You are crazy. Here is an example of the democratic process working, yet you desperately have to search for some conspiracy theory to continue your irrational hatred of the USA.

No. It's an example of a republic not working. What history books tend to call "decline and fall" when it's happened in the past. It is what happens when governments completely lose sight of, and concern with, and respect for, the principles that brought them into being.

This is real life, not a Tom Clancy novel.

Oh, we know. In Clancy's works the US TLAs are the good guys. That's not been the case for decades now.

It's deep, but it's dry. And it has a sharp rock floor at about the 100 foot level.

Except I don't see how that applies in this case. Stay or leave -- it's not the bank's call. But if politicians are putting leaving the EU on the table, even as an empty gesture, then naturally the bank has to start thinking about contingency plans. That's just common sense, even if you think the very idea of leaving the EU is mad.

It's also common sense to keep that on the DL to prevent misguided overreaction to what is after all still a hypothetical scenario. The Bank of England a central bank and so people must be constantly scrutinizing it hoping to glean inside information on future monetary policy. That's to say nothing of having to deal with the conspiracy theory nutters.

What is 'female culture?'
Serious question.

Is your point that some times states do stupid things, and don't learn the lessons of the past?

I do believe that counts as being lazy, but I admire his attempt.

Just like the cloud, everything that becomes a buzzword is merely a repackaging of something that already existed, palatable for ignorant consumption (usually by investors).

For comparison, here is a typical microcontroller with a few kilobytes of RAM. No wonder the Nest is so expensive.....it's vastly overpowered for what it does.

A few years ago, Greece nearly went bankrupt, and Europe was worried because so many banks had Greek treasury bonds. So they gave Greece some money, and the banks divested themselves of the the Greek treasury bonds.

Now if Greece goes bankrupt it's no big deal because none of the other European banks have enough bonds to matter. Whether Greece stays in the Euro or prints their own currency matters little, it will end badly for them. And the rest of Europe will move on as if little had happened.

The skill of working in large corporations is learning how to navigate the bureaucracy and get things done. That is the puzzle, it is a skill like any other, with it's own techniques.

If you read Dilbert, then you will find Wally is a master at this skill. Of course, he uses his abilities as a way to be lazy, it needn't always used for nefarious purposes.

Wait, why? I thought Republicans generally favored trade. Why wouldn't they like this?

The one I don't understand is Obama. He hasn't really explained why he thinks this is a good thing, just that we should trust him.

Yeah. Usually I prefer a better tie-in to technology.

If you're wondering, the tie-in to technology is 'social media.'

That would be roughly the time I settled on Ubuntu as the best-for-me Linux distro and made the final migration from WinXP to Linux. Since then I've gravitated to the Ubuntu Studio version since its bundle contains several apps that I use. I have VM capability but have as yet not needed it. I have WINE installed, but rarely use it. Life is good.