tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8732662769765511163.post1840901652688821145..comments2023-07-31T11:06:29.485+02:00Comments on Transition: The Banks are Made of MarbleD. Mario Nutihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17319653816487296802noreply@blogger.comBlogger7125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8732662769765511163.post-17657513941378596662011-03-28T19:49:19.824+02:002011-03-28T19:49:19.824+02:00Yes. See Reuters, 03/25/2011: Post-Crisis, Rich Pa...Yes. See Reuters, 03/25/2011: Post-Crisis, Rich Paydays Return for Big Bank CEOs.<br /><br />WASHINGTON — It is raining money again on many top U.S. and EU bank executives, less than three years after taxpayers worldwide rescued the banking industry from the worst financial crisis in decades.D. Mario Nutihttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17319653816487296802noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8732662769765511163.post-44431957586712590442011-03-28T19:37:24.336+02:002011-03-28T19:37:24.336+02:00In the circumstances you describe, are bank manage...In the circumstances you describe, are bank managers still attracting over-generous bonuses?Magdanoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8732662769765511163.post-3580087165775203772011-03-26T17:51:29.452+01:002011-03-26T17:51:29.452+01:00I know I'm no Guy Standing. I have, to put th...I know I'm no Guy Standing. I have, to put things mildly, reservations about his collaborative bargaining scheme. Why do you object to a pro-labour equivalent of the World Trade Organization?<br /><br />More on the bank subject, I think the only bank worth strengthening is the European Central Bank.Jacob Richternoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8732662769765511163.post-25728052209982719892011-03-26T10:26:06.619+01:002011-03-26T10:26:06.619+01:00Don't panic yet, when it comes to banks it onl...Don't panic yet, when it comes to banks it only makes it worse. But you are right to be worried. Barry Eichengreen puts the recapitalisation requirements of French and German banks at 3% of the joint GDP of the two countries - i.e. about €180bn http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,druck-748239,00.html. He writes "... there is only one solution: Europe needs to strengthen its banks! Greece lived beyond its means, but in Ireland and Spain it is the banks that are the problem. The euro crisis is first and foremost a banking crisis". "Europe's banks are in far greater danger than people realize. Most people now understand that last year's stress tests didn't tell us much. The tests were a token gesture and lacked realistic scenarios. They completely ignored the liquidity risks that banks could face."D. Mario Nutihttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17319653816487296802noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8732662769765511163.post-49438316625726064292011-03-26T08:27:40.301+01:002011-03-26T08:27:40.301+01:00Yesterday it was reported that European nuclear st...Yesterday it was reported that European nuclear stations are to be subjected to "stress tests". Should we panic, then?Worriednoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8732662769765511163.post-34073742579843713512011-03-26T08:22:52.488+01:002011-03-26T08:22:52.488+01:00I know and value Guy Standing, but you are no Guy,...I know and value Guy Standing, but you are no Guy, Jacob. I find your conceptualisation and arguments totally useless - at best. But the web is a free country, so I will not delete your comment (this time).D. Mario Nutihttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17319653816487296802noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8732662769765511163.post-58796743219440956202011-03-26T05:11:06.267+01:002011-03-26T05:11:06.267+01:00Greetings again. Since you write of the new preca...Greetings again. Since you write of the new precariat (perhaps you've already read Guy Standing's cursory Precariat book that's a poor man's take on Engels' The Conditions of the Working Class in England), I'd like to do a paraphrase perhaps to start a discussion:<br /><br />-----<br />To paraphrase Marx:<br /><br />Considering, that against this combined power of the elite classes the primary producers or precariat cannot unite and act for itself except by constituting itself into a mass party-movement, distinct from, and opposed to, all old parties and movements, that this constitution of the precariat into a mass party-movement is indispensable in order to ensure the emancipation of its labour power,<br /><br />That such labour power can be emancipated only when, at minimum, the precariat is in collective possession of all means of societal production, all commons, etc., that there are only two forms under which all means of societal production, all commons, etc. can belong to them or return to community:<br /><br />1) The individual form which has never existed in a general state and which is increasingly eliminated by industrial progress;<br />2) The collective form the material and intellectual elements of which are constituted by the very development of capitalist society;<br /><br />Considering,<br /><br />That again this collective re-appropriation, or political and economic expropriation of the elite classes, can arise only from the direct action of the primary producers or precariat, organized in a distinct mass party-movement;<br /><br />Such permanent organization must be pursued by all the means the precariat has at its disposal.<br />-----<br /><br />And since you write of "worldwide competition in the global labour market – through de-localisation, globalization of trade and investment, migrations – and the resulting mass unemployment," I wrote this in response to a sociologist's brief response (to my paraphrase) about the need for political labour to go global:<br /><br />-----<br />No doubt about it. Matching the [global] mobility of labour with the establishment of a [globally] entrenched bill of workers’ political and economic rights, and with the realization of a globalized and upward equal standard of living for equal work based on real purchasing power parity, thus allowing real freedom of movement through instant legalization and open borders, and thereby precluding the extreme exploitation of immigrants, is a global task that transcends both petit-bourgeois “freedom of movement” advocacy and populist calls for immigration controls.<br />-----<br /><br />In mainstream bourgeois circles, it could be interpreted as a call for a pro-labour equivalent to the World Trade Organization in terms of enforcement power.Jacob Richterhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13595821621256547971noreply@blogger.com