(no subject)

[johnny9fingers]

Well, Lehman Bros have gone.
The world still turns, but the world's economy looks to be totally fucked.
Those who've followed this blog over the last few years will know that I've been Cassandra-ing about a coming crisis in late capitalism for some time: I rather hoped it wouldn't be quite as huge as it now seems to be.
The big questions now are how big will it actually get?
What will we learn from it?
What regulatory systems will we put in place to limit such things happening again?

Has de-regulation done us any good?

Now that the banks have found structural ways around some of the bad debt (buy up another bank, transfer all the bad debts to the newly purchased bank, and then let it go to the wall, which seems the banking equivalent of the Lloyds re-insurance scandal of the 80's) how will the regulators deal with this?

Well.... Richard Wright has died.
I'm still shitting blood.
Life ain't fun really, excepting for love that is. Thank the gods for love.
 

Comments

[towith.livejournal.com]

Raw material businesses which were then nationalized, like steel. It's amusing as nationalizing and bailing out are essentially the same animal, yet most of know nationalization to be a poor decision.

One wonders if there are idealogical reasons for certain economists criticism of FDR's economic policies?

Are we traipsing into ad hominem? There are philosophical reasons. We could go into the merits of truth over sophism if you wish.

[Edit]

As for small conflicts, according to Keynes and FDR that should have been a boom for industry. Imagine all the money changing hands.

[johnny9fingers.livejournal.com]

Thing is at the moment the bailing out has been done by a 'right-wing' government. Fannie Mae/Freddy Mac was a bail-out for the man-in-the-street. AIG may be a bail-out of a different kind.
Lehman's didn't get bailed out at all, and have gone to the wall. Possibly Goldmans and Morgans will go the same way.

Would help if I could spell ideological too.

WWII was a boom for industry: Keynes was right.

I don't reckon Philosophy and Economics mix too well. Pragmatic fudging seems to be the best we can manage. (Much like Hilbert's dream of a perfect unified mathematics falls over as soon as Russell's Set Theory Paradox hoves into view: and then the coup de grace is applied by Godel's Incompleteness I & II.)
But that's just my opinion.

[towith.livejournal.com]

I'll leave the wings on the bird. It's the actions they take which matters.

WWII was a boom for industry

I wonder what changed since your previous comment. Given that labour, focus and investment were being diverted, no it wasn't. It's the broken window fallacy.

Philosophy being the rational investigation of truth, knowledge, conduct... You know you're the second person this month to wave Godel under my nose, do I come across as someone with a phobia for names? Now if certainty is always at question, does it make more sense to make vast all-encompassing decisions or to defer to those on the ground floor?

[Edit]

Why do I keep remembering further points after posting? As for your Lehman comment.

[johnny9fingers.livejournal.com]

Nowt changed since my previous comment: Keynes ran our war economy - the manufacturing parts prospered but after the war the govt. found a small difficulty in meeting the costs of industrial production and had to call upon loans from the Americans, who were strangely in a better shape after FDR's economic policies. Weird that. Labour, focus, and investment were diverted, but the US had a certain....capacity that geared up to meet a new demand. War economies are however very different, as you point out.
I'd say decisions about policy should be made according to circumstances: for example, going to war against uncle Adolph seems rather a better move than going to war against Saddam. But that could be hindsight. However that doesn't mean going to war is always wrong or always right: a policy of war is not necessarily always a good thing.
Any system with more than three variables is inherently unpredictable (according to Chaos theory amongst others). The world economy is inherently unpredictable. But you are right, I feel, in assuming that certain forms of conduct are essential in such circumstances: we just disagree on what those particular forms of conduct should be.
I favour regulation and sound auditing, and when the market appears not to work, intervention of one kind or another. The nature of that intervention is of course debatable. I certainly don't feel that bailing out investment banks is necessarily a good thing: but also I think that allowing the economy to go 'tits up' without first trying to stabilise it would be a dereliction of good government, which is something the taxpayers vote governments in for in the first place.
Philosophy, alas, has limitations imposed by a non-philosophically inclined world. Just as logic has limits when dealing with the non-logical.
As for Barclay's....they'll end up with some good properties. But Morgan Stanley and Goldman's may yet lose their independence much like Lehman Bros.
Regulators hardly limited the market at all before the crash; now it looks like that will change: short-selling has been forbidden in the UK. Possibly bad for our economy, but it may be banned elsewhere too: so Goldman's and Morgan's may yet survive.
The entire Russian stock market has been closed for two days. That seems like a regulatory decision. And whether one agrees with it or not philosophically it's happened nevertheless.

More Champagne....I'm getting sober, which I could do with avoiding.

[towith.livejournal.com]

So many incomplete-thoughts.

What's that old cliche about insanity. Doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results. Who would think people born into governmental systems would end up voting in them. That hemorrhaging money into entangling alliances seems like a good idea while it is policy. And for those who dare disagree?

"whether one agrees with it or not philosophically it's happened nevertheless."

Brought swiftly into line without argument.