distro pruned to rcm

On Sat, 01 May 2010 14:16:45 -0400, Strabo
wrote:

The Whole Truth wrote:


"Hawke" wrote in message
...

Corruption is so widespread among federal officers guarding the
U.S.-Mexico border that the government created an internal web site
devoted to recently convicted border agents. Dozens of U.S. Customs and
Border Protection agents have been bribed with cash and attractive
women
to assure the safe passage of truckloads of illegal immigrants, drugs
and other contraband into the U.S.



"What are you going to do now that your team has won the Super Bowl?"

"I'm going to O'Booverville!"

Name them whatever you want. Those places are always there where ever
you have a capitalistic system. Places where the huge numbers of
losers in the capitalistic free for all have to live in poverty are
always going to be there. You get Beverly Hills from capitalism but
you also get OBooverville, but there are a lot more people living
there than you find in the nice places. It comes with the territory.
You want to eliminate those poverty filled zones? You have to go with
a European system.


You mean O'Boovercountries?


Soon, O'Booverworld.



ECB President Favors Global Governance

April 29, 2010 - 11:24 am


The President of the European Central Bank, Jean-Claude Trichet, told
Forbes that global governance is extremely necessary if we want to
prevent another financial crisis. In his prepared printed and spoken
remarks to the Council on Foreign Relations, Trichet emphasized that
politicians, economists, and financiers must work across the Atlantic
and collaborate on methods to create an international set of standards.
It is his belief that through global governance, the resiliency of the
global financial system can be assured, noting that ultimately it was
governments’ use of taxpayer’s money, equivalent to around 25% of GDP on
both sides of the Atlantic, that prevented another catastrophic great
depression from occurring. With the backdrop of a U.S. financial
regulation bill being stuck in the Senate, he argued three main points
in support of creating internationally agreed rules.

1) First, the principle of subsidiary is essential. No rule should be
imposed at a global level or supranational level that cannot be more or
equally effectively set at the national or local level.

Video: ECB President On Global Governance

The world being what it is, you can't impose anything
without the force to back it up.

2) Second, it’s not easy to create a complex set of rules in a
complicated and often obscure field like finance, but that it is
absolutely critical if we want to create stable financial markets.

More bourgeoisie bull $**t!!!

While nothing involving humans will ever be 100% safe, there
are a number of obvious things that can be done at minimal
cost to limit or reduce the risk.

For example, imposition of domestic "small enough to fail"
size caps on both market share [I suggest max 10%] and
capitalization as % GDP [I suggest max 1%], with stringent
controls on "inter-company linkages" such as mutual
ownership of each others stocks or CDS, or inter linking
boards of directors.

Other items are the immediate [re] enactment of a new and
improved Glass-Steagall and repeal of the "CFTC
Modernization Act of 2000" with a return to stringent
oversight of derivatives and futures contracts, and
"investors" in these "products."

Of critical importance is the rehabilitation of the U.S.
Federal Reserve Bank, most likely into several separate
agencies, but as units of the Federal government, not as a
quasi private corporation, fully subject to annual GAO
audits, FOI requests, and Congressional oversight.

3) Finally, global rules can be limiting from country-to-country, but
that it is imperative now more than ever, because financial innovation
has spiraled out of control in a negative way.

Just because something can be done is no reason to do it.

Additionally, he stressed that the financial emergencies created by
investment banks and governments creates some contradictory issues.

Dialectics rediscovered!!! Of course there are
contradictions. All human activity results in
contradictions. The problem is insuring that these
contradictions are resolved before these collapse the
socio-economic "system," and in such a way as to maximize
the benefit to society and not just the "chosen few"
[generally self-selected].

“On the one hand it has unleashed a tendency to reengage in financial
nationalism if not mercantilism; on the other hand it had contributed to
the recognition that a very high degree of interdependencies between
economies called for a much higher level of cooperation.”

There are two mainly two seprate interest groups/power
blocks involved in this: Big Business [trans-national tax
evading corporations] and Big Government. The people, local
government, small businesses, etc. count for nothing.

In the end, Trichet believes it’s the financial sector’s responsibility
to respond to economic challenges.

Then we are doomed. The legislative branches must "man up,"
and pass the required limitations on finance with Draconian
civil and criminal penalties including confiscation and
disgorgement of assets, and the administration must "man
up," sign the legislation, and enforce it to the letter.

“While financial liberalization, deregulation, and innovation all have
the potential to make our economies more productive and more resilient,
the financial sector must not forget that its purpose is to serve the
real economy, not the other way around.”

From the point of view of the financial sector, IT IS THE
REAL ECONOMY, and this is where the trouble starts.
Legislation/regulation must be enacted, implemented and
enforced, not to see they WON'T do it (more worthless
"jawboning"), but rather to see they CAN'T do it, where "it"
is the creation of yet another credit/economic catastrophe.



-- Unka George (George McDuffee)
...............................
The past is a foreign country;
they do things differently there.
L. P. Hartley (1895-1972), British author.
The Go-Between, Prologue (1953).