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What the Vampire Squid Really Eats has been added as a related post - related requested by Mordhaus on that post.

Vampire squid turns itself "inside out" has been added as a related post - related requested by Mordhaus.

It's a discussion we've been having in this country for as long as I can remember and was one of the prime arguments made for a vast set of reforms a decade ago. And I still don't buy it.

At the very basic level, the argument is that a declining percentage of working age people have to pay for an increasing number of pensions. But that's only half the story. The working age population has to generate enough output to sustain not just themselves and retirees, but also children, the unemployed, the sick, anyone not working. A shrinking population means less children, and most importantly less unemployed. Increases in productivity are more than enough to compensate for that, no need to increase birth rates or immigration.

Germany is regularly paraded around as a country in dire need of immigration, given our low birth rate. Even if we ignore for a minute that any 50 year population forecast of the past has been invalidated after maybe 5 years, the "worst" they could conjure up was a decline in working age population of 34% by the year 2060. So what? That's 0.8% a year. And since it's based on a population decline of 20% over the same time, it's an annual drop of 0.2%. That's their worst case scenario, and it's statistical noise.

We've had a massive increase in average age over the last century as well as two world wars and our system managed just fine. And an annual drop of 0.2% is supposed to bring it to its knees? Pah.

Now, I'm all in favour of immigration, primarily to spice things up and prevent our society from becoming too homogeneous. But our pension system needs neither mass immigration nor an increased birth rate. What it needs is for politicians to stop funneling funds from our "PAYGO" system towards their buddies in the private sector. Current income = current payments, public system. Everything else is too volatile and susceptible to the Vampire Squids on Wall Street.

The monthly updates on YT, the ones you introduced me to: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vMXfBm0IPd0

I completely forgot about the podcast, so cheers for the reminder. Is there any "proper" download link for the podcasts? I've been picking the dropbox url from TruthDig's source code by hand, there's got to be an easier way...

As for Taibbi:
The Vampire Squid Strikes Again: The Mega Banks' Most Devious Scam Yet

It's about how the too-big-to-fail/jail banks became a cartell in the physical commodities market. The story itself was reported on before, primarily the aluminium shenanigans of Goldman Sachs.

Halfway in, Prof. Wolff's latest monthly update is already fantastic. Nothing new, really. But his presentation of the (post-)FDR period is rather captivating. For an economist, the man really knows how to tell a story.

Edit: also, Matt Taibbi over at Rolling Stone finally published the sequel to his epic "Vampire Squid" story about the massive wrongdoings of the banking sector, and Goldman Sachs in particular. I haven't read it yet, but the last one was one of the most outrageous things I have read in the last 30 years. Truly epic shit.

“The first thing you need to know about Goldman Sachs is that it's everywhere. The world's most powerful investment bank is a great vampire squid wrapped around the face of humanity, relentlessly jamming its blood funnel into anything that smells like money”
-- Matt Taibbi

The same thing could be said about J.P. Morgan.

>> ^NetRunner:

The modern news media is just a vampire squid wrapped around the face of humanity.
No wait, that's Goldman Sachs.
The modern news media is the vampire squid's public relations representative.
Oh, you don't like the vampire squid? Well, then you must be a bad mother, and an unfaithful wife...


Speaking of Goldman Sachs, I wonder what they're up to right now...

>> ^NetRunner:

The modern news media is just a vampire squid wrapped around the face of humanity.
No wait, that's Goldman Sachs.
The modern news media is the vampire squid's public relations representative.
Oh, you don't like the vampire squid? Well, then you must be a bad mother, and an unfaithful wife...


Actually, I feel you are being disrespectful to the vampire squid. It is actually a very cool animal, unlike these douches...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vampire_squid

The modern news media is just a vampire squid wrapped around the face of humanity.

No wait, that's Goldman Sachs.

The modern news media is the vampire squid's public relations representative.

Oh, you don't like the vampire squid? Well, then you must be a bad mother, and an unfaithful wife...

Tags for this video have been changed from 'squid, barrowman, dazzle me, ta da' to 'vampire squid, john barrowman, dazzle me, ta da' - edited by xxovercastxx

>> ^bcglorf:
It's existed unchanged for millions of years and is threatened by current warming????
One of those kind of has to be false. If it's survived unchanged for millions of years it's been through both much warmer and much colder temperatures, meaning current warming is nothing this creature hasn't already survived many times over before.


Selective hearing?

"They are threatened by ocean warming, decreasing oxygen, pollution, over-fishing, industrialization, and dozens of other changes taking place in the deep."

Perhaps he's referring to a combination of the above? Personally, I don't know enough about this matter to defend or refute any of the points.

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