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Hmmm. I was having a conversation with colleagues this morning, and they were basically telling me that I would go nowhere with my extremist positions and my exaggerations on what the financial markets are doing.

We still need to refine our discourse so that it can be understood, let alone absorbed...

In the long run, we're all dead. John Maynard Keynes

by Jerome a Paris (etg@eurotrib.com) on Tue Jun 19th, 2007 at 11:46:11 AM EST
[ Parent ]
Did M3 come up in the conversation?

There is a story to be told about the structural growth of the equity markets, with the expansion of pension funds after WW2, followed by the wave of deregulation and then the sea-change of policy (didn't you write a diary about "Bubbles" Greenspan at some point...)

by Metatone (metatone [a|t] gmail (dot) com) on Tue Jun 19th, 2007 at 02:47:51 PM EST
[ Parent ]
We may of course be wrong about "what happens next", after all, anyone who tells you futurology is easy is a liar.

But these are natural questions to at least ask if you look at things from a "systems perspective" it seems to me... aren't they?

by Metatone (metatone [a|t] gmail (dot) com) on Tue Jun 19th, 2007 at 03:03:52 PM EST
[ Parent ]
the debate was about whether Sarkozy's policies are, as i caricature them only a bit, to take from the poor to give to the rich, and whether he is a fascist with his anti-immigrant drives and fearmongering (that's where they called me not-credible, when I called on his fascist leanings by making Le Pen's ideas mainstream).

The other point is that they see the PS as being unreformed, marxist and hopelessly out of touch.

In the long run, we're all dead. John Maynard Keynes

by Jerome a Paris (etg@eurotrib.com) on Tue Jun 19th, 2007 at 04:49:23 PM EST
[ Parent ]
I really wonder if I live in the same world as people who think the PS is unreformed and marxist. (which seems to be the general opinion in most of the French Blogosphere that's a bit to the right of Fabius...)

I could understand this for people that were over 20 years old in 1981, when the PS nationalised, but as a young'un, it took me quite some time to understand that then the PS was actually strongly on the left at the time, not the party of "a little bit of redistribution to the poor, please" in the middle of the neo liberal market that I knew for most of my life.

Un roi sans divertissement est un homme plein de misères

by linca (antonin POINT lucas AROBASE gmail.com) on Tue Jun 19th, 2007 at 05:53:35 PM EST
[ Parent ]
The idea that Europe's Social Democrat and Labour parties are "left" in an absolute sense just indicates how far right the Overton window has shifted.

Can the last politician to go out the revolving door please turn the lights off?
by Carrie (migeru at eurotrib dot com) on Tue Jun 19th, 2007 at 05:57:17 PM EST
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What were, if I may ask, the most substantive counter-arguments they offered? Or did they just dismiss your arguments as outlined above out of hand?
by Almanax on Wed Jun 20th, 2007 at 08:28:14 AM EST
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I wouldn't expect any more substantive argument than "investment bankers don't get customers by being pessimistic about the financial markets"

Can the last politician to go out the revolving door please turn the lights off?
by Carrie (migeru at eurotrib dot com) on Wed Jun 20th, 2007 at 08:31:56 AM EST
[ Parent ]

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