BBC Blog Network

User Profile

invisiblehandadvisor

Listed below are comments made by invisiblehandadvisor between Sunday, 27th September 2009 and Thursday, 3rd December 2009 (10 Hours Ago) .

«Newer
Older»

Public servants on $20m a year 10:35am on 03 Dec 2009 Who has final control over the economy in western liberal economies? Governments or Banks? It seems governments have only limited control over what happens in their territory in terms of how the global financial system operates, how it impacts, exploits, enriches or empoverishes a nation. Governments have even less controll (almost none) over how the global shadow banking system (tax havens, offshore banking) operates. Effectively trillions of dollars are moved around the world to make mega rich people (and many fraudsters, criminals and tax evaders) richer and to exploit any possible tax and legal loophole in existence.
On top of that many countries have very lax financial laws and controls anyhow, as the financial oligarchy has a very great influence on policy making in most western countries.
A very, very sad state of affairs, indeed!

Please read more about the facts and arguments and why this scandalous inequality (very few effective laws for the rich, many for the average tax payer) has to change urgently:
http://globalinsights.wordpress.com/
New name for a new economy? 3:55pm on 13 Nov 2009 Possible names for the current global financial (non)system:

taxhavenshavemorefunandtheplebspayforitocracy

thelawisforplebsonlycracy

etc., etc, etc,

More than 10 Trillion US Dollars are estimated to be stashed and hidden away in tax havens globally. This is corrupting the whole global financial system and enables tax evasion, fraud and corruption on a gigantic scale. When will the western 'democracies' stop this deplorable injustice?
Please read more about the malfunctioning parts of the
global financial system here:
http://globalinsights.wordpress.com/
Why them and not us? 1:07pm on 24 Oct 2009 The UK economy is in big trouble because it produces little in terms or real and sustainable wealth creation, but is overly reliant on the financial services sector. The fools-led financial services sector itself has failed spectacularly in its long-term planning and showed no understanding of economic cycles (there are very few exceptions). The financial services sector has led the country to the edge of bankcruptcy. (Rich) fools leading the financial services sector and servants to the financial services sector leading the political parties, how do you expect the UK economy to prosper? In addition, the UK is closely linked to developments in the US and matters there are even more corrupt.
You can educate yourself about a long list of Wall Street tricks
by reading the following article:
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/story/30481512/wall_streets_naked_swindle/print

To summarise a key insight of this article: if the real economy doesn't produce enough mega-profits to keep the Wall Street fat cats happy, then they will invent an endless and ever increasing stream of artificial products which they trade in ever increasing quantities using borrowed money, until, inevitably, the whole house of cards comes crashing down. The key players usually survive and most have squirreled away enough profits during the boom years to secure their private wealth for life. Who are the main losers? The middle classes and the real economy starved of affordable credit.
Bank reform: The radical way 3:35pm on 21 Oct 2009 It is very, very late and long overdue that a radical critique takes place of the way financial institutions hold both, the state and the tax payers, to ransom. The time for change is now.
It is about time that someone in a senior leadership position (well done Mervyn King) in the UK society calls a spate a spate. We live in an unaccountable, injust financial system, where most banks can only win and the consumer (in the long-term) can only lose (via high debt interest charges, inflation, loss of pension funds, etc.) Currently, the biggest banks are not controllable by the government, they seem to live in a political space of their own. If any institution in a country is beyond political control, its democracy is severly damaged. Effectively, the government has no control over the direction the UK economy will take over the medium to long-term. Another bust or inflation spike could, and will, at any time ruin the governments planning.
Please find many more arguments why this sad situation has to be changed now on the following web site:
http://globalinsights.wordpress.com/
A sombre warning 09:17am on 21 Oct 2009 It is about time that someone in a senior leadership position in the UK society calls a spate a spate. We live in an unaccountable, injust financial system, where most banks can only win and the consumer (in the long-term) can only lose (via high debt interest charges, inflation, loss of pension funds, etc.) Currently, the biggest banks are not controllable by the government, they seem to live in a political space of their own. If any institution in a country is beyond political control, its democracy is severly damaged. Effectively, the government has no control over the direction the UK economy will take over the medium to long-term. Another bust or inflation spike could, and will, at any time ruin the governments planning.
Please find many more arguments why this sad situation has to be changed now on the following web site:
http://globalinsights.wordpress.com/
A plan not a timetable 4:42pm on 10 Oct 2009 Re: #112 armagediontimes

JP Morgan's balance sheet is just over 2 Trillion US Dollars.

It is estimated that JP Morgan holds derivatives contracts of around
88 Trillion US Dollars off balance sheet.

Derivatives contracts are not like assets. Still, it is crazy that such amounts are traded in derivatives; that they are traded off balance sheet; that there is little transparency; and that in the worst case scenario these derivatives could bring down a bank or a country (if any central bank would allow such a thing to occur).
A plan not a timetable 01:19am on 10 Oct 2009 # 97 armagediontimes

You may know that Sephanie has interviewed last month Lawrence Summers in the context of the Pittsburgh Summit:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/thereporters/stephanieflanders/2009/09/three_big_picture_objectives_f.html
Stephanie may rather like Summers' pragmatic, no nonsense, money is power attitude.
What a shame that Lawrence Summers' former de-regulation dogmatism has so spectacularly backfired and almost bankrupted the US and the UK. Never mind, Summers may say one day, we all get it wrong sometimes.
I hope he will avoid costly mistakes in future! I also hope that Obama is more intelligent than Clinton and reins in the Wall Street cowboys and remaining neo-liberal economists before they can create even more destruction.
Nobel Laureate Prof Joseph Stiglitz is a much better choice for sound advice. Nobel Laureate Stiglitz and Nobel Laureate Obama would be a dream team!
Brown and markets 09:54am on 30 Sep 2009 The financial services sector needs to be strictly regulated and reined in. Banks are in many ways not operating in the 'private sector'. Consider this: why is it that banks have privileged access to seemingly unlimited funds provided by the Bank of England and then are charged only 0.5 % interest rates? Why can't small businesses or a private citizen get 0.5 % interest rates from the Bank of England. Is this a free market? Clearly not.
Are banks a business just like any other business? Clearly not. With the financial privileges that banks enjoy, they also should have to accept responsiblities and obligations, serving the UK society, enforced by law.
If banks don't want to be strictly regulated, then they should have no privileges.

In the following comment I do not blame the average worker in banks, but certainly blame senior management in banks and those parts of investment banking and bank trading rooms that do engage in high-risk speculation, using the deposits of their own customers. How crazy is a system that allows a small elite to speculate with multi-billions of pounds of their own depositors, leveraging the sums up to 30 or 40 times, and when it all goes wrong expect the tax payer to foot the bill, pay hundreds of billions to stabilise the banks, and then expect millions of workers to go into unemployment to re-plenish the state and the bank's coffers. All of this whilst they continue to receive mega-bonuses and seek to evade taxes wherever they can? All banks in the UK would have failed without the combined impact of direct state assistance for some banks, state guarantees for all banks, continued access to 0.5% interest rates and quantitative easing pumping 175 billion pounds into the system.
Such madness cannot be repeated again.

Please find many more arguments why reining in banks is absolutely necessary, unavoidable and very good for fairer societies here:
http://globalinsights.wordpress.com/

P.S. I liked Gordon Brown's speech today. Yes, he made mistakes and unfortunately trusted the City of London in the past, but I hope he will never be so foolish again.
Labour bets on bashing bankers 8:44pm on 29 Sep 2009 Colleagues,

In the following comment I do not blame the average worker in banks, but certainly blame senior management in banks and those parts of investment banking and bank trading rooms that do engage in high-risk speculation, using the deposits of their own customers. How crazy is a system that allows a small elite to speculate with multi-billions of pounds of their own depositors, leveraging the sums up to 30 or 40 times, and when it all goes wrong expect the tax payer to foot the bill, pay hundreds of billions to stabilise the banks, and then expect millions of workers to go into unemployment to re-plenish the state and the bank's coffers. All of this whilst they continue to receive mega-bonuses and seek to evade taxes wherever they can? All banks in the UK would have failed without the combined impact of direct state assistance for some banks, state guarantees for all banks, continued access to 0.5 interest rates and quantitative easing pumping 175 billion pounds into the system.
Such madness cannot be repeated again.

Please find many more arguments why reining in banks is absolutely necessary, unavoidable and very good for fairer societies here:
http://globalinsights.wordpress.com/

P.S. I liked Gordon Brown's speech today. Yes, he made mistakes and unfortunately trusted the City of London in the past, but I hope he will never be so foolish again.
Brown and bonuses 8:22pm on 27 Sep 2009 I agree with those commentators who argued that banker's bonuses played a significant role in the casino banking madness which has almost bankrupted Britain. Of course, negligent major shareholders, regulators asleep at the desk, corrupted rating agencies, financially uneducated boards, silently colluding pension funds, politicians not understanding economic cycles and new financial products, all are also to blame. Still, in the end it was the banks failed speculation and bad investments that held the UK tax payer to randsom and we are all paying for it now. Whilst Labour has been asleep on these matters, I would expect the Tories to have been similarly subservient to the City of London. Looking forward, what can we expect from a Tory party, with their Deputy Chairman Lord Ashcroft, who is making his money in the tax haven of Belize, first exploiting the really poor citizens in Belize and then using the money, via his UK companies, to corrupt British politics.
The consequences are well explained in the following article:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/sep/27/michael-ashcroft-nick-cohen

«Newer
Older»

^ Back to top

BBC MMVI

The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites

BBC.co.uk

BBC Blog Network

Find and talk to the BBC's bloggers.

User Profile

invisiblehandadvisor