I may be wrong, but I don't know of any time in history when significant numbers of entire nation-states had to be propped up by (more) debt, and promises on future profits, or a more 'unhealthy' capitalism.

The structural crisis of capitalism (apparent since 1968, but building since the recession of 1964 and the fall in the rate of profit), made possible by its transition into decadence, is forcing capital into precarious investment channels (the tremendous growth in the FIRE sector), creating an environment perfect for pump-primed asset bubbles (Savings & Loan, Junk Bonds, dot.com, oil crises, mortgage backed securities-derivatives). It now has to accelerate printing currency and bonds (and swapping them back and forth) to keep the weakest links afloat, or else the whole thing falls apart.

The surface manifestations of 'prosperity' are truly a spectacle- world capital is in a tenuous position, with horrifying potential consequences in every direction.

QE is money injected into the economy by central banks. The ICC have an excellent article on the various bailouts (that goes into detail on the numerous uses of quantative easing since the debt crisis).

https://en.internationalism.org/ir/144/economic-crisis

The Bank of Japan announced this morning another $1.4 trillion in QE to be injected into its economy over the coming period. This is after the vast amounts injected into this economy - to no avail whatsover - over the last 10 or 12 years. The Japanese stock market has soared and the yen has fallen against other currencies - which is one of the intended consequences. This is an expression of the currency wars, ie, the "competitive devaluations" of each for themself, which are breaking out between the major economies. It also demonstrates the hopeless cleft stick that capitalism is engaged in between austerity and "recovery".

I too would like to see a strong effort at deconstructing what debt means in decadent capitalism (particularly with an eye for contemporary circumstances). Though I do think the ICC's analysis through the International Review have been very helpful on that topic.

Edit: Alf provided this link about decadence and debt

https://en.internationalism.org/ir/141/post-war-boom-part-5

That second paragraph suggests the value-form debates. That's a big can of worms.

(Almost) unbelievably the figure confirmed in The Observer today is 1.4 trillion dollars.

Quote:

This paints a very bleak picture for the standard of living of the working class. Its a far cry from the days when an auto worker in Michigan could afford a lake front cottage and a boat on his union salary--but what does it really say about the overall "health" of capital? The bourgeoisie are raking it in, the banks and big corporations continue to make profits. Why does it matter if these profits are made through FIRE rather than producing tangible consumer goods that fulfill "real" needs? What is the economic import of these developments at the level of the system as a whole over and above an attack on the working class's standard of living? What level of analysis do we need to grasp it?

I'm re-reading Camatte's "Capital & Community", which analyzes (with extensive quotes from Marx's Grundrisse and Results of the Immediate Process of Production) some of those questions; the book is cheap and the online version is in many ways better than the printed text due to missed grammar and syntax mistakes.

Quote:

Capital's products must circulate to realize their values. Will the realization be complete?

"The question that interests us here is this: Does not a moment of value determination enter in independently of labor, not arising directly from it, but originating in circulation itself?" - Marx, Grundrisse, p.519

To reply to this question, evidently it is necessary to have recourse to the theory of production prices which shows how there can be a variation in value in the course of the circulation process.

p.74

Quote:

The commodity becomes money, and hence autonomous exchange-value. To explain autonomization, exchange-value must be analyzed in greater detail.

"As previously we took the commodity as our starting point, we now take exchange-value as such- its autonomization is the result of the circulation process we find that:

1) Exchange-value exists doubly, as commodity and as money; the latter appears as its adequate form but in the commodity (as long as it remains a commodity) the money is not lost but exists as its price. The existence of exchange-value is thus doubled once as use-values, then in money. But both forms may be exchanged and, through mere exchange, the value does not diminish.

2) For money to preserve itself as money, it must, just as it appears as a precipitate and result of the circulation process, be able to re-enter it; i.e. not to become, in circulation, mere means of circulation which disappear in commodity form in exchange for mere use-value" (Grundrisse)"

Camatte puts it better than I could (trust me, I deleted what I wrote in this post twice already to get to this point):

"In other words, circulation must in some way contain a productive phase, in the course of which valorization takes place, i.e. the growth of value"

Edit:

Internationalist Perspective have several articles related to the value-form (and associated theories). I think Camatte's point in that last quote is that capitalism is unable to exist by relying on state-capitalism, monetary policies, etc in tandem with an inflated FIRE sector and financialization as a core or growing/very large element of the 'total capital'. This article by IP brings up something related to this- artificial scarcity (expelling proletarians from the value production process at the immediate point of production, a high organic composition of capital, and still have good 'growth' without having to expand value production in the factories and workshops geographically):

Quote:

Whether today’s global overcapacity is seen as cause or effect of the economic crisis, one thing is certain: it isn’t easy to make a profit in a world awash in overproduction. Capitalism is born in conditions of scarcity and is unable to function outside of them. So it seems logical that the crisis creates a tendency to restore these conditions artificially. But how does this affect the chances of the global economy to find a way out of its present predicament?

http://internationalist-perspective.org/IP/ip-archive/ip_54_scarcity.html

Fred wrote:

A friend emailed me:  

Quote:

Have you ever watched that Beacon of Capitalism ... Bloomberg News? They had an economist on yesterday evening predicting that the rising stock markets in sick economies where overall production has not recovered mean that within a year the bubble is gonna burst into a bigger crisis than the one everyone has decided is over. And this time banks and countries will fail because there actually is nothing more than good feelings fueling this bubble. 

The interviewer could not believe this guy could be gloomy about the figures and argued with him a lot. Looks like the worst is yet to come. He made the point that this bubble is inflated with the gases of 'quantitative easing', which is merely a bandaid.

  

perhaps that was david stockman?

Sundown in America

https://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/31/opinion/sunday/sundown-in-america.html?pagewanted=all