Regulate the people, not the banks!
I do recommend you watch the documentary Inside Job by Charles Ferguson. It details the corruption in Wall St where individuals walked away from failed banks with multi-$100 million dollar packages, regularly took bonuses of a similar size while sending their institution down the taxpayer funded tubes. They went in and out of government in successive administrations, supported by academic economists paid to write what was wanted. Anyone for ethics? The resulting tented cities of newly homeless people was heart-breaking.
Another thing to watch – if your blood pressure and tissue box can stand it – is the BBC Panorama programme about the collapse of the Royal Bank of Scotland. Again arrogance, ignorance of what was actually going on in the bank – and that’s the most charitable explanation – ‘light touch’ due diligence, excessive spending on goodies and a flash new headquarters opened by Her Maj. You can find this on YouTube in two parts. Continue reading
Who holds the strings? Transnational corporations are really in charge
Whenever I think about control, or simply put, about who holds the strings one of the following happens:
1) Like many people, I immediately conjure up an image of a politician; usually one of the politicians who rule over countries considered powerful, like the President of the United States or the British Prime Minister.
2) Like very few people I have this image of Satchmo sitting on a rainbow and hear his voice singing ‘…I have the World on a string…’
