Monday, May 03, 2010
Election lite
Guardian: Finance is responsible for this savage new era. But it's off the electoral agenda
The failure of the election campaign to address the unsolved problem of the damage wrought by the financial institutions (still comfortably in place and raking in the loot straight from your pocket) suggests there is very big trouble ahead.
Posted by letthemfall @ 11:42 AM (1241 views) Add Comment
16 Comments
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1. nomad said...
Thanks for a first class post. A knowledgeable and understanding look at the big picture, particularly the continuing filling of pockets before leaving others to suffer the consequences.
2. dude said...
I've always believed that the political elite have been willing to support such an unbalanced sector of the British economy because of a view that it keeps up 'at the top table.' We are seen as a global state because we have such an important international banking sector, born out of the cold war, when the Soviet Union wanted somewhere in the West to put its dollars.
By clinging on to that we have ended up with our domestic economy becoming very unhealthy, and the obsession with home ownership (and by proxy mortgages) has allowed the finance sector to remain dominant. It's the all-your-eggs-in one-basket syndrome, and when it goes belly up, as it must when the debts are defaulted, we will all be in the mire.
The big question to me is, is the next parliament going to be an interesting period or a frightening period?
3. Crunchy said...
I wished that I too was this clever. I get my way no matter who wins the election. GENIUS!!!!!
Now keep paying up you globalised suckers.
4. Crunchy said...
Guardian: Finance is responsible for this savage new era. But it's off the electoral agenda
Hey, poking fun at us isn't a vote winner, or is that just the view of a bigot?
Be careful of voicing your views. Gordon stands in judgement and has the final say because he knows best.
Whata guy!!!
5. Crunchy said...
2. dude
A frightening period I think.
All three parties have to tow the line. That's not interesting but clever and thus frightening in it's genius.
Checkmate, checkmate, checkmate. We have been conditioned. GENIUS!!!
6. mrmickey said...
The problem is that the banking system is rotten to the core and politians know it, what politian is going to expose the whole system as a sham, and crash the system trashing peoples savings and pensions in the process, short of a bit of tinkering I see the next government doing nothing for fear of pushing the already rickety system over the edge and causing chaos. All the bankers learnt fron the last melt down is that they will be bailed out because the alternative is total collapse of the finance system.
7. happy mondays said...
mrmickey said...what politician is going to expose the whole system as a sham?
Answer : None because we have only politicians, Not Leaders! twisted by business & on there knees sucking off the system to bleed it (us) dry... Rerum Mutatio
8. rumble said...
"The problem is that the banking system is rotten to the core and politians know it"
-- Of course they know it, the root of the banking system is the central bank, created by government, maintained by government.
"what politian is going to expose the whole system as a sham"
-- Exactly why it's not on the election agenda, because all paths lead to government - the whole sham system includes government.
"bankers learnt fron the last melt down is that they will be bailed out"
-- Because that's what governments do - bail out corps, bail out individuals - no responsibility required, courtesy the acceptable slush fund.
"we have only politicians, Not Leaders"
-- Government is only conducive to politicians.
9. alan_540 said...
HPC is not on the agenda because none of the parties want to tell a highly mortgaged population that the value of their biggest 'asset' is going to go down in value and that they're the ones that will do it when they gain power.
10. enuii said...
The first interest rate rises will flash out the puss, they aint gonna stay at 0.5% for ever!
11. markj69 str05 said...
Watch the VAT rise first! 25% ? That'll generate some income.
12. alan said...
"I would not necessarily want the problem of tackling that (UK) debt. Any solution is going to be very unpopular politically " W.Buffett, 3/May.
I guess a government borrowing to pay for its daily activities is a bit like paying off your mortgage with a credit card...it all comes to an abrupt end one day.
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14. mark wadsworth said...
As Alan 540 at 6. suggests, while this bank bashing is all good fun and indulged in across the political spectrum (mainly by people who have no idea how it really works, either on a nuts and bolts level or Big Picture), such a bloated financial system is only possible if there is a corresponding asset price bubble, in nine cases out of ten, it is good old land prices that are inflated out of any sensible proportion.
So a tax and planning and bank supervision system that keeps land prices (and hence house prices) low and stable (like wot we had in the 1950s and 1960s) sorts out two problems at the same time.
To paraphrase General Franco - "There are two types of economic problems - those that land value tax will sort out and those that are insoluble."
15. nickb said...
But Mark at 10,
Why is there a housing price bubble? You seem to relate it to a flaw in regulation rather than an inherent feature of our economic system. But the regular cyclic graph and its equivalent in other countries suggests otherwise. There's a housing price bubble because of the way banks are allowed to create money out of nothing, the same fact that explains what is wrong with Rumble at 5: the politicians are in the bankers' pockets, not vice versa.
16. mark wadsworth said...
There are regular house price bubbles because people get carried away and think it's free money, the bankers love it and the politicans love it. With Land Value Tax it would be very much not free money and making tax free capital gains would be nigh impossible, thus keeping house prices low and stable. A house would be somewhere to live and not an 'investment'.
The longest period of house price stability in the UK was from the 1920s to the late 1960s (ignoring blip after WW2) because we had less restrictive planning laws; Schedule A tax and domestic rates (= property value tax); more council house building and rules on how much banks can borrow and lend. Hey presto, there were no great financial crises either (apart from after 1929 but that was mainly the Americans' fault).