Let it die

[Hey Bubu]

LET IT DIE
by Douglas Rushkoff

March 15, 2009

With any luck, the economy will never recover.

In a perfect world, the stock market would decline another 70 or 80 percent along with the shuttering of about that fraction of our nation’s banks. Yes, unemployment would rise as hundreds of thousands of formerly well-paid brokers and bankers lost their jobs; but at least they would no longer be extracting wealth at our expense. They would need to be fed, but that would be a lot cheaper than keeping them in the luxurious conditions they’re enjoying now. Even Bernie Madoff costs us less in jail than he does on Park Avenue.

Alas, I’m not being sarcastic. If you had spent the last decade, as I have, reviewing the way a centralized economic plan ravaged the real world over the past 500 years, you would appreciate the current financial meltdown for what it is: a comeuppance. This is the sound of the other shoe dropping; it’s what happens when the chickens come home to roost; it’s justice, equilibrium reasserting itself, and ultimately a good thing.

I started writing a book three years ago through which I hoped to help people see the artificial and ultimately dehumanizing landscape of corporatism on which we conduct so much of our lives. It’s not just that I saw the downturn coming—it’s that I feared it wouldn’t come quickly or clearly enough to help us wake up from the self-destructive fantasy of an eternally expanding economic frontier. The planet, and its people, were being taxed beyond their capacity to produce. Try arguing that to a banker whose livelihood is based on perpetuating that illusion, or to people whose retirement incomes depend on just one more generation falling for the scam. It’s like arguing to Brooklyn’s latest crop of brownstone buyers that they’ve invested in real estate at the very moment the whole market is about to tank. (I did; it wasn’t pretty.)

Now that the scheme we have mistaken for the real economy is collapsing under its own weight, however, it’s a whole lot easier to make these arguments. And, if anything, it’s even more important for us to come to grips with the fact that the system in peril is not a natural one, or even one that we should be attempting to revive and restore. The thing that is dying—the corporatized model of commerce—has not, nor has it ever been, supportive of the real economy. It wasn’t meant to be. And before we start lamenting its demise or, worse, spending good money after bad to resuscitate it, we had better understand what it was for, how it nearly sucked us all dry, and why we should put it out of our misery

more at: http://www.arthurmag.com/2009/03/16/...n-the-economy/

[johnny861]

Hoover gets a bad rep for not doing anything with the assumption that the market would correct itself.

FDR creates a whole slew of programs to get people working again.

We truly don't know the result of either's actions, as our engagement in world war II mobilized our nation and was truly the main reason our economy got back on track.


Now, none of us want to spend a decade or two in a depression, but perhaps it is a good thing to let these big institutions fail. What's the worry here? that credit will no longer flow?

With all the billions that we've dished out, surely, we could have repurposed that out as a federal credit to any institution that gives out a loan or a line of credit to a person or business during this downturn period.

In the meantime, when a big business goes bankrupt, auction off the assets to other institutions.

Yes, it's a big complicated mess, but surely the government could assist the free market and help the economy flow, while the free market corrects itself without this tangled involvement with our Government.

[PETA]

Originally Posted by johnny861

Hoover gets a bad rep for not doing anything with the assumption that the market would correct itself.

FDR creates a whole slew of programs to get people working again.

We truly don't know the result of either's actions, as our engagement in world war II mobilized our nation and was truly the main reason our economy got back on track.

Except the great depression started in 1929 and WWII in 1941. FDR was elected in 1933 so he had eight years for his policies to bear fruit.

[J. Fees]

weird how no one was writing these articles when bush was in power, even though the writing was on the wall that all hell was coming.

[PETA]

Originally Posted by J. Fees

weird how no one was writing these articles when bush was in power, even though the writing was on the wall that all hell was coming.

apparently you don't read so much... the economy became the issue of the Presidential campaign. TARP was written before the election etc etc. Prior to the onset of the meltdown people didn't write about it so much because it hadn't happened.

[J. Fees]

well the sky has fallen and we all got that.

[Funkenstein]

It's a damn shame when South Park actually sums all of the above up and makes the most sense about what "the economy" is. It really is a thought, but one that we've built up so high that now that we are in it's "low" everyone thinks it is the end of the world.

This world isn't ready to "let it die". Unless we are ready to go back to being simple and offering salt as salary, the title's offering cannot work.

[johnny861]

Originally Posted by Funkenstein

It's a damn shame when South Park actually sums all of the above up and makes the most sense about what "the economy" is. It really is a thought, but one that we've built up so high that now that we are in it's "low" everyone thinks it is the end of the world.

This world isn't ready to "let it die". Unless we are ready to go back to being simple and offering salt as salary, the title's offering cannot work.

or if we can see past our vanity and move towards some star trek-esque utopia... but that would be too convenient for us.

[J. Fees]

i would assume if we let it die, CHina will buy everything up, and we will become a colony once again.

[molecule]

i'm just trying to return this damn margarita machine

[J. Fees]

did you get that crazy home marg. maker that cost 250$?

[molecule]

Originally Posted by J. Fees

did you get that crazy home marg. maker that cost 250$?

yea, but the new one has a salsa dispenser.

[Funkenstein]

LOL. Don't piss off "the economy".

[johnny861]

Originally Posted by Funkenstein

LOL. Don't piss off "the economy".

lol

[Damnsammit]

The NEW Margarita Machine!?