Be Careful What You Wish For .....

[pilchardthecat]

I can tell you are a decent person underneath

Wow that's some insight.

Some stranger writes something on the internet, which may or may not be wholly or partially true, and you can judge the decency of their character. Well done.

To me he just sounds like someone who jumped before they were pushed, but who's ego demands that he reinforces the "fact" that he left of his own volition, and was not rejected.... he does this by telling everyone (but mainly himself) that he quit. He is simply massaging his own sense of self-worth. "I need them more than they need me." This impression is further strengthened by the repeated statements to the effect of "you lot have no idea what i did...." Personally i think he's more likely to be a self serving mercenary ba'stard who has spent the last 20 years treading on other people to futher himself.... but then i don't know him either, and anyway - let he who is without sin, etc

[Injin]

I agree, feudalism never really went away, but since the enlightenment and the industrial revolution it has been obfuscated by technological progress, the real kicker came with the emergence of the the shadow slave, the oil age. However, we must not confuse cause with effect, our current prosperity is despite the parastic system not because of it, given our technological sophistication it's amazing that general living standards are still so low for the majority of the population. The biggest example of that is extremely poor housing, feudalism never went away in this country, housing problems aren't for the want of land, labour or materials, it's because the parasites keep the development potential of land well locked down in this realm.

Anyway, with the twilight years of the oil age upon us the gloves will come off and the true sense of our predicament will alarm many, men who believed they were free will have to confront the fact they were always nothing but slaves.

Heres the thing - the oil has always been there, and in fact the feudalism got modified before we started using it.

So whatever changed caused the progress that allowed us to develop far enough to be able to use oil.......but the sociopaths are back with a vengeance and the old barriers stopped working. They even help them now.

Anyway.....just something I am grappling with atm.

[Guest sillybear2]

The problem is with the industry as a whole. Unless you are very simple minded, you can't fail to have noticed that these problems are not due to a rogue trader in each of the affected companies. They are systemic failures, entire organisations have failed due to invalid business models and unknown risk exposure. The invalid business models weren't spotted due to simple greed.

Exactly, it's like setting a group of pyromaniacs loose in a fireworks factory then blaming the single fire starter that finally managed to make the place go kaboom, if it wasn't him it would have been somebody else 10 seconds later.

[200p]

Don't be angry, thats how life works. Just look at history. [E.g. John Law and the collapse of French Financial system]

Paper faith moves to Tangible faith, and then back to Paper, and so on.... cycle is now coming full circle.

I.e. People's faith in Wallstreet, London is destroyed.

Accept it's part of nature and adapt accordingly.

Get out of paper.

---------------------------------

300,000 Wallstreet employees shared bonuses of $85 Billion, in one year, more than than the entire GDP of Vietnam - was it really wealth? Or just paper?

Edited March 20, 2009 by trev

[Guest BoomBoomCrash]

Imagine if you'd spent thirty years in the public sector doing a proper job (a non-non-job) particularly through the cuts and freezes of the 80s and endless paperwork generating initiatives and then at the end of it, not only do people think you are a "parasite" for your years of service often doing thankless, unpleasant work for the kinds of people everyone else crosses the street to avoid, particularly during the various booms. I'm thinking here particularly of teachers (supposed to fix all society's problems before assembly has finished) and social workers (interfere too much, don't interfere enough, depending on whether the Daily Mail leader writer has taken their pills yet).

30 years of it and half the press devoted to doing little more than spitting at you on a daily basis for that entire time and then they start mounting a campaign to have your pension taken away from you. The one they couldn't be bothered paying for when they were feeling rich.

I don't think you know what "daily vilification" is. You've had, what, a year of it?

Take a look at the replies this comment is almost guaranteed to get.

His attitude bespeaks the free ride the bankstas have had for so long. It's not enough that they made pot loads of money by ruining the lives of other people. but they want to be respected for it.

[Guest BoomBoomCrash]

Wow that's some insight.

Some stranger writes something on the internet, which may or may not be wholly or partially true, and you can judge the decency of their character. Well done.

To me he just sounds like someone who jumped before they were pushed, but who's ego demands that he reinforces the "fact" that he left of his own volition, and was not rejected.... he does this by telling everyone (but mainly himself) that he quit. He is simply massaging his own sense of self-worth. "I need them more than they need me." This impression is further strengthened by the repeated statements to the effect of "you lot have no idea what i did...." Personally i think he's more likely to be a self serving mercenary ba'stard who has spent the last 20 years treading on other people to futher himself.... but then i don't know him either, and anyway - let he who is without sin, etc

Or we could just start throwing house bricks at them

[tuggybear]

It's all basic Darwinism in the end, we will all do what is necessary to feed / improve our own lives and our families at any expense!

Many Tin Foil hats thread on here about stockpiling of foods and lengths one would go for protection of said food. No different.

This is one of the reasons we all frequent HPC, to keep ahead of herd, so we might have an advantage.

Bankers had an advantage, they used it, and as always someone else pays.(the weak)

Basic Darwinism!

Stay stong, I think this the correct decision for you, if you feel this way.

If you can afford to give up your job, do it!

Good luck to you LuckyOne !

Edited March 21, 2009 by tuggybear

[Guest UK Debt Slave]

I know that this will sound very arrogant to many......................

YUP.......

You have profitted enormously from an absolutely corrupt rotten system

You haven't haven't created any real wealth. you have produced nothing and contributed nothing positive to society. You are an utter waste of DNA.

You prosperity has been stolen from someone else in the future, just as our monetary system uses monetary debasement to steal the peoples wealth from the future

Congratufekknlations a$$hole

[Guest UK Debt Slave]

His attitude bespeaks the free ride the bankstas have had for so long. It's not enough that they made pot loads of money by ruining the lives of other people. but they want to be respected for it.

Yep. Absolutely

These people create no real wealth and contribute nothing towards creating a better world, they just redistribute it to themselves.

[rex]

There are only men.

Idiot.

So far on this thread, you've called me an idiot and a psychopath. Further on in the thread you start mentioning sociopaths, and keep referring to morality. I haven't actually seen an intelligent argument; just a load of insults and emotive words, possibly bordering on religion. You aren't a Mormon are you?

[pilchardthecat]

Or we could just start throwing house bricks at them

yeah, alright then

just out of curiosity, at what point does the intrinsic value of the bricks in my house exceed the value of the house itself?

[_w_]

To blame all employees of the financial industry is nothing but foaming at the mouth rabble rousing, it's ignorant, it's pathetic, it's innacurate, and it's just plain wrong.

Psychology is what you're missing here. Corporate culture is the key, it permeates down the food chain. As it moves down and then back up amplified over the years, those that put ethics above greed find that they do not fit and have to leave. The worst of the lot move faster up the corporate ladder.

Survivor bias. Those that survive, even if they are in no position to do harm, are still fully adapted components of today's banking culture which, when you look at it closely from agency sales to fund management to structured finance, is repulsive.

Not saying they are 'bad', but they had to change for the worse to adapt.

[Guest sillybear2]

Heres the thing - the oil has always been there, and in fact the feudalism got modified before we started using it.

So whatever changed caused the progress that allowed us to develop far enough to be able to use oil.......but the sociopaths are back with a vengeance and the old barriers stopped working. They even help them now.

Anyway.....just something I am grappling with atm.

Money is simply a proxy for power, we both know fiat is nothing but scraps of worthless paper, what gives it value is the fact the state compels you to beat up your fellow man in order to gather enough to pay your 'taxes' and avoid jail, without such coercion fiat money would be worthless. From the governments point of view gathering bits of worthless paper from the plebs is worthless in itself, they can just print as much of this toilet paper as they wish anyway, what gives it value for them is the fact they can reverse the con, the state wants a share of your labour and productive output, just like a feudal lord, so it returns the paper back to the system for 'real' objects. The state doesn't want worthless paper the same way the feudal lord doesn't want paying in land, he doesn't need anymore, he wants the fruits of the land without getting his hands dirty, the means of production is worthless to him because ironically he has a monopoly on it.

Anyway, what got modified you ask, the institutions were modified, power was once exercised by the church, we had Galileo and the reformation and people started to realise their system of control was an illusion that was "full of sh1t" to put it bluntly, just how we are now realising the neo-usurers are worthless parasites that feed off the system. Once power shifted to Parliament the sociopaths migrated too, hence the civil war.

Edited March 20, 2009 by sillybear2

[Injin]

So far on this thread, you've called me an idiot and a psychopath. Further on in the thread you start mentioning sociopaths, and keep referring to morality. I haven't actually seen an intelligent argument; just a load of insults and emotive words, possibly bordering on religion. You aren't a Mormon are you?

Your first post that I commented on was the expression of a psychopath.

Your second was that of an idiot - men should keep in check the behaviour of men because men are corruptible was your basic idea, and it's point and laughable.

And this one is an attack.

Have you considered doing a course in logic to go with your political theology?

[IBlewItLastTime]

You cannot be held to ransom by the incumbent executives just as you cannot rely on those whose heart isn't really in it any more. People can make fantastic careers about mystic knowledge that somehow only they have.

The times throw up people who can and are capable of dealing with the situation. Having never really enjoyed the boom years they are prepared to knuckle down in lean times. Quite often it is a different type of executive you need, less salesy and more technical.

Being too careful about what we wished for is the reason the government has blinked and bailed out time and again, only to have the insult of public money being siphoned into monster pay awards.

Sentiment can change in a short time. Already people realise that tarring all bankers with the same brush is folly.

It may be more expensive to work out, it may be different, it will be too boring for many.

If you've been in the game a while and financially secure, maybe it is time to go, its going to bad for a few years and its probably time to look at the world from a different place.

[OnlyMe]

Theres some utter sh1te in this thread.

The losses in banks were typically generated by no more than a couple of hundred traders out of 30,000 or so staff at the major lenders like RBS.

Rubbish, in many cases the only people who could not possibly have been involved were the bog cleaners.

I think it was the 2003 BBC expose, might have been another - journo calls in for a loan and makes it clear they don;t have the legitimate income to cover a mortgage available direct form the lender. The telephonist directs them to the broker network so they should be able to "help". All the mortgage applications would have to be heavily unscrutinized, staff were incentivised via the bonus/targets, targets that in many/most cases that were paramount and to meet these targets the appropriate corners were cut and obstacles avoided, managers probably bullied staff into doing what they knew was wrong, but do it they did for years. As for packaging ans selling up this shit, well that is nothing more than outright fraud.

The level of abuse became systemic - making it even possible for fraudsters and the criminal fraternity to make 10's (if not more) applications for loans backed by NOTHING - something that would be simply impossible without due diligence. This type of fraud was also known about years before the current spate of so-called revelations, but with it came huge churn, more support for blowing the bubble and more commission cheques and bonuses.

Edited March 20, 2009 by OnlyMe

[D.C.]

I don't understand comments like. Take this back to basic principles. We are all animals. Without rules and regulations in life we would revert to base and kill or be killed, conquer or be conquered. Your "buy to let brigade" have just been doing what comes naturally to man - put themselves in the best possible position in life as compared to anyone else, and sod the rest. We are not natural "do-gooders" acting for the greater good of all. In fact the "do-gooders" when compared to how other species act, are probably the abnormal ones. If I had to kill in order to live I would; if I had to beat some-one else down in order to make a buck, I would. I want to survive.

Lucky One has nothing to apologise to anyone for. Life sucks and the losers tend to fail sooner.

Funny. I did a degree in, among other things, politics. Got a First Class Hons degree in it. What I have stated is a key view of many political theorists dating back to at least the 19th century. Look up Rousseau and the general will versus the will of all. Not sure anyone called him a psychopath too.

This is "man" mate. Its crazy castigating individuals for doing what comes naturally. The class which should be blamed is a general class of people who is tasked with protecting the rights of all, not just the individual.

You have a psychopathic, nazi translation of evolution at work in these arguments, you have failed to understand that intelligence frees you and exceeds that which genetic programing can offer.

You say that you would kill in order to survive but belong to a society that has never had to stoop to such lows. What you mean is you don't give a shit about anyone other than yourself and would kill if it would profit you.

I truly hope that you die a painful death at hands of a starving chav trying to feed his family. If you really want to live in a society like that why not post your address, we can test this man eat man theory of yours in the real world...

[Guest UK Debt Slave]

Money is simply a proxy for power, we both know fiat is nothing but scraps of worthless paper, what gives it value is the fact the state compels you to beat up your fellow man in order to gather enough to pay your 'taxes' and avoid jail, without such coercion fiat money would be worthless. From the governments point of view gathering bits of worthless paper from the plebs is worthless in itself, they can just print as much of this toilet paper as they wish anyway, what gives it value for them is the fact they can reverse the con, the state wants a share of your labour and productive output, just like a feudal lord, so it returns the paper back to the system for 'real' objects. The state doesn't want worthless paper the same way the feudal lord doesn't want paying in land, he doesn't need anymore, he wants the fruits of the land without getting his hands dirty, the means of production is worthless to him because ironically he has a monopoly on it.

Anyway, what got modified you ask, the institutions were modified, power was once exercised by the church, we had Galileo and the reformation and people started to realise their system of control was an illusion that was "full of sh1t" to put it bluntly, just how we are now realising the neo-usurers are worthless parasites that feed off the system. Once power shifted to Parliament the sociopaths migrated too, hence the civil war.

Excellent!

The only thing that gives paper money value is our own future slave labour.

If people realized what a fragile system it really is, and realized how badly we are being screwed, they'd down tools tomorrow.

And my own conclusion is that this is waht will happen eventually. But I suspect we are closer than we might think.

[wonderpup]

"Be careful what you wish for"

What I wish for is a world where my small business would be able to support me in a modest lifestyle. This is looking increasingly unlikely to happen due to the economic damage caused by people working in your industry.

I don't know you, of course, all I know is that people like you have reached into my world and broken it, created a fear and insecurity that was not there before.

I understand that you too now are feeling some fear and insecurity, due to the stigmitisation of your proffession- well, all I can say to that is, welcome to the club.

This idea that valuable 'talent' is being driven from the industry by the current backlash seems to be just another variation on the 'because we're worth it' refrain that was used to justify the grotesque incomes in the city over the last decade- and now we discover that these supposedly rare and gifted indivduals were no more than greedy fools playing games with other people's money.

"Be careful what you wish for" is just wishful-and wistful-thinking. Your status is gone, and nobody really any longer belives that what you did required 'talent'- clearly it did not, otherwise how to explain how so many fools thrived for so long?

[Guest UK Debt Slave]

I don't understand comments like. Take this back to basic principles. We are all animals. Without rules and regulations in life we would revert to base and kill or be killed, conquer or be conquered. Your "buy to let brigade" have just been doing what comes naturally to man - put themselves in the best possible position in life as compared to anyone else, and sod the rest. We are not natural "do-gooders" acting for the greater good of all. In fact the "do-gooders" when compared to how other species act, are probably the abnormal ones. If I had to kill in order to live I would; if I had to beat some-one else down in order to make a buck, I would. I want to survive.

Lucky One has nothing to apologise to anyone for. Life sucks and the losers tend to fail sooner.

Yep

Here speaketh something (some'one' not an appropriate use of English in this case) who has clearly forgotten.....or never had....... those qualities that one might associate with 'HUMANITY'

You sad *******

[erranta]

Holy shit! You're a landlord AND a banker!? Enough greed for two lifetimes there.

Surprised he hasn't got a few 'weekend pads' in Cornwall, Lake District, North Norfolk, Cornwall, West country etc to 'chill out' in!

City of London is Corrupt to the Core Prime Minister downwards!

[OnlyMe]

"Be careful what you wish for" is just wishful-and wistful-thinking. Your status is gone, and nobody really any longer belives that what you did required 'talent'- clearly it did not, otherwise how to explain how so many fools thrived for so long?

You could go further - this level of talent delivered with such aplomb in other "real industries" right down to the underlings would get them immediately fired, struck off a professional register, in court for damages or in the most severe cases if life-threatening results ensued was involved manslaughter charges and any company they were employed by in a similar mire.

[Guest sillybear2]

Excellent!

The only thing that gives paper money value is our own future slave labour.

Yes, the debt based element is the real kicker, not enough money exists in the system to repay the loans plus interest, they created the capital but not the interest, so new debt has to be created in order to clear existing debts, and so the problem continues in an exponential function, and that's why over 97% of all money in the system is someone else's debt.

The system will break down pretty soon, the next generation will leave education with >£50k in debts, a national debt and interest payments the size of the moon, near monopoly banking parasites, unfunded ponzi scheme pensions that are demographically doomed and funded pensions and asset pools solely reliant on usury and stealing their productive output to their own ends. Not to mention a government hell bent on making housing as unaffordable, small and low standard as possible, building only 60k new homes year because this suits the parasites in the land monopoly.

If you've got nothing then you've got nothing to lose, if you're young and in debt then you have everything to gain. The riots will be fierce, people have promised themselves so much and neglected to save for it and those who are being lined up as the new ponzi fodder cannot deliver the goods even if they wanted to. You can see why the state has cameras everywhere, they want their share first, regardless of everyone else. The only way the government can feed itself is via immigration, creating new fellow men to fight against, this inflates the value of fiat relative to real labour costs, that might have some interesting consequences when people who are accustomed to cheap products of the oil age are disenfranchised.

Edited March 20, 2009 by sillybear2

[Guest BoomBoomCrash]

You could go further - this level of talent delivered with such aplomb in other "real industries" right down to the underlings would get them immediately fired, struck off a professional register, in court for damages or in the most severe cases if life-threatening results ensued was involved manslaughter charges and any company they were employed by in a similar mire.

Whereas in finance it gets you a knighthood and a massive pension.

[pilchardthecat]

Whereas in finance it gets you a knighthood and a massive pension.

But on a brighter note, if things do get really really bad, it will also get them torn limb from limb by a braying angry mob.... fat pension or no