sees the cherry blossom 1st before it rolls north up the peninsula in a wave of color, but its already bloomed in soul. the 2nd earliest date on record, the earliest being set just 2 years ago. in this district in sol, the annual celebration of the forsythia bloom has been brought forward a week because the flowers have bloomed early. neighboring japan is also experiencing earlier cherry blossom tokyo this year, equalling the record for the 1st bloom. and back in the southeast of south korea as the city of young ju prepares for its festival, the blossoms are already falling with several days to go. by listening to him, it seems to be passing earlier each year, which makes you think about the environmental. nature is beautiful, but seemingly ominous barometer of dangerously changing times. rub mcbride al jazeera young jew, south korea. ah

. our reminder of the top stories make the news here now to 0. former us president donald trump will appear in new york course on tuesday. the 1st ex president to face criminal charges. the case against him involves a hush money payment to adult film. star stormy daniels ahead of the 2016 election . trump is expected to voluntarily surrender and plead not guilty to the charges. i feel very concerned about the rule on this country, courts that endangered the rule of law for all americans to dates donald trump, to march a democrat of the day after it. sir, arab, your friend, the after that you were me and that's what concerns we want. a prosecutor couldn't use the law and the system to go after a political point. it's something that frightens me to present a barrier says his country is willing to host long range russian strategic nuclear missiles, as well as small a tactical nuclear weapons. alexander lucas jenko made the comments during his

annual address to the nation. he also said he knows of western plans to evade his country from neighboring poland. ukrainians have been marking the one year anniversary of the recapture of the town of boucher with president vladimir zalinski, vowing to defeat what he calls a russian evil. ukraine accuses russia. the massacre of hundreds of civilians there in the early weeks of the invasion. malaysia's highest court has dismissed an attempt by former prime minister. nancy resigned to have his corruption conviction reviewed the jeep, is serving a 12 year sentence related to the embezzlement of the states investment fund. one of the biggest financial scandals in the country's history south africa athlete osgood historian, will stay in prison for at least another year after being denied parole. he serving 13 years for the murder of his girlfriend, reever, steam cam, social media influencer andrew tate and his brother are to be released from custody and romania with the media. to fact the must remain under house arrest. the being

investigated over human trafficking, rape, and forming a criminal gang to sexual exploit. women. the 2 men have been in detention since the end of december. okay, you are watching out a 0 up front is next week on a miss. janice verifax. make sure you stay with us for that talk the law will. the law, when with neither side, willing to negotiate is the ukraine war becoming a forever war is america's global leadership, increasingly fragile. what will us politics look like as we had to the presidential election of 2024. the quizzical look us politics, the bottom line. are we in the midst of a new banking crisis? the collapse of the silicon valley bank in early march, threatened to destabilize major banks in switzerland and in germany shivering fears of a wider downturn like the one that led to the great recession of 2007, 2008. while at this point,

the crisis seems to have been somewhat contained. is this a sign of a broader structural problem? in what lessons if any, have been learned since the great recession? i last the world renowned economist and former greek finance minister, this week's headliner, janice fairfax ah, dennis verifax, thank you so much for joining us in upfront. it's my pleasure. the abrupt collapse of the tech lending firm, silicon valley bank has had a knock on effect that was felt really around the world. a switzerland's credit suisse bank had to be rescued by government intervention in germany's biggest lender, deutsche bank appeared to be teetering on the edge. last week. people are saying that we're in the middle of a banking crisis. you wrote a piece last week. it wasn't titled let the banks burn. why do you think we should do that? reason number one is because some, it is absolutely impossible to stabilize

a banking system which has been built. it's been designed almost in order to be unstable. these mega banks and the smaller banks which live but a specifically on other mega banks and are constructed ah, on unsound foundations and no amount of tightening regulations. we saw of the dodd frank act after 2008009 can actually stabilize them. now, once upon a time, 10 years ago, 5 years ago, even we didn't have an alternative, but to try to stabilize the banking system. today, however, we have new digital technologies which allow a decoupling of payment systems from our credit intermediation. what do i mean by that?

up until this very moment, if you want to pay for a coffee at you near the starbucks or whichever outlet like using a plastic card or debit card. you need to have an account in which you put your savings in or your payroll, your pay packet into a private bank. well, that is no longer the case. we can have a digital wallet that is provided by our central bank, which in any case is monitoring all our payments. and the is called upon to save the private banks when they did that and fall like in switzerland, with a c suite national bank with central bank saving, credit suisse. now, why can't we have a digital wallet with the fed? if you're an american resident or with this who sweets national bank, if you're a swiss resident or with a european central bank, if you live in the us, where your savings are completely safe. it's just the utility money. when you pay

for your coffee, you know, if you dollars or euro, whatever go from the ro on the legit of the central bank that correspond to you to the over the corresponds to the coffee shop. savings can be absolutely safe, no question of even ensuring them because they would be sitting on the ledger over the central and then ask you a question about that though, because you know, bank serve other functions as well. in addition to holding cash from, from lending to various forms of investment. is it possible to resolve this destabilization problem purely by relocating our funds into the sort of centralized spaces that you're talking about? yes, absolutely. because if, if you're savings in the savings of a corporation of a startup, offer a corporate if, if those savings are sitting on the ledger of the central bank,

then they're absolutely safe. and then a private banker can come in and offer you or me or our audience intermediation services. they can offer us a higher interest rate than that of the overnight rate of the central bank. if not to get our savings and to lend them to someone else. and that is a private sector, the initiative that should then be ruled by the rules of the market. and if that company goes under, because they have taken silly risks, they have not done the homework properly, then you can let them fall without there being a systemic problem. there isn't why we are all of us. i watching what's happening to the s b b bank in california. i would greatly sweet with baited back is because of this conflation. we've put our payment system

a payment system which is so essential to the preservation of the economy. order of things we have and trusted it in the same hands as the price of the by the bankers who take risks and who then hold society to ransom because they are too big to fail. absolutely, and it same article, you say that the banking crisis, this time around, is actually worst in the one from 2007, 2008. but now that one was considered by many the worst economic crisis since the great depression of 1929. it wiped trillions of dollars off of the global economy and it resulted in millions of loss jobs. oh, why do you say this one is worse? you're absolutely right, 20082009 was a gigantic crisis. that is comparable to $929.00. i'm like today, but when it comes to actual banks failing, it is, i think,

absolute right to say that this time we should be more worried about the banks because in 2007 because in a 2009, when the regulators and authorities looked into the books of the banks that were failing back then the brothers bank of america, barclays, bank of scope and so on. they discovered jaden gun big amounts of fraud. remember that, but at the re lending or the somebody mortgage is that where given to people who could never repay them and that was done knowingly. that's what i mean by predatory lending. that the reason that were falsely labeled as to replay, aided by credit aid in a there was a lot of fraud and a lot of quiz i criminal criminal behavior. also very galatian mechanism was very weakened by the clinton administration. today. when we look

up the account books all fun, you know, the silicon valley bank or even current space, we find much higher capitalization next to no fraud if some silly decisions regarding the risk taking. but nothing exemplifying the shenanigans that that were the cause of the house of cards falling. one of the other in 2007, 2008. that should make us word because the rules were more or less respected by the banks of the faith failing to day. look at both a bank, though a bank is far better behaved today than it was in 2007, 2008. that is leading me to the conclusion that these domino effect, which is causing our central banks to lose sleep. and to come in with the heavy weaponry of bailouts. this crisis should make us more waived, because this is much more per systemic crisis and less the result of serial fraud.

you wrote about as the bees, bankruptcy and fears around rising inflation. and you said something that was very interesting to me. you said international capitalism has never been able to get back on its feet after 2008. can you explain what you mean by that and what role exactly inflation is playing in this crisis. the major difference between 1929, which you mention, i think hopefully before and 2008 was that in 2008, 2009. the central banks and the governments of the g 7 gold beneath their actions, primarily their monetary policy. they printed up to $35000000.00 american dollars and injected them into the financial system to the float if they had not done that, the $929.00. that's why you had the great depression, which was far worse than the great recession of the 2008. however,

at the very same time of the g 7 were coordinating their monetary policy, which floated finance. they were not coordinating when it came to investment policy and to fiscal policy. and while we had a lot of jess, lavished upon the banker's $35000.00 being given to them effect after 2009 between 2000 in line and 20212022 the height of the pandemic. while we had that love just for the banking system, the financial circuits, we had coordinated or coordinated at least synchronized austerity in north atlantic . economists. we had the worst bout of a story to hit in greece, but then that spread over to the rest of the universe. own, do you think united kingdom under the judge, osborne and david coming on in the united states, even though you had a small fiscal stimulus that obama, the state governments where indulging huge or steady to god's so all that,

all the united states economy was subjected to net austerity. now, when you have a steady in the economy of the united kingdom of the opinion of the united states, that the presses are going to get demand that the press is investment at the time when you had gigantic injections of money. what then happens is in sped off industrialists, investors looking up the falling price of money and saying, oh this is great. money is becoming cheap. i'm going to invest more in productive capacity. the do the opposite. say oh my go for the fed to be pushing into space. the 0 for the european central bank to be pushing is that i said some minus 0.7 percent things i'm bleak. never going to invest. so they take the money that is provided by central banks and instead of investing in production of capacity in

green energy, in good quality jobs, what they did was they took it to the stock change and they bought their own shares back, which boosted the share price is boosted financial markets, boosted their bonuses, but did nothing to boost supply and investment. that was the situation between 2009 and the height of the been damage during the day make. that's the 1st time when some of the monitor, the power of central banks is being used in order to boost the incomes of little people out there. i want to add about that because we think about the pandemic. you know, there are a lot of economists who are saying, really with regard to the, this inflation question that it was the relief packages that were generated and produced out of the pandemic. as well as support from governments that help lead to this skyrocketing cost of living that we're witnessing right now. they talk about the so called great resignation in the subsequent rise and wage inflation brought on by post lockdown labor shortfall. now in march of 2022,

you are not paid for the guardian where you argue that wage inflation should be welcomed. not treated like public enemy number one, but wage inflation really is being treated as the biggest threat versus for example, acid price inflation. can you explain why that's the case? rich people don't do not like to see wages going up. like that simple. it's very simple and they don't want to see that his face going up when they had taken on so much that a which inflation was never the problem. i think that look from a scale of 0 to the 100 wage. inflation accounts for 5 percent of the problem with inflation have it's minuscule, it's negligible, it's not worth speaking of the real reason why we had about of inflation. why went from this inflation from dissertation to inflation in 2021, 2022 agreement and then is the long term decline in

supply in aggregate supply credibility as a funded investment lead. i'm either going to gone in markets american sectors and you'd have in sectors to reduce their capacity to produce stuff. and then during the lockdown, you have gigantic this option of supply chains. suddenly, you know the ships stopped saying that laurie's stopped driving. ah, the train stopped moving, so you had either time when somebody will had a little bit of money for la wages in san you had 90 percent of supply disappearing . that's what caused prices to start increasing. once it started increasing, after 15 years of negative inflation, then it was a free for all of suppliers used the short term, ah,

supply chain disruption as an opportunity to do something that had not managed with forth in 13 years. that is to increase their prices. prices started skyrocketing and if you compare the rate of increase in prices with that 8th of increase in wages and that a, the thinkers in profits profit skyrocketed using them. so it's not the wages we're pushing up. i mean, foot isn't live in example. i remember that department movement though, because that that's fascinating what you're saying, and yet we're getting a very different pushback in the u. k, which is experiencing its worst cost of living crisis in decades. andrew barely the governor of the bank of england asked workers to place their wage demands under quote, quite clear restraint and wearing that same sort of language here in the united states. meanwhile, the media is full of experts who are talking about how the only way to curb inflation is by doing what cutting jobs. so it seems like no matter what, even based on your analysis workers are, are, are bearing the brunt even when they should. and i want to ask you to give me

a. 2 solution to this, how do we change that? i think the bailey statement was actually shameful. he had lost a blot in the blood bank of england. he had a lot to answer for, and he blamed the workers whose patronized look at the great isis, and they've been minuscule compared to the aid of price inflation and the rate of asset them as inflated inflation under mister bains. watch blaming the work as is always the pastime of those wages are paid for by the ones who actually increase their profit margins during a period of inflation when wages as almost things. and so back to your question, which i think is the button and one, what should have been done instead? well, a number of things. first, look at energy prices. when you have, in the other thing you mentioned, you can either. but also, if you could have been here, when you have something like, you know,

40 percent of electricity being generated by natural gas was price did spike because of the wall in ukraine because of their disruption in supply chain since on . but even kilowatt hours that were produced at 0 marginal cost, go up by the same amount. as kilowatt hours are produced by natural gas. when you know there is a racket going on there, the energy companies are raking it in, taking advantage advantage taxes pushing up the rate of inflation because when energy goes up, much higher than it should do. let me put it this way. 2 thirds of the increase in the energy price was not due to the increase in the inputs are producing electricity. it goes to your price gouging of consumers by the only gospel is the control or energy markets. so what would we do if we're going to care about inflation? we should put on slap

a huge winful tax on those companies. in some cases, winful taxes where applied to energy companies, but follow the money. what did they do with this money? they didn't give it to consumers, they didn't, they not to keep energy prices down. they actually subsidized energy providers who shareholders were the same ones as the energy producers. and this is a complete the records. so inflation was being utilized by very few only got ballistic firms relative to the plethora of small businesses that were suffering at the time of the energy cost crisis in order to maximize their economy grants from society. and then they have the best of the blame the workers and to demand wage restraints from nurses, from nurses. my goodness. here anything appeared of, you know, i probably guys who were nurses kept populations alive, who, you know, can't pay any of it. this seems to be part of

a larger trend where every time there's a crisis, governments intervene, and ultimately it is the public that ends up paying the price more often than not through asperity measures. a recent example, this is in france, where the government is forcing through a pension reform that include raising the age of retirement. however, there has been a strong social reaction in france with protest taking place around the country that have now been going on for weeks. your party has supported these protests, but in your view, what can they achieve? while they've given president micron a very difficult time, he hardly creeps up night. that's not to be scoffed. but, but let me make that point. the crucial point, i think because many commentators say how long hang on, what's a big di she pushed up the age of retirement from 60 to 64. well, that's not such a radical change. well, maybe it doesn't sound very radical until you come across

a startling statistic. demographics the district. did you know that a poor french worker made french work leaves on average 10 years? fewer than average salary receiver in leaving embarrass in one of they fancy out on the small of the beautiful capital of france . 10 years difference. so essentially, when you are pushing up the pension age limit from 60 to 64, for a very large proportion of poor workers, that means that they want to receive attention for measure very much of their post work life. you see, these are still the measures which are essentially kind of class war against the poor. the come as a very long list. i remember when i was negotiating with the international monetary fund with your central bank with the pin union and they were imposing,

i started the measures upon my people here in greece. that list begun with some signature policy like pension reform. they call it. and then once they managed to push through that, then a whole list of other, again in inverted commas, reforms follows. so you have to understand that what the majority of the french mumbling recognize, realize, is that it is the thin edge of the wedge. if you, if they love this, see me only nor cues increase in the age limit, go through, then a whole host of other policies are going to be implemented that will continue to redistribute income from those who are struggling to those who are very affluent. i want to close on a broader point you made in one of your recent talks. you said that paradoxically, capital is doing so well that it is killing off capitalism. and that this is due

to a new form of capital. that is triumphing and undermining capitalism. can you explain what you mean by that? well, thank you for this because my new book is coming out in september in london. it's called tech. fidel isn't what has happened in the last 1620 years is a new form of cumbersome, has emerged within the internet within the cloud. that's why i call it cloud capital. if you look at the amazon algorithm, the algorithm behind facebook, the algorithm raisins that are running e commerce, they are doing 2 things at once. they are replacing markets because the moment you move to you visit amazon dot com, you've exit at the capital market and you have moved into around that belongs entirely to an algorithm that belongs to one basis. one person misses me suggest basis. now that this kind of capital, but it is more than just a machine, it is

a replacement of the market. it is kind of produced means of modifying our behavior because it tells us what we want to hear. sometimes what we don't want to hear, and we're convinced by that, i don't know about you, but amazon gives me very good advice and usually follow it. because whenever i follow that, i ended up buying something that wasn't bad. you know, a book that i wanted to read or netflix gives you a suggestion, but in the end you like. so you have a behavior modification machine, which is also a replacement for the market, which is also a kind of capital that for the 1st time in capital history, you and i are replenishing, reproducing for no pay every time you post every view and amazon every time you upload a video on tick tock, you, i think, to the capital base of a conglomerate without being a worker. but remember, capitalism has to be. phyllis,

capitalism has to be. this one is markets and the others profit not rent profiting as the benet or profit. both is pillows. i've been demolished, as i said, amazon dot com is not a market. it's a market replacement. in a market, you have consumers, you know, you and i can walk around wherever you might be in london. atkins. and we can go to market, we can look around, we see the same things if you and i, and that amazon dot com and play and put in the search engine the same keywords, you will get different things for me. the algorithm is going to divert to that the completely different suppliers that the algorithm determines. and the algorithm gets a cup of 3075 percent from them. so basis is not making a profit. he's making a rent, which is equivalent to what a few the lord used to make under feudalism. so the market has been replaced by an algorithmic variant of the land, which is owned by a few bill king goal jeff bases. this is just an example of court,

and profit has been replaced by an ent, that's no carpet, not capitalist anymore. so this is a nightmare for any liberal, for anyone who used to celebrate capitalism as a place that generates competition, of ideas of products and of methods of production. and israel packets. thank you so much for joining us in the front. it's pleasant always. well, thank you. all right, everyone, that is our show upfront. we'll be back excuse ah,

a april annette, which is era, photo kia and syria al jazeera reports on how earthquakes, survivors are hoping. during the holy month of ramadan, 11 east meets the young russian men refusing to fight hooton's war in ukraine as they seek safety in past extent 25 years since the good friday agreement and the decades of violence. we report on how bricks is forging newly added in ours. in the lead up to date, al jazeera explores the environmental significance of action and inaction, paraguay holds general elections with corruption and organized crime. high on the agenda can the ruling colorado party hold on to power. april on al jazeera, on county, the coast is roches shift towards china. as you, on a serious trip to the us, dollar b cried infect to receive b. i. m. s 1st lane granted to a country at war, plus,

sher lanka has secure the bailout combination of trade its way back to economic growth. to the cost on al jazeera, talk to al jazeera, we are who is really fighting this russia? is it wagner, or is it the russian or military? we listen, we started talking to me on my own, so that this via yours who does it usually take them back. we meet with global news makers and talk about the stories that matters on al jazeera, revealing eco friendly solutions to come back threats to our planet on al jazeera. ah, i'm new belkin, london, the top stories on out to 0 for me.