Look around you – cars are double or triple parked in business districts and packed along the curbs or road shoulders in residential neighbourhoods. Some people have more shoes, TV sets, clothes, DVD players and electronic gadgets than they can handle. GM is on the verge of bankruptcy and Mercedes Benz is shutting down production. My contention is that people who have disposable income are saturated with goods while the poor cannot afford to buy anything – even food. It is a crisis of overproduction in the era of super imperialism. (BTW – a consequence of this overproduction is an ecological crisis where natural or “undervalued” resources are plundered and wasted blindly and greedily).

Undeniably, it started as a credit crisis when the banks and mortgage companies lost money. This means lay-offs on a large scale in Wall Street and the City. It is such people that buy Mercedes Benzes, Volvos, Pontiacs and Oldsmobiles. Western economies have been re-structured such that the cushiest jobs were in Wall Street and the City, as well as in consultancies and research. Engineering was limited to the hi-tech and high end products. These activities now have trouble finding customers since the high flyers in Wall Street and the City have lost their jobs. This means overproduction in the western countries, but this overproduction is not typical of the overproduction created by the mad competition in early capitalism. This is overproduction in the era of monopoly.

Imperialism means monopoly finance capital. This means that most jobs in the western countries have something to do with banking or financial services. When a credit crisis hits them, there will be disastrous layoffs of many of these high flyers. This means that there will be too many investment managers, accountants, bankers and consultants. This in turn will affect the market for high end products and services i.e. a situation of overproduction.

In the meantime, the lower paid manufacturing and service jobs have been moved to China , Vietnam , India , etc. Any fool can see that there is now a glut of cheap goods. This also means overproduction.

The crisis was triggered not caused by the credit squeeze. This means the underlying causes were already existing for a long time. The US (and Europe ) were already spending other people’s money as well as the money of future generations. This pushes production worldwide to unsustainable levels. This is reflected not only in the overproduction of goods and services, but also of fat cells as an epidemic of obesity plagues the fat cats of the world. The financial crisis only exposed this fact in a way that hurts and can no longer be ignored. In fact Japan was already suffering the crisis of overproduction for more than a decade. The damage was mitigated only by the gargantuan appetite of the Chinese.

However, the economists and planners in western countries can only see that they are short of “blood” – money that drives their economies. Hence they still call it a credit or financial crisis. They salivate at the savings and reserves of the Chinese, Saudis and Indians. They want them to put this money into IMF and World Bank as well as buy derivatives, even more US bonds, etc. They want to retain control of the IMF and World Bank.

Hence, they ignore or gloss over the fact that whilst they were the lenders in the 50’s and 60’s, they are now the borrowers. They want to blind China , India , etc to the fact that the IMF is now controlled by borrowers. Imagine a bank that is controlled by desperate borrowers instead of lenders. This is a formula for disaster. They are so desperate that they build up a superstar in the form of a negro president in order to fool people that they have “changed”. They throw around the slogan of “change”.

In Malaysia , the crisis has yet to hit us. The govt. prepares for it by a “stimulus” package that is meant to bolster the elite and their cronies. Their idea is to copy the solution of the western countries at the same time protect the elite and their cronies. But Malaysia , by all accounts, is not suffering from a credit squeeze. By applying the “wrong” solution and wasting “future life-saving” reserves, the govt. is going down a dangerous path.

Malaysia’s problem is that it is suffering from lack of productivity and quality. Most opinions are that it is suffering difficulty to compete globally. In a world that is hit by crisis of over production in the most productive and most competitive countries, it is going to be a dangerous future for all of us if we suffer from lack of productivity and quality.

In the meantime, we are not just continuing, but planning to pour valuable resources into wasteful projects and protecting cronies. This is a disaster. Malaysia , unfortunately, is already a “bank” that is controlled by greedy and wasteful “borrowers”.

- By batsman

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