[huntbytnkbel]

The good old days are probably over.

Its going to go beyond the recent bailouts by the Federal Government, and if they hadn't occurred, Europe and the rest of the world would likely have been dragged under.

Commentators are not saying that there will no such thing as "retirement" from now on.

What will happen to those in charge of the machinery that caused this?

Across the pond, calls are being made for an inquiry, and for heads to roll:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisf...lcomments=true
A tribunal must tell us what to fix. And whom to punish

The state shirked its role while City stupidity and greed slid into thieving. When the crisis subsides, an inquiry is needed


An extract from the article

"Who are they? Where are they now? They said it could not happen again. They said they were masters of the universe. They had conquered history itself and had that wily monster quivering at their feet. There would be no more crashes, no more recessions, no more booms and busts, just moonbeams and rainbows and jam for tea.

If the mistakes that have collapsed the world's financial markets had been made by statesmen and had led to war, there would be corpses swinging from lampposts. If they had been made by generals, they would be falling on their swords. If they had been made by judges or surgeons or scholars, some framework of professional retribution would be rolling into action. But those responsible for our finances can apparently vanish into the forest like Cheshire cats, leaving only gold-plated grins. Not for them a Hague tribunal or a Hutton inquiry. They are not just good at shedding risk - they shed blame."

One contributor writes:

"Joe Taxpayer is stymied twice - once on his mortage/pension/savings (OK that's three times) and on having to fork out, via the Treasury, for the Laurel and Hardys who got the global economy into this fine mess."

Another contributor:

"Then there's; ' Education ! Idiotication ! Indoctrination !' Need I say more ? And not to forget all the clever advisers on the telly, in the magazines, in the newspapers, outdoing each other to tell you to get on the property ladder. Probably the same fickle shiteheads saying today 'You shouldn't have bought -in small print and sotto voce-those things we were telling you to buy'."

Another contributor:

"The alternative is to recover Medieval laws that allowed execution of those bankers who defaulted on their clients. This was often accompanied by their families being sold into slavery. A surefire recipe for rectitude I would think."

[HoqCBYMl]

If only our politicians were so bold, this position would gain a candidate millions of votes:

... recover Medieval laws that allowed execution of those bankers
who defaulted on their clients.

This was often accompanied by their families being sold into slavery.

A surefire recipe for rectitude I would think.

[Loovikeillilen]

The no one would take the risk to be a banker. I am thinking trying to think if thats good or bad.

[TainuibeFaimb]

Pat Buchanan writes:
What we are witnessing today is how empires end.

The Last Superpower is unable to defend its borders, protect its currency, win its wars or balance its budget. Medicare and Social Security are headed for the cliff with unfunded liabilities in the tens of trillions of dollars.

What we are witnessing today is nothing less than a Katrina-like failure of government, of our political class, and of democracy itself, casting a cloud over the viability and longevity of the system.

Notice who is managing the crisis. Not our elected leaders. Nancy Pelosi says she had nothing to do with it. Congress is paralyzed and heading home. President Bush is nowhere to be seen.

Hank Paulson of Goldman Sachs and Ben Bernanke of the Fed chose to bail out Bear Sterns but let Lehman go under. They decided to nationalize Fannie and Freddie at a cost to taxpayers of hundreds of billions, putting the U.S. government behind $5 trillion in mortgages. They decided to buy AIG with $85 billion rather than see the insurance giant sink beneath the waves.

An unelected financial elite is now entrusted with the assignment of getting us out of a disaster into which an unelected financial elite plunged the nation. We are just spectators.

[VIAGRA-VIAGRA]

Does God play the "Three Strikes You're Out" game?

If so, then Bush is going straight to Hell.

Strike One: Despite numerous warnings Bush failed to adequately protect the Nation from attack in September 2001.

Strike Two: Despite ample warning Bush failed to adequately prepare the Citizenry for the arrival of Hurricane Katrina in September 2005.

Strike Three: Despite repeated and long-term warnings Bush failed to protect the Treasury from near annihilation in September 2008.

The Republic would not survive another September with Bush.

George: You're Out. Go. Disappear.

You've thrice been proven to be inadequate to the task you've chosen. Beg Daddy for Forgiveness. Beg the Lord for Deliverance.

Now Be Gone.

[Signabeademia]

Nick Leeson himself (Mr Barings Bank No More) writes in the Guardian Unlimited:

Escape of the bankrupt

I was imprisoned for my role in Barings' collapse. Who will face justice for this recklessness today?

Who is responsible? Those same bankers that convinced you that another loan was not a bad thing. Those same bankers that convinced every wannabe property developer that they should leverage their portfolio and increase their volume of business. And unquestionably culpable were the investment bankers who wrapped up the sub-prime debt in exotic parcels and visited your offices to sell you this most fantastic investment vehicle. The property market has collapsed and probably still has further to go, the tremors from the sub-prime crises are still being felt, and the combination of the two sees the whole financial system in peril.

Full article here:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisf...lcomments=true

One reader contributes:

back in the 60's convicted armed robber and gangster Charlie Claw observed how fellow prison inmates who'd stolen millions were serving 6 months while he served years for a couple of thousand. On release he got himself into the city and proceded to make a fortune from an institution regulated as he saw it only the maxim 'my word is my bond'. Funnily enough he felt at home with his co-workers.

Now, I wonder if anything's changed, apart from the ease with which crooks in the city get away with it. The new motto for the city?... 'who says crime doesn't pay'

One contributor (RobRoy) writes:

This problem is bigger than all that, Mr. Leeson. It is a deliberate systemic creation by generations of freemarket intellectuals prophetising friedmanomics, combined with fancy modellers and outrageous trust in computers to improve the information transparency of markets. These have been the veneer for big american cold war bluffing and ruthless meddling since world war 2. Financial warfare has been used to systemically support the permanent growth war enterprise that is core to the american way of life. And if you want to trace it to its root, the federal reserve system is core to the opacity that is enjoying the current collapse to concentrate wealth even further; to leave the poor even poorer.

This is why the politicians are spending the kitty to prop up this casino ripoff scam. Their war machine and empire are already broken, yet the captain tries in vain to keep the ship afloat. The post office is a better bank than a bank is; their utility is about zero these days. There is no risk that the public won't be able to bank, they can use the post office. (uk not us). The problem is that their permanent war propaganda economy that is destroying the planet with its externalities, cannot continue - it is reaching boundary conditions. What were decent economies based around goodwill, food, art and education have become about war and mass imprisonment and surveillance. Our states exist to break people and crush them, no other reason. It is bankrupt, the ponzi scam is over. Information revolutions of the internet have permanently undressed the wall street bookrunners and their numbers game. They will never be able to do it again to anyone but their own slaves (citizens).

The wall street prison scam is one of the best twisted births of the criminal financial mind. Lets create for-profit prisons in league with prison unions and republicans. We'll arrest blacks in urban centers, intern them in republican rural counties - we'll count them as resident in those areas to even up racial equality statistics, and we can use the black slave labour to clean up the streets. The prisons are boosted by the wall street bookies - the US imprisoned 872000 people in 2007 alone for cannabis offenses. The finance guys are in a cream to run the book for a bigger drugs war. Their evil system is the lowest common denominator. Free marketzzz never exited except in the frame of war, and continuing a perpetual war against individualism, against privacy, liberty, free time, humour and decency - all to be dominated by a load of suited criminals who sell us all short for some blow.

This is not a bank collapse. This is the collapse of the american soviet union - they are desperate; the union is having a political coronary, and we see it in the lymph nodes. Given the circumstances, a macpalin will need to start a nuclear war to distract from what's gonna go down.. It has been the republicans since nixon that have set this wild fire by offing the gold standard to bury their vietnam war crimes. Kennedy - 911 - and now trillions to bail out rich criminals. If that isn't bankrupt to the last crumb, then what is? We have all lived little acting parts as tiny atoms in this permanent war machine gone evil. Our armies are busy murdering in asia for oil, just like the nazis. Wasn't that found bankrupt 64 years ago? This financial collapse is the pressure cooker vent avoiding a world war 4. To hold back this necessary systemic transformation is against the laws of social physics.

Leuan contributed the following:

I 'gave up' on the financial markets when I found out about the (codified, widely accepted and used) 'there's always another sucker' principle.

Which says: don't worry if you by crap, 'cos there's always another sucker along in a minute who will buy it from you.

Which is like a fishmonger operating on the principle that if his suppliers give him two day old fish, rather than go back to them and raise merry hell, he can - nay, SHOULD - sell them to his 'sucker' customers and poison them.

If the fishmonger did that he would, quite rightly, be prosecuted. But among money men, apparently the 'another sucker' principle is looked upon as 'fair'. My personal morality (don't always live up to it, but try my best') has always been 'do unto others as you would have them do unto you'. That attitude, I have been assured, would 'get me nowhere on the stock exchange', so I avoid the stock exchange like the plague.

[toopyimport]

GT: What will you say when things go bad?

(I fear many of those comments are correct, and wonder if we're up for the changes required)

[mirzaterak]

We are days away from a collapse according to some commentators.

Some of those contributors to the Guardian are clearly foaming at the mouth...

Peter Schiff probably isnt

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TIbD3BGoe5g

[Arkadiyas]

^^^ Funny thing, Ron Paul predicted this about a year ago, and I remember people laughing at him, calling him a tin foil hat wearing moron.

[BigMovies]

Predicted a coup d'etat by the Masters of the Universe?

Or fell for the fairy tale of the so-called collapse?

[Gideleb]

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=04B3Wl2qouw


People tend to think Ron Paul as a crazy old man who wears a tin foil hat, I thought so for a while too, but listen to what he stands for, and what he says, and then it seems we have been fed the same bull for years now and numbed my mind out, as if having gas at 130 dollars a barrel is normal.

He is the only candidate who brings up what is happening to our money, which is another way of saying that he is worried about why the cost of buying groceries is going through the roof. While the other presidential contenders are silent on the topic, Paul reminds us that "government officials consistently claimed that inflation is in check at barely 2 percent, but middle-class Americans know that their purchasing power--especially when it comes to housing, energy, medical care, and school tuition--is shrinking much faster than 2 percent each year."

Taken from http://www.thenation.com/doc/20080218/howl

Wait, but Ron Paul wears 2 tin hats and listens to Alex Jones too much.

A coup d'etat by the masters of the universe does not need to be predicted, it is only a matter of time, if history teaches us anything. Maybe not masters of the universe, but perhaps the peasants.

[kristloken]

A post on the Guardian Unlimited's Comment is Free:

"When the financial district in London's square mile decide to relocate, London will become a shell of a city. As Detroit is today. Was once wealthy, now a giant ghetto full of guns, drugs, gangs and decay. Already many of the poorest immigrants to UK choose to avoid London as it is too rough."

Well, it looks like its going to happen.

Bye Bye City

The CBI chief has warned the UK's policymakers against adopting US-style accounting regulations in the wake of the credit crises.

http://www.accountancyage.com/accoun...against-sarbox

What will happen once people in England can actually be prosecuted Enron style..

Where will the money men go then?