Jean Shaoul considers the new report by the parliamentary ombudsman, Ann Abraham, into the failed insurance and pension society, Equitable Life. The report states that more than a million policyholders left with lower-than-expected retirement income were the victims of “a decade of regulatory failure” by government departments and regulatory authorities.

As reverberations from the stricken mortgage market reach the real economy, Robin Blackburn reveals the origins of the crunch in the shadowy realms of financialization. Precedents from the bubbles and crash of the 1920s, warnings from pioneers and venture capitalists, and proposals for how to turn the crisis to socially redistributive effect.