On Fri, 16 Jan 2009 20:21:05 -0800, "Hawke"
wrote:
snip
Maybe the Europeans are right. It
does seem that they do not experience the same extreme boom and bust cycles
that we do. They have stopped allowing completely free markets to do the
extremes they always do in favor of lower growth, more economic equality,
and more governmental control.
snip
-------------------
While all this sounds good, it appears that most of the EEC banks
"invested" in the CDO securities, derivatives and other "schemes"
and other European banks such as Iceland have bankrupted their
entire countries.

The US media bears much of the responsibility for failing to
include global information, even though we are now in a global
economy.

England has overtly nationalized several of their largest banks
and is undergoing a huge surge in bankruptcies, Germany and Spain
also appear to be hard hit. Even Switzerland is in serious
economic trouble.

Remember as you scan the articles below that there are huge
difference in the population sizes between those countries and
the US, therefore on a per capita basis their bailouts are even
greater.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/n...-bad-debt.html
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/n...nk-scheme.html
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/n...-minister.html

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/low/middle_east/7834829.stm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/low/business/7832203.stm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/low/business/7827824.stm
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?p...d=aK8qpW7Viaog

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?p...d=aoOxcqP9qwv0
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?p...d=awbSSx.rEmxQ
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?p...d=a0OcMVvHx8gg
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?p...d=aEmWlKXc8q4c

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?p...d=aAd7rF18UuX4
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/7673159.stm

Whatever the bankers (and regulators) were smoking, it is clear
they passed plenty of it around.

Whatever the root cause, and this is still an open question
because much of the data/information remains hidden, it is a
global problem, infecting even command driven economies such as
PR China.

My personal feeling is that this is not the result of some grand
conspiracy, but rather the net result of a thousand little things
that went wrong, but because of the global nature of the economy
and "group think" of our "financial masters of the universe,"
these all ==went wrong at the same time and aligned/cascaded in
the same direction.== Another useful way to think of the
problem is that a bunch of incompetent "sorcerer's apprentices"
got together and managed to evoke and loose forces they [and no
one else] understands nor can control, and it is now necessary
for everyone to simply wait until whatever it is gets tired of
smashing things and goes home.

Because of their refusal to provide any hard data or other
information about what went wrong, and the continued expenditure
of enormous such of bailout/rescue funds with no apparent
results, it would appear necessary to summarily remove the
existing executives and directors of the affected [infected?]
organizations for cause, while sequestering their "severance
payments," and "deferred compensation," until a forensic audit is
completed. [Contracts obtained by fraud are generally void in
most jurisdictions.]


Unka' George [George McDuffee]
-------------------------------------------
He that will not apply new remedies,
must expect new evils:
for Time is the greatest innovator: and
if Time, of course, alter things to the worse,
and wisdom and counsel shall not alter them to the better,
what shall be the end?

Francis Bacon (1561-1626), English philosopher, essayist, statesman.
Essays, "Of Innovations" (1597-1625).