351. ELECTION DAY IN THE USA. GO VOTE.

Comment #282987 by Roger Stanyard on November 13, 2008 at 2:11 am

Titania "Roger, I wonder how Mitchell will analyze your personality based on your avatar."

Perhaps he should toddle over to the web site of Landover Baptist Church to get the jist. My identical twin brother works there. ;-)

352. Palin: average isn't good enough

Comment #282674 by Roger Stanyard on November 12, 2008 at 2:50 pm

DP yet again illustrating his utter dumb ignorance: "Do any of you european socialist know if the european union is thinking about lowering taxes?"

Um, the EU neither sets tax rates nor collects tax.

"Not sure if its income tax or corporate tax though."

DP showing us his wackjob understanding of the real world again. The EU is financed by neither corporation tax nor income tax. Its financed by member governments through import duties into the EU and a cut of value added tax (1% IIRC).

Additional finance also comes from non-EU states.

353. Palin: average isn't good enough

Comment #282667 by Roger Stanyard on November 12, 2008 at 2:28 pm

D'Arcy, I wouldn't want to argue either way with that. All I would say is that most people on the left have long accepted the idea of a mixed public/private economy.

Much what I have been trying to say is that in a modern economy much of what the state or public sector does is done by it because, in terms of economic efficiency, it is better at doing so than the public sector.

That is actually an apolitical position. In essence this is my dispute with the Chicago school of economics (and DP, for what it is worth). It is not a dispute about politics. (DP appears to have no training in economics and cannot distinguish between the two.)

If you go back long enough, say to the 1950s or earlier, the left also used the efficiency argument to justify state ownership of the means of production. In the UK that, in practice, involved iron and steel, coal mining, the railways and aviation and a fair few other sectors.

I think we've moved on from all that but the issue still remains in other sectors. At the end of the day health care and state education (both vastly greater as a proprtion of GDP than 50 years ago) are centre stage - accounting for about a fifth of GDP.

Seems to me that the state taeover of banking and financial services will mean another 6% of the economy being in public hands.

Add on everything else that the sate is required to do such as defence (2.5%), the justice system, roads and other bits of transport and even without redistribution of wealth from the rich to the less well off, over a third of the economy is basically not for proft state-owned services.

This is essentially what DP doesn't get. He can scream and whinge about commies and tax but even a right wing system, with no social welfare, in the modern world is a mixed economy.

It's a fact of economic live that the demand for basics such as food and manufactured goods is declining as a percentage of household expenditure. However, in real terms, the demand for healthcare is increasing enourmously and may do so for several generations. The demand for education continues to grow substantially.

They both require huge increases in taxes to meet the growth in demand. Within a generation, a third of the US economy is likely to be in the provision of healthcare.

Methinks in the next decade America is gonna have to make a choice. Either it has lower taxes and a much lower standard of living or significantly higher taxes and a better standard of living. Same in the UK.

Like physics, economics can be very counter-intuitive.

354. Palin: average isn't good enough

Comment #282625 by Roger Stanyard on November 12, 2008 at 1:06 pm

root2squared - sorry I didn't realise that you were Indian. I assumed that you were American and didn't get the Westminster system.

IIRC the Indian arrangements are partly modelled on those on the Republic of Ireland.

355. Palin: average isn't good enough

Comment #282610 by Roger Stanyard on November 12, 2008 at 12:55 pm

root2squared "By the way, I find the idea of royalty in a modern nation like Britain very disturbing. Do they benefit from taxpayer money?"

Yep, its not really a democratic way of doing things but the issue is really about the Westminster model of democracy. She doesn't have much power and is, in effect, a titular head of state. The Republic of Ireland essentially has the same system but the head of state, the President, is elected. The Irish head of state has very little power either.

The system is nothing like that in the USA or even France (a sort of half way house between the British and American arrangements).

I suspect few people in the UK object at the moment because the Queen is basically well-liked as a person. Moreover, the nature of the monarchy has changed dramatically in the 55 years since she became queen. It used to be dreadfully aloof and remote.

I guess public opinion may change if and when Charles Windsor or his eldest becomes king.

356. Palin: average isn't good enough

Comment #282583 by Roger Stanyard on November 12, 2008 at 12:28 pm

Goldy "The UK has had queens and female prime ministers (often together)."

Well, actually, just once.

By all accounts the Queen loathed Margaret Thatcher.

357. Palin: average isn't good enough

Comment #282581 by Roger Stanyard on November 12, 2008 at 12:25 pm

Steve "I am actually not sure if DP isn't someone having a joke. There are changes in writing style that are suspicious. He may be a right-wing atheistic version of Wooter."

Interesting. Perhaps DP is actually Sooty with Wooter's hand up the glove manipulating him.

358. Palin: average isn't good enough

Comment #282575 by Roger Stanyard on November 12, 2008 at 12:19 pm

DP's internationallly famous wit and wisdom again: "Yes, lets take socialism the farthest it can go. Nothing belongs to anyone. Everything belongs to the collective and government should distribute everything equally to people, whether or not they had anything to do with it."

Yep everyone who isn't a wingnut is a raging commie bastard and too ignorant to understand economics to boot.

Wait a minute.....DP IS an ideologue, the same as commie bastards, Trotskites, Maoists, Marxists Leninists, fundies, Birchites, McCarthyites...

359. Palin: average isn't good enough

Comment #282469 by Roger Stanyard on November 12, 2008 at 9:01 am

Epeeist - we've only just got the full report. Being looked at now.

360. Palin: average isn't good enough

Comment #282452 by Roger Stanyard on November 12, 2008 at 8:15 am

root2squared - Yep, I too am looking in amazement at the staggering greed and stupidity of the financial markets. They've failed and still don't get it. Those banks and financial institutions that have been bailed out by the taxpayer need to fire their management pdq, not provide them with "performance bonuses". They are failed, incompetent, management!

It's not as if there is a shortage of "talent". The world is now awash with financial services executives that have been either sacked or laid off.

The one thing I can guarantee is that the rest of the business world will not be recuiting these allegedly talented high performance people. They are simply not up to the job of working in the real world outside of the cloud cuckoo land of financial services (well, apart from selling The Big Issue).

361. Palin: average isn't good enough

Comment #282420 by Roger Stanyard on November 12, 2008 at 7:43 am

Hawt4Dawk comments : On the contrary, DP in the US and in many other countries it is the rich stealing from the common wealth of all the people. Business use our interstate highway system, our internet, our scientific and medical establishment, our communications systems (satellites included), our schools, our airline system, and much more. I say "our" because, we, the taxpayers, own these assets. Our great-grandparents, our grandparents, our parents and we, ourselves, have invested our tax money into them."

Yep, you recognise the obvious that the wingnuts have no comprehension of. We live in mixed public/private sector economies. Their 30 year daydream of the public sector disappearing never was in the slightest bit realistic and is now well and truely over.

Time to recognise that the world has moved on from them. They have failed in their ambitions.

DP? He's just an ideologue who can't distinguish between was is and what should be and blames everyone else when his crapola is shown up to be what it is.

362. ELECTION DAY IN THE USA. GO VOTE.

Comment #282398 by Roger Stanyard on November 12, 2008 at 7:20 am

Decius - he's my identical twin brother, a family embaressment.

I'm far too modest to use a photograph of my handsome self and show him up as being so ugly in comparison.

363. ELECTION DAY IN THE USA. GO VOTE.

Comment #282388 by Roger Stanyard on November 12, 2008 at 6:41 am

AllanW - thanks for that URL. It also sums up how the markets work in the City of London as well. Financial markets have been full of sleeze and incompetence for years. Lloyds, for example, or financial services selling pensions in the 1980s and early 1990s. Remember Allied Dunbar? Universally known as Allied Crowbar.

Anyone working in financial services today needs to be polishing up their CV and planning for retraining (as baliffs - plenty of jobs going there as a consequence of their own stupidity. Either that or selling The Big Issue).

The party is well and truely over, world-wide.

364. The 'Great Debate' in Texas

Comment #281543 by Roger Stanyard on November 10, 2008 at 3:10 pm

"To which Berlinski replied that he doesn't believe a word of it, but is happy to cash the checks the Discovery Institute writes him. Strangely enough, this would be consistent with Berlinski's odd statement early on in which he admitted that his own ethical orientation was focused on living as contentedly and as selfishly as possible."

Hummmm - breach of the ninth commandment. Standard practice amongst creationists.

He also seems to be coverting his neighbour's Ox - in this case the DI's bank account.

365. The 'Great Debate' in Texas

Comment #281447 by Roger Stanyard on November 10, 2008 at 10:33 am

LOL!!! The Discovery Institute looks to be desperate! They blew their own brains out at Dover and it shows. A bunch of intellectual prostitutes.

The British fundamentalists have tried to pull Desi Alexander to pieces. See http://mothwo.blogspot.com/ for acres of turgid crapola from them.

366. ELECTION DAY IN THE USA. GO VOTE.

Comment #281269 by Roger Stanyard on November 10, 2008 at 4:19 am

Disparacist comments "Though obviously economists in Chicago aren’t unique in confusing uncertainty with risk. It would probably help if all economists studied core science and philosophy before even opening an economics text book. The difference between uncertainty and risk is as fundamental as distinguishing between precision and accuracy, or systematic and random errors. Yet even Nobel prize economists have missed this essential fact."

It seems to me that, de facto, central governments world-wide have been forced to address the issue. In effect, they have, this year, taken on the role of udnerwritting uncertaintly in financial markets. The fantasy world that DP is living it utterly igniores what has happened. It's too late to return to "freemarket" economics. They have gone as far as they go and and now proven beyond a=l, doubt to be wanting.

The "free market" financial markets have now had one sixth of the world's annual GDP allocated to underwritting them this year. the figure is around 50% i the UK.

The price for the financial markets is that they are now politically accountable to the public (as everyone without exception pays taxes). There is now no going back. It's too late. It's a done deal.

The wingnuts like DP are utterly clueless as to what has happened. An ostrich with his head buried in the sand.

He's not alone. The management of the Royal Bank of Scotland don't understand the implications of being 60% owned by the state.

Both left and right haven't fully realised the implications either.

Me? My guess is that the failed financial sinstutions (half of British retail banking) should be turned into mutuals where they are no longer accountable to theor shareholders but to the people that lend them money or borrow money from. The public, in other words.

I note with more than passing interest that not one of the not for profit financial institutions in Britain has needed to be bailed out by the public this year. Not the mutual building societies, not the cooperative bank, not the credit unions...

Lets look at some of the financial organisations that have been de-mutualised and turned into profit making companies - Bradford and Bingley, Northern Rickm TSB, the Woolwich - all bailed out with vast sums of taxpayers money.

Yet the not for profits were all competing in the same amrkets for customers.DP's grasp of economics is so limited that he appears unaware that free markets can include not for profit enterprises. What's happened here in Britain is that the not for profits have shown themselves to be considerable better at the job than the corporate sector.

367. ELECTION DAY IN THE USA. GO VOTE.

Comment #281260 by Roger Stanyard on November 10, 2008 at 3:48 am

Disparacist says "Though obviously economists in Chicago aren’t unique in confusing uncertainty with risk. It would probably help if all economists studied core science and philosophy before even opening an economics text book. The difference between uncertainty and risk is as fundamental as distinguishing between precision and accuracy, or systematic and random errors. Yet even Nobel prize economists have missed this essential fact."

I think you are right on this although I must say that as an undergraduate in economics, the difference between the two was drummed into us (likewise at post-grad level).

However, it wasn't until I was in the workplace (insuring satellites) that the stark difference becamne apparent. I suppose there it was a matter of understanding a branch (or branches) of applied physics that brought the message home.*

In the UK part of the problem is that we specialise in education at 16. Ecomists are simply not exposed to science after then. The august London School of Economics has no natural science departments, for example.

* I'll leave others to comment on this but I guess it involved five areas of applied physics/science - mechanical engineering (launchers, mostly), electrical and electronic engineering, RF engineering and mathematics (Shannon information theory, for example).

368. ELECTION DAY IN THE USA. GO VOTE.

Comment #281252 by Roger Stanyard on November 10, 2008 at 3:32 am

Tyler Durden comments about fairness rules in broadcasting.

Strange, isn't it, that the Repugs/Bush administration screamed like hell about the bias of Al Jazerra, so much so that they set up up an completly biased TV channel in opposition to it (and which nobody in the Middle East watches).

Well, I know a bit about Aljazerra. My business interviewed its chief executive a few years ago. The station is modelled on the BBC (it emplyed a lot of former BBC employees). Yep, it reflects Middle East culture, society and politics - exactly as US TV channels reflect US culture, society and politics and European broadcasters similarly.

Fox News, btw, is not just an American channel. It is available world-wide, including in the UK. As it does not meet fairness rules, it is actually breaking UK regulatory rules. Still, as no one watches the rubbish in the UK, Ofcom has decided not to bother with the matter.

Strange, isn't it, that Fox News is a byword in bigotry whereas Sky News, Murdoch's UK all news channel, is subject to fairness rules, is highly respected by broadcasting professionals and widely watched.

My guess is that Murdoch and his family will now "revamp" Fox News given that the Repugs have well and truely been shown the door by the American electorate. When it comes to political influence Murdoch will sell his own grandmother to the highest bidder.

369. ELECTION DAY IN THE USA. GO VOTE.

Comment #281242 by Roger Stanyard on November 10, 2008 at 3:03 am

Obama:
-8 years as Ill. senator
-First term senator with no major legisltaive accomplishments

Palin:
-8 years as mayor
-First term Governor who has done more in 2 years than Obama has in his 2 years as US senator.

Mayor of Wasilla - town councillor of small town/large village. Big deal.

Senator in Washington DC - experience at the very centre of power, representing millions.

Gov ernor of Alaska - experience does not extend to knowing that neighboring Canada is part of the same trading block.

Experience of reading newspapers and magazines to keep her informed of politics, current affairs, business and economics - zero apparently. No better that might be expected from a 14 year old whose experience of grown up life is limited to masturbation.

Guess who in this forum knows all about intellectual masturbation?

370. ELECTION DAY IN THE USA. GO VOTE.

Comment #281239 by Roger Stanyard on November 10, 2008 at 2:53 am

DP yet again demonstrates his cloud cuckoo land knowledge of history and politics "Atheism seems to equal left/socialist/democrat here but it doesn't with me."

Tony Blair an "atheist"? The Labour Party not founded on Methodism and chapel? The cooperative movement was atheist? The Puritans/Pilgrim fathers not on the left during the 17th century? Perhaps you should read up about what happened in Putney Parish Church or about the Levellers.

Still, I suspect that DP has no idea where Europe is on a map. Probably thinks it is part of the nation state of Africa, as visible from Sarah Palin's backyard.

No wonder the rest of the world thinks that the average American wingnut is as daft as a brush and with an exceedingly large mouth.

371. ELECTION DAY IN THE USA. GO VOTE.

Comment #281235 by Roger Stanyard on November 10, 2008 at 2:40 am

DP yet again shows that he has no idea how the real work works: "Well its tough discussing things with someone who has no idea what the difference between family and a complete stranger is. Its almost shocking that you don't know the difference. I can't sit here and explain to you that family is suppose to take care of each other because If you haven't learn that yet then you never will. I almost pity you for that. Point for me."

Public welfare for people who fall on hard times is a right because we all pay taxes for it - down to the lowliest of dossers begging on the street. Yep, DP, they are taxpapers as well

Moreoiver, public welfare has been around since Roman Times (half the population of Rome were depdendent on it).

Before the reformation, public welfare was provided by the Catholic Church in Britain. State provision, which now dates back hundreds of years, was the substitute after Henry VIII confiscated most of its welath.

The idea that only families "should" provide welfare does not stack up with how the real world works.

Let's spell it out very bluntly. If all welfare is limited to provision by family members, DP should expect to get murdered in his bed. Recall another nutter who didn't get it - Marie Antoinette (spelling???) with her infamous statement "let them eat cake". Guess what happened to her.

Brownie points to DP: Nil.

372. ELECTION DAY IN THE USA. GO VOTE.

Comment #281222 by Roger Stanyard on November 10, 2008 at 2:19 am

Phil Rimmer states "(We capitalists are switching away from the poor service afforded by the lousy banks and working increasingly with private equity that can bother to do due diligence on their own risk and thereby on ours also. They make great, informed partners.)"

I know the feeling! Ironically, one of the people that has been working with Richard is Claire Enders (who I know back from the 1980s, a formidably lady and exceedingly bright).

Claire has her won business, Enders Analysis. It provides business research and has made its impact because Claire concluded that "honest" research was needed. She set it up and an alternative to the crapola coming out of the financial institutions in the City of London.

Surprise surprise, the quality business press such as the Economist and the Financial Tiumes turns to Enders Analysis (time and time again) for informed opinion. It would not surprise me if Enders Analysis was by far the most quoted amongst the business analysts in Britain.

373. ELECTION DAY IN THE USA. GO VOTE.

Comment #281219 by Roger Stanyard on November 10, 2008 at 2:06 am

DP States "No actually its been you left-wingers who have done most, if not all of the insulting."

News to me I am "left wing" (whatever that means to Americans - I assume DP thinks Ghengis Khan was a left wing liberal). I'm a pragmatist, not an ideologue. That's why I object to creationism and religious fundamentalism.

374. ELECTION DAY IN THE USA. GO VOTE.

Comment #281081 by Roger Stanyard on November 9, 2008 at 3:45 pm

DP claims "But I would just like to say that I appreciate you completely ignoring that long post I posted, as well as the article."

It was not ignored. My claim is that it is irrelevent. How the heck does federal govt "interference" in the mortgae market explain why AIG went belly up. It as an insurance company. How the heck does it explain the Royal Bank of Scotland went belly up.

Whether I am American or not is irrelevent. Most of the people in this forum are not American. Why should you think otherwise? Richard Dawkins is a British citizen resident in the UK.

Let me ask again, presicsely on what grounds are you professionally qualified and/or experienced to claim to be an expert on economics?

remember, you made the idiotic claim that liberals don't understand diddly doo about economics. The onus is thus completely and utterly on you now to show that you do. So far you have failed miserably.

Don't bullshit again and avoid the question or cut and past. Answer it.

375. ELECTION DAY IN THE USA. GO VOTE.

Comment #281072 by Roger Stanyard on November 9, 2008 at 3:18 pm

DP "Here is the full article is any of you want to actually read it. I doubt you will because it will prove you wrong but just in case you have the intellectual honesty to admit to yourself that you are wrong about governments involvement, here it is:"

it's utterly irrelevent to economics, it applies wholly and soley to the USA. Economics and high finance are international issues.

376. ELECTION DAY IN THE USA. GO VOTE.

Comment #281070 by Roger Stanyard on November 9, 2008 at 3:13 pm

"Listen, I have gone through this many times and it seems to never sink in. So instead I will post an article that gives a long history of how this mess came to be. "

Oh, brillaint DP. Except it is the whole wrotten crap that has gone belly up world-wide.

DP is yet another pig ignorant American who thinks that the only place that exists is his own country. Some republican idiocy that produced Sarah Palin who thinks that Africa is a country and has no idea what the member states of NAFTA are.

No wonder the rest of the world thinks that Bush and his apologists are idiots.

Tell us all DP as you claim to understand "socialist" ideas, what countries you have ever worked in. Have you ever been in a communist country? If so, which one and when?

Before you start patronising, yes, I have been in the USA many times, mostly as part of my job.

Wanno know some of the names of the US companies I have advised on strategic management and economics - here are a few - NCR, Boeing, Intelsat, Comsat, Microsoft, Loral Space and Communications, Worldcom, AT&T, Motorola....

And you?

377. ELECTION DAY IN THE USA. GO VOTE.

Comment #281067 by Roger Stanyard on November 9, 2008 at 3:01 pm

DP claims "1) What this economic mess shows is what happens when government gets involved in telling banks how to do business"

And,, er, precisely when did the evil, incompetent government tell Bear Sterns, AIG or the British baks that have failed how to do their business?

Do tells us the precise dates, and the instructions inbvolved,

DP claims "2) I have read all your posts and it you really has no idea about how economies work."

Wrong, I do it for a living and have spent 30 years at it - including advising Wall Street financial firms.

DP claims "You have not said anything that would show you know what you are talking about except whine and complain and insult."



Neither have you. Go on, them, stop bullshiting and tell us all precisely what your qualifications and experience of economics are. Do tell us all the names of the companies that have used your expertise in this sector. Do tell us all where you got your knowledge of economics from. Chicago, Harvard, Yale?


DP states "Which are the characteristics of someone who doesn't know what they are talking about but wants to join in on the conversation. It seems like mommy and daddy have let you play on the computer for to long."

Patronising pig ignorant pilloch. Don't bullshit. It's your knowledge of economics that is under question.

PS to everyone - I bet he runs away from all these questions. Watch him evade and and avoid them.

378. ELECTION DAY IN THE USA. GO VOTE.

Comment #281014 by Roger Stanyard on November 9, 2008 at 9:36 am

Peacebeuponme - LOL!!!, it's like something out of Monty Python's Life of Brian!

Keep chin up and always look on the bright side of life.

379. Vicar supports Life of Brian ban

Comment #281013 by Roger Stanyard on November 9, 2008 at 9:31 am

Of coure, the other issue of Life of Brian is the contrast with the film that the fundies all wet their knickers and rave about - The Passion of the Christ.

Which would you prefer to have your children watch, a gentle, mocking humour or a feature film jam-packed with utterly sadistic violence?

Still, a huge element of the fundamentalist movement is a dealth cult, utterly inhumane and unaware of it.

See the Rapture Ready web site.

380. Vicar supports Life of Brian ban

Comment #281010 by Roger Stanyard on November 9, 2008 at 9:15 am

Kit Finn says "Although the film does laugh at the way cults form and the stupidity of religion as a whole, is the figure of Christ really mocked that deeply... he's just not talking loud enough!"

One central element of the film is that it is also a lampoon of the political left of the 1970s - the revolutionary liberation/freedom movements, the in-fighting between different factions and their complete incompetence.

Indeed, it is a lampoon of ideology - whether religious or political. No wonder the fundies don't like it.

Like the Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy, it's a very English and, indeed, gentle, humour. Both utterly lack the bog-standard (and bizarre) Hollywood mixture of violence and sentimentality.

381. ELECTION DAY IN THE USA. GO VOTE.

Comment #280998 by Roger Stanyard on November 9, 2008 at 7:05 am

Bonzai, nah, but you got me thinking there. An endorsement by such a handsome person would no doubt do wonders for any business he plans.

Imagine it adorning DP's business premises in the ever popular downtown Kabul. His PR people would have a field day marketing DP's International Bazooka Shop and Gun Emporium (Also Windows Cleaned) Ltd.

Roger

382. ELECTION DAY IN THE USA. GO VOTE.

Comment #280976 by Roger Stanyard on November 9, 2008 at 4:39 am

Laurie says "Strange isn't it that all those economic rationalist reptiles on Wall St. become fine, upstanding socialists, climbing over each other to get their hands on money the taxpayer has put aside to help out those in trouble."

Yep, the place stinks as Warren Buffet has long said. I've first hand experience of working in the City of London - people there basically don't know anything, not even basic people management. It's an environment that attracts the ruthless rather than the talented.

I happen to accept free markets as economically efficient but recognise they limits of that efficiency and the critical dependency on an effective public sector. Moreover, I also recognise the political realities of "free markets".

Seems to me that this approach is best describe as fact and evidence based economic pragmatism.

What bozos like DP don't get is that the party for free market ideologues is well and truely over. It's had a 30 year reign and has not only gone as far as it can, but grossly over-extended itself and failed.

DP's grasp of economics is about the same as a creationist's grasp of science - for exactly the same reason. Both are ideologies where facts that do not fit the ideology are thrown straight out of the window.

The unpleasant fact the wingnuts haven't grasped is that the current bail out of banks and insurance companies is equivalent to one sixth of the world's annual GDP. In the UK it is, so far, half the country's GDP.

That is failure on a truely spectacular scale!


DP hasn't cottoned on that his wealth and his job are now being paid for by the taxpayer. He IS a welfare "scrounger" (until, or course, he gets made redundant and starts scrounging off his family and the local church).

BTW, DP hasn't given any evidence that he has any training in economics whatsoever. He looks to be a rank amateur on the subject.

What is is basically pushing is the Chicago school of economics - that effient capital markets can handle risk. They can't because the underlying theory can't handle uncertainty (which, by definition is not open to probaility) and distinguish from risk (which is based on probaility theory. The two nare basically grouped together as one. It is a fatal flaw as we have seen this year.

Here are some practical propositions to handle the banking failure:

1. Mutualise the financial institutions that have been bailed out with taxpayers' money.

2. Break up the big banks to reduce the risk that they are so big that governments can't bail them out when they go belly up.

3. Sack the management and install new management that grasps what customer service is.

4. Have government/central bank directors on the boards of every financial institution underwritten by the taxpaper.

Notice that all these are actually "right wing" proposals in that they do not involve "better" regulation. They are structural changes to the financial markets that reflect who is stumping up the money for them to operate.

Anyway, over the next few years there are going to be huge layoffs in financial services and the people involved are not gonna find it at all easy to get jobs elsewhere. They basically don't know anything.

Interestingly that organ of capitalism, the Financial Times, was argeuing a day or os ago that British commercial banks have levels of customer service that are well below much of the public sector such as the National Health Service. That speaks volumes about "free market" economics.

383. Does Religion Make You Nice?

Comment #280966 by Roger Stanyard on November 9, 2008 at 3:30 am

"Many Americans doubt the morality of atheists. According to a 2007 Gallup poll, a majority of Americans say that they would not vote for an otherwise qualified atheist as president, meaning a nonbeliever would have a harder time getting elected than a Muslim, a homosexual, or a Jew."

This non-believer has no doubts whatsoever that Americans who think like that are seriously defficient in their own morality.

Indeed, when it comes to the rampant fundamentalism in the USA, they are immoral, full stop. Even from a religious viewpoint, what they believe is heresy and, all too often, plain vile.

384. ELECTION DAY IN THE USA. GO VOTE.

Comment #280964 by Roger Stanyard on November 9, 2008 at 3:13 am

DP "Why would I move to a country that has more government? I want less government, not more. "

Brilliant, DP. Why not then hop on the next camel passing your way and toddle on down to Afghanistan, as visible from Sarah Polin's house? It's a wingnuts paradise and has a booming recreational pharmaceuticals industry, exporting world-wide.

The country's got everything you need - no taxes, no government of any signifiance, no regulators heeping uncessary rules on business...

Absoluetly perfect for the average Joe the Plumber Republican bigot - no gun controls, no educmacation, no liberals, no pinko universities, no commies, no socialists, no gays, no gay marriages, no socialised health care, no money wasted on public infrastructure (roads, bridges, schools...), no evilutionists, no science, no scientists, no economically illiterate liberal economists, no reds under the bed intellectuals, no atheists, no namby pamby oponents of the death sentence, no troublesome legal system, no failed public sector employees, no interfering bureaucrats, no welfare scroungers, no minimum wage, no feminazis, no Hollywood, no unions, no blacks, no illegal immigrants, no biased liberal media, no democracy...

It's also full of hillbillies, rednecks and Godly fundies and you can pay them peanuts to work for you. Why, with your sound business thinking and economics, you would be a sucessful and world-famous billionaire in no time at all.

The business opportunites for a dynamic and talented business leader like your good self are boundless - burkas, execution devices, car bombs, heroin needles, bullet proof glass... Need I go on!

Nor will you have to worry your tiny litle head off about about the morality of what you are doing. The free market will take care of that for you.

And, of course, as an American who knows how to save the world, the Afghans will give you a warm, friendly, welcome.

Alternatively, you can stay at home, wait for Barak Obama to fail and vote for Sarah Palin or Mike Huckabee to implement the same economically efficient free market system in the USA. Your family clearly won't mind you scrounging off them in the meanwhile.

385. ELECTION DAY IN THE USA. GO VOTE.

Comment #280954 by Roger Stanyard on November 9, 2008 at 2:24 am

DP claims "The free market has its ups and downs, but the good thing is that you can always count on it to go back up when its down."

Ah!! Vodoo economics. Free market micro-economics creates self correcting macro-economic cycles. All without the help of central banks and governments (taxpayers).

Strange, isn't it that all the business lobbyists are all screaming for government action to stem the economic downturn, using taxpayers' money. Strange isn't it that business is utterly silent in calls to allow the economy to fix itself without government (taxpayer) intervention. Utterly silent worldwide.

386. ELECTION DAY IN THE USA. GO VOTE.

Comment #280648 by Roger Stanyard on November 8, 2008 at 2:05 am

DP claims "Are you serious? China is a capitalist paradise? Do yourself a favor and actually look up china's economic system. Try to find out the role the government plays in the economy"

Which economy is this, DP? Um, beeen looking at the Chinese economy for 10 years.Gues whatt, it has been bailing out the USA economy big time. Funding your staggering trade deficits, your staggering fiscal deficits...

Guess what? The Chinese are gonna want their money back. How is that gonna affect your taxes? How are you gonna pay the money back? Scrounge it off your family?

387. ELECTION DAY IN THE USA. GO VOTE.

Comment #280631 by Roger Stanyard on November 8, 2008 at 1:30 am

DaRWINSpUTbILL SAYS "The free market does not give a shit about your story, your upbringing , or the hardships you endured."

So? Neither does the British National Health Service, nor the cooperative movement, nor mutual building scoieties....

There is more than one way to skin a cat.

So, er, the very core of US free market capitalism, its financial markets are:

1. Doing brilliantly just on their own.

2. Been bailed out by taxpayers money to avoid economic meltdown of the USA?

Which is it DarwinsPitBull?

Who is footing the bill?

How do you think that this affects the taxes you pay?

388. ELECTION DAY IN THE USA. GO VOTE.

Comment #280445 by Roger Stanyard on November 7, 2008 at 2:18 pm

DarwinsPitBull tells us "Lets take a simple example:"

You mean a simple minded example.

By your utterly potty idiocy, everyone in the Western World should now be out of work because real wages have been rising ahead of inflation for the last 200 years.

389. ELECTION DAY IN THE USA. GO VOTE.

Comment #280430 by Roger Stanyard on November 7, 2008 at 1:58 pm

DarwinsPitBull comments "No its simply that liberals know absolutely nothing about how the economy works."

I have never heard in the whole of my life such a pig ignorant comment amount economics and business.

390. Gay Marriage Outlawed in California

Comment #280189 by Roger Stanyard on November 7, 2008 at 6:15 am

Stephen Green = Ayatollah Wanabee

391. Bad Faith Awards 2008: Vote now

Comment #280143 by Roger Stanyard on November 7, 2008 at 3:13 am

I went for Palin in the poll on the grounds that she proves beyond any conceivale doubt how utterly, utterly stupid and bigoted fundies are. And she seems to be thinking she will run for president in 2012.

Too stupid to realise that the fundies are now politically dead. Too stupid to realise that the average American is not a small town rural hayseed straight off a turnip wagon.

392. Obama the Secularist

Comment #280141 by Roger Stanyard on November 7, 2008 at 3:05 am

Seems to us that the fundies are now politically dead in the USA. Chimpie in practice gave very little to them over the last eight years. Most of the Republican Party thinks they are bonkers and it will almost certainly have to ditch them if it is not to turn into a regional party of angry, uneducated white men.

Obama doesn't give a stuff about the fundies who, indeed, didn't know which way to turn during the hustings.

Watch the fundies scream and scream and scream over coming months (start with fundies Say the Darndest Things!).

Let them. The Americans have told the ideological wackjobs to go shove it and there is nothing they can do about it.

PS: The fundies will behave like all ideologues - they will blame everyone else except themselves.

393. ELECTION DAY IN THE USA. GO VOTE.

Comment #278785 by Roger Stanyard on November 5, 2008 at 7:34 am

Annabanna - is that what Chimpie was saying - "'Merica"

I thought he was saying "Pelica" as in "Mah Fellah Pelicans".

394. Quentin Letts ranks Dawkins 30th on list of 'people who have wrecked Britain'

Comment #278116 by Roger Stanyard on November 4, 2008 at 12:16 pm

I've read Quinten Letts' book. He's what is known in the UK as a hack. It's a seriously derogatory term.

395. For many evangelicals, it will be the end of the world if Obama wins

Comment #277043 by Roger Stanyard on November 3, 2008 at 3:25 am

"I think that 200 million figure represents Dobson's yearly audience...i.e. a listener that tuned in once a week would be counted 52 times."

Nah, it's basically a fabrication that does noteven meen that. The whay the fundie television broadcasters work is that they buy half hour (usually) slots on eveneglical V channels (amuch the same as a commercial company buys advertising slots).

The TV channels are free to air. So if they buy a sloy on, say , the fundamentalist revelation TV channel in the UK, they claim that it gets into all households with a satellite dish pointing at the satellite used by Sky Television.

Say, 10 million households. What they don't tell you is that nobody watches Revelation TV. Moreover, they include satellite dishes on the mainland of Europe where English TV is rarely watched. The figures are even more fictional for places like Africa where nobody knows how many satellite dishes there are.

Finally, many of the fundamentalist TV channels are so tiny that they can't even afford audience reserach statistics that show how many people watch their channels. In other words, they have no idea how many are watching the crap put out by Dobson and other nutters.

I strongly suspect that the crap broadcast by Dobson and other fundies is almost entirly unwatched outside of the USA. For starters, even in the UK, audiences much prefer to listen to English rather than US accents. The English fundies prefer to listen to their own nutters.

If anyone thinks that the arrangements are inherently unprofitable (advertisers won't touch TV channels without decent audience research), that's not the way fundie broadcasting works.

The full time fundie TV channels make their money basically by selling half hour slots to the likes of Dobson and Pat Robertson. They in turn make a profit not by advertising but begging for donations (credit card payments, etc..) They reason why some of these religious broadcasters are so rich ius that, in effect, they are giving daily sermons word-wide and passing round the collection plate several times a day (the half hour programmes are frequently repeated and also broadcast across several channels in each market).

Nowadays, the fleece the public scam has extended to broadband programming.

The UK regulator OfCom (and its broadcasting poredessor) knows all about the money making scams (there are more than I have suggested here) and is very tough on the fundie channels.

Roger Stanyard, British Centre for Science Education

396. 'People say I'm strident'

Comment #276669 by Roger Stanyard on November 2, 2008 at 11:08 am

IsThatClear/Wooter posts "tıtanıa

no worries I am always here to watch over evolıns. You too."

Patronising creep. Wooter, you are so utterly stupid that even if you accepted evolution everyone here would still think you are bonkers.

397. Sarah Palin's War on Science

Comment #276102 by Roger Stanyard on November 1, 2008 at 10:05 am

Epeeist - It happened too long ago to remember where I got the figure from (it was probably He Economist or the FT in 1986) but the Thatcher administration actually put a cost on "privatisation" of the NHS. It would have cost 20% more to run, mostly because of the cost of collecting the insurance premiums by private companies.

IIRC, she decided that she just could not have sold the "privatisation" to the public.

398. Sarah Palin's War on Science

Comment #276080 by Roger Stanyard on November 1, 2008 at 8:52 am

"Thing is, when I hear people complain about the poor not paying their fair share, I usually can't help but smirk...mainly because these are the same people who acknowledge that there are hard-working poor people, but advise them if they don't want to be poor to work smarter not harder."

Heard it all before. Alas, it's a hard fact of life that the better off get more benefits from public expenditure than the poor.

Work has long been done on this in the UK - they use the National health Service much more, they live longer and therefore receive public pensions and health care for longer, they make much more use of state-funded education, they use state funded roads a lot more, they use state funded railways a lot more, they use public libraries a lot more...

That's before we get onto the hard fact of life that businesses they run earn much of their revenues from the public sector, their employees are educated and trained by the public sector and that they hold (by definition) the best paid jobs in the public sector. In fact, they are past masters at screwing everything they can out of the public sector.

Flat tax be damned. The rich and powerful can look after themselves. They are the pigs with snouts in the trough of public money (see Wall Street so far this year).

399. Sarah Palin's War on Science

Comment #276079 by Roger Stanyard on November 1, 2008 at 8:35 am

Tintania - you forgot to add about Joe the Plumber's ambitions;

Joe decides he is going to buy out the plmbing business he works for.

The money comes from a bank which has been bailed out and underwritten directly or indirectly by government/taxpaper money.

Joe needs insurance cover for his job - obtained from an insurance industry bailed out and underwritten by taxpapers money.

Joe gets business installating plumbing in newly built houses, financed by mortgages provided by a bailed out state owned mortgage market - Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

Joe gets work plumbing in a local army/air force base. All paid for by the taxpaper.

Joe's plumbing works because it connects to public utilities provided by local government.

Joe drives to and fro from wherever he is working on roads paid for and maintained by the taxpaper.

Joe thinks he shouldn't pay taxes because he would earn more money.

Joe has a heart attack when he works out that he is in business because of huge dollops of taxpapers' money.

Medicaide and Medicare then keep him alive for the rest of his life - well, until the commies in China refise to lend more money to the evil tax raising liberal government in Washington DC.

Joe then calls for huge tax increases to nuke and bomb commie China out of existance.

And so life goes on for wingnuts until Jesus returns and saves them all.*

* Except that he decides all wingnuts should, deservedly, rot in hell for being so utterly stupid.

(It would be very interesting in a few years time to find out what happens to Joe the Plumber.)

400. Sarah Palin's War on Science

Comment #276074 by Roger Stanyard on November 1, 2008 at 8:13 am

Steve Zara points out some examples of what wingnuts think is "socialist" re-distribution of wealth.

Um, well the wingnuts all seem to forget that "their" idea of a free market also involves redistribution of wealth.

How about simple insurance policies. They are based on most getting no money back and a few getting most of it. My house insurance is based on me paying (let's say) £200 a year, alongside hundreds of others, with a quick and massive redistribution of wealth my way me in the unlikely event of it burning down.

Likewise with private health insurance although there is also includes a massive redistribution of money from the young and middele aged to the young and the old.

This is what the wingnuts (particularly American) cannot grasp. Much of public expendisture is actually a form of insurance - you can include the NHS or unemployment benefit or search and rescue or any number of activities in this.

What's more, it is cheaper that equivalent "private" insurance cover. Even Thatcher worked that one out with the NHS. Unless of course, the wingnuts think that AIG doesn't cost the taxpayer or the consumer anything.

let's also be a bit more honest about it all as well. The reason why New Orleans was not rebuilt after Katrina was that it is predominantly black and Democrat.

The wingnuts would have had their town/city rebuilt PDQ had they been white and in politically red areas. In English, public insurance and quick redistribution of wealth their way.