United States' quiet period ended with the Occupy Wall Street protests -- which are now in their third week and appear to be growing. Moreover, if Roubini's August prediction is correct, this is just the beginning of a period of social unrest, if major reforms are not implemented.
To Fix Capitalism, Balance Needed Between Free Market and Public Goods
current global economic system -- capitalism -- will remain in a crisis, one that economist Karl Marx predicted more than a century ago -- until major systemic reforms are implemented.
social unrest and demonstrations are all being driven by the same thing, a crisis period for capitalism -- the economic system's most serious crisis since the Great Depression of the 1930s.
One that stems from globalization, financial intermediation run amok, and a destructive redistribution of income and wealth from labor to capital.
All of the nations that have seen social unrest and demonstrations "are all driven by the same issues and tensions: growing inequality, poverty, unemployment, and hopelessness. Even the world's middle classes are feeling the squeeze of falling incomes and opportunities,"
one of economist Karl Marx's critiques of capitalism is playing itself out in the global financial crisis.
Marx, among other postulates, argued that capitalism had an internal contradiction that would cyclically lead to crises, and that, at minimum, would place pressure on the economic system.
need to return to the right balance between markets and provision of public goods. That means moving away from both the Anglo-Saxon model of laissez-faire and voodoo economics and the continental European model of deficit-driven welfare states.
Both are broken
