>By participating in a violent anti-war demonstration, he >was in no sense
>aiming at coercing conformity with his view — for that >would still have
>been a political objective. Instead, he took his part in >order to confirm
>his ideological fantasy of marching on the right side of >history, of
>feeling himself among the elect few who stood with the >angels of
historical
>inevitability.
hrrrrmmmmm ... I think that the only thing one can say to this guy would be the retort you've made your own; "reflexivity alert!".
btw, the assertion that Karlheinz Stockhausen referred to 9-11 as the "greatest work of art of all time" is one hotly disputed by the man himself:
http://www.stockhausen.org/the_true_story.html
----------------------------
Michael asked:
"Is it true that bank loans to companies can be called at a moment's notice?"
It depends on the loan ....
In general, I would say no. Without having the information in front of me, I'd guess that the most common payment schedule in a big-ticket corporate loan ($100m is borderline between the size of unit a single big bank would write and something that would be taken on by the syndicated loan market) would be a "balloon" maturity (as in, you make interest payments over the life of the loan, then pay back all the principal in one lump at the end). There might also be a "sinking fund", which is a blocked accounts that the borrower makes periodic payments into during the life of the loan, which is used to help retire the principal at the end of the term. Obviously, loans of this sort have a fairly sharply defined payment schedule.
Things get a bit more murky when you move on to the kind of loan facilities that someone might more realistically want as start-up capital for a factory; what's known as a "revolving line of credit". This is like a credit card in concept (the numbers are bigger); up to the limit, you can draw down as much as you like and pay it back whenever you have the money. But a revolving credit usually has a fixed term, say a year, at the end of which you have to clear the balance or (more usually) renew the loan. So, with a one year revolver, the bank can "call in the loan" only at the set maturity dates. There is also the "evergreen revolver", under which a new one-year revolver is assumed to be signed every day, so the bank has to give a year's notice to call in the loan. And to complete the set, some revolvers come with a "term-out", so that rather than having to pay back the amount instantly on the day that the facility ends, you can convert it into a term loan (of some set term) with the same bank.
All of which is a long winded way of saying that no, the kind of arrangement that some of us have with our retail banks whereby they can request immediate repayment of our overdraft, does not have much of a counterpart in the world of corporate lending. But nevertheless, I'd say that Stiglitz is right.
The reason would be that it is a general principle of loan agreements that an event of default entitles to bank to "accelerate" its claims; ie, all the monies become payable right now. And an "event of default" under a loan agreement doesn't necessarily mean a missed payment; it could be a breach of a covenant relating to gearing, or a "material adverse change", or even a change of management. Basically, given any sort of adverse shock, the country is likely to find itself in a situation in which that company might end up having to repay the loan ahead of term, so it would indeed be prudent to set aside $x in reserves for every $x loan facility.
dd
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