There goes civilisation...

The NHS would be in a better state if people supported it - a bit like the situation with libraries.

Will I can only speak for myself but I am in no way being personally vindictive. I'm not conscious of posting in language that has any malice to it at all. cg5154 has posted a ton of stuff here - voluntarily - that people are responding to, some people more personally than others. A lot of what she's saying is genuinely bewildering me.

You've been quite nice, Jimjams. You disagree, but more or less politely. No hard feelings whatsoever. I hope you can recover from the bewilderment soon.

By the way at this juncture can I thoroughly recommend getting into early/mid 1970's Edu Lobo. Sublime.

If you want an in I'm thinking Cantiga De Longe or Limite Das Aguas.

night all, nice read.

^ Is that directed at me?

I just want to know which soul record phil got?

no, not everyone made this personal, pajamas, but i read back thru all the threads and felt some of the comments had an unpleasant tone. still, better to fall out over something important than over the color of someone's toe straps. time for bed.

^ Is that directed at me?

no, everyone - original edit included "you in the collective form".

he's a songwriting/producing genius.. can't understand a bloody word he says though, he's not from round here.

I just want to know which soul record phil got?

ha! yeah, it was just the one or two in all those years of fruitless digging... held on to them usually though ;)

If you can't understand a word he's saying how do you know he's a songwriting genius? He could be singing a load of bollocks. :)

you're spot on there Scott but therein lies much of the beauty and mystique of Brazilian music of that era.....;)

but the melodies are.......oooooooooooohhhhhhh

Less love for soul, more hate for bankers. We're losing out focus people.

I like Bounty bars.

Less love for soul

I don't EVER want to hear anybody say that on here again!!!

Can't believe I just waded through this whole fucking thread. Don't you lot have some fucking jobs to do for 'the man' instead of typing this bollocks?
Does this mean coke prices go up or down?
Do house prices go up or down?
Do beer prices go up or down?
Does any of this shit actually affect me?

Anyway.. the only change I've noticed in the city so far is more people reading those funny pink coloured papers.

I don't EVER want to hear anybody say that on here again!!!

Sorry. 'twas a moment of madness.

"tynan"

"Maaaaaaaatt Daaaaaaaaaaamon"

Read through all of this with different opinions on whether I agree or disagree with the points being made, but I think wiganwill has summed it up perfectly with his two recent posts. I think it's very easy for people to complain about "the system", but most of us are as much part of it as bankers.

cgNNNN:

you're full of it. Bankers may be aware of their incompetence, but that's not enough, anyone with an ounce of decency in their body would have tried to correct their wrongs, rather than making things worse and worse with the hope that they can get away with it whilst fucking the rest of the population over financially.

Oh, and I mentioned primark, and you think people stopped going just because there was a programme on telly recently about their child labour issues. you're totally wrong, I have never set foot in a primark/tkmaxx/gap etc in my life, and never will.

you've clearly been brainwashed to believe that market forces are all that matters in the world, and ethics are a commodity like everything else. Buddha tells me you'll have a chain of miserable reincarnations as an intestinal parasite.

cgNNNN:

you're full of it. Bankers may be aware of their incompetence, but that's not enough, anyone with an ounce of decency in their body would have tried to correct their wrongs, rather than making things worse and worse with the hope that they can get away will fucking the rest of the population over financially.

Oh, and I mentioned primark, and you think people stopped going just because there was a programme on telly recently about their child labour issues. you're totally wrong, I have never set foot in a primark/tkmaxx/gap etc in my life, and never will.

you've clearly been brainwashed to believe that market forces are all that matters in the world, and ethics are a commodity like everything else. Buddha tells me you'll have a chain of miserable reincarnations as an intestinal parasite.

You really do seem to believe that there was some kind of conspiracy at work, don't you?

There wasn't. As many others have pointed out, it is the unintended consequences of an accumulation of human frailties that brought about the current situation. While nobody - least of all CG5154 - has claimed that bankers didn't make mistakes and don't bear blame, most people have a nuanced enough understanding of the world to realise that you can function as a part of this wider system without being corrupt personally.

The point being that reasonable people can differ reasonably over the right way to operate within this economy.

But you appear to be claiming moral superiority and indulging in petty ad hominems because you appear to think that anyone involved in finance (and probably, judging by your tone, in capitalism) is necessarily corrupt, while you - well, you boycott a couple of high-street chains. What a fucking joke.

Much as it may pain you to realise it, you're just as much a part of this whole fucked up system as the rest of us. I suspect that the Buddha would have told you not to throw stones in glass houses.

you've clearly been brainwashed to believe that…ethics are a commodity.

Any good book seller will exchange cash for ethics:

Less love for soul

I don't EVER want to hear anybody say that on here again!!!

+1

Sorry. 'twas a moment of madness.

you bloody will be if you say that again :)

Talking more broadly about the situation - the financial sector serves a social purpose, like it or not, because it's how money gets lent to new ideas. The problem in this particular situation has been that perverse incentives within the industry have emphasised short-term gains while ignoring the accumulation of longer-term risks. Those perverse incentives being excessively large bonuses that can't be clawed back after you screw up.

So some changes to the regulation of the sector - how risk is assessed, how bonuses are paid, getting rid of loopholes that allowed banks to move risks off their balance sheets - are necessary, yes.

But there's a misconception here that the regulators can oversee the entire sector. They can't - there's simply not enough of them, and they don't have enough resources. The best that they can do is to set certain groundrules and to seek to ensure that the rules are adhered to. The financial sector will continue to try to find ways to make more money by gaming the system, and some of those ways will be less efficient than others. There's nothing wrong with that. But the regulators should have a better handle on potential systemic risks, and be a bit more proactive about ensuring that the system isn't gamed to the point that it becomes unstable.

I also find it interesting that nobody's mentioned the ratings agencies in all this. They hold a big chunk of the blame for the current mess, because they kept giving good ratings to junk derivatives. A lot of bankers said 'well, if S&P or Moodys says its good, it must be good'. In hindsight we can see that was a mistake, but at the time people thought it was entirely natural to rely on the ratings agencies, as back then they were credible.

Why did the ratings agencies give good ratings to crap? Because their business model had changed, and it was now the originating banks who were paying for the ratings. So they didn't want to shoot the golden goose.

But also some of the banks made it clear that they didn't want the boat rocked. When Fitch stood up to one of them - I think it might have been AIG - and said they were potentially going to downgrade, the company in question said they were going to take back all the information that they had given Fitch and try to sue them for breach of confidence if they rated them anyway. It was quite a showdown.

But not everyone knew before then that that was how it was working. It wasn't clear at first that there was a misalignment of interests that meant that the ratings would get debased. Everyone thought the ratings agencies were totally independent.

Anyway, this is a bike forum, not the FT, so the level of financial nous was always going to be patchy. But there's a knee-jerk 'burn them' reaction at play in many of the responses here that suggest a certain amount of fear of the financial sector - probably well-founded fear - without much detailed knowledge about how it works. Which is precisely the kind of mob mentality that leads to the wrong people being targeted. As I feel is happening in this thread.

one less banker

one less banker

Can't believe I just waded through this whole fucking thread. Don't you lot have some fucking jobs to do for 'the man' instead of typing this bollocks?
Does this mean coke prices go up or down?
Do house prices go up or down?
Do beer prices go up or down?
Does any of this shit actually affect me?

Anyway.. the only change I've noticed in the city so far is more people reading those funny pink coloured papers.

Beer has just gone up, twice, once the actual cost of the commodity, once because of the chancellors new budget a few months ago. It looks like it will go up again soon due to grain prices. This doesn't affect the larger groups/chains as they will have very strong price/volume deals in place it will be the smaller places. I am surprised you have noticed prices creeping up in pubs.