21-01-2009, 11:48 AM
The idiocy of allowing naked short selling to begin again in the UK simply underlines either the ignorant and dangerous stupidity of Gordo (or his advisers) or that the City fix is in, imo.
When the government stands behind all the banks and major industry as it has clearly signaled (and the Bank of England are already buying UK corporate bonds as part of the government support strategy), this amounts to nothing more than an open invitation to the Hedge Fundsters to ferociously short sell in the satisfying knowledge that the government will be there as the buyer of last resort.
They sell, the price drops, the government buys, the prices rises. The gap between the two extremes is profit, profit, profit. This is "Black Wednesday" all over again when the markets knew the Tory Chancellor was shadowing the EMU. It's a win-win situation for the nasties and this time, they'll be directly draining money from the tax-payer.
I've yet to read what new regs the government has put in place to regulate the market in the light of recent events? Maybe I'm missing something but as far as I can see the only change is that the government now stands ready to support the banks and economic health of big corporations with handouts and that the FSA has said it will get tough with the markets (before it followed what it calls a "soft-touch" approach -- rather like cleaning and powdering a baby's botty I suppose).
There are no new regulations. It's all smoke and mirrors.
When the government stands behind all the banks and major industry as it has clearly signaled (and the Bank of England are already buying UK corporate bonds as part of the government support strategy), this amounts to nothing more than an open invitation to the Hedge Fundsters to ferociously short sell in the satisfying knowledge that the government will be there as the buyer of last resort.
They sell, the price drops, the government buys, the prices rises. The gap between the two extremes is profit, profit, profit. This is "Black Wednesday" all over again when the markets knew the Tory Chancellor was shadowing the EMU. It's a win-win situation for the nasties and this time, they'll be directly draining money from the tax-payer.
I've yet to read what new regs the government has put in place to regulate the market in the light of recent events? Maybe I'm missing something but as far as I can see the only change is that the government now stands ready to support the banks and economic health of big corporations with handouts and that the FSA has said it will get tough with the markets (before it followed what it calls a "soft-touch" approach -- rather like cleaning and powdering a baby's botty I suppose).
There are no new regulations. It's all smoke and mirrors.
The shadow is a moral problem that challenges the whole ego-personality, for no one can become conscious of the shadow without considerable moral effort. To become conscious of it involves recognizing the dark aspects of the personality as present and real. This act is the essential condition for any kind of self-knowledge.
Carl Jung - Aion (1951). CW 9, Part II: P.14