butchersapron
Bring back hanging
It's the neutral falcon circling above - rationalising the mouse and its demise.
Global financial system implosion begins
- Thread starter Falcon
- Start date
It's the neutral falcon circling above - rationalising the mouse and its demise.
elbows
Well-Known Member
And what sort of people are those who would make good triage decisions?
Time for a Gandhi quote.
I would tread with caution when it comes to sympathising too much with the lofty studies, press releases and pronouncements of the Bank for International Settlements.
While their wordy and highly technical economic studies may appeal to the intellectual vanity of some, and their in-built desire to be smooth-talked into believing there is some all-arching, all-seeing body that is looking out for the collective good of yourself and humanity, your hopes are misplaced if you look to this in the BIS.
It is a private members club looking out for the tribal interests of the scions of the banking fraternity elite, not we hoi polloi.
Unless you are a part of that club, your own interests and that of your family and community are highly unlikely to be catered for by championing the blitzkrieg on the public sector, slash and burn economics of the BIS.
Public sector debt is of course going to increase during a recession, particularly with the bank bail-outs. The idea that vital public services, many of them serving the most vulnerable members of society, should be squeezed till the pips squeak to balance the books (in essence financing the various bank share purchases) is utterly monstrous.
The banks will be sold off again in time, and the various private and institutional investors who purchase shares in them will plug that gap in the government balance sheets. When they return to profit, the Corporation Tax that will be earned again will serve as the cherry on top.
It is a remarkably consistent pattern on Urban that whenever someone says something others disagree with, the others start discussing the person (usually in the 3rd person), not the thing that is said.
I'm really not interested in debating the morality of benefit fraud. If casting my comments as such helps you avoid engaging in a debate about the welfare state's terminal difficulties for a while longer, then so be it.
Of course a legitimate question. It has no answer other than "the one that results in the least unpleasant outcome", which leaves you asking "for whom?".
Does Gandhi help much, really? So he doesn't like rationalism. He doesn't like irrationalism. That doesn't leave much of a framework to guide us.
Rationalism is the foundation of many horrors - the argument that we should refrain from labelling someone who lives on others by stealth a "parasite" is after all rational, from the perspective of the parasite. But the truly spectacular horrors invariably have irrationalism at their root. Gandhi's blind eye to India's various atrocities is hardly a great advert for some middle way.
I guess if I have to choose, I would have to pick rationalism because you can fight bad rationalism with rationalism. You can't fight irrationalism with anything. Rationalism and compassion are not incompatible, and lack of compassion is correlated much more with irrationalism than it is with rationalism.
I can't answer your question. It would require a degree of omnipotence I don't claim to have. A benign dictatorship, with all of the risks and dangers your question anticipates. It would be institutional rather than "a person". It would be transparent. It would be informed. It would be subject to democratic control, but resistant to pork barrel political interference.
It is pretty interesting to watch China, at the moment.
Fedayn
Well-Known Member
The highlighted words make your hidden agenda pretty clear.
I think that is a fair comment. But the whole argument boils down to the simple fact that when the growth rate is less than the interest rate, the debt/GDP ratio increases even if a government manages to match its primary expenditure with revenue. There isn't much to disagree with there. You can only argue whether growth rate can or can't exceed interest rates, recognising that interest rates themselves are at an unsustainably low rate and must rise as debt providers become less and less willing to accept the risk of government default.
Again, you either accept that depletion rates of affordable oil are now such that they won't, or you don't. There is a large and growing amount of evidence that suggests they won't.
Fedayn
Well-Known Member
Are you suggesting that commenting on an issue, and advocating an issue, are indistinguishable?
I understand. In this conversation we are walking on hallowed ground, and confronting many hidden agendas. Selecting language that is accurate, but avoids offending those many agendas would be impossible even in a group that wasn't looking for trouble at every full stop.
ymu
Niall Ferguson's deep-cover sock-puppet
What's this supposed to mean?
benefit fraud: £0.8bn (DWP)
unclaimed benefits: £16bn (CAB)
corporate tax fraud: £25bn (HMRC)
You seem to be saying that benefit fraud is important because neo-liberals spend hundreds of millions demonising benefit fraudsters? If so, it's not only circular it's ridiculously naive.
I'm sorry. I can't think of any clearer way of putting it. The existence, magnitude or importance of benefit fraud under the existing system is irrelevant. The existing system is dead.
Cheap oil, the extraordinary mechanical and chemical leverage that has been attained, and the various economic bubbles it has driven, is undoubtedly coming to an end.
Recent western foreign policy misadventures in Iraq and Afghanistan (intended to forestall it by abating the realities of free market oil economics through exercising a form of monopolistic control over Iraqi oil extraction and Afghan distribution pipelines) has only delayed, not stopped the inevitable. Unless some other seemingly limitless and cheap miracle new energy source is unveiled, or utilised more effectively.
Clearly the neo-feudal economic imperialism that has become accepted doctrine in the west - that we should all be able to live leisurely, often highly credit driven, lazy and obese bourgeois lifestyles, while people in far off lands do all the work growing food or making stuff for us, delivered to us on oil guzzling transportation - inevitably has to stop, or at least evolve. In the west, we desperately and urgently need to get back to a more domestically focussed economy that is internationally outward looking, but based more and more on domestic manufacture and agriculture, not consuming stuff that every other country is producing. You simply end up enriching other countries to the detriment of your own, leading to permanent states of often mass unemployment. There lies the road to national emiseration. It is a 'hell in handcart' scenario.
Ultimately, the highly abstract world of econometrics and high finance can't really disguise or paper over the fundamental, organic, sun based roots of the economy. This is the energy source, that whether it be through agriculture or extraction of ancient stored sunlight energy in the form of crude oil, is the prime driver of people sustainance, community and industrial maintenance and economic sustainability. Indeed of all life. Ecology and economic growth are ultimately two sides of the same coin.
This is why I am a firm believer that we need a renaissance in residential gardening and small-holding.
Whatsmore, when you look at how complex, fragile and vulnerable the highly networked & optimised globalised economy (and thus any domestic economy) has become:
- how a natural disaster like a major earthquake or volcanic eruption;
- or a global financial crisis;
- or a war or fall of government;
- or a cascading series, or converging mixture of all three;
can cause major disruption, such a local agricultural renaissance, could be the cheapest and most effective 'insurance' policy, you can have at an individual, community or national level.
Fedayn
Well-Known Member
Are you seriously arguing China has any kind of democratic control over it's 'leadership'?
Fedayn
Well-Known Member
The use of terms such as 'parasites and scroungers' is nopt a comment it's a value judgement and an indication of how you see people. The way youi refer to 'good old fashioned' social outrage is also a bit of a giveaway.
spring-peeper
Well-Known Member
<sigh>
Nothing about the upcoming G8/20 and the proposed international bank tax
Nothing about the upcoming G8/20 and the proposed international bank tax
There is a good contrast of views for and against your view. The "bright green" people point out, correctly in my view, that low-density suburban sprawl is profoundly unsustainable, and no amount of gardening will make it work. The counter view is that any other arrangement supposes a level of interconnected social arrangement that is unlikely to be durable and, through the inevitable collapse of one of its dependent parts, result in even worse arrangements. I can't make up my mind - I'm (despite by posts) more of a bright green person myself. But it is very risky.
Nope. Instinctively, I would prefer democratic control. I think China has moved a long way in the last 15 years but it is far from democratic. But they are laying in an awful lot of sustainability infrastructure very quickly (and of course an awful lot of unsustainable infrastructure) and I think it is worth looking at how they achieve that. When you do, you discover there is a lot less debate and a lot more action over matters that they believe affect the survival of their state, for good or for worse.
Yes of course it is a value judgement---I see a person who inherits £160,000 and then claims £13,113 income support, £13,400 housing benefit, and £4,082 council tax benefit a certain way. I also see the people who excuse, tolerate and sometimes encourage that behaviour a certain way too. Perhaps, in order to avoid any discussion, you would like to assert that I view all recipients of benefit that way. I can't do anything about that, and again it is irrelevant to this thread.
Those look like interesting reads. Will have a read later. I'm particularly interested in reading what they have to say on suburban sprawl, as I follow James Howard Kunstler's American perspective thoughts on that topic closely. I may be wrong, but off the top of my head I suspect the majority of British suburban sprawl to be more sustainable than the American versions; given it's generally more compact nature compared to Americas (which tend towards being all highly supply chain dependent and something of a concrete desert); also British suburbs generally have a more superior building quality and architectural design, and have a more village like/small town community cohesion.
Re home/community gardening the major arguments for it I would say would be that it is an excellent way for people and families to hedge stagnating/declining incomes while promoting fitness (gardening is back breaking stuff!) and achieving better nutriton for little capital outlay. It also allows people to tap into creative home spun values, that even in unpredictable and changing economic circumstances they CAN have more through self-creative DIY processes while simultaneously lancing the externally focussed mass consumption boil of want, want, want created by the mass media and advertising industry.
Of course it isn't for everyone, people who remain working in highly specialised, highly paid, long hours jobs will have little need or want to personally engage in such agrarian activity.
I suspect there will come a time though when home self-grow reaches some sort of critical mass, whether it be organically due to fashion, peak oil or some more sudden shock like a war or natural disaster disrupting or delaying food supplies (with consequent price spiking). Or whether it be due to some command economy, rationing, dig for victory WWII style directives. Or a combination of both.
The big question is, would any of these be sufficient motivation to tempt people out of their armchairs away from the stupefying, mind numbing musical anaethesia of X Factor?
not-bono-ever
meh
Goldman Sachs charged with fraud by SEC
* SEC alleges fraud over creation of CDO
* Vice president also charged
* Goldman shares tumble
NEW YORK, April 16 (Reuters) - Goldman Sachs Group Inc <GS.N> was charged with fraud on Friday by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission in the structuring and marketing of a debt product tied to subprime mortgages.
The SEC alleged that Goldman structured and marketed a synthetic collateralized debt obligation that hinged on the performance of subprime residential mortgage-backed securities, and which cost investors more than $1 billion.
It alleged that Goldman did not tell investors "vital information" about the CDO, called ABACUS. This included that a major hedge fund, Paulson & Co, was involved in choosing which securities would be part of the portfolio, and had taken a short position against the CDO in a bet its value would fall.
According to the SEC complaint, Paulson & Co paid Goldman $15 million to structure the CDO, which closed on April 26, 2007. Little more than nine months later, 99 percent of the portfolio had been downgraded, the SEC said.
The SEC said Goldman Vice President Fabrice Tourre was principally responsible for creating ABACUS. It also charged him with fraud.
Goldman, Paulson and Tourre were not immediately available for comment.
Shares of Goldman sank $19.39, or 10.5 percent, to $164.88 in morning trading on the New York Stock Exchange.
* SEC alleges fraud over creation of CDO
* Vice president also charged
* Goldman shares tumble
NEW YORK, April 16 (Reuters) - Goldman Sachs Group Inc <GS.N> was charged with fraud on Friday by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission in the structuring and marketing of a debt product tied to subprime mortgages.
The SEC alleged that Goldman structured and marketed a synthetic collateralized debt obligation that hinged on the performance of subprime residential mortgage-backed securities, and which cost investors more than $1 billion.
It alleged that Goldman did not tell investors "vital information" about the CDO, called ABACUS. This included that a major hedge fund, Paulson & Co, was involved in choosing which securities would be part of the portfolio, and had taken a short position against the CDO in a bet its value would fall.
According to the SEC complaint, Paulson & Co paid Goldman $15 million to structure the CDO, which closed on April 26, 2007. Little more than nine months later, 99 percent of the portfolio had been downgraded, the SEC said.
The SEC said Goldman Vice President Fabrice Tourre was principally responsible for creating ABACUS. It also charged him with fraud.
Goldman, Paulson and Tourre were not immediately available for comment.
Shares of Goldman sank $19.39, or 10.5 percent, to $164.88 in morning trading on the New York Stock Exchange.
A Dashing Blade
Takes horses to water but can't make donkeys drink
Nice to see it hit the markets out of the blue, no leaks from the SEC prior to the announcement judging by the share price movement.
Full court papers here (a pretty simple read tbh)
kyser_soze
Hawking's Angry Eyebrow
OOO, how much poorer are all those Goldman directors?
A Dashing Blade
Takes horses to water but can't make donkeys drink
SEC also reportedly (on other news wires) going to "aggressively" persue other perceived frauds
WASHINGTON, April 16 (Reuters) - From an Securities and Exchange Commission conference call about charges against Goldman Sachs Group Inc <GS.N>:
* SEC enforcement director Khuzami says agency continues to examine structured
products, other instruments that contributed to financial crisis--conference
call
* Khuzami declines to comment about specifics on other ongoing investigations
* Khuzami says Paulson & Co was not included in charges because it was Goldman
Sachs that distributed marketing materials
* Khuzami says "will pursue aggressively" other incidents of fraud related to
structured products
* GS sold CDO exposure to Germany's IKB, others- complaint
* GS sold cdo exposure to ABN AMRO- complaint
* Khuzami says SEC looking at "wide range of products, transactions, and
practices" related to financial crisis
* Khuzami says "not appropriate" for SEC to comment on whether it will refer
details of Goldman Sachs case to Department of Justice
* Khuzami says debate over Goldman Sachs' fiduciary duty not particularly
relevant in SEC case
WASHINGTON, April 16 (Reuters) - From an Securities and Exchange Commission conference call about charges against Goldman Sachs Group Inc <GS.N>:
* SEC enforcement director Khuzami says agency continues to examine structured
products, other instruments that contributed to financial crisis--conference
call
* Khuzami declines to comment about specifics on other ongoing investigations
* Khuzami says Paulson & Co was not included in charges because it was Goldman
Sachs that distributed marketing materials
* Khuzami says "will pursue aggressively" other incidents of fraud related to
structured products
* GS sold CDO exposure to Germany's IKB, others- complaint
* GS sold cdo exposure to ABN AMRO- complaint
* Khuzami says SEC looking at "wide range of products, transactions, and
practices" related to financial crisis
* Khuzami says "not appropriate" for SEC to comment on whether it will refer
details of Goldman Sachs case to Department of Justice
* Khuzami says debate over Goldman Sachs' fiduciary duty not particularly
relevant in SEC case
not-bono-ever
meh
take that you vampire squid!!
free spirit
more tea vicar?
actually, there's a lot to argue with here.
You're assuming that a government's balance between income and expenditure is linearly aligned with the countries GDP.
This is a false assumption, and one which logically invalidates most the rest of your arguement.
The balance between government income and expenditure would usually be expected to rise much faster than GDP as a country comes out of recession as for example growth generates jobs, which remove people from the welfare side of the equation and put them into the taxpayer side of the equation. Similarly government expenditure to prop up business through the recession reduces, at the same time as government tax receipts from corporation tax etc increase as companies start to make bigger profits again.
This is very basic stuff, and the fact you're getting this wrong, plus posting up bullshit graphs then failing to respond to criticism of them, plus your malthusian crap on that other thread really does your credibility no favours at all IMO.
free spirit
more tea vicar?
worth bearing in mind that that world changing.com article is based on the US version of urban sprawl which is a very different beast to the UK version.
The US version largely involves Urban sprawl over a huge area at a very low density, designed virtually exclusively for travel via private car, as the density and distances involved are too low for any form of public transport to work for anything other than very long distance travel.
The UK version of urban sprawl has been generally much denser, largely contained within urban greenbelts, or along transport corridors, with some level of public transport access at least from the suburbs to the city centre being the norm.
The article also ignores a whole host of both social, environmental and economic problems associated with ultra dense urban living. For example...
- Increased urban heat island effect, resulting in increased summer use of air conditioning units (at least in hot climates), increased deaths and hospitalisations from heat stroke
- Increased need to pump in water and pump out sewage from ever greater distances.
reduced potential for domestic solar water heating and/or solar PV to contribute to household energy consumption, resulting in increased requirement to import energy from centralised sources.
- Increased flash flood risk due to faster water run off from concrete than from grass / soil
- Increased drought risk / lower water tables due to water running off down drains and into rivers rather than soaking through the soil into the water table.
- Need to truck in more food due to lack of ability of population to contribute anything to their own food supply by growing their own.
- Reduction in quality of life due to reduced sunlight levels, lack of desirable open spaces for recreation (parks, gardens etc)
- Impact on biodiversity both within the city itself from the loss of gardens, parks etc, and due to the increased industrial farming of the countryside needed to supply the cities with food.
- per sqr ft embeded energy in buildings generally increases with height, also, I'd suggest that durabilty also decreases with height. Tall buildings also need lifts, water pumps, permanently lit foyer areas and stairwells, cctv cameras and screens, permanently staffed foyer entrances etc.
- Total reliance on the industrialised food and energy supply chain to provide for all the needs of the city, which seems a very bizarre idea to be pushing at this point in proceedings.
Yer.
And then AIG fuckin' insured it, after "selling" it to the ratings agencies through paying huge fees.
Whatalotabollacks.
Woof
Your writing is not very clear. I presume you are referring to the cyclical adjustment to the no-Ponzi game condition intertemporal budget constraint on the consolidated government sector budget identity. An adjusted, underlying balance is derived from an estimate of the potential growth rate and some function of revenue and expenditure elasticities, which in the UK results in a GDP / budget balance semi-elasticity of about 0.45. It is cyclical: there is an equal and opposite detrimental effect on the budget balance as we enter the next recession.
That observation modifies the specific debt/GDP ratio that must be achieved over the cycle to avoid unsustainable debt growth: it does not alter the observations that there is a debt/GDP ratio which the country must achieve to avoid compounding debt sovereign default which is far in excess of any we can expect with the interest payments on our current debt and rising pension, age related and energy related costs.
You are right - this is very basic stuff. What point were you trying to make?
The thing is, I don't mind that you aren't clear. But must you be so vile about it? Can't you just discuss the subject in a civilised manner? I've plenty of time to respond to civil criticism, but none at all for this species of feral unpleasantness.
free spirit
more tea vicar?
apologies, but then I also find it fairly rude when someone doesn't respond after another poster points out that a graph they've posted up is an obviously biased graph, almost certainly deliberately designed by whoever produced it to create a false impression of the real situation.
It's not exactly a very honest debating style IMO.
It also IMO calls into question either your ability to critically analyse your source material, or your use of that ability if you do possess it. If this offends, then again I'm sorry for any offence, it's meant as constructive criticism.
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