And, yes, I DO take it personally

Friday, January 28, 2011

Sarkozy lashes out at the banksters at WEF in Davos

i love it... i love it a LOT... 's about time one of the leaders of the industrialized nations put the cards on the table... i'm no sarkozy fan but he's got this one right...

The world has paid with tens of millions of unemployed, who were in no way to blame and who paid for everything. It caused a lot of anger. Too much is too much. The world was stupefied to see one of five biggest U.S. banks collapse like a house of cards. We saw that for the last 10 years, major institutions in which we thought we could trust had done things which had nothing to do with simple common sense. That's what happened... There is an ocean between flexibility and the scandal we saw. So if people present me as obsessed with regulation, it's because there is a need for regulation. I don't contest the principle of securitisation, but when one offshore country guaranteed 700 times its GDP, are we in the market economy or in a madhouse? Bonuses don't bother me, provided there are also ... draw-downs when there are losses. When things don't work, you can never find anyone responsible. Those who got bumper bonuses for seven years should have made losses in 2008 when things collapsed.

you tell 'em, nick... i've been waiting a long time to hear this kind of righteous rant from a major world leader...

(thanks to bobswern at daily kos...)

Labels: banksters, Daily Kos, Davos, elites, France, Jamie Dimon, JPMorgan Chase, Nicolas Sarkozy, super-rich, World Economic Forum

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Thursday, February 04, 2010

The Yesmen strike again

adm - archer daniels midland - one of the biggest of the BIG FOOD corporate giants, has repeatedly tried to quash a scathing satirical video put up by the seriously funny guerrilla group, the yesmen, in conjunction with the recent davos meeting of the world economic forum...

ADM Tries to Take Down Funny Video; Big Business Has No Solutions; Now What?
ADM video still available here, here, and (for download and reposting) here; page here
Fake initiatives pages, with links to organizations seeking change on these issues
More information about last week's website and videos
Contact: scurrilous@theyesmen.org, bportello@cinemalibrestudio.com

A legal complaint from agribusiness giant ADM has resulted in the removal from Youtube of a fake video of ADM's CEO making over-honest pronouncements. (The video is still available here, here, and, for download and reposting, here.)
Last week, the filmmaking team behind The End of Poverty? partnered with the Yes Men to create a parallel, imaginary World Economic Forum in which world leaders came up with real solutions to poverty. The leaders seemed, in a < href="http://www.we-forum.org/en/events/AnnualMeeting2010/index.shtml">series of videos, to be supporting a set of initiatives based on 10 Solutions to End Poverty, a petition for which the filmmakers are trying to get ten million signatures by the end of 2010.
Each of those initiatives pages has links to organizations that are fighting hard for change on these issues.
In contrast, the actual World Economic Forum ended Sunday with a profound lack of results, some seemingly satirical but all-too-real headlines (like Goldman Sachs's Lloyd Blankfein's rumoured $100 million bonus), and one fruitless complaint to Youtube.
"If we can bail out bankers to the tune of trillions of dollars, surely we can solve poverty, which will just take a few structural changes, plus a whole lot less money," said Beth Portello, the producer of The End of Poverty?
"All the crises we're facing are rooted in massive inequality and poverty," says Philippe Diaz, the film's director. "If these leaders really wanted to make a difference, they would work towards ending poverty, however uncomfortable that might be for business."
"It's easier to remove funny videos from Youtube," added Portello.