LadyDeliah

If China and other players do get more power in the IMF or World Bank, it follows that the US will have less power. In the past the US used both of these institutions to secure US commercial advantage around the world. If their power is lessened, their commercial advantage is also likely to be reduced. In my opinion, the US are facing multiple economic catastrophes and the ripple effect of these are bound to affect is in the UK. The US may survive, but I think the problems they are facing are monumental and I wouldn't put money on it.

Sell the mansion and downsize, or share it with others to pay the tax. Why should they be subsidised to stay in a property that is too big for them? If it's good enough for council tenants to be forced to downsize, why isn't the same principle ok for people in mansions who can't pay property tax?

What an unnecessarily rude thing to say.

To be fair Hugo, he was pointing out a piece of research that suggests top level bankers may have different brain make-ups than others. There are many different types of personalties that are linked to many different brain compositions and it would seem to be self-evident that different types of people are attracted to or excel in different spheres. I am not sure why you need to shoot the messenger when he was simply drawing attention to an interesting article which looks at research in this area.

I remember seeing something about that on TV. I wonder if they would get similar results from politicians or corporate bosses.

Why do people have to get so nasty and personal? If your argument is sound you don't need to resort to personal attacks. Everyone has different opinions based primarily on their differing life experiences and instead of pointing fingers and blaming individuals for a system that is rotten, wouldn't it be better to try to explain your position and try to pursuade with your argument?

Ok, I apologise, I hadn't checked. It just seemed a bit strange.

iamhere, I don't think it's good to expose a person's full name on here. It seems wrong and I'm not sure about Frankito's opinion on this, but I think you should remove it unless you have his permission to expose him in that way.

I want land reform!

If a troll, it was still funny1

This was tweeted by a Marxist friend of mine so I thought I'd post it up here to prove that us Lefties do have a sense of humour :)

Economics not your favourite subject then Mockers?

ibilly99 Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > LadyDeliah Wrote: > -------------------------------------------------- > ----- > > No, I agree, but combined with impending > economic > > and ecological collapse, I think it's all going > > tits up soon! I just hope it's not in the next > 2 > > years because I have things I want to do! > > Yeah you'll be all right frog boiling thingy. Are you sure you were only modestly drinking?

No, I agree, but combined with impending economic and ecological collapse, I think it's all going tits up soon! I just hope it's not in the next 2 years because I have things I want to do!

Lol, well I hope you try some of my good friend Stiglitz's articles for your bedtime reading and expand your view of world economics dear. Here is a nice, more up to date radio interview of his that you might enjoy: http://www.thetakeaway.org/2011/aug/23/nobel-laureate-joseph-stiglitz-americas-lost-decade/. And just to prove I'm not a one trick pony, I'll be back with some other lovely economics from Derek Wall, another economist I quite like reading.

Ok, that's quite sweeping, but the main point of that discussion was an opinion piece on the rioting and the bankers point was something mentioned in passing, so I apologise if in that instance I did not write a fully referenced piece about all incidental points mentioned.

I don't write that kind of sweeping statement usually, so I think you may have problems finding anything, but trawl away Hugo. In anycase, here is Stiglitz saying that the system stinks: http://video.cnbc.com/gallery/?video=1435168723

That is your restrictive interpretation of the problem Hugo. I have stated that I think the crises are many and interlinked.

And I don't see how examining the issues of the global economic crisis is tarring anyone with any brush.

Huguenot Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > @LD... So you've turneed away from tarring > everyone with the same brush then? > > Small mercys.... When did I tar everyone with the same brush?

I think there has been reference to the requests for criminal charges to be brought against various US bankers and/or regulators earlier, but Stiglitz is not a prosecutor, he is an economist and looked at the effects of actions on the economy. He mentions deceptive practices that where widespread in the majority of the banks in the UK, but also mentions a minority who tried to do the right thing, so the inference there is that it was down to individual banks and bankers to look to their own consciences. He also alludes to the US interference in overseas economies via the IMF and US Treasury to offset the US bad banking practices: Here is another one: Stiglitz doesn't call them liars or cheats, but what does engaging in deceptive practices, robbed of their savings or engineering bailouts of US banks by foreign tax payers, say to you? I agree that the system set up by the US and UK governments after lobbying by the banking bosses, encouraged deceptive practices, but that does not excuse the individual bankers who got caught up in the feeding frenzy. I was just carrying out orders doesn't cut it. They made millions from their deceptive practices and now the regular people are paying the price for their disgusting bonuses. You would advocate that the people who took part in the riots should take personal responsibility for their actions during the riots that lasted for a few days. I would suggest that the individual bankers who took part in the deceptive practices that have been bleeding the global economies dry for the past 30 years, should also take responsibility for their actions. One of my favourite quotes from Stiglitz's article is this:

I agree that it is a systemic problem, not just a few bad apples. I believe the whole system is rotton, but that is not exactly what Stiglitz said. He seems to have some faith in the system still, but thinks regulation will fix it. As you know, I think we need wholesale revolution, but am happy with strict regulation for now! Here is the link to his evidence from where I got the quote: http://www2.gsb.columbia.edu/faculty/jstiglitz/Crisis.cfm Click on the first link. He does say there was deception.

A nice quote from Stiglitz from January 2010: Our financial system failed to perform the key roles that it is supposed to perform for our society: managing risk and allocating capital. A good financial system performs these functions at low transaction costs. Our financial system created risk and mismanaged capital, all the while generating huge transaction costs, as the sector garnered some 40% of all of corporate profits in the years before the crisis. The sector is also responsible for running the payments mechanism, without which our economy cannot function. But so badly did it manage risk and misallocate capital that our payments mechanism was in danger of collapse. So deceptive were the systems of creative accounting that the banks had employed that, as the crisis evolved, they didn?t even know their own balance sheets, and so they knew that they couldn?t know that of any other bank. No wonder then that no bank could trust another, and no one could trust our banks. No wonder then that our system of credit?the lifeblood on which the economy depends?froze.

Economic hitmen, yes, not actual hitmen.

Huguenot Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > "Stiglitz is less sensationalist and just gets on > with explaining how the global financial > institutions affect the lives of small people" > > Has anyone denied that? No. Nobody has said that > global financial insitutions don't affect the > small people. Trying to move the goalposts? Hugo, this was in response to ibilly's post about John Perkins and his book the Confessions of an Economic Hit Man. I was just posting up a link to someone who says many of the same things but, who in my opinion is a better person to read.