costard Posted October 30, 2011 Share Posted October 30, 2011 This is a good article followed by an outstanding commentary. Best night I've had in quite a while. Hope you're all keeping well. Oh yeah, We are All Greeks 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Michael Emrys Posted October 30, 2011 Share Posted October 30, 2011 Oh goody, more depressing news. Michael 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Affentitten Posted October 30, 2011 Share Posted October 30, 2011 Oh goody, more depressing news. Michael Well Logan, time to stop being a burden on the rest of us... 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stalins Organ Posted October 30, 2011 Share Posted October 30, 2011 Wow - I didn't realise the financial system was screwed ...... 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
costard Posted October 31, 2011 Author Share Posted October 31, 2011 The good news is in the quality of the discussion in the comments thread. The ZH site is providing a platform for a discussion of the events and some pretty good-humoured and smart people are talking about them. There is enough understanding of the complexity of the problem to give us some hope... (there's that word again, but if there is any good thing I can reasonably expect from the entire situation it's more and shorter periods of hopefulness. Wish in one hand...) that we'll at least have a pool of competence to pick from when things really do get tough. Nah, I'm enjoying it because I am learning about the deal: I cannot get the spread and detail of information through newspapers/BBC, I just get frustration with the lack of meaningful progress and anger at the lack of meaningful (or even just true, fer chrissake) information. With this comments section I get humour, wit, and a distilled source of information: a Dom or Chartreuse as opposed to a single malt whiskey. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kandahari Posted June 12, 2012 Share Posted June 12, 2012 Damn, and I thought we was all sailing six points to the wind. You nay-sayers and doom-merchants will always point to the negative aspects of capitalism, but it has always been thus: What is it that is so new; what is it that differentiates this scenario from the situation in any empire of old, the Greeks, the Romans, the Ottoman and the Sung - all of them survived until.. until the credit ran out and the average Joe said "quite frankly, I'm better off buying a defencible piece of land with water and soil than I am investing in the Emperor's multiplex, 'cause the mongols is coming". Whether they be actual Mongols or just folk who are over it (UK riots, French riots some years earlier).. Dissolution of the things that are written on a piece of paper - never signed by you or by me, but somehow law for all. Oh, Costard. You are so negative, Why can you not be like everyone else and just believe! We have been told what to do, and as long as everyone keeps doing it, we should maintain positive growth and the happiness quotient and all good things..? Why can't you just relax and watch Batman and laugh along with the morning tv hosts. Why can't you just put up and shut up and keep giving me your superannuation? Oh, Costard - so much reasoning from one who is so far removed from where the decisions are made; what are you doing? Should you not be advising president Obama? Or Prime Ministre Cameron? But no, you are here in the forum, and everyone is soo sympathetic. Oh, Costard. If only you could put your mind to actual use.. Or is this an excuse to do nothing? Yeah, I'm here too, so mea culpa. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
-E Posted June 12, 2012 Share Posted June 12, 2012 Well Logan, time to stop being a burden on the rest of us... I don't like Carnivals! I'm going for a jog... 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dieseltaylor Posted June 14, 2012 Share Posted June 14, 2012 A company's borrowing costs can be affected. At least 33 of the 121 companies in the credit default swap index in the JPMorgan trades have loan commitments from banks whose interest rates are tied to various versions of the index or their individual default insurance costs. Companies use these loan commitments to provide cash for day-to-day operations. Financially strong companies typically do not tap the loan commitments except in times of stress. A look at one credit agreement illustrates how borrowing costs can be affected. Caterpillar Inc has a $3.9 billion loan commitment whose interest rate will go up if its five-year default protection increases, according to Thomson Reuters LPC data. From May 1 to May 14, the construction equipment maker's five-year default insurance has increased to $104,000 a year from $82,900. That means that if Caterpillar had to tap the loan commitment, its cost to do so would have increased. Under the agreement, though, the company's interest rates on the loan would be calculated based on a maximum default insurance cost of $100,000. A Caterpillar spokesman declined to comment. How a "war" between hedge funds and JP Morgan sends bad signals through the economy, and can affect a firms funding costs. Rather a horrific insight into what can happen when people with vast amounts of "money" play the systems. http://uk.reuters.com/article/2012/06/14/uk-jpmorgan-trades-idUKBRE85D05O20120614?feedType=nl&feedName=ukdailyinvestor I think the OP here is interesting. My conviction is that we need to realise re-trenchment at a personal level affects both local tradesmen and industry. However I am not necessarily scared of the concept because we know that most people are fairly wasteful and if they adjust their lifestyle they could have happy declining years. This may mean co-habiting, no foreign holidays etc etc but in terms of happiness the people of 1950's Britain were as happy or happier than todays folk. SO are material posessions that important? Health and companionship are very highly rated as you age. Lastly health. Of course we can devote unlimited resource to increasing the worlds population and the average lifespan but would it be wiser to examine the concepts of getting old people to live longer. Perhaps it is not actually beneficial for society to have large numbers of senile and physically incapable pensioners being semi-hospitalised until the drugs/treatments are finally beaten. A friends father is being given a new prostate cancer drug as he lapses deeper into senility, and very lengthy sleeps, and blood tranfusions fortnightly. At 93 I am not clear what he is being kept alive for - other than for nursing home fees and drug fees. Sorry to go off tangent slightly but if we are looking at declining incomes/purchasing power then some good thinking outside the box might help realise better ways of living. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
costard Posted June 21, 2012 Author Share Posted June 21, 2012 Damn, and I thought we was all sailing six points to the wind. You nay-sayers and doom-merchants will always point to the negative aspects of capitalism, but it has always been thus: What is it that is so new; what is it that differentiates this scenario from the situation in any empire of old, the Greeks, the Romans, the Ottoman and the Sung - all of them survived until.. until the credit ran out and the average Joe said "quite frankly, I'm better off buying a defencible piece of land with water and soil than I am investing in the Emperor's multiplex, 'cause the mongols is coming". Whether they be actual Mongols or just folk who are over it (UK riots, French riots some years earlier).. Dissolution of the things that are written on a piece of paper - never signed by you or by me, but somehow law for all. Oh, Costard. You are so negative, Why can you not be like everyone else and just believe! We have been told what to do, and as long as everyone keeps doing it, we should maintain positive growth and the happiness quotient and all good things..? Why can't you just relax and watch Batman and laugh along with the morning tv hosts. Why can't you just put up and shut up and keep giving me your superannuation? Oh, Costard - so much reasoning from one who is so far removed from where the decisions are made; what are you doing? Should you not be advising president Obama? Or Prime Ministre Cameron? But no, you are here in the forum, and everyone is soo sympathetic. Oh, Costard. If only you could put your mind to actual use.. Or is this an excuse to do nothing? Yeah, I'm here too, so mea culpa. Ok, this deserved a reply. My apologies for being dilatory, I hope the argument is worth it. The idea that I might publicly air my stance on values and their relevance in informing our behaviour is more in the need to continue to argue against the current fashion of "It has always been this way... heed my counsel of despair." (This is not always the line you take but it has been present in the instructions to look to history for examples echoing current behaviour.) The argument I contradict is that no-one has ever generated wealth by behaving in an honourable (where honour might be an example of a value informing our behaviour) fashion. When this is proved (by inspection, a valid method of proof, even if it is a little simple for sophists) to be self-evident bunkum based on an erroneous interpretation of the means of generating wealth, the argument changes to "... wealth that matters." The counter argument has dropped to the level of "Dishonourable behaviour is honourable behaviour." and needs no more of my time spent in refutation - except that the statement is still being made today, in the fashion, and has been gaining ground throughout my lifetime. The argument promoting the acceptance of corrupt behaviour needs to be refuted at every turn. Allowing the corruption of publicly preached and generally held standards of behaviour will not lead to a future in any way better than one where our current behaviours are informed by the values so publicly preached: love, honesty, dignity, respect, courage. How about these five for starters (sburke can probably help me out with a sixth, but it doesn't really matter what words you choose so long as you describe a continuum of values that lends itself to the management of groups of individuals in the pursuit of building the common wealth of that group.)? It is this that might be new - we have no excuse whatsoever to misinform ourselves as to the consequences of behaving in a corrupt fashion, or of allowing corrupt behaviour to guide us in the pursuit of behaving as social creatures. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kandahari Posted August 5, 2012 Share Posted August 5, 2012 Oooo.. it deserved a reply. Not really - It was me venting all manner of bile as the result of dining and wining (whining?) with friends who complain of the power, corruption and lies, but who continue to make good money (as do I, except fo the good money bit). You copped it, and apologies for that. So many talented and intelligent individuals who subsume their light under the bushel of contract law or property development, etc. Of course, everybody has to make a living, pay off the mortgage, fend off the taxman, etc. But you can also use your spare time to provide critical commentary beyond the confines of a particular and socially isolated forum (if that is your wont). You don't have to spend your spare time playing golf or attending parties where you really don't care for anyone present. You only get one life. Practise commentary as an active contribution to the general discussion. By all means use the Battlefront Forum as a training ground, but there's a time and a limit beyond which you are merely talking to like-minded individuals (more or less) and no-one in the wider world is the wiser. Freelance journalism - do it. Of course, this is difficult because you don't have an 'in'; you have no way of reaching an audience IOT persuade them, but and however: A considered and well-reasoned argument is worth more than the letters: MBA or PhD. Particularly now, when your average MBA graduate has no idea how to construct a reasoned argument, let alone how to express it in a persuasive and lyrical manner, and a PhD can be bought. An ability to critique a given status quo, and to argue for imrovement in a coherent and logical manner is of the highest order of importance. There are, however, places for your argument to be aired given an ability to edit, which on repeated acceptance might warrant the demand: 'Hey, how come I'm not being paid for this?' I'd say it'd be relatively easy for you to be published in the dailies at the least four times a year to begin with, given some small effort (and a lot of editing - no offence). If you submitted a 300 word piece every week (how hard would that be, really). People might actually appreciate the reasoned argument, rather than the purely subjective opinion-piece that usually passes for reader contribution. It's just an idea. Not to practice this ability, not to train the mind that is capable of doing so is an affront to the genetics that created you. Not to do it Sir, would be the most grievous of insults (my glove). Oh, and try to disguise the argument in terms of a shpiel that will appeal to your readership. Make it light if it's the weekend magazine ('So I was gardening in Tuscany the other day...'); make it entertaining if it's the dailies. If all else fails, make it relevant WRT the issues that concern the average comfortable rich person (cancer, taxes, education, etc.). Anyone who lives in a sense of security and with the ability to plan is rich, no matter what the neighbours or annoying brother-in-law may earn. Gosh, I think I need to stop preaching and do this myself. But there is a resource there - the ability to form a reasoned, coherent argument, couch it in succinct and erudite prose, and it would be a shame to allow this ability to stagnate in a forum of like- or near-like minded individuals. Regards. Quote: (seems to be de rigeur) "..the reading public is still so naive and immature that it cannot understand a fable unless the moral is given at the end, fails to see jokes, has no sense of irony, and is simply badly educated. It still doesn't realise that open abuse is impossible in respectable society or respectable books, and that modern culture has found a far keener weapon than abuse. Though practically invisible, it is none the less deadly, and under the cloak of flattery strikes surely and irresistibly.' Mikhail Lermontov 1840 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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