PowerSwitch

Posted: **01 Apr 2008, 00:51**

Just saw a trail for a BBC2 programme on Tuesday evening (1st April -- it's OK, it's after midday!).

Soros and others are saying the post-World War Two boom has come to an end... why's that I wonder?

.

link

Super Rich: The Greed Game

Tue 1 Apr, 9:00 pm - 10:00 pm 60mins

As the credit crunch bites and a global economic crisis threatens, Robert Peston reveals how the super-rich have made their fortunes while the rest of us are picking up the bill.

Posted: **01 Apr 2008, 06:23**

As the credit crunch bites and a global economic crisis threatens, Robert Peston reveals how the super-rich have made their fortunes while the rest of us are picking up the bill.

I heard his interview as well. Thats how the current system works (pure economic capatalism). For how long remains to be seen.

Posted: **01 Apr 2008, 12:33**

danza wrote:
I heard his interview as well. Thats how the current system works (pure economic capatalism). For how long remains to be seen.
I havent heard the interview yet but I wouldnt describe it as pure economic capitalism, it's a bastar* hybrid of corporate socialism

Posted: **01 Apr 2008, 16:27**

I havent heard the interview yet

Listen to it and then tell me Im wrong.

Posted: **01 Apr 2008, 21:06**

danza wrote:
I havent heard the interview yet
Listen to it and then tell me Im wrong.

It's not necessary to listen to the interview. We've never experienced "pure capitalism", therefore that cannot be the reason.

Posted: **01 Apr 2008, 22:18**

Moadib wrote:
danza wrote:
I havent heard the interview yet
Listen to it and then tell me Im wrong.
It's not necessary to listen to the interview. We've never experienced "pure capitalism", therefore that cannot be the reason.

If you define "pure capitalism" as the following: An economic system in which the principles of Capitalism operate unfettered by any limiting factor such as government control or interference. By inference, government performs little except those functions that cannot be performed by any other entity.

If you take the economy as a whole, then I'd be inclined to agree with you, but we are (or have been) edging closer to it. Whether we actually get there or not, is anyone's guess.

If you take the current mess with the credit crunch, it is an example of what happens, or is very likely to happen, in a pure capitalist system. There was no intervention by any government authority or regulatory structure in place.

The whole ethos of neo-liberal/laissez-faire economics is the reduction (and preferable removal) of all government control over markets and the private ownership of pretty much everything. At which point you end up in a situation that more closely resembles feudalism, or in this case "corporate feudalism."

Posted: **02 Apr 2008, 04:44**

This article from the News section of this site
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/busin ... 99494.html
is interesting.

We have never had a free market: there's always been a legal framework in which the market works. The problem recently has been that regulation has got weaker and weaker. Governments have been frightened to tax huge earnings because of the mobility of capital and the people who have amassed it. Hence these people have been able to amass such a huge proportion of the world's wealth in recent years.

This has also made it difficult to do anything about Global Warming and Peak Oil as any government applying restrictions on the market on its own would lose a large part of its countries income as business moved abroad. That's why SIMPOL, the simultanious policy group was set up: to try and get all governments to apply a number of policies to combat Climate Change at the same time.

Posted: **02 Apr 2008, 09:53**

syberberg wrote: If you take the current mess with the credit crunch, it is an example of what happens, or is very likely to happen, in a pure capitalist system. There was no intervention by any government authority or regulatory structure in place.

Of course there is government intervention. The government has a monopoly on the printing of money. The member banks of the British Reserve bank (the bank of england) get first dibs on any money printed up and then lend it out or play with it or whatever takes their fancy.

This is MASSIVE interference and it is mandated by law.
Try to print your own money and see what happens to you.

Posted: **02 Apr 2008, 11:15**

fifthcolumn wrote: Try to print your own money and see what happens to you.

There are multiple local currencies in the UK. There used to be two competing ones in Cambridge. They are legal, and as long as the taxman gets his cut, the government is quite happy with them.

http://www.letslinkuk.net/

Posted: **02 Apr 2008, 11:37**

RalphW wrote:
fifthcolumn wrote: Try to print your own money and see what happens to you.
There are multiple local currencies in the UK. There used to be two competing ones in Cambridge. They are legal, and as long as the taxman gets his cut, the government is quite happy with them.

http://www.letslinkuk.net/

Are you able to pay your tax bill in one of those local currencies or do you still have to pay it in sterling?

Think about it mate. Get the old gears grinding. They STILL have a monopoly.

Posted: **02 Apr 2008, 14:14**

This has gone way off topic. Did anyone see the documentary???

I watched it with great interest. I left me with the following impressions;

a) There is an awful lot of money in the hands of the few (always thus, but worse now than say 10 years ago).
b) Banking is a very very clever way of keeping the masses poor. It is a mechanism for transfering money away from you and I and into the hands of the (already) rich. As such I think I want to start a hedge fund as part of my PO preps

c) The banks have been shafted by the greed of the fund managers and individuals (super rich) in their institutions as well as us. But then who are 'the banks'? Just the shareholders really, so the public and the bank's shareholders have been shafted by the fund managers.

Posted: **02 Apr 2008, 14:33**

mobbsey wrote:Just saw a trail for a BBC2 programme on Tuesday evening (1st April -- it's OK, it's after midday!).

Soros and others are saying the post-World War Two boom has come to an end... why's that I wonder?

.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/bbctwo/listings/pr ... 4_10186_60

Super Rich: The Greed Game

Tue 1 Apr, 9:00 pm - 10:00 pm 60mins

As the credit crunch bites and a global economic crisis threatens, Robert Peston reveals how the super-rich have made their fortunes while the rest of us are picking up the bill.

I just started watching it on virgin TV on demand.

Posted: **02 Apr 2008, 14:48**

SunnyJim wrote:This has gone way off topic. Did anyone see the documentary???

Actually it's on topic.
I saw the documentary last night.
It's main premise is that lots of people got rich because the federal reserve bank kept interest rates low for a long time and flooded the system with money.

They wouldn't be able to do that if they didn't have a monopoly on money in the first place. So, Jim, it is on topic.

c) The banks have been shafted by the greed of the fund managers and individuals (super rich) in their institutions as well as us. But then who are 'the banks'? Just the shareholders really, so the public and the bank's shareholders have been shafted by the fund managers.

I'd have to take issue with that and say that it was the banks who caused the mess in the first place. If you remember from the documentary the banks were all quite happy to take a commission on writing up the dodgy mortgages, fraudulently package them up as something better than they were and pass the buck on to some unsuspecting "low risk tolerant" investor aka "dumb money".

Now that it has come back and bitten them on the arse they are bleating for protection.

My take is that the owners of the banks should go to jail for fraud and have their personal assets liquidated.

Remember what the documentary said?
There are several hundred people in the UK now worth more than 10 billion due to the boom.
A couple billion off of each of these people would go nicely towards upgraded the electricity grid and building a few thousand windmills.

Posted: **03 Apr 2008, 08:14**

fifthcolumn wrote:
SunnyJim wrote:This has gone way off topic. Did anyone see the documentary???
Actually it's on topic.
I saw the documentary last night.
It's main premise is that lots of people got rich because the federal reserve bank kept interest rates low for a long time and flooded the system with money.

They wouldn't be able to do that if they didn't have a monopoly on money in the first place. So, Jim, it is on topic.

c) The banks have been shafted by the greed of the fund managers and individuals (super rich) in their institutions as well as us. But then who are 'the banks'? Just the shareholders really, so the public and the bank's shareholders have been shafted by the fund managers.
I'd have to take issue with that and say that it was the banks who caused the mess in the first place. If you remember from the documentary the banks were all quite happy to take a commission on writing up the dodgy mortgages, fraudulently package them up as something better than they were and pass the buck on to some unsuspecting "low risk tolerant" investor aka "dumb money".

Now that it has come back and bitten them on the arse they are bleating for protection.

My take is that the owners of the banks should go to jail for fraud and have their personal assets liquidated.

Remember what the documentary said?
There are several hundred people in the UK now worth more than 10 billion due to the boom.
A couple billion off of each of these people would go nicely towards upgraded the electricity grid and building a few thousand windmills.

That told me! Get out of bed the wrong side yesterday Fifth?

Posted: **03 Apr 2008, 09:37**

SunnyJim wrote: That told me! Get out of bed the wrong side yesterday Fifth?

I have been a bit narky recently haven't I?

No offense meant.

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Soros: 'The 60-year boom is over'

Soros: 'The 60-year boom is over'

Re: Soros: 'The 60-year boom is over'