On September 15, 2008, the bankruptcy of the U.S. investment bank “Lehmann Brothers” symbolically marked the beginning of the “Great Crisis”, which is symptomatic of the fragility and the so-called “systemic relevance” of the globalized, capitalist financial economy. A dossier of the globalization-critical network “attac” is now dedicated to the structures and backgrounds of this worldwide financial and economic crisis, prepared as materials for (extra-)school educational work. The focus is on global financial markets and their social consequences.
In each of the four modules, topics and issues are briefly introduced and provided with a didactic commentary:
Module I begins by offering various approaches to the connections between everyday life, the financial sphere in general, and the crises of the past decade.
Module II is entitled “The Development of the Global Crisis from 2008 onward” and focuses on the course of the crisis from its underlying causes to its outbreak in the U.S. to the international banking crisis.
Module III takes an in-depth look at the problems facing financial market players, focusing in particular on bank bailouts, which are again likely to play a central role in future crises.
Finally, Module IV is devoted to the social consequences of increasing financialization and the crisis-like dynamics of financial markets, taking housing as an example. The arc is drawn from the mortgage crisis in the U.S. to the mass evictions in Spain to the rising real estate and rental prices in Germany.
The materials can be downloaded free of charge from this link or ordered in print from the attac webshop.