SOCIAL: F&#@#k. The Bailout Sucks.

[Tom Radulovich]

Of course we had a choice.

John Michael Greer, who writes "The Archdruid Report" (It isn't a cute  
handle; he is actually an Archdruid), wrote a piece called "The Flight  
to Abstraction" which I haven't been able to get out of my head for a  
few weeks.  The post contains one of my favorite quotes about Las  
Vegas: "of all of the cities I have ever visited, Las Vegas is my  
least favorite: a garish urban cancer that apparently exists for the  
sole purpose of proving that it’s possible to take a barren, scorpion- 
infested wasteland and make something even worse out of it."

Las Vegas provides a segue to Giambattista Vico's treatise on history,  
which includes the idea that as societies age, they lose a focus on  
the concrete realities and focus increasingly on abstractions. For  
example, the cost of the AIG bailout alone (± $250 billion) would  
build the US a world-class, nationwide electrified passenger rail  
system. But somehow, the task of shoring up AIG and all of the  
abstract 'capital' it represents (capital once meant 'goods') became a  
much more compelling political imperative than creating actual,  
tangible, usable infrastructure we could use to move around the  
country without continuing to destroy the planet.

Greer's take on history and civilization owes much to Oswald Spengler,  
and his view of industrial civilization's prospects is throughly  
pessimistic, but he is a thoughtful and original writer.

http://thearchdruidreport.blogspot.com/2008/10/my-decision-some-two-and-half-years-ago.html

On Nov 25, 2008, at 2:19 PM, Amandeep Jawa wrote:

> The original post is here:
>
> http://www.ritholtz.com/blog/2008/11/big-bailouts-bigger-bucks/
>
>
> On Nov 25, 2008, at 2:16 PM, Amandeep Jawa wrote:
>
>> damn. this f*()&)ng sucks.  I don't know that we had a choice, but  
>> F@#$k!
>> ----------------------------------
>>
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