For readers of Brett Christophers, Yanis Varoufakis and Grace Blakeley, Pettifor unpacks the hidden world of shadow banking and show how global markets really work.
Wall Street controls the price of anything. Larger than the national economies, and almost invisible, it nevertheless determines the international costs of everyday things - from the cost of oil to household goods and most importantly of all, credit. Unless we understand how the money system works we will never be able to face the challenges of the climate crisis.
We can not hope to face climate catastrophe until we have taken control of the financial system. It is the pursuit of profit, wherever in the world it can be leveraged, that makes it impossible for national governments to impose restrictions on carbon. Pettifor charts the vast networks that ensnare us, and shows that prices are more than supply and demand. She shows us that the rise in the price of oil in 2022 had little to do with Russia. And why the global price of copper is determined by an exchange in Chicago. Understanding these networks matter, and turning them towards the common good, if we have any hope for the future.
'Pettifor was always the ideal author of a book that shatters the fantasy of apolitical money and the toxic myth that monetary policy must remain a democracy-free zone.' Yanis Varoufakis
'In language we can all understand, Ann Pettifor explains the issues and the debates around money, shadow banking, QE and ‘helicopter money.’ A must-read.' Caroline Lucas
By:
Ann Pettifor
Imprint: Bloomsbury
Country of Publication: United Kingdom
Dimensions:
Height: 234mm,
Width: 153mm,
Spine: 18mm
Weight: 325g
ISBN: 9781804297223
ISBN 10: 1804297224
Pages: 240
Publication Date: 28 April 2026
Audience:
General/trade
,
ELT Advanced
Replaced By: 9781804297230
Format: Hardback
Publisher's Status: Forthcoming
1.Introduction 2.Chapter One The origin of today's 'revolutionary situation' 3.Chapter Two The Global Casino, Money and Power 4.Chapter Three The Global Casino, Your Pension and Your Home 5.Chapter Four The Global Casino and Your Daily Bread 6.Chapter Five The Global Casino: Playing Poker with the Energy System 7.Chapter Six The Global Casino and Housing 8.Chapter Seven The Global Casino and Climate 9.Chapter Eight The Global Casino needs System Change
Ann Pettifor is a political economist with a focus on finance and sovereign debt. She is director of Prime: Policy Research in Macroeconomics, an Honorary Research Fellow at City University, a fellow of the New Economics Foundation, and has an honorary doctorate from Newcastle University. She is known for her leadership of a campaign that resulted in massive debt cancellation for more than 30 countries – Jubilee 2000. She has served on the board of the UN Development Report and in 2015 was invited onto the economic advisory board by the British Labour Party leader, Jeremy Corbyn. She is the author of ‘The Real World Economic Outlook’, and 'The Coming First World Debt Crisis', and co-authored The Green New Deal and The Economic Consequences of Mr. Osborne.
Reviews for The Global Casino: How Wall Street Gambles with People and the Planet
A searing indictment of a global financial system built for extraction and domination. Pettifor masterfully exposes the ways in which global finance embeds inequality, generates crisis, and encloses the future - and charts a path towards a just, sustainable, and democratic global financial system -- Grace Blakeley, author of <i>Vulture Capitalism</i>
