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Globe essay

Capitalism takes a lot of killing

PETER C. NEWMAN

Globe and Mail Update

Latest comment posted at 8:50 PM EST 26/10/08

Wall Street's wild tribe displayed a fearful arrogance that knew no bounds. But capitalism takes a lot of killing ...Read the full article

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  1. Greg Rockwell from Canada writes: That was a poor essay, a smear of capitalism. It relies on the straw-man tactic: after associating the American financial system with capitalism, it blames the latter for the failings of the former. However, the American financial system is no more an example of capitalism than the American healthcare system. Both are highly distorted by government interventions that arise from socialism. Further, a strong case can be made that such intervention is responsible for the current financial crisis (for example, read what Harvard economist Jeffrey Miron has written at CNN.com). The essayist offers no more insight on this issue than the many American politicians who claim that greed is the culprit while demanding still greater interventions.
  2. Matthew D. from United States writes: Greg Rockwell, not sure if you were being tongue in cheek but you sound eerily like the defenders of communism - "the Soviet Union was an imperfect implementation of communism".

    As for who will lead us, good questions that Newman asks, although he's wearing his "Titan" goggles, perpetually in awe of yesterday's man. Politicians, lawyers, businessmen, scientists, labour, artists, pharmacists (wrt the drug dispensers read This Perfect Day)? If we're really at an inflection point lets consider all options. Even having no leaders.
  3. Les Caine from Canada writes: Its not that there were not rules or regulators but that they were no longer considered useful or legitimate.

    Should ATM's be strategically located in casinos?
  4. Daniel Johnson from Calgary, Canada writes: Abraham Lincoln was wrong: Sometimes you can fool all of the people, all of the time.
  5. Trudeau's Apricot poodle from Canada writes: They are a simple people, they sing, they dance, they feast on flesh of the vast herds of taxpayers that roam the Americas. This tribe is sverely inbred and as it's brain trust weakens, it becomes more dependent on the mighty "regulators" whom it preys to and receves salvation from.
  6. CharmedOnes deVille from Montevideo, Canada writes:
    Communism you say....

    Hmmmm, oh, right, now we remember ! That was the Evil Thing whose defeat transformed a 40 hour work week into a 60 work week, but if you wanted a promotion, it then became 80 hours.

    Right, right.

    Why IS it that all you have to say is a word like 'communism' and you then get to dismiss EVERYTHING your opponent has argued ?

    Talk amongst yourselves,

    CharmedOnes deVille signing off again.
  7. John Deriso from Edmonton, Canada writes: Actually, I think what happened was that the American banking system basically incorporated several aspects of the "Payday Loan" industry. It's actually amazing that no one saw this coming. Large international banks as loan sharks. What went wrong?!?

    And yes, I think we should blame greed.

    And yes, we should probably re-think the merits of capitalism. I think capitalism only works when you are working with real money, "credit" just doesn't work, in very much the same way that printing more money doesn't work.
  8. Philosopher Dog from Toronto, Canada writes: It simply boggles the mind that our economic future can simply be washed away in an instant. Obviously the prevailing economic theories are seriously in conflict with reality. We have listened for too long to economists with their bad ideas, their reductionist understandings of the world. I think that much of this market nonsense is the result of the Chicago School of economics, which has dominated right wing think tanks and hence government policy for the past decade. Time to "get real". A correction has been long long overdue. Wasn't it Greenspan who claimed that they had finally cracked the system and have put an end to recessions! I think he said his favourite book was one of Ayn Rand's nonsensical right wing psychopathic pieces of palp. What do you expect if we let dummies into the control room? Why is the main stream press not looking at the master minds of this economic theory: the Freedmans, and Greenspans? Do they not have the intellect to look beyond the anecdotes of gross greed? I'd say that the media is about as awake on this issue as they were to the Howard/Harper speech issue. What are you people doing? Write something worth reading. Think. Think.
  9. Another View from Canada writes: Do not," he warned, "ever mistake stock markets for casinos." Adding, with an explanatory Hungarian shrug, "Casinos have rules."

    This line about sums it up. What rules were in place were not enforced and those that tried to get them enforced like N.Y.'s Elliot Spitzer, were taken care of quite effectively. He had the gall to take on the White House and the banking establishment, unfortunately for him, he left himself wide open for a fall with his stupid sexual antics. The Administration in the U.S. actively suppressed any attempts by the individual States to bring an end to the toxic sub-prime fiasco that was the germ of all of this.

    We need not be too smug here in Canada, as our banks and insurance companies were active participants in this greed-driven money grab. The effect of the derivative bubble and the CSDs is yet to be felt and that will impact all of us. The banks will not lend to each other because no one is sure just how much of this toxic paper the other is holding. Until we get it all out in the open, which will eventually happen, trust is impossible. When that happens we can then do a body count and assess the real damage.
  10. Another View from Canada writes: Capitalism in its origins was never envisioned as the corporate monoliths that we have today. It was seen as the basis of individuals earning their wealth by their own efforts through honest business activities that generated both wealth and employment. What it has become today is a distorted form of large global mega-corporations, such as WalMart, with whom it is very difficult to compete on a fair basis as envisioned by the early advocates of capitalism.

    The stock markets have become ridden with meaningless "products" and any presence of ethics is dubious at best. Casinos is an apt descriptor, but the term wrangles those are so immersed in the way things are and those who have made their "fortunes" playing the zero sum "gain" that derivatives, short selling, etc. offer. It is time we got back to the basic fundamentals of what the markets were put in place to do and stop all the high stakes gambling that has taken its place over the last number of years. When the profit motive is fuelled only by greed, we get the kind of situation we are all facing now. No one has really gained anything in all of this when you consider the effect this is meltdown is going to have for all of us. And this is only the beginning of the troubles.
  11. Billiam Smith from Montreal, Canada writes: Yawn. Is Peter C Newman still alive? Still pandering the same breathless, uninsightful tripe? This article makes absolutely no contribution to anyone's understanding of what's happening in the financial markets; it's just page-filler. The present crisis has nothing to do with wild development schemes or "hubris", but Newman keeps playing that same old tune.
  12. The Angry Left from Ottawa, Canada writes: How could anyone not have seen this coming? The economic growth of the last two decades or so has been fueled by artificially inflated asset prices on the back of cheap credit. When you have the prices of assets like housing and real-estate going up and up while incomes and real productivity remain stagnant, something's got to give eventually. Our entire way of looking at economics is a farce. If you were to treat healthcare the way we treat economics, the fattest people would be considered the most healthy. My, my, you've experienced 10% growth this year! You are a very healthy boy, aren't you! I see you have a giant cancer growing on your neck. That should help you pack on another few ounces, bravo! The North American economy is like an obese person living off empty calories and sugar of cheap credit and bloated assets. We don't produce anything of value that can compete on the world market without government handouts. Now the fat-man economy has had a stroke and we are left nationalizing the banks, the car companies and who knows what else. Would anyone like a free house? Capitalism? What's that?
  13. Roy McPhail from Winnipeg, Canada writes: I know quite a few people who saw this coming.

    From Amoebas to Humans, we all live the cycle of greed and fear.

    This cycle of fear is as big as it is this time because each time we dipped into fear over my lifetime, we "solved" the "problem" with more credit.

    The "problem" was not solved; it was deferred.
  14. Jeff Pritchard from Canada writes: What is most stunning about the fact that nobody saw this coming, is the fact that in fact a great many people saw this coming.

    Sober, rational minds have been saying for years that infinite growth is both impossible and unsustainable. This statement is virtually a logical truism for anyone who cares to think about it for a few seconds. The fact that so many did not heed this warning merely serves to indicate that for the vast majority, faith in capitalism and the inherent meritocracy of free markets is something akin to a religion. No evidence is required or asked for.
  15. bruno tomassini from Canada writes: Plenty of intellectual stuff here. I like some of the quotes. They make you think.

    Anyhow, to be practical just visit www.voteforenvironment.ca and then on Oct 14 empower yourself with your vote. Make your vote count!

    cheers!
  16. Another View from Canada writes: Bruno Your spam on these comments pages is not appreciated. The site you quote is a Liberal shill site. The data used to direct the vote is based on past election results not polls. The site is misleading and just plain dishonest.
  17. James Cyr from Balmertown Ontario, Canada writes: This has nothing to do with capitalism. It is the result of unbridled greed and the desire for the unearned....
  18. Susan Rogan from Canada writes: Another View: I was wondering if anyone would mention Elliot Spitzer. A few years ago a popular Halloween costume on Wall Street was an Elliot Sptizer mask. That man was scary to the 'financiers'. And the financiers were the biggest political donors in the USA. And the FBI shut Elliot down shortly before he was due to release a report on exactly what we are seeing now.
  19. Ian Cameron from BC Interior, Canada writes: I've been watching this unfold for the last 20 years with a fair amount of bemused contempt for the financial systems that we are saddled with. I thank my common sense that I am not beholden to any financial instrument. Perhaps the financial system viewed itself as a
    'Perpetual Motion' machine? We all know where that leads, don't we?
  20. Susan Rogan from Canada writes: Humans are like termites in that they are organized and they consume. Society seemed to thoughtlessly value forever 'growth', endlessly increasing consumption. I was worried about the environment, hoping that people would have a paradigm shift and would realize that the addiction to mindless consumption is ridiculous and not attractive, and is not in fact improving their lives but is making them slaves and denying them the time they should have to simply enjoy the world as the garden of Eden it could be. I hope that people will take this opportunity to wake up, relax and enjoy. Emotionally healthy and fundementally ethical people, ie the 'normal' citizen and small investor, will never reach the economic heights of the plastic people who ripped everybody off with their 10 million dollar bonuses and are featrured in magazine advertisements flying around the world chewing up everything they can like big mindless termites. Settle down, enjoy friends, family (love makes a family), good food and nature. And what's wrong with a Zeller's sweater? Newman uses the mention of one to make fun of Steven Harper. I think that could be quite the statement: wearing what is reasonably priced and what works, to hell with the magazines. By refusing to buy in again, you can give the people who caused this mess a kick in the butt, and you will have more time (and money) for things that really give you enjoyment.
  21. Christa Bedwin from Calgary, Canada writes: I own almost nothing. I think I'm in a great spot because I have nothing to mourn for its depreciation in value.

    Poor rich folk. They're really sad right now.
  22. Rt. Revd. Malachy Egan from Halifax, Canada writes: Capitalism takes a lot of killing says Peter Newman; Jeff Pritchard writes: What is most stunning about the fact that nobody saw this coming, is the fact that in fact a great many people saw this coming and Philosopher Dog comments: It simply boggles the mind that our economic future can simply be washed away in an instant!

    Personally, I am surprised by all these comments: I saw it comming in 1996; even wrote a book about it [fiction of course] and predicted every single waypoint. Do you want to know how the story ends? Peter, Jeff and Philosopher Dog might but, most folk have their heads buried in a dark place.
  23. Juan Acevedes from Vancouver, Canada writes: Self-righteous armchair musings from Newman. No substance here.
  24. Billiam Smith from Montreal, Canada writes: God! The worst news about this financial rough patch is that it's empowered all of society's marginal elements and washouts who now feel briefly vindicated for a lifetime of social disengagement. Certainly they've turned out in droves on this forum. Grow up kids: we can't all be rebels. The turmoil will pass and you'll still be poor nobodies, forever on the outside looking in (unless you change your mindset, but of course you won't).
  25. George Nikitin from Hamilton, Canada writes: I imagine greed might be as hard to kill as hunger, or lust.
  26. doug rogers from Canada writes: As Another View says, there ain't nothing wrong with a capitalism that actually produces goods. For that matter, there ain't nothing wrong with a communism that actually produces goods.
  27. doug rogers from Canada writes: George, that can be done. Those things are at the heart of some great religions and humanist philosophies.
  28. Tora Tora Tora from Montreal, Canada writes: The American economy hasn't been close to Capitalism since the Federal Reserve Act of 1913. The amount of power the government has over the American dollar is enormous.

    The American economic crisis will never be fixed until people realize they aren't dealing with a capitalist or socialist system - but in fact a corporatist system, wherein the government and 'free market' work as one.

    Goes like this: The free market can do whatever it wants - until it fails - then the government bails them out and it's back to business. Continue over and over, until the economy is so over inflated and artificially over valued that it bankrupts the government and the whole house of cards comes crashing down.

    And when it does - blame capitalism - let the government off scott free, and in the process give the government more control over the economy.

    This type of corporate welfare has to end. Banks that can't afford to do business, should be allowed to falter and die. No more bailouts. Do not give Wall Street incentives to be fraudulent and promise them insurance on their illegal activities.

    And I'm not just talking about the current bailout. I'm talking about the last 30 years of consistent injections of money, from Washington into Wall Street that has helped prop up these poorly run companies. (Much like the air line companies in Canada.)
  29. Sebastian Ronin from Canada writes: Have values and principles become so inverted, so lost to any comprehension of individual and social accountability, that the notion of living within one's means takes on the philosophical dimensions of quantum physics?
  30. Frank Menippus from Oakville, Canada writes: Amusing really. No mention of the fact that it is our (taxpayers) money that is being used to bail-out these rogues.
  31. Norm Albert from Canada writes: It may be my simplistic view but faith in the system will not be restored until the mistakes of the past are thoroughly address.
    It will be a long road. The bad apples have poisoned the barrel.
  32. Still Learning at 78 from Canada writes: This man has a explanation that might be worth listening to---
    Is this the case today?
    A quote from a Albert Einstein article on society

    "Private capital tends to become concentrated in few hands, partly because of competition among the capitalists, and partly because technological development and the increasing division of labor encourage the formation of larger units of production at the expense of smaller ones. The results of these developments is an oligarchy of private capital, the enormous power of which cannot be effectively checked even by a democratically organized political society.... Moreover, under existing conditions, private capitalists inevitably control, directly or indirectly, the main sources of information (press, radio, education). It is thus extremely difficult, and indeed in most cases quite impossible, for the individual citizen to come to objective conclusions and to make intelligent use of his political rights."

    Is this man a fool?
  33. David any from Loon-a-Tick, Canada writes: People need to listen to the artists because they speak in a different but equally important language. Artists are the antenna of a civilization (TS Elliots editor who was a facist whose name escapes me right now cause I' drunck).
    Mr Neumannn's age, experience , and knowledge should be accepted as much as any bean counter.
    We need new heroe he is saying. The only choice for our society is to change the people we admire.
    If our children are taught to worship people like Gordon Gekko then we will have another generation of the world coming closer to disaster.
    Teach ....your children well ...there Fathers hell...will simply go by...don't you ever ask them why ....when you told them you would cry.....
    Blah blah!
  34. sean smith from Canada writes: Capitalism has been exposed to be the neo-feudal fraud it has been all along. People are waking up to the dystopia of "free" markets where the elites are free to get as rich as they want and the rest are forced to tread water or sink. The only thing a rising tide floats are CEO's yachts.

    Its time socialism was used to benefit the people instead of the corporations and their fat cat CEO's.
  35. Andrew House from Canada writes: MR. Newman is correct when he says capitalism is hard to kill - and it should be. Capitalism as a way of harnessing creativity, capitalism as a way of creating wealth is the reason we have today virtually all that we have. The fact is, despite the distaste it generates in many of us, that no other generic economic model has come even close to what capitalism in tandem with democracy has accomplished. That's the shiny, gleaming upside. The dirty rotting downside is that wealth, gargantuan size, and the replacement of the state and its citizens as the central theme of politics with "economics" has allowed entrepreneurial capitalism to be crushed by shallow and overwhelmingly venal PRIVATE SECTOR bureaucrats whose world view stops at their Amex Cards. We need capitalism because it works; we do not need the "free market" nonsense of the Chicago School, the Republican Party, and Stephen Harper. Our newspapers, especially the better ones, if they had an ounce of the responsibility they once claimed, would be tearing apart the Potemkin social science of Economics and its mathematically astute, reality challenged, priests, and demanding to know why these idiots savants (and the savant part is dubious) have som e much power in our democratic legislatures.
  36. A D from Oakville, Canada writes: Thanks to useless careers such as financial engineering....
  37. Jerry Kitich from Canada writes: the defense of the status quo is always that its created the world around us & can't be all bad, just as the world isn't all bad, there is no better system etc.

    the definition of a fool is someone who keeps doing the same thing & expecting different results
  38. Mike Baker from Iqaluit, Canada writes:

    "What we need is new gods ..."

    Flesh and blood gods too often prove fallible when greed opens its door. Today's business elites demonstrate that unchecked egos are poor substitutes for rational discipline. How many times, as an investor, have I seen unsound or failing businesses grant ineffective executives obscene bonuses? As if gross incompetence is the fault of the rank and file; the executive infallible, gods by any other name.

    I accept in my own case that the consequence of repeated failure is dismissal - and not reward. My professional efforts are guided to some extent by the dynamics of fair evaluation of my work. I can well sense how I'd feel about accepting multiples of my current salary for making negligible contribution to the organization I serve.

    The flesh and blood gods who have got us in this mess might be exceptional talents, excepting that when confronted with the critical choice between sensibility and false intimations of divinity, they repeatedly succumb like garden variety weaklings.

    “`My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings: Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair!' Nothing beside remains. Round the decay of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare ...”
  39. Another View from Canada writes: Social democracy in a capitalist system is workable. However, why should those that already have more than enough be allowed to make the laws, deregulate the safeguards that have been put in place to keep the "criminals" from destroying the systems that they have learned so well to manipulate to their benefit. Those that have lived by greed have done very well for themselves over the past 25 years or so. The rest have seen an erosion of their incomes and quality of living.

    The US is a good example of how the "criminal elements" of society can take over when regulations and oversight are set aside in the name of free markets and deregulation. What 25 years ago would have passed for criminal activity is now the way of doing business. A once mighty economy has been devastated by the movement of manufacturing to foreign countries and the wealth has been sucked out of the middle class by running up huge trade imbalances importing goods back into the country and paying for them with borrowed money.

    Canada is in serious trouble as we own so little of our industry. You can be sure that if some of the major automakers in the US go bankrupt, as it is looking that way now, there will be plant closings here and a lot of unemployment. We have had a succession of Liberal and Conservative governments who have encouraged and made possible the takeover of, not only our industries, but the wholesale selling of our resources as well.

    I am not a fan of government control or nationalized businesses, but I am not in favour of the wholesale selling off of the business core of our country either. So much of the wealth that we generate here ends up leaving the country. It is not healthy for the long term prosperity of Canadians.
  40. donald smith from Canada writes: When any of those parasites that cashed out millions could not care less what any one will say about them. they know that everyone will call them sir and hotels eateries vacation resorts etc. will call them sirs, and kiss their shoes and treat them like kings. money even their neighbors will bow and snivel. the money is the thing that society worships. once they have it they can pervert all who have less. who among us would not like to have had the opportunities given to them to impoverish the lesser beings on earth. If we had the gumption to scorn them and make them the untouchables and despised others may not succumb to the temptations. it is our so called leaders of our institutions. particularily most of our past and present politicians are to blame for allowing a society of greed. for even they are not immune as witness by their lavish pay and allowances and golden parachutes and pensions. politicians love to say they are overworked and underpaid. yet they will spend fortunes of their own and others money to get the job and would sell out nearly anything or anybody to keep in office. can you imagine a couple of well paid politicians who continue to live in subsidized housing while lower people are on waiting lists. I know!!! there are a few who are not like this but they are too few. I wish I had realized when I was younger that the rewards of living off the taxpayers had such benefits waiting in the future. alas.
  41. Benjamin Frankling from Canada writes: Greed f.....d capitalism! Get it?
  42. Benjamin Frankling from Canada writes: I should have specified that my comment is meant for all those other comments whining about Neuman's article for not addressing what caused the economic crisis.
  43. :den ial: from Canada writes: Capitalism is based on the illusion of money -- it takes $1 and turns it into $100. You can have 100 people thinking they own that $1, because they have a piece of paper or bank statement that says so. But they don't. One person owns that $1. And that's why if everyone, at the same time, goes for their $1, the illusion falls apart and the result is either a bank run or the need to print money like there's no tomorrow (because there is no tomorrow) and, yes, those 99 other people can get their $1, but it'll be "worth" $0.10 by the time they get it, so they need $9 more dollars to have a $1, and so on and so on... The 'crash' that we are experiencing is really what is underlying capitalism and always has. This reality -- that things can fall apart -- is *always* there. It's not that now, here in late 2008, suddenly something new is happening. All that is happening now is a series of triggers are coming together to expose what is ALWAYS lying beneath capitalism; and not all that deeply. This is not paranoia. It just is what it is. People have been 'playing capitalism' (I'm talking wannabe day traders and everyday folks who became real estate speculators in their 'spare time') for years without realizing that this is the other side of capitalism. This is really what it is. These same people should have bought GICs and bonds from the beginning. I'm not wagging a finger from the other side of the fence -- we have RRSPs in mutual funds that have lost a scary amount of value, and its hurting -- but when I look back, I can't honestly see why I didn't just convert them to GICs years ago. Why would I put retirement funds into something where the principal, at least, isn't guaranteed? How stupid is that? Capitalism is not a game and it's not for people who can't handle risk -- or loss. If anything good comes out of this, this lesson will be it.
  44. Cameron M from Toronto, Canada writes: This is the inevitable end result of too-much-greed no-fear no-shame style of capitalism. It doesn't have to be this way. And this is the 9/11 of capitalism and may spell the end for it.
  45. C Osborn from Canada writes: Ah yes. The emperor truly has no clothes.

    As the middle class grows poorer our country will be governed less by the democratically elected and more by those individuals and corporations who control the real power in a capitalist society...the obscenely rich.

    It's been happening for a long time now, but never more evident than during the last 8 years of Bush.

    Just as the U.S.S.R gave communism a bad name, so now has the U.S. given capitalism a bad name. Maybe thoughtful democracies can meet somewhere in the middle.
  46. East Coast Living from Halifax, Canada writes: :den ial: from Canada writes: Capitalism is based on the illusion of money -- it takes $1 and turns it into $100. You can have 100 people thinking they own that $1, because they have a piece of paper or bank statement that says so.

    What you are describing is not capitalism but rather fiat currency. The meltdown we are now experiencing has nothing to do with capitalism and everything to do with fiat currency. Ask yourself, what does every country have in common? It's not capitalism.

    People need to educate themselves.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capitalism

    This is also an excellent article.

    http://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/main.jhtml?xml=/opinion/2008/10/12/do1203.xml
  47. David Gibson from Hamilton, Canada writes: Gee, I'd like to comment, but I didn't read the article.; nor will I ever read anything else by Peter "C." Newman.
  48. dp ludwig from United States writes:
    What exactly is Peter Newman's point?

    For someone who is supposedly a big shot writer, he is good at writing fluff that is cryptic and convoluted.

    What an idiot.
  49. :den ial: from Canada writes: East Coast Living: thank you for correcting me and adding absolutely nothing, in any direction, to the discussion or issues at hand.

    You must be a real hit at parties.
  50. Alex MacLean from Toronto, Canada writes: Mr Rockwell, Economist John Kenneth Galbraith said that Americans do believe in socialism, but only for the rich. They always get bailed out before the levees are breached. Enjoy your newest public assets: banks propped up, nay, invested in, by the American taxpayer. Ain't socialism grand?
  51. Sam G from Toronto, Canada writes: Here goes Peter C. Newman again with his told-you-so. Look, Peter, it is not that complicated. Wall Street has turned into a Cargo Cult: get best-and-brightest lined up to overleverage everything and things will work out. Mark Twain wrote that, when you put together ignorance and confidence together, success is guaranteed.

    That's all there is to it. The lesson here is that everyone needs to learn to invest and manage own investments. If you don't know how to invest, don't think that someone working for a commission will have your interests in mind. Don't overleverage yourself and follow Warren Buffet. I sold some of my most profitable holdings about a year ago, following Buffet's sale of PetroChina. That was a great cue.
  52. John Williams from Ajax, Canada writes: His point is that these big Wall St guys only care about lining their own pockets, even if companies crash, or the economy crashes. They DON'T CARE. Why? They have plenty of money stashed offshore, and even if there was a Depression, its great for them, as their stashed money will go further.

    They don't care about companies, people, or anything else.
    Its a white collar criminal mentality.

    And also guys flipping paper around to make money, and making money when there are market crashes.

    Capitalism, on this level, is the most corrupt system on earth, as it gets taken over by criminals with degrees and business suits.
  53. ken g from Canadian in Cuernavaca, Canada writes: Back to Government run banks. But that might be a bad thing.
  54. small c capitalist from the edge of the continent, Canada writes: Some of this mess could have been avoided if savers simply had had the opportunity to receive higher rates on their savings. Then they wouldn't (in effect) have been enticed by the latest "sliced-and-diced," mumbo-jumbo, products.
  55. Rt. Revd. Malachy Egan from Halifax, Canada writes: Still Learning at 78, gives us a quote from an Albert Einstein article on society "Private capital tends to become concentrated in few hands, partly because of competition among the capitalists, and partly because technological development and the increasing division of labor encourage the formation of larger units of production at the expense of smaller ones. The results of these developments is an oligarchy of private capital, the enormous power of which cannot be effectively checked even by a democratically organized political society.... Moreover, under existing conditions, private capitalists inevitably control, directly or indirectly, the main sources of information (press, radio, education). It is thus extremely difficult, and indeed in most cases quite impossible, for the individual citizen to come to objective conclusions and to make intelligent use of his political rights." Then poses the question: "Is this man a fool?" There were no takers... Why? Because the average Canadian can no longer think critically or logically or, indeed, for him/herself. Einstein was right then and right today, and that is why the situation is so serious. Then we have guys with lightweight brains like Billiam Smith from Montreal, who deride our concern and invite us to copy him and place our heads way up into our fundamental darkness. BTW. VOTE MINORITY GOVERNMENT: do not give anybody absolute power. We are as Einstein says 'and oligarchy' lets not go for a dictatorship!
  56. Alan Burke ClimateChange.dynalias.com from Ottawa, Canada writes: Is it any wonder that the house of cards has collapsed?

    Brother, Can You Spare Me a Planet?

    Neoclassical economic theory is predicated on unscientific assumptions that massively frustrate or effectively undermine efforts to implement scientifically viable economic policies and solutions.

    Scientific American, March 2008.

    http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=brother-can-you-spare-me-a-planet
  57. Alfred E Human from Canada writes: The invisible hand of the free marketplace hath yanked and the people hath rolleth over.
  58. Alfred E Human from Canada writes: The profit hath spoken and the people are broken.
  59. Alfred E Human from Canada writes: Verily verily, I saith unto you, the masters of the universe playeth; the economy layeth; and the people payeth. It is written.
  60. Cland Destine from Canada writes: Really these thieves have done the unthinkable, they've proven what socialists and communists said. Now their methods failed too, but look where we are now. What's left some sort of middle ground? Likely, as communism is inefficient, and u.s style capitalism seems unsustainable.

    Nothing should, or can be "free wheeling" and the freedom was abused in the u.s. at an obscene level. I can't help but think, these people should be executed, but yea yea yea that's wrong blah blah blah...but honestly....they've done more damage than any 911 hijacker.
  61. Cland Destine from Canada writes: oh well by the looks of things, most of them are rich...but ugly....

    sorry just being bitter now ;)
  62. Loose Change from Canada writes: There is another danger that perhaps is a lot more important and serious than anything in the Wall street issue.

    When situations like this happen in the world the people generally panic and then start looking for a saviour. They then tend to throw out anything and anybody who has had anythng to do with the current situation regardless of whether they were culpable or not.

    If you look at a couple of situations similar (I said similar not the same) was in the 30's and then we had Hitler, and the other nut bars who were going to change everything and give the people everything they thought they wanted.

    We are in a similar situation now in the States. Nobody really knows Obama he has been so many things that it will be interesting to see where this all plays out. People now want change, to what they dond't really know but change.

    Be careful of what you wish for.
  63. Alan Burke ClimateChange.dynalias.com from Ottawa, Canada writes: New Scientist, Oct. 2008.

    Special report: How our economy is killing the Earth

    http://tinyurl.com/5d7tgf

    This report addresses very well the quandary of an economic system dependent upon growth when growth may no longer be possible and could be toxic to all of us. Our exponential growth will soon hit the barrier of limited resources, making the current financial crisis look like a tempest in a teapot in comparison, unless we take drastic measures to make economists and politicians realize just how damaging modern economic theory and practice really are.

    Editorial: Time to banish the god of growth

    http://tinyurl.com/4evh5e

    Imagine an industry that runs out of raw materials. Companies go bust, workers are laid off, families suffer and associated organisations are thrown into turmoil. Eventually governments are forced to take drastic action. Welcome to global banking, brought to its knees by the interruption of its lifeblood - the flow of cash.
    In this case we seem to have been fortunate. In the nick of time, governments released reserves that should with luck get cash circulating again. But what if they hadn't been there? There are no reserves of fish, tropical hardwoods, fresh water or metals such as indium, so what are we going to do when supplies of these vital materials dry up? We live on a planet with finite resources - that's no surprise to anyone - so why do we have an economic system in which all that matters is growth ... More growth means using more resources. ...If we are to leave any kind of planet to our children we need an economic system that lets us live within our means.

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