Brand v Paxman
- Thread starter newbiejim
- Start date
You could give everyone in the country an equal education, equal upbringing and an equal lump sum of money when they are 21. In 10 years it would have reset to what we have now. A few rich smart people and a huge swathe of dumb poor people. It's biology.
Soldato
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- 7 Aug 2004
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It would be a step forward, better than what we have now (reality based on rich people bartering with each other to maintain the wealth and not overstep each other causing the balance to tip)
Money itself is also the problem, it disconnects people with reality, it gives false connections with what we all really need and it gives the people who print the money the power to give whatever value they want to any item.
This has already been posted but explains why:
Found this on the net, is a very good explanation to the recession:
Helga is the proprietor of a bar. She realizes that virtually all of her customers are unemployed alcoholics and, as such, can no longer afford to patronize her bar. To solve this problem she comes up with a new marketing plan that allows her customers to drink now, but pay later.
Helga keeps track of the drinks consumed on a ledger (thereby granting the customers loans).
Word gets around about Helga's "drink now, pay later" marketing strategy and, as a result, increasing numbers of customers flood into Helga's bar. Soon she has the largest sales volume for any bar in town.
By providing her customers freedom from immediate payment demands Helga gets no resistance when, at regular intervals, she substantially increases her prices for wine and beer - the most consumed beverages.
Consequently, Helga's gross sales volumes and paper profits increase massively. A young and dynamic vice-president at the local bank recognises that these customer debts constitute valuable future assets and increases
Helga's borrowing limit. He sees no reason for any undue concern, since he has the debts of the unemployed alcoholics as collateral.
He is rewarded with a six figure bonus.
At the bank's corporate headquarters, expert traders figure a way to make huge commissions, and transform these customer loans into DRINKBONDS. These "securities" are then bundled and traded on international securities markets.
Naive investors don't really understand that the securities being sold to them as "AA Secured Bonds" are really debts of unemployed alcoholics. Nevertheless, the bond prices continuously climb and the securities soon
become the hottest-selling items for some of the nation's leading brokerage houses.
The traders all receive a six figure bonus.
One day, even though the bond prices are still climbing, a risk manager at the original local bank decides that the time has come to demand payment on the debts incurred by the drinkers at Helga's bar. He so informs Helga.
Helga then demands payment from her alcoholic patrons but, being unemployed alcoholics, they cannot pay back their drinking debts. Since Helga cannot fulfil her loan obligations she is forced into bankruptcy. The bar closes and Helga's 11 employees lose their jobs.
Overnight, DRINKBOND prices drop by 90%. The collapsed bond asset value destroys the bank's liquidity and prevents it from issuing new loans, thus freezing credit and economic activity in the community.
The suppliers of Helga's bar had granted her generous payment extensions and had invested their firms' pension funds in the BOND securities. They find they are now faced with having to write off her bad debt and withlosing over 90% of the presumed value of the bonds. Her wine supplier also claims bankruptcy, closing the doors on a family business that had endured for three generations; her beer supplier is taken over by a competitor, who immediately closes the local plant and lays off 150 workers.
Fortunately though, the bank, the brokerage houses and their respective executives are saved and bailed out by a multibillion dollar no-strings attached cash infusion from the government.
They all receive a six figure bonus.
The funds required for this bailout are obtained by new taxes levied on employed, middle-class, non-drinkers who've never been in Helga's bar.
Helga is the proprietor of a bar. She realizes that virtually all of her customers are unemployed alcoholics and, as such, can no longer afford to patronize her bar. To solve this problem she comes up with a new marketing plan that allows her customers to drink now, but pay later.
Helga keeps track of the drinks consumed on a ledger (thereby granting the customers loans).
Word gets around about Helga's "drink now, pay later" marketing strategy and, as a result, increasing numbers of customers flood into Helga's bar. Soon she has the largest sales volume for any bar in town.
By providing her customers freedom from immediate payment demands Helga gets no resistance when, at regular intervals, she substantially increases her prices for wine and beer - the most consumed beverages.
Consequently, Helga's gross sales volumes and paper profits increase massively. A young and dynamic vice-president at the local bank recognises that these customer debts constitute valuable future assets and increases
Helga's borrowing limit. He sees no reason for any undue concern, since he has the debts of the unemployed alcoholics as collateral.
He is rewarded with a six figure bonus.
At the bank's corporate headquarters, expert traders figure a way to make huge commissions, and transform these customer loans into DRINKBONDS. These "securities" are then bundled and traded on international securities markets.
Naive investors don't really understand that the securities being sold to them as "AA Secured Bonds" are really debts of unemployed alcoholics. Nevertheless, the bond prices continuously climb and the securities soon
become the hottest-selling items for some of the nation's leading brokerage houses.
The traders all receive a six figure bonus.
One day, even though the bond prices are still climbing, a risk manager at the original local bank decides that the time has come to demand payment on the debts incurred by the drinkers at Helga's bar. He so informs Helga.
Helga then demands payment from her alcoholic patrons but, being unemployed alcoholics, they cannot pay back their drinking debts. Since Helga cannot fulfil her loan obligations she is forced into bankruptcy. The bar closes and Helga's 11 employees lose their jobs.
Overnight, DRINKBOND prices drop by 90%. The collapsed bond asset value destroys the bank's liquidity and prevents it from issuing new loans, thus freezing credit and economic activity in the community.
The suppliers of Helga's bar had granted her generous payment extensions and had invested their firms' pension funds in the BOND securities. They find they are now faced with having to write off her bad debt and withlosing over 90% of the presumed value of the bonds. Her wine supplier also claims bankruptcy, closing the doors on a family business that had endured for three generations; her beer supplier is taken over by a competitor, who immediately closes the local plant and lays off 150 workers.
Fortunately though, the bank, the brokerage houses and their respective executives are saved and bailed out by a multibillion dollar no-strings attached cash infusion from the government.
They all receive a six figure bonus.
The funds required for this bailout are obtained by new taxes levied on employed, middle-class, non-drinkers who've never been in Helga's bar.
Yes, thank you for that overly dumbed-down explanation, all those years of studying for finance qualifications and exams were a waste!
None of this is a coherent argument for the model that you're proposing though. It's like shutting down the National Grid because one berk stuck a fork in a plug socket.
What did we do about the Politicians expenses scandal?
Nowt
My view is that they should have been all fired...
We could have rallied for this but people just did nothing.
Hence why the politicians carry on doing what they do.
I was fined the other day in Kings Cross station for having the wrong ticket. I absolutely refuted that I had the wrong ticket. But they wouldn't budge.
I paid my fine on the spot as I needed to get where I needed to be on time.
Later I wrote to the train company asking them to explain why I was robbed in broad daylight by one of their staff who fined me incorrectly?
They issued me with a cheque and an apology. I requested the chap who issued the fine be sacked.
Now how many hundreds of thousands of people are getting fined incorrectly at train stations and do nothing about it as they cant be arsed or don't question the system?
The majority and thats why our Public transport system is crap.
I don't blame the companies I blame the customers for not standing up for themselves.
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Soldato
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Yeah getting a level of 'total viral influence' is almost imposs, Brand is the man who has had the most success with this so far......then as soon as you get to the point of getting every single person (of which would have to be a v high percentage of the nation) marching in peaceful protest.....
.......the powers that be would spin it so much the other way it would instantly fall.....id be arrested, my name tarnished in every way the people in control could think of, violence would start naturally or by design........ i.e. it would go very wrong very quick because those 1% would do everything in their unlimited recourse world to stop it.
Even if 'I' or 'the one' got through this.........its highly likely professional assassinations would take place, the 1% would bury a revolution so fast it would be almost like 'the hand of god'.
The only way to prevent this is nearly all of the 99% stand up and follow in one action, then, the true colours of the 1% would be seen by all, and then everyone 'would get it' as all of a sudden they would be getting shot at by the people that apparently protect them, I wouldnt be surprised if those in power even went as far as nuclear weapons (yeah i know your thinking im mad, but stay with me here)..........I mean if you were the 1% (gov, top military, wealthy historical familes, top business owners) and all of a sudden the entire world started to march against you in one, essentially taking everything from them FOR EVERYONE, I don't think there is a limit to what they would do with the resources available to them, which sadly includes the abilities to destroy the entire planet - the way the top has so much of a hold on everything is an almost 'perfect' control system, in a way its impressive, just sucks for the majority of people.
EDIT: I honestly want revolution to happen, however horrifically .......it would cost billions of lives, it's just unthinkable but that maybe the only way it would happen, the few survivors assuming the 1% did get wiped out would do things a lot differently id imagine
, we live in truly difficult times. On the plus side I get immense joy at living and appreciating the simple day to day things, cuz I know i'll never be this lucky forever (*maybe* I will pass before anything drastic happens but then, id feel just as awful for my kids, either way it will happen one day)EDIT2 : I guess the only non violent (1st big step) way would be all corporations say ok to handing back their ridiculous and not needed piles of cash.............however this would require every government on Earth to do the same and give no where a tax haven. But it wouldn't happen there will always be one willing to take bribes.
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This is very vague, can you quantify this at all please?
I think what he's saying is that we have a lot of wealth that we don't share with poorer nations, and that while a few here have a wealth far greater than most, outside our cosy world even with only the lesser paltry amount, we are the few that have the greater wealth that we aren't sharing. So he wants the poorer populations of the world to storm the UK in a revolution and drag us greedy pigs from our homes and then distribute that wealth among themselves.
At least I think that was it.
A new building will change things? Lol.
Oh and science doesn't really work in politics as you'll find you'll **** off lots of people then they'll start they're revolution and get rid of you. It needs to be more democratic and appealing to the masses even if it's not as good.
I'm curious though how would your utopian government deal with an armed revolution?
Associate
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Revolution isn't the answer then. Bank account halting is? Calling for revolution is a dangerous thing and its exactly what he did, calling for change is completely different which is what you seem to want. Learn the difference.
If your that convinced take you and your hippy army off for a sit in and see what its like to take pepper spray to the face at 'foty-bar' you'll sharp realize violence is the only thing we have to counter our formidable police force in the realms of a revolution.
Edit: Also no its not right. Things should be changed but the public is apathetic and why the sweet Jesus shouldn't they be? The average person has to deal with so much stuff in their day to day lives. Navigating complex hieratical systems on a daily basis at work, morality issues, raising children & any number of complex social dilemmas we encounter on daily basis. Why should the average person get up and grab their pitch fork to over throw a government that will ultimately be back in power in some form or another in the not so distant future? Before anyone is going to get behind this so called change we need someone with the answer and as far as I can see no one is coming up with it. Better the devil we know, the grass is always greener and all that BS!
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Say the recent recession or banking crisis. You're going to have a very hard time making purely evidence based decisions on new events, and you're going to be stuck always doing what was done before as how can you try something new as there's no evidence of it working in.the past.
Also your system would be crippled by being painfully slow, decisions which have to be made in days/Weeks would require years of study and research before they could be made
Strictly speaking though lending to a friend does usually gain you something even if it's a favour owed.
But yes I meant more institutions anyone just seemed easier to write than "any business or financial institution"
A) Joe blogs is less likely to pay it all back
B) it's not 50% more than it's worth, it's worth what someone is willing to pay. which is what you agree to when you borrow money
Associate
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I understand where you are coming from. However, the more money these things cost, the more likely is is the borrowers will not be able to pay it back. Also, just because you may agree to a deal, doesn't mean it's fair, despite you signing an agreement. I would call that a raw deal.
but you're not the only one looking for that deal there's lots of people going for it, so you have to be a combination of the safest bet and the highest bidder to get it.
It's fair in that you decided it was an acceptable price.
Having a lot of money is not something that we should demonise.
It's how you got that money, and whether you use that money to unfairly advance your own interests to the detriment of others. Do you exploit people because you can (use foreign labour, pay substandard wages)? Do you use tax havens? Do you exploit a monopoly position? Do you rob your customers blind for services they can't live without?
It's hard to see how a comedian could be guilty of that kind of unethical behaviour, but we can all immediately list dozens of companies who do all of those things. Like Amazon, Google, British Gas, a lot of private care homes...
*cough* Jimmy carr *cough*
Man of Honour
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Only just saw Paxman agreeing with what Brand had said when he appeared on the Norton shown.