Darwinbots Forum
General => Off Topic => Topic started by: Peter on October 08, 2008, 01:19:55 PM
-
Does anyone has deep thoughs about the mortgage-bank-run crisis.
It is coming closer and closer, well it is already in europe. (Oh, for the point britain isn't europe, britain we ignore)
After a whole time of different american and britain banks being taken by each other.
More or less ignoring america and britain here.
Now there is a number of banks in europe that seems to have problems. 2 banks in belgium(from witch one doesn't exist anymore)and a bank in germany has got a huge load from the goverment. And also a number of other banks that are short of money.
Maybe the biggest of the whole crisis is that Iceland, after natiolising multiple banks, is in deep trouble. And maybe a national bankruptcy is nearing.
-
Keep going! Stocks are so low I can build the most awesome 401(k) (tax free retirement account in the US) for pennies on the dollar, so to speak Even assuming a Great Depression like, well, depression, those stocks are going to be golden in 30 to 40 years when I start retirement.
Ironically I set up a Washington Mutual checking and savings account because they don't have my old bank, Chase, in California.
-
Finished typing yet?
-
Over here the media are busy saying this is the next big depression, and are trying to make people panic. The elections are nearing so the politicians are all busy lying as usual...
In New Zealand all of our banks are owned by offshore investors, with the exception of one, which is a state-owned enterprise, so overseas problems could be a worry. The Government has predicted a $6 billion dollar loss over the next year. It might not sound like much, but there's only 4 million people in New Zealand, so thats $1,500 per person!
-
Huh, not as big as I though then .
I think you're right, though, for New Zealand this big depression thing is really coming in time with elections. The politicians are all saying that they regret saying they're giving the public a tax cut, but will go through with it anyway (which is sure to drive the votes in!)
-
Keep going! Stocks are so low I can build the most awesome 401(k) (tax free retirement account in the US) for pennies on the dollar, so to speak Even assuming a Great Depression like, well, depression, those stocks are going to be golden in 30 to 40 years when I start retirement.
Ironically I set up a Washington Mutual checking and savings account because they don't have my old bank, Chase, in California.
Heh, the crisis has given you some though about retirement already. How'd you come by the 401(k) number anyway, did you calculate how much you're going to win.
Over here the media are busy saying this is the next big depression, and are trying to make people panic. The elections are nearing so the politicians are all busy lying as usual...
In New Zealand all of our banks are owned by offshore investors, with the exception of one, which is a state-owned enterprise, so overseas problems could be a worry. The Government has predicted a $6 billion dollar loss over the next year. It might not sound like much, but there's only 4 million people in New Zealand, so thats $1,500 per person!
Well, it is a pretty much a big depression. I mean how often does it happen a goverment takes over multiple savings-banks in panic. And states the next day, we can't pay we're out of cash.
You're not that bad Iceland had a extremely high deficed.
And in the netherlands there was a profit of 2 billion euro expected for this year. Well that was until the goverment took over the dutch part of the belgium bank fortis. That costed 16 billion, so now we're losing 14 billion.
Now the belgians are whing we took over their bank.
Funny to look at belgium websites how we stole their bank.
-
American tax code is amazingly complicated. The section on tax free retirement savings is in the 401st chapter, section k.
-
The reason behind the bank crisis:
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=7065205277695921912 (http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=7065205277695921912)
..and the solution:
http://www.thevenusproject.com/vgallery.html (http://www.thevenusproject.com/vgallery.html)
Click the trailers.
Time to change or perish.
-
I don't have two hours, I'm double parked with my idling hummer outside. Can you summarize quickly?
-
Well, they talk about how the monetary system works, where it comes from and what the whole purpose with it is, and that it's the root of pretty much all problems in the world. At the end they also present solutions of a resource based system instead where money isn't used at all. Also they talk about how people can stop supporting the monetary system, to make it obsolete. Very controversial and I highly doubt they will manage to get it to work, but maybe if the economic crisis would cause USA to fall into a deep enough depression, where the majority will have serious problems buying and selling anything, then a lot of people might be willing to change.
It's better if you try to watch the whole documentary though when you have the spare time to make up your own mind.
-
Well, if I look at the first part of the film. You'll just get the ussual whining why the current financial system is bad. And why money is bad. Yes, it seems money is bad.
Well, I tend to think this crisis has come becouse of the greed and stupidiness of bankers and others who are in that market.
Well here (http://nl.youtube.com/watch?v=mzJmTCYmo9g) is, how I think the crisis works.
Overall, this crisis wouldn't only get the USA in a big crisis. From the beginning the EU lost more money of this crisis then the US. Overall this wasn't very visable becouse europe is much bigger than the USA in the financial market. No really much, much bigger, the complete europe controls about half of the world assets.
It isn't just the USA. The rest of the world too.
Iceland is in trouble, after Iceland said it wouldn't pay out the savings on the bank they natiolised.
Britain used a anti-terrorism law against Iceland to block money on brittish bank accounts.
The Netherlands threated with blocking money from the IMF(still doubting if they really have some control there). After a while the money was repayed with money Iceland loaned from the dutch-goverment.
There seem to be rumors that there is coming a lawsuit again the central bank of iceland, for giving wrong information and the bank itself that broke a deal that they wouldn't gain more then a certain amount of savings money.
The USA isn't in trouble, Iceland is. Altrough I wouldn't doubt it if some american-banks are thrown at court.
Iceland is more and more starting to become some kind of soap.
About that venus project.
Not original, very pretty old idea indeed. A world where everybody is happy, everybody equal, enviroment friendly, everything should look futoristic(why always). And overall I don't really like this kind of communist-idea.
-
Money isn't inherently a problem. Money is just a somewhat tangible estimation of your ability to trade. If we went back to a barter system, there'd still be all the problems of the current world, plus some added issues since not everyone is willing to trade me food for programming time. Planned economies, where people are dolled out by a central authority, aren't as efficient as a capitalist society. That seems to be the lesson learned from Russian and China in the 20th century. They work, and they're more fair (in the sense that there aren't super rich or super poor), but they're more wasteful than a capitalist society, and cause things like shortages and massive surpluses (issues like too many ipods but not enough rechargable batteries for them).
Another option might be a gift giving economy. Modern economies are based on the principle of acquisition, but there are some societies that are based on the giving of gifts. The more you can afford to give other people, the more highly esteemed you are in the society. I don't think it's a magical panacea, but I sometimes wonder what the world would be like under that kind of system.
-
"not everyone is willing to trade me food for programming time"
What if you could just go to the store and pick your fair share for the week and walk out? If people are not forced to work for money they can instead pick a profession they have interest and talent in, and contribute to society that way. You didn't chose to be a programmer because of the money, did you? You and Eric have worked with this for free.
-
That's what I was suggesting with a gift giving economy. It sort of exists like that right now in open source projects. You contribute (gift your time and talents), and get social prestige for it.
But suppose no one likes to be a plumber. Everyone's doing fun jobs and no one wants to be a plumber. And suddenly my toilet backs up. In a monied economy, not fun jobs get lots of money. You can actually make a pretty decent living as a contractor doing carpentry or plumbing or mechanics on cars, that really only requires a short apprenticeship instead of college or a lifetime of dedication. As fewer people want or can do a job, the compensation naturally increases until a balance is reached. You might not like plumbing, but if I offer you $1 million for an hour of work, you'd probably take the job.
To take it back to open source, many open source projects are pretty terrible in support. There's a reason windows can charge $100s for an OS when its main competitor is free. Doing support work, fielding calls from users who don't have the computer plugged in or are running a program even though they don't have the specs for it, it's not fun. It's not sexy. So in open source communities, it doesn't get done as well as in the commercial sector. Microsoft has gigabytes of documentation on everything and anything. It wasn't fun for the developers to write, I'm sure, but they did it because they got paid more to do it than not (probably wouldn't have a job if they refused actually), which translates in to more luxury items. Darwinbots is in the same boat. The wiki is woefully out of date in places, and technical issues are quite common. We try to work through them, but they're pitiful compared to most things EA or Microsoft would release.
-
I don't trust that it's actually the payment that incourage people to do a good job. The risk of getting fired may be, but it looks to me in most cases that people don't care what they do as long as they get paid for it; products that promises more than they can do and crumbles short after you've bought them, internet businesses making promises but leave out the bad stuff letting the customers find out the hard way AFTER they've bought the product or service. This just keep getting worse. Like the guy from the venus project says in the documentary; you can't trust anyone doing things for profit.
It's hard to imagine a society which isn't run with money. The only thing to compare with is small tribes in the forests. It has never been tried on a big scale. You would need to educate people differently, bring up children differently and teach people the importance of working for the good of all instead of egostic and profit desires. Nothing that's possible over night, and personally I think it would take a collapse of the whole monetary system, which might be where we're heading, for enough people to be open to try a new system.
-
I gues it is the payment and the chance for losing a job, that do make incourage people to do a good job. In a communist-society everybody chould be secure in living. And therefor there isn't a real incouragement to do a good job. You'll live the same anyway.
I think you can trust anyone who does it for profit. If you as a company doing it not very well. You will get complains and a bad name. Overall I think the situation in the west is pretty good. Company's know a good name means profit.
And I tend to agree with numsgil, someone has to do the 'unpleasant' jobs. By paying more to some jobs you will eventually get at every spot the number of people there is needed.
I am too afraid that if everything is free, nobody would do a thing becouse that wouldn't matter. Why would they. In a small tribe most see each other as family or friends. Why would anyone create cars without getting anything back. And giving them to people witch you won't know what they do. Maybe you're creating a lot of cars for free, but they're doing nothing.
I could see this working in a small tribe, but big scale would be hard.
A small tribe is too, well small. And they need less per person then we take.
Hmm, I don't like agreeing with numsgil. Maybe I should read into it and see the good of it.
-
I think you can trust anyone who does it for profit.
Please tell me you misspelled that!
If you as a company doing it not very well. You will get complains and a bad name
Some companies care about that, but only as far as they can keep up the profits, which doesn't mean their products must be all that good. A lot of companies keep selling products that simply don't work. We have this consumer program here in Sweden that constantly shows worthless products and services where companies rip people off and try to use silly excuses when confronted with it.
Also this idea doesn't have anything to do with communism. Would you call a tribe in the jungle a communist tribe because it doesn't sell or buy or have a government? In the movie they talk about that you wouldn't need a government at all in such society, because politicians don't have the competence anyway. I think you would need some kind of leaders though to keep things together, but ultimately it would be the people together in different communtities that should plan and decide the best solutions for their particular community.
-
Big companies that have been around for a while know that their reputation translates directly into business. If they screw lots of people word gets around and they lose business. That's not to say they won't screw people, but they're going to try and do it in a way so that you won't figure it out
For instance, when I buy something at Walmart, I know I can return it for any reason within X days (like 3o I think). Even food. I could eat half an apple and return it probably. This is a loss for Walmart in the shortrun, but they do it because then when I go to buy an expensive item I'll do it there, knowing that I have that return policy to guard against crap. They screw us in more subtle ways, like labor practices and buying cheap stuff from Taiwan instead of domestic companies.
I think what you're talking about is called anarcho-communism. There's no government but the means of production and the goods are communally owned. Wiki the term and see if it sounds right.
-
Ok, I looked it up, but anarcho-communism wasn't quite what I was thinking, because it means getting rid of private property. I can't answear for The venus Project as I've only looked at it a little, but supposedly they only mean that the natural resources should belong to everybody.
For instance, when I buy something at Walmart, I know I can return it for any reason within X days (like 3o I think). Even food. I could eat half an apple and return it probably. This is a loss for Walmart in the shortrun, but they do it because then when I go to buy an expensive item I'll do it there, knowing that I have that return policy to guard against crap. They screw us in more subtle ways, like labor practices and buying cheap stuff from Taiwan instead of domestic companies.
There's a balance between consumers and companies, people and government, uphold by the fact that people have some power to chose and have democratic power, but I see this balance is tipping over to the worse. Things have gone down hill quite much here in Sweden because people have gotten lazy and spoiled and don't care about protecting our unique democracy. We have this phenomenon here in Sweden where the left party is bringing the country down slowly while the right party is bringing it down fast. Every new generation of voters don't know that and make the mistake of voting for the right party (well there's actually several but it's always the same one that wins because they are allied. Look it up if you want to know more how it works) and finds it suddenly goes hell of a lot worse. Oops! Bring back the left! And then it goes back to the slow degrading again.
-
Ok, I looked it up, but anarcho-communism wasn't quite what I was thinking, because it means getting rid of private property. I can't answear for The venus Project as I've only looked at it a little, but supposedly they only mean that the natural resources should belong to everybody.
Well I pretty stuborn so don't blame me. But only the natural recources. Isn't that already true? Everybody has the sun, right. A gift-giving society where you can have property. I don't know the idea sounds less. There will still be people that have greed and find a way to own a halve city.
There's a balance between consumers and companies, people and government, uphold by the fact that people have some power to chose and have democratic power, but I see this balance is tipping over to the worse. Things have gone down hill quite much here in Sweden because people have gotten lazy and spoiled and don't care about protecting our unique democracy. We have this phenomenon here in Sweden where the left party is bringing the country down slowly while the right party is bringing it down fast. Every new generation of voters don't know that and make the mistake of voting for the right party (well there's actually several but it's always the same one that wins because they are allied. Look it up if you want to know more how it works) and finds it suddenly goes hell of a lot worse. Oops! Bring back the left! And then it goes back to the slow degrading again.
I am not entirely sure what it had to do with numsgil post.
Anyway, I gues your right and left is something else then it here is. I think the left-wing breaks the country and the right-wing fixes it.
If I look in the history of Dutch-politics it is rarely that there keep the same parties in control. Any party that is in control is always doing it wrong(or so the people think). That way coalitions and parties keep changing.
I don't vote left, becouse left always wants to put money in green-stuff. And becouse I know how much money 'nature' gets. A company that is filled with old-lefties gets three times as much money for an amount of land that they own(for rare grasses, yeah sure) and rent to a farmer, from the goverment + rent-income from the respective farmer, as where a farmer has to work hard for on his land.
I don't vote that one serious right-party becouse they took subsidy-off the windmills and biogas-instalations. And want to wreck(and are wrecking) farmer-subsidy.
Last time I voted, I did vote a kindoff center-right party. More the least bad then the best, but it is always like that.
-
Everybody has the sun, right
That's just one resource, and you can't get solar energy for free, can you? I wander what my landlord would say if put up a solar panel here, not to mension what it costs to get one. Then you have all the other resources like wood, iron etc. You can't just go and dig that up somewhere. You need to see how controlled everything is, that you need permition for everything.
I am not entirely sure what it had to do with numsgil post.
The first sentence was a reply to Numsgil, then I ranted on with some extra. I suppose you don't care what's going on in little Sweden.
I think the left-wing breaks the country and the right-wing fixes it.
SIGH! As long as you never get sick, lose your job and are well paid, then yeah. Unfortunately the right wing never cares to prevent this, instead they increase poverty and class differences.
-
That's just one resource, and you can't get solar energy for free, can you? I wander what my landlord would say if put up a solar panel here, not to mension what it costs to get one. Then you have all the other resources like wood, iron etc. You can't just go and dig that up somewhere. You need to see how controlled everything is, that you need permition for everything.
Yes, you need permits for everything. I know, I know. They're for a purpose, often I think they're missing a goal. But it could go completely wrong if everyone could do everything.
Still, where is the border between natural recource/and not natural recource. I don't think iron is natural, it already had a complete change from iron-ore. And if not, is a car a natural recource?
The first sentence was a reply to Numsgil, then I ranted on with some extra. I suppose you don't care what's going on in little Sweden.
Depends, is it that bad in Sweden then? Sweden is a lot bigger the the Netherlands anyway.
SIGH! As long as you never get sick, lose your job and are well paid, then yeah. Unfortunately the right wing never cares to prevent this, instead they increase poverty and class differences.
In the netherlands my feeling about social security is that it is plenty. As left-wing wants to increase it and spent more on it. Have a good living without a job, as I think it should be barely enough to live.
Where I think that money should better be spend to get people working, if they want an education or courses they get one. Don't they have a job, give them a job. In the netherlands there are pretty much of those institutions who have work for job-seekers. Those jobs are then for a big part paid by the goverment, these jobs often are simple jobs like assembly line work. Not that everything is bad just most.
I often think the left-wing wastes more money then they're spending right. That's why I've never voted a left-wing party. It isn't like they never have good ideas but more wrong ones. And further left parties tend to want to control everything. More regulations, increase taxes on particulair stuff. Just coming to more and more people coming in civil service. And I think that's bad.
-
And further left parties tend to want to control everything. More regulations, increase taxes on particulair stuff.
I agree with that and I'm not particularly fond of the left either. It's the lesser of 2 evils imo. I vote for the green party here, which isn't loyal to any of the others. It shifts between the blocks of parties depending on how much those parties support them. Doing right should be more important then loyalty both in politics and employment. A lot of people are doing wrong in their positions out of loyalty to the bosses.