Heartland

Eh?

Well hopefully the banking collapse spells the end for Reaganomics / Thatcherism and blows the myth of "free market economics" out of the water.

But somehow I doubt it.

Did these bastards think that printing money would make them rich?


@Markfiend: I subscribe.
You can include the Kohl and Schröder-era's German politics.
In Germany, the famous and infamous "Riester Rente", a state approved and officially supported privately financed additional pension, might get into trouble due to all that poker losses the pinstriped bandits caused.

While the US Government is not really planning to cover the whole trouble financially, Merkel and her almost seven hundred dwarfs flung out bigger chunks of dough to rescue IKB Bank (€1.4 Bil.) and guaranteed for 26 billion €uros for Hypo Real Estate.
Never mind the tax payer, money is available like water. Squeeze the sponge a bit harder and you get it.
The GDR was a cheap real estate purchase, compared to that. The wreck of socialism, a bargain in comparison to the wreck of capitalism. Who'd have thought that?

The crooks that orchestrated this massive fraud (and it is fraud) deserve to go to jail for a very long time. Instead, they'll get multi-million dollar payouts.

Yep! Poor American taxpaying suckers'll be footing the bill over here, of course.

markfiend wrote:The crooks that orchestrated this massive fraud (and it is fraud) deserve to go to jail for a very long time. Instead, they'll get multi-million dollar payouts.

That's multi-billion, my good man.

What's a few zeros between friends?

I reckon much of the problems faced by the likes of Northern Rock were due to their willingness to sell loans through barrow-boy independent mortgage advisors who faced none of the risks if the debt went bad. I know a number of people who were advised to take self-certification products and lie about their income. Whatever happened to saving for five years with a Building Society before they'd lend you the money to buy your first home? Here's a thought: maybe our financial instituitions were better off in the hands of the Old Etonians who put integrity and honour above greed and ambition...

Francis wrote:Here's a thought: maybe our financial instituitions were better off in the hands of the Old Etonians who put integrity and honour above greed and ambition...

It surely was. But these old Etonians didn't maximize the output, thus the shareholder value of their banks got weakened and they got swallowed by the less scrupulously working competitors.
This rule of maximizing the benefit not only makes a mess of the banking buisness. It's everywhere.

Soldier, remember that this gun in your hand was designed and built by the lowest bidder.

The car you drive in (Does anyone remember the stories about the Volkswagens that were made of cheaply recycled sheet metal in the mid eighties? They corroded faster than they accelerated!) and the medicals you take.
The lowest bidder for the brakes of the Tornado fighter once sold the german airforce re-used old brake pads. They didn't have a layer of brake pads on them, but a handfull of thoroughly shreddered cow dung. BMW bought larger numbers of similar quality products from India.
And then, there's the music buisness..
The whole system of infinite growth can't work in a world of finit recources.
That was known for decades. Even the Etonians didn't bother to develop new ways of working to adapt to that fact. The days of flourishing ecconomies merely are the days between the crashes.
Edit: The news just said that the private hands who were supposed to give € 9 bill. to rescue Hypo Real Estate drew out. The reason was that the hole in the accounts is not really €26 bil., more like 50 of them, possibly even 100... That's just one bank. That's a worrying developement, this. It seems Germany might be for cheap sale soon. I guess Putin has squeezed enough cash out of the unwilling Gazprom customers to afford the deal.

Edited out a couple of typos.

markfiend wrote:Well hopefully the banking collapse spells the end for Reaganomics / Thatcherism and blows the myth of "free market economics" out of the water.

But somehow I doubt it.

just a question: if not free market economics than what ?

Francis wrote:We're all doomed

Haven't we always been?

Francis wrote:I reckon much of the problems faced by the likes of Northern Rock were due to their willingness to sell loans through barrow-boy independent mortgage advisors who faced none of the risks if the debt went bad.

We were told (by a barrow-boy independent advisor) that our endowment would be guaranteed to pay off the mortgage. Which is not the case. Go figure.

Bartek wrote:just a question: if not free market economics than what ?

Proper regulation.

The point is that free market economics is based on a fundamental lie; it is supposed to provide benefits for the consumer, instead it ends up with a monopolistic market manipulated in favour of the rich few.

markfiend wrote:The point is that free market economics is based on a fundamental lie; it is supposed to provide benefits for the consumer, instead it ends up with a monopolistic market manipulated in favour of the rich few.

Did you ever consider to become german chancelor?
-In that case I might consider abandoning my plans to leave Krautland.

don't know what you understood by "proper regulations"- i just don't believe in socialism. there always been and will be a "few" "rich" who turned the s**t no mater what system you chose. that my thought.

and generally life is based on fundamental lie - but i know it's the point of this thread.

Can the Bankers be Wankers....if 'the people' do all the work?

Bankers are wankers now? Well, I couldn't afford my house without them, so I don't consider them wankers at all. Nor do the millions of people who benefit from the banking system. But then, when I bought my house I sat down with a calculator and figured out what I could afford. Walk into just about shopping mall or car lot in the world, and they will be happy to sell you something you can't afford, without making you sign a bit of paper saying you really can afford it. Yet bankers do, and now they're evil?

It's not the selling of mortgages to people who can't afford them that's the fundamental problem, it's then selling those dodgy loans on as sound investments that's bad -- in fact outright fraudulent.

Oh and as for socialism, I don't see what's so bad about trying to run society for the good of everybody, not just for the rich.

These so called "dodgy loans" were used by many investors to make money. With individual freedom, its up to the individual to make their own successes and mistakes. Really, if you're going to borrow half a million (or more) dollars, read the fine print, get your calculator out, and do your homework, and don't just rely on what the person selling you the loan is telling you. Its that simple.

Having seen the bankers selling loans since I inherited half a house at the age of sixteen I can testify how these morons talk sensible people into insane deals, Nodubby. Folks who have no idea of the banking stuff will be happy if some pinstriped shoeshine boy with ten pounds of credibillity in his hair tells them they can afford their dreamed house easily.
They earn by selling the contracts and don't give a crap for what comes after that.

This 35 grand limit is a right pain in the arse.
I've moved some of my funds about so that I don't have more than 35,000 in any one bank but now I'm running out of banks.
I've been doing it alphabetically but I'm down to the Yugoslavian national bank already.



On another matter, I once had a meeting with a bankerwanker. It lasted no more than ten minutes and he wanted me to sign a form that said he was to be paid £500 for the meeting. I should have set the c*nt on fire.

@eotunun: I hear what you're saying, but I just see there being no excuse for people of sound-mind to get loans they cannot afford in this day and age. Remember, banks cannot generally lend money to people who cannot afford it; they can do so if the offending offending signs a bit of paper lying about their income.

In my experience, borrowers knew exactly what they were getting into, but foolishly expected their house to appreciate another 100% in 5 years in order for the borrower not to go under. Fools.

markfiend wrote: Oh and as for socialism, I don't see what's so bad about trying to run society for the good of everybody, not just for the rich.

I'd consider what we have now Socialism, to be honest. High-tax, huge increase in the numbers employed by the State, arguable over-regulation,increase of State power, distribution of wealth from those who earn to those the Government considers to be deserving.
Personally, I see no reason for me to lose a third of my income in direct taxation alone (never mind Council Tax, VAT and the TV tax)and have less spare cash than some on benefits I know.