Financial fuckery thread

[deadfong]

It's not really the Victorian era until they eliminate all child labor laws.  Then we can have cradle-to-grave employment, with the added bonus that no one will live long enough to actually see any of the entitlement programs pay out.  It's a brilliant plan to save us from The Deficit.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

It's not really the Victorian era until they eliminate all child labor laws.  Then we can have cradle-to-grave employment, with the added bonus that no one will live long enough to actually see any of the entitlement programs pay out.  It's a brilliant plan to save us from The Deficit.

I don't know if you've seen it, but the GOP has been making a concerted effort to eliminate child labor laws since 2006.  Earlier than that, really, but that's when the idea went from "Arkansas kook" to "mainstream GOP".

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

Pretty sure the GOP would re-institute slavery in a heartbeat if it were economically feasible.

[Junkenstein]

Be grateful for the small benefits of outsourcing.

[deadfong]

It's not really the Victorian era until they eliminate all child labor laws.  Then we can have cradle-to-grave employment, with the added bonus that no one will live long enough to actually see any of the entitlement programs pay out.  It's a brilliant plan to save us from The Deficit.

I don't know if you've seen it, but the GOP has been making a concerted effort to eliminate child labor laws since 2006.  Earlier than that, really, but that's when the idea went from "Arkansas kook" to "mainstream GOP".

I remember Gingrich making some noises about it during the interminable Republican primary debates, but I was unaware that the effort was both older and more serious than that.

[Cain]

It's the most wonderful pointless time of year - the Davos convention!

Will Hutton sums up my feelings pretty well:

More than 2,500 alpha men and women from more than 100 countries will descend on Davos this week to spend four days discussing the world's urgent need to adopt "resilient dynamism". This, the organising watchword for this year's annual gathering of panjandrums at the World Economic Forum, is allegedly the way out of the crisis. It is meaningless.

Who, for example, would support non-resilient stagnation? Western capitalism, and, arguably, global capitalism, has arrived at an apparent dead end. It is in profound trouble. But if the best answer to austerity and economic malaise is resilient dynamism every delegate should stay at home. As a call to action, you might as well urge everyone to be manly, womanly and decisive. Virtuous states of mind, but hardly blueprints for action.

In any case, for most of the business leaders attending Davos, the economic malaise is an abstraction. Profits as a share of GDP in almost all western countries are at record highs, along with executive pay. Meanwhile, real wages for the majority are stagnating, if not falling, justified by our economic leaders in Davos as the proper if sad consequence of "structural adjustment". Goldman Sachs, for example, shamed from deferring its bonus payments into the next financial year so that its staff could enjoy the lower tax rate, has just enjoyed a bumper year. Davos men and women are prospering. No structural adjustment for them.

There will doubtless be the usual appeals for more free trade, more scientific research and more investment in skills as the expensively clad executives move from seminar and sonorous keynote speech to reception and back to the dinner table. But what there will not be at Davos is a willingness to countenance a sea change in the way capitalism is organised. It can do what it will and that is to continue to confer fortunes on those at the top, with little risk, while directing pain on to others.

Also worth reading for some very unusual and interesting IMF conclusions - such as earning inequality being at the heart of the current British economic situation, caused in part by the decline of trade unions.  Has a Fabian infiltrated the hallowed halls of Neoliberalism?

[LMNO]

Note to self: Add "resilient dynamism" to my list of business doublespeak terms.


What a load of meaningless bullshit.  I really did like the interpretation of the IMF report.  Income shifted to the top, living wages get squeezed, the working class starts living on easy credit which fuels an unstable demand, and then when things go POP, it all crashes hard.

[Anna Mae Bollocks]

Pretty sure the GOP would re-institute slavery in a heartbeat if it were economically feasible.

I thought ALEC did that already? 

[Cain]

Note to self: Add "resilient dynamism" to my list of business doublespeak terms.


What a load of meaningless bullshit.  I really did like the interpretation of the IMF report.  Income shifted to the top, living wages get squeezed, the working class starts living on easy credit which fuels an unstable demand, and then when things go POP, it all crashes hard.

Yup.  Which is pretty much exactly what happened.

A bunch of other, related stuff also happened, of course, but the above part put's it into an easily understandable context.

[Junkenstein]

http://www.bmmagazine.co.uk/newswire/14352/glaxo-disregards-suppliers-with-90-day-payment-terms/

Just a nice example of corporate "Fuck You"

A spokesman for GSK said: "We greatly value the relationships with have with our many suppliers and understand the pressures on cash-flow and financing being faced by smaller companies at this time.

This is why, for smaller companies, we have a number of schemes in place to help them, including alternative payment schedules and offering supply chain finance."

So, instead of paying their bill, here's some finance instead. This makes total sense. For GSK.

[Cain]

Another case of a bank selling shit assets, then shorting the securities they sold

http://www.propublica.org/thetrade/item/explosive-charge-morgan-stanley-peddled-security-its-own-employee-called-nu

On March 16, 2007, Morgan Stanley employees working on one of the toxic assets that helped blow up the world economy discussed what to name it. Among the team members' suggestions: "Subprime Meltdown," "Hitman," "Nuclear Holocaust," "Mike Tyson's Punchout," and the simple-yet-direct: "Shitbag."

Ha ha. Those hilarious investment bankers.

Then they gave it its real name and sold it to a Chinese bank.

We are never going to have a full understanding of what bad behavior bankers conducted in the years leading up to the financial crisis. The Justice Department and the Securities and Exchange Commission have failed to hold big wrongdoers to account.

We are left with what scraps we can get from those private lawsuits lucky enough to get over the high hurdles for document discovery. A case brought in the New York State Supreme Court in Manhattan against Morgan Stanley by a Taiwanese bank, which bought a piece of the same deal the Chinese bank did, has cleared that bar.

[Elder Iptuous]

wow!  that's amazing...  and nothing will come of it. 
it's like there could be a document discovered titled, "how we will criminally fuck over the entire public, and why we will get away with it", and nothing would happen to them.

[Anna Mae Bollocks]

What's up with this? http://www.cnn.com/2013/01/25/us/pentagon-layoffs/

[Ben Shapiro]

Pretty sure the GOP would re-institute slavery in a heartbeat if it were economically feasible.

The Democratic Party beat them to it years ago. They have made a killing of racisim,sexism,and the poor. A few bread crumbs is better than no bread at all right? I honestly don't know which party to hate more.

[P3nT4gR4m]

Pretty sure the GOP would re-institute slavery in a heartbeat if it were economically feasible.

The Democratic Party beat them to it years ago. They have made a killing of racisim,sexism,and the poor. A few bread crumbs is better than no bread at all right? I honestly don't know which party to hate more.

They're politicians. It's not an either-or scenario.