The real roots of the financial crisis

Political and financial crises revolve around each other in an endless vicious circle. And we won't break that circle until we change our expectations.

Earlier this week I wrote a column, which you can read here, in which I suggested that it won't be any of the political crises that are erupting around us that will be the defining events of our age, it will be the financial crisis. Why? Because the latter is causing the former.

The banking crisis turned sovereign debt crisis turned banking crisis (and so on) has given us two things almost guaranteed to cause political and social turmoil: quantitative easing (and hence the kind of inflation that exacerbates inequality - more on this in a later blog), and austerity.

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Merryn Somerset Webb

Merryn Somerset Webb started her career in Tokyo at public broadcaster NHK before becoming a Japanese equity broker at what was then Warburgs. She went on to work at SBC and UBS without moving from her desk in Kamiyacho (it was the age of mergers).

After five years in Japan she returned to work in the UK at Paribas. This soon became BNP Paribas. Again, no desk move was required. On leaving the City, Merryn helped The Week magazine with its City pages before becoming the launch editor of MoneyWeek in 2000 and taking on columns first in the Sunday Times and then in 2009 in the Financial Times

Twenty years on, MoneyWeek is the best-selling financial magazine in the UK. Merryn was its Editor in Chief until 2022. She is now a senior columnist at Bloomberg and host of the Merryn Talks Money podcast -  but still writes for Moneyweek monthly. 

Merryn is also is a non executive director of two investment trusts – BlackRock Throgmorton, and the Murray Income Investment Trust.