Banking seems a lot like a gambling except that it's heads you win and tails they lose.
Lend big into a property bubble and you'll be rewarded with colossal bonuses.
The bubble bursts, loans go bad and the share price collapses.
However the main banks banks are considered too big to fail and the taxpayer has to bail them out.
Bonuses (smaller ones) for exceptional performance continue to be the norm, rolling heads the exception.
Why don't the shareholders get rid of their employees, the bankers who have overseen the collapse of their asset?
The shareholders are Pension funds who, while they ostensibly have the little peoples'interests to preserve, are actually run by people from the same gene pool as the bankers themselves.
These people sit on one anothers remuneration committees.
Maybe you are correct. But the trend is in the wrong direction.
When look at world population growth there is imo potentially a population tsunami approaching.
Maybe my pessimism is unfounded, most people here seem to think it will all turn out rosy
"Stating the facts makes it all seem far less dramatic, doesn't it?"
I don't believe that I have stated any fictions if that's what your last remark implies.
I had a look at the wiki page you linked to.
Most of those 27 countries ahead of the Netherlands are negligible in terms of size, vatican City, Guernsey, Monaco, St Martin?
There are some sizeable countries but I don't believe being able to report a population density lower than, say, Bangladesh, is a cause for celebration.
As for living in a country with a population density of over 7000 per sq km, it is not something to be aspired to.
The netherlands has increased its area by an extraordinary 25% by reclaiming land from the sea.
Despite this the netherlands is one of the most densely populated countries on earth.
It has further increased its population by allowing immigration on a large scale, which whatever else its consequences is not going to reduce population density.
Now if you look at a nightime satellite view of Europe, the Netherlands is an uninterrupted patch of light.
I'd rather live in a country where I have the possibility of escaping from my fellow man every once in a while.
That's not possible in Holland so I'd rather not live there.
I can, however, see why cycling is popular/necessary there
I wonder what, if Heroin was as freely available as alcohol or tobacco, its addiction rate would be like. It's my suspicion that drug addicts tend to come from the addictive personality subsection of the population
