Serious Social Instability Has Arisen from the Greed Induced Economic Crises

The gloom surrounding this year’s World Economic Forum descended into confrontation yesterday as international labour leaders launched a withering attack on the 1,400 business executives and 41 heads of government at Davos over what the labour leaders alleged was their failure to respond effectively to a deepening crisis of their own creation.
Guy Ryder, the general secretary of the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC), said that the current financial turmoil had triggered a social timebomb that would lead to deepening civil unrest and soaring crime.

The comments from the confederation, which represents 168 million workers in 157 countries, are the most ferocious example yet of a backlash that has persuaded many who attend frequently to stay away from Davos this year. Yesterday Alistair Darling, the Chancellor, became the latest political figure to stay away from the meeting, after a similar move by David Miliband, the Foreign Secretary.

Mr Ryder, speaking as strikes involving hundreds of thousands of workers erupted across France and Germany, told The Times: “We are on the road to serious social instability, which could be extremely dangerous in some countries to democracy itself.”


He said: “Davos does not make me at all confident. I don’t see any of the leadership here that is needed to get us out of this crisis . . . There is very little contrition here.”

The ITUC warned that around the world more than 50 million jobs could be lost this year and that more than 200 million people would be driven into absolute poverty. The confederation said that the financial crisis had arisen because of “rampant speculation and financial profiteering” and that new global financial architecture needed to be established to “support regulation and ensure coherence”.

Sharan Burrow, the president of the Australian Council of Trade Unions, said that the world was now witnessing the human cost of “casino capitalism” as the impacts of rising unemployment and home repossessions and of plunges in savings and pension funds hit millions of families.

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http://grantlawrence.blogspot.com/2009/01/serious-social-instability-has-arisen.html

With Burrow, the “casino capitalism” model of things is what has caused the problems. When "greed" becomes the motivator behind business, nothing good will come of it. Wall Street is a perfect example of what happens when government deregulates business. Without regulation, it's like giving the cookie jar to a 6 year old and telling them we "trust" you to only have "one" cookie all day!

Since Reagan it has been the goal of the super rich to control the world, horde all the money they can, and to hell with everyone else. The daddy Bush plan of a "New World Order" was simple, the super rich ran the banks, the media, health care, and they would lower wages any way they could, not pay benefits, and put in place a two class system of the rich and the poor. George Bush Jr. has pretty much brought about the end of things as we know them. During his 8 years the rich doubled their worth while the rest of the country, and the world, lost theirs. We are better off than other countries in the world, but the workers are fed up all over the world, and they demand changes. Obama has a good chance to get things done because "change" is a priority for the vast majority of americans these days. Politics as usual are not what the people want in the U.S., and around the world. The leaders of the world need to realize they need to stop working for the rich and start taking care of the rest of the people. If that does not happen, things will get worse and rebellion is likely in one form or another.

taking a degree of perverse satisfaction at seeing what the Capitalists have managed to accomplish.

I just wish all the rest of us didn't have to suffer because of it!

:(

Obviously, government really WAS the problem for the Wall Street Casino Overlords. The regulations were getting in their way. I wish we could see all those sociopaths behind bars for the ruin they've caused.

Edit: I wonder if Reagan would come up with some clever line about the Casino Queens on the Public Dole if he were still around?

Has Hannity done any shrieking about "Socialism!" in regard to the Wall Street Bums panhandling for handouts so they can keep up their lifestyles?

those of us who never were part of the greed mania would take satisfaction in knowing we were right were it not for the pain it is causing all of us :(

I remember my friends and I being gleeful at the thought of the collapse of capitalism.

The satisfaction I feel now is a sick and sticky thing, I became a socialist out of concern for workers and to see them suffer for this collapse rends my soul.

the comfortable, and especially when they are comfortably, contentedly, even happily wrong.

John Kenneth Galbraith (doubtless, in spirit, of this parish)