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for a while, attac was the only alter-mondialisation group talking explicitly about currency speculation as a central problem of the neo-liberal regime---i used to do alot of translating work for them of position papers regarding the tax and it's likely effects. when i started thinking about this, the memory of those papers came to mind--the idea at the time was to slow the markets down and impose a disincentive. but the period in which that could have been effective is passed.
the approach obama is taking seems to be to attempt a refiguring of the nature and role of the state in the domestic economy first and then to rethink the ways in which this altered state form does and does not fit into the neoliberal system of capital flows and work backward from that starting point. personally, i see no alternative to nationalizing the banking system as being of a piece with this reorientation because it would provide a way to quickly and effectively reorient the space and roles played by that system. at the moment, judging from an article on the front page of the ny times this morning, they're not quite willing to say it to themselves--but i don't see an alternative.
it may be that the administration is playing for time in the interest of testing the consensus building approach to selling their initiatives.
the coming world economic forum should be interesting. i think that's the space in which you'll start to see the reconceptualizing of transnational capital flows, what it does, what it does not do. assuming things hold together that long, i think this is where the big shift will start.
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a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle
spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear
it make you sick.
-kamau brathwaite
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