Economists who predicted the 2008 global meltdown tell Sky News the world economy is in danger once again.
The beginnings of another financial crisis are already in motion – and it will be worse than the global meltdown of 2008.
That’s the opinion of one of the select band of economists who predicted the 2008 economic collapse, which started with the bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers bank a decade ago and ended up affecting every country in the world.
Ann Pettifor predicted that crisis in 2006, more than two years before it actually struck.
Now she thinks the global economy is in danger once more thanks to huge corporate debt, and the prospect of rising interest rates in the United States.
She told Sky News that global debt was now more than three times the level of global GDP.
“So naturally it is not going to be repaid, and naturally there is going to come a point when that debt triggers the next crisis. And, for me, that trigger is going to be high rates of interest,” she said.
“We’re seeing that companies who borrowed too much money at very low rates of interest are now finding the value of their collateral falling. Their debt is rising and the interest on that debt is rising too.”
What’s more, she thinks the process has already started.
She said the US Federal Reserve’s decision to wind back its support for the economy, and reverse its programme of quantitative easing, has already laid the ground for the next crisis.
“In Argentina and Turkey, they are already facing a crisis as a result of the Fed’s decision to diffuse the bomb that is QE, and to increase interest rates,” she said.