Casa Robino

He was well-known throughout Europe, and used his eventual fortune to lend money to its rulers. Fugger often provided mercenary armies with monetary resources so they could wage war against one another.

See original: Jacob Fugger - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

L'étau se resserrerait-il sur l'acteur bancaire? Le Comité de Bâle a posé, fin décembre 2009, les fondations d'une nouvelle réglementation bancaire internationale. // Doux euphémisme. La nouvelle méthodologie "made in Bâle" entérine pleinement la doctrine du "too big to fail", c'est-à-dire qu'elle reconnaît l'existence de banques trop importantes pour pouvoir faire faillite. En cette matière, le Comité de Bâle impose, pour les banques "too big to fail", des règles plus sévères en matière de fonds propres. // On peut donc raisonnablement anticiper un mouvement de concentration du secteur bancaire dans un avenir proche. // Aujourd'hui, les banques anglaises se contentent d'une couverture par leurs fonds propres de l'ordre de 1%.

See original: ED10XD01baleCorrigeXDNVLV

vikingpower writes "Built in reaction upon a major flood that killed 1800 in the '50s, the Dutch system of dykes, sluices, surge barriers and dams has been dubbed 'one of the seven wonders of the modern world' by the American Society of Engineers. Now, there are proposals to use the system differently, e.g. as tidal power plants, by punching holes in them. Any civil engineer's mouth will probably be watering when thinking of the mega-projects this could give rise to."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

See original: Re-Purposing the Netherlands' Dyke System For Power Generation

A former prime minister and a governor of the central bank in Iceland are among senior officials accused of gross negligence for the country's banking collapse.

Iceland's three main banks were found to have balance sheets 10 times the size of the country's economy, it also found.

See original: BBC News - Report lays blame for Icelandic crash

Like JP Morgan, BoA earned the bulk of its income - some $3.2bn - from its business on the global capital markets

See original: BBC News - Bank of America returns to profit

depuis quelques temps les institutions essaient de s'approprier les projets SEL.

On remarque que les maisons médicales, les maisons de la laïcité, les CPAS, des associations subventionnées et des asbl essaient de porter des projets SEL.
Certains diront mais pourquoi pas puisqu'ils ont les moyens financiers et de communication pour promouvoir l'idée.
Le problème est qu'ils ne s'arrêtent pas à la seule promotion, ils veulent la gestion complète et le financement, donc l'autorité complète sur le projet.

La dérive dans ce cas est que ce type de SEL géré et financé par des instruments à caratère juridique ou subventionné restreint l'idée même du fonctionnement autonome des SEL.

Je veux dire par là que si les SEL sont d'abord gérés et financés par le haut, bientôt ils recevront des directives d'en haut et la démocratie même au sein des SEL disparaîtra.

See original: INTERSEL.BE • Afficher le sujet - Certaines inquiétudes

the long-term consequences are far more disturbing. As Wedel argues, deals like the one in Chicago go well beyond simple government contracting. Private interests are increasingly eating up not just public assets or functions, but also the public power that comes with those assets, power to make policy in a way that good government demands: with transparency, accountability and with the interest of the public front and center. With each lease signed, pieces of official government disappear, as does your right as a taxpaying citizen to control what should be part of the public sphere, now and well into the future. // In resisting a seemingly easy fix, they’ll preserve for future generations the power to chart their own course, and protect the public interest without the distorting incentives that come from private control.

See original: OnTheCommons.org » Want to Buy a Bridge Cheap?

The ‘and them some’ is what causes the trouble. Complex societies collapse because, when some stress comes, those societies have become too inflexible to respond. In retrospect, this can seem mystifying. Why didn’t these societies just re-tool in less complex ways? The answer Tainter gives is the simplest one: When societies fail to respond to reduced circumstances through orderly downsizing, it isn’t because they don’t want to, it’s because they can’t.<br />
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In such systems, there is no way to make things a little bit simpler – the whole edifice becomes a huge, interlocking system not readily amenable to change. Tainter doesn’t regard the sudden decoherence of these societies as either a tragedy or a mistake—”[U]nder a situation of declining marginal returns collapse may be the most appropriate response”, to use his pitiless phrase. Furthermore, even when moderate adjustments could be made, they tend to be resisted, because any simplification discomfits elites.

See original: The Collapse of Complex Business Models « Clay Shirky

urban anthropology; political anthropology with special reference to anthropology of the state; cultural politics of ethnicity/race, class, and gender; political economy; global systems and transnationalism; critical theories of power; theory of the commons.

See original: Donald Nonini — Department of Anthropology at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

Le nombre des riches a explosé en France de 2004 à 2007, et cette très forte augmentation est allée de pair avec une explosion de leurs revenus.

See original: Depuis 2004, les inégalités se creusent au profit des plus hauts revenus - LeMonde.fr