Update

Today I watched on TV as the world turned upside-down. It’s interesting that just this week I’ve been treading a book entitled “Capitalism: A Very Short Introduction”. 1 I figured it would be a nonpartisan and digestible discussion of how capitalism works. But it’s turned out to be an intellectually written academically supported version basically of my thoughts and gut-dislike to many characteristics of the economic system. Actually, he never says at all that we should strive for a different economic system. He argues that there are ways to make the capitalist system less risky, less prone to crisis, but he does resign himself where I haven’t quite yet, by saying that capitalism is what we’re stuck with, in virtually every country, for the foreseeable future. But I digress.

The interesting part is in talking about crises he in 2004 basically predicted the inevitability of the current market crash. I guess not so suprizing considering market crashes are apparently a common and necessary part of the way our economy is set up — from what I understand people are encouraged to purchase futures/stock beyond what they can afford with risks ameliorated by other people, until there is no backing and the bottom drops out.

So that’s not where the world turned over. The world turned over as President Bush gave a relatively pertinent, well informed, and straightforward speech. Relatively, I said. And as John McCain announced that his presidential policies would stick the big corporations responsible for this mess, while trying to vitalize the economy for the middle-class. But most crazily, the world flipped when the Wall Street Journal published an explicit statement condemning the policies and rhetoric of a Republican candidate!

In the meantime, I cleaned the house top to bottom, washed the dishes, painted my toe nails, and cooked lunch with Leana. That’s reality.

(1. 2004. James Fulcher. Capitalism: A Very Short Introduction. Oxford University Press: Oxford)