News Stories

[Jinto]

Originally Posted by Arbitres

There are things called loopholes after all. Then again... it's both their faults. My perspective? Serves them right. The homeless for being a drunkard and being greedy. The banker for being shallow-minded and greedy.

Oh well.

Thats all nice if both could somehow repay the debt. Imagine 1000s of these incidents (more or less severe) and they cannot pay back. The only security they might have is i.e. real estate, that however is devalued, because there are 1000s of these incidents and nowhere near enough buyers for real estates which makes the fromerly overspeculated/higher than reality prices for real estates fall very low.
Since nobody is able to repay the debt now, banking institutions become suddenly ruined (since not only will there be no payback of debt, but the securities largly are a speculative value/asset that is not going to repay nearly as much as the debt in midterm future).
This however - since totally out of proportion, threatens the banking system of whole nations - which in turn makes nation leaders to go on public funding/spending sprees to rescue the idiots that were systemicly stupid enough to dig their own graves (monetarily). Thats the same assholes that use public money (as in the money of the tax payers of years to come) to not only bail out the stupid system they are so used to... but also give themselves high settlements/premiums and bonus payments for whatever they deem their idiocy to be worth (they are the one's who dictate who and what is worth money - the job market in the banking sector is as speculative as the whole banking business - its basically about how important these idiots deem each other - that much tax payer money they will throw out of the window to pay for each others bonus/income checks).

So, in reality many of the most greedy bankers come off very well... because it is the nation's tax payers who lost money in the years to come not the big banker (since the money will devaluate in such an incident the bankers will be indirectly hit by this, but with their income they are still much better off then the average tax payer who is not likely to ask his/her boss for a pay rise in an economic downturn - and thereby pays the bill by getting less for the same work - even if it is the same money - Others are not so lucky and loose their jobs... ).

[Joojoobees]

Originally Posted by Azuma Denton

Apple boss defends conditions at iPhone factory

Hmm, i am not sure it was all suicide.
13 "suicides" this year already?

Actually it is a pretty low number. Notice that there are over 400,000 people working there (according to Wikipedia). If you look at the World Health Organization's website, they list suicide rates as being the number of suicides PER 100,000. http://www.who.int/mental_health/pre...iciderates/en/

So, to normalize to the WHO statistics, we divide by 4 and multiply by 2 (that is we assume that suicides continue at this rate all year long) = 6.5

We can then compare it to China's national rate = 13 for males.
and to the USA = 17.6 for males.
and to Japan = 36.5 for males.

So the suicide rate actually looks quite low, when you consider the number of people living at the factory. In fact the suicide rate is less than half (almost a third) of the suicide rate in the USA.

[Haruka_Kitten]

Gunman Derrick Bird found dead after shooting spree in northern England

Originally Posted by Gunman Derrick Bird found dead after shooting spree in northern England

*Gunman's body found in woodland
*Will dispute reportedly behind killings
*Pictures: Cumbrian shooting rampage
*Profile of killer Derrick Bird
*Death tolls from the world's worst shootings

A FAMILY dispute over a will may have sparked the rampage by a taxi driver who drove through north England villages yesterday shooting dead 12 people and leaving three more fighting for their lives before killing himself.

Derrick Bird, 52, left the bodies of cyclists, drivers and pedestrians littered on the streets and footpaths of small villages and towns during a three-hour drive through some of the prettiest countryside in and around the Lakes District, The Australian reported.

Police said that apart from the 13 deaths, 25 people were injured, including three people in critical condition and five in serious condition, making it Britain's worst mass shooting since 16 children and a teacher were killed at a school in Dunblane, Scotland in 1996.

Many of Bird's victims were shot in the face, in several cases after he had pulled up his car and beckoned people over to him.

The victims included an elderly woman who was walking home with her morning shopping, a cyclist, and a farmer who was shot “at point blank range” while trimming hedges by the side of the road.

British newspapers reported that Bird, who was divorced with two adult sons and recently became a grandfather, began his spree by shooting his twin brother David and a local solicitor, Kevin Commons.

Bird's 90-year-old mother Mary is seriously ill and a row over her will was being touted as the potential trigger for the rampage by the taxi driver, who was described as a quiet and popular man.

Bird was also believed to have argued with fellow taxi drivers on Tuesday night before arriving the next morning at the taxi rank in Duke Street, the main street of the sleepy seaside town of Whitehaven, armed with a shotgun and a .22 rifle.

Don Reed, a fellow taxi driver and long-time friend of Bird, told the BBC that there were four cabs on the rank when the man known to fellow drivers as “Birdy” pulled his car up behind them.

Bird shot dead another driver and friend, Darren Rewcastle, with a single-barrel shotgun, Mr Reed said.

“He then drove up by me and just pointed it at me.”

Mr Reed said he dove to the ground before Bird pulled the trigger and was only slightly injured in the back

But when Mr Reed crawled over to give him first aid he "just didn't have a face, it wasn't there, he was gone”.

Over the next three hours thousands of people in the area were told to lock themselves in their homes as police were left tending to survivors while the gunman drove from town to town.

Bird eventually took to foot after crashing his car and his body was found in woodland near the village of Boot.

Police were this morning grappling with 30 separate crime scenes left by Bird's 38km drive through Cumbria, England's least populated county, and said it was too early to be certain about his motives.

The Daily Telegraph reported that Bird was believed to have sought medical help at a local hospital for his fragile mental state, only to be turned away

Relatives and friends said he had inherited the guns from his father. Previous mass shootings in Britain has triggered crackdowns on gun control but local MP Jamie Reed said last night that it was too early to contemplate such action.

David Cameron began his first session of parliamentary “Prime Minister's questions” by pledging support for the local community and saying the House of Commons would be “alarmed and shocked by the events unfolding in Cumbria”.

He pledged to do everything possible to help communities left "shattered" by the random killings.

The Queen also expressed her shock over the murderous rampage.

"I was deeply shocked by the appalling news from Cumbria," Queen Elizabeth II said, adding that she shared the country's "grief and horror".

Glenda Pears, a taxi firm manager who had known Bird for many years, said he was “friends with everybody and used to stand and joke on Duke Street”.

Sue Matthews, a taxi firm telephonist in Whitehaven, said he lived alone and was “a quiet fellow”.

“I am in absolute shock. It is like watching something from America,” she said.

A doctor in Whitehaven said that he was “just amazed by the callousness of shooting people in the face with a shotgun - the severity of the injuries obviously was deliberate”.

John Kane, a local councillor whose ward covers Duke Street, said he knew and liked “Birdy”.

“I don't know if there had been a falling out among taxi divers or a feud or something but it would not have been about criminals or drugs or anything like that,” Mr Kane said.

Bird, a large, balding man, was “a very placid man, very quiet, so something has pushed him over the edge”.

Read more at The Australian.

Woah, woah......Damn. I just heard this on the local news. Anyone got anymore information here?

[Arbitres]

More malice. Disgusting. What could cause someone to do this? Are they really that incompetent of measuring an individual's life? And their life? That they'd do this sort of thing?

Kudos, another on the long list of failed people whom I have no sympathy for. Whatever broke him certainly did as implied. Mental condition may have been frail and susceptible to dementia from the start; it's entirely possible that he was never diagnosed.

Oh well. Least he had the common sense left of knowing what kind of gun to use. Though that is hardly desirable in this sort of situation.

“I am in absolute shock. It is like watching something from America,” she said.

The Queen and I certainly have similar ways of thinking. Nearly sounds like something out of a mafia or horror movie.


Afraid I don't have any 'new' information on this one besides my personal dislike of this sort of idiocy.

[Azuma Denton]

Finance Minister Naoto Kan seen as Japan front-runner

[Roger Rambo]

Originally Posted by Arbitres

There are things called loopholes after all. Then again... it's both their faults. My perspective? Serves them right. The homeless for being a drunkard and being greedy. The banker for being shallow-minded and greedy.

Oh well.

The question is though who should have known better? An alcoholic or someone with a high level buisness degree? We generally don't expect homeless alcoholics to make the most prudent choices. He's a homeless alcoholic with lots of serious personal issues. What's the bankers excuse?

[SeijiSensei]

Cold "North winds" fail to blow in Mr. Lee's favor

Originally Posted by NY Times

President Lee Myung-bak’s party has suffered a surprising setback in local elections that were widely seen as a referendum on his handling of North Korea’s alleged torpedoing of a South Korean warship.

“Yes, people agreed with the president that the North needed punishing,” said Jeong Chan-soo, a senior analyst at the political consultancy MIN Consulting. “But when the government announced its investigative results on the same day when the election campaign began, and when President Lee chose the Korean War Museum as the venue to deliver his speech to criticize North Korea, they thought he was overreacting.

“They felt a risk of war,” Mr. Jeong added. “They thought they needed to rein in their president.”

Security concerns about North Korea had influenced previous elections in the South, almost always helping conservative candidates in a phenomenon known as “the North Wind.”

[JMvS]

On the Oil Spill:

Nuclear Option on Gulf Oil Spill? No Way, U.S. Says


And back to the Burka & co issue in European countries:

Spanish town of Lerida bans Burka in public buildings.

[Zu Ra]

* Ashley Fiolek overcomes DEAFNESS to excel as one of motocross racing's elite

[SaintessHeart]

Originally Posted by 0utf0xZer0

Maybe she just got ticked about the mess.

Should have taken some cues from how my mom convinced me to clean my room: if I didn't clean it, she would. Which means I would have no clue where anything was afterwards.

(Yeah, I keep things pretty clean now. Although that's also because I like to keep things classy... or at least as classy as you can make a room with two life sized catgirl wallscrolls.)

Those wallscrolls are NECESSITIES. I often wonder why my mum always tell me to quit setting my desktop to Azunyan or K-ON! pics because it is embarrassing visitors (my room is near to the main door).

Of course that is my mum for you. Rather than promoting about how her son can read an entire newspaper in 15 minutes, play multiple musical instruments, read stock market charts and troubleshoot his own PC, she complains about how I keep my room and hair in a mess, puts up girly and cute stuff as desktop wallpapers, talks to himself, sticks himself in front of the computer 24/7 and don't eat meals regularly.

Originally Posted by Azuma Denton

Apple boss defends conditions at iPhone factory

Hmm, i am not sure it was all suicide.
13 "suicides" this year already?

Add a few more to it and it becomes a mere statistic *sarcastic*.

Originally Posted by Jinto

So, in reality many of the most greedy bankers come off very well... because it is the nation's tax payers who lost money in the years to come not the big banker (since the money will devaluate in such an incident the bankers will be indirectly hit by this, but with their income they are still much better off then the average tax payer who is not likely to ask his/her boss for a pay rise in an economic downturn - and thereby pays the bill by getting less for the same work - even if it is the same money - Others are not so lucky and loose their jobs... ).

Well we can't blame the bankers for having proper financial education right?

Honestly speaking, I do feel like blaming the lower bunch who have been complaining about these greedy bankers...they are the ones who refuse to spend within their limits and made use of the lending system to create the mess, not the bankers who OFFERED the money in the first place.

EDIT :

And I now bring you an article written by a journalist who have no idea how a stock market runs, or how professional investors make their money from it :

Buffett’s PR disaster

From a PR point of view — and Warren Buffett cares deeply about his public image — yesterday was arguably the single worst day of Buffett’s life. He was dragged against his will — with a subpoena, no less — in front of the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission, which grilled him on whether, as Moody’s largest shareholder, he took any responsibility at all for the disaster that happened there. His answer — no — was met with unanimous derision, both in the mainstream media and in the blogosphere: see The Pragmatic Capitalist, or Bond Girl (”It’s funny how heroes end up cutting themselves down to size even when no one else can”), or Edmund Andrews:

Warren Buffett has turned into an evasive, disingenuous, bumbling buffoon…

When asked by Phil Angelides, the commission chairman, what the agencies did wrong, Buffett passed the buck as shamelessly as every other Wall Street powerhouse player: “I think they made the same mistake that virtually everybody else made,” Buffett told in the first in a long series of evasions…

Having basked for years in public adulation for his his investment brilliance, Buffett suddenly acted as if he hadn’t the slightest idea about the goings on at Moody’s even though Berkshire Hathaway had been one of its biggest shareholders.

Between his Moody’s investment and his Goldman investment, Buffett is slowly working out that only half of his public adulation comes from his compounded annual returns. The other half comes from the fact that he seemingly got those returns investing in Coca-Cola, motherhood, and apple pie. Rather than in entities without which the current wave of misery overtaking homeowners nationwide could never have happened.

Buffett is that rarest of institutional shareholders: someone who actually owns and runs lots of large companies of his own. As such, he can and should act much more like an owner than most shareholders. But he doesn’t, and he has no visible desire to fix the problems at Moody’s or at the ratings agencies more generally. He just says he wishes he’d sold his Moody’s stock earlier, passing on those losses to some other sucker. I don’t think he’s ever going to be able to live this one down.

The reason why Buffett makes is money is NOT largely through connections, but rather intelligent playing of the stock market by going in and getting out at the right times. People who don't know how to read financial statements with that grey matter in their heads blame "fat finger traders" for dumping and buying up stock markets with their large sums of money.

You don't demonise the professional investor as "irresponsible to the market". When you suck, it is obvious that you are not paying attention to your financial management.

[Bri]

Originally Posted by SaintessHeart

Well we can't blame the bankers for having proper financial education right?

Honestly speaking, I do feel like blaming the lower bunch who have been complaining about these greedy bankers...they are the ones who refuse to spend within their limits and made use of the lending system to create the mess, not the bankers who OFFERED the money in the first place.

Financial institutions have not been blameless in providing people with loans they could not pay off. Dealing with moral hazard is part of the job.

Still even we discount their mistakes on that part, financial institutions are very much to blame for the current mess. Not assessing risks correctly, hiding risky positions with complex instruments or on off-balance sheet activities and blatantly misinforming investors about the health of their organizations have put the whole financial system at risk. The interbank lending market is not functioning at the moment, as banks don't trust each others financial reporting, is a cynical representation of the trust bankers have in their colleagues.

As for their education, I'd wish management and boards of these institutions had a better background in finance or economics. They are trained to run organizations, knowledge of the field those organizations operate in could prevent them from falling prey to the emotional exuberance which so often fuels boom-bust cycles.

And I now bring you an article written by a journalist who have no idea how a stock market runs, or how professional investors make their money from it :

Buffett’s PR disaster

The reason why Buffett makes is money is NOT largely through connections, but rather intelligent playing of the stock market by going in and getting out at the right times. People who don't know how to read financial statements with that grey matter in their heads blame "fat finger traders" for dumping and buying up stock markets with their large sums of money.

You don't demonise the professional investor as "irresponsible to the market". When you suck, it is obvious that you are not paying attention to your financial management.

I agree the journalist doesn't know what he is talking about.

Afaik Buffet is being grilled to see if he had any knowledge of Moody's manipulating of ratings for financial gain. If so then fraud is the issue, not professional investment choices.

Also investors are not forced to believe these agencies, but they can have a large effect on market psychology. Even if no one were to believe their ratings, as long as investors think that other people will believe them, those ratings can still send the market spiraling out of control.

[SaintessHeart]

Originally Posted by Bri

I agree the journalist doesn't know what he is talking about.

Afaik Buffet is being grilled to see if he had any knowledge of Moody's manipulating of ratings for financial gain. If so then fraud is the issue, not professional investment choices.

Also investors are not forced to believe these agencies, but they can have a large effect on market psychology. Even if no one were to believe their ratings, as long as investors think that other people will believe them, those ratings can still send the market spiraling out of control.

Actually, I doubt that Buffett knows anything about the Moody frauds. He is a hikkikomori genius trader (yes he spends so much time indoors during his early trading days that his neighbours mistake him for a bum!).

However, his lines have really been true.....

“I think they made the same mistake that virtually everybody else made,”

Yes, the mistake of greed. And the journalist is a total idiot expecting him to prop up a lousy business plan with his billions? He isn't even obliged to help a bunch of spendthrift bankrupts, and he shouldn't even help them because it helps develop the grudge mentality!

[Vexx]

Aye... the journalist is an idiot ... all future articles penned by him/her should be assumed worthless. Buffett was someone who saw that the derivatives market was a fraud and disaster in the making. He's quite progressive in many of his ideas about financial markets. Yes, he's filthy rich but he got most of it by playing smart and optimizing opportunities to be in place when luck struck.

[Arbitres]

The question is though who should have known better? An alcoholic or someone with a high level buisness degree? We generally don't expect homeless alcoholics to make the most prudent choices. He's a homeless alcoholic with lots of serious personal issues. What's the bankers excuse?

The banker is most at fault. But don't mistake most at fault for being the only one to blame. That was what I meant by what I stated. What is THEIR excuses? It's both their faults. You can certainly argue which or why; but that is simply semantics.

[Jinto]

Originally Posted by SaintessHeart

Honestly speaking, I do feel like blaming the lower bunch who have been complaining about these greedy bankers...they are the ones who refuse to spend within their limits and made use of the lending system to create the mess, not the bankers who OFFERED the money in the first place.

Of'course both are wrong, the addict and the dealer. But in this case the big dealers get away and all the tax payers who actually have monetary principles (and do not consume more than they earn) are paying for it too. If this is meant to send a message, than only one... screw each other or just get screwed.

[justinstrife]

People still had to apply for loans, and accept those loans. No one had a gun put to their head and made them take loans that they could not afford. I am unwilling to take a good portion of the blame from the home-buyers. I've seen far too many in person who took whatever they could get and used it as free money thinking housing prices would forever continue to rise. Rapidly. Meanwhile they were taking home equity loans out and buying brand new trucks, travel trailers, boats, desert toys, big screen tvs with surround sound entertainment centers, etc, etc.

I watched my cousin and her husband buy a house near the beach for 450k in 2001, then turn around and sell it in 2005 for 1.4 million dollars. It was a tiny 2 bedroom 1.5bath house with a 1 car garage that was turned into a sort of mini-rental. 1.4 million dollars for a home that's as small as most apartments. The writing was on the wall for anybody with half a brain. So I have zero sympathy for the banks that offered the loans, and the individuals who accepted them.

Meanwhile, because I decided to wait until the market corrected itself and reality came home to roost, I am in a position to buy my first house in San Diego of all places on a single person's income.

[Nosauz]

Originally Posted by justinstrife

People still had to apply for loans, and accept those loans. No one had a gun put to their head and made them take loans that they could not afford. I am unwilling to take a good portion of the blame from the home-buyers. I've seen far too many in person who took whatever they could get and used it as free money thinking housing prices would forever continue to rise. Rapidly. Meanwhile they were taking home equity loans out and buying brand new trucks, travel trailers, boats, desert toys, big screen tvs with surround sound entertainment centers, etc, etc.

I watched my cousin and her husband buy a house near the beach for 450k in 2001, then turn around and sell it in 2005 for 1.4 million dollars. It was a tiny 2 bedroom 1.5bath house with a 1 car garage that was turned into a sort of mini-rental. 1.4 million dollars for a home that's as small as most apartments. The writing was on the wall for anybody with half a brain. So I have zero sympathy for the banks that offered the loans, and the individuals who accepted them.

Meanwhile, because I decided to wait until the market corrected itself and reality came home to roost, I am in a position to buy my first house in San Diego of all places on a single person's income.

Yes because every one remortgaged their homes? Don't play coy with this notion that the ones bankrupt are solely the ones who spent their money on frivolous luxuries, it's obnoxious and your facetious attitude really is not entertaining at all and it sure doesn't make you look intelligible. You pretend that all the people who lost money in the markets were idiots when the reality is far from it.

[yezhanquan]

From what I understand, borrowing in the States is the lesser of two evils, for the poor. You borrow or you starve. So, this time the rock got them instead of the hard place.

[justinstrife]

Originally Posted by Nosauz

Yes because every one remortgaged their homes? Don't play coy with this notion that the ones bankrupt are solely the ones who spent their money on frivolous luxuries, it's obnoxious and your facetious attitude really is not entertaining at all and it sure doesn't make you look intelligible. You pretend that all the people who lost money in the markets were idiots when the reality is far from it.

Sticks and stones nosauz. Just stating what I've seen happen far too often. California had one of the biggest increases in home prices of any area in the country. It also has some of the highest foreclosure rates. Obviously there were some who didn't bite more than they could chew, but I would wager my supercharged corvette that a majority did.

The majority of Americans are not the sharpest tools in the shed, and are not exactly known for being responsible either. Near half don't even pay Federal Income Tax. A very high percentage get some kind of Governmental assistance.

Many have walked away from their homes strictly because the home is now not worth what it was when they purchased it. Rather than sticking it out and paying the loan off, and waiting for housing to gradually go up in time, they would rather walk away from it. Friend of mine from HS had debated that after buying a bloody condo for 320k and now it's worth half. I haven't talked to him since he told me his plans as I had lost all respect for him.

Since when were homes suppose to be a short term investment? The fact is, you don't lose money on your house until you try and sell it. Once upon a time, people stayed in the same home for 20-40+ years. They weren't changing homes every 5-10 years like what is so often nowadays.

[Vexx]

You're forgetting that once a loan is "upside down" (house worth less on the market than the loan value), the banks did not wait for the owner to "walk away" - they foreclosed automatically and evicted the owners even if they wanted to stay. Many owners were desperately working out arrangements only to have one arm of the bank ignore what the other was doing and resell the house anyway. Many banks were only stalled when owners starting figuring out that the banks COULD NOT figure out who "had possession of the title" because it had been bundled with thousands of other loans and sold as buckets of shares throughout the world. At this point, the judges started getting cranky at the banks... still not happening enough though.

The robber barons keep looting away at the top-end while everyone "not in the club" is going to be left to live with and clean up the mess. Assuming we aren't headed for a permanent vaporization of the middle class by their shenanigans and the US collapses into a modern form of feudalism.