We're At The Fag-end Of Debt-based Finance Capitalism

[interestrateripoff]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/vi...risis-john-gray

We're at the fag-end of debt-based finance capitalism

There can be no return to the status quo – we will now see geopolitical changes, as well as those to banking and economies

[IMHAL]

Sounds like someone hitting a nail with a hammer, on the head.

[Guest happy?]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/vi...risis-john-gray

Thank Christ for that never did like their music.

[Stars]

Vague, lefty,vacuous waffle

[blankster]

Vague, lefty,vacuous waffle

.................but true! And I haven't even read the article

[pilchardthecat]

Vague, lefty,vacuous waffle

wot he said

[Thucydides]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/vi...risis-john-gray

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/vi...risis-john-gray

Here we have Britain's leading socialist newspaper, playing a video of Britain's leading socialist academics being asked if capitalism is dead. What must be understood here is that the Left Wing is going to use the despicable behaviour of banks - in many cases caused under socialist governments - to increase state control over us all, as if it wasn't bad enough already. If only they had let Northern Rock and Lehman go to the wall, the markets would have corrected themselves over time, instead now we face possibly a global meltdown of biblical proportions thanks to the incessant meddling of incompetent politicians.

Watching the John Grays of this world taking advantage of this to - well, pretty much to advocate a communist state - is sick-inducing. Gray - who has flitted about between right and left before finally landing on New Labour of all things - describes the "ideological triumphalism" of the West after the fall of the Berlin Wall. What a load of rubbish! George H. W. Bush was extremely magnanimous and quiet about it all, as a matter of fact, considering the absolute pile of crap that those communist countries were and how capitalism finally won as a model of governance. He also states that the right or left weren't utopian at this period but the centre was, and that we are now at the "fag-end" of our capitalism. I think we are at the fag-end of his career by the looks of things.

Lenin once said that "the Capitalists will sell us the rope with which we will hang them". Looks like he was right and we are now heading into a communist nightmare unless someone who knows the first thing about history can step up.

Edited March 11, 2009 by Thucydides

[Umiapik]

John Gray is always utterly miserable: he only ever talks about futility and the inevitable end of humanity. Try reading Straw Dogs. I'm amazed the bloke hasn't slit his wrists yet!

[drdoom]

There will be a tighter regulatory regime in the aftermath of this particular collapse. But it'll be back to bubble economics in about 50 years time, when this current generation is dead or too old to be listened to.

[rolf]

There will be a tighter regulatory regime in the aftermath of this particular collapse. But it'll be back to bubble economics in about 50 years time, when this current generation is dead or too old to be listened to.

Absolutely.What amazes me is how similar this crisis is to 1929. By the time 2089 rolls by and we are long gone, there will be another bubble!

[Injin]

Absolutely.What amazes me is how similar this crisis is to 1929. By the time 2089 rolls by and we are long gone, there will be another bubble!

It's still the 1929 bubble.

This is the end of it, when the banking system which the market rejected at that time is finally dispatched.

[UndercoverElephant]

Vague, lefty,vacuous waffle

Sharp, concise, devastating truth. If you didn't believe that then you've got a nasty surprise in store.

Edited March 11, 2009 by UndercoverElephant

[1929crash]

Vague, lefty,vacuous waffle

Massive and unprecedented public expenditure cuts is lefty?

Recovery hitting resource constraints is waffle?

Making banks socially useful instead of gambling dens is vacuous?

[jocohen]

Here we have Britain's leading socialist newspaper, playing a video of Britain's leading socialist academics being asked if capitalism is dead. What must be understood here is that the Left Wing is going to use the despicable behaviour of banks - in many cases caused under socialist governments - to increase state control over us all, as if it wasn't bad enough already. If only they had let Northern Rock and Lehman go to the wall, the markets would have corrected themselves over time, instead now we face possibly a global meltdown of biblical proportions thanks to the incessant meddling of incompetent politicians.

Watching the John Grays of this world taking advantage of this to - well, pretty much to advocate a communist state - is sick-inducing. Gray - who has flitted about between right and left before finally landing on New Labour of all things - describes the "ideological triumphalism" of the West after the fall of the Berlin Wall. What a load of rubbish! George H. W. Bush was extremely magnanimous and quiet about it all, as a matter of fact, considering the absolute pile of crap that those communist countries were and how capitalism finally won as a model of governance. He also states that the right or left weren't utopian at this period but the centre was, and that we are now at the "fag-end" of our capitalism. I think we are at the fag-end of his career by the looks of things.

Lenin once said that "the Capitalists will sell us the rope with which we will hang them". Looks like he was right and we are now heading into a communist nightmare unless someone who knows the first thing about history can step up.

i have no time for socialist nonsense but to try and rewrite history by claiming that allowing lehman and northern to go to the wall would have been the end of the economic trouble of it is also pushing truth.

The only right wing economists who were opposed to propping up the banks are the von mises people but they were also sceptical about our obsession with finance rather then real production.

Traditional centre right economics which respects real productivity based growth and not 'masters of the universe' types. Money as an exchange tool not as a engineering product.. These are absolute basics which would be common ground to free marketeers and some lefties. But these huge questions have not been discussed yet, we're so far into the crisis and these tough changes to the way we do things has not been touched

[1929crash]

Watching the John Grays of this world taking advantage of this to - well, pretty much to advocate a communist state - is sick-inducing. Gray - who has flitted about between right and left before finally landing on New Labour of all things - describes the "ideological triumphalism" of the West after the fall of the Berlin Wall. What a load of rubbish! George H. W. Bush was extremely magnanimous.

John Gray is advocating a communist state? Like the Lizards run the planet, you mean?

And Bush acted maganaminously by breaking his father's guarantee not to extend NATO up to the borders of Russia?

[Oh Dear]

"We can't solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them."

Einstein allegedly

[Stars]

Massive and unprecedented public expenditure cuts is lefty?

He wasn't advocating, he was describing

Recovery hitting resource constraints is waffle?

No, a devastating insight

Making banks socially useful instead of gambling dens is vacuous?

It's cr@p - Banks are businesses, they cannot be arranged to be a branch of social services and still be banks.

Things will be not quite the same, but not totally different, but quite a bit different, but i don't know how different or in which direction different or why - but this is definately the end of finance capitalism (or whatever it is we have now), well not the end totaly but it probably isn't going to be quite the same, but it may be a bit the same. Then a leap to mention Keynesian eco. - he doesn't think it's the answer, but he likes it and so we are left wondering why he bothered bringing it up.

[1929crash]

It's cr@p - Banks are businesses, they cannot be arranged to be a branch of social services and still be banks.

Banks weren't always into the reckless gambling that they've been up to in recent years, with all the crazy derivatives trading. Of course you can make them sociallay useful, by stamping out their reckless behaviour. If we as a society cannot do this then we deserve to have HPI.

If you want to cut out HPI you have to cut out the causes of HPI, and no amount of special pleading behind the "That's business" excuse will suffice.

[Stars]

Banks weren't always into the reckless gambling that they've been up to in recent years, with all the crazy derivatives trading.

We have had real estate booms followed by economic slumps since the industrial revolution

So, when did the reckless banking start?

Of course you can make them sociallay useful, by stamping out their reckless behaviour. If we as a society cannot do this then we deserve to have HPI.

I'd go along with this IF the metric of its success was an increase in secure home ownership and a reduction in the amount spent by working people on their accomodation and if it failed by those metrics, that we do something else that will work.

It is very hard to be enthusiastic about something you know perfectly well will not work, but i also understand that the uk public people is probably going to have to be cornered by trying everything that doesn't work, before they address the actual problem.

If you want to cut out HPI you have to cut out the causes of HPI,

The cause of HPI is a freebie built into our system of land ownership. Because land is in fixed supply, immovable, irreplaceable and neccessary to all production, the landowner becomes empowered to privately pocket value created by the work of others. This fact makes land an attractive 'investment' because it allows one to collect passivly from all production without having to enter into any contractual arrangment with any of it. It is a way of forcing yourself upon production, because produuction cannot replace what you hold. You can turn the banks into funfairs if you want, it wont change this.

and no amount of special pleading behind the "That's business" excuse will suffice.

It is you that is doing the special pleading

Do you intend to restrict the amount people can effectively indebt themselves by a simple contract?

[MacGuffin]

I have a lot of time for John Gray's analysis, having read quite a few of his books. He is FAR from advocating a communist state; in fact he views both communism and capitalist market fundamentalism (and Islamic fundamentalism, to boot) as malign outcomes of the Enlightenment.

it is true his party-political standpoint has shifted a bit over the years; he has moved from the New Right to New Labour, and now increasingly disparages both. There is quite a lot of James Lovelock & Gaia Theory in his analysis now, about the inevitable conflicts that will occur as resources become increasingly depleted. Yes, he is a bit of a miserablist, but if that means skepticism in the face of those who claim to have established new economic paradigms ('No more Boom and Bust', 'The Information Economy' etc) then that is a GOOD THING.

Gray infuriates the majority of academic/professional political theorists, of the Guardianista and Neo-Con persuasions (as well as others). What's wrong with that?