The situation has gone from bad to worse for the world’s financial markets. After three bank collapses in the US and one in Switzerland, the markets are looking for the next weak link.

The takeover of Credit Suisse (CS) by UBS exposes the massive instability of the global financial market. It is an expression of the rottenness of the world capitalist system. As always, while the bankers gamble away, the working class has to pay.

This morning, banking shares fell rapidly – not only in the US and not just regional banks, but all over the world – in the aftermath of the collapse of US regional banks, SVB Financial and Signature over the weekend. What caused their collapse and are there wider implications?

As the crisis of British capitalism deepens, drama at the top is playing out alongside a rising strike wave from below. North and south of the border, the political establishment is being shaken to its core. Revolutionary explosions impend.

A new report from Oxfam titled ‘Survival of the Richest’, exposes what may be the biggest increase in global poverty and inequality since the Second World War. Such is the extent of the yawning chasm between rich and poor, that Oxfam’s CEO warned in his speech introducing the report that “the entire capitalist system is under threat”.

Healthcare systems across the world are facing a deep crisis in the face of austerity, rising healthcare needs and mass staff shortages. This is translating into a massive spike in excess deaths. People are perishing pointlessly under this rotten system. Only a revolutionary overthrow of capitalism can liberate public health from the yoke of capitalism.

The global elites gathered in Davos last week, to discuss the fate and future of capitalism. With the world economy wracked by inflation and instability, a mood of pessimism prevailed. We need a revolution to put them out of their misery.

In May 2022, the CEO of BlackRock declared that “the Russian invasion of Ukraine has put an end to the globalisation we have experienced over the last three decades”. He undoubtedly has a point. The war in Ukraine has brought to a head the conflicts that have been brewing between the major powers for some time.

“This was the year liberal democracy fought back,” declared Janan Ganesh, a particularly dull-witted columnist for the Financial Times on 15 November. The argument put forward by the FT’s international politics correspondent is that, following a period of chaos in which the ‘sensible political establishment’ was heavily discredited, 2022 has been

Investors are calling time on cryptocurrencies, following the downfall of the FTX exchange and its founder, Sam Bankman-Fried. But this episode is only the latest in a long line of speculative bubbles – a symptom of the insanity of capitalism.

Nouriel Roubini is an interesting and unorthodox bourgeois economist. His main claim to fame is that he correctly predicted the 2008 financial crisis, a feat that did not endear him to most other economists, who predicted absolutely nothing.

The past few months have seen central banks scrambling to raise interest rates to control inflation. Yesterday, the Federal Reserve introduced another 0.75 percentage point hike, and the Bank of England will follow suit today. This spate of rate hikes caused mortgage rates to multiply, government borrowing rates to spiral, and now a recession looms. This will be painful for ordinary people, but will the ruling class achieve its aims?

Capitalism is incapable of offering a decent and dignified existence to workers and the poor, yet provides unimaginable luxury for the elite. While billions struggle to find enough to eat, the billionaires dine like royalty. The necessities of life are increasingly unattainable, yet capitalist governments plough billions into instruments of death. To quote Marx, these are the economics of the madhouse.

Brenda West, a 69-year-old retired widow, lost her home in Myakka City, Florida, to Hurricane Ian. She cares full time for her daughter, who has multiple sclerosis. Now, if she wants somewhere to live long term, she will have to contend with soaring rents and unattainable mortgages: symptoms of the global cost-of-living crisis. After a short stay in a run-down Bradenton motel, Brenda says: “I don't know where I'm going. My resources [are] about to run out.”

A cold winter is coming. The cost of NATO’s inter-imperialist conflict with Russia is falling squarely on workers and the poor in the form of skyrocketing bills and frigid homes, while a handful of gas and oil barons are reaping handsome rewards.