h a l f b a k e r yBaker Street Irregulars
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A long time ago in a land far away (last year around the
world)...
A few bankers made horrible decisions that crashed
economies & drained public coffers. Almost nobody went
to jail. Most got bonuses.
Meanwhile, the universe doles out consequences to
impoverished schools & families
worldwide.
Those guys are just "untouchable", right?
Well, small business owners could go to a website called,
say, the "Private No Fly List".
It'd be maintained wiki-like with profiles of each corporate
leader who steered us into this mess. Photo, name &
bio/responsibility.
Restaurants & private schools & hairstylists & hotels could
simply have software to auto-lookup their customers (when
they pay with a credit card) to see if there's a match.
They'd see the photo on the site to verify, and if so....
"Sorry, we reserve the right to refuse service!"
Treat them like the pariahs they should be.
David_X._Li and Gaussian copula
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_X._Li
Likely root cause of the global meltdown [csea, May 29 2011]
[link]
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The problem is that they were doing what they
do. Somebody somewhere agreed to buy some
low-quality mortgages at a discount; someone
else sold insurance five times removed; someone
put their investments into property; and so on for
a hundred thousand someones. |
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Not saying its right, just saying that it's inherent
in the system. It will happen again and again, and
the people who will make it happen next time are
probably the ones castigating their predecessors
today. |
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By the time they are paying for a restaurant meal or service with the card, they have already used the service so it's a bit late to refuse to take “their” money. |
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It's not too late to present them with their bill &
announce to the crowd why they are not welcome
back. |
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And, Maxwell: Yes, it's a system. Adding
accountability to the system will improve the
system. Those @ the bottom are already
accountable (foreclosed), but those at the top are
not yet accountable (bonuses). The moral hazard is
huge. We will repeat this disaster, and even larger. |
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// inherent in the system // |
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<Obligatory Python Reference> |
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"Come and see the violence inherent in the system. Help! Help! I'm being repressed !" |
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[MB] is right. The "system" is like it is because it is composed of Mk. 1 human beings, who are notoriously venal, greedy and selfish. It is "selected" because it appears to offer the best prospect of "happiness" to the majority. In fact, all that happens (because of the Law of Unintended Consequences) is that the misery gets shared around differently now and again. |
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If you offer a chimpanzee a choice of two boxes, one containing a single banana and one containing two bananas, the balance of probabailities is that the chimp will choose two bananas over one. |
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Some time later, a jet of ice water is sprayed at the group of chimpanzees. Sometimes the banana-chooser will get wet; sometimes it won't. |
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But irrespective of whether it gets soaked or not, when the same choice is presented again, the chimpanzee will, on the balance of probabilities choose the two bananas. |
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Bankers are a lot like that, only not so intellectually sophisticated. |
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Having said that, penning bankers up in a featureless concrete pit, feeding them on bananas and intermittently spraying them with iced water is an idea not without merit ... |
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nothing to do with icelandic volcanoes then? |
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8th of 7. It's anno's like that that make the HB so
precious. |
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Good luck with that. It would take exactly ONE
libel/defamation lawsuit to shut that down in a hurry,
and make anyone who ever had anything even remotely to
do with it to be really sorry they did. It wouldn't even
matter if you ultimately won a given case. Libel suits can
be incredibly costly to defend against, and in some
countries *cough*England*cough* the law is so heavily
stacked in favor of complainants that it's essentially de
facto private censorship. |
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Anyway, this is little more than mob justice gone digital.
[-] |
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so let's see -- a few billion years without bankers,
including 150K or so of being eaten by cave bears
and lions, and then Mesopotamia. For the most
part, it's been an improvement. |
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By all mean patronize (or don't) whomever you
wish -- I've switched banks after being outraged by
a fee. But don't look for a scape goat -- the reason
for the crisis is certainly not the people who
loaned money out, nor is it their fault that they
were bailed out -- I doubt most would have asked
for it, and plenty failed and do fail routinely. |
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The banking system, if anything, is being
obsolesced by technology (from peer lending to
yesterday's Google Payments and Square) -- as it
should be - good ideas should over time disrupt
inefficiencies in the banking system, and improve
the services to all of us. |
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But the velocity of money in the economy is
absolutely critical to improving lives. Painting
bankers as evil doers is as helpful as painting
scientists as mad or nerds as...nerds. |
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And the money is certainly NOT in their pocket --
sure, some had big pay days. But on any given
day, someone has a big pay day. |
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The assets that evaporated cannot be accounted
for by banker bonuses -- they were simply inflated
expectations and revenue multiples -- and driven
primarily
by greed, to be sure -- but not by the greed of a
few bankers, but rather by the greed of the entire
population involved in real estate. |
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I know people that took out additional equity on
their homes to buy apartments in Florida, because
you couldn't lose. When they lose those
apartments, and their houses to boot, the bank is
the last place they should look for blame. |
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There are good & bad bankers. |
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This is for those bad bankers, who even their
peers generally admit did highly unethical things
with grave consequences (for everyone but them),
but are simply immune due to lack of laws (since
the laws don't keep up with new schemes.) (And,
laws are made by legislators who are funded by
bankers.) |
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In the USA, most credit unions didn't take those
risks, didn't get the wild profits, and didn't take a
nosedive & then get bailed out. But they did
provide loans & most banking services. |
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In short, yes, this is a proposed digital mob justice
plan when all other methods of justice fail. |
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Bringing the bad bankers trouble will make room
for the good bankers to thrive & provide services. |
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//mob justice plan when all other methods of justice fail// |
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I will gladly take your ill gotten gains. Please come again sir. |
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I have a private "no fly" list: |
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Garuda; China Airlines; Cubana; AirZimbabwe; TAM;
AeroPeru. |
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All of them are pretty grim. |
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I'm pretty sure that none of the bankers or CEOs involved in the various bailouts ever fly commercial. |
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One problem with this idea is that it's part of their jobs. Board-members hire these people (the high visibility CEOs) at exorbitant rates because they risk jail, public hatred, and other aspects of being blamed for the evil decisions they're expected to make. Even the board members often are. Meanwhile the actual string pullers work through Byzantine, Machiavellian schemes of shell companies such that their names are never known. |
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