http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2009/09/10-5Published on Thursday, September 10, 2009 by Inter Press Service
Speculators Undermining Recovery, Report Says
by Haider Rizvi
UNITED NATIONS - The current economic meltdown will continue for years if the world community does not take firm and coordinated action to regulate the flow of capital, say researchers who have just concluded a new study for the United Nations.
"There hasn't been much achievement in regulating the financial markets," says Heiner Flassbeck, one of the study's authors associated with the U.N. Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD). "The world is still mired in deep economic crisis."
The UNCTAD "Trade and Development Report" points out that despite a professed commitment to tackle the recession, many countries in the developed world have failed to rein in the financial industry's indulgence in speculative investment.
According to the report, this crisis reflects the "predominance" of the financial markets over the real economy.
Flassbeck lashed out at governments of the most industrialised countries for not doing enough to rein in the powers of the financial industry, saying that they had let the financial sector continue to do "business as usual".
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