But now we have a 24-hour news cycle and the internet where all the markets are interconnected and instantaneously intertwined. We can have global panic two dozen times in a month and might or might not be better off for anyone but speculators as a result.
I think panic begets more panic and I think there is nothing like Bernanka and Paulsen yammering about panic to ensure that the panic will get worse. I know it's their JOB to alert the public to things to panic about and I do remember Greenspan on "irrational exuberance," I am still being obtuse though about why this time is so much worse than all the other times when the smart money says just hang tough and the declines will recover.
On a slightly different note,maybe it's too late to ask this but since the timeliness of reaction is at issue, I am gong to ask this question anyway.
There was about a 3-year gap in my reading of this list for reasons not having anything to do with interest in the topic. Y'all were going on about the real estate bubble 3 years ago and I do not remember any coherent conversationsa bout what to DO about the bubble, either how to protect oneself and one's retirement funds or how to let the air out slowly. I KNOW Congress was in the hands of the Repubs and Ralph Nader to pick one random example probably wasn't any nearer to anything topical and policy-oriented than he is now, but if you could have intervened three years ago, what would you have done, I mean politically as well as economically?
DC
On Wed, Oct 1, 2008 at 3:15 PM, shag <shag at cleandraws.com> wrote:
> At 10:17 AM 10/1/2008, rayrena wrote:
>
>>
>> > i've always seen him as speaking to people who want
>> > radical change, with the primary target being the
>> > elimination of capitalism. people who under most
>> > circumstances recognize that the change isn't going to
>> > come about through electoral politics. ("under most"
>> > because in years divisible by four, they get
>> > distracted....)
>>
>> Then why does he criticize people for not being practical,
>> i.e., for not coming up with some sort of alternative
>> bailout plan? Practicality in a capitalist society is always
>> capitalist practicality. Why does he insist on other people
>> saving the very thing he wants eliminated?
>>
>
> it may be the stress from work, which is making me physically ill at the
> mo', but i don't understand your question.
>
> in his original piece, he criticized people for being opportunists with
> regard to obama. he criticized them for falling in love with the guy, buying
> into empty rhetoric about hope. he criticized them for not being able to
> think strategically and tactically about elections.
>
> it seems to me that this latest missive to doug is similar: people are
> criticizing the bailout, pushing for all kinds of pie-in-the sky reforms or
> simply projecting on the bailout revolt some kind of grand awakening among
> the masses (like people project onto obama's candidacy the vision of a
> leftist biding his time, saying the right things to get elected whereupon
> he'll take off the clark kent duds and transform himself into Magic NegroMan
> and save the world).
>
> but they aren't thinking about any of it strategically and tactically.
> albeit galbraith seems to be iyam.
>
> but again, i welcome corrections because the double negative above is
> fucking with me pea brain at the mo'
>
>
> http://cleandraws.com
> Wear Clean Draws
> ('coz there's 5 million ways to kill a CEO)
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>