blutto said:
Not at all. You guys think govt is the answer. Corruption never happens in a vacuum.
The question stands. Please answer...
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Not at all. You guys think govt is the answer. Corruption never happens in a vacuum.
The question stands. Please answer...
- Apr 20, 2009
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Scott SoCal said:
an interesting question.
in my opinion, definitely the politician is worse. however, i think this may be a cultural bias. in my experience, i have seen countries whose laws treat them equally and there are some countries, like japan, where the person offering the bribe is more severely punished.
- Jul 4, 2009
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...ok, this is a bit weird but stay with me on this one ...
...first I read this....
WASHINGTON — An estimated 650,000 consumers have closed their bank accounts and opted for credit union membership over the past four weeks, according to CUNA, bringing the approach to Saturday’s Bank Transfer Day to a crescendo.
...from...http://www.americanbanker.com/issue...credit-unions-1043783-1.html?zkPrintable=true
...so I think, gosh how are the banks going to respond to this...and then I run into this....
Banks have so much cash on hand and interest rates on deposits are so low that in some cases, you'd be ahead of the game if you stored your money in a mattress.
According to Bankrate.com, the national average on 1-year CDs is 0.36 percent. That's right, about one-third of a percent annually, or just $4 in interest on a $1,000 deposit at the end of a year. Money market checking accounts? Forget it, at the 0.10 percent typically paid, you'll have a buck to show for your $1,000 deposit.
The fact is, many banks really don't want your money. Consumers and businesses have moved money out of the falling stock and bond markets and parked it in bank accounts. In response, some banks are even passing along the cost of federal deposit insurance and imposing fees on accounts where piles of cash are moving in and out too much. The result is that you might pay the bank for the privilege of keeping your cash there.
==========
"We just don't need it anymore," said Don Sturm, the owner of American National Bank and Premier Bank, told the New York Times. "If you had more money than you knew what to do with, would you want more?"
Read more: http://abcnews.go.com/Business/banks-pay-interest-cds-i...
...cool eh...like banks have become what exactly?...institutions that don't need clients per se because they have so much bailout money that relatively speaking dealing with the great unwashed is not worth their time????...
...yeah just gotta love the magic of the market place....
Cheers
blutto
...first I read this....
WASHINGTON — An estimated 650,000 consumers have closed their bank accounts and opted for credit union membership over the past four weeks, according to CUNA, bringing the approach to Saturday’s Bank Transfer Day to a crescendo.
...from...http://www.americanbanker.com/issue...credit-unions-1043783-1.html?zkPrintable=true
...so I think, gosh how are the banks going to respond to this...and then I run into this....
Banks have so much cash on hand and interest rates on deposits are so low that in some cases, you'd be ahead of the game if you stored your money in a mattress.
According to Bankrate.com, the national average on 1-year CDs is 0.36 percent. That's right, about one-third of a percent annually, or just $4 in interest on a $1,000 deposit at the end of a year. Money market checking accounts? Forget it, at the 0.10 percent typically paid, you'll have a buck to show for your $1,000 deposit.
The fact is, many banks really don't want your money. Consumers and businesses have moved money out of the falling stock and bond markets and parked it in bank accounts. In response, some banks are even passing along the cost of federal deposit insurance and imposing fees on accounts where piles of cash are moving in and out too much. The result is that you might pay the bank for the privilege of keeping your cash there.
==========
"We just don't need it anymore," said Don Sturm, the owner of American National Bank and Premier Bank, told the New York Times. "If you had more money than you knew what to do with, would you want more?"
Read more: http://abcnews.go.com/Business/banks-pay-interest-cds-i...
...cool eh...like banks have become what exactly?...institutions that don't need clients per se because they have so much bailout money that relatively speaking dealing with the great unwashed is not worth their time????...
...yeah just gotta love the magic of the market place....
Cheers
blutto
patricknd said:Wtf red, quoting goldwater? Are you okay?
Barry Goldwater wouldn't be allowed in today's Republican party. The democrats might not even have him either..
- Apr 20, 2009
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blutto said:
No they don't. why should they? They can get all they want from the fed almost interest free thanks to Gramm Leach Bliley..They don't even have to do that awful bank to bank thingy..They just move it over to their investment division and buy debt instruments on cancer patients with it. Why bother with customers? They might get the floor dirty.
In God we Trust..
Jon Stewart
http://www.mediaite.com/tv/jon-stewart-blasts-congress-for-its-in-god-we-trust-vote/
Jon Stewart
http://www.mediaite.com/tv/jon-stewart-blasts-congress-for-its-in-god-we-trust-vote/
“Despite wide acceptance of the claims made by cra’s advocates, those claims are conceptually and observationally unfounded. Economic theory and empirical evidence indicate that the reason for recent growth in lending to low-income neighborhoods is not cra, but the effectiveness of market forces in breaking down the types of financial barriers that were prevalent when cra was enacted”
wonder who said this
wonder who said this
- Sep 25, 2009
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what do people think about the leaders of our ‘free and democratic' europe scared to death of one of the classic cornerstones of a true democracy - a referendum in a member state !
i sure understand the bigger picture, but i feel very sad for the criminal eurohypocrites who, whilst pounding own democratic chests and in the name of freedom, don’t shy away from violence in teaching other nations our version of ’freedom and democracy’.
i sure understand the bigger picture, but i feel very sad for the criminal eurohypocrites who, whilst pounding own democratic chests and in the name of freedom, don’t shy away from violence in teaching other nations our version of ’freedom and democracy’.
python said:
I think that the referendum being called off was simply to avoid a confidence motion against the govt. If the people had voted against it, as I expect they would have then the opposition and even some dissenting party members may have called for a confidence motion, which could have led to the govt falling a year or so ahead of its term (General elections are due in 2013).
Second part- remember David Cameron. He said twitter and facebook are vital tools for democracy during the Arab spring and Iran protests but when it came to Brit riots, he completely changed his stance.
- Sep 25, 2009
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yours is certainly a correct analysis .. but my emphasis was on the principal fact of the hypocritical leaders of the largest states in the eurozone putting unbearable pressure on a small state whilst not single main stream media in europe even peeped about the essential anti-democratic nature of such pressure...same with almost any other small state that dares to speak with own voice - examples abound -....ramjambunath said:
financially responsible slovakia being browbeaten until it joined in with the bailout package...serbia's arm-twisting...
brits hypocritical ?
python said:
It's hardly surprising though that the media put their interests ahead of the 'values' that they have supposedly stood for in other parts of the world. Maybe the short term ramifications of a country's economy failing are too hard for corporations (who hold most of the debts) to bear for them. As far as I've seen, I don't think the Germans want the bailout (Bavarianrider is one of those) and neither do Greeks. So who does?
Iceland's move to allow the failing of the banks and the system has certainly worked better for them now.
- Apr 2, 2009
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python said:
Good question.
Until which point are the in vigor world economic rules still compatible with democracy? The question is more than legitimate, given the reaction of panic with wich the financial markets and, together with many politicians and, at the same time, principal monetary institutions, have condemned the decision by the Greek government to convoke a referendum on the bitter prescription of the European Union.
World Bank president, Robert Zoellick, spoke of it as a "casting of the die." The German government has qualified it as an unacceptable "waste of time." As far as the Italian establishment is concerned, it's enough to read the adjective with which Corriere della Serra jounalist, Ferruccio de Bortoli, has liquidated Papandreou's move: "villianous."
But is it really villianous to take recourse to an instrument of direct democracy? And what ever for would such a recourse be taken? The implicit response can only be one, given that unfortunately there still doesn't exist a supranational European Confederation to dictate the rules consisting of a shared democatic sovereignty: namely, because a State, such as Greece, which has accumulated an unsustainable debt, and for which itself would be condemned as a result to a loss of its own national sonvereignty; its citizenry, consequently, would see confiscated the right to make decisions regarding its own future.
To justify, however, the exceptional state of affairs regarding Greece today, which would result in a democatic people having their sovereignty suspended, some have made a historical comparison: when ever would a polticial leader such as Winston Churchill have placed his decision to resist the Nazis through every means possible under the scrutiny of the then scared British public's opinion? The metaphor has validity only in so far as, and so long as it is recognized, that the historical pogress today means that dominion is no longer founded upon the armies, but on debt. Thus it must be understood that we are facing a new form of colonialism: that of the banks.
Well then, the Greek government suffers from a deficit of force and authority, it's true. However, it didn't refrain from its responsibility to renegotiate with the EU and the IMF the conditions of its debt repayment. What resulted was a payback plan that's terribly onerous. The Greek citizens aren't being called to make a verdict on a single provision, which is the prerogative of the present govenment, but on a decision that's vital to them: namely, whether to accept the necessary sacrifices to stay in the EU, or to embark upon the unknown voyage of default? Already in little Iceland, with two different referendums, the voters refused to honor the IMF stipulated repayment plan (wouldn't that be great for student loans!), choosing instead to penalize the British and Dutch credit banks. It's true that if an analogous decision were made by the Greeks, the repercusions for the entire eurozone would be much more grave. Yet the question still remains: whose right is it to decide? Is there prehaps someone who can substitute the Greek people in such a predicament?
In their recent book - a dialogue - Ezio Mauro (journalist) and Gustavo Zagrebelsky (prof. of law) recall that for a couple of thousand years democracy was considered a terrible form of government, because only an educated elite would be capable of making the best decisions, not the ignorant masses. But are the masses today, with general schooling and, now, internet, so ignorant about what has been going on with the economy? In any case if we maintain the conviction that "the people can be mistaken, however, they remain the best interpreter if their own interests" and, therefore, "every other interpretation is worse (or at the very least, undemocratic)," well then we have to be on gaurd against the undemocatic vices that have distinguished the actual management of the current crisis of fincancial capitalism. Can we delegate to monetary institutions that have revealed themselves for decades to be insensitive to unemployment through lack of job security (which they hypocitically call "labor market flexibility"), the developing acuteness of social inequality, if not even fanatical participants in the predomination of speculative finance? Doesn't it seem downright absurd that the self-nominated Germen-French directors are today made up of right-wing politicians who in previous years had boycotted a real supranational political union? To say nothing of the Italian governors under Berlusconi who, up until just yesterday, were balthering about the people against the "eurobureaucrats," though today acritically submit themselves to the dictates of Frankfurt and Brussels.
Politics that are incapable of placing under discussion (for all the reasons we know) the dogmas of an economy founded upon the luxurious perpetuation of debt and the ideology of an exasperated competition, is thus condemned to passively bear the antagonism between finance and democracy. Hence, in all effects, goes into wedlock with finance at the expense of democracy. So were does the "villainy" reside? In the referendum? Or in the marriage between politics and financial capitalism?
- Sep 25, 2009
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there is one word that every euroleader knows but afraid to say in public - 'italy'.ramjambunath said:
if greece is let go, then italy is unquestionably next. but unlike greece's economy, italy's is simply too large to let fail. hence the animalistic fear of 'democracy' by the very 'democtats'.
the bail out package for italy is totally impractical as it would impoverish germany for decades to come or it would fragment germany into autonomous incoherent pieces the way it was in the days of napoleon ...
sure bavarianrider would love to be the subject of the bavarian king rather than being under the mental midget from portugal
even i would prefer barbarossa to barosso
- Apr 2, 2009
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PS: I obviously hadn't been informed since yesterday that the referendum was cancelled. Haven't been out this morning, nor had a looked at the previous posts on this matter. However, the general views I expressed remain unchanged despite the cancellation.
python said:
Rhubroma's the man to have a conversation with about Italy, but it's clear that a bailout along the lines of the Greek one would definitely not be viable for Italy.
sure bavarianrider would love to be the subject of the bavarian king rather than being under the mental midget from portugal
Seems true for most around the world at the moment.
- Apr 2, 2009
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Cobblestones said:
And this raises point about a couple of things of which I had mentioned before: namely, a country with an average pro capita wage earnigs of $4,000 and an economic growth of 8.6% for this year, is being asked to help bail out a eurozone, through bond purchasing, with a median pro capita wage of $38,000 and a marginal economic growth of around 2%. So how has capitalism spread wealth, equality and democracy to the Giant Panda?
Then, quoting the Polish sociologist Zygmunt Bauman, nowhere during the Enlightenment Age of Descartes through Kant, was there a mean difference in wealth versus poverty around the globe that saw the wealthiest country being four times richer than the poorest. By contrast today, under the predominion of financial capitalism and the so called free market economy, which historically has seen democratic America as its most potent driving force and ardent paladin; the difference between the world's richest country based on pro capita earnings, Qatar, and that of the poorest, Zimbabwe, is something like 483 to 1. Then when one consides that 20% of global society controls 80% of the world's wealth and resouces, 80% only 20% of these things, well then....
These statistics alone demonstrate that the notion that capitalism and globalization under the free market were supposed to promote the spread of wealth and defeat poverty, seems, at the very least, to be ingenuous wishful thinking, if not the outright hypocrisy of ideologues and the greedy, who have vested interests in perpetuating the system; which, under an unjust regime, has been in fact a calamity for much of the global populations. Populations who represent the weak, the exploited and the unheard voices in the majority around the globe.
Whereas in regards to capitalism being divorced from democracy, but wed to the governing political class of the democratic states, read my post above about the non-Greek referendum.
- Apr 2, 2009
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Given the fightful prospect of a war with Iran, which Amstehammer so appropriately brought up (and, by the way, there was similar news reported in yesterday's la Repubblica), under the undesclosed and behind the scences plans of Israel, the US and Britian: there was an issue raised in France the other day regarding the satyrical daily Charlie Hebdo's offices being set on fire by some Islamic fundamentalists, because it had (though only in the spirit of satire) portrayed the Prophet in an unflattering light. While Le Monde gave a severe front page editorial about it, at least in Italy it was secondary news.
Yet these are the same Islamic radicals who murdered Theo Van Gogh, who are the same who condemned Salman Rushdie to death, the same who knifed the latter's Italian translator and the same who assassinated his Japanese one.
Now I could have put this in the God and Religion thread, but since it also has to do with a Western crisis of democracy and freedom to express ideas (even controversial ones that might offend part of the community), given that several of the French and Italian newspapers condemned, not the heinous act of religious violence, but the temerity and irresponsibilty of Charlie Hebdo to have joked with religion, I place it here in the political thread.
While others in Europe's press have defined as absurd the Tunisian decision to not air that masterpiece of secular tollerance realized in the annimated film based on Marjane Satrapi's brilliant Persepolis. There seems, therefore, to be a problem of certainty here.
If we are that uncertain and so unprepared when we are dealing with defending the right to freedom of speach and expression and in promoting tollerance, we shouldn't be surprised, then, if the intolerent and the zealous have free reign to commit their atrocious acts of barbary against our democracy. Its always the "vileness" of the pacificists, though, who give (unmeritted) space to the fanatics.
Yet these are the same Islamic radicals who murdered Theo Van Gogh, who are the same who condemned Salman Rushdie to death, the same who knifed the latter's Italian translator and the same who assassinated his Japanese one.
Now I could have put this in the God and Religion thread, but since it also has to do with a Western crisis of democracy and freedom to express ideas (even controversial ones that might offend part of the community), given that several of the French and Italian newspapers condemned, not the heinous act of religious violence, but the temerity and irresponsibilty of Charlie Hebdo to have joked with religion, I place it here in the political thread.
While others in Europe's press have defined as absurd the Tunisian decision to not air that masterpiece of secular tollerance realized in the annimated film based on Marjane Satrapi's brilliant Persepolis. There seems, therefore, to be a problem of certainty here.
If we are that uncertain and so unprepared when we are dealing with defending the right to freedom of speach and expression and in promoting tollerance, we shouldn't be surprised, then, if the intolerent and the zealous have free reign to commit their atrocious acts of barbary against our democracy. Its always the "vileness" of the pacificists, though, who give (unmeritted) space to the fanatics.
blutto said:
Nevermind the Fed making available as much money as banks can stuff in their vault at 0.0025. (0.25%).
Why would a bank pay you more for your deposit than what they can secure via the fed?
There's not much 'marketplace' going on... certainly not with rates paid on deposits. Combine that with banks reluctance to lend (at least in part due to regulatory pressures) and there you have it.
- Mar 10, 2009
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Scott SoCal said:
You just explained rent-seeking behavior, using different words.
The result is, a sub-optimal allocation of resources. The market myth always purports to produce an optimal allocation of resources. I understand why companies are doing it, to get that competitive advantage, but they are doing that to avoid the harsh brutal reality of the competitive system, and in doing so they waste valuable resources (hiring lobbyists, as opposed to increasing output).
That is a market failure, and hence, when corporations lobby, and the more they do so, the less they really believe in the free enterprise system that forces them allocate their resources efficiently.
When people say the market is a solution for every public policy problem in the book, because it's 'efficient', and doesn't produce 'waste', we should certainly question that when even these so called 'efficient' companies, don't like the system that forces them to be efficient. That shows a deep lack of trust, by the very entities that are supposed to profit from it. Apparently they cannot profit from it, and therefore seek to rig the game.
Why are individuals asked to embrace a privatized health care system/privatized pensions/retirement accounts/privatized roads/privatized energy when the producers don't like to play by the rules of the same markets they propose.
redtreviso said:
JFK wouldn't be allowed in today's Democratic Party. He'd be a centrist Rebub today.
Strange, eh?
- Jul 4, 2009
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Scott SoCal said:Except the companies quoted in the US are not evading taxes. What they are doing is perfectly legal.
Instead of blaming company exec's why not blame crooked politicians?
Oh yeah, I forgot. Govt is everyone's answer to every problem.
...perfectly legal eh?...
...the jurisprudence of the USSR is littered with decisions that are, as you put it, perfectly legal but also morally repugnant...whatever gets you thru the night...
Cheers
blutto
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