Letting It Die
Douglas Rushkoff writes a treatise on the ailments of what we call "the economy". I am usually loath to post direct links, and I do not fully agree with the specifics of the article, but I think it manages to illustrate, quite casually on the side no less, the absurdity and fundamentally self-defeating nature of "the economy" as it exists today.
As an aside: TPM, thank you so much for the Markdown formatting option!
Advertisement
Interesting article Karl.
March 16, 2009 5:23 PM | Reply | Permalink
I'd like to see you put in your own words the illustration you believe you see in that article.
"absurdity and fundamentally self-defeating nature of "the economy" as it exists today."
Anyone can paint a false caricature and then criticize it. It's called shooting down your own strawman. Can you do better than that?
March 16, 2009 8:18 PM | Reply | Permalink
Seems more of a truism than a strawman :-). The conclusion looks like a valid response to the linked article - maybe you should better articulate why this isn't an appropriate conclusion?
Building a strawman: "I'd like to see you put in your own words the illustration you believe you see in that article." ... it implies that the post didn't already describe in the author's own words what they saw in the article, when the reality is that you *disagree* with the conclusion.
Knocking it down: "Anyone can paint a false caricature and then criticize it." ... the previous unsustainable assertion (caricature) becomes a pivot and and is used to attack without ever addressing the substance of the actual issue at hand.
Thanks for the lesson in strawmen.
March 17, 2009 12:00 PM | Reply | Permalink
No, the OP characterized a situation, it didn't illustrate (unless the OP was intending to be absurd itself). You seem to take the absurdity as self-evident. Well, if you're an absurdist, that would be understandable even if limited. Otherwise an elaboration or illustration is called for.
March 17, 2009 2:24 PM | Reply | Permalink
Thank you very much Karl! This was a very good and thought provoking article.
I hope that others take the time to click on the link and then read it. For those who aren't going to take the time I would recommend reading the following excerpt which I think puts it all very nicely:
"Luckily for us, the banks, and the speculators depending on them, made a bad wager: they bet on our continuing capacity to provide a reality on which to base their highly leveraged schemes. We just couldn’t do it. They put us between a rock and a hard place. With George W’s help, they sold us on the notion of home ownership as a prerequisite to the American dream. And they created a number of loan products which made it look as if we could actually afford over-priced homes. The banking industry spent hundreds of millions of dollars lobbying for laws making bankruptcy difficult or impossible for average people to accomplish—while simultaneously selling average people loans that they would never be able to pay back.
The banks didn’t really care, anyway, since they never meant to keep these loans. They simply provided the cash to mortgage companies, who then packaged the loans. In return for putting up the original cash, the banks also won the right to underwrite the sale of those mortgage packages to investors—investors like pension funds, retirement funds, or you and me. Get it? The banks get all the interest, but we put up all the money. Our retirement accounts and pension funds invest in the very mortgages that we can’t pay back. The bank collects any interest, playing both sides of the equation but responsible for neither.
And when the whole scheme begins to break down, what do we do? We try to bail out the very banks that created the mess, under the premise that we need these banks in order for business to come back, since only banks can lend the capital required for businesses to flourish.
Yes, It is Wrong
President Obama may be smarter than most of us, but he’s still attempting to rescue the very institutions that robbed us in the first place. He’s not a socialist, as conservatives may be arguing, but he is a corporatist. Using future tax dollars to fund government job programs is one thing. Using future tax dollars to give banks more money to lend out at interest is robbing from the poor to pay the rich to rob from the poor."
March 17, 2009 4:10 PM | Reply | Permalink