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I don't disagree. After all, without such deterrent, the very next day all the banks in the country would be held at gunpoint. There are many, many people who
by usr001 4y ago
I don't disagree. After all, without such deterrent, the very next day all the banks in the country would be held at gunpoint.
There are many, many people who feel just like he does and are already on the edge, after having been shit on by banks and bank employees for 2 years now. Bank employees humiliate people, as it became a kind of Stanford Experiment. There were even demonstrations outside in his support, during the hostage situation, the moment it hit the news!
And this is why this story is making the rounds.
Even from a legal perspective, the banks don't have the right to do what they're doing. But the government is enabling them to do so, while the parliament is "trying" to work on new laws to regulate this period of "capital control". But no one will come after the banks. The government(s) caused this situation in the first place by borrowing the money from the banks, so it's not like there is anyone on the side of the regular Joe in all of this.
People are on edge, and desperate. Poverty and humiliation, after long hard working lives, to see all of their life savings disappear.
This the kind of environment in which people stop believing that the rule of law is just or should continue.
- MonkeyMalarky 4y agoDo the police and bank employees not also suffer under this system?
- usr001 4y agoEveryone suffers. Bank employees are among the few who are maybe grateful they still have a job; their salaries are also reduced. They fear for their lives many days, because they get so much anger directed at them. Some branches close for a week in some areas because they're afraid of the people. But to do their jobs, many eventually become accustomed to treating the people as the "other"; perhaps similarly to how doctors/surgeons sometimes end up treating people like subjects. The police went through periods of low wages as well. But the government prioritizes supporting them financially, because otherwise they'd have to make their money to support their families with other means! At the end of the day though, every person's suffering is being delivered to them by another person.
- aaaaaaaaata 4y agoPolice are currently being paid like $70 a week.
- gruez 4y ago>There are many, many people who feel just like he does and are already on the edge, after having been shit on by banks and bank employees for 2 years now. Bank employees humiliate people, as it became a kind of Stanford Experiment. Are bank employees actually mistreating people, or are they simply refusing to help?
- usr001 4y agoA mix of both. Sometimes they tell people "we don't have cash anymore", they close the doors and don't let anyone in. Or just close the bank altogether for a long time (sometimes for fear of their lives). Other times they give the account holder only one option to take money (say to send to their child's to pay for college abroad). And that option always involves the holder losing 5X to 10X of the value of their money. Write a check for $1000, sell it for $100, to get a $100... At the end of the day, scarcity creates conflict. And with that conflict, some employees choose to keep treating people with dignity and politeness, but without helping them (because they're following their bosses' policies.) And some just don't give a shit, slide into their dark side, and enjoy the power trip...
- ithkuil 4y agoAre bank employees able to withdraw _their_ own money?
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- anigbrowl 4y agoWhat's the difference?
- notch656a 4y agoHopefully juries exist in Lebanon and they understand how to nullify.
- usr001 4y agoNo juries, only judges. And most judges are heavily influenced politically.
- metadat 4y ago
- bobthepanda 4y agoCivil war has never gone particularly well for the Lebanese. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lebanese_Civil_War https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lebanese_Civil_War
- jakzurr 4y agoI don't think civil war has gone well anywhere. :(
- jimmaswell 4y agoFrench Revolution?
- travisgriggs 4y agoWhich one?
- jesushax 4y agoWhich famously resulted in the Reign of Terror (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reign_of_Terror https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reign_of_Terror) before collapsing into Napoleon's imperial dictatorship.
- baby 4y agoThis is making me scared of seeing a stock market collapse in my life time. If the market collapses in the US, and people lose their pensions, who knows what will happen.
- mercy_dude 4y agoI have the same fear. And more I read about the macro outlook it looks more grim. Consider this situation - inflation is now what at 8%. That means the prices were up by 8% than last year. If it stays this high, federal reserve will raise rates but how high can the rates go? Turns out every 1% rate raise causes almost 33billion debt payment by US Treasury since US at this point has close to 33 trillion debt and growing. A rate raise by 5% means around 150 billion for just the debt payment alone. This is obviously unsustainable as the Treasury doesn’t get more income unless it substantially raises taxes. If we somehow come out of this situation, the debt will continue to rise since the US has a balloning social security spending and it’s only going to get worse due to more and more aging population. So our generation (GenZ and millennials) are kind of screwed. I can’t see how we get out of this.
- markvdb 4y agoInflation is how the state gets out of this. It inflates the debt away.
- IG_Semmelweiss 4y agothe state gets away but at what cost? lebanese pay it every day
- mercy_dude 4y agoNot if the Fed keeps raising rates because that will make cost of borrowing high and given at this point how debt reliant the US economy is it will not be a comfortable path. But yeah that has been my thesis as well that after a point there will be another “hedonic adjustment” in defining the inflation and that will bring down the official inflation number even though the real numbers are far higher. Just like how the housing market has inflated far more than the actual inflation numbers in last decade but the real numbers barely took it into account.
- lokedhs 4y agoLebanon has practically two different currencies. If you put money into a bank account now, you can access it. It's the old bank accounts that are locked unless you're willing to take a 90% loss. What has happened in practice is that the old bank accounts contain have actually dropped in value, but the banks nor the government can admit that. Hence, this situation. Disclaimer: I have been to Lebanon a few times, and a lot of my colleagues are Lebanese, and my knowledge of the situation comes from them.
- aaaaaaaaata 4y ago> the old bank accounts contain have actually dropped in value How? What happened to that currency since deposit?
- lokedhs 4y agoThere are two different exchange rates: The official rate and the black market rate. The latter is the actual value of the money. No one can actually get at their money using the official rate. That's why banks have two different types dollar accounts, one for old dollars (prior to the crash) and ones that have new money.