PAY IT BACK!

Written By: - Date published: 5:02 pm, October 28th, 2011 - 39 comments
Categories: International - Tags:

I’ve had a great idea on how to save the world. In the wake of the Global Financial Crisis governments around the world bailed out banks and credit companies to the tune of  around eight trillion dollars .  I’ve said this before but I’ll repeat because it’s such an eye wateringly large sum – the equivilant of $2000 for every person on the planet. On the planet!

So the banks get bailed out and recover and are now apparently trading in the black again. I know the BNZ is feeling pretty perky because it just offered me – the person who really shouldn’t be entrusted with a credit card because I am financially illiterate and a spendthrift- to increase my credit limit to $12,000 with a platinum card….because……….. I’m worth it.

Governments, on the other hand, are now broke and introducing  austerity measures from which their societies will take many decades to recover. Camerons’s government in Britain is sacking 500,000 workers!

So here’s my thing: the banks and credit agencies should simply PAY IT BACK!

I’ve been thinking that the Occupy Movement has rather lacked a cohesive message. Well here it is: PAY IT BACK!

I’m not  exactly sure how the mechanics of all would go but I am confident we could work it out; all we need is some left wing politicians with the will to make it happen, some good policy people and maybe an accountant with a calculator.

39 comments on “PAY IT BACK! ”

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  1. The Baron 1
    28 October 2011 at 5:06 pm

    And here I was thinking this would be about Unite’s tax fraud…

  2. Chris 2
    28 October 2011 at 5:14 pm

    I agree with this. I’ve always wondered why these bank that keep trading get basically free money, why was it not the government loaning them money to stay running. Seems stupid to me.

  3. Draco T Bastard 3
    28 October 2011 at 5:16 pm

    I’m not exactly sure how the mechanics of all would go…

    Oh, that’s easy – just increase taxes on banks to 90% for 20 years or more.

  4. higherstandard 4
    28 October 2011 at 5:35 pm

    Pay it back – it never existed in the first place.

    Whole lots of zeros and ones on a computer, bring back the gold standard !- Yikes I have morphed into Eve.

    • travellerev 4.1
      29 October 2011 at 8:47 am

      Don’t worry You haven’t. I’m not against fiat currency as such. I’m against fiat currency printed into existence by a privately owned banking cartel which then charges us usurious interest on loans of that currency.The gold standard is just another form of concentrated wealth by a few and not a democratic form of trade enabling for all of the population.

      I would dissolve the Reserve bank get rid of the reserve act and take back the currency printing rights and start providing social credit so people could start small local businesses again.

      Having said that you obviously have been educating yourself lately and perhaps even with some of my links. Kudos for that!

      Now all you need to understand is that three buildings do not collapse into a pyrotechnic flow of dust at freefall speed as the result of two planes flying into them. Now that would be scary to behold! ROFL!

      • aerobubble 4.1.1
        29 October 2011 at 11:44 am

        The systemic poor governance in Greece still hasn’t ignited a
        debate about leaving the Euro to a fiat currnecy.

        Why? simple the benefit out weigh the loss of wiggle room.

        There’s always a downside.

        NZ is set on being left behind wallowing in debt under the
        present status quo, but with tax reform we will be more
        in line with Australian tax practice, and thats got to be good
        for investors here. when its much less risky to leave
        money in an Ozzie bank and play the currency from
        both sides, and harm NZ internal investment.
        Our system is riigged to give the benefits of
        international trade away and lock in the downside.

        When kiwis flock to Oz!!! even despite the loss of
        a safety net.

  5. queenstfarmer 5
    28 October 2011 at 5:46 pm

    Jenny, I presume you do not realise that almost all of the bank bailout money has already been paid back.

    • KJT 5.1
      28 October 2011 at 6:21 pm

      Yes, but not the losses they caused to the rest of us.

      Why should we pay others gambling debts.

      • Chris 5.1.1
        28 October 2011 at 6:23 pm

        I’m not trying to troll but what losses?

        • KJT 5.1.1.1
          28 October 2011 at 9:01 pm

          Did you sleep through the GFC??

          Where do I start.

          100’s of millions of job losses, foreclosures, poverty, starvation, collapse of whole economies.

          • Colonial Viper 5.1.1.1.1
            28 October 2011 at 9:18 pm

            The entire banking system is over leveraged with hundreds of trillions of high risk derivatives.

            Its basically be turned into one big bonus generating machine for bankers and their shareholders.

            Any small real world losses will greatly magnify their paper losses leading to the situation we have now: insolvent zombie banks pretending that they are not already bankrupt.

            When people talk about Ireland or Greece or Italy being bailed out, remember that the bail out money is going straight to repaying banks their loan money. And the new bail out debt is going on the tax payers of those countries.

            They are bankers bailouts.

    • Chris 5.2
      28 October 2011 at 6:22 pm

      I didn’t realise that. From my comment above it makes a lot more sense now.

    • r0b 5.3
      28 October 2011 at 6:47 pm

      TARP was only part of the picture in America (and only part of a long history of banking bailouts).  

      And TARP was only a small part of the picture world wide.

      • Colonial Viper 5.3.1
        28 October 2011 at 9:23 pm

        TARP was tiny. Sen Bernie Sanders uncovered a little bit more of the truth – US$16T in secret near zero percent loans given by the Federal Reserve to their banking mates, and which their banking mates used to make trillions more on stock markets, trading high risk derivatives, and loaning out to consumers and sovereign countries at high risk interest rates.

        Ever wonder why banks recovered so quickly and started making record profits again? Easy to do with free 0% money delivered to you.

        http://sanders.senate.gov/newsroom/news/?id=9e2a4ea8-6e73-4be2-a753-62060dcbb3c3

    • Graham 5.4
      28 October 2011 at 7:02 pm

      That was fast then So where did that money come from? If they have paid it back why did they need to be bailed out in the first place?

      • Colonial Viper 5.4.1
        28 October 2011 at 9:25 pm

        Because the banks are insolvent (they would all be bankrupt if they were forced to mark their balance sheet “assets” to market prices) and they do not trust each others’ credit worthiness.

  6. Nick K 6
    28 October 2011 at 8:57 pm

    Are you serious? They can’t pay it back, that’s why it’s written off.

  7. Colonial Viper 7
    28 October 2011 at 9:27 pm

    Jenny Michie.

    Please watch the Labour TV launch programme on youtube (or Red Alert) from 19m48s in.

  8. Afewknowthetruth 8
    28 October 2011 at 9:33 pm

    Jenny.

    You are confused.

    ‘In the wake of the Global Financial Crisis’

    Wake means after something has passed. The so-called GFC has only just begun. And it will not end until industrial society has collapsed, which will probably be around 2020, though it could easily be before then.

    By the way, the 8 trillion you mentioned is a mere trifle. The US has unsecured liabilities of over 200 trillion dollars and the global unsecured liabilities are at least a quadrillion dollars.

    All of this debt is temporarily supported by energy resources which are in decline and a global envieonment which is collapsing..

    Nothing to see there. Move along.

    • Gregor W 8.1
      28 October 2011 at 10:37 pm

      A quadrillian…..really…

      So the US owes about 5 times more money than exists in the entire global financial system (about $212Tn). Fascinating.

      Thank God you know the truth.

      • Colonial Viper 8.1.1
        28 October 2011 at 11:15 pm

        Yep, AFKTT has got it right and you have it wrong, Gregor W.

        You’ve made an elementary mistake in assumptions. That liabilities in our financialised system are somehow naturally limited or hard constrained by the quantity of money in existence.

        It is not.

        • muzza911 8.1.1.1
          29 October 2011 at 12:05 am

          Gregor W – You do not know what derivatives are do you? Or were you being facetious ?

          • Gregor W 8.1.1.1.1
            29 October 2011 at 2:17 pm

            Viper + muzza,

            Published courtesy of McKinsey.

            “The total value of the world’s financial stock, comprising equity market capitalization and outstanding bonds and loans, has increased from $175 trillion in 2008 to $212 trillion at the end of 2010, surpassing the previous 2007 peak.”

            I should have been clearer but this indicates debt and derivatives are included.

            They could be vastly wrong I guess.

  9. Jenny 9
    28 October 2011 at 11:18 pm

    To my namesake Jenny. “Pay it back is a good call” The directors of AMI should pay back the $1 billion they received from tax payers or face prison terms for taking insurers money on false pretenses.

    But as OWS protesters around the world start putting concrete demands on the financial elites, destroying our world, will Auckland become Oakland?

    On the orders of city officials and at the behest of Oakland’s bankers and financiers, Oakland police violently clear the Occupation of Frank Ogawa Park in the heart of the financial and banking district of the city.

    The action was marked by the police decision to use tear gas, and “flash bang” stun grenades in defence of the Banksters to this grass roots challenge.

    Scott Olson a prominent Occupy protester and Iraq war veteran turned anti-war activist, was critically wounded by a tear gas canister shot into the protesters at head height. In a further outrage, video footage clearly shows a police officer throwing a stun grenade into the crowd tending to the badly wounded Olson.

    This photo shows the wrecked encampment emptied by the police assault. A trampled “Heal America – Tax Wall Street” sign lies on the grass in the foreground.

    To make such a demand anywhere in the world is to risk the fury of the financial elite.

    This is probably why mainstream parliamentary parties shy away from taking up the call to tax the financiers and bankers, So it has been left up to the international Occupy movement.

    Ad busters the initiators of the Occupy Wall Street movement have called for an International Day of Action for a Robin Hood Tax for Saturday October 29.

    Read about it here

    This international call has been answered in this country, in Auckland, here and in Wellington and Christchurch here

    • Tom Gould 9.1
      29 October 2011 at 11:55 am

      Much easier to just leave them there, until only the real looney left remain, then the arguement is won. Besides, the masters of the universe knew prefectly well what they were doing since 1980, and are still doing it. These boys want it all, not a paltry $212T. Don’t you get it? This is not a conspiracy, it is how the world now operates. There’s a way to go, a few lose ends to tie off, but nowhere is more than a Learjet ride away, and everyone has their price. Enjoy the ride.

  10. Jenny 10
    28 October 2011 at 11:50 pm

    More on the “Global March for a Financial Transactions Tax” from Scoop.co.nz

    “World’s biggest bank job begins on Queen Street”

  11. Cloaca 11
    29 October 2011 at 1:49 pm

    Jenny – AMI – the government have only guaranteed to support them should they fail. It is possible that they will not fail to pay all their losses, but it will probably take two more years to find out. Only then, if not able to pay they will call up the guarantee. They are paying a large premium to the government for this guarantee.

    • RedLogix 12.1
      29 October 2011 at 9:09 pm

      Taibbi is pretty much required reading.. but this one just leaves you with your head shaking. Just how the hell did it get that bad?

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