did they really miss-spell 'fuckers' first time round?

heh yeah i was wondering the same, but maybe it's an attempt to censor it a little bit. i doubt it though lol.

Ahaha, did you stupid fucking fuck (i.e., Briton) misspell "misspelled"?

yes, but now i know how its spelt, thanks!

"did they really misspelled 'fuckers' first time round?"

I think you are the bad at englished.

i don't know what to think.

on one hand i'm happy that "the people" won this fight, the government is not putting its finger where they don't belong and the traders get what they deserve.
but on the other hand i don't know what else could work to fix this crap. warren buffet said if nothing is being done this is gonna be the biggest financial meltdown in US history and that guy obviously knows what he's talking about.

He's also amongst those with the most to lose if capitalism fails in that country.

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

He and Nader are the only American politicians I've ever seen I'd consider voting for if I lived over there.

kucinich and gravel are nice too :D

learning from mistakes - it's not for Americans...


seriously, why do you think that of all the countries, the one with pretty much the most liberal market is hit the worst?

Cause you allow stuff like shortselling and very risky financing without many securities to back it up.
Cause bankers obviously think that taking nonexisting money and giving it to another bank, does not only work but is also producing 20% ROI. And the state stands there and watches them from the sidelines...

Last week Helmut Schmidt a former German chancellor summed it up pretty nicely:

"When it comes to the economy, all politicians are dilettantes"

So they should just go and stfu.

You shuldn't watch "Beckmann", you stupid fucking fuck.

I don't watch tv. As opposed to you apparently...

Stupid fucking fuck.

Fuck you, you fucking fuck!

You go fucking fuck yourself, you fucking stupid fucking fuck.

Btw: Am i not allowed to watch Beckmann, even if Helmut Schmidt is on?

only those rebellious enough to say "fuck" a lot and stay anonymous can withstand the mind-numbing power of the Beckmann!

"..the one with pretty much the most liberal market.."

way off.

ok ok, let me rephrase.

one of the most liberal financial markets

yes, one of the problems is the state has given lenders too much freedom to use predatory tactics.

"learning from mistakes - it's not for Americans..."

yes, americans are generally stupid, but i think you're overestimating how much control people actually have over their own lives, here in usa. television advertisements and ancient fairy tales have more influence than common sense and rationality, here. i really don't think these millions of people chose to live this way, but were fooled into it.

i actually meant that as a comment towards all those involved in the financial crisis and politicians in general.

I did hwever live in the us for some time and went ot high school, so I do have an idea.

ah

btw
:)

[+] since I agree wholeheartedly, but I think we also overestimate the intellect of the average person, period. I know it may not be the most credible example to cite, but the differences between the average IQ of an American and, say, the average IQ of a Chinaman are actually quite miniscule (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IQ_and_the_Wealt..._estimates). I say the stupidity of certain Americans just gets more attention because they have way more people for stupid things to happen to than any European country by itself, and thus, the Americans have become more renowned as a "stupid" country than I think they deserve credit for.

i really don't think iq has much to do with it. iq tests don't ask if there is a god or how old the earth is or whether or not the celestial configuration has an effect on our lives.

you can sincerely believe in some really idiotic things and still have a high iq.

True, but then again, those examples are more moral than logical. After all, if someone legitimately believes that they were involved in an incident of divine intervention, there's really no way to disprove that, so you can't really be logical about it aside from saying "you may be right, and you may be wrong," which doesn't really change anything.

(FYI, it's already been estimated that the Earth is about 4.5 billion years old.)

I think the ones with their jobs their house and their small time bank savings are the ones who loose the most.
Buffet can afford to loose 99% of his wealth and still be rich.

Also, I think it's notable that Berkshire Hathaway had been sitting on quite a lot of money ready to invest lately. Maybe they or he did figure that lots of companies were overpriced.
So basically he now has the cash to really profit from this.
(Except of course those billions were on a Washington Mutual savings account)

Either way, the people will lose. It's just a matter how much. In this situation idealism should fly into the trash bin imo. The decision they just made can have pretty destructive effect not only for US but the rest of the world too. What happens next? Nobody knows.

capitalism crumbles and yeltsin becomes president.

:(((

mortgage takes it, kgb takes it, was the difference?

By "the people" do you mean "the ones who have no idea how the financial system works and discarded the plan simply because they were afraid the US would turn into the soviet union"?

It's obvious that there needs to be more regulation and that "the traders" (do you know who exactly we are talking about here or are you only saying "the traders" because you don't fully understand what is going on?) went too far, and WE UNDERSTAND that this is the "taxpayers' money", but at some point you have to do something to fix the problem and then improve the system.

"It's obvious that there needs to be more regulation.."

i'd only agree if you mean there needs to be more regulation of the regulators.

Well being a Rechtsstaat is usually considered to be a key element of the definition of a democracy, and of course I agree that the public and private sectors are distinct, but at the same time it's obvious that the market doesn't "fix itself".

the problem with the market is that it IS regulated. the bailout is for a bank, not for the market. the fact that congress would even vote on whether or not to give a bank 700 billion dollars to get bailed out is very strong evidence that the elite class gets much better treatment than the rest of the population.

oh the market will fix itself, the question is whether you want to endure the process, cause it would most probably hit the companies and savings and therefore common people harder than it did already.

I meant that the market doesn't fix itself in a way where nobody loses. Government intervention can greatly help the situation.

what intervention would not cause increased national debt and the devaluing of usd?

Still far better than having the crisis develop even more :)
edit: btw here it's depreciation not devaluation.

i really don't know how why you think regulation helps.

pretty much

I had an American friend who isn't vested in economics but I believe had a some what laymens account of what the bailout plan was.

He told me they were just going to print more money? Sorry if that sounds incredibly stupid I'm just very curious. I've read a few short economic docouments by Joseph Stiglitz and Robert Reich so my knowledge is limited but surely the plan my friend described is incorrect.

The printing of money may increase the ammount of physical tender floating around but the actual wealth it represents must be tied up already in pre-existing debt controlled by the banks?

Whatever the case it will be interesting to see what happens, and potentially devastating. I think the only problem bigger than this facing the US at the moment is the possibly of Sarah 'I'm a stupid country bumkin cunt' Palin being made the President if John 'I'm a veteran, Yer!' Mccain dies.

That's inflation, and it's whats been going on for a while now.

The US is running out of money (Massive debt) so they just print more money.

Everyone knows that when you have 10 of something, it's rare, but when you have 100,000, it's not so rare.

Common sense really. Two, maybe three years ago, our dollar was only worth 0.70 of theirs. Now, it's almost the same. Now Canadians go to the US because of the super cheap food, and other things. It's our Mexico.

Congratulations USA. You've become Canadas Mexico.

I just love hearing the Americans at my school tell me Australia is so expensive. I remember going to the US in 95 and not having any spending money.

Oh how the times change :D

well, after fannie mae & freddie mac a few weeks ago, not only the US printed money, but the whole world pumped billions into their markets.

heh..they don't just print more money, perhaps in zimbabwe or in the 20th century. It's true there is a money supply M^s, which the central bank can regulate through open market operation - sales of bonds to decrease money supply and vice versa, and this against the money demand, is what sets the interest rate.

The War in Iraq Cost as of 25 Sep 2008 at 07:35:25 AM GMT is: $556,964,775,311.00
$4,681.00 per household.
$1,721.00 per person.
$341,495,000.00 ($341.5) million per day.

This is why the US is in trouble. I mean how the fuck will the US ever get this money back,which questions their motivation behind it all.

On a more positive note less "no skilled" immigratns are coming to the UK because there is less of a financial incentive, hopefully they can stay at home and make their failed coutnries work instead of jumping ship and capsizing ours.

Freedom isn't free, it has a hefty fucken fee.

So you think the US are doing this to liberate a bunch of people, most of whom hate western civilisation and people?

Meanwhile bush has been turned down for a few hundred billion pound loan, or roughly the amount that has been spent in the middle east over the last 5 years. So basically that money could have been used to stablise your own country and that of the modern world, but instead its been wasted on nobodies cos you care about them?

As it stands what's happening in the US is now having a shockwave effect, where basically every civilised country is feeling the ripple from the stone the us threw (not the terrorists), and the only people that are benefitting are the people that are trying to be eradicated because their lives were so empty and crap anyway while everyone elses life is being made harder, either through mortgage payments, unemployment or what not.

Its the biggest fail in history, not only that but because the US rep has taken a beating Russia are now starting a bunch of shit because the worse the US looks the better it makes them look.
And the sneaky fucking russians are never one to miss a trick.

I'm so glad my governments are fucking over cool people like me, in the pursuit of helping a bunch of dirty toed, brainwashed nobodies.

Nothing will change, you think what in 2-3 years time everything will be stable? This is Vietnam Champion Editon.

I was joking with my first post, but I'll try to share my opinion on the matter.

I think stability in the region is extremely important. While I understand that the war in Iraq and Afghanistan has been a major distablizer to the region, but I think in the long run (10 to 20 years), it'll benefit western countries. This is probably where someone would insert their personal opinion as to who is right and wrong, and how the middle eastern region has the right to rule themselves as they see fit. But objectively speaking, the interests of the West (Western Europe and US) have a lot at stake to what happens in the middle east.

I think by not responding to a terrorist attack like 9/11 would've been far worse to the US than what has occured subsequently. I think the financial problems are just an effect of the housing bubble, much like the dotcom bubble in the late 1990s. This is only exacerbated by the tremendous spending overseas. However, a lot of the Iraq and Afgahnistan money spent is also going back into the US economy. It is spent on soldier wages, on weapons, supplies, etc. It is not entirely gone from the US system.

The big problem with the US, and the media in general, is the short-sightedness of all commentary. No one can stop thinking of the next 3 years and can't bother to think the current situation's effects on the next 10 to 20 years. The banking system is a working system, as well as the way our capitalist society works (as long as the consumer spending is there). The only problem is that a huge bubble had formed under the economy (housing market) and with that gone, everything is going to have to readjust. 3 years is only a blip in the history of the world. A lot can happen, but looking back on it historically, it is only the same old story of the business cycle, obvious political and economic interests of major powers in the world, and also the current state of humanity.

I'm more worried about things out to 40 years from now, how the world will be when I'm going to be retiring. Am I going to be able to retire? Will my country be safe for my children and grandchildren? Will I even survive to see those days?

Army creates over 2,000,000 jobs. Majority of the wages paid ends back up in the economy, a great fiscal stimulus to keep the wheels of the economy turning. Similar to unemployment benefits. The government would prefer to have them do something constructive though, more likely to increase crime rates if nothing to do and end up in jail, then its money down the drain. Not bad for unemployment figures either.

"Army creates over 2,000,000 jobs."

with money illegitimately taken out of citizens paychecks.

On other news:

- European Union will continue to support unfair advantage to our goods and add customs in order to keep Africa poor and our food costs up.

- Energy will be in the hands of nutjobs like russians and arabs and politicians will continue to invent more shortsighted breathing tube-fixes instead of allocating more to efficient renevable energy.

- Governments will allocate the cities and the land to benefit the rich instead of taking common efficiency, public transportation etc into consideration.

- The consumption rights will basically be sold at price of water.

I get it. All the nations are mean, apart from this sweet innocent angel called USA that never hurt anyone. Fox news for the win.

I seriously haven't got the slightest idea what the hell you're talking about

... and rightly so, since I probably confused your post. Something didn’t seem right, I know now. Good post nonetheless :p

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ya9WnONk9Fw&feature=related

I've been hearing rumors about this everywhere, but I can't find anything solid on it.

http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2007/05/20070509-12.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Securit..._Directive

Okay, this is getting out of hand.

Get out while you can !

TO CANADA!

who cares? i'm poor already..
T_T some more, spoiled brats

Everything is a-ok over here, guys. What about you?

we're in a state of mild confusion, i'd say.

The Economic Terror Level (ETL) over here has been raised from TANGERINE ORANGE to DEEP PURPLE.

The world sits in stunned silence as "Hard Lovin' Man" plays over the emergency broadcast systems...

so uhh ... is amerka poor naow? i can buy?

which state do you want?

i dunno. which one would you recommend? i'd probably go with Maine, Massachusetts or the likes. They seem to be the most "european" ones.
Also there are quite interesting things happening according to Stephen King.

I believe those are already owned by the Chinese. But if you buy Georgia, I'll throw in Louisiana for free?

Personally I'd pick Alaska, Oregon, or Washington... tres beau!

but does that Georgia come with Russian tanks or not?

Nah, just a lot of dirt roads, 4x4 trucks, and cheap beer.

Miller Light? B(

Natural Light =(

plus nascar and guns!

I'd pay you extra to keep Lousiana!

THE U.S. IS CLOSING ITS DOORS FOREVER!!! ALL STATES MUST GO!!! BUY ONE GET ONE FREE!!!

ohio! what about ohio?

I wouldn't take that if they paid me for it

That for some reason reminded me of a scene from one of Stephen King's The Dark Tower books. So rediculous, and scary.

Lol, I just took the piss out your spelling of REDICULOUS and spelt it wrong myself. massive fail :)

i knew i should've taken a screenshot. GOD DAMNIT!
that would've really ridiculed you.

I'm a good sport. I deserve it. Plus you know deep down I think way too much of myself for this to hurt right :)

But yeah computers and word processors have made it very easy to get stupid and sloppy. All part of their master plan to take over the world!

In my defense I did realise I spelt it wrong straight away but its still fucking ironic and backfired :)

Bad, you stole my money

so in conclusion, no one here has a clue?

Yeah, give all the power of buying back the shit debt into the hands of a guy who used to be a chairman of one of the companies that generated it. I know why Buffet bought into GS, it will be the first company to dump its worthless "assets" and Paulsen will pay them a premium out of taxpayers money.

What you could buy for 700bn $:

Pay the work of 22 million people

700bn $ would be enough to pay the average US wage for a year for 22 Million people. According to the Department of Labor the average payment for a week of work is 612 $

Health Insurance for everyone!

It would be enough to establish health insurance for everyone and fund it for 6 years.

Communication for emergency medical services.

The needed standard communication system could be acquired 47 times as the cost for it would be 15bn $.

Secure New Orleans.

Since "Katrina" the US payed 7 bn $ to build dams and security measures.

Buy denmark.

Denmarks gross domestic product is at around 312bn $.

Fund Germany's national budget for 1.6yrs.

which is ~420bn $ for 2009.

Help mother africa!

According to Ban Ki-Moon 72bn $ foreign aid are needed right now.

Fund US-Intelligence services for 15yrs.

The budget for that is at around 44bn $ right now.

New deal!

According to the "Wall Street Journal" Roosevelts new deal was worth 250bn $.
8000 Parks, 40.000 public buildings and 72.000 schools were build or renovated then.

Save the world instead of the bank-system.
No real figures here, but several scientists say (and one could imagine) that 700bn would be a hell of an aid for our nature.

Fight another war!

Or keep on fighting in iraq and afghanistan for another 7 years.

The moon!
The "Apollo" program cost 164bn $. Let's fly there again! Or you could buy another 7 International Space Stations.

source:http://www.spiegel.de/wirtschaft/0,1518,581542-13,00.html

Sadly in german.

Some interesting numbers I guess, but anything more than 10 years ago is not really up to standard up to scale. For 1250BN these days you couldn't do anything close to Roosevelt's new deal back then.

But yeah, I guess there indeed better ways to spend 700 billion (but in the end it didn't go through anyway, did it?)

As for Saving the World. There was an interesting article in "Der Spiegel" roughly 2 months ago. They put a value to animals and nature and saw it from an economical point of view, was kinda interesting. High numbers too...

Some interesting numbers I guess, but anything from more than 10 years ago is not really up to scale. For 250BN these days you couldn't do anything close to Roosevelt's new deal back then.

But yeah, I guess there are indeed better ways to spend 700 billion (but in the end it didn't go through anyway, did it? not really following it...)

As for Saving the World. There was an interesting article in "Der Spiegel" roughly 2 months ago. They put a value to animals and nature and saw it from an economists point of view.. High numbers too...

they should have added to the article that it is just about the amount of money.
Cause in reality it won't be all gone, as it would be with the examples.

personally, i'd buy 700bn cheeseburgers at McDonalds.

Talking about economics, i'd highly recommend this video..It isn't directly about the economic situation today, but it's still very relevant and very interesting, about why growth - both economical, energy, population growth and other sort - isn't a good thing. It's explained in a very good maner by the professor, and it's not hard to understand. I myself was wondering about it years ago and figured out, but still you find so few people that ever think about it..I'd actually say this is something everyone on the planet should see or be explained in school ;)

Part 1


Part 2


First two parts here, but just check the "relevant" section, and the rest show up

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-1382251841067168618

all in one piece, actually have than link in my favorites :)
And yeah I agree everyone should watch it, just as a foundation anyway.

I see..there is a difference however, the google video version hasn't got the slides he is talking about, but other than that, they are the same yes :)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ljbI-363A2Q

Somewhat related, but far less boring.