Economic crisis Follow

The credit crunch has wiped £600 billion - more than £1 million a minute - from Britain's total wealth in the past year.

Global economic turmoil has led to food riots abroad and spiralling inflation in Britain. Michael Bradley and Judith Orr report on the growing resentment towards the crisis-ridden Labour government

Two new books on the state of the economy expose the speculation and greed that have propped up Gordon Brown's so-called boom years

In April the International Monetary Fund dubbed the growing economic crisis "the largest financial shock since the Great Depression", leading to a one in four chance of a full-blown global recession.

February's collapse of the London-based Peloton hedge fund was a clear indication of the scale of the banking crisis.

Costas Lapavitsas is an economist at the School of Oriental and African Studies in London. He has written extensively on Marxist theories of finance. He spoke to Socialist Review and answered questions on historical parallels with the current economic crisis and its impact.

Every time economic crises develop they are described as aberrations in an otherwise rational and balanced system. Chris Harman looks at the roots and implications of the recent credit crunch, and explains why crises are in fact an intrinsic feature of capitalism.

No one can predict whether the recent financial crises will develop into a proper recession.

The recent ructions in financial markets and the collapse of Northern Rock have a familiar ring.

Anyone who has recently tried to obtain a mortgage or loan will have known Northern Rock long before the current crisis broke - it was a byword for favourable rates.

As we go to press the financial panic that made the headlines across the world in August seems to have subsided.

The ferment over the US subprime mortgage market, which has been helping to make the money markets so unsteady in recent weeks, tends to ignore one aspect: people are so desperate to obtain decent housing they will take on debt they are simply incapable of ever paying back.