1930s it was the Jews

Nice false equivalency. At least you’ve nuked your dubious credibility early on.

Countries who bankrupt themselves go to the wall. Then hopefully the crooks who run it into the ground spend the rest of their time on earth in a small room, looking at blank walls after being stripped of all their assets.

Howevr, in the UK after looting the cash, they get let back into the core of Government. 

Search for David Laws

Meanwhile the state is mortgaged 14 times its income, and has a 30% overspend problem. 

Ah, I understand. You’ve fallen for the blame a scapegoat strategy. 

1930s it was the Jews. Interestingly, I heard a left winger use the same today. Jewish capitalistic consiparacy to take over the world. It’s the bankers, its the blacks, its the purveyors of coffee. 

All to hide there ponzi frauds.

So are the banks part of the problem? Yep

no bankers involved.

You’re confusing me, LordBlagger.

There’s nothing complex or difficult about assigning culpability to the fiduciaries in these cases. Unless you just get off on blaming people who trusted the people whom they are legally supposed to be able to trust.

If we take the UK, the government has profited by 250 bn since the banking crisis from taxes and penal rates of interest to the banks. 

The government, namely Gordon Brown, prime minister, lost 60 bn share trading in the banks. His previous foray, gold trading resulted in him selling at an all time low. So for the banks, he learnt his lesson, he bought a high price, only to see the share prices drop. 

Then we have the off balance sheet fraud. Namely the state run pension systems. 

Liabilities of 5,010 bn 2 years ago. 1,100 bn of borrowing. PFI, another 400 billion off the books. ….

True debt, 7,000 bn.

Tax revenues, 550 bn

Spending 700 bn 

And all this time, the bankers have been handing over cash to the state. 

So are the banks part of the problem? Yep, they’ve been propping up the biggest Ponzi scam ever. There is no way those debts can be paid, so that means not paying out, and it means not paying out on the pensions.

Next, on the pensions payouts themselves. Median wage in the UK is 26K. If that median wage earner had put their NI (social security contributions for those in the USA), into the FTSE (stock market), they would have had a fund of 560,000 pounds. 910,000 USD at today’s exchange rate. 

Instead the state offers them a pension that if bought in the market would cost 130,000 pounds

That’s the state for you. It’s a fraud, and no bankers involved. 

I rarely see any blame being attached to the people who signed for loans they could not afford or who failed to do even the most basic “due diligence”.  Being an immigrant does not make you stupid.  If it does, then maybe we need to start declaring everyone who crosses our border as mentally incompetent until they prove otherwise.  For their own “protection” of course.

So here is a neat irony: if this is how the free market is supposed to work, the people who support it are the ones who break it.

(And I hear all Randists scream in terror)

(That’s it fails in practice.  Paying attention to all your choices is a significant cost in time and effort, which is why centralised capital power structures get to make all the rules.)

Unions, the Occupy movement, and other forms of economic protest are all a part of the free market, but I think very few people will see it that way.

So are you proposing that people stop voting? At this point in time, without campaign finance and lobbying reform, pretty much ALL of the candidates are guilty of this.

I don’t know what my point is really. I guess it just seems like people generally feel that punishment for dishonest business doesn’t really fall under “free market” but some institution with more consciousness. 

How do I know it’s not feasible for everyone? because I could only do it because I have a partner who was earning enough to support us both. I fully realize I was in a privileged position.

Other great ways communities affected by big bank lending practices can peacefully use the free market to penalize the banks: refusing to do business with banks who participated in predatory loans and bailouts, refusing to vote for candidates who take money from predatory banks and their lobbying organizations, and publically disavowing the actions of the banks as tolerable in your communities.These sorts of actions speak volumes and have a far greater effect than legislation drafted by the banks themselves.

Reminds me when gas prices get too high and then you start seeing news stories about people biking to work and being more wise about their fuel consumption, and suddenly demand plummets and the price goes down. It is a rare example of when I see a unified community making change on such a large scale.