(no subject)

[dewline]

Good morning, and good luck.

Heather Mallick's latest comment on the LIBOR scandal-crimes.

Thomas Walkom on the meaning of DT-45's rants about Canadian "unfairness" re: dairy products, softwood lumber and so on, and where the rants might lead to. Warning: top of page includes video imagery of DT-45 and you might actually have to endure hearing him speak. Again. :-(

Comments

[thewayne]

Your link is broken.

[dewline]

Fixed.

[thewayne]

Libor was little more than an other side of the pond extension of the 2008 housing bubble over here. It's the ultimate expression of the Golden Rule: those with the gold make the rules.

Here, during the Clinton presidency in the '90s, Congress eliminated the protections put in to law that prevented the co-mingling of funds and activities that caused the Black Friday stock market crash of the 1920s, commonly known as Glass-Stegal. So if a bank f'd up their investment, their investment arm could go bankrupt and be liquidated and the banking would go on as usual. Glass-Stegal was very effective: the economy of the USA had its ups and downs in the decades that followed, but no catastrophic crashes. Then it was repealed.

Fortunately you Canadians were smart enough to not follow form and allow investors to use banking funds. One of my sisters-in-law worked for the American arm of a Canadian bank. My wife was talking to her during our investment/banking crisis and asked how her employer was doing, and they were just ticking away, unaffected by the crisis.

It's appalling that not only no executives on Wall Street went to prison over our crisis, but they got to (A) pay their bailout at an almost 0% interest rate, (B) there were no changes to their practices put in to law, and (C) one of those idiots who made millions robo-signing foreclosures is now heading up one of our branches of government.

A friend of mine in Mexico said people down there were wondering why Wall Street executives weren't being strung up on lamp posts here. It certainly would have encouraged more thorough reform. But as long as Goldman Sachs has such a thorough lock on government, nothing is going to happen and very small fish will be the only ones sacrificed for capricious mistakes made by multi-millionaire and billionaire executives.

And on a final note, did you know that GS was a major player in hiding Greece's debt from the EU prior to their joining? Then all of a sudden, after they were in, the debt appeared and Greece needed bailouts. Had the debt been visible up front, they probably would not have been allowed to join.

[dewline]

I am indeed aware of the Goldman Sachs angle re: the Greek situation.

[thewayne]

It's amazing how many people are blissfully unaware of the perfidy that GS has loosed upon the world.  Then they waltz into the White House and throughout Washington and just further enrich themselves.

[dewline]

And the horror continues...

[thewayne]

It has been my contention that most of the trouble in the world has been due to greed.  It is no longer enough to have enough money to be super wealthy, it's now far beyond a way to keep score and you must keep amassing more and more and more.  I heard of a man living in San Francisco who made an unbelievable amount of money, sadly I can't remember how, and he has almost given all of it away.  His objective is to bounce the last check he writes when he dies. Sounds like a good way to go.

[dewline]

If you have the means to ensure such an exit, I'd certainly consider it one of several agreeable options.

I often wonder if one of my own problems is that I'm too willing to settle for what I think I can get. Trouble is, there's that other extreme scenario that's as much a trap, as you note.