The market: the new faith Eric Toussaint http://alainet.org/active/37987&lang=es

Practically all political leaders - whether from the traditional Left or the Right, from the North or the South - have a quasi-religious faith in the market, especially the financial markets. Or rather, they themselves are the high priests of this religion. Everywhere, governments have privatised and created the illusion that the population will be able to participate directly in market rituals (by buying shares) and reap the benefits in accordance with how well one interprets signals sent by the market-god.

Why are ordinary market operators given a religious aura? They are neither anonymous nor ethereal. They have names, addresses. They are the people in charge of the 200 biggest TNCs that control the world with the help of the G7, the G20 and institutions such as the IMF, which came back into the limelight thanks to the financial crisis.

Governments are no strangers to this situation; from Reagan and Thatcher onwards, they relinquished the means they had of controlling financial markets. The situation is now almost reversed: institutional investors (i.e. major banks, pension funds, insurance companies,hedge funds, etc.) received thousands of billions dollars from governments in the form of grants or loans to bail them out after the 2007-8 meltdown. The European Central Bank, the US Federal Reserve, the Bank of England now lend them money on a daily basis at a lower rate than the capital inflation that institutional investors immediately use to speculate against the euro and against public money.