Guaranteed to warm the heart and cause ecstasy in liberals..

[William Thornton]

[Sandy]

[William Thornton]

There is a considerable bit of euphemistic wording. No, it wouldn't be stated that they are looking to confiscate assets of the wealthy but rather a forced contribution to a lending pool to create small business, infrastructure, etc. Those who make a living managing assets in the EU aren't quite so casual about it as you and, since they have skin in the game, are likely to look at this with more scrutiny and wariness.

[Tim Bonney]

Sorry William, this isn't really news. As Sandy said, your bank already does this with your money. There are laws as to what percentage of what is on deposit has to be available at any one time for their total bank assets. But banks already invest the deposited assets.

And, BTW, there isn't anything "liberal" about doing it. Those filthy rich Republican bankers are doing this kind of investing as much as anyone.

[William Thornton]

You're not following this. I'm familiar with fractional reserves.

[Tim Bonney]

[William Thornton]

[Tim Bonney]

No, mobilize means to invest the plans. It is only confiscation if someone wants their money and the bank doesn't cough it up. I don't see how this is different than what every lending institution in the US already does. Aren't you pro-business William?

[William Thornton]

[KeithE]

[Sandy]

This particular article, along with a short news story on CNN, both make it clear. This is a bank initiative, pushing for the EU to go back to the investment rules that were in place prior to the current economic crisis. It is as simple as that. Banks use capital that is on deposit to make investments. During the recent economic crisis, because the EU, like the US government, provides guarantees on a portion of the assets on deposit, raised the dollar amount that the banks had to hold. That limits the profits banks can make on investments. With interest rates depressed, it takes more investment just to pay the interest rates on the deposit. So the banks are pushing the EU to go back to the old, pre-crisis limits. There's a little bit of a difference in the way the EU handles this sort of thing. The US controls the liability with insurance and interest rates. The EU apparently has a formula based on both the actual amount of cash on deposit, and the percentage of the profit from investment that the bank keeps.

Basically, that's the reasoning given for wealthy investors in the US to avoid large savings deposits. If you deposit millions in savings, you earn perhaps up to 5% per year in interest, while your bank can earn an additional 20%, minus the 5% they pay you, depending on what they invest in, and the return.

There's nothing liberal about laws that allow banks to profit off of other people's money.

[William Thornton]

[William Thornton]

I figured Keith was taking time to examine this and I appreciate that. Unfortunately, his analysis always leads to the same conclusion regardless of the input. There is a reason banks borrow from the fed, the money is virtually free. It's Obama's policy. There's a reason businesses sit on cash reserves or do stock buy backs, they are uncertain about the future in part due to obamacare and other business-unfriendly gummit policies.

No need to tell me what I don't realize, since you lack the ability to gauge that and your memory is too short to recall that both fiscal conservatives here have repeatedly deplored the Reagan and Bush deficit expansions, and especially the latter's entitlement expansion.

Lecherous bureaucrats, wonks, and politicians will always drool over huge pots of untapped money. They are sensible enough to wipe their mouths in public though.

This EU business is just a heads up. You can count on those who have accumulated wealth to try and protect it from confiscation.

[William Thornton]

[Dave Roberts]

William, I don't think any of us understand banking as it is done today. They market things like "mortgage backed derivatives," "interbank loan funds," and "securities funds heavily invested in their own corporations." If you can explain how that works with my measly investments in banks, please do. Federal regulators have never been able to explain them.

[ET]

[KeithE]

[Tim Bonney]

William, I don't see going on what you think is going on. Be that as it may, Obama doesn't set the policy for the Fed interest rates. I know that much. The Fed sets their own rates and right now the rate for banks to borrow I believe is 0% which was done as an economic incentive. This incentive is to remain in effect until the unemployment rate drops.

I know your title is tongue in cheek. But I do sometimes wonder if you really know who and what constitutes political "moderates", "liberals", "socialists" etc. You seem to conflate all of them.

Right now Barack Obama's biggest failing, IMHO, is that he isn't a liberal. Like many of the recently elected Democratic leaders he is a middle of the roader who tacks to the right to get elected. I see this particularly true in his foreign policy and his economic policies. He just ain't a liberal, much less a EU style socialist.

Political positions are a spectrum and you talk as if there are only two positions, "liberal" and "conservative."

[William Thornton]

I don't think many people would confuse BO with anything conservative, certainly not fiscally conservative.

[KeithE]

[William Thornton]

[Mrs Haruo]

With all due respect William, I think it is high time you put your sword and hatchet down and go back to school to read up on Economics, History, Civics 101 and Spelling. It's not "Gummit", it's spelled G O V E R N M E N T, and WE are IT. Of the people, for the people and by the people. One Nation, Under God (whether one believes in a higher being or not) Indivisible, with Liberty and Justice for ALL. At least that's how it is supposed to be. To those of us who fought for it, Freedom has a flavor the protected will never know.

Signed, Mrs. Haruo

a Damned Yankee and Proud to be a Veteran, the sister of a Veteran, the daughter of member of the Eagle's Claw (Daddy's outfit in the Army) and the mother of a three time awardee of the Navy Achievement Medal. And if you want to fight about it I will gladly whomp you one with an old Girl Scout handbook. Or cook you some grits.

[Sandy]

[KeithE]

[Mrs Haruo]

After I was in a wreck on Christmas Day 2002 with a carload of 3 noisy motherless boys bouncing in the back seat who had barely ever been out of Seattle and their disabled father who enjoyed the first "Real Christmas" out at my little cabin in the woods since he was airlifted out of Alaska to a hospital in the lower 48 many years before, I thought my hopes of a home of my own with my name on the deed to the land was over. I ended up in a neck brace, with no more income as a carpenter's apprentice. Little hope of ever working again for $16.50 an hour- nearly twice what I had made at any job in my life. I was unable to get back to my rented trailer for a couple weeks. I was homeless in Seattle, owing my brother money for damages to the car I had borrowed from him as mine had a blown gasket and was not worth towing from a ferryboat ride across Puget Sound and another hour by car..yes, a useless parasite who had to go to food banks and get food stamps to survive on because I was barely able to care for my own needs for awhile, let along clean up after anybody else for a living. Haruo and I had been corresponding, and he didn't even own a car, let alone much of anything in the way of clothing that wasn't someone else's discards. We eventually married, but had little hope of ever becoming homeowners. Barack Obama changed that. His incentive for first time homebuyers that came up after my mother died helped us get over the hump. Through some miracle and a helpful loan officer at our credit union, we managed to qualify for a VA loan, and now we are helping the economy improve in our own little way, and have small hope of a retirement with a little garden of our own instead life in a low income studio apartment for the indigent elderly. I am so glad that someone of the RIGHT color who understands what it is like to have to fight an uphill battle to have a decent family life finally made it into the White House. I am sick and tired of ignorant, racist so called "fine Christian men" blaming all the evils of the world on one very brave couple, oh never mind. I have had a long day and I am going to bed