This whole Finance Crisis thing........
..... would be funny if it weren't soo darned expensive.
Okay just a couple of points on the subject.
First of all - isn't the first rule of the 'invisible hand' of the market that the only way it works is without intervention ?? So if you F@ck Up - as the Merchant Bankers have done right royally - their punishment should be that they go bust (otherwise what's the deterrent against doing it again ??) Why do we resort to pseudo-Nationalisation to solve the problem and make the taxpayer pay for the multimillion dollar bonuses that all the bankers got ?? My solution - get all the bankers and repossess their ill gotten gains in the first instance - just like we do with criminals !!!
Secondly this 'Short Selling' strategy - WTF ?? If I understand this correctly - you sell shares you don't actually own (thus causing the price to collapse) and then you buy the shares at a reduced price to complete your transaction ?? How does that work ?? No wonder the system is screwed !!
Thirdly - and the main reason I am so upset by all of this. Here I am as an environmentalist concerned about climate change. All the governments and business groups whinge about how adapting to a low Carbon economy will drive everyone bankrupt, how it will cost billions, how it will restrict the 'Free Market' etc etc etc. Yet to make america completely energy self sufficient using Solar technology has been costed at only $480 billion (see previous post of mine) - half the cost of this bail out package. And for that - spent not overnight but over 40 years - you actually get useful assets, new technology, a decoupling from the reliance on Middle East Oil and the political/military benefits associated with that.
So if the Americans can sit dowen over a weekend a write a check for 1 Trillion dollars to bail out their merchant bankers, why can't we just do the same and just solve our Greenhouse Gas problem ?? At least this one would do something useful - like prevent dangerous Climate change !!!
Okay just a couple of points on the subject.
First of all - isn't the first rule of the 'invisible hand' of the market that the only way it works is without intervention ?? So if you F@ck Up - as the Merchant Bankers have done right royally - their punishment should be that they go bust (otherwise what's the deterrent against doing it again ??) Why do we resort to pseudo-Nationalisation to solve the problem and make the taxpayer pay for the multimillion dollar bonuses that all the bankers got ?? My solution - get all the bankers and repossess their ill gotten gains in the first instance - just like we do with criminals !!!
Secondly this 'Short Selling' strategy - WTF ?? If I understand this correctly - you sell shares you don't actually own (thus causing the price to collapse) and then you buy the shares at a reduced price to complete your transaction ?? How does that work ?? No wonder the system is screwed !!
Thirdly - and the main reason I am so upset by all of this. Here I am as an environmentalist concerned about climate change. All the governments and business groups whinge about how adapting to a low Carbon economy will drive everyone bankrupt, how it will cost billions, how it will restrict the 'Free Market' etc etc etc. Yet to make america completely energy self sufficient using Solar technology has been costed at only $480 billion (see previous post of mine) - half the cost of this bail out package. And for that - spent not overnight but over 40 years - you actually get useful assets, new technology, a decoupling from the reliance on Middle East Oil and the political/military benefits associated with that.
So if the Americans can sit dowen over a weekend a write a check for 1 Trillion dollars to bail out their merchant bankers, why can't we just do the same and just solve our Greenhouse Gas problem ?? At least this one would do something useful - like prevent dangerous Climate change !!!