ECB to Spain: Drop Dead.

Puppycow said:
The words must be followed by action, and soon, or the markets will conclude that they were only words.
Click to expand...

Who gives a ****. Why should the public at large be looted to prop up the "markets"? I know I'm tired of manipulated financial markets, endless bank bailouts, and insiders growing rich off of counterfeit money and credit.

Let it burn.
 
Tippit said:
Who gives a ****. Why should the public at large be looted to prop up the "markets"? I know I'm tired of manipulated financial markets, endless bank bailouts, and insiders growing rich off of counterfeit money and credit.

Let it burn.
Click to expand...

Indeed. I'm unashamedly on the political left and do not believe that the "free market" is the best means of making strategic decisions. BUT...if we are going to have a free market system then at the very least the markets have to actually be free. And if we're going to have an "unfree market" then it has got to be organised by people working in the public interest, not a bunch of bankers who are working in their own interest.

All we have at the moment is systematic fraud.
 
UndercoverElephant said:
Indeed. I'm unashamedly on the political left and do not believe that the "free market" is the best means of making strategic decisions. BUT...if we are going to have a free market system then at the very least the markets have to actually be free. And if we're going to have an "unfree market" then it has got to be organised by people working in the public interest, not a bunch of bankers who are working in their own interest.

All we have at the moment is systematic fraud.
Click to expand...

I think the free market is the best way of allowing people to voluntarily serve the needs and wants of others. But freedom is meaningless without justice, a concept that seems to elude most so-called "conservatives" who endorse the status-quo, and the system we have is most certainly unjust.

Governments operate using coercion, because everything they do first requires the involuntary separation of wealth from the general population. It is my opinion that given human nature, the tendency is for government power and influence to grow perpetually, and eventually become tyrannical. Even if we are to presume, contrary to human nature, that politicians could operate a large collectivist government for the public's benefit, they have absolutely no way of knowing what I need or want, or what anyone else does, and thus central planning fails even when it is benevolent.

Even though I may disagree with some of your politics, I respect the fact that you're honest.
 
Tippit said:
I think the free market is the best way of allowing people to voluntarily serve the needs and wants of others. But freedom is meaningless without justice, a concept that seems to elude most so-called "conservatives" who endorse the status-quo, and the system we have is most certainly unjust.

Governments operate using coercion, because everything they do first requires the involuntary separation of wealth from the general population. It is my opinion that given human nature, the tendency is for government power and influence to grow perpetually, and eventually become tyrannical. Even if we are to presume, contrary to human nature, that politicians could operate a large collectivist government for the public's benefit, they have absolutely no way of knowing what I need or want, or what anyone else does, and thus central planning fails even when it is benevolent.

Even though I may disagree with some of your politics, I respect the fact that you're honest.
Click to expand...

What people want is relatively unimportant. Part of my problem with a free market system is that it tries to deliver what people want, but that what people want is not necessarily what is good for either them or for the health of the planet. I have to go back to the example of the Chinese one child policy. I suspect that not many Chinese people wanted to be subjected to that policy when it was first implemented by their non-democratically-accountable government. But it was absolutely necessary nevertheless. The same currently applies to our whole mode of consumerism. There is no way to avoid a massive ecological catastrophe without a complete rethink of the way our economic system works.

If it was up to me then we'd have a "weighted" market - one which was openly "rigged" in order to produce changes in the way things are done (e.g. high taxes on anything that produces CO2 and use the money to subsidise alternatives.) What neither of us (and presumably nobody else either) wants a system where the rigging/weighting is done covertly. People managing money today are in fact trying to predict what the riggers are going to do next, not where a genuinely free market would take us.

It's all going to come back to gold. A lot of people are apparently shocked about LIBOR rigging. Should be interesting to see what happens when they discover that the US government has been rigging the gold and silver market for the last 20 years.
 
UndercoverElephant said:
What people want is relatively unimportant.
Click to expand...
Thus speaks every authoritarian despot in human history.

I have to go back to the example of the Chinese one child policy. I suspect that not many Chinese people wanted to be subjected to that policy when it was first implemented by their non-democratically-accountable government. But it was absolutely necessary nevertheless.
Click to expand...
Absolute nonsense. The West has achieved population control by increasing freedom, rather than by crushing it.

The same currently applies to our whole mode of consumerism. There is no way to avoid a massive ecological catastrophe without a complete rethink of the way our economic system works.
Click to expand...
Communism and totalitarianism have wreaked ecological havoc far beyond anything in democratic, capitalist countries.
 
Francesca R said:
Candid honesty but breath-taking arrogance and worthy of the opposite of respect.
Click to expand...

I stand by what I said. What should be the priorities of our economic system? What do we want it to do?

You apparently think that what it is for is making sure that people are supplied with "what they want." What most humans want is to have a higher standard of living - to consume more/better of whatever they want. This, for you, is the primary purpose of our economy.

I suggest to you that actually making sure that we don't completely trash the planet and inflict unimaginable misery on both our descendents and pretty much anything else that moves on the surface of this planet is a more important priority than making sure Johnny gets the latest features on his new iPhone.

You think I'm arrogant? I think you are immoral and irresponsible.
 
Last edited:
Puppycow said:
http://theatlantic.com/business/arc...e-2-scariest-unemployment-charts-ever/275324/
Click to expand...

and the article doesn't even go into the true state of the banking system. much more in the way of as-yet undeclared losses in the system to come.

I really don't see any way out of this whilst in the Euro. I gather there is a big employment law shake up in the works which is definitely required because its quite oppressive for small self-employed businesses here.

as an example tax, NI & required legal fees is approximately double every month compared to the same activity / earnings in the UK.
 
WildCat said:
And what is the way out ditching the Euro?
Click to expand...

that wouldn't necessarily be very easy either. but do you ever see Spain & Germany competing long term on an even playing field, with the same currency?

even if Spain were not hopelessly insolvent and spiraling down, its not a very realistic proposition is it? Not unless the Germans want to get printing and devaluing quicktime to get back in the race with everyone else
 
kevsta said:
that wouldn't necessarily be very easy either. but do you ever see Spain & Germany competing long term on an even playing field, with the same currency?

even if Spain were not hopelessly insolvent and spiraling down, its not a very realistic proposition is it? Not unless the Germans want to get printing and devaluing quicktime to get back in the race with everyone else
Click to expand...
Spain's problems have nothing to do with the Euro and everything to do with economic policy and budgeting.

You can't borrow or print your way to long-term prosperity, but you can gain short-term prosperity like that. And apparently that allure is too much for Spanish pols to resist, and the current results are predictable as sunrise.
 
WildCat said:
Spain's problems have nothing to do with the Euro and everything to do with economic policy and budgeting.

You can't borrow or print your way to long-term prosperity, but you can gain short-term prosperity like that. And apparently that allure is too much for Spanish pols to resist, and the current results are predictable as sunrise.
Click to expand...

they may not have been caused wholly by the Euro, but to say it has nothing to do with their predicament now, is a bit simplistic.

and had they not been in the Euro, they would never have been able to borrow at Germanic rates and get into this situation so easily.

edit. and once again I note Spain & USA are virtually interchangeable in your statements ;)
 
Last edited:
WildCat said:
Nope, people are still buying US bonds and at historically low interest.
Click to expand...

lulz. if by "people" you mean "the Fed", and by "historically low interest rates" you mean "historically artificially manipulated interest rates", then we're in agreement.
 
WildCat said:
And what is the way out ditching the Euro?
Click to expand...

That’s one way, and probably the only way to address the problem without significant external assistance. Spain is stuck in a deep liquidity crunch, outside of safe government paper no one is willing to lend which leads to a contraction of the effective4 currency supply. (the M2 money supply in US terms)

The solution monetarists like Milton Freidman proscribe for this is expanding the base money supply, but Spain uses the Euro so it doesn’t control it’s own money supply. Different regions within the US would have similar issues if it wasn’t for the equalizing effect of consistent federal spending that funnels tax dollars from prosperous States like California and New York to ones with weaker economies like Alaska, Alabama or Mississippi.
 
lomiller said:
That’s one way, and probably the only way to address the problem without significant external assistance. Spain is stuck in a deep liquidity crunch, outside of safe government paper no one is willing to lend which leads to a contraction of the effective4 currency supply. (the M2 money supply in US terms)

The solution monetarists like Milton Freidman proscribe for this is expanding the base money supply, but Spain uses the Euro so it doesn’t control it’s own money supply. Different regions within the US would have similar issues if it wasn’t for the equalizing effect of consistent federal spending that funnels tax dollars from prosperous States like California and New York to ones with weaker economies like Alaska, Alabama or Mississippi.
Click to expand...
Explain how that solution helps Spain. What will they pay for imported goods with, their worthless pesos?
 
The eurozone problem will not go away until the euro is abandoned.

No system of fixed exchange rates between groups of fiscally separate countries has ever worked: the gold standard, Bretton Woods, the ERM – they all fell apart in the end. This one will too, eventually, but great damage is being done in the meantime.

Admittedly there have been some countries that have decided to maintain a fixed rate against some other currency (e.g. Saudi Arabia against the US dollar, or – in the pre-euro era – Luxembourg against the Belgian franc) but those were in exceptional circumstances. And even then, the separate currency was not abolished; the decision could be reversed at any time.

In a group as disparate as the 17 countries of the euro zone, the idea of a permanent single currency is insanity.
 
Last edited:
WildCat said:
Explain how that solution helps Spain. What will they pay for imported goods with, their worthless pesos?
Click to expand...

That's kind of the point of currency devaluation. Domestic goods become cheaper relative to imports, so more people buy domestic goods boosting the local economy. At the same time exports become more competitive increasing exports, so foreign money comes in. Note that the pesos would not be "worthless", just "worth less".
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Back
Top Bottom