Mm. I think the people I know in Iceland would argue against that. The country is functional, but its currency lost a massive amount of value, and things that were already expensive there are now fucking astronomically expensive. Chunks of the area around Reykjavik are like building sites, with half-finished houses just abandoned. Unemployment is way up. And ISK might have managed to avoid junk status, but only by the skin of its teeth.

Quite. It would definitely be a much better idea to allow Greece to default, instantly ensuring that it becomes totally incapable of ever again operating at a deficit, costing the banks and sovereign nations that have lent it money to lose out on that cash, resulting in probably collapsing financial institutions and thousands of job losses (though not among the bankers, they'll just get jobs elsewhere). The euro would tank against every other currency on the board, plunging the economies of all the eurozone countries through the floor. Once the rest of the world sees that Europe will allow Greece to go, they immediately issue junk status on Portugal, Ireland, and Spain because they'll follow immediately after. Most of europe has barely a functioning economy for the next decade.


Still, the deal's just a ploy to put money in the hands of those greedy bankers, eh?

The rich run a global system that allows them to accumulate capital and pay the lowest possible price for labour. The freedom that results applies only to them. The many simply have to work harder, in conditions that grow ever more insecure, to enrich the few. Democratic politics, which purports to enrich the many, is actually in the pocket of those bankers, media barons and other moguls who run and own everything.

And when the banks that look after our money take it away, lose it and then, because of government guarantee, are not punished themselves, something much worse happens. It turns out – as the Left always claims – that a system purporting to advance the many has been perverted in order to enrich the few. The global banking system is an adventure playground for the participants, complete with spongy, health-and-safety approved flooring so that they bounce when they fall off. The role of the rest of us is simply to pay.

And ISK might have managed to avoid junk status, but only by the skin of its teeth.

a lot of Republicans actually seem to want there to be a one-party system in the US.

Mmm, not sure. A lot of Republicans only seem to define themselves as the opposite of whatever the Democrats said last; with no opposition I'm not sure they'd even exist!

Related: The Chart That Should Accompany All Discussions of the Debt Ceiling.

I was really hoping for a map of the Carribean, with a big 'X' and the writing 'here be treasure'.

More like a map of the Middle East, and it says "oil" instead of "treasure".

This knowledge is worse than when Grim.. explained about lifts to me.

Wait, what?

Budget Hero, for nerds who fancy it.

Does it come with a plastic briefcase?

I think Gordon Brown was testing a prototype when he was Chancellor.

Yeah, and? It's still not actually a default. Making me technically correct.

Capitalism has once again lost its way. With millions betrayed by their under-performing schools, locked out of the job market, forgotten by the banks and abandoned by their politicians, Britain is in danger of becoming two nations again.

Modern capitalism is not beyond redemption. But it badly needs to rediscover its moral dimension, lost amid the scramble to protect the privileges of a narrow metropolitan elite.

I'm not sure if this is a good or a bad thing really, considering our total population is less than 100,000. Is the USA really that fucked?

Greek debt "restructuring" is losing RBS 50% (£840m) of its investment. That's quite some "contract variance", Kissy

I think it's more of a case of S&P throwing their weight around, frankly - "You screw about with risking defaults again, and here's an example of what we can do". I don't think Fitch or Moodys will follow suit.

Not yet - there's a chance that they'll make a profit when they sell off the shares, but that's probably not going to be a bonanza profit.

Plus dividend payments until they sell.

That is the thing that annoyed me most about the bail out, the majority of people complaining about giving away all our money. We didn't give it away, we bought something with it. Something that has the good possibility of raising us more money in the future.

Taxpayers were last night sitting on losses of nearly £40billion in Britain’s basket case banks.

It is a bitter blow to Chancellor George Osborne who planned to offload shares in Royal Bank of Scotland and Lloyds Banking Group for a profit before the next general election.

The one-time banking giants were saved from collapse during the financial crisis with £65.8billion of public money.

It was hoped the stakes would be sold for a healthy profit but shares in both banks have been hammered in the stock market turmoil of recent weeks.

They are now worth just £26.6billion – meaning UK taxpayers are nursing a loss of £39.2billion, or £1,500 per household.

Read more: #ixzz1VZRAu6uM">http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... z1VZRAu6uM

Woohoo, currently every household in the UK is £1500 down on this excellent deal.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... hares.html

How dare the ordinary people evade taxes! That is the job of the rich!

Here's how it works. When you ask the bank for the money to buy a one-bedroom box in London, the money that appears in your account isn't borrowed from some prudent grandmother's life savings. In fact, the bank simply types those numbers into your account, creating brand new money that you can now spend. As other banks do exactly the same, the amount of money in the economy grows and grows. Every new mortgage creates new money, which pushes up house prices just a little more and forces the next buyer to borrow even more from the banks.

This is arrant bullshit, isn't it?

The only people who can create money out of thin air are the central banks, who then use that to buy government bonds off the banks (or something)

Isn't this a case of people confusing credit and money?

Yes.

The central bank sells the bond to the normal banks.

And not understanding fractional reserve banking, I think.

All that said, how come there's more money now than 100 years ago?

How does that result in the QE getting into the system then? I thought the magic made up money was introduced into the system by the BoE buying government bonds off the banks?

Oh, yeah, that's how quantitative easing works, but that's distinct from the business-as-usual process of buying and selling government bonds.

Wikipedia has an article about this, of course.

There's a really good This American Life podcast about it, too. Fascinating stuff.

The only thing that surprises me about that Guardian article is that Monbiot didn't write the deliberately misleading sack of bullshit.

I'm not trying to start an argument, but what are people's general beef with Monbiot? I know he pissed a lot of anti-nuclear folk off recently, but other than that? Has he been proven to be talking shit and I've missed it?