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Sunday Morning in Byzantium
Is this simply an entirely different video than the BBC seems to be reporting on, or are British politics even more full of nuance and nonsense than we have hithertofore given them (substantial) credit for? See, it sounds to us like the Shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer, George Osborne, just suggested the elimination (or total circumvention) of loss-carry-forwards for UK banks (and foreign banks with UK offices). That's something coming from a conservative MP, but then, anything to tie Gordon Brown (himself a former Shadow and then actual Chancellor of the Exchequer) into knots by rocking Alistar back on his heels and forcing the purse holder to look anit-populist, yes? Actually, that's pretty impressive work for a Sunday. Sure, Alistar "We've Simply Run Out Of Money" Darling ducks and covers nicely (well, for the weekend tele crowd anyhow- insofaras fairness to bankers is on their civil justice list) but the writing of Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs ("Our purpose is to make sure that the money is available to fund the UK's public services." -Fail-) is on the wall for UK finance.
You do have to admire the way Osborne rationalizes the literal elimination of loss-carry-forwards as a basic property of taxation. It's all in your time series starting point, we suppose.
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5azestHEYIg&NR=1
I know where those UK banks can get some money!
http://retardzone.com/2008/02/06/1234-i-declare-a-retard-war
On a side note from the UK press a different type of EUR/USD carry .... :-)
Euros become currency of drug cartels
Smugglers and launderers use €500 notes instead of $100 bills to save space
http://www.guardian.co.uk/global/2009/dec/06/drug-cartels-eruos-dollars-...
One other nice fact is that it is pretty hard to find any remaining 500 euro bills anymore.
Most of the are located in spain (this is where rich europeans bring their black money to to invest in real estate)
and it's nearly impossible to spend one(in france)
I'm not one bit surprised that the CIA is trading in Euros now.
Since we've only spent 30% of the original TARP money I don't see why we cannot help out the UK some.
http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/12/04/bernanke-does-a-bad-bad-thing/
Maybe they can teach the US how to set up more surveillance cameras in both urban and rural locations. Ooops, I forgot we have Hubble.
If you missed it late last week, great opinion piece by David Malpass on why ZIRP is hurting America.
http://www.fundmymutualfund.com/2009/12/david-malpass-near-zero-rates-are.html
does anybody else have problem playing the clip?
does anybody else have problem playing the clip?
Yeah.
It looked like the video was trying to run before the clip had loaded to me. Try restarting the video and pressing pause for a while and see if that helps.
The issue here is really who should bear the brunt of the post-fact insurance premium levy for the global financial bail-out.
I'd argue that most common stock holders, while greedy, were not making (or even pushing for) these firms to take undue risk. Instead, they were buying what was hot because buying what is hot is what they are supposed to do (allegedly).
On the other side, management (and willing co-conspirators) were (and are) taking 50% of the revenue and none of the capital risk.
So, if we are to levy a post-fact insurance premium on anyone, why would it be the investors, who risked 100% of the capital for 50% of the profit, and lost? Perhaps we should charge this premium to the managers, who risked (and continue to risk) 0% of the capital for 50% of the profit.
Two words for you: "due diligence".
Or, in pedant Latin: "Caveat Emptor".
You invest, you risk. You don't do your homework, you lose. You don't keep management on a short leash, which is your right as a stockholder, and you can kiss your capital bye-bye.
See Also: Enron, Lehman Brothers, etc. This being said, yes, management should be responsible. And, in many cases, they should be behind bars, not running around distributing bonuses to everyone in the company.
thanks for the highlight, Marla.
and remember kids: "it's Istanbul not Constantinople" (" ... one is a genius and the other's insane ... ")
... PIK loans et al are about as F'ing practical as the Stutue of Artemis itself. The deck of (credit) cards that we all collectively stand upon today w/o any affixed asset of tangible value and without true fungibility is so thoroughly ominous that it could stare down Phil Ivey.
Tick-tock, PIGS. DX/ $USD over 81/ 84 and they'll start squealin' again. And once those powder kegs go Kablooey / BAM / POW like Adam West in costume, their reverberations will very, very quickly light China's copper stockpiles ablaze like the Olympics' Opening Ceremonies. Tick-tock, PIGS. Tick-frickin-tock.
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I refer the right honorable gentleman and gentlelady to the answers given a few moments ago....
Shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer?...is that like Shadow U.S. Secretary of Treasury Jamie Dimon or Shadow Chairman of the Federal Reserve Lloyd Blankfein?
In Britain, the executive arm of government is appointed from within the ranks of the elected legislature. Osborne is a Member of Parliament belonging to the Conservative Party, who are, as they have been since 1997, Her Majesty's Opposition, ie the party with the second largest representation in the House of Commons. The only constitutionally meaningful position within the opposition is its leader (currently David Cameron), but the leader appoints spokespeople for the opposition on a range of areas of policy. These people (generally MPs but occasionally peers) are traditionally referred to as "Shadow X", where X is the title of the government minister in whose portfolio they specialise. Collectively, the leader of the opposition and these spokespersons are referred to as the "Shadow Cabinet". Osborne's title (though unofficial and also claimed by Vince Cable of the Liberal Democrats) indicates that he is tasked with drawing up and presenting Conservative fiscal policy - in particular, that he be the Opposition's point man in any debate with the Chancellor (currently Alistair Darling) - and that if, as is likely, the Conservatives win the general election which will shortly be forthcoming, he will in all probability become Chancellor.
Unlike you lot, we do at least get to vote with advance knowledge of who will be appointed to the most senior positions in the executive. Sadly, for this one we only get to pick between Darling and Osborne (douche/turd sandwich, though both infinitely preferable to Brown's decade of idiocy from 1997 to 2007. Maybe Brown's a rusty bayonet recently removed from the anus of a syphilitic in this analogy). A hung Parliament leading to a coallition government with Cable as Chancellor is not out of the question, admittedly, but "hung Parliament" will not appear on ballot sheets. Except insofar as that's what they mean by "UKIP".
A 'hung Parliament' is our best hope. Old Holborn (http://bastardoldholborn.blogspot.com/ warning: language is 'colourful') is already going around the lampposts in Westminster putting up “Reserved for…” signs. Stocks of rope and piano wire are in short supply, so can our American chums send over some more please?
We Yanks were introduced to Lord and Lady Douchebag and the Earl of Sandwich on Saturday Night Live.
We have not yet been introduced to the Prince of Turds.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K_b3oPslctA
Have you met Princess Mandy, minister for everything he can get his mucky hands on especially dodgy Brazilian rent-boys?
Always learn from royalty and authority. They are excellent teachers.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DS9JiPSXwwc
Bah! The gov of The UK and the US are in agreement that they would rather see 1 million citizens reduced to shocking poverty then a single banker miss his bonus. I get a feeling like this is nothing more than pillow talk to the voting populace. Got to wish Gordon Brown would do me a favor and sell the rest of the UK's gold, would really help me out.
Exactly. Except that the citizens are not even on their radar. Their only concerns are for their bed partners, the bankers.
And a trillion (it's the new million) thank yous, btw, for using the proper term to refer a country's inhabitants--consumer is an MSM construct so overused for so long that the citizens themselves use it as their frame of reference, forgetting (or worse, never considering) that they are, instead, citizens, with all the rights and responsibilities that word entails.
Terrifyingly, I really do believe that Brown believes he is acting in the interests of the people. To become Secretary of the Treasury in the US you probably have to have a successful career in finance and make yourself a lot of money, which may not indicate benevolence or impartiality but does at least suggest you're not a complete fool. To become a Labour Chancellor of the Exchequer, you need to convince a lot of idiot trade unionists that you will create as many jobs as possible for their members past and future on the government payroll, which you can achieve very easily by being a socialist academic at a fifth rate university. Brown has delusions of grandeur (remember when he saved the world?), class hatred issues on a massive scale (bad for posh southern English people = good for decent poor Scots and northerners), and the kind of unblinking devotion to Keynesian economics he doesn't understand in the first place normally associated with socially inept teenagers of limited ability who fancy themselves intellectuals. He believes (truly believes) that any and all means are justified in the pursuit of a socialist utopia which only his unmatched vision can bring about. He is cretinously stupid, horribly dangerous and possibly sectionable; he may have done more damage to Britain and its people than any elected politician in history save Hitler; but when Brown says he believes that he is doing the right thing, I think he is telling the truth. He wants to go down in history as a great leader, not make his stash and retire to a sunny beach. Or even a gloomy beach - I'm not sure he's too keen on sunshine.
OT,
You are a deadly put down artist, I want you on my side in battle. Brown as the bayonet out of the anus of a syphilitic, worse for Britain than Hitler, heck you even take away his sunshine. Wow. I think if I disagree with you I'll have to be a coward and stand on the sidelines.
Somewhere in this is a compliment.
Wherever it was, much appreciated, thank you. If it reassures you at all, I think I can safely say that having read a good number of your posts and heartily agreed with most of them it is highly unlikely I would ever have cause to give you the same treatment. Come to that, disagreeing with me (an activity with which I don't have a problem, provided people can be calm and rational about it) is unlikely to trigger the same level of oppobrium from me as wrecking my country (which I confess does irk me just a little). Please don't take from my hatred of Labour (and Brown in particular) the impression that I'm a dyed in the wool Tory, either, though as a pragmatic moderate libertarian I will be voting for them as the least-worst available option.
And no, Brown has of course not been worse for the people of Britain than Hitler, much less the people of the world. Nor, I suspect, has he been as damaging as some of the more cretinous and/or murderous medieval kings. He has certainly been far worse than anyone else we've ever actually managed to vote for, however.
Eliot Spitzer: Geithner, Bernanke “Complicit” in Financial Crisis and Should Go
In an extended interview, we speak with former New York governor Eliot Spitzer about the financial crisis and how it was handled by Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke and Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner. Bernanke and Geithner “actually built and participated in creating the structure that now has collapsed,” Spitzer says and calls on them to be replaced. Spitzer also talks about the scandal that erupted last year that forced him to resign as governor. “I have no doubt that there were many people who were opposed to me, very powerful forces, who were happy to see me go,” Spitzer says. “Whether they participated, I’ll let others figure that out. I resigned because of what I did.”
http://tinyurl.com/yhq3xjw
Eliot Spitzer is awesome. He has it allll going on. What a f@cking waste. Maybe he can train someone????
One does not simply walk into mordor. One must first stop mordor from refusing to let you withdraw.