Croatian Bank Owned By Italians Decides To Give Italians Cheaper Loans Than To Croats

[Az]

You can't relate with us. We've been selling everything that was worth something in this country for small money to pay pensions and stuff, and now we not only get sold those services back at market prices, but we also get treated like second class people IN OUR OWN COUNTRY!

Too much is too much.

Everything you've got, you're the ones to blame for it. Always remember this.

[Ecthy]

Spiff, you're wrong. They're a private company and it should stay the way it is.

That would be truly liberal

[Spiffor]

Originally posted by Ecthy
That would be truly liberal

Nah, that's anarchy.

Liberal capitalism rests on a bunch of regulation. Even Adam Smith understood the need that it had to be protected from evildoers (which is why all liberals but the nutcases agree with the need of a police and military). Currently, there is a bunch of European regulation about competition, to avoid that an economic actor (be it a country or a company) takes an "unfair" advantage, i.e. plays by other rules than the rules of the market.

The rule of the market is not some kind of natural order. It is something that can work without constant steering from the state, but it needs constant protection against the non-market forces that always threaten it.

[Ecthy]

How is it evildoing if you make a free decision on the conditions of business for your own company?

[VetLegion]

Originally posted by Az
Everything you've got, you're the ones to blame for it. Always remember this.

You really are oversimplifying. Were, like, black people to blame themselves for racism?

We have a democracy here but it is only 15 years old and not as strong as I would like it to be. Judicial system is crap. These things take time to mature. This doesn't mean that every ******* should come in and take advantage of that and then expect me to say "well, yeah, it's our own fault".

[VetLegion]

Originally posted by Ecthy
How is it evildoing if you make a free decision on the conditions of business for your own company?

Racism is unconstitutional in most countries. Try to pull this stunt in a normal country and all hell would break loose. Try hiring only whites in your businesses, or giving discounts to Germans by T-Com, or cheaper Renaults in Denmark if you are French... private company or not, you simply aren't allowed to do it.

[VetLegion]

Originally posted by Spiffor
As such, anti-corruption laws, antitrust laws, or cuncumber-standardisation laws all come from the same idea: that the market shouldn't be polluted by non-market mechanisms, which are deemed to be dysfunctional.

They also come from a statist philosophy that a common person is too dumb to fend for themselves. I don't think that EU is malicious in it, they are well meaning, but they want to micromanage too much. Like with roaming http://europa.eu.int/information_soc.../index_en.htm.

I mean the EU is concerned about phone prices

On the other hand, I fully support meddling in the market when it comes to health&safety, discrimination and disrispect of law and such

[Az]

You really are oversimplifying. Were, like, black people to blame themselves for racism?

Yes. Also we can blame ourselves about the holocaust. We could've done much much more. But again, always, constructive criticism - Forget blame, what can you do about the situation now, is what you need to ask yourselves.

[VetLegion]

Hah, this affair starts on friday, ends on monday with Bank withdrawing from their deal with the Italian Union

It seems to have gotten many people very worked up, closing accounts, boycotting the bank, even going to court for discrimination. This came out as a huge blunder on the part of the bank. It's a PR disaster now. Got a lot of bad press.

As for our politicians, once again they show how spineless they are, not even daring to criticise the move, avoiding to comment and so on

[Sava]

are Croats too poor to own their own banks?

[VetLegion]

Nah, too corrupt. We had them in our ownership and credits were issued to whomever had the connections, so we had to bail out the banking system three times in a decade. Enough is enough, and we sold them

[Sava]

and used the money to set up concentration/death camps I bet

[VetLegion]

To pay pensions and paychecks of state employees. Just like... Argentina did

[Sava]

death camp employees get pensions?

how progressive

[VetLegion]

Hmmm, you're right, the place sucks. Can you fix me a green card?