August 1998: Russia’s economy is out of control tonight and it’s causing an international financial crisis. Huge queues in Moscow. There’s a run on the banks. The Rouble’s lost nearly half its value. And prices are soaring. ibid. BBC News
Overnight, the Americans destroyed the civil structure of Iraqi society. But instead of trying to create new institutions ... the country would then be thrown open to international corporations who in return for investing, would take 100% of their profits out of the country untaxed. Only one of Saddam Hussein’s laws remained: the one that restricted trade unions. Out of this was supposed to come spontaneous order. What resulted was chaos. ibid.
What also resulted was corruption on a huge scale: more than $350 billion has been sent to Iraq for reconstruction. ibid.
The Americans began to turn to violence and torture to enforce their kind of freedom. ibid.
Positive liberty is driven by a vision that freedom is for something. The freedom to do or become something new. Out of which a better world would come. Negative liberty has no such vision. It isn’t for anything. At its heart it has no purpose other than to keep us free from unnecessary constraint or harm. And in using force to create a world based on negative liberty, the democratic revolutionaries have actually led millions of people abroad into a world without purpose or meaning. This idea of freedom is still portrayed by many politicians and influential commentators as a universal absolute. They assume it is only a matter of time before it spreads throughout the world. But this may not be true. ibid.
The idea of freedom that we live with today is a narrow and limiting one; it was born out of a specific and dangerous time: the Cold War. It may have had meaning and purpose then as an alternative to communist tyranny but now has become a dangerous trap. Our government relies on a simplistic economic model of human beings that allows inequality to grow and offers nothing positive in the face of reactionary forces they have helped awake around the world. ibid.
Isaiah Berlin was wrong: not all attempts to change the world for the better lead to tyranny. ibid.
J P Morgan: they pleaded guilty to a criminal charge of manipulating the precious metals market for eight years. Gaming Wall Street II, Skyy Documentaries 2022
The free market isn’t free at all. If stockbrokers can completely shut out normal people while allowing the wealthy to keep tradition, that should give you all the evidence you need. The Free Market Isn’t Free, Youtube 13.05, Second Thought 2021
This Tory government are deluded by the bizarre notion that the free market is intrinsically good, and the public sector is intrinsically bad. So the try to sell everything off to the private sector, and the thing they cannot sell, they try to run according to market rules. But schools are not businesses, and neither are hospitals. Head teachers are not entrepreneurs, and doctors are not accountants. Nor should they be forced to act like them. They should be allowed to get on with the job they are trained to do: to teach children and heal the sick. John Smith
Any kind of man-made of other disaster that affects planet Earth adversely may be viewed the opposite way for those who are trading the markets. Planet Finance I: Nature of the Beast, VPRO 2023
There is a world made up of numbers. A world where you have to be the smartest or the fastest. A world connected by radio waves and fibre optic cables. A world where you can make money if you think you know what the future holds. A world of fear and desire. Where you can win. Or lose. I call this world Planet Finance. ibid.
How can the interests of Planet Earth and Planet Finance be so different? ibid.
‘It’s just a construct so that people can make money.’ ibid. floor trader
So it was a market place where buyers and sellers would meet. In the 1970s their bids were still chalked on to the so-called Book. ibid.
Around the turn of the century exchanges across the globe become electronic. ibid.
So it’s about playing with risk. ibid.
Oil is always in demand. And the price is always changing. But at the start of the pandemic there aren’t any takers. The world’s oil supply is floating around at sea. The crews are stuck on their ships for months. Planet Finance II: Free Oil
It is Planet Finance that determines the price of many raw materials. It does so on the so-called Futures Market. ibid.
Lower point: minus $40.32 20th April 2020. ibid.
The market feels like a vast ocean. What an adventure it can be to set out on it. For fortune-seekers navigating this market is not without danger. Planet Finance III: Fortune Seekers
Mrs Watanabe is a household name on Planet Finance. Japan now has one and a half million of them. And they all want to earn from their savings. Mrs Watanabe is a collective name for Japanese retail traders. ibid.
Since the pandemic tens of millions of new traders have jumped into the market worldwide. ibid.
‘To me the market is a thing of great uncertainty. Although there is uncertainty, in the end it’s about human emotions.’ ibid. Forex guru
Wandering around Planet Finance, I arrive at the most renowned of all financial markets, the Stock Market, in a place where you wouldn’t immediately expect it – China. Planet Finance IV: The Biggest IPO Ever
Who is going to set the rules of the game? China or Planet Finance? ibid.
And so on the day of the IPO [New York], the Alibaba share price immediately goes up. ibid.
Ant Group: If something seems too good to be true, it usually is too good to be true. ibid.
I wonder why Beijing put so much pressure on its own tech companies. ibid.
In the old days, say pre-1990s, capital was king or queen. You called the shots. Now capital is a burden. Planet Finance V: Catastrophe For Sale
On Planet Finance there is a market for nearly everything. Even for a future disaster. A disaster that hasn’t happened yet. A disaster that might never happen. There are people who spend all their time calculating the minimum chance of such a disaster happening. And above all, the extent of the damage. ibid.
Cat bonds that should cover the damage of future disasters. ibid.
What if everyone jumps into the market? Planet Finance VI: Bubbles & Crashes, VPRO 2023
On Planet Finance so-called short sellers are often compared to these carrion birds [vultures] – they live off other people’s mistakes. They win when others lose. ibid.
Germans buy Wirecard shares en masse. For our short sellers that hype is the first red flag … Our short sellers pass on their research to the Financial Times. ibid.
The extent of the anti-Wall Street sentiment among this new generation of traders. And how this generation wants to try to beat Planet Finance with its own mechanisms. ibid.
Everyone, we’re going to the night market. What We Do in the Shadows s4e4: The Night Market, Nadja, BBC 2023