A few thoughts:
Quote:
|
The great wealth that the financial sector created and concentrated gave bankers enormous political weight—a weight not seen in the U.S. since the era of J.P. Morgan (the man).
|
The financial sector created little to no real wealth in the past 25 years. Only someone buying the illogical economic axioms of the Reagonites could possibly suggest otherwise. What the financial sector had was theoretical wealth which is confused (as is often the case) for real wealth. Theoretical wealth is only as real as the people are willing to accept that it is. For me, it's nothing but bullshit; IOUs and maybes. It's directly linked to the "cultural capital" that the article later mentions, the bullshit economics that we're spoon fed about the market, banks, and investment.
The second we realize that this isn't real wealth and treat it for the hypothetical money it is, it loses its power.
Quote:
|
Wall Street’s seductive power extended even (or especially) to finance and economics professors, historically confined to the cramped offices of universities and the pursuit of Nobel Prizes.
|
Hallelujah! Finally someone is willing to admit that academia has long since been infiltrated by Wall Street. I felt like such an idiot in college asking my professor why a person was almost always required to go into debt in order to afford things like a home and a vehicle, where my grandparents (who were of the WWII generation) bought theirs outright, or why it is that we choose to determine value including hypothetical worth instead of what can be counted in hand today.
Quote:
|
The challenges the United States faces are familiar territory to the people at the IMF. If you hid the name of the country and just showed them the numbers, there is no doubt what old IMF hands would say: nationalize troubled banks and break them up as necessary.
|
...until when and if they become healthy again, yes. *rolls up sleeves* Fantastic, let's do it.
...
Oh, right, the government is full of cowards and fools. The second someone in real power has a light bulb go off and he or she suggests temporary nationalization of banks, the right will scream nationalization (if we're lucky, they'll just scream... in all honesty, there would probably be domestic terrorist attacks), and the centrists would run and hide under a rock.
This was a great article, Roach, but I feel like having the answers doesn't mean anything because those who can reach power have to sell out to the interests responsible for this mess and find that it's not in their political interest to do what anyone with two brain cells sees as the right thing. It's an exercise in futility, and Canada is looking better and better every day.