> 2) Now that
> the Paulson Plan 2.0 has given way to full-blown equity stakes in US
> super-banks -- the sort of initiative you mistakenly assume to be
> uniquely European
I said no such thing. I said the EU was implementing a SuperSweden bailout, and being open and forthright about it - the US and other countries will have to do something similar, of course. The thing is, according to the BIS, the Eurobanks make up two-thirds of all bank lending in the world-system today, so an EU bailout has enormous impact on the world economy.
> Would you mind explaining the "videogame culture" bit?
Videogames are a $42 billion global industry (2007) and the source of some of the most radical and anti-neoliberal narratives of the mass media today. (Not every game is progressive, but there's lots of good stuff). The industry is growing 10-15% a year, and 95% of game revenues are final consumer demand; advertising money is tiny, so game studios can and do ignore it. Games are transnational - consoles, TVs, handhelds, cellphones, etc. The game audience: the 2 billion folks living in the core and semi-periphery, though the periphery will be joining them shortly (via cellphone downloads). Giant firms like Microsoft and Nintendo have tried their evil best to monopolize the game culture, but have failed miserably, thanks to the open source movement, the digital commons, and ubiquitous media sharing (what corporations call "piracy" of software and IP).
I've written plenty on the game culture, economics and media markets here:
www.efn.org/~dredmond/Uplink/Archives.html
-- DRR