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A comment on Devaluation is austerity done right. Parent comment

Re:Devaluation is austerity done right by r00fus on Thursday June 14, 2012 @04:18PM (#4113322)
The major problem is the speculators risk OUR MONEY for THEIR PROFITS. If they win, they take their captured marbles home, if they lose, well, they were playing with other people's marbles.

This privatization of profits and socialization of risk is what's at stake. If actual accountability (even if it's not entirely symmetrical) existed, I doubt anyone would care.

Right now, it's heads==they win, tails==we lose. That's a fools game, and we're the fools.

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Re:Devaluation is austerity done right by crusso on Thursday June 14, 2012 @05:12PM (#4113542)
> The major problem is the speculators risk OUR MONEY for THEIR PROFITS.

I spent some time doing futures trading a couple of years ago, so I was an evil "speculator". I could have sworn that the money that I lost when I placed a series of bad trades was my own. I really have to learn how to hedge my futures trades with options before I get back into it. :)

> This privatization of profits and socialization of risk is what's at stake.

I agree to the extent that the whole notion of "too big to fail" and government bailouts is socializing the losses. I would really prefer if we would let the free market work and allow the financial institutions that are that bad to just go out of business.

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