Comments on: Cretins

By: Evelyn

Evelyn — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 11:46:26 +0000

In the meanwhile, Germany is borrowing 4481 Euro every second, just to keep the wolf from the door.

I wonder where they will find this much money once the financial markets are no longer functioning properly?

By: Johnathan Pearce

Johnathan Pearce — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 10:53:09 +0000

A credit default swap is merely a tradable insurance policy against a certain type of risk: ie, default. What next, a campaign to ban insurance against fire, theft and whatnot?

Idiots

By: Gene Berman

Gene Berman — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 03:05:29 +0000

Andrew:

You’re quite right in saying that central planners are wont to blame speculators for the going awry of their plans. But they’re not the only ones nor do I believe they’re original in laying such blame. It’s just common for the economically ignorant (which is an awful lot of folks) to seize on speculation as a source of what “did them dirty.”
You’ll find the same sort of blame-laying coming from farmers displeased with the prices they get for their crops and even from otherwise savvy dealers in various commodities, including scrap metals, when things don’t go the way that suits them. Nobody likes to be wrong (and the handiest folks to blame are those whose opinions differed from your own).

By: coertevanv

coertevanv — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 20:23:37 +0000

Rumour has it that they are going to ban short-selling on AIG and City etc. Dumber than nine chickens- the wh0le lot!

By: Andrew Duffin

Andrew Duffin — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 14:30:15 +0000

When central planners cock up (ie, whenever and wherever central planning exists), then they always blame “speculators”.

This goes right back to Stalin, and probably Lenin too.

They are just all the same.

By: The Pedant-General

The Pedant-General — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 12:08:29 +0000

Morons: it’s the debt that’s the problem, not the people telling you that the debt’s the problem.

By: Ian Bennett

Ian Bennett — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 10:26:33 +0000

“Given that they’re entirely ignorant of how financial markets work why in fuck are we giving them the power to run a continent?”

As I may have said before, we don’t give them the power, they just take it. We can’t vote them out; all we can do is hope that eventually someone in UK government will have the sense to get us out of the appalling disaster that is the EU.

In fact, I’m not convinced that they are entirely ignorant; I suspect that they’re just doing what they do best (ie, fucking things up), waiting until someone finds a way of ameliorating said fuck-ups, then tries to prevent them from doing so.

Am I giving them to much credit? “Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity”, but the quote continues: “but don’t rule out malice”.