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International: March 2008 Archives
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And so the unravelling of the latest financial bubble gathers pace. Here and in the States failing financial institutions have been backed with taxpayers' money.
I quite understand the decision to make sure depositors don't lose out: you should know that if you put your money into a bank account it won't disappear. However, bailing out risk-taking investors with our money? That's just wrong.
If the value of your investments effectively can't go down, you shouldn't get benefits based on that supposed risk. And the free-marketeers ought to be agreeing, because they invented the phrase "moral hazard". That hazard doesn't just apply to business people, it applies to the politicians who bale them out too.
I quite understand the decision to make sure depositors don't lose out: you should know that if you put your money into a bank account it won't disappear. However, bailing out risk-taking investors with our money? That's just wrong.
If the value of your investments effectively can't go down, you shouldn't get benefits based on that supposed risk. And the free-marketeers ought to be agreeing, because they invented the phrase "moral hazard". That hazard doesn't just apply to business people, it applies to the politicians who bale them out too.
As you'll know, the Scotsman got tangled up in the US election last week. Gerri Peev did an interview with Samantha Power, until then an Obama aide. Outcome: resignation. You can't call an internal rival a monster, even when she does monstrous things like claim McCain is more qualified for the presidency than Obama.
So then some lowlife invited Gerri onto his TV show over there.
People often talk about how ill-informed and apathetic the Americans are. In some circles it's the last acceptable stereotype.
The interest in this year's convoluted and never-ending nomination process seems to have nailed the apathetic side of that, so here's an interview which shows what a well-informed citizen looks like.
The left candidate backing "public private partnership", eh, though? One assumption is still true: the central ground of American politics is still significantly to the right of the European centre.