roachboy

the article, even in it's plot summary form, has nothing to do with libertarian fantasy scenario building.
rather, what it outlines is an internal critique of something quite basic to neoliberals and right libertarians alike: the myth of "enlightened self-interest" connected to the god-like "invisible hand" that makes it even thinkable that markets left to themselves (whatever the hell that means) produce outcomes that are desirable on utilitarian grounds (greatest good for the greatest number, blah blah blah). instead, what you have is a thin line between the type of gambling that is internal to market rationality (a metaphysical principle, but no matter) and looting. and what you have in the absence of coherent oversight (and so under the OPPOSITE conditions to those presupposed in libertarian la la land) and given the circulation of bundled or aggregated debt as a financial device, kind of a commodity futures market in debt instruments, and given the potentials for immediate-term profit in exchange for longer-term implosion is a situation--or more accurately a series of situations--in the context of which any meaningful boundary between "enlightened self-interest" and looting disappears. add to this the nature of the bounded rationalities of any organization, which tends to operate through notions of professional duty or role to exclude from consideration outcomes that diverge from those affirmed by whatever Authority is running the show, and you have a recipe for catastrophe.

this seems to me what libertarian-style thinking leads to. this is no different from what neoliberal thinking leads to. this is a significant measure of where we've landed.

you can see from the plot summary--and in much more detail in the article itself--a detailed description of the ways in which this combination of factors can produce situations in which it is of no consequence, to anyone, whether people who are taking on debt can possible meet the obligations they acquire along with it. it doesn't matter--the real game is elsewhere.

this has nothing whatsoever to do with the ronpaul nonsense about "fiat currency"...this is the kind of world that libertarians and neoliberals alike were arguing for. it's upon us and so are its consequences.

sooner or later folk really need to abandon this nonsense and start trying to figure out other ways to think about the socio-economic world they live in. it's not a good time to wait for some other Authority--be it a television pundit or someone who knows that they're talking about (the distinction is serious) to figure something else out for you.

-=------

cyn---one of the points of the plot summary is that in the savings and loan fiasco--and again now, in magnified forms, the distinction between gambling and looting was entirely erased. looting *was* the game. notions of "moral hazard" meant nothing.

but the types of capital circulation that enabled it have little to do with the types of capital circulation most individuals operate with--except maybe players like warren buffet who have immense private wealth and make tons more by using it to play the looting game, sometimes falling within the bounds of acceptable outcomes, sometimes outside (like triggering the currency collapses in southeast asia in the 1980s)...

so i'm not sure of the analogy between individuals in isolation or private life and individuals in the context of institutional bounded rationalities...

__________________
a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle
spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear

it make you sick.

-kamau brathwaite