What changed in autumn 2008 through Lehmans and Northern Rock and RBS etc failing, was that the mechanisms that banks and financial institutions use to generate profit for their traders became more transparent for the general public…& what has changed this year is that western governments modus operandi – we're skint but if we borrow enough from each other we won't look skint – has become more transparent. So the " crisis" is that banks and institutions can't anymore hide from the public the corrupt mechanisms by which they profit at the expense of the public purse, and governments are no longer able to hide that they have gambled their nations wealth – our money – on those same mechanisms. It's not a "crisis" for any of the people writing on this website, only for those who are profiting from them ( us). Frankly it's more of a huge relief than a crisis that some of these people are being forced to lie slightly less. Clearly it's not in the interest of media corporations to encourage truth telling, where do you think they get their kick backs from?

Whats Lord Ashcroft doing anywhere near a government when he takes his money out of the country he seeks to represent?

Is it a crisis, to call put up or shut up on a busted flush ?

There used to be an obnoxious but always fascinating satirical English language expat magazine published in Moscow called The Exile, (you can find its archives at http://www.exile.ru; they're where the now famous Matt Taibbi started and it's still well worth a browse if you have a strong stomach).

One thing about the magazine that really struck me was that they were apparently the ONLY Russian based publication to have predicted the late 90s Russian credit default the week before it happened.

Smart as the writers were, I very much doubt they were the only people to have considered such a thing so presumably the rest of the media didn't want to bring it up for fear of causing it / scaring the horses whereas they could get away with it because they were a small magazine in a foreign language (and didn't give much of a fuck anyway).

My point, (insofar as i actually have one) is that I suspect the mainstream media reluctance to bluntly address economic problems is (to use a programming analogy) more of a feature than a bug…

Great point.

I am greatly enjoying reading this discussion. Thank you all.

Both, and others, shaping how the market (read public) value and assess news.

There may be differences in media corespondents and different media houses, but they a small differences much like how different rating agencies assess companies and nations – all still support the grander edifice and do not critique it in any serious manner.

In the 80's alot of found it cheaper to throw their crops away and be paid european subsidy than to sell them, because of trading regulations. This is part of the same "crisis".
Restrictive trading + public borrowing + free money to stop people complaining. A mate of mine whose family were farmers declined to follow in his fathers footsteps and grow crops, instead he went into the city and traded into "potato futures" – he could make more money guessing the future price of spuds than by growing the spuds themselves.

How is that sustainable, that the leverage is worth more than the thing itself ? Everyone has to be mortgaged up to the hilt to buy houses priced at double triple (or whatever) their actual value…is that a " crisis" ? The prices were levered by the markets to benefit the markets.
How can it be called a crisis when its been international governmental policy for 30 odd years ?
Even down to currency itself….The Euro itself was and is an exercise in spread betting and risk dispersion.

In NOV 2008, when Lehmans went down, Golem used an anlalogy….imagine the banks/ financial intitutions as a row of people on a sheet of ice roped together to an "anvil of debt". One person falls through the ice. The obvious thing to do is cut the anvil free, to stop the other people being dragged down the same hole. Why don't they do this ? To mix at analogies, it's the monkey with it's hand in the jar….

its not a crisis, as golem says, it's one big big confidence trick … if I had a quid for everytime someone working in finance has said to me " you don't make money by being honest", I'd be as rich as they are…ditto governments. They can't afford to be ethical. That's become a synonym for " naive"……

Until leverage is declared illegal , or % limits set, in international trade law, then its not a "crisis", it's just business as usual.

"Keep you doped with religion and sex and TV,
And you think you're so clever and classless and free, "

It is clear that the newsagents' printed media buys its text from Associated Press or Reuters, and just has some embedded 'signature' writers for authenticity. There is no independent mainstream press.
The emasculated BBC is still way too timid to make any ripples of independent thought, and ITV only seems to care about late night phone-in gambling and why Britain has got no talent (Did I flick channels last night and see a leprechaun?)

The future that we will wrest from those smug PTB will come because more and more of us are turning off and tuning out from the spoon-fed muzak.
When the youth of today wake up and realise it is their world, that a 'Friends'-lite existence just isn't enough, then the walls will crumble.

All we have to do is resist the inexorable tightening of civil liberties and the right to dissent –cos they see us coming.

That is our middle-aged role in this war.
Hope it is my lifetime.