RANT: DSK and the Cambridge Twits

I saw the most ridiculous display of maladjusted rage on TV today. It was the images of former IMF chief, Dominique Strauss-Kahn ('DSK' as he has become so well-known), literally being bundled away in a car as he was being pelted and protested at by hysterical students at Cambridge University.

 

Hysterical because of the inhumane and amoral financial 'free market's practices and orthodoxy of the IMF?
Hysterical because of the free market ravages savagely imposed on countless developing countries all over the world by the IMF?
Hysterical because of the IMF being a stalwart of the Washington Consensus, the Friedmanite free market pushers that have made the world what it is today?
Hysterical because of what the IMF is doing to countries like Greece and Portugal?

No, none of the above. Rather, the hysteria being thrown at DSK by all those frantic students at that most venerable university was over the alleged (yes, alleged, please note) 'rape' of a chamber maid at a New York City hotel, and other (highly suspect) 'allegations' being thrown at him by two women in his native France.

Slogans such as "DSK GO Away" and "Women Deserve Better" were the slogans of the day. Not "IMF Stooge Piss Off" or "Down With the IMF". No, it was all about DSK and his alleged rape and indiscretion with a handful of women.

So, let me get this right: All the froth and bother was over the man and his supposed indiscretions and what he does with his penis. Right? That is the sum total of Cambridge University student rage at a man who was once the chief of that most putrid institution, the IMF?

And in the midst of all this pseudo-feminist rage is the fact that the world's poor get poorer, entire countries' economies are being plundered and the free market orthodoxy is failing left, right and centre, as millions go hungry and social welfare systems get slashed to nothing. 

And they shout and scream and try to get at the man because they believe he is a rapist. I see.

This from the 'best minds' at one of the world's supposedly best universities?

Excuse me while I have a good, sardonic laugh.

It's pathetic.

Do you get my point?

RAVE: Quotes by John Kenneth Galbraith

I am always on the lookout for anything or anyone that undermines the laissez-faire, neo-liberal and fundamentalist Friedmanite economics that continues to plague the world. The economics that espouses a 'free market', slashed (or non-existent) social services and privatization/ wide open markets as if it were the only economic belief system worth holding on to.

It is the belief system of Friedmanite pillars like the Washington Consensus, which includes the IMF and World Bank, not to mention the WTO, Rand Corporation and every other 'free market' money-obsessed whore monger and apologist on the planet. And the infamous Chicago School of Economics, of course.

A belief system that has made the world an ugly, selfish, poverty-stricken place, and a belief system that is the antithesis of what I stand for, never mind that it is unsustainable for people and planet alike.

Enter John Kenneth Galbraith. This Canadian-born economist was one of the most celebrated economists of the 20th century. A devout Keynesian (which instantly makes him someone I can respect, because Keynesian economics is what it should be about), he was strong believer in the potential harm that could be caused due to the growing link between economics, the 'political economy' and the rise of self-interested corporations.



I need to read more about his work, beliefs and life. This was clearly a man with vision, a man whose words and intellectual thinking are even more relevant today that ever before.

Just a few of his brilliant quotes are testament to that:

"The modern conservative is engaged in one of man's oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness."

“In all life one should comfort the afflicted, but verily, also, one should afflict the comfortable, and especially when they are comfortably, contentedly, even happily wrong.”

"There's no question that this is a time when corporations have taken over the basic process of governing."

Milton Friedman hated the man. Isn't that reason enough to think highly of John Kenneth Galbraith?

Do you get my point?

RANT: Greece is Bankrupt for Crying Out Loud!

Today the leading headline from Reuters online read:

"Greece averts immediate default, markets skeptical"

It's seldom that I would say this, but I'm with the markets on this one. Greece should be defaulting, and the markets - carnivorous, predatory, hyper-panicked beasts that they are - are very correct to be "skeptical."

The article commences: "Greece averted the immediate threat of an uncontrolled default on Friday when a sufficient number of private creditors agreed on a bond swap deal that will cut the country's public debt and clear the way for a new bailout.

With euro zone ministers set to approve the 130 billion euro ($172 billion) rescue, French President Nicolas Sarkozy declared the Greek problem had been settled - just as Germany said that any impression the crisis was over "would be a big mistake."

The crisis is not over, it is going to continue and continue until one day the ECB, the IMF and the Greek government are going to have to relent and allow Greece to default and to declare bankruptcy.

There are countless other blogs and websites online that will offer a far more adroit and technical assessment of the Greek crisis, and why bankruptcy is inevitable, and by people with far more nous than I when it comes to economic and financial matters than I.

But even I know that all of this is nothing more than a 'perfect' storm of three dangerous forces:
1. Financial terrorist speculators and bond buyers who continue to make a killing out of this decimation of Greece 
2. A European political 'dream' that is being pushed to the nth degree and has become an economic nightmare and,
3. Sadly, the paralysis of the Greek state

Money is being pumped into 'Greece', although next to nothing of it id going to the Greek public coffers or the Greek people. Money is being paid to interest loan sharks and other scheisters circling the bloody waters that is Greece at the moment.

Downright laughable is what all of this is, if it weren't so tragic and so disgusting what is being inflicted upon the people of Greece.

That's what it boils down to - a sick, cynical charade.

Do you get my point?

RANT: Tip Tap Claptrap

I don't own a smartphone. Luddite that I am, I don't feel the need, quite frankly. I'll probably succumb some day, but, for now, I somehow seem to be very unmoved by the proliferation of 'smart' telephony and the umpteen gadgets that flood the market, flood society, flood our very senses.

"Flood our very senses?" Yes, all the time and everywhere. I am confronted by people tapping and flicking away at their Blackberrys and iPhones and countless other contraptions. And they do flood my senses. I know that because I am both bothered and annoyed by all this constant need for tipping and tapping of so much claptrap.




It's really struck me hugely of late just how joined at the fingertip so many people are when it comes to their precious little smartphones. I was recently on a business trip to Cape Town and it seemed to be so pervasive - at dinner tables, on the beach, on the airport bus driving us to our airplane, even on the bloody plane that has barely reached the terminal building after landing.

Interesting (or potentially interesting) conversations cut short because people just had to flick through a series of pics on their phone or a huge need to answer that latest e-mail or IM, of course.

Hordes of people flicking and clicking and tip-tapping away at their devices. Endlessly.

In being so feverish in the need to be so switched on, people are of course so switched off from everything around them. It's all about that little screen, those little fingertips. Nothing else matters. Little smiles or grins to themselves, little giggles emitted as if they have just heard the most witty ditty since Oscar Wilde walked the Earth, when we all know its just the latest 'friend' who's 'nudged' them on Facebook or told them about their baby's latest bowel movement, or some other facile crap...

Flippant, intense, casual, moronic the looks may be as they tip tap away - but it's all the same, really.

It makes me self-conscious and even embarrassed when I check my SMSs, almost chastising myself for being caught up in this tip tap claptrap 'revolution' of endless, boring as hell communication.

Lets' face it: where is all of this going? For all this endless, continuous communication, I have never seen such a lack of communication between people or even felt so disconnected from others as I do now. For all the ease of an SMS or e-mail or IM or tweet or nudge or whatever else is the going tip tap claptrap fad, where is the pleasure in receiving any of these when compared to a hand-written letter or a card or a telegram, or even a phone call (on a landline, of course) for that matter?

I'm not that convinced it's adding up to much. At all.

Flicking, tip-tapping all over the place - it's all mostly quantity over quality, posturing over reality, style over substance.

Do you get my point?