This 2009 has arrived as the year of all dangers. The storm is quite strong, we are running out of fuel and the ship is sailing adrift. Shall the vessel sink? When?

It is very hard to predict the rhythm of the present crisis, especially because there are no previous references in the history of capitalism. The cyclical crisis has joined such of a system based in growth, a system that can no longer be sustained. The plural character of the crisis (economical, energetic, environmental, ideological…) and the interrelations among its diverse elements produce an erratic and unpredictable behaviour. However, the ensemble of indicators are pointing out that the global recession developed during 2008 is becoming a global depression for this 2009. This new stage is characterized by deep falls in productions and the increase of unemployment y central countries and the majority of peripherals. The millions rained over the markets in rich countries have not succeeded in stopping the downfall.

In the United States, the GDP (English for PIB) dropped 3.8% on the 4th trimester of 2008, the industrial production an 11%, the use (consume) of imperishable goods and exports a 22%. In the Spanish state, the GDP on the same trimester dropped 1%, industrial production a 9.5%, construction a 16%, and the cars sales a 30%.

Since the beginning of 2009, available information shows that the tendency is to get worse. In the whole world, the increase of unemployment has accelerated during the last trimester of 2008. Just in 3 months, one million workers in the United States lost their jobs. In the Spanish state unemployment reached 15.5% in February 2009 and it is already officially expected that it will reach 18% by the end of 2009. The European Commission has gone further, and foresees a rate of 21.4% by 2010.

The only increase seen is in the personal savings, of those who can, in prevention that the situation becomes worse, and this makes grow the recessive vicious circle of consumption, production and investment. A fast impoverishment of most part of the population, together with the loss of illusory wealth in virtual money and real losses of jobs, salaries and homes.

Scandalous false solutions
Since the financial collapse by mid September 2008, governments in all p arts of the world have tried to smooth the crash by means of millionaire aid first for the banks, then for key industries such as automobile, and in minor extent for consumers. It is scandalous that the ones responsible for the crisis received help while millions of people lost their jobs or were impound by their debts.

However, not even with this they hold control of the wheel. These funds injections are increasing dangerously the public debt without reaching the quested goal. This happens because behind the cash crisis goes the public over indebtment and above all, the private debt that has placed numerous enterprises and a huge amount of consumers in an indebted situation and an increasing insolvency.

Family debt in the Spanish state has increased from 47% of the GDP to 135% in 10 years. Concerning the indebtment of the credits released to particulars and enterprises by banks, savings banks and credit cooperatives, it has raised from 0.848% in December 2007 up to 3.286% by the end of 2008. In the case of financial credit enterprises, the amount has raised up to 6.09%.

Over indebtment cannot be settled by means of injecting new borrowed money in the market, because these interventions only provide transitory breaks, delaying the collapse without avoiding it. On the other hand, through the public anti-crisis aids debts change from private to public hands at the expense of risking the solvency of the state itself. By the end of 2008, Spanish state’s deficit reached 3.4% and it is expected to raise up to 5.8% by the end of 2009 while the European Union has taken disciplinary measures so it does not exceed 3%.

The increase in inequalities as an added factor
In the euro zone, working people’s income passed from 70% in 1992 to 62% in 2005, in relation to the European total. In the Spanish state, the descent was even larger, from 72% to 61%. These are official figures, to which it must be added all incomes of every millionaire who do not declare to the tax office.

Apart from the over indebtment, the reduction of purchasing power of the popular class is the main responsible for the fall in the demand. Rich ones were making more and more money and since they could not spend it, they saved and invested in financial and real estate speculation, thus increasing the prices on housing and causing indebtment itself. Now, the banking, real estate and construction complex has 1.6 millions houses, only in the Spanish state, when the demand is for 220.000 and the value of these actives keeps reducing on and on at the same time that indebtment increases.

What is also very important to understand is that insolvency and over indebtment are not only consequences of the financial abuse over enterprises and people, but are the result of a prolonged productive stagnation. The main cause of this growth crisis of the productive economy is the increment in prices and the shortage in raw material and natural resources, which capitalism has been plundering, and in many cases, squandering, even more during the last decades.

The crisis is systemic and does not have a solution within the actual pattern
Paradoxally, what the presidents and heads of states all over have not achieved with nice words and promises, the crisis has achieved in a few months. The burning of fossil fuel has been reduced and this is benefit against climatic change. However, if the economy recuperates, it can cause the planet to collapse, because it is impossible to grow without end in a planet with finite resources. Now, at the start of the XXI century, we have reached the limit of some of these resources. When the financial cash gets to be enough again as to reactivate the economy, what will lack is liquid to nourish it. The zenith of petroleum is here. Black gold already gave us its first warning, and other fossil fuels, minerals for industry, fertilizers for agriculture, arable land, and a long etcetera of limited resources, will go through problems if capitalistic economy gets over.

It is the system as a whole what has gone into crisis. The pillars of capitalism, its growing patterns, its production systems, and its consuming habits, are all drifting away. A globalized system, from which no country can escape, because it is articulated by commercial, productive and financial standards.

If the accelerated economic downfall tendency cannot be stopped, as many factors point out, on this 2009 we shall get into a great depression with more repercussions than that of the 30’s, since most of the resources of the earth have been plundered.

We must leave the ship before it sinks!
With this crisis, it also arrives the moment to propose ourselves a change in the model for our personal and collective spheres. If we delay facing the situation, or apply make-up corrections, and not confront thoroughly, the fall shall be harder and non-appealable. It is necessary that we question, from top to bottom, the economic model, capitalistic and developing.

We have to question so many automobiles moving around, this civilization, this industry and its chains producing cars in excess, the innumerable mountains of useless objects. They have no future. The job in the big factory is not a value at all. It is necessary that we question the vicious circle of encouraging consume in order to increase production in order to maintain the “living standards”. If we assure our basic needs, our living standard will correspond to what we are. It will correspond to how we feel, and to how we relate with others, and not to the material possessions.