When considering the recent developments of the world economy, a question comes to the mind. Is there a pattern, some kind of strategy somewhere? Are we witnessing movements which are not connected   to each other, or can we detect some kind of strategy? Could we think of the movements of the international economy as being   well defined trends, which may be called  structural, that is, elements durable in time? Perhaps we have a situation in which a series of different events seem to be pointing to a sort of common set of goals.

This economic strategy, so to speak, is   accompanied and sustained by a strong political movement, which has been moving in the same direction since a few years to influence the public opinion, and to convince people on the two shores of the Atlantic of the importance of   the objectives pursued by the capital.  A political movement has been created to support and reinforce the movements of capital. The pressure is on   anybody having a say on economic and financial matters to embrace a number of axioms which  have little or no basis on the economic science but must be accepted as a sort of fundamental tenets of modern society. T

he application everywhere of the  axioms  called  “Washington Consensus”,  notwithstanding   the fact that the present  inhabitant of the White House  does not seem to  share such a view at all,   has been   encouraged in order to  obtain  the right to treat  the labour market  -and  the   employment- on the basis of  the principle that absolute   freedom of  “hiring and firing”   is the  best  way to guarantee the optimum level of   employment. As there is no way in which the economic science, or common sense, may support such a hypothesis, it is necessary to create an extreme right-wing grass-roots movement like the Tea Party, and to push the whole U.S. Republican Party towards the extreme right.

In Europe there is no strong   Extreme Right ,  and therefore the Washington Consensus  is proposed and forced on the Debtor  Countries, creating  an environment in which left wing governments  (Greece , Spain ) have been   victims of the financial crisis, and have been substituted by right wing  ones, which promise to follow  the Consensus. Moreover, the European structure , which does not responds to the electors, is totally sold on the such a Consensus , and its  main points are  presented  to debtor countries as a way to  get them out of their difficulties, which  of course  come from a completely different problem. So, the  Debtor countries  have to gather the money to pay  the growing  interest rate on their debts ,  at the same time   reducing  their consumer’s demand, and therefore  the ability of the country  to pay the debt.

Let’s see the overall strategic framework.
The first element to be considered is financialization of the economy, which has created opportunities of profit out of almost   nothing, and has made the price of a basic material, crude oil; depend    from speculation in the “futures” market. Such a price has been growing quite rapidly in the last years, irrespective of the declining demand in the mature countries, like Europe; but it has been sustained by the growing demand from the emerging countries, like China and India. Higher profits are  obtained in the growing countries, not in the mature ones.

Second, a huge amount of money flows to Emerging Countries from “Mature” ones. The figures for the overall capital flows have been confirmed, and, actually, slightly increased by the Institute of International Finance in the September 25, 2011 in respect to that of June 1, 2011: it’s about a trillion dollars. In fact such capital flows have  been  slightly on the  increase,  which may mean that  massive capital movements  are  becoming a stable  factor in the international economy.

These gigantic movements have a simple objective, to   maximise   its income.  The Emerging Countries have higher interest rates than the Matures ones, and higher rate of profit. Part of this capital flowing away from the USA must be made up of capital obtained from the US Treasury in its attempt to restart the USA economy by offering cheap money in the hope of seeing it invested in the country.

At the same time, we have seen a strong attempt to increase the rate of interest paid by some European Countries’ bonds. The financial crisis of Europe originates from this attempt, justified with a lack of confidence on  some  European economies , and  perhaps, also by  the desire to lower  the  level of the Euro vis a vis the dollar. The capital exports, and the pressure to increase the yields of European Bonds   come both from a lack of confidence in both the American and the European economy. Investment does not seem to be paying enough   in the US and in Europe, and   the investment capital is therefore looking somewhere else for a higher remuneration. In Europe, this has taken the   form of an aggression on the weaker areas of the Euro. The common objective of a higher yield from capital is also pursued with different instruments, with a political platform.

Can we consider this situation as coming from a strategy, of the groups that control the capital, and have the instruments to increase the income it produces? There is, clearly, a strategy on both level, that of the international economy, and   that of politics. These groups have no general recipe to run the economies of US or of Europe.

They have, however, a recipe to make the money give a higher interest to those that control it.  There is, of course, no secret caucus, where the rich and the powerful decide what to do, and how to explain it to the rest of the world. There is, certainly, a strong tie  among the rich, the desire to make  more money  to day that was done yesterday, without any consideration  to the fact that distribution of income  seems to move backwards to a set up, say, at the heights of the Nineteenth century, when all the money was in the hands of a single class of persons, who considered totally irrelevant anybody not belonging to their class.