Editing Grigory Yavlinsky (section)

== Post-financial crisis (2008–2011) ==
In an interview at [[National Research University – Higher School of Economics|HSE]]'s conference Yavlinsky stated that common disease for all states in the late 20th century – early 21st century was the [[Crony capitalism|merger of the state with business]].<ref>{{Citation |title=WorldEconomyTV. Явлинский: "Обама парализован!" |url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lwZjQtZ2_gY |language=en |access-date=2022-09-22 |archive-date=18 February 2017 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170218133630/https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lwZjQtZ2_gY |url-status=live }}</ref> According to Yavlinsky, this is a key trigger of the economic crisis in the US. A fusion of [[Wall Street]] and the [[White House]] paralyzed all the possibilities of [[Obama Barack|Barack Obama]] other than the injection of fresh money in the old economy. Such an approach has no future owing to the level of [[US government debt|public debt]] and poor quality of the state in decision making, he told.

According to Yavlinsky, the [[2008 financial crisis]] happened owing to the appearance of insurance-backed loans, which led to a dramatic increase in the number and volume of such loans.<ref name=":9">{{Cite web |date=January 2019 |title=Financial crisis: coming round full circle |url=https://www.yavlinsky.ru/global-crisis |access-date=2022-09-22 |website=Official website of Grigory Yavlinsky, politician and economist |archive-date=31 March 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230331124956/https://www.yavlinsky.ru/global-crisis/ |url-status=live }}</ref> If a business goes insolvent, creditors are paid by the insurance. This created the impression that the loans were safe. However, the reliability of borrowers declined. When too many extremely unreliable loans were issued in the United States, at some point a number of borrowers went insolvent at the same time, making it impossible to pay the insurance, Yavlinsky wrote.<ref name=":9" /> As a result, no money was returned to the lenders. As a result, the biggest banks and investment companies went bankrupt. In simple terms, this is a gigantic "financial pyramid" ([[Ponzi scheme]]), he says.<blockquote>Let's assume you borrow from someone, but things don't work out. However, you still need to pay them back and pay the interest. So you borrow from someone else paying them interest. To pay back, you borrow more, and so on and so on until it ends in failure. The enormous scale of the "financial pyramid" became possible because of extremely lax financial regulation of the government.<ref name=":9" /></blockquote>In his opinion, the crisis could have been resolved by bankrupting all the financiers and bankers responsible. However, as there were too many of them, and in many respects the economy was dependent on them, such an approach might engender even greater social problems. In addition, they are so integrated in the US power elites. Therefore, owing to fears of social unrest, the US government saved them by giving them funds financed by the taxpayers, in the end helping the parties that were actually responsible for the crisis. Applying this approach, the officials hoped that the economy would work and would start to grow after receiving a huge infusion. However, economic activity didn't grow despite the US$750 billion injected by the Bush administration and the US$800 billion invested by the Obama administration because of market distrust.<ref>{{Cite web |date=6 October 2008 |title=Падение корпорации 'Америка' |url=https://www.yavlinsky.ru/article/padenie-korporatsii-amerika/ |access-date=2022-09-22 |website=Official website of Grigory Yavlinsky, politician and economist |language=ru |archive-date=22 September 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220922070741/https://www.yavlinsky.ru/article/padenie-korporatsii-amerika/ |url-status=live }}</ref>

In the book Realeconomik: The Hidden Cause of the Great Recession (and How to Avert the Next One), Yavlinsky makes the case that a stable global economy cannot be achieved without a commitment to established social principles in business and politics:<ref name=":10">{{Cite web |date=2012-05-22 |title=The Hidden Cause of the Great Recession: Extract from 'Realeconomik' by Grigory Yavlinsky |url=https://yalebooksblog.co.uk/2012/05/22/the-hidden-cause-of-the-great-recession-extract-from-realeconomik-by-grigory-yavlinsky/ |access-date=2022-09-22 |website=Yale University Press London Blog |language=en-US |archive-date=22 September 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220922070735/https://yalebooksblog.co.uk/2012/05/22/the-hidden-cause-of-the-great-recession-extract-from-realeconomik-by-grigory-yavlinsky/ |url-status=live }}</ref><blockquote>The title and subtitle reflect the central idea of the book: the cause of the crisis is that at the core, modern capitalism is concerned with money and power, not ideals, morals, or principles. The word Realeconomik is used as an analogue to Realpolitik, a pejorative term for politics that masquerades as practicality while in fact comprising the cynicism, coercion, and amorality of Machiavellian principles. An entire generation of Western politicians, businessmen, and economists has come of age without ever thinking seriously about the relationship between morality and economics or ethics and politics. I do not seek to make any moral judgments: I aim instead to be descriptive and analytical. My goal is to indicate those areas that are usually not discussed in public. I feel the urgency to state clearly the things that I believe to be crucial to understanding the events unfolding before our eyes. The nature of the Great Recession is not only economic, or perhaps not even attributable mainly to economic factors. Neither is it the product of mere complacency and negligence of duty on the part of authorities and top-level managers in the private sector, as some experts insist. Rather, the underlying fundamentals and causes go deeper – to such things as general rules of society and the logic to which they are subject, encompassing the issues of individual and social values, moral guidance, and public control, as well as their evolution over the past several decades. These issues are much more serious and have a greater impact on economic performance than is customarily believed.<ref name=":10" /></blockquote>Yavlinsky argues that the world of money should not be viewed as separate from culture and society: he believes that the financial crisis was merely a symptom of a wider moral collapse, and that it is time to examine how we live:<ref name=":11">{{Cite web |date=21 May 2012 |title=Andrew Marr discusses money and morality with philosopher Michael Sandel, and economists Diane Coyle and Grigory Yavlinsky |url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01hw6g1 |access-date=2022-09-22 |publisher=BBC |language=en-GB |archive-date=23 November 2014 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141123165223/http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01hw6g1 |url-status=live }}</ref><blockquote>Even comparatively sophisticated ways of responding to this crisis, as proposed by many, such as writing new, stringent rules, exercising more public control over their enforcement, imposing taxes on some kinds of financial operations, and the like will not resolve fundamental problems, which are not simply economic. Far less will be achieved by simply "pouring money on the crisis," even if it is accompanied by exposing the banking secrets of thousands of officials and businessmen. There are no ready-made solutions to these problems. However, I hope Realeconomik will provide a fresh perspective for anyone concerned about another bursting bubble, persistently high unemployment, the "new normal" (economic stagnation in a low-growth, low-inflation environment), financial volatility, sharply rising poverty rates (even in industrialised nations such as the United States), and social unrest, or the possibility of something more catastrophic. It is difficult to talk about the economy from the perspective of morality, as the very concept of morality seems to be devoid of established content, is subject to broad interpretation, and is often rather elusive. But those difficulties seem insufficient reason to exclude morality from economic analysis and research. It is essential to treat the issue of morality seriously and extensively to provide a meaningful perspective for economic processes and their consequences, especially in the framework of long term analysis.<ref name=":11" /></blockquote>