The latest in the great Eurozone Crisis Saga.
And what is a haircut, you may ask?
"Gary Jenkins, head of fixed income at Evolution securities, outlined what a haircut would mean for Greek bond holders. ‘It involves a "voluntary" bond exchange with a nominal discount of 50% on notional debt held by private sector holders with €30 billion provided by the eurozone member states for credit enhancements, and it aims to reduce Greek debt to 120% by the end of the decade.’" Citywire.
Sounds like more of the usual paper-shuffling and prestidigitation to me.
How about recapitalisation?
"To what extent taxpayers have to plug the gap – and whether state aid rules then kick in – could depend on the timescale banks are given to raise the capital. Huertas told Newsnight that the EFSF would be there as a "last resort". He said: "The plan is for banks to access public markets first," before turning to nation states for support – and then the EFSF." Graun.
Yeah, yeah, yeah ….
Maybe commenter Moggoid sums it up better, over at the Slog: “I stumbled upon this article – tying to find out what “recapitalisation of banks” actually means. And I gather it means that somewhere large amounts of money are found and then just given to the bank – Is that right?”
The banks love the deal, which should make anyone who’s not a banker suspicious. The much-courted and fawned over “Markets”* love the deal - but then they loved the glistening 2000s bubble that preceded the 2008 Crash, didn’t they. So what do they know.
*The "Markets" - basically a bunch of saddoes with nothing better to do than play Crackberry with large numbers and screw the rest of us.
Showing posts with label wealth gap. Show all posts
Showing posts with label wealth gap. Show all posts
Thursday, 27 October 2011
Monday, 24 October 2011
Always Check Assumptions
Full Ministry of Justice statistics on the cohort arrested in connection with Augusts's English riots offer considerable support to the analysis coming from the liberal left at the time, namely that rioters were, in the main, directionless, alienated and deprived youth.
"The Ministry of Justice (MoJ) and Home Office background analysis shows that those arrested during the riots overwhelmingly came from deprived areas and had the poorest educational backgrounds." Guardian.
"More than one in 10 of the young people appearing before courts had been permanently excluded - [whereas] the figure drops to 0.1% among all those aged 15." BBC.
So far, so obvious.
But.
Now, I've not seen the report itself, but it seems that (at least) one major assumption is built into this, an assumption which must skew the figures quite radically; MoJ analysts apparently assume that the sample of those arrested is automatically representative of all those taking part. If anything, the converse seems more likely to me, and that those caught by the authorities are not a representative sample, but simply those less able and less practised in escape and evasion.
Not very scientific.
Update from John Robb: US gang membership is now estimated 40% higher than in 2009, and the combined factors of high unemployment with all these elective overseas oil wars and their inevitable product - returning, often traumatised and uncared for combat veterans who can see little or no future - is not a happy prospect, to judge from past history.
So maybe it's a bit too soon to get complacent about gangs and organised crime.
"The Ministry of Justice (MoJ) and Home Office background analysis shows that those arrested during the riots overwhelmingly came from deprived areas and had the poorest educational backgrounds." Guardian.
"More than one in 10 of the young people appearing before courts had been permanently excluded - [whereas] the figure drops to 0.1% among all those aged 15." BBC.
So far, so obvious.
But.
Now, I've not seen the report itself, but it seems that (at least) one major assumption is built into this, an assumption which must skew the figures quite radically; MoJ analysts apparently assume that the sample of those arrested is automatically representative of all those taking part. If anything, the converse seems more likely to me, and that those caught by the authorities are not a representative sample, but simply those less able and less practised in escape and evasion.
Not very scientific.
Update from John Robb: US gang membership is now estimated 40% higher than in 2009, and the combined factors of high unemployment with all these elective overseas oil wars and their inevitable product - returning, often traumatised and uncared for combat veterans who can see little or no future - is not a happy prospect, to judge from past history.
So maybe it's a bit too soon to get complacent about gangs and organised crime.
Saturday, 16 April 2011
Planet for Sale
Alexis Marant (interview here) has directed a new film called "Planete a Vendre" which will be on French TV April 19th 2011.
The Global Land Grab blog posts with more details, explaining the dangerous logic behind what's going on:
“To feed the 9.2 billion people expected by 2050 will require doubling agricultural production. A boon to investors who pushed up from 5 to 175 billion in speculative capital invested in agricultural commodities between 2000 and 2007.”
There's also a trailer here showing the factors that are now driving most wealthy Middle Eastern countries, for example, to get a-hold of poorer people's land overseas and make sure that their populations, which are also still increasing, will continue to be able to import most of the food they demand.
Don't ask where the poor will be able to grow their food in the future ...
The Global Land Grab blog posts with more details, explaining the dangerous logic behind what's going on:
“To feed the 9.2 billion people expected by 2050 will require doubling agricultural production. A boon to investors who pushed up from 5 to 175 billion in speculative capital invested in agricultural commodities between 2000 and 2007.”
There's also a trailer here showing the factors that are now driving most wealthy Middle Eastern countries, for example, to get a-hold of poorer people's land overseas and make sure that their populations, which are also still increasing, will continue to be able to import most of the food they demand.
Don't ask where the poor will be able to grow their food in the future ...
Tuesday, 8 March 2011
It's a Lock-in
The Screeching of Positive Feedback
It shouldn't be a surprise to see chaos in a part of the world where human numbers have been and continue to double in mere decades, and fertile land as well as water for growing food is already insufficient and depleting rapidly. So, amid renewed talk of oil-induced recession, the world seems to be going round in ever more vicious circles:
Lack of investment in agriculture and population increase -> Food price rises -> civil unrest including in oil producing countries -> oil price increases -> food price increases -> more unrest -> and so on and on …
Actionaid USA have produced an interactive map of the places under greatest stress from food import dependency. They note that:
"As a result, [of subsidies] U.S. farmers have diverted 40 percent of corn production from food and feed to fuel, and land once used for soybean production has been converted to corn to meet the demand for biofuels set out in the federal RFS. Seven times as much corn is sent to ethanol plants than is being kept in our national stockpiles. Over the last two years, the amount of corn fed to livestock fell by 3 million metric tons, while corn shipments to ethanol producers grew by 33 million tons. These shifts put pressure on food stocks until they cross a tipping point, driving prices up."
"Spending scarce taxpayer dollars to shift crops from food to biofuels at the expense of hungry people and already stressed resources like soil, water and air is unsustainable."
HT Worldwatch blog.
Stuart Staniford at Early Warning blog points out that, "It's worth noting that the energy content of the human food supply is about a sixth of the energy content of the human fuel supply (about 86 mbd of liquid fuels, equivalent to somewhere in the neighborhood of 120-130mbd of ethanol). This is the core problem with converting food to fuel - we are taking from a small pool to try to make up for deficiencies in a large pool, and we will have a much bigger effect on the level of the small pool than the bigger pool."
Wealthy motorists and the private car lobby are literally driving the world into starvation and recession.
It shouldn't be a surprise to see chaos in a part of the world where human numbers have been and continue to double in mere decades, and fertile land as well as water for growing food is already insufficient and depleting rapidly. So, amid renewed talk of oil-induced recession, the world seems to be going round in ever more vicious circles:
Lack of investment in agriculture and population increase -> Food price rises -> civil unrest including in oil producing countries -> oil price increases -> food price increases -> more unrest -> and so on and on …
Actionaid USA have produced an interactive map of the places under greatest stress from food import dependency. They note that:
"As a result, [of subsidies] U.S. farmers have diverted 40 percent of corn production from food and feed to fuel, and land once used for soybean production has been converted to corn to meet the demand for biofuels set out in the federal RFS. Seven times as much corn is sent to ethanol plants than is being kept in our national stockpiles. Over the last two years, the amount of corn fed to livestock fell by 3 million metric tons, while corn shipments to ethanol producers grew by 33 million tons. These shifts put pressure on food stocks until they cross a tipping point, driving prices up."
"Spending scarce taxpayer dollars to shift crops from food to biofuels at the expense of hungry people and already stressed resources like soil, water and air is unsustainable."
HT Worldwatch blog.
Stuart Staniford at Early Warning blog points out that, "It's worth noting that the energy content of the human food supply is about a sixth of the energy content of the human fuel supply (about 86 mbd of liquid fuels, equivalent to somewhere in the neighborhood of 120-130mbd of ethanol). This is the core problem with converting food to fuel - we are taking from a small pool to try to make up for deficiencies in a large pool, and we will have a much bigger effect on the level of the small pool than the bigger pool."
Wealthy motorists and the private car lobby are literally driving the world into starvation and recession.
Thursday, 24 February 2011
Live by the Dictator, Die by the Dictator
While the Establishment eagerly hope for a quick return to their Business-as-Usual model, doing their usual rounds of hob-nobbing with the international elite, luxury hotels and the attendant business jamborees, trade fairs and arms sales, others, like Humanist on Yahoo, are asking the obvious question: "Do Foreign evacuees from Libya remind you of rats leaving a sinking ship?"
Seems like some are happy to take stolen money and goods, but don't like the consequences of their actions when the people they've trodden over to get that wealth start objecting.
Seems like some are happy to take stolen money and goods, but don't like the consequences of their actions when the people they've trodden over to get that wealth start objecting.
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