Scenes from a Global Recession...

[cobben]

Re: SEB executives forego pay rises after media storm

convergence?

The Japanese don't often do the sword bit any more i believe, but they do tend to cry in public while admitting their mistakes.

Whereas the Swedes used to prefer to just keep quiet and not say anything at all, whatever happened, and would never cry in public.

"En svensk tiger" - motto from WWII, meaning either "a Swedish tiger" or "a Swede keeps his mouth shut".

[c1ue]

Re: Scenes from a Global Recession...

They are all Calvinists in Sweden. What are ya gonna do? They don't believe in ducking blame like America's riverboat gambler CEO's (we do the "Michael Jordan" version of accepting responsibility - duck and weave like champions).

I always thought Swedes were Lutheran...

It is the Dutch that are Calvinist.

[cobben]

Re: Scenes from a Global Recession...

Well, Swedes were all Lutheran, it was against the law to be anything else. Anyone who was not, such as jews, had to convert or leave. Then some king decided some jews (i.e., the banksters) were necessary to have an efficient financial sector, and made it legal for jews to live in the big cities as long as they were rich & only worked at finance. Interratial marriages were illegal, etc. All this was several hundred years ago or so.

The state church was separated from the state some years ago, and the Swedish IRS took over the census from the parishes, but the church still gets some automatic taxes from everyone who doesn't leave the church & then opt out of the taxes. Many Swedes who emigrated to the US in the 1800's did so because they belonged to illegal free-churches and were persecuted.

[hoodoo]

Re: Scenes from a Global Recession...

In photos...

http://www.boston.com/bigpicture/200...recession.html

Hoo

[Slimprofits]

Re: Scenes from a Global Recession...

Thanks for posting that hoodoo.

the most striking photos to me are of the J6P Chinese sitting in, the gold party in OC and the various halted construction projects around the world.

[phirang]

Re: Scenes from a Global Recession...

MBS' have huge interest-rate risk premium and credit risk premium.

Thank God for the printing press.

[zadok]

Scenes from the recession

http://www.boston.com/bigpicture/200...recession.html

[D-Mack]

Re: Scenes from the recession

Katie Kupferschmid (left) and Lisa Arata test gold jewelry at a gold party March 12, 2009 in West Orange, New Jersey. Gold parties are a growing trend in the United States where a hostess invites friends and family to bring their unwanted gold to sell for extra income. The price is based on karat content, weight and the market price of gold that day. (Daniel Barry/Getty Images) #

Interesting

[GRG55]

Re: Scenes from a Global Recession...

Three months ago the "Big 5" Canadian banks were offering bonus interest rates on selected GICs [Guaranteed Investment Certificates, which I think are similar to USA CDs?]. This was no doubt driven by the desire to attract good quality deposits to beef up their balance sheets.

My, my. How times have changed...:p

Just spoke to someone knowledgable about this topic and he told me that none of the banks are offering any GIC incentives, not even the normal increments for large deposits. Not even for deposits over $1 million Cdn [which is still a lot of money in my little country ].


He does not work directly for a Big 5 bank, so we had to speculate on the reasons for this rather major shift. We settled on two things:

• less need for immediate capital, since all the banks have floated preferred share issues this year and have adequate capital to cover current reserved losses with a reasonable margin; and
• the banks probably don't want the liability of paying interest on deposits if the money cannot be lent out in sufficient quantities to acceptable credit risks.

Maybe the banks up here have realized they are now "pushing on a string"?

[Chomsky]

Re: Scenes from a Global Recession...

Nurse called out of surgery and laid off


http://www.jsonline.com/news/wisconsin/42952817.html

[flintlock]

Re: Scenes from a Global Recession...

• There are three competing building supply companies near my bunker construction site, including a Home Depot that opened just last October.I've noticed that inventories of common building components are depleted and are not being restocked. Yesterday I ended up driving to all three of them before I was able to secure a sufficient quantity of plywood clips to finish sheeting my roof. Now plywood clips are not an exotic bit of hardware, nor would one expect inventories to be depleted because customers rushed the stores last month and cleaned them out to give as Christmas presents to loved ones. This is not the first time I have had difficulty finding common materials for the project.

As someone who shops at Home Depot or Lowes probably 150 days a year in the course of his business, this is nothing unusual. I wouldn't read too much into that. I rarely leave their stores with everything I need. I find them out of fairly routine items on a regular basis and that has been going on for at least the last 10 years. These places are run by bean counters. They don't get the concept that most people had rather pay another 3 cents a piece for clips than have to drive across town or come back.