that they were hostages and had to bear all the costs and pay for the Ukrainian crisis. And all the benefits go to the Americans.

But it should be noted that those people who make decisions in Europe are some kind of closed, completely monstrous, incompetent caste. Nobody chooses her. They appoint themselves. Or they are shaken off from the countries there. The Poles got rid of Tusk, because he would have sent everyone to the bottom. And he was appointed chairman of the European Council simply because he hates Russia. This factor alone is sufficient. And competence no longer plays any role.

Of course, the Maidan and subsequent events are an attempt to force the world to buy the American crisis. But the fact is that they can print a lot of money, as long as they have the strongest army in the world, they can print, and they are not very afraid.

- To what extent do the Europeans understand that they ended up in Ukraine, and before that they also fell for the Arab revolutions?

- Now they very much regret that they were led. But the Germans can't do anything at all. Germany is an occupied country. Officially, since 1945, they have been in the status of an occupied country. We remember that when Merkel clearly objected to the Americans, she was immediately summoned to the carpet and pulled up. When she returned from Washington, she said the exact opposite.

Now they have a very big tragedy. And at first, of course, they were led, counting on serious benefits in the oil sector in Libya and other countries. Did not work out. They destroyed the regime, but got nothing good. At first, Berlusconi objected for a very long time, saying that we would not interfere, but then he said: no, we will fight, Gaddafi is bad, we will overthrow him. When it was all over, he said that he was very sorry that he had done it.

They say the Gulf countries have agreed with the leading European countries that they close their budget deficit, that is, they buy back government debt securities. For England and France, this was done, and Berlusconi was promised, but not redeemed. And Berlusconi said that I was betrayed. Well, now for the nightmare that Libya and other Middle Eastern countries have become, the reckoning is coming.

- After all, Libya performed one more important function- was a migration border for refugees from Africa.

- Yes, but there is still Algeria, Morocco, Tunisia, where it is also restless. An important point is that when there is no regime in the country, then a very different serious mafia is involved in the case, including the Islamist and Italian mafia. Also, now people are fleeing from Syria to Turkey and further to Europe.

There is a network that provides travel. People are told: go to such and such a stop, take a ticket not to Istanbul, to some small port, there is such and such a phone, and so on. It's all organized.

- There is evidence that the Americans are also paying for and organizing it.

- Well, maybe, of course, maybe.

- Is it possible to say that in the worldalready underwayTretirement World War, only it is not cannons, but finances?

- I recall Stalin's report on this topic at the 17th Congress of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks in 1938. He said that the Second World War had already begun, although it was still far from large-scale hostilities, the Soviet Union was still trying the policy of containing the aggressor. But the Spanish war was already going on, and Japan in 1937 began a big war against China. Italy attacked Abyssinia, there was something else.

In fact, the war for the redivision of the world has already begun. Stalin said that this was not a hot war yet, it could still be stopped, he appealed to England and France: let's unite against Hitler.

And now I am afraid that we are now in a very similar situation. While there are local wars like the Ethiopian War of 1936 or the Sino-Japanese War. But the contradictions are becoming more and more acute.

Most importantly, the unipolar world that the Americans wanted to create is not easy to cope with. He cannot provide a safe peace for humanity. That is, the point is not even that the unipolar world is bad and unfair in itself, and not that the Americans are not the right people.

It just turned out that this is a very unstable system, which inevitably pushes us closer and closer to a global war, to mass blood.