London goes to court to evict St. Paul's protest

Be careful what you wish for. I wouldn't want to bet whether there are more angry liberals wanting to pull Britain to the Left or angry conservatives wanting to pull it to the Right.

My best guess? 50/50. And wouldn't THAT get ugly fast?

Well, after I posted a thought came into my head... would I be so gung-ho about it being "good for democracy" if the protesters were camping to send immigrants back or restore capital punishment, or outlaw Islam? My best guess is that the campers aren't camping out of a general desire to push Britain "to the left"; they have quite narrow specific aims to do with capitalism and the banks, and there are lots of ordinary people who sympathize with them. I don't think there are lots of ordinary people (or not as many) who sympathize with the BNP, EDL, or UKIP. I might be looking through liberal tinted eyeglasses though.

I don't think there are lots of ordinary people (or not as many) who sympathize with the BNP, EDL, or UKIP.

This is a bit off topic, but I read someplace (can't find it now) that because people tend to socialize with people who are similar to them in age, class, and political leanings, we wind up thinking most people are pretty much like us.  Turns out, though, there's a range of beliefs, but we don't notice it because we don't often hang out with people who don't believe what we believe.

To use the BNP/EDL/UKIP example, I, too, used to think that there weren't many ordinary people who sympathized with them.  Then I joined a UK car forum and discovered there were tons of BNP-types around, I just don't run in the same circles as they do, so I never met one in real life.

Back to the topic, I disagree that the protests don't have a left-leaning agenda.  It may not be that they're saying it aloud as a goal, but from what I saw of various signs and displays at the protests, if they all got what they wanted the result would be a leftward movement.  It seems like splitting hairs to differentiate between a left agenda and a left result as though one has nothing to do with the other.

Personally, I'd be happy if 1) some of the banking regulations that were repealed over the last 10-20 years were put back in place to keep retail and investment banking separate, to require banks to have more capital in place to cover them in the event of investments going south, and to ensure that people who apply for loans are actually qualified for them, rather than just handing out loans to people who can't afford them like it's a good idea, and 2) the banks that got money from the government to keep them afloat at the height of the crisis were required to pay it back. 

Banks giving bonuses to their employees wouldn't bother me nearly as much as it does if I didn't feel like they were just giving my taxes to the very people who caused the problem in the first place as a bonus for doing a good job.  First, based on the performance of the industry since 2007 or so, nobody should be getting a bonus, and second, it's wrong to take billions of dollars/pounds of tax money in handouts and then turn around and pay billions of dollars/pounds to bankers in bonuses.

and to ensure that people who apply for loans are actually qualified for them, rather than just handing out loans to people who can't afford them like it's a good idea

But see this is not exactly the problem......yes there was predatory lending....but what has made this crisis - and it has actually not yet begun in earnest - so bad is that these people took these sub-prime loans and packaged them together under fraudulent (and that is the only real word that works) A+ ratings (provided by S&P, etc) and sold them on. Now from what I have read the people buying these things knew they were junk but bought them anyhow in order to pass them on. Financial institutions and fund management groups all around the world joined in on this game of hot potato. Bundles of loans of all make and kind were broken up and re-formed.

The problem in Greece is similar with institutions all around the globe holding bundles of inter-connected instruments that are for all intents and purposes worthless.

yes there was predatory lending....but what has made this crisis - and it has actually not yet begun in earnest - so bad is that these people took these sub-prime loans and packaged them together under fraudulent (and that is the only real word that works) A+ ratings (provided by S&P, etc) and sold them on.

I get that, and I'm not defending the clowns that packaged the bad loans or the ones who graded them A+ without due diligence - they're at fault, too.  That said, if there had been some sort of standards applied to keep people who were major credit risks from getting incredibly risky loans in the first place, that would've helped.

I get that, and I'm not defending the clowns that packaged the bad loans or the ones who graded them A+ without due diligence - they're at fault, too.  That said, if there had been some sort of standards applied to keep people who were major credit risks from getting incredibly risky loans in the first place, that would've helped.

Why did the banks need underwriting standards when they could package these loans up and sell them on to some other sucker? The two things aren't unrelated.

Why did the banks need underwriting standards when they could package these loans up and sell them on to some other sucker? The two things aren't unrelated.

I'm not saying they're not, and I'm totally in favor of prosecuting any person or institution who was involved in fraudulently packaging bad loans and selling them as good investments.

My earlier point was if the banks had underwriting standards and actually applied them, there wouldn't have been as many bad loans as there were, so perhaps the effect of people defaulting wouldn't have been as wide spread as it was.