On 15 September, it will be exactly one year since US banking giant Lehman Brothers went bust, sending stock markets into a downward spiral worldwide, by far the worst collapse on record.

This came after months in which, one after the other, all the major banks had admitted to huge losses in credit speculation. Only this time, Lehman Brothers' bankruptcy was (and remains so far) the largest in history. What was described, up to that point, as a mere "credit crunch", turned into an economic crisis comparable to the 1930s.

After that came one of the most wide-ranging attacks on jobs and wages ever staged by the bosses in this country, while the profiteers who had caused this crisis were put on life support at the expense of taxpayers.

Upturn in... profiteering

One year on, politicians and commentators are busy trying to talk the crisis out of existence. Darling is stubbornly denying the obvious by predicting that the recession will be over by the end of this year. While the G20 meeting of the richest countries, in Pittsburgh, is supposed to discuss a common "exit strategy" out of the crisis.

That there is an upturn is unquestionable. But it is only an upturn in profiteering. If share prices are anything to go by, their almost continuous rise over the past months is certainly an indicator of this.

And there is a cynical twist to this "upturn" on the stock market. Because much of it was actually funded by the government itself, with the almost £150bn of newly-printed money, which the Bank of England handed over to big companies as part of its "quantitative easing" programme.

This programme spectacularly failed to increase bank lending to the economy or to make the banks less predatory towards embattled households - although this was its official purpose. But, by reviving financial markets, it allowed the largest companies to borrow on an unprecedented scale on these same markets.

Did these companies use this fresh cash to maintain employment and production? No, on the contrary, business investment fell even more, to the lowest level since the early 1980s. And despite their improved financial situation, bosses carried on using the recession as a pretext to cut everything they could - workers' jobs, wages, conditions and pension provisions.

Today, commentators are pointing to a so-called "revival" of big business profits and even dividends. But this has nothing to do with any recovery. It is all paid for by the working class, at a price which is becoming increasingly intolerable.

The bosses must pay for their crisis

If profiteering is on the rise again for the wealthy, for the working class the economy is still going down the drain. In fact, many economic experts acknowledge the fact that their predicted recovery of capitalist profits will go together with a protracted slump in employment!

Likewise for the "exit strategy" to be discussed at the G20 summit. One aspect of this "strategy" may be about phasing out the government lifelines thrown at the banking system without causing further havoc. But the other aspect which, in some respects, is much more urgent, concerns the need for all countries to reduce their ballooning public deficits in order to avoid monetary instability.

And it is not hard to figure out what they mean by reducing public deficits. A blueprint of this was provided by the Department of Health, which asked US management consultancy McKinsey (hardly an obvious choice for medical advice!) to write a report on the best way to cut costs in the NHS. The report's findings include a proposal to cut 10% of all NHS staff - or 137,000 jobs! Never mind the resulting inevitable increase in both joblessness and ill health in the working class!

But this is the name of the "exit strategy" game for the capitalist class and all its politicians - whether Labour or Tory. This "strategy" is really about getting the working class majority of the population to foot the bill for the profiteers' financial bailout, after having already paid the cost of the crisis with its jobs and wages.

Under cover of their fake "recovery", the capitalists and their politicians can be expected, therefore, to continue their offensive against the working population and jobless. And more than ever, this calls for the working class to use its own weapons - those of the class struggle - and its collective strength in order to stop the bosses in their tracks and to ensure that they pay for their own crisis.