Here I was reading the paper today ...
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Welcome to the world. What did you expect? A global change in attitude?
In my opinion, the recession wasn't (isn't) deep enough* to make that change.A few decades ago, we condemned communism as not working . I think we're not ready yet to do the same to capitalism.
Therefore we need some bigger disasters to happen....- as a note: it might be wrong to say that the current recession isn't deep enough as I know quite a lot of people (even here) lost their job because of it, which off course is quite shocking.
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You know until you lose your job, it's a recession. After that it becomes depression.
A similar issue here is that big, state or local government owned companies (like the big public transport ones) which do not produce much more than merely debt, also do this - in the middle of the recession.
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Thieves.
That pretty much sums it up.
We tried to refinance our house a couple of months ago, we could've shaved off nearly 2 points interest. We were denied the re-fi. Same house, we've got more ready cash than we did when we bought and less debt. There's a lot of really impolite words I'd like use in reference to banks right now. They've collected "bailout" money that will have to be paid for by the taxpayers (us), and as stinkie points out, are handing out fat bonuses along with not giving out any loans to the very people that are saving their collective behinds. I hear people say that the bonuses are contractual and needed to keep top talent. If they were that talented, why did they get where they are now? If companies can break blue collar contracts and get concessions from those workers, I see no reason to think that those bonuses couldn't be taken in the same manner to help the company out, just like the rest of us have taken cuts or layoffs to prop our companies up.
Oh well. It's "socialism"* for the rich, capitalism for the rest of us.
Must be nice to have your cake and eat it too.
*Businesses cry about government interfering with what they want to do by regulating them (socialist, in the American psyche) but are only too happy to receive government money; while the rest of us suffer the realities of the market.
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I wonder though. These bonuses might be a cut from former years. These people have to eat too. And think of those poor souls like Madoff who got caught with their hand in. It's not always easy being a banker / financier, I'm sure. Didn't you see those candid shots in the news of Market people with head in hands?
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All this reminds me of a quote by George Carlin:
*%(#4000BF)["High class does none of the work, has all of the money.
Middle class does all the work, has none of the money.
Lower class is there to scare the shit out of Middle Class.
It keeps them (middle class) coming back to their shitty daily jobs"]*.
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Bankers would love to squeeze us all even more. They are dreaming about 'Global Bank', one and only.
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@solo said:
That Crisis tax will need to be funded somehow, guess who ends up paying for that?
you.
You're forgetting the 'we' have already paid that one - the bankers stole it from us. Now we have an option to take it back and return it to the public purse. At that point we can either
a) spend it as govt. spending aimed to support some activity or other, extend social security to reduce the chances of people starving and so on, whatever.
b) reduce some selection of taxes and hope it triggers some increase in economic activity that has real value. History doesn't make that look a terribly good option though.
c) get distracted by the War on Terra and suddenly find that the already super-rich have re-stolen it and somehow everyone else has to bail out some poor bank/mega-corp./whatever -
@solo said:
That Crisis tax will need to be funded somehow, guess who ends up paying for that?
you.
I'm hoping our government will be smart enough to enforce a moratorium on price increases (for bank transactions etc). If they don't, we'll indeed be the ones paying up (again).
@kwistenbiebel said:
Welcome to the world. What did you expect? A global change in attitude?
I'm not naive, so no. But I wasn't expecting this sort of outrageous cynicism either. I'm completely flabbergasted.
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so am I,
we have lost all ways to act
(thank_goodness there is the 2012 coming)
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