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Des (Des)
Username: Des

Registered: 06-2008
Posted From: 86.166.188.81
Posted on Friday, February 13, 2009 - 08:58 pm:   

Name the downturn:
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=99885806

My name for the recession, depression, credit crunch etc: The Financial Fuckbubble



I do not wish to be rude and everyone who knows me persoanlly will also know that I do not 'swear' lightly. But the name is appropriate in more ways than one for the result of the complete greed and stupidity bordering on fiscal 'rape' that many in the world have perpetrated.

What is your name for it?


PS: My story 'Meltdown' published in a book in 1994:
http://www.ligotti.net/showpost.php?p=16208&postcount=46
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Joel (Joel)
Username: Joel

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 91.110.201.130
Posted on Saturday, February 14, 2009 - 01:18 am:   

Capitalism shedding the mask.
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Chris_morris (Chris_morris)
Username: Chris_morris

Registered: 04-2008
Posted From: 69.245.202.240
Posted on Saturday, February 14, 2009 - 06:33 am:   

The Financial Fuckbubble? I have their first two records around here somewhere ...
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Des (Des)
Username: Des

Registered: 06-2008
Posted From: 86.166.188.81
Posted on Saturday, February 14, 2009 - 10:00 am:   

Although I personally deplore the use of the F word, it seems to be a word that many (including children) feel they need to use all the time (often in unguarded moments if they're politicians etc) ... but, then, for this word not to be publicly and deliberately and thoughtfully usable in the mainstream media even when it is descriptively appropriate (as in 'The Financial Fuckbubble' with all its testosterone implosions etc) seems hypocritical.

Whatever one calls it, my sincere commiserations to anyone on the negative receiving end of this terrible situation.
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Des (Des)
Username: Des

Registered: 06-2008
Posted From: 86.166.188.81
Posted on Saturday, February 14, 2009 - 10:29 am:   

It as if the word 'fuck' has been groomed for this very moment in history...
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Gcw (Gcw)
Username: Gcw

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 81.151.125.173
Posted on Saturday, February 14, 2009 - 11:43 am:   

I call it the Credit Crumble, or if I'm in a bad mood...the Fucking Credit Crumble!

gcw:-)
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Hubert (Hubert)
Username: Hubert

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 78.22.228.250
Posted on Saturday, February 14, 2009 - 11:47 am:   

And don't forget: where there are losers, there are generally winners. I know at least one knowledgeable investor who made quite a bundle in the wake of this 'fuckbubble'.
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Steve Bacon (Stevebacon)
Username: Stevebacon

Registered: 09-2008
Posted From: 90.209.220.47
Posted on Saturday, February 14, 2009 - 12:07 pm:   

Its impact has seeped into everything. This is probably the first recession that has affected me as a father/husband/homeowner, and I never before realised the way in which it touches every part of our lives.

It's even reflected in the television we watch.
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Joel (Joel)
Username: Joel

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 91.110.168.215
Posted on Saturday, February 14, 2009 - 02:36 pm:   

This is the second great crisis of global capitalism. The first, the Great Depression, gave us the rise of fascism (as the European ruling class pulled out the stops to prevent the people of Germany, Italy and Spain from building a socialist alternative), the Second World War, the atomic bomb, the Cold War and very nearly the end of it all.

The current global depression will bring at least as much change and destruction, and it's impossible to predict what will remain in a decade's time. But we can't expect little things like book publishing, or film-making, or us, to survive it all.

The only compensation is that, for the first time since the 1930s, it has become socially acceptable to be rude about capitalism. When someone says that the free market is the only way to ensure our social and economic well-being, it's now OK (indeed, it's the only decent thing) to reply: "STOP LYING NOW."
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Des (Des)
Username: Des

Registered: 06-2008
Posted From: 86.166.188.81
Posted on Saturday, February 14, 2009 - 08:23 pm:   

Thanks, Joel.

Meanwhile, below is the current DF Lewis definition of a 'Financial Fuckbubble' (what is anybody else's definition??):

A variant economic disease of global capitalism - with specifically alleged culprit countries - that occurs once in a modern millennium given the time span for meaningful measurement of intervals between each fuckbubble. The off-the-scale bouts of arrogant greed impel the money practitioners rhythmically and relentlessly to thrust their organs into a backwash of filth fizzing along the conduits of leveraged derivative. The cumulative effect is thought to cause the severest of all downturns, recovery from which only hindsight will clarify. The fact there is a feasible definition of this disease gives one a modicum of hope. ['South Sea' and 'dot.com' bubbles fade into insignificance by comparison.]
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Des (Des)
Username: Des

Registered: 06-2008
Posted From: 86.166.188.81
Posted on Saturday, February 14, 2009 - 08:51 pm:   

call the hope that hint of hindsight.
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Des (Des)
Username: Des

Registered: 06-2008
Posted From: 86.166.188.81
Posted on Saturday, February 14, 2009 - 11:01 pm:   

Still drafting the definition of a 'Financial Fuckbubble':

A variant economic disease of global capitalism - carried by specifically alleged culprit countries with their governments complicit in spreading the disease. It occurs once in a modern millennium given the time span for meaningful measurement of intervals between each fuckbubble. The disease has no proveable symptoms or causes, merely various real and/or imaginary tentacles of depression (personal and communal). An example of circumstantial metaphorical evidence: bouts of arrogant greed impelling the money practitioners rhythmically and relentlessly to thrust their organs into a backwash of filth fizzing along the conduits of leveraged derivative. The cumulative effect is thought to cause the severest of all downturns, recovery from which only hindsight will clarify. The fact there is a feasible finite view (i.e. this definition) of the disease and a hint of hindsight gives a modicum of hope.
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Chris_morris (Chris_morris)
Username: Chris_morris

Registered: 04-2008
Posted From: 69.245.202.240
Posted on Sunday, February 15, 2009 - 02:46 am:   

Ah, capitalism, that inevitable bugaboo. Problem always is, what's the superior alternative?
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Des (Des)
Username: Des

Registered: 06-2008
Posted From: 86.166.188.81
Posted on Sunday, February 15, 2009 - 09:42 am:   

Capitalism may be the optimum economic system, but perhaps the diseases that Capitalism is prone to (like the fuckbubble as described above) are worse than any other systems' diseases.
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Des (Des)
Username: Des

Registered: 06-2008
Posted From: 86.166.188.81
Posted on Sunday, February 15, 2009 - 10:27 am:   

Final version of the 'Fubbcuckle' definition:
http://weirdmonger.blog-city.com/name_for_the_credit_crunch.htm
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Joel (Joel)
Username: Joel

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 91.110.243.72
Posted on Sunday, February 15, 2009 - 12:24 pm:   

Chris – if we can't do better than this, what's our civilisation and our culture worth? 'There is no alternative' was Thatcher's slogan, and it was a toxic lie.
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Craig (Craig)
Username: Craig

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 75.5.14.48
Posted on Sunday, February 15, 2009 - 06:13 pm:   

Every economic system is a variation on the Pyramid Scheme. All money structures, if you keep tracing it back and back to its origins/sources, fades away into: a select few and fortunate singles, must rest easy upon the labor and loss of multiple others. There's idealization in all variations of the Scheme; some are sincere, some nefarious. But the problem is, you're dealing with human nature/beings, who will ultimately screw you every time, given means and opportunity....
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Coral (Coral)
Username: Coral

Registered: 10-2008
Posted From: 90.215.237.100
Posted on Monday, February 16, 2009 - 03:02 am:   

Fantastic definition, mr Des, and everyone here has a good grasp of the finer points of the situation, as seen from their own life view. What we should be doing is putting our heads together to see if we can't discover a solution. Not that anyone would listen to it, of course, but it would give me personally a bit of comfort to know exactly why my disabilty barely feeds and clothes my daughter.
Disillusionment aside, I'm genuinely asking where do you think it's going to end?
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Coral (Coral)
Username: Coral

Registered: 10-2008
Posted From: 90.215.237.100
Posted on Monday, February 16, 2009 - 03:03 am:   

Afterthought!

Imagine we go back to barter. What have you got that will convince me to part with my hard grown fruit and veg????
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Des (Des)
Username: Des

Registered: 06-2008
Posted From: 86.166.188.81
Posted on Monday, February 16, 2009 - 09:49 am:   

Disillusionment aside, I'm genuinely asking where do you think it's going to end?
-----------

Sorry to hear of your struggle, Coral - and everybody else's.
The trouble being a Horrorist, one tends to look on the black side. But often that is the best way - clean slates were that colour in my infant school in 1952 and I didn't look back. I started writing.
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Weber_gregston (Weber_gregston)
Username: Weber_gregston

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 195.8.175.44
Posted on Monday, February 16, 2009 - 02:44 pm:   

The last great depression led to the rise of fascism. This depression has already led to wildcat strikes over the use of foreign labour. I find that I can sympathise to a point, but where does that thinking lead... We are in a country where there is no discernable difference (to the ordinary man in the street) between the three major political parties. Job losses everywhere. The ruling party was voted in by less than a third of the electorate. Voter apathy is is rife. The only alternatives (again in the eyes of the man on the street) are the extremists. We're in a very dangerous position politically in this country and I hope to god that someone can pull something out of the fire soon to rectify the situation.

But I'm not holding my breath.
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Joel (Joel)
Username: Joel

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 91.110.177.70
Posted on Monday, February 16, 2009 - 10:40 pm:   

Where that thinking has led in this case, it's encouraging to note, is a recognition by the trade unionists involved that this is not about the interests of migrant workers versus indigenous workers: it's about the abuse of EU legislation by bosses to boost their profits while violating workers' rights. Treating a workforce as a moveable unit on a global chessboard, with a local workforce liable to be replaced in one move by a workforce extracted from their own community, is obscene. This was not a racist strike, and the BNP's attempt to hi-jack it has been treated by the unions with the contempt it deserves.

In wider terms, though, Weber, I agree that there is great danger. If trade unionist and socialist consciousness continues to be stifled and abused by the bosses' media, there will be nowhere for people's anger and hunger for change to go except down the road of bigotry. The rage that should rightfully be directed at bankers, politicians, bankers, privatisers, bankers, property developers, bankers, newspaper owners, bankers and other thieves, spivs, liars, bankers and gamblers with stolen money (did I mention bankers?) will, instead, be directed at migrant workers, asylum seekers, the unemployed and any other convenient target.
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Joel (Joel)
Username: Joel

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 91.110.177.70
Posted on Monday, February 16, 2009 - 10:46 pm:   

Coral, I hope things work out for you. I feel that the best answer to your question is something along the lines of "so that Yuppies can drive their Porsches and spit on the homeless". But that, in itself, is not a solution.

What disturbs me most is that when people do clarify how the system of exploitation and injustice works and then suggest that a better world is possible, they are crushed with brutal force. Unless there are too many of them.

Some day.
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Steve Bacon (Stevebacon)
Username: Stevebacon

Registered: 09-2008
Posted From: 90.209.220.47
Posted on Tuesday, February 17, 2009 - 12:02 am:   

I know little about economics, but are the effects of this recession being felt more keenly because of the global nature of the collapse, compared to the one from the late 80s? Or was the recession of that time just a reaction to the commercialism surge of the 80s?
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Coral (Coral)
Username: Coral

Registered: 10-2008
Posted From: 90.215.237.100
Posted on Tuesday, February 17, 2009 - 02:00 am:   

I'm not sure I should have asked that question now, understanding the answers is quite difficult. I think economics should be simply sums and equations like maths, but add human beings to any equation and it ceases to progress in a straight line, becomes convoluted and backtracks. Is it really as simple as too many people trying to extract too much from the system? And is it the credit system that has unbalanced the money in/out because people are borrowing and not paying back? When I was younger I never borrowed, I worked hard and payed for my goods. Now I'm unable to work, I will admit to using Provident for special occasions like paying for xmas. I pay the weekly repayments off scrupulously, so surely the system should be in balance. But if some people are not paying back, then I'm borrowing money from Provident that THEY haven't got! Have I understood the problem properly? And is that what is happening in different ways across the financial markets? Sorry, lots of questions, but I think I'm starting to see the bigger picture, and it's alarming. I suppose it must have crept up gradually, or has it been allowed, to clear the way like wars used to do.
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Des (Des)
Username: Des

Registered: 06-2008
Posted From: 86.166.188.81
Posted on Tuesday, February 17, 2009 - 10:08 am:   

A very wise summary, Coral. Fits in with lots of my thoughts. Thanks. A 'clearing the way' theory is also interesting. Good luck.
des
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Gary Fry (Gary_fry)
Username: Gary_fry

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 129.11.76.230
Posted on Tuesday, February 17, 2009 - 10:41 am:   

>>>The rage that should rightfully be directed at bankers, politicians, bankers, privatisers, bankers, property developers, bankers, newspaper owners, bankers and other thieves, spivs, liars, bankers and gamblers with stolen money (did I mention bankers?) will, instead, be directed at migrant workers, asylum seekers, the unemployed and any other convenient target.

If I hear "You know what's causing all this, don't you? All the immigrants we let into the country." one more time I'm going to really let rip.

I'm off to my Dad's tonight. He reads The Daily Mail . . .
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Karim Ghahwagi (Karim)
Username: Karim

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 194.19.103.122
Posted on Tuesday, February 17, 2009 - 11:30 am:   

But that is an old pattern, as old as stones. People become other kinds of creatures when they are under pressure, ie experience a shortage of resources. If things don't change, then this century will be worse than the last one- and that is unimaginable.
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Craig (Craig)
Username: Craig

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 75.4.235.87
Posted on Tuesday, February 17, 2009 - 03:18 pm:   

Coral, as I see it: People borrowed money on interest - for whatever: homes are the biggest example, but there's cars, and etc. That meant that whomever held the original loan, had a guaranteed return on investment - that loan became a valuable "chit." Then some evil rotten sick twisted deserve-to-be-roasted bankers got the idea: let's gather a whole bunch of these chits together and sell them to fabulous wealthy others, for a return NOW - regardless of a chit's actual value. The chits' value before, was based upon an established system of trust, called "credit"; but when the sub-primes came around, that system of trust was stretched, to allow (metaphorical) vagrants to creep in, as well as relax the morals of the (also metaphorical) upright - all so the chits could be perceived as holding more value, when they in actuality held LESS value than ever. Now the evil bankers bound these chits together, and sought out the equivalent of mob Dons, and sold the chits to them for large sums of money... then the evil bankers packed their bags and skipped town (all metaphorical). Suddenly the morally-corrupted people stopped paying on their chits... the chits were worthless, it turns out... and the mob Dons went to the governments of these evil bankers, and said, "Pay up on these or we'll f*ck your whole country." The governments had to, and that was/is these series of bail-outs. And now it's pointless to go hunting after the money-bag-holding rich bankers who escaped (better to make friends with them, since they have all the money)... no, now it's time to drag out the whips and chains, and make all the vagrants and the upright make good those chits one way or another... at least, that's how I see this perfectly-termed "fuckbubble"....
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Des (Des)
Username: Des

Registered: 06-2008
Posted From: 86.166.188.81
Posted on Tuesday, February 17, 2009 - 04:07 pm:   

at least, that's how I see this perfectly-termed "fuckbubble"....
==============

And, to my eyes, Craig, yours is a perfectly termed description (metaporical or otherwise) of the situation. Just add in the complex financial instruments, the leveraged derivatives, our government's tax-wooing of the top businessmen for the past decade or so, the BBC's Robert Peston's brilliant but alarming reportage of it all, the testosterone implosions of the fubbcuckle... And you have a lethally toxic cocktail.
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Craig (Craig)
Username: Craig

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 75.5.0.31
Posted on Tuesday, February 17, 2009 - 04:17 pm:   

Des, someone better get on to solving this problem. Unsolved, I see the end being only one thing: war. Not a "war over there" like Vietnam or Korea or the Gulf - a WAR war, that involves everyone everywhere, like wars used to be. Inflation is: too many dollars seeking too few goods. Recessions lead to people-inflations... too many people running around... and in centuries previous, they seeded trenches with the excess....
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Chris_morris (Chris_morris)
Username: Chris_morris

Registered: 04-2008
Posted From: 12.165.240.116
Posted on Tuesday, February 17, 2009 - 04:48 pm:   

Craig, the subprime crisis has to do not with your "vagrants," but with a simple exercise of power. If one can imagine the success of a stock being somewhat like the success of a football team, then the people buying and selling "derivatives" are like those punters at home placing bets on the outcome of the game. If the team they bet on "wins," then they get money. Subprimes, however, are derivatives the other way round: they're bets on a team to lose. The high rollers dealing in subprimes make money only when the loans they've bet on fail. So, then, who do they bet on? Of course, they bet on the loans given to poor people or to people with bad credit. And why, then, did banks give so many loans to poor people and people with bad credit? Well, it's because those high rollers with the subprimes are on the bank's board of directors. The loans were worthless, as you pointed out, and so the banks were hit hard -- but the execs got their payouts and remained happy. The incentives for CEOs of banks haven't been directly associated with performance for more than twenty years -- why would they care whether or not the bank failed? Especially since they were getting so rich off the failure ...

The good news is, the age of Milton Friedman economics is over in America. The bad news is that it took a complete meltdown for Friedman's adherents to see the light.

"Those of us who looked to the self-interest of lending institutions to protect shareholders' equity, myself included, are in a state of shocked disbelief."
-- Allen Greenspan, 10/23/08

Wow, how could anyone believe that a CEO, whose profits are untethered to his company's success or failure, would choose to line his own pockets over those of his shareholders? Seriously, Allen? You didn't see this coming? We're dealing with fools here. Complete fools.
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Gary Fry (Gary_fry)
Username: Gary_fry

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 129.11.76.229
Posted on Tuesday, February 17, 2009 - 05:09 pm:   

>>>The good news is, the age of Milton Friedman economics is over in America. The bad news is that it took a complete meltdown for Friedman's adherents to see the light.

I hope that's true, Chris. But I heard that Obama's advisor are Chicago School and that he is, too. Is that not so?
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Craig (Craig)
Username: Craig

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 75.4.233.33
Posted on Tuesday, February 17, 2009 - 05:38 pm:   

Well said, Chris. I just think that the fact that there are worthless contracts littering the landscapes of whole countries - i.e., mortgages - is the source of all financial fright now, not the now-stingless speculators. It's just like the plague: Who has it? Who will contract it next? It might be the fit and healthy man who's lived in his house for many years with nary a problem... then one day, he sees his home's actual value, the amount of debt he had to leverage over an unforseen illness, the ever-sinking value of all the homes around him - and he skips town. Another victim of "plague," the mortgage-holders have contracted. We thought we had rid the world of its most horrific deadly diseases... that plagues of the past were distant memories... not so, not so....
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Des (Des)
Username: Des

Registered: 06-2008
Posted From: 86.166.188.81
Posted on Tuesday, February 17, 2009 - 05:45 pm:   

Teeny weeny light at the end of the tunnel? The Baltic Dry Index (always the bell-wether of a recovery) has shown signs of rrecovery in last few days.
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Protodroid (Protodroid)
Username: Protodroid

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 78.152.239.5
Posted on Tuesday, February 17, 2009 - 06:31 pm:   

I don't understand money, even the idea of it. It won't stick to the inside of my mind. I'm economically dyslexic.

But I do know a couple of things: the central idea of capitalism is revolutionary and Great: the division of labour. It means that I don't have to spend my day trying to wrest food from soil. That one good idea has mutated and been perverted horribly, though, and needs to be looked at, root and branch.

The other thing is that the battle should never be horizontal. Watch out for those forces trying to pit us against each other. Look up, see them spying down through murder holes at us. The battle should be a vertical one.

One more thing -- and this applies particularly to us, particularly to this website, we must resist the lullaby that encourages us to nest in black thoughts. We must resist infantile fantasies of apocalypse, resist that failure of imagination. Stop touching that loose tooth for the delicious pain. We can't afford to wallow like teenagers. We need adults, problem-solvers, hard-as-nails optimists. Heroes. Heroines. In all of history, there's never been a better opportunity to make a difference, to live a life that matters.
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Des (Des)
Username: Des

Registered: 06-2008
Posted From: 86.166.188.81
Posted on Tuesday, February 17, 2009 - 07:07 pm:   

...we must resist the lullaby that encourages us to nest in black thoughts. We must resist infantile fantasies of apocalypse, resist that failure of imagination. Stop touching that loose tooth for the delicious pain. We can't afford to wallow like teenagers. We need adults, problem-solvers, hard-as-nails optimists. Heroes. Heroines. In all of history, there's never been a better opportunity to make a difference, to live a life that matters.

==============

Beautiful, Protodroid.
des
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Chris_morris (Chris_morris)
Username: Chris_morris

Registered: 04-2008
Posted From: 12.165.240.116
Posted on Tuesday, February 17, 2009 - 07:22 pm:   

>> I hope that's true, Chris. But I heard that Obama's advisor are Chicago School and that he is, too. Is that not so?

If you're talking about Timothy Geithner, Obama's Treasury Secretary, you may be right. Geithner has connections to Robert Rubin, Clinton's Treasury Secretary, who famously argued on the side of Allen Greenspan against regulations for derivatives. However, in the years since, Rubin has waffled a bit about his position and now seems to agree that regulations are necessary. It's hard to say what Geithner's position is. However, Obama ran on a pro-regulation platform, for what that's worth, and Geithner isn't his only economic adviser.
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Chris_morris (Chris_morris)
Username: Chris_morris

Registered: 04-2008
Posted From: 12.165.240.116
Posted on Tuesday, February 17, 2009 - 07:31 pm:   

Additionally, Republicans, for whom anti-regulation is a religion, are seeking scapegoats. They're trying to prove their precious philosophy is not a failure. Currently they seem to be gunning for the American poor, who in their view obtained loans beyond their means. This position ignores the fact that many poor/bad credit Americans were seduced into their loans -- many were never told that their interest rates would skyrocket a few years into their mortgages -- and can hardly be blamed for seeking to better themselves.

At least Greenspan had the courage to speak of the failure of his position in front of Congress last year. The Republicans can't spin that.
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Des (Des)
Username: Des

Registered: 06-2008
Posted From: 86.166.188.81
Posted on Tuesday, February 17, 2009 - 10:31 pm:   

I'm waggling my bad tooth again:

Eastern Europe is about to blow:
http://novakeo.com/?p=3246
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Coral (Coral)
Username: Coral

Registered: 10-2008
Posted From: 90.220.218.237
Posted on Wednesday, February 18, 2009 - 01:24 am:   

Craig's right, we DO need a solution. I'm not unduly alarmed by the fact that the rest of the world exists usually, but I'm quite worried now. I don't watch television, listen to radio or read newspapers, so I didn't realise how bad it had become. Time I got my head out of the sand and started looking seriously at the future, at Rachel's future.

Discussions here are most often quite light hearted, so I don't think we're dwelling unduly on bad news, indeed I'm a great deal more enlightened now, which can't be a bad thing. Even so, I think I'll go and post more photos of funny shaped veg on my blog now ;)

So what IS the solution, and can the peeps in charge actually DO anything about it? I have a feeling that those not involved directly are simply a hype of rhetoric riding on a wave of principle that only exists intellectually nowadays, not in practice. Politicians and industry leaders who have profited in the past are surely too busy covering their own backs to be at all effectual in a solution. Impasse?
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Chris_morris (Chris_morris)
Username: Chris_morris

Registered: 04-2008
Posted From: 69.245.202.240
Posted on Wednesday, February 18, 2009 - 05:29 am:   

Time is the only solution, alas. There is no consensus among economists except that. How long? Who knows?

But the study of economics at such a large level looks a lot more like soothsaying than science. It's like predicting the weather: even with all available meteorological information, predictions are often wrong. The winds change abruptly.

Obama's stimulus plan passed yesterday. For America, possibly the world, it may help, or it may not. We'll see.
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Jonathan (Jonathan)
Username: Jonathan

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 91.143.178.131
Posted on Wednesday, February 18, 2009 - 10:14 am:   

Can I also just say an hallelujah for what Proto said? It's what I've been wanting to say for days, but I couldn't have formulated it so succinctly or beautifully.
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Des (Des)
Username: Des

Registered: 06-2008
Posted From: 86.166.188.81
Posted on Wednesday, February 18, 2009 - 03:23 pm:   

Can I also just say an hallelujah for what Proto said? It's what I've been wanting to say for days, but I couldn't have formulated it so succinctly or beautifully.
============

Yes, I agree (as I said above).
But sometimes with any skid it's best to ride with it than against it. Wallowing can be good as it gets you nearer the problem and its possible solution. A raison d'etre for Horror?
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Joel (Joel)
Username: Joel

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 217.37.199.45
Posted on Wednesday, February 18, 2009 - 04:02 pm:   

Not in contradiction to Proto's very sensible observation, but alongside it, I'd like to emphasise that sometimes serious problems call for solutions that involve more than just being clever within the accepted paradigm: they call for a change in worldview and an adoption of a different approach.

If we wait for the bosses to 'solve' the problem with their own cleverness we'll be waiting a long time while our environment (both social and physical) continues to break down. The matter has to be taken out of their hands, and their media and power base have to be taken from them, for any kind of justice and sanity to prevail. If we are to have a future, it will not be through a continuation of the ideology that is destroying our world. If that seems too drastic a prognosis, whose fault is that?
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Gary Fry (Gary_fry)
Username: Gary_fry

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 129.11.76.229
Posted on Wednesday, February 18, 2009 - 04:38 pm:   

Yeah, it's like re-spraying a car whose engine is fucked. It now looks okay but is still apt to leave you stranded in the middle of nowhere.
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Craig (Craig)
Username: Craig

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 75.4.247.79
Posted on Wednesday, February 18, 2009 - 04:40 pm:   

So what IS the solution, and can the peeps in charge actually DO anything about it? I have a feeling that those not involved directly are simply a hype of rhetoric riding on a wave of principle that only exists intellectually nowadays....

It feels that way, Coral. The haves are pitting themselves against the have-nots -and one of the major whips the haves are using is the Credit Rating System; but when that whip fails to sting, you've got problems like now. The problem with the Credit Rating System up to now, is that there is no gray area: you either have fantastic credit, or black-as-coal credit. There's no incentive to "work things out," because your credit's damaged either way... so why not suffer damage with no bills, rather than suffer it with bills?...

Honor and a sense of commitment? It's tough to wallow through that when it's so one-sided against you. This age-old issue is a central conundrum now, because if fears of personal credit ratings don't move the masses - more and more "chits" will go down, worthless. Whereas if you fix the problem too drastically, too much... you might call forth even MORE worthless "chits" (bandwagon mentality); let alone the wrath of those who had to be horse-whipped in the past, for the same offenses others are being hand-over-fist compensated for now....

Christ, it's a big mess. Where are those super-smart saviors, those Einsteins of finance, now?... We need them, if ever we did....
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Des (Des)
Username: Des

Registered: 06-2008
Posted From: 86.145.36.243
Posted on Sunday, March 08, 2009 - 01:48 pm:   

I've read elsewhere on these boards that a few members are actually feeling the full brunt of this disaster - and I would like to offer my fellow feeling. I suffered from the early Nineties recession.
Seriously, for what it's worth, good luck from me!
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Des (Des)
Username: Des

Registered: 09-2010
Posted From: 86.143.98.239
Posted on Tuesday, September 27, 2011 - 07:20 pm:   

I watched this live a few days ago:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lqN3amj6AcE
Do watch it, please.
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Gary Fry (Gary_fry)
Username: Gary_fry

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 82.31.20.76
Posted on Tuesday, September 27, 2011 - 07:52 pm:   

He's a fake, Des. A member of some hoaxers called The Yes Man.

Besides, even if he was genuine, it's in a Hedge Fund manager's interests to make the markets volatile. That's how they make their money.
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Carolinec (Carolinec)
Username: Carolinec

Registered: 06-2009
Posted From: 92.232.199.129
Posted on Tuesday, September 27, 2011 - 08:30 pm:   

Kind of related to this, I was doing some teaching today - looking at MA student dissertation project proposals/poster presentations. A couple of the students were looking at the Islamic way of dealing with finance - one was looking at Islamic banking and one at Islamic insurance. I must admit, I had no idea what the differences were between Islamic financial processes and Western financial processes until then (if you're thinking, what's she doing looking at this when she doesn't know the topic, my role was to advise on research methods, not topic).

Anyway, apparently, whereas in the west it's all based around gambling and risk - and we all know where that's led us - gambling is, of course, frowned upon by Islam. So they have a much more "co-operative" model - a bit like the old-fashioned idea of credit unions I think (apologies, some of you here may know the details far better than I do).

It makes you wonder whether we, in the West, need to ditch our reliance on gambling and the associated risk and adopt a more "co-operative", redistribution-of-wealth kind of approach to managing the world's finances. I reckon some *really* radical thinking is required to get the world out of this mess ...
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Gary Fry (Gary_fry)
Username: Gary_fry

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 82.31.20.76
Posted on Tuesday, September 27, 2011 - 08:45 pm:   

It's only radical because of the discursive stranglehold in which capitalist thought holds us. It's now all so prevalent that it's like the air we breathe. Like Cartesian dualism. When foreground becomes background, the dominant body of thought triumphs. Many folk these days know no other way. It's become sedimented in habitus, the structure of our beings. How we go on is dictated to by invisible forces. Tried giving up smoking? This is a hundred times harder. It's like giving up oxygen.
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Gary Fry (Gary_fry)
Username: Gary_fry

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 82.31.20.76
Posted on Tuesday, September 27, 2011 - 10:06 pm:   

He's not even a trader. He's an attention seeking saddo.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/economics/8792829/BBC-financial-expert-Alessi o-Rastani-Im-an-attention-seeker-not-a-trader.html

Shame on the BBC!
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Des (Des)
Username: Des

Registered: 09-2010
Posted From: 86.143.98.239
Posted on Tuesday, September 27, 2011 - 10:17 pm:   

Thanks, Gary. He fooled me when I watched it live.
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Weber (Weber_gregston)
Username: Weber_gregston

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 194.66.23.11
Posted on Wednesday, September 28, 2011 - 05:16 pm:   

And in the meantime the Head Securities at Unicredit Bank has just issued the same dire warning:
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/...
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Gary Fry (Gary_fry)
Username: Gary_fry

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 86.181.16.244
Posted on Wednesday, September 28, 2011 - 05:19 pm:   

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

This is a world of smoke and mirrors.
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Des (Des)
Username: Des

Registered: 09-2010
Posted From: 81.131.175.228
Posted on Monday, October 31, 2011 - 05:05 pm:   

Just in: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-15519699

I don't think leveraging a bail-out fund or any Greek haircuts are going to solve anything, sorry to say.
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Des (Des)
Username: Des

Registered: 09-2010
Posted From: 81.131.175.228
Posted on Tuesday, November 01, 2011 - 08:26 am:   

...also Greece going to hold a public referendum on its own 'haircut' next year. That's put the ducks' arses among the widows' peaks!!!
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Mbfg (Mbfg)
Username: Mbfg

Registered: 09-2010
Posted From: 92.4.181.167
Posted on Saturday, November 19, 2011 - 02:34 am:   

And while Rome burns the mainstream media fiddles. It Strictly numbs the mind, hypnotises with images of has-been morons eating maggots in a jungle, fries our souls with endless cookery and unreality shows (I believe nothing that I see on TV, least of all anything claiming to be reality)and keeps everyone’s eyes off the truth. It should be screaming, it should be tearing at the walls to get at that truth, hounding our beloved leaders and making their lives hell, but no, as always, it sends us all to sleep.

I've just watched the story of motor city music on player and it is terrifying. Detroit is a bomb site because its industry has pulled out. It is like a miniature of what might happen everywhere if the politicians don’t get their fingers out of their backsides and try to do something to actually help us instead of protecting their own precious skins.

Disjointed nonsense I know but I'm tired and agitated and unable to make sense of what is happening to the honest and decent because of the greed of the vile.

Regards
Terry
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Protodroid (Protodroid)
Username: Protodroid

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 109.79.46.171
Posted on Saturday, November 19, 2011 - 07:21 pm:   

As far as I can tell from listening to pundits, if the Greeks don't get a haircut on their quantitive easing the ECB will give a blanket guarantee to Portugal's zombie banks unless they burn the Irish bond-holders which would overstimulate the Italian bond-markets if a bailout gave them an IMF write-down on their consumer confidence index.
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Simon Bestwick (Simon_b)
Username: Simon_b

Registered: 10-2008
Posted From: 86.24.166.73
Posted on Saturday, November 19, 2011 - 07:51 pm:   

'Thank you. That makes everything quite clear.'
-Brigadier Alastair Gordon Lethbridge-Stewart

'Oh, that's a relief. I thought it might be something complicated.'
-Tarrant in Blake's 7.

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Mbfg (Mbfg)
Username: Mbfg

Registered: 09-2010
Posted From: 92.4.168.146
Posted on Saturday, November 19, 2011 - 11:23 pm:   

Simon, it's very simple...

sihadfhdsoifjgbcxcnzxmmsakjdhiufnsfdsakdlkjewhfudmdndiujvsjfdsjjkm;a';\'\ZLKXJ CL,

Do you see it now?

Cheers
Terry:-)
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Stevie Walsh (Stephenw)
Username: Stephenw

Registered: 03-2009
Posted From: 82.29.252.215
Posted on Sunday, November 20, 2011 - 12:57 am:   

Human nature breeds vested interests as surely as humans breed humans.

It is the nature of the Beast... and all that it vomits forth.
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Des (Des)
Username: Des

Registered: 09-2010
Posted From: 86.158.237.2
Posted on Thursday, December 01, 2011 - 08:25 am:   

Yesterday's BAZOOKA for more dollar liquidity - indicates that someone somewhere has *seen* something. An entity nasty emerging from Stella Gibson's woodshed? Should this bazooka, therefore, give us more fear than re-assurance? Some economic boffin has just said that we are in a slow-motion car-crash - we haven't yet hit the windscreen but someone has just attempted to deploy the air-bag.
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Gary Fry (Gary_fry)
Username: Gary_fry

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 86.27.9.228
Posted on Thursday, December 01, 2011 - 10:21 am:   

My feeling is that the relief yesterday is linked more to the fact that the big banks are at least collaborating strategically than in how this might help the flow of credit around the world. This is a global problem and requires coordinated solutions, including the US, the Eurozone and China.
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Tony (Tony)
Username: Tony

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 86.155.48.21
Posted on Thursday, December 01, 2011 - 10:26 am:   

It's 2012! A beginning, and an end.
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Des (Des)
Username: Des

Registered: 09-2010
Posted From: 86.158.237.2
Posted on Thursday, December 01, 2011 - 02:35 pm:   

I made a terrible mistake above. Thst should be Stella Gibbons.... Her nephew will never forgive me!
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Des (Des)
Username: Des

Registered: 09-2010
Posted From: 81.131.175.213
Posted on Friday, December 09, 2011 - 10:07 am:   

A French spokesman has said this morning that the UK Government is like going to a wife-swapping party without its wife.
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Des (Des)
Username: Des

Registered: 09-2010
Posted From: 86.148.168.131
Posted on Wednesday, April 25, 2012 - 04:23 pm:   

On this very day, the UK has officially entered a double-dip recession: and Adam Smith (once author of ‘The Wealth of Nations’) resigns his position so as to create a political firebreak.
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Carolinec (Carolinec)
Username: Carolinec

Registered: 06-2009
Posted From: 92.232.199.129
Posted on Wednesday, April 25, 2012 - 05:32 pm:   

Ha! Not the same Adam Smith though, Des!

I'm no economist, but I can't believe that no-one in or close to government saw this double-dip recession coming. Do they just cross their fingers and hope that things might get better or what?
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Mick Curtis (Mick)
Username: Mick

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 86.185.225.55
Posted on Wednesday, April 25, 2012 - 06:14 pm:   

Apparently, though, they've only used 40% of the figures, so there's still a chance that the remaining 60% will show things to be better.
Wouldn't count on it though...
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Gary Fry (Gary_fry)
Username: Gary_fry

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 213.83.110.8
Posted on Wednesday, April 25, 2012 - 11:47 pm:   

It's always revised. I don't know why they bother making such an early announcement.
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Jonathan (Jonathan)
Username: Jonathan

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 80.4.146.163
Posted on Thursday, April 26, 2012 - 03:40 pm:   

Thing is, for months, the news has been 'we're doing better' one week, and then the next, 'no we're not' and then back to better and not and better and not. To be honest I've given up checking.
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Stevie Walsh (Stephenw)
Username: Stephenw

Registered: 03-2009
Posted From: 194.32.31.1
Posted on Thursday, April 26, 2012 - 05:27 pm:   

The media treatment of the global financial meltdown, that we are still very much in the early years of, is one of blatant downplaying the crisis and outright codology with the prepared excuse that they are trying to boost the public morale and avoid a panic.

It all chimes frighteningly with the early chapters of John Christopher's 'The World In Winter' (just started) in which the media, the government, the police and military all conspire to downplay the unusually long winter predicted by scientists while making plans for their own safety behind the scenes.

Make no mistake. This is no recession, double dip or otherwise, but the dawning of a Second Great Depression that will make the first one look like a walk in the park.

Capitalism has failed, disastrously, and Western dominance is in its final death throes, folks. We are hurtling toward inevitable World War and the establishment of a new order that has been forced on us by our own greed, the mathematics of over-population coupled with limited resources and the scenting of blood by those nations who were left out in the cold and who sense that now is their time to get some.

The powers that be know it and in our hearts we, the people, know it and there isn't a damn thing any of us can do about it... except pray!

Tune in the same time tomorrow for my next cheery pronouncenemt...
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Carolinec (Carolinec)
Username: Carolinec

Registered: 06-2009
Posted From: 92.232.199.129
Posted on Thursday, April 26, 2012 - 09:23 pm:   

Cheer up, Stevie - it's only a lil ol' planet we're talking about!
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Stevie Walsh (Stephenw)
Username: Stephenw

Registered: 03-2009
Posted From: 82.18.174.156
Posted on Friday, April 27, 2012 - 10:02 am:   

Don't worry, Caroline, it's just one of my apocalyptic phases.
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Des (Des)
Username: Des

Registered: 09-2010
Posted From: 86.130.103.73
Posted on Thursday, June 28, 2012 - 06:13 pm:   

Serious banking scandal today. we could all have a case against the banks for losing money. but if we all exercise that power the banks will collapse so it would be a pyrrhic victory...?

Meanwhile eurozone implodes ineluctably...
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David_lees (David_lees)
Username: David_lees

Registered: 12-2011
Posted From: 92.22.34.16
Posted on Thursday, June 28, 2012 - 11:43 pm:   

Watching Ed Miliband go on about how "something must be done" when it was his government that de-regulated them in the first place was particularly painful/rage inducing.
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Mick Curtis (Mick)
Username: Mick

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 86.181.214.176
Posted on Thursday, June 28, 2012 - 11:54 pm:   

But weren't the Tories shouting for even more relaxed regulation at the time? If so, we'd have been in this mess whichever party was in.
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Protodroid (Protodroid)
Username: Protodroid

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 109.79.91.202
Posted on Friday, June 29, 2012 - 01:54 am:   

That's true, but at least the Tories were being Tories.
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David_lees (David_lees)
Username: David_lees

Registered: 12-2011
Posted From: 92.22.34.16
Posted on Friday, June 29, 2012 - 01:56 am:   

Oh, certainly. I loathe them both, but Miliband's opportunism and hypocrisy really sickens me.
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Joel (Joel)
Username: Joel

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 217.37.199.45
Posted on Friday, June 29, 2012 - 02:33 pm:   

Yes, let's not forget that in 2008 Cameron blamed the banking crisis on over-regulation.
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Tony (Tony)
Username: Tony

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 217.44.184.29
Posted on Friday, June 29, 2012 - 05:19 pm:   

Stevie, I hate that scenario you describe. I don't know what to do about it.
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Tony (Tony)
Username: Tony

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 217.44.184.29
Posted on Friday, June 29, 2012 - 05:39 pm:   

I remember that bit in The Edge where Hopkins say people lost in the wild die of shame, 'How did I let myself get here?'. If we let ourselves dwell on all these things too long we will die of shame too. We need to j.u.s.t k.e.e.p g.o.i.n.g.
I do think the net has eaten everything up, mind.
No-one seems to be coming out and saying it, though.
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Protodroid (Protodroid)
Username: Protodroid

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 109.79.123.203
Posted on Friday, June 29, 2012 - 05:43 pm:   

Stevie, I assume you're joking. I'm sure you know how cathartic but silly, and ultimately irresponsible, apocalyptic talk is. I used to do that, but less and less as time goes on.

After reading V FOR VENDETTA again, Alan Moore said it was an immature work. That for an adult it's not enough to just ring the fire bell, you have to be part of the solution.
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Protodroid (Protodroid)
Username: Protodroid

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 109.79.123.203
Posted on Friday, June 29, 2012 - 05:46 pm:   

What do you mean the net has eaten everything up, Tony?
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Tony (Tony)
Username: Tony

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 217.44.184.29
Posted on Friday, June 29, 2012 - 06:05 pm:   

Money, really. There's no need for shops. There are so many empty over here now.
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Protodroid (Protodroid)
Username: Protodroid

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 109.79.5.21
Posted on Friday, June 29, 2012 - 07:36 pm:   

Oh, yeah. We need a new concept to replace the shop. A place dedicated to browsing, loitering, being. I suppose the coffeehouse and the salon are still viable.
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Craig (Craig)
Username: Craig

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 99.126.164.88
Posted on Friday, June 29, 2012 - 08:33 pm:   

I'm on Stevie's end of the spectrum, mostly. I think Nietzsche called it all right in his short and widely-applicable parable, "The Madman" ( http://adreampuppet.wordpress.com/2008/05/04/nietzsche-parable-of-the-madman/ ). But then, "This deed is still more distant from them than most distant stars...."
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Protodroid (Protodroid)
Username: Protodroid

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 109.79.5.21
Posted on Friday, June 29, 2012 - 09:09 pm:   

Hmm. I think the parable fits global warming closer than the current financial problems.

Good luck with the sandwich boards, chaps. I'll be rolling my sleeves up and making an actual difference by... posting on a message board, apparently.
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Carolinec (Carolinec)
Username: Carolinec

Registered: 06-2009
Posted From: 92.232.244.38
Posted on Monday, August 20, 2012 - 03:11 pm:   

Thought this was the best thread for this ...

Chatting with an old friend yesterday, she told me about something she'd read/heard reported. Apparently, there's some more-or-less secret organisation (whose cover has been blown by a journalist working undercover) where the filthy rich and powerful - political leaders, royalty, business leaders - are gathering at regular secret meetings to find ways of dealing with the impending financial dystopia. They're planning ways to save their own skins - putting all their money into gold, and so on - ready for when everything goes down the pan, law and order breaks down and it turns into a general free-for-all.

I don't know about you guys but the thought that the very people who are supposed to be sorting out this mess - and, indeed, got us into it in the first place - are formulating plans behind closed doors to save their own skins and to hell with the rest of us. This, apparently, isn't some writer's idea of a dystopian future - word is, it's happening right now!
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Gary Fry (Gary_fry)
Username: Gary_fry

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 86.31.184.63
Posted on Monday, August 20, 2012 - 03:18 pm:   

Er, references? Something someone told you the other day isn't very authoritative, alas.
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Carolinec (Carolinec)
Username: Carolinec

Registered: 06-2009
Posted From: 92.232.244.38
Posted on Monday, August 20, 2012 - 03:29 pm:   

Sorry, Gary, she did say the name of the organisation but I can't remember it. Something beginning with B I think - and it's an old organisation, possibly Danish or Dutch to do with the fascist movement? My old brain doesn't retain info very well any more!

Without the name of the organisation I can't google to find any internet reports - if any actually exist (she also mentioned news blackout). If you don't like this mentioned here without something to back it up, just delete it. I thought some of you might know about it anyway perhaps ...
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Gary Fry (Gary_fry)
Username: Gary_fry

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 86.31.184.63
Posted on Monday, August 20, 2012 - 03:33 pm:   

No, it's not that. But surely there's a broader issue about veracity. We have this info three steps removed, and even "Googling internet reports" does not inspire confidence.
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Carolinec (Carolinec)
Username: Carolinec

Registered: 06-2009
Posted From: 92.232.244.38
Posted on Monday, August 20, 2012 - 03:38 pm:   

Oh, absolutely agree with you. But if this is actually true, and there is a deliberate news blackout, then it will be very difficult to find out anything about it - they want to keep it secret after all!

I've emailed her for the name of the organisation anyway - see if I can find out any more about it. Perhaps it is just some fiction someone has written. Personally, I hope so!
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Gary Fry (Gary_fry)
Username: Gary_fry

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 86.31.184.63
Posted on Monday, August 20, 2012 - 03:38 pm:   

Who told you, anyway?
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Carolinec (Carolinec)
Username: Carolinec

Registered: 06-2009
Posted From: 92.232.244.38
Posted on Monday, August 20, 2012 - 03:39 pm:   

"Who told you, anyway?"

Just a friend.
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Gary Fry (Gary_fry)
Username: Gary_fry

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 86.31.184.63
Posted on Monday, August 20, 2012 - 03:39 pm:   

No offence, but it all sounds a bit Icke-ish.
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Carolinec (Carolinec)
Username: Carolinec

Registered: 06-2009
Posted From: 92.232.244.38
Posted on Monday, August 20, 2012 - 03:41 pm:   

"No offence, but it all sounds a bit Icke-ish."

Ha! Could be, I guess! But it would make a good piece of fiction anyway.
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Gary Fry (Gary_fry)
Username: Gary_fry

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 86.31.184.63
Posted on Monday, August 20, 2012 - 03:43 pm:   

Yes, cos that kind of thing has never been done before, has it? :-)
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Gary Fry (Gary_fry)
Username: Gary_fry

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 86.31.184.63
Posted on Monday, August 20, 2012 - 03:44 pm:   

This friend - has she got digital TV? A fan of the "history" channel, is she? :-)
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Des (Des)
Username: Des

Registered: 09-2010
Posted From: 86.140.213.21
Posted on Monday, August 20, 2012 - 03:45 pm:   

can't we now broach things here as hearsay and asking for verification?
At least Caroline has warned us.... should it be true.
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Gary Fry (Gary_fry)
Username: Gary_fry

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 86.31.184.63
Posted on Monday, August 20, 2012 - 03:48 pm:   

You're misunderstanding. I'm not being a moderator here. Say what you want. I was just asking for firmer evidence than "my friend told me". Is that unreasonable?
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Des (Des)
Username: Des

Registered: 09-2010
Posted From: 86.140.213.21
Posted on Monday, August 20, 2012 - 03:49 pm:   

Yes but you spoke about veracity. I think you meant verifiablility?
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Gary Fry (Gary_fry)
Username: Gary_fry

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 86.31.184.63
Posted on Monday, August 20, 2012 - 03:52 pm:   

?
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Carolinec (Carolinec)
Username: Carolinec

Registered: 06-2009
Posted From: 92.232.244.38
Posted on Monday, August 20, 2012 - 03:56 pm:   

Don't worry, Des. I'm in a position of power too. If Gary's questioning upsets me I can simply take down the Gray Friar Press news I put on the BFS website last night!

I've realised I didn't complete an important sentence (sentance? Brain's gone dead today) in my original post about this above. I meant to say that the thought that this might be fact rather than fiction (IF it's true) is quite terrifying to me.
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Gary Fry (Gary_fry)
Username: Gary_fry

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 86.31.184.63
Posted on Monday, August 20, 2012 - 03:59 pm:   

>>>If Gary's questioning upsets me I can simply take down the Gray Friar Press news I put on the BFS website last night!

:-)

>>> I meant to say that the thought that this might be fact rather than fiction (IF it's true) is quite terrifying to me.

But these ideas are old, old, old, aren't they?
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Des (Des)
Username: Des

Registered: 09-2010
Posted From: 86.140.213.21
Posted on Monday, August 20, 2012 - 04:02 pm:   

Caroline's veracity is not in question when reporting this as the true details of how she received this hearsay. It is a question of whether this hearsay is verifiable during the course of future discussions that presumably she expected here, rather than a put down.
Can't I any longer give forth of my crackpot theories like retrocausality and the CERN LHC, without hard evidence?
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Craig (Craig)
Username: Craig

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 99.126.164.88
Posted on Monday, August 20, 2012 - 04:04 pm:   

Was it the Bilderbergs, perhaps?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bilderberg_Group
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Gary Fry (Gary_fry)
Username: Gary_fry

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 86.31.184.63
Posted on Monday, August 20, 2012 - 04:11 pm:   

Des, you're getting your knickers in a twist unnecessarily. Caroline and I have been playful. See all the smileys. Sorry if it appeared otherwise.

Say what you want here (within reason), but a debate is a debate, and if folk ask for evidence, that's part of it, surely.
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Carolinec (Carolinec)
Username: Carolinec

Registered: 06-2009
Posted From: 92.232.244.38
Posted on Monday, August 20, 2012 - 04:12 pm:   

That's the one, Craig - thanks! Going to do some googling later when I have time. This not only terrifies me, but fascinates me too!

Gary - does it matter that the ideas are old? If (and that's a big IF) they are no longer just ideas, no longer simply fiction, but actually true then isn't that a terrifying thought? It is to me, anyway.

Des - if you can't continue to put forward your "crackpot" theories I'll eat my hat (and I don't even wear one).
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Carolinec (Carolinec)
Username: Carolinec

Registered: 06-2009
Posted From: 92.232.244.38
Posted on Monday, August 20, 2012 - 04:16 pm:   

By the way, it's nice to see two gentlemen - Des and Gary - fighting over my honour.

But seriously, please don't worry, Des. It's just one of those looks-worse-than-it-is discussions on the internet - I'm sure Gary didn't mean any harm. He's a sweetie really.
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Des (Des)
Username: Des

Registered: 09-2010
Posted From: 86.140.213.21
Posted on Monday, August 20, 2012 - 04:16 pm:   

Well, All debates obviously need evidence....depending on the seriousness of the proposition to warrant this to a playful report of hearsay, though? :-

"No, it's not that. But surely there's a broader issue about veracity. We have this info three steps removed, and even "Googling internet reports" does not inspire confidence."

see you around
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Craig (Craig)
Username: Craig

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 99.126.164.88
Posted on Monday, August 20, 2012 - 04:18 pm:   

Caroline, I'd be a bit skeptical. Groups like this are often lumped in with others like, oh, Bohemian Grove and the Illuminati and the Rosicrucians and god knows what else....

However, do I believe the uber-rich and powerful watch out for themselves first and foremost, and would have no problems letting the masses all go to hell if the shit comes down? Oh hell yes. It's ever been like that, throughout history—so why wouldn't it be like that again?
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Gary Fry (Gary_fry)
Username: Gary_fry

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 86.31.184.63
Posted on Monday, August 20, 2012 - 04:20 pm:   

Stop being an old nanny, Des! :-)

Caroline, I'll be round later. Queensbury rules, right?
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Carolinec (Carolinec)
Username: Carolinec

Registered: 06-2009
Posted From: 92.232.244.38
Posted on Monday, August 20, 2012 - 04:23 pm:   

Ah! Just looked at that Wikipedia entry for the Bilderberg Group - the bit about conspiracy theories. I guess this might be just another one of those which has emerged, given the financial crisis at the moment? Interesting, though.

By the way, I bet many of you didn't realise this was the kind of thing a couple of old ladies talk about over a coffee at a World Heritage Site on a Sunday afternoon?
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Carolinec (Carolinec)
Username: Carolinec

Registered: 06-2009
Posted From: 92.232.244.38
Posted on Monday, August 20, 2012 - 04:27 pm:   

"Queensbury rules, right?"

No chance, Gary - I hit below the belt!

Des - come back please. I'll be most upset if you vanish on my account. There's no harm done. I don't think Gary was really doubting my veracity. He just sounds a bit "grumpy" sometimes, that's all.
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Des (Des)
Username: Des

Registered: 09-2010
Posted From: 86.140.213.21
Posted on Monday, August 20, 2012 - 04:36 pm:   

Thanks, Caroline. if I vanish it will not be on account of you.
Meanwhile, It's too easy for anyone to refer to 'twisted knickers' merely if they see an exchange differently from someone else.
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Carolinec (Carolinec)
Username: Carolinec

Registered: 06-2009
Posted From: 92.232.244.38
Posted on Monday, August 20, 2012 - 04:59 pm:   

Des, I'll be upset if you vanish on anyone's account. I don't honestly think Gary meant any offence - to you, me, or anyone else.
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Des (Des)
Username: Des

Registered: 09-2010
Posted From: 86.140.213.21
Posted on Monday, August 20, 2012 - 05:03 pm:   

It was the cumulative effect of tone, smileys or not.
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Gary Fry (Gary_fry)
Username: Gary_fry

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 86.31.184.63
Posted on Monday, August 20, 2012 - 05:19 pm:   

Des, I'm sorry you see it this way. But no harm was meant. That's twice I've apologised.
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Craig (Craig)
Username: Craig

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 99.126.164.88
Posted on Monday, August 20, 2012 - 05:19 pm:   

(...and so did the secret rulers of this world, ever advancing their Machiavellian schemes, subtly disrupt yet another venerable institution, the RCMB....)
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Des (Des)
Username: Des

Registered: 09-2010
Posted From: 86.140.213.21
Posted on Monday, August 20, 2012 - 05:24 pm:   

RCMB is not Facebook.
I'd not noticed an apology before, and I wasn't asking for one. I may not deserve one.
I genuinely felt what I felt.
let's get on with making this world better.
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Craig (Craig)
Username: Craig

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 99.126.164.88
Posted on Monday, August 20, 2012 - 05:32 pm:   

let's get on with making this world better.

And I vote we all start by hurling something at Weber.
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Gary Fry (Gary_fry)
Username: Gary_fry

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 86.31.184.63
Posted on Monday, August 20, 2012 - 05:35 pm:   

Maybe if I wasn't moderator, the issue would never have arisen. I was just contributing as a punter. I'll resist the temptation to resign and flounce off. It never lasts, after all.
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Gary Fry (Gary_fry)
Username: Gary_fry

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 86.31.184.63
Posted on Monday, August 20, 2012 - 05:38 pm:   

face
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Des (Des)
Username: Des

Registered: 09-2010
Posted From: 86.140.213.21
Posted on Monday, August 20, 2012 - 05:41 pm:   

En pointe
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Gary Fry (Gary_fry)
Username: Gary_fry

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 86.31.184.63
Posted on Monday, August 20, 2012 - 05:50 pm:   

Pirouette.
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Carolinec (Carolinec)
Username: Carolinec

Registered: 06-2009
Posted From: 92.232.244.38
Posted on Monday, August 20, 2012 - 05:53 pm:   

Bloomin' 'eck! I've never seen one THAT big before!
(a smiley, I mean)


"let's get on with making this world better."
Seconded!
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Weber (Weber_gregston)
Username: Weber_gregston

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 194.66.23.11
Posted on Monday, August 20, 2012 - 06:11 pm:   

Well I heard from a friend that the world is secretly run by a small band of capuchin monkeys who use their enormous wealth to try to crossbreed hamsters with bats in order that they can have their own flying hats. Stuff the rest of the world, they get their hats they'll be happy. They're draining more and more of the world's resources to fund this mad scheme and they need to be stopped.
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Carolinec (Carolinec)
Username: Carolinec

Registered: 06-2009
Posted From: 92.232.244.38
Posted on Monday, August 20, 2012 - 07:40 pm:   

Some interesting (if biased) articles about the Bilderbergs:

http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/tony-sobrado/the-bilderberg-group-cons_b_1591214 .html

http://www.conspiracywatch.net/2011/01/bilderberg-group-conspiracy.html
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Gary Fry (Gary_fry)
Username: Gary_fry

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 86.31.184.63
Posted on Monday, August 20, 2012 - 08:11 pm:   

"The Bilderberg Conspiracy Theory drastically oversubscribes the power available to The Bilderberg Group and overestimates how micro phenomenological occurrences such as informal annual discussions can be equated into macro consequences such as economic crashes, wars and famines. Most importantly The Bilderberg Conspiracy Theory is distorted politics writ large because it fails to understand the complex and non local conditions of the international world and thus presents The Bilderberg Group as a preplanning agent. Such misplaced political paranoia draws attention away from suitably understanding the role of The Bilderberg, Group and other informal international groups, from the perspective of realism in International Relations."
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Carolinec (Carolinec)
Username: Carolinec

Registered: 06-2009
Posted From: 92.232.244.38
Posted on Monday, August 20, 2012 - 08:17 pm:   

Yep. Or, at least, that's what he says ...
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Des (Des)
Username: Des

Registered: 09-2010
Posted From: 86.140.213.21
Posted on Monday, August 20, 2012 - 08:23 pm:   

A blog today:
http://thetruthserumblog.blogspot.co.uk/2012/08/bilderberg-britain.html
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Des (Des)
Username: Des

Registered: 09-2010
Posted From: 86.140.213.21
Posted on Tuesday, August 21, 2012 - 09:01 am:   

More info about Bilderberg that I think has just been posted today: http://www.thejournal.ie/bilderberg-2012-agenda-conference-michael-noonan-557543 -Aug2012/
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Karim (Karim)
Username: Karim

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 99.41.3.115
Posted on Sunday, September 09, 2012 - 07:40 pm:   

I have made a new video on the subject:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rVKX1xQ5ayg
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Des (Des)
Username: Des

Registered: 09-2010
Posted From: 86.130.96.10
Posted on Wednesday, November 07, 2012 - 06:02 pm:   

The Fiscal Cliff looms.
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Gary Fry (Gary_fry)
Username: Gary_fry

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 82.26.131.123
Posted on Friday, November 09, 2012 - 07:30 am:   

It's the new Eurozone. We shall grow tired of hearing about it.
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Des (Des)
Username: Des

Registered: 09-2010
Posted From: 86.148.174.63
Posted on Sunday, March 17, 2013 - 08:43 am:   

Beware of Cyprus contagion:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2013/03/16/why-todays-cyprus-bai lout-could-be-the-start-of-the-next-financial-crisis/
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Gary Fry (Gary_fry)
Username: Gary_fry

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 86.31.160.235
Posted on Sunday, March 17, 2013 - 11:46 am:   

On the other hand, Cyprus could be the catalyst for greater global conviction in the EU. It's current role seems more symbolic than practical. It's a tiny economy.
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Stevie Walsh (Stephenw)
Username: Stephenw

Registered: 03-2009
Posted From: 86.24.62.55
Posted on Sunday, March 17, 2013 - 12:53 pm:   

One of these days it's going to click with people that this is more Financial Apocalypse than Fuckbubble. The media have, if anything, been playing the whole thing down with overly cautious reports of "possible triple dip recession", etc when it's been obvious to anyone who follows world affairs that this has been the Second Great Depression for quite a few years now already. Things are never going back to the way they were and the generations to come are going to look back on the latter half of the 20th Century as some kind of fabled golden era of unfeasible economic comfort... and criminal irresponsibility.
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Joel (Joel)
Username: Joel

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 2.30.193.158
Posted on Sunday, March 17, 2013 - 01:46 pm:   

Very true, Stevie. And yet, for the ruling class the last five years have been pure gold. The richest 1% of people in the UK have more than doubled their annual income in the last two years alone. The bankers' bonuses were only restricted for about three years and then were dramatically restored to their former obscene level – an event celebrated by a London party the highlight of which was the drinking of a £1000 bottle of wine. When the Government says there is no money for hospitals and child care and the elderly, and no money to keep those who have lost their jobs alive, and no money for housing, they are lying. The money is being guzzled by their friends at unprecedented levels. Austerity is quite simply a way of siphoning all the money out of the public purse and into the deep pockets of a private sector elite. It's a reversal of the postwar reforms and a return to the vicious inequalities of a vanished generation.
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Stevie Walsh (Stephenw)
Username: Stephenw

Registered: 03-2009
Posted From: 86.24.62.55
Posted on Sunday, March 17, 2013 - 01:50 pm:   

I'm hoping to see Ken Loach's new documentary feature, 'The Spirit Of '45', in the cinema this week, Joel. It should be made part of the school curriculum from what I'm hearing.

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