For those of you who don't regularly read the Scotland Unspun blog, today's post is certainly one which strikes a chord with me.
Why should taxpayers have to bail out private banks causing economics crises and mayhem? Who's idea was it?
Why should private debts which were lost speculating be compensated by citizens? Given that million are now losing their jobs thanks to institutional fraud in the financial markets I think the public needs an answer!
And who gives the IMF any authority to demand that governments bail out banks? What charter gives them the right?
Trust the Irish to come up with this great idea of putting some of the world's best economic thinkers, together with comedians, in an economics festival. The festival is called Kilkenomics as it is to beheld in Kilkenny (pictured above) next week.
Can we organise such a conference in Scotland? Of course we can. It could be the (Per)enomics or the (Stir)enomics but most likely it would take place in either Edinburgh or Glasgow as they have the greatest populations. I can't see there being a (Dun)enomics, at least not until the V & A building is complete. Knowing the Irish I'm sure they would be delighted to assist us with the organisation.
All joking apart, I think this would be a most interesting way to introduce the subject of economics to all of us who feel it's shrouded in academia and we need answers. Why are we paying the debts of those who took such risks with our money? Why are we allowing ourselves to be abused? That's what these bankers are and have been doing, abusing their customers.
Note for my overseas readers: Per = Perth, Stir = Stirling and Dun = Dundee. But then you all knew that didn't you.
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35 comments:
Weegenomics?
We could invite Stephen Purcell and some tooled up Colombians as well.
Now, now Bugger, you're not taking this suggestion seriously. :)
I think Weegenomics would have far many more comedians than world-class economists don't you?
Aberdeenomics! Oil focus with it..
I read Fred MacAulay is taking part. Is that the Scottish one? Who would take it up? Frankie Boyle?
Thanks Rosie!
Why? Because we let them.
And, by doing so, we reap the just rewards of apathy and mortgage our children and grandchildren's future for the Establishments welfare.
We pay £191 billion per year to be governed by incompetents and shysters under the Westminster hegemony. More fool us?
Simple case as to why we had to bail them out - you take your salary cheque to the bank to cash it - clerk says 'No money - we're broke' Same idea re all who expect to get funds via bank.
John
The Government should have guaranteed the High Street banking business and let the casino side fall.
That is the principal of a free market?
Instead Westminster bails their mates out and we pay.
The spivs and gamblers are back doing the same thing as we speak, shuffling bits of paper round and declaring wealth creation. It will collapse again and the same thing will happen.
The banks should have been separated into different companies, one for normal banking and one for investment or gambling.
The Norwegians, some years ago had the same problem, away before ours and they did just that, separated the two sides, guaranteed the individual depositors and let the gamblers pay or not. That worked but for some strage reason was never talked about when the house fell in on Brown.
Am I right Crinkly (aka CRAP???)
Crinkly, is that the hidden meaning in your moniker C.R.A.P.
or, are you just an old fan of late Victorian literature.
What a wonderful idea, should be better than your average economics conference, and as they say – many a true word is spoken in jest.
To top it all the Kilkenomics Festival is creating its very own currency – the Marble.
One Marble = One Euro
… but in Kilkenny pubs, clubs and restaurants a Marble will be worth 1:10euro
Kilkenny Festival site = http://kilkenomics.com/
Oh this just cries-out to be held in that small town in Austria:
(Fucking)Economics
http://www.vienna-life.com/media/pics/fucking-austria.jpg
John,
The depositors were not the ones bailed out - it was the owners of banks i.e. the shareholders and bondholders. The government can easily withdraw the banks charter, nationalise the bank and guarantee the deposits.
And even with the bailouts done the banks are still broke so now you have a dead financial system and a sovereign debt crisis along with a collapsing currency - nice one Gordon Brown!
You shouldn't believe their propaganda John - it could cost you your enonomy.
@JRB,
What happens if you lose your marbles?
Alex Porter
You either join the Labour party or you think Iain Gray would make a great First Minister.
John, I should have mentioned that in the post and thanks to you it's now known.
I looked at the site prior to writing the post but it was written in haste as you may well realise.
Joe, you won't believe me but I've been to that village/town. A long time ago now and I think the photos of the signposts may be sepia by now, if not completely curled by being in too many attics.
Dubbie, go on, tell me why you think this wouldn't be a good idea.
Yes Bugger, we gave some thought to creating an acronym on the commodity that most permeated the lives of ordinary folk.
I don't quite get your reference to late Victorian literature unless it refers to Crapper who invented the utensil, but no doubt you'll enlighten me?
And yes you quite right to identify that a moratorium should have been placed on all the speculative deals with their fictional, to the extent of surreal, values. And funding only be made for retail and commercial banking. But America and Europe bought the lot using the asset of us as their collateral by borrowing money at real cost from the high end speculators who gained from the fictional values which has now to be serviced by our real money.
These speculators have, through the connivance or naivety of our governors (the choice is yours) left us with the junk of fools gold and got real gold prices for it. Now, as money laundering goes that real alchemy.
However, now that they have the real money they're heavily into buying the real gold and commodities with real worth and value and twisting their speculative knives buy pushing up their costs blaming the 30% devaluation of real money as their reason.
As an aside, I thought it was Sweden who had the banking problem?
So I got your acronym in one!
My allusion to the early 20th century was in reference to an Irishman called Robert Philip Noonan who wrote, under the pseudonym of Robert Tressel a book on the Victorian working class called The The Ragged Trousered Philanthropist although I always thought it was called The Ragged Arsed etc.
I have not actually read the book but at Uni I was obliged to do one arts subject in year 1 and chose the economics of industry.
The lecturer, who was Irish described himself as The Ragged Arsed Philanthropist because he was taking time out his otherwise rich and wealthy life to try to teach us numskulls.
His other memorable saying was that when referring to some poor sod's essay result, unnamed, he said he had laughed so hard and so long that the tears ran down the Parliamentary side of his arse and through the ragged holes.
Do you ever dip into Newsnet?
I write a piece or two on wine in the Interests tab.
Feel free to dip your CRAP self into my limited knowledge base and have the tears of joyous laughter run down well, you know what.
His
Sorry it was Sweden and not Norway but, my only excuse was that I am old and Norway was once part of Sweden, but during the time of this particular financial donnybrook.
not during the time of this etc
SR 20:02 "....you won't believe me...."
Of course I do, this is not Nadine Dorries' blog.
Ouch Joe, have a little sympathy with Nadine. She's got to keep her PR machine going.
Talking about economics, here is a little trick that always amuses me.
At the next budget, as you listen to it or read about it, take a piece of scrap paper and note down the figures. You will observe that you are writing down 50 000 000, 12 000 000, 6 000 000, etc, etc. YOU may find that there are some 50 figures or so. Now, knock off all the 000 000. You will find that the whole thing is is much the same calculation that one might make if one gets a 50p an hour increase in pay ("Now let's see - that 40 hours at 50p equals £20. But I will have to pay £2 extra income tax and £1 extra nat ins, so I will net only £17. But my rent (gas, elec, choose at will) is going up soon by £5 per week and .....etc).
But also, and here is the rub, there is the vicious circle. Gov reduces spending, firms which rely upon Gov spending earn less and therefore pay less, and so there is less money going around. Also, people are sacked and go onto jobseekers and so cost the Gov money. Also, tax income ins reduced and so the Gov have to put up taxes, which causes a further reduction in spending, which causes further unemployment, and so Gov have to reduce spending even further, and so......
The real skill in national economics is to reverse this process (and it IS possible to do that). I suspect that this is the reason for Gov enthusiasm for climate change. They have visions of million of new, green jobs, with the consequent increase in tax derived therefrom. Well, fine - provided that this industry is EFFICIENT! But will the windmills be efficient? The opinion outside the environmental lobby is that not. I\f they are not efficient, then the cost of electricity will go through the roof, with the consequence of less spent on other things, etc.....an so we again have the downward spiral.
Why do I suspect that the Gov are fully aware of this? I suspect that they are not particularly interested in the long term effects and are only interested in the creation of jobs in the short term. Besides, I also think that they know very well that oil and gas will never be phased out because of their efficiency until some other source of cheap energy appears. CERN anyone?
I'll do that junican. The Scottish budget is the week after next, the 17th I think.
As for your analysis, it's spot on. You've hit upon the subject of green jobs and like you, I think they will be very short term with only a small percentage of people in life-long employment. Efficient? I don't think so. Other countries are packing up their green ideas and many of these companies are now moving here to collect the huge subsidies available.
Of course governments are aware of it, but they're interested in the next election, not the good of the country.
I don't have any doubt that the country has been ripped off by a very clever swindle by the banking fraternity, who now seem to be back to the same levels of bonus and profits.
As others have asked, why have no collars been felt, for that matter, why has none of the previous government been asked to explain their actions before a court?
Banks may have a role to play in the operation of the country, but when that role is that of Dick Turpin, is it not reasonable they should suffer the same penalty.
With regards to wind turbines, every one seems to have forgotten that they evolved from a device which provided electricity from wind power because that was all that was available. The wind turbine was used in rural areas to charge batteries and this was mainly for lighting, for anything more, a petrol or diesel generator was used, and some of these were extreme examples of the art of Heath Robinson.
Politically, it is now being pushed to the limit without the politicians having a clue of the drawbacks involved, which any farmer from the 40's and 50's and earlier ,whose farm was not connected to the National grid could have told them.
If you want cheap reliable electricity, put dams across a dozen or so suitable glens , put generators at the base of the dams and problem solved. But then hear the screams of rage, from nimby's, from conservationists and lots of other -ists I cant think of at the moment.
Be it powered by wind, water, coal, oil, nuclear, If it aint got the fuel, whatever the fuel may be, it aint gonna run. Surely that should have been obvious?
Could be we should step back from the 'green' movement, global warming fanatics and think ,stop the hysteria that the sky is falling, and follow the money trail, we might just see that most of this is preserving the bank balances, not the planet!
What about holding it in Kilmarnock and we could call it Kilenomics or even better Kilbankers!
More people need to be made aware that what the bankers have done is fraud Apogee.
I'm sure many know the inadequacies of wind turbines, but they're so involved in the scam they can't back down. There's money in 'em windmills.
Any decent hotels in Kilmarock DL? :)
Bugger: had a look on Newsnet but couldn't find the interest tag.
However as far as wine goes; having a son in law who is a Champagne Grand Master and deals in the echelons of Petrus etc, I've learnt to subjugate my palate to that of a parenthesis to his and his superior knowledge in all except malt whisky.
A decision generally approved by the rest of the family and indicative of my declining status within it - namely that of being benignly humoured.
Apologies Rosa for using your blog off topic.
CRAP
http://www.newsnetscotland.com/interests/know-your-wine
I am a techno Nerd.
same apologies to SR for the deviation
Bugger - thanks for the address.
For now, having just moved (first time in forty years - hence the paucity of posts on the blog)-know your weeds is demanding most of my attention. And, just in case you thought I was trumpet blowing; it was all my daughters doing, and having necked one bottle of Petrus in my life, regard it as an acquired taste accompanied by a bank balance healthier than mine and for professions not subject the the pragmatism of engineering.
However I must applaud the perspicacity of your old uni for classing economics as an art. Science it is not, which, in a roundabout way, is exemplified by the topic of Rosa's blog.
I have always classified Economics as a branch of Philosophy with some arithmetic chucked in.
Lock up ten economists in a room and only let them out when they come to a consensus, they will do so, eventually, with eleven dissenting voices.
I am of the Alec Douglas Home school of economics of matches and two empty trouser pockets.
Your too kind - economics is negative anarchy posing as a tool of democracy.
Besides, being a Scot, my pockets are too deep and my arms too short to ever need that particular brand of economics.
I'm off to try your dot coms and forward slashes.
Be gentle with me
Hi SR.I'm not so sure that the wo/man in the street really does understand the drawbacks of wind power.They have been fed a line that the wind will blow most of the time so its cheap clean power.Fact is that the wind is like someone first turning a tap fully on then fully off then 75% on then 25%on,the average available water averages out at about 25-30% if you are lucky. And the available electrical output will vary the same. But the script the public were told never made this in any way clear.I was aware of how output would vary from taking an interest in wind power in the 60's but their spiel had me thinking they had ways round the problem,seems they didn't, and I would think 95% of the public were not aware there was a problem,until the problems became clear in overseas installations.
For it to work properly, backup power must be available, but this seems to have been completely ignored in the planning. But backup power is required in the current system to cover load variations. Wind power will deliver, but it requires to be done efficiently and sensibly, but there seems to have been an attempt to 'Sell the deal' as cheap clean power, without talking about what else was required. Bit like buying a new car and after paying and taking delivery, discovering the wheels were an extra !
In that case isn't it possible for a 'know about wind' conference/public meeting Apogee. Surely if a few folk have some banners to advertise it (somewhere in the central belt of course) the BBC would cover it. After all they love recording mini-protestors.
Do you know of an old hall which would accept £50 for an evening? I'd do my best to bring together the pros and antis.
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