BUSINESS
Don Arturo says:
There was a man
who sold puppets and whistles
for a living
He also played guitar
He used to go
to the shopping areas
and draw huge crowds
They bought his whistles
and puppets
They threw money into
his guitar
This was against the law
So he was arrested at
least three times a week
When his turn came up
in the courtroom
He took a puppet out
and put a show on
All the detectives
and court clerks
rolled on the floor
When he was finished
they all bought puppets
and whistles from him
The judge got angry
and yelled:
What kind of business
is this
And the man said
I am the monkey man
and the
Monkey man sells
Monkey business.
-Victor Hernandez Cruz
In the US -- in North America -- business is monkey business. There is no other kind. That is the character of things. There's always a catch; there's always a sense of humor, or at any rate there should be. There may be some sense to keeping free trade free from government intervention, but no one will ever keep free trade free from monkey business; it is endemic.
There is a difference between Latin American, where this poem refers itself to, and North America, and this is that while monkey business is but an aspect of the scenario in the South, in the North this humorous monkey business aspect of things is universalized: it is a broad, endemic and universalized aspect of the culture. Everything is a joke; or everything is a fraud; or --- everything is a profit margin obtained with a wink and a nod. Grow up and admit it.
This book I have (Greenwillow imprint), from 1976, says Cruz "has published two
collections of poems"; "Snaps" and "Mainland." (latter: Random House, 1973)
Monday, February 23, 2009
Friday, February 20, 2009
The Liars Get Caught
"$275 billion plan seeks to address crisis in housing" buy Sheryl Stolberg & El L. Andrews"
Congrats, to the N.Y.T. for trying to explain things. At least they are trying, just a little bit. By implication what they are saying is this. In order to pay all that dought back that is being loaned or borrowed the "taxpayers" (the newspapers' fav. word nowadays) will have to do two things. First, make lots and lots of money - this is usually no problem here in America, right? - and then secondly, they will have to not really spend it after they make it, because they are going to be using all of it to pay back the loans. Nor can they invest it, or loan it out to others, etc. No. They have to use all that money they will be making to pay back the loan: to pay back the trillions now being pumped in.
Now, how will that happen? In Elton John's terms: "it's impossible."
They say they want to put the economy back - back on track. They want to stimulate, or re-stimulate, the economy. Soze it can be just like the good old days. They want to restart the basic process itself. In our experience, this is to start another round of investing and making money. But how do you make money, in our accustomed experience of things? Ah. Well, first you borrow. But, you see, we are planning to stop all that. This is all pretty simple reasoning.
Even if you accept all the premises up until repayment, that means that when the "taxpayers" (I just love that word) will start making oodles of money again (a premise we have to accept here, to reason this forward), they will be using that money to - what else? - finally pay back that two trillion dollars they are forwarding into the system these days as their only inspiration on how to solve this credit problem or credit crunch. But then these economic actors (oh yeah: taxpayers) will have that much less to invest in "el futuro." The future.
By implication as I said the N. Y. T. is saying that in the future, we intend to stop borrowing.
It's impossible.
Figure it out for yourself. You know, I guess it is usually better that way anyways.
Now one last question: Why can they not admit this?
I - no trained academic - can figure this out. Maybe, with my explaation here, you can too.
Why, then, are the professional economists not telling?
p.s. there is no easy answer to that one. I guess maybe its cultural.
Congrats, to the N.Y.T. for trying to explain things. At least they are trying, just a little bit. By implication what they are saying is this. In order to pay all that dought back that is being loaned or borrowed the "taxpayers" (the newspapers' fav. word nowadays) will have to do two things. First, make lots and lots of money - this is usually no problem here in America, right? - and then secondly, they will have to not really spend it after they make it, because they are going to be using all of it to pay back the loans. Nor can they invest it, or loan it out to others, etc. No. They have to use all that money they will be making to pay back the loan: to pay back the trillions now being pumped in.
Now, how will that happen? In Elton John's terms: "it's impossible."
They say they want to put the economy back - back on track. They want to stimulate, or re-stimulate, the economy. Soze it can be just like the good old days. They want to restart the basic process itself. In our experience, this is to start another round of investing and making money. But how do you make money, in our accustomed experience of things? Ah. Well, first you borrow. But, you see, we are planning to stop all that. This is all pretty simple reasoning.
Even if you accept all the premises up until repayment, that means that when the "taxpayers" (I just love that word) will start making oodles of money again (a premise we have to accept here, to reason this forward), they will be using that money to - what else? - finally pay back that two trillion dollars they are forwarding into the system these days as their only inspiration on how to solve this credit problem or credit crunch. But then these economic actors (oh yeah: taxpayers) will have that much less to invest in "el futuro." The future.
By implication as I said the N. Y. T. is saying that in the future, we intend to stop borrowing.
It's impossible.
Figure it out for yourself. You know, I guess it is usually better that way anyways.
Now one last question: Why can they not admit this?
I - no trained academic - can figure this out. Maybe, with my explaation here, you can too.
Why, then, are the professional economists not telling?
p.s. there is no easy answer to that one. I guess maybe its cultural.
Wednesday, February 11, 2009
Freeland's comments
Chrystia Freeland (FT):
" More importantly, this particular economic crisis has already overturned the economic orthodoxy which helped ensure Republican political dominance over the past three decades. That philosophy, neatly summarised by Ronald Reagan in his inaugural address – “Government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem” – was demolished last Monday, when Mr Paulson effectively coerced the country’s biggest banks into selling significant stakes to the state. "
Government, which represents the people, took over part of the banking system.
It was inevitable because this is in the nature of the situation itself. Capitalism spreads money - we can say money or we can say wealth or value or whatever - out to the public. They end up eventually more or less owning capitalism. To save the system, the government -their representative -had to step in. The government essentially proved this point, which I have understood for some time. The idea, an obvious one to me, that "the people" own the economic system is of course difficult to absorb, when the prevailing orthodoxy is all set up contrariwise.
She also said, at the U of Wisconsin, that "we are living through a moment of systemic change" (UW newspaper, Feb 11)
Well, yeah, that is the idea, but I do not think of it is as easy, or as a given. I think it is a necessity, and I think there is a big question about whether we will be able to make the radical changes that are needed. "Systemic change" is, however, what we need in order to survive. So I am certainly for "systemic change."
" More importantly, this particular economic crisis has already overturned the economic orthodoxy which helped ensure Republican political dominance over the past three decades. That philosophy, neatly summarised by Ronald Reagan in his inaugural address – “Government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem” – was demolished last Monday, when Mr Paulson effectively coerced the country’s biggest banks into selling significant stakes to the state. "
Government, which represents the people, took over part of the banking system.
It was inevitable because this is in the nature of the situation itself. Capitalism spreads money - we can say money or we can say wealth or value or whatever - out to the public. They end up eventually more or less owning capitalism. To save the system, the government -their representative -had to step in. The government essentially proved this point, which I have understood for some time. The idea, an obvious one to me, that "the people" own the economic system is of course difficult to absorb, when the prevailing orthodoxy is all set up contrariwise.
She also said, at the U of Wisconsin, that "we are living through a moment of systemic change" (UW newspaper, Feb 11)
Well, yeah, that is the idea, but I do not think of it is as easy, or as a given. I think it is a necessity, and I think there is a big question about whether we will be able to make the radical changes that are needed. "Systemic change" is, however, what we need in order to survive. So I am certainly for "systemic change."
Thursday, January 29, 2009
Money supply, and, money as paper
I'm not denying that money is a potent force. But even if money itself is so powerful (ha ha - little pieces of paper, or worse yet, nothing - are powerful? That sounds like some kind of joke) there are logically speaking, two things you can do with it: put more in or take more out. Money itself is a thing we should always question in a fundamental way.
In the largest sense, then, money has this twofold quality of being both very powerful and of being really very similar to a joke or to being just nothing at all. We should not forget this later aspect: the illusory, fictive side of its nature.
Once we attain this kind of balance in our understanding we can look -- in a reserved, conditional and suspicious way -- at money's apparent power. But if it has this power, the quandry is of what to do. Take it out? Put it in? Redistro? Move it around? That could make a good pop song.
one final comment: conservative will probably suggest that we neither put some in nor take some out but that the money supply should just be fixed and should remain stabilized more or less. This kind of fiscal conservatism was refuted of course by Keynes. But no one was doing that in any case, so it seems like an irrelevant thing to say. Capitalists are generally going to use all of the power they can get from money. Bankers make money from loaning out money, and, from what I understand, they just invent money sometimes in order to make these loans. If these reports are true it seems natural that eventually they could not be repaid, and, at the same time, for an incredibly long time they could be repaid just enough to keep the insane, greedy selfish system going.
In the largest sense, then, money has this twofold quality of being both very powerful and of being really very similar to a joke or to being just nothing at all. We should not forget this later aspect: the illusory, fictive side of its nature.
Once we attain this kind of balance in our understanding we can look -- in a reserved, conditional and suspicious way -- at money's apparent power. But if it has this power, the quandry is of what to do. Take it out? Put it in? Redistro? Move it around? That could make a good pop song.
one final comment: conservative will probably suggest that we neither put some in nor take some out but that the money supply should just be fixed and should remain stabilized more or less. This kind of fiscal conservatism was refuted of course by Keynes. But no one was doing that in any case, so it seems like an irrelevant thing to say. Capitalists are generally going to use all of the power they can get from money. Bankers make money from loaning out money, and, from what I understand, they just invent money sometimes in order to make these loans. If these reports are true it seems natural that eventually they could not be repaid, and, at the same time, for an incredibly long time they could be repaid just enough to keep the insane, greedy selfish system going.
Monday, January 5, 2009
Artificial Infusions of Cash
Artificial infusions of cash -- I guess -- stimulate capitalism. What is happening is that the circular movement of money through the economy acts as stimulus in terms of a very simple stimulus-response reaction. Yet, somehow, that is not enough. To create a better, deeper explanation requires an economist. Alas, we have plenty of those.
But they do not seem to be able to provide much of any such -- explanation. They provide mush of such --- such explanation.
Let me just propose the following, until next time.
These monetary, fiscal, financial stimulations are shallow ones. The real stimulus-response situation is that capitalism stimulates human social interaction.
Let's try to state this in different wording for the next post.
But they do not seem to be able to provide much of any such -- explanation. They provide mush of such --- such explanation.
Let me just propose the following, until next time.
These monetary, fiscal, financial stimulations are shallow ones. The real stimulus-response situation is that capitalism stimulates human social interaction.
Let's try to state this in different wording for the next post.
Friday, January 2, 2009
Not taking Care of Things
We are just sitting around, not taking care of things. We are not taking care of our economic system, letting it degenerate.
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