One observation I have on the current situation with the banking system and governments propping up of credit etc, is how anti the ethos of the market economy it is. For years after the fall of the Berlin wall and demise of eastern european communism the free market was heralded as the way ahead. The collapse of one overarching system was trumpeted as the vindication for the market economy. People started to look to the free market, free trade as the way ahead for social ills, and the way out for global poverty and oppression. Introducing competive trade would help the world move on.
Now we see the collapse of this meta narrative. Those who extolled the market dont really practice what they preach. In the real market economy/free economy they would just let the banks that couldn’t survive go to the wall. Sure this would affect millions of individuals but why not aline your actions and follow your beliefs.
Maybe they never really belived in the market system, but it was just a convient excuse for making money and keeping the poor, poor, the rich, rich and the powerful, powerful! Maybe propping up the system has nothing to do with the millions of individuals but simply heads off the real change that comes though dying so something new and different can grow. It certainly seems the current process will keep the rich, rich, the powerful powerful and just make the poor poorer.
Richard, I totally agree. This whole thinks has made me really angry. I know I don’t fully understand all the implications of the crash. But what i want to know – who is going to be held account for this? When are the ‘fat-cats’ the greedy going to be tracked down and made to give back the millions they made at the expense of the poor. I have heard nothing from the government about this – maybe because they encouragged the whole thing with de-regulation. In Nottingham the city council have announced that they need to make 400 people redundant because of the economic climate. They deny that lsoing maybe £42 million in one of the Icendanic banks, sacking the last 3 chief execs at a cost of £600,000 to the local tax payer and given £12 million worth of contracts to consulants – interestingly £12 million is what they say they need to save. I am fed up with the injustice, the constant cheating and lying and they wonder why people don’t trust politicians. I don’t. I have lost trust in these people where power, prestiage, postion and partriachy rule.
It just seems that we are blind -the government want to just get back to where we were – no learning, no third-way, no creative ideas… just let us get back to the same system before the collapse so we can carry on making huge amounts of money at others expense. When we live in a system when companies are under threat for not increasinly profit year on year – this is just unsustatinable… and it is the share holders who demand this. Ans yet the same shareholders want the government to help thems out if the shares go down in value.. We need to learn the social sin that Gandhi outlined.. there can be no ‘wealth without work’.
Compainies could make profit every year and reward staff and the shareholders would keep the value of shares.. but the greedy cant accept this. I beleive those who are shareholders need to seriously consider what system they are supporting …
wow… that was good therapy for me… I needed that..
sorry the above comment was by me… James Hawes
The ‘Free Market’ is great… in Utopia. However, we don’t live in Utopia and have therefore never had a free market.
What kind of free market would say “you rich folk can invest here, but if your investment doesn’t work we’ll pinch money from the poor and bail you out”? That would be our investment market. It meant that those with money could foolishly stick their savings in Icelandic banks at 8% and when they lost it all the government would take taxes from those with no money (i.e. those with more debt than savings – perhaps most people) to bail them out! Mad, and to think that the common person voted for this stuff! Must be something wrong with the way we try democracy! Hmmm, maybe democracy would work properly in Utopia too! 🙂
Heard someone say just before Christmas, that the stock market was founded on 2 things, fear and greed. Maybe there eeds to be an examination of oundations, not just in the stock market, but in various institutions. This observation came from a stock market analyst, so if he recognises fear and greed, then surely it must be obvious to hers as well.