Panic seems to be spreading everywhere. Markets are plunging. Am only reminded of that sentence from Irving Wallace’s The Word – I thought I had reached the bottom of the bottomless pit. But then I realized there was a trapdoor to it! That is an imagery that has always haunted me.
I was surfing channels to find out what the experts had to say. Of course the share-brokers continued to insist, ‘Hold on to what you have. Don’t sell, it will bottom out…”
That is predictable. If everyone packs off, they too would stand to lose out.
A host of experts waffle, hum and haw, nobody knowing what exactly should be done.
One was particularly pathetic. He said, “Anything, anything can be done. Should be done. The situation is precarious. We don’t know. But we cant keep quiet. Shoring up banks, nationalizing, anything, anything?..........”
Incidentally the angst of our native wizzkid Raghuram Rajan is different. See what BusinessWeek’s European editor has to say:
A less competitive U.S., many fear, will cut pressure on foreign governments to fix their own systems. Recent European reforms have been driven largely by envy of U.S. growth. And in India, opponents of reform may be hoping America's troubles will put the brakes on change. Raghuram Rajan, ex-chief economist at the International Monetary Fund and a University of Chicago professor, led a commission studying financial reforms. When Rajan presented the group's findin
gs in Mumbai just a day or two after the Fannie Mae-Freddie Mac bailouts, he recalls, "people were saying to me: 'Is the U.S. the kind of model we want to go with?'"
So obviously his worry is India’s reforms ‘d be torpedoed. Wonderful concerns. This very man who is advocating more regulations in the US. Apparently they need a little, but we are being smothered…
Be that as it may, about the crisis itself. Possibly it will play out. One person who has his head firmly on his shoulders says theres nothing like depression at all. Perhaps the worst times since the 30s, that’s all.
I too agree with him. Given the endless coverage on TV, one can perhaps safely presume it is going to be meltdown like never before. Some of it could be self-fulfilling prophecy.
Am not an economist, of course. Except for the mishmash I have learnt as an aspiring Marxist and from newspaper columns.
Unlike the starry-eyed Marxists tho’, I do not hope this meltdown would trigger anything like a revolution anywhere. Unlike the communists, capitalists have learnt a lot. 1917 was a revelation, a shocker, they are not going to allow it to happen again, if they cd. If China or Cuba happened, it was not for lack of effort! Anyway China they have come up trumps ultimately. It’s a wretched land now, aping the West right through, notwithstanding the fascination of our native commies.
If the New Deal and the Marshall plan of the forties were some resounding testimony to their alertness, resilience in the eyes of its admirers, the recent bailout, even if some inadequate rearguard action, could send out a message from the govt, look we are with you, don’t worry. That itself should make some difference. Don’t they talk up the markets?
So nothing much is going to change. The system will stumble forward, with some course correction, resulting in some losers, but essentially it should be business as usual in a while.
But my focus is not that. What should we wish? As concerned human beings. How should we react? Rub our hands in glee or not?
Am half rubbing at the misery of the pundits and apologists. More so of the exploiters. They richly deserve this, no doubt. The sight of the crowing, haggling, screaming brokers has always put me off.
What has it all to do with the ordinary folk? Though I don’t know what role these charctrs play, I am convinced all the same it’s a side-show, a farce, entertainment chartered by the ruling elite. Irrelevant in the larger scheme of things. Meaning stock-market gambling is not going to ensure better justice on earth – which to me is the most desirous of goals.
Most certainly I have no respect for people whose only pursuit is money. So I have no tears to shed. In fact excited as stocks plunge. Nemesis! Comeuppance!!
Having said that, I also wonder how will I react if say I lose my job or my son his or we are thrown on the streets. Am I comfortable with the prospect?
Am not too sure. The hassle of dealing with it all, making money to survive in tough times, humiliating myse
lf, bowing and scraping, or possibly some disaster overtaking us, of course its disturbing.
But honestly am not horrified, if anyone cares to believe me, that is. For when there is so much poverty around us, shocking, abysmal, unjustified, why should we alone desire a better life?
Well, while I am not going to court poverty, I should not make a hue and cry if it overtakes me.
No one will listen. Such ranting will of course be shrugged away.
But if the meltdown is followed by a catastrophic depression, and humanity reinvents itself, its all for the good.
Ironical, you need to desire everything to be destroyed, before it is all rebuilt. Well, revolution is a vengeful god.
Pain or no pain, things have to change. That’s the bottomline.
I was surfing channels to find out what the experts had to say. Of course the share-brokers continued to insist, ‘Hold on to what you have. Don’t sell, it will bottom out…”
That is predictable. If everyone packs off, they too would stand to lose out.
A host of experts waffle, hum and haw, nobody knowing what exactly should be done.
One was particularly pathetic. He said, “Anything, anything can be done. Should be done. The situation is precarious. We don’t know. But we cant keep quiet. Shoring up banks, nationalizing, anything, anything?..........”
Incidentally the angst of our native wizzkid Raghuram Rajan is different. See what BusinessWeek’s European editor has to say:
A less competitive U.S., many fear, will cut pressure on foreign governments to fix their own systems. Recent European reforms have been driven largely by envy of U.S. growth. And in India, opponents of reform may be hoping America's troubles will put the brakes on change. Raghuram Rajan, ex-chief economist at the International Monetary Fund and a University of Chicago professor, led a commission studying financial reforms. When Rajan presented the group's findin
gs in Mumbai just a day or two after the Fannie Mae-Freddie Mac bailouts, he recalls, "people were saying to me: 'Is the U.S. the kind of model we want to go with?'"So obviously his worry is India’s reforms ‘d be torpedoed. Wonderful concerns. This very man who is advocating more regulations in the US. Apparently they need a little, but we are being smothered…
Be that as it may, about the crisis itself. Possibly it will play out. One person who has his head firmly on his shoulders says theres nothing like depression at all. Perhaps the worst times since the 30s, that’s all.
I too agree with him. Given the endless coverage on TV, one can perhaps safely presume it is going to be meltdown like never before. Some of it could be self-fulfilling prophecy.
Am not an economist, of course. Except for the mishmash I have learnt as an aspiring Marxist and from newspaper columns.
Unlike the starry-eyed Marxists tho’, I do not hope this meltdown would trigger anything like a revolution anywhere. Unlike the communists, capitalists have learnt a lot. 1917 was a revelation, a shocker, they are not going to allow it to happen again, if they cd. If China or Cuba happened, it was not for lack of effort! Anyway China they have come up trumps ultimately. It’s a wretched land now, aping the West right through, notwithstanding the fascination of our native commies.
If the New Deal and the Marshall plan of the forties were some resounding testimony to their alertness, resilience in the eyes of its admirers, the recent bailout, even if some inadequate rearguard action, could send out a message from the govt, look we are with you, don’t worry. That itself should make some difference. Don’t they talk up the markets?
So nothing much is going to change. The system will stumble forward, with some course correction, resulting in some losers, but essentially it should be business as usual in a while.
But my focus is not that. What should we wish? As concerned human beings. How should we react? Rub our hands in glee or not?
Am half rubbing at the misery of the pundits and apologists. More so of the exploiters. They richly deserve this, no doubt. The sight of the crowing, haggling, screaming brokers has always put me off.
What has it all to do with the ordinary folk? Though I don’t know what role these charctrs play, I am convinced all the same it’s a side-show, a farce, entertainment chartered by the ruling elite. Irrelevant in the larger scheme of things. Meaning stock-market gambling is not going to ensure better justice on earth – which to me is the most desirous of goals.
Most certainly I have no respect for people whose only pursuit is money. So I have no tears to shed. In fact excited as stocks plunge. Nemesis! Comeuppance!!
Having said that, I also wonder how will I react if say I lose my job or my son his or we are thrown on the streets. Am I comfortable with the prospect?
Am not too sure. The hassle of dealing with it all, making money to survive in tough times, humiliating myse
lf, bowing and scraping, or possibly some disaster overtaking us, of course its disturbing.But honestly am not horrified, if anyone cares to believe me, that is. For when there is so much poverty around us, shocking, abysmal, unjustified, why should we alone desire a better life?
Well, while I am not going to court poverty, I should not make a hue and cry if it overtakes me.
No one will listen. Such ranting will of course be shrugged away.
But if the meltdown is followed by a catastrophic depression, and humanity reinvents itself, its all for the good.
Ironical, you need to desire everything to be destroyed, before it is all rebuilt. Well, revolution is a vengeful god.
Pain or no pain, things have to change. That’s the bottomline.
