Saturday 23 July 2011

9 days to the collapse of capitalism?


I guess if Norwegian nutters hadn't claimed all the column inches for today, this would have made a bigger splash.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-14258888


Presumably, this is all brinkmanship. The republicans want the poor to take the hit. The democrats want to share the burden a little more progressively, and at some point, an agreement will be reached. The article goes on to say,

The negotiations are aimed at avoiding what analysts say would be an economically catastrophic US debt default on 2 August.
Forget about minnows like Greece or Eire. The mighty US of A could default on it's debts in just over a week. Of course, it's bound to happen at some point. The unsustainable has only been sustained for so long by the use of financial smoke and mirrors.

I'm not a financial expert by any means, but as I understand things, the whole damn world now depends upon pretending not to notice that there is no longer any ground beneath our feet (cue Wyle E Coyote stylee antigravity moment)

It's been interesting to watch the political process over the last year or so. In a sense, the political right are correct. Cuts do have to be made, and those on the left demanding that business should continue as usual are deluding themselves.

To me, the real issue is one of social justice. If cuts (really the first stages of powerdown?) are inevitable, the burden should be shouldered by those best able to shoulder it. There are pragmatic as well as moral arguments for this. People with a sense of injustice fly aeroplanes into tall buildings, and shoot children on summer camps.

So the Right may be right, but in moral and practical terms, they are also utterly wrong.

Still, there is little of the mainstream political spectrum that makes much sense when you look at politics and economics from the point of view of sustainability. I don't think the politicians really know what to do, or if they do, they lack the courage to do it, or if they have the courage, no bugger will vote for them.

9 days. I predict that the democrats will cave in and fuck over their pensioners and unemployed in order to keep the wheels of the meatgrinder turning just a bit longer. The fucked over will have less money to spend, and so the wheels will come off anyway.

That's great, it starts with an earthquake...

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