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175 comments on DrumBeat: January 10, 2009

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BrianT on January 10, 2009 - 11:28am Permalink | Subthread | Comments top

I think maybe the change agent's teflon suit will be more impressive than Reagan's version. His Godfather Robert Rubin has to leave Citi while the Ponzi scheme lawsuit proceeds and the MSM still sells the story that he should be entrusted with the guidance of the USA economy.

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NeverLNG on January 10, 2009 - 12:29pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

I think you are right about the teflon.

On the other hand, "the economy" is largely an illusion anyway. People's basic needs are really rather simple, and were provided by "primitive" cultures for millenia before the rise of "modern civilization". The wizards who learned their trade at Gilgamesh's court are still spinning their webs of deception. You have to admit, I submit, it has been fun for those of us who prospered from their schemes.

What would be the alternative? Turn things over to Naomi Klein? That would be interesting, to say the least. But highly improbable.

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jokuhl on January 10, 2009 - 2:01pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

Good place for a nitpick.. The Economy is not an illusion.. it is symbolic, which is a huge difference. The 'Market Decides' is a better concept to label an 'Illusion'. It might still be important.. and could even be true, but it

Those basic human needs, and the exchanges that get food into those billions of mouths are both real, and they 'are' the economy, or a chunk of it. The labor behind it is real, the contract is real, the property is real. Just because it 'essentially doesn't exist', and even if it isn't on the Gold Standard any more.. it is more like a 'Positive Charge' on a battery.. which just means the absence of electrons.. but without it, the current stops moving.

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NeverLNG on January 10, 2009 - 6:27pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

That is a rather large nit you are picking! Certainly all those people are real, and the do (or did) go to work every day. But I would argue that an awful lot of them (us) are (were) weaving magical cloth for the Emporor.

I won't argue about what is "really" going on. Only that we have become accustomed to what is turning out to be a lot of illusion and pretend wealth. And in the relatively near future, real wealth will once again get in balance with available energy, available food and available water.

I hope it isn't as bloody as some of the doomers here believe it will be. Maybe Obama is really the Magic Negro who can pull it all off, and maybe all those recycled Wall Street wizards will spin a tale we can all believe.

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jokuhl on January 10, 2009 - 7:05pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

It was a large Nit.. I don't deny it.

To parse what you originally said, then, is that 'a lot of that Wealth is the illusion'. As you basically say, we'll soon discover what the economy is actually comprised of.. but the whole economy is not illusory, just certain magical outgrowths of it..

According to one old saw, "Ecology IS the Economy" (variant on Jane Jacobs "Ecology is the Economy of Nature." I suppose)

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175 comments on DrumBeat: January 10, 2009

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