Tribeless

Stories about the investment banks and stock markets plunging down has stirred up another wave of paranoia among the ruling capitalists in the world. Is this the signal of the end of capitalist/imperialist hegemony over the the world’s economies? I really hope so.

http://www.pinoypress.net/2008/09/19/the-attack-of-the-jargonites/

The Attack of the Jargonites
PUBLISHED ON September 19, 2008 AT 2:03 PM
By Carlos H. Conde

As with many business or financial story, the meltdown that just
happened on Wall Street is often difficult to digest, what with all the
jargon and the complex methodologies used by investment and insurance
companies to get to where they are now. Does anyone really know what a
“derivative” is or what a “credit default swap” really means? And who
the hell are Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac?

Reading the papers and watching the news reports about the Crash of 2008
can often feel like they were written and produced by journalists who
exist in a parallel world, a surreal, separate universe populated by
Jargonites.

And so, naturally, I turn to Jon Stewart.

But the collapse of a 158-year-old investment bank (Lehman Brothers) and
the near collapse of AIG, the largest insurance company in the world
(and in the Philippines apparently), are, evidently enough, important
stories that will have serious implications on how many among us will
live in the days and years ahead. Jon Stewart, bless his witty heart,
can’t do the explaining alone.

And so, naturally, I turn to the Internet.

There, I found the column by CNN’s Glenn Beck who used, of all things,
Tickle Me Elmo as a device to illustrate what’s happening. (Now I know
what it means when someone says “Explain this to me like I’m a
five-year-old.”)

New York Magazine’s Daily Intel had an idiot’s guide published weeks ago
about Fannie May and Freddie Mac, whose collapse were the precursor of
what just happened on Wall Street.

But if you have enough time and patience, head over to the financial
section of The New York Times. There, you’ll find detailed explanation
about the crisis, its impact, and its implications. Check out as well
the blog of Floyd Norris, the Times’s financial columnist who is able to
cut through the jargon and tell us how and why this happened.

Speaking of columnists, this crisis has once again reaffirmed why the
world needs them. Nicholas Kristoff penned a humorous (more like
sarcastic) op-ed on Lehman Brothers that, in simple, funny language,
managed to convince us that the multi-million dollar salary of its CEO
was not money well-spent.

Paul Wilmott, an expert on quantitative finance, whatever that is,
suggests that “we have to address the bad side of greed” after this.
Journalist Daniel Ben-Ami, author of Cowardly Capitalism: The Myth of
the Global Financial Casino, pricks what he calls the five myths of the
Wall Street crash. (No, he says, the subprime debacle is too simplistic
a reason for all this mess.)

As can be expected, there’s now so much hand-wringing about the future
of capitalism.

And speaking of capitalism, it amuses me that this crisis is something
that Jose Maria Sison, the exiled communist leader, has repeatedly
pointed out in the past — in statements and missives (such as this one)
that we often dismiss as strident, outdated, out-of-touch, unrealistic,
etc. – that the US economy will one day be brought to its knees by its
own greed and malfeasance.

Of course, Karl Marx essentially said the same thing eons ago, at the
time of serfs and vassals. But instead of dismissing Sison’s opinion as
anachronistic and thus have no place in a time like this, it would
probably do us some good to concede the point that the events the past
week just underscored a crucial fact: that the methods by which men
fulfill their greed may have changed but the madness that unbridled
capitalism brings about has not. (Carlos H. Conde/pinoypress.net)