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StOliverPlunkett

Listed below are comments made by StOliverPlunkett between Monday, 6th October 2008 and Sunday, 30th August 2009.

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What future for media and journalism? 4:58pm on 30 Aug 2009 "Market-based democracies like ours need two kinds of essential infrastructure: ... and competing independent news groups that distribute impartial information so that people can take control of their lives and rein in the over-mighty."

The BBC represented our last hope of anything like impartial public information. If it had done its job, the licence fee (surely TV Tax by now, like Car Tax) would have been worth paying to one monopolistic organisation. Sadly, in the media that seek to inform, it is still Citizen Kane's world. Elsewhere, news is hypocritically dressed-up entertainment.
Should we save building societies? 9:58pm on 12 May 2009 I watch with concern the progress of Terry Leahy's monopolistic ambition (also that of Robert's revered Nationwide) and wish for the survival of the remaining 'people's banks', the smaller mutuals and those who resisted the fashionable pressure to convert. Whenever I touch anything on the shelves at Tesco a bell sounds off. If this is the character of future relations between big lenders and their customers I shall keep my ambition reined in and pay for everything with cash.
Making banks safe 5:40pm on 28 Apr 2009 Still a little woolly in my opinion, Robert. Let us know when you have it all sorted out.

#10. 'Anybody who has done O Level Biology can tell you that unlimited growth is not possible whether it is economic or any other sort ... Can someone explain where the growth comes from if it is real?'

I think I can explain this. It comes from other people, who get less growth for themselves, or it comes from future resources that belong properly to our descendants.

How many more generations of homo sapiens should there be, do you reckon, before the mass extinction or before we return to wearing grass skirts and building mud huts? At present, the answer is about two.
'B' for bother? 6:14pm on 18 Nov 2008 "It looked like a major engineering feat, but then bits started falling off ..."

What a telling symbol of the world's finance industry! It should be installed permanently in the City of London. I suggest that leading City bankers might raise £1.7m from their private resources to meet Heatherwick's liability.
Why hedge funds are crying 12:49pm on 16 Oct 2008 #143: I take your point. It would have been more accurate to describe this non-investment activity as immoral or unethical rather than criminal since it appears not to violate any law.

There is another test of antisocial activity, which is to ask: "Can we all do it? What will happen?"

If you win at a casino your profit comes from other gamblers. Fair enough, they know what they are doing, they have agreed the rules. But should investors, bankers and gamblers be in the same house?
Why hedge funds are crying 00:36am on 16 Oct 2008 Robert, hedge funds are going out. Here is my reasoning for the likes of me who have simple honest minds.

The money in the system comes from two sources:

A - serious investors who wish to secure their own or their clients' capital and who require an income;

B - gamblers who wish to make a fast buck without working.

When gamblers win (which on balance, if they survive in the game, they do) they take money out of the system. The money comes from A.

This, in my opinion, defines a criminal activity.
Monday 6th October, 2008 11:49pm on 06 Oct 2008 Kirsty - shameless bullying of the German ambassador who is unusually well-informed about economics! Surely journalists are the interviewers, their guests the ones who know something. Remember, in Germany things are so much better organised.

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