The same guy who missed the "/sarcasm" tag at the end of the GP's post?

Finland is a Nordic country, not a Scandinavian one....

What you're missing is the depth of the investigation. There are plenty of reasons to believe HSBC execs should have known the money was dirty, it sinply wasn't investigated deeply enough.

Some do have that special bone but I think it's in their head actually...

As I understand it, the damage was indirect. The software was left in such a state that the furnace was at the time undamaged but could not be properly shut down. That left only the emergency shutdown procedure which was the cause of the damage.

The real failure was not being able to physically operate the controls to at least manage a clean shutdown.

The root cause of the problem is a yellow too short to allow every car in motion to either clear the intersection of stop safely before the red. Once the light traps you in that situation it's just a matter of choosing your risk.

Throwing an unfair fine into the mix can lead to poor decisions.

NASA did all the really hard work (the basic design of space rockets). You know, the Basic Science that costs billions and doesn't pay off for decades. You see, private companies are too focused on short term profit generation to basic science. That's why it's done on the public dime.

As for gov't inefficiency: it's a myth brought on by a few high profile pork projects (the US Military comes to mind) and underfunded DMVs. Go to a modern well funded post office some time. They're incredibly efficient. Also, go work in management for a large (private) corporation sometime and tell me again how amazingly efficient they are compared to government.

Because they're not "just feeding their family and keeping a roof over their heads"?

At least in the US, what we call "poor" are ridiculously well off by current world standards, and even very comfortable compared to relatively recent US norms. US "poor" typically have cell phones multiple tv's, computers, car(s) and a residence larger than middle class Europeans.
http://www.heritage.org/resear...

Living a life that would have comfortable in the 1970s - 1 cheap tv, no cable, no computer/internet, one cheapo car, no cell phone, smaller meal sizes, no convenience food - you could have a family of 4 right at the poverty line with out much trouble.

The problem is that without some form of guidance, we're more likely to end up with the rich enjoying the machines and the rest thrown to the wolves (at least until they overwhelm the rich and kill them or at least threaten to)

Yes, but at that time, we still had a shortage of labor over all. In western society, we very recently doubled the eligible workforce through equal rights. Then with a bit of development in the 3rd world, we have multiplied it many times (but haven't given those workers a chance to become consumers). Now automation is cheap enough that even those very cheap workers are threatened with unemployment.

you can't install properly configured red light cameras. As soon as you do people start either a) driving around them or b) stop running red lights. They seem to work too well, and then the revenue drops like a rock. Whatever else we want debate about how effective they are they're there to generate money for cash strapped cities not allowed to raise taxes; Safety may or may not be a byproduct, but one thing is sure: less light running at the intersections their put into is. And sooner or later to keep profits up they have to game the cameras to give out more tickets...

And you're right, fixing safety is really, really simple. Just run a yellow for a few extra seconds to make sure the intersection is clear. It costs nothing, but it also doesn't generate any revenue.

his insurance isn't likely to pay you for the full value of your car. As someone who's been rear ended twice in my life I've never once gotten the real market value of my car from an insurance company...

There is a significant correlation between installing the cameras and shortening the yellow. At the same time, even if the yellow was too short even before the cameras were installed, they increase the risk of accidents since people will no longer be willing to run the very beginning of the red (before traffic the other way starts moving).

It should be, but there are too many wealthy people who firmly believe that they were born with virtue but the working class gain virtue only by working. Therefor, no job = no work = deserve to starve.

There are two classes of people. Those who feel wealthy if they have no need to worry about money and those who can only feel wealthy if they have significantly more than others. The latter just can't be happy until you're not happy.

Because until very recently, the MECHANIZATION always required a human operator AND because until recently, the limiting factor on economic expansion was labor.

We now have quite enough labor and we can make machines that require very little supervision.