23 comments

  1. LeonovaBalletRusse

    Yves, lead from Jesse, pertinent to the topic of ethics (and Jesse’s constant dealing with gold price manipulation, waiting for the “cup handle” to form):

    http://news.goldseek.com/GATA/1351108860.php
    “So just ask them: Western central banks have enormous secrets about gold”

    //”So the key question becomes: Can the leased gold be recovered by the central banks? The work of GATA and others such as Bob Landis and Reg Howe suggests that the gold cannot be recovered. In effect you have a ‘prison of the shorts’ situation, whereby the gold that has been lent out and melted down to become, say, part of some Indian bride’s dowry will not be coming back into the market.

    “Ultimately, I think, the central banks will ratify this in an accounting sense by reclassifying the leased gold as sold, so from a stock standpoint, that will validate GATA’s argument that there is far less gold being held by the central banks than is commonly believed.” [1]//

  2. Richard Kline

    So Yves, Al Jazeera will be a good audience for you. They tend toward politically engaged commentary in the broad rather than partisan sense (check), make substantive points efficiently per word (check), and draw on a broad range of expertise and reportage to establish relational context (check). They do global well, but then you cover a wide range or countries, markets and topics as well. You bring back ground on finance that will be of real use in their mix as they lean more toward public affairs to this point. Go get ’em.

  3. steelhead23

    With apologies to yours truly, I must say that teaching ethics to the elite is the functional equivalent of teaching wolves to guard sheep. For the bankster class, the best approach to encouraging ethical behavior is to punish unethical/illegal behavior. We have been heading in precisely the opposite direction, fueling their belief in entitlement and undermining any reflex to ethical behavior. Why is it Yves, that you are here, trying to herd us sheep, when, had you stayed on the Street, you could earn far more lucre? I suspect it is one of two things – you could no longer suppress your ethical leanings – or, you got sick of trying to out-man the less talented men in a very sexist industry. Or both.

    1. Lee

      Wolves do guard sheep. Of course it took untold years and generations of selective breeding to accomplish the transformation of canis lupus into canis familiaris.

      Perhaps we could employ similar methods, replete with shock collars, to achieve a similar result with their human counterparts.

      1. Stan Musical

        In fact, selective breeding can cause profound changes, domesticating wild animals, for example, within a matter of years, not decades.

        So let’s get to work! Details, anyone?

    2. psychohistorian

      And instead of teaching ethics to private bankers I would suggest we take away their lock on finance and build a government financial system that accrues profit to the public commons instead of the global inherited rich through their private banking puppet henchmen.

      We asked the global inherited rich and their banking systems to behave back in the 1930’s and some human prosperity has occurred but we are reverting to a much worse global condition than before. It seem time for a more structural change to our inheritance maintained class based, driven and controlled economic system.

  4. Lambert Strether

    Al Jazeera (though a mainstream media outlet, with all the qualifications that implies) has a broader range of opinion than US media permit, and also has done great reporting work on the Egyptian uprising (subject to mainstream qualification above).

    So I’m super pleased Yves is in their Rolodex, because sane commentary on the next crisis, which will come, will be sorely needed.

  5. Susan the other

    Ethics is a secondary thing which depends on what society will tolerate. Donaldson leaves out strict enforcement of securities law. Why do so many people treat this issue with kid gloves? If Wall Street is lawless it is utterly useless to us. Talking about ethics without laws and regulations doesn’t even rise to the level of lamentation.

  6. Max424

    What the hell where you doing in the park, girl? Feeding the birds? Playing speed chess?

    You are supposed to be in front of a computer screen, grinding, writing, studying. Reading my comments!

    Lollygagging on a park bench. Not the vision of Yves I’m accustomed to seeing in my, vision center.

    1. Yves Smith Post author

      It was THEIR idea :-)

      Plus my apartment is too much of a zoo right now to do an interview here. You’d get not just a shot of computer and books, but all sorts of disarray.

  7. Max424

    Parks ‘r green spaces where evildoers been known to congregate! In lurking public shadows created by them!

    ‘Sides, only liberals ‘n socialists like parks and the chroma green. Too, they’ve been known to hold the view, that all trees are different, each to its own, unique tree way.

    Now seen em one seen em all, und definately not with my tax dollar, ’tis what I always say.

    Oh little guv, hear my prayer, tax and spend my pension rather on another carrier group, for I fear Iran searches for an outlet to the sea.

  8. wendy davis

    So glad you posted the video, Yves! Mr. wendydavis had seen it on the television, and I hunted all over AJE’s website for it yesterday to no avail. ;o)

  9. LeonovaBalletRusse

    YVES, flat-out: It’s Them or Us: “Tragedy rhymes” —

    (author: James C. Kennedy is an economic consultant)

    /Challenging Monetary Fascism is much more dangerous for political leaders representing countries outside the G-20. Populist leaders who put forward Nationalist policies are automatically in violation of one or more international ‘free trade’ agreements. Non-conformity with these agreements ultimately results in trade sanctions, IMF or World Bank imposed austerity, or worse…

    /Friedman’s ideology is global and his rules of ‘free trade’ are deeply integrated into the laws of international trade. All of our Nation’s international treaties on trade and banking are a series of interlocking agreements that force all nations to subvert their sovereignty and conform to Monetary Fascism. It is a global pandemic built on a world-wide transmission system with universal powers of enforcement. Sovereign Nations comply or they lose their credit rating. Considering the world wide mass escalation of debt to GDP for most western nations, a small increase in the cost of borrowing would easily result in default and bankruptcy.

    /Today, Nation States face nothing less than financial Armageddon – the Sampson Option, if they do not comply with the demands of the global banking industry. And it is with this weapon that the Financial Class has come to dominate the State.

    /Forget Al Qaeda, the only legitimate threat to U.S. and international security is the financial class. They have created Weapons of Mass Financial Destruction (Financial WMDs) and they stand ready to take down the world economy. They are more dangerous than any ‘terrorist group’, or even all of the ‘terrorist groups combined.

    /Exaggeration – consider what Friedman’s ‘free market’ banking system has done to Iceland, Ireland, Spain, Greece, Estonia, etc. How many western nations has Islam overthrown? Not one, and by comparison that should scare you.

    /Money has become the state and the traditional state is forced to serve money’s interests. Everywhere the Financial Class is openly lording over sovereign nations. Ireland, Greece and Spain are subject to ultimatums and remember Hank Paulson’s $700 billion extortion from the U.S. Congress. The $700 billion was just the wedge. Thanks to unlimited access to the Discount Window, Quantitative Easing and other taxpayer funded debt-swap bailouts the total transfers to the financial industry exceeded $16 trillion as of July 2010 according to a Federal Reserve Audit. All of this was dumped on the taxpayer and it is still growing.//
    —————————
    READ THE WHOLE at:
    http://www.counterpunch.org/2012/10/24/the-dark-age-of-money/

  10. Aquifer

    Hmm – That dude said that “WS is a vital engine of the economy” – STM that is only true in a financialized economy – not in one where folks made and bought and sold real stuff. It wasn’t all that long ago, was it that WS was just a little boutique in a niche market?

    Frankly i think we would be all better off if that is what it returned to ….

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