The ideology of reform | 19 comments (19 topical, 0 editorial, 0 hidden)

Re: The ideology of reform (4.00 / 5)

Quite apart from the cognitive dissonance of the account of companies "looking after" workers and reducing workers' share of the pie at the same time thanks to workers' goodwill that will disappear, not because workers' vital interests are at stake, but because the government can't enforce the further reduction of the workers' share of the pie that companies want...

A US recession would hit them, but no harder than previous ones. A lack of reform would be more painful

This looks like the sketch of a narrative we should expect to hear more of. Structural problems with globalising free-trade capitalism? No, no, just a little bitty cyclical recession in the US, that is nothing like as dangerous as a halt to the "reform" process...

by afew (afew(a in a circle)eurotrib_dot_com) on Fri Feb 1st, 2008 at 08:19:41 AM EST

Good catch (4.00 / 2)

"The current crisis is just cyclical, not systemic" is indeed likely to be an approved party line (ie there should be no questioning of current narratives).

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

by Jerome a Paris (etg@eurotrib.com) on Fri Feb 1st, 2008 at 08:31:22 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Questioning narratives (4.00 / 2)

Quite right.

But some question more narratives than others.

Tim Congdon

was at it again re Northern Rock in the FT today but the lessons he draws are not quite the ones I draw....

Still, he's speaking a truth I've never seen anywhere else in the MSM.

"The future is already here -- it's just not very evenly distributed" William Gibson

by ChrisCook (cojockathotmaildotcom) on Fri Feb 1st, 2008 at 08:49:00 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Questioning narratives (4.00 / 2)

FT.com: Any 'gift' of public money to Rock is pure myth

The Northern Rock affair has been a reminder of how dismally Britain's institutions can perform if they have poor leadership. In effect, the European Commission has been granted a veto on the future use of lender-of-lastresort facilities by the Bank of England, while the Treasury regards its own expertise as so inadequate that it must pay American investment bankers for guidance and counselling.

Ouch!

We have met the enemy, and he is us — Pogo

by Carrie (migeru at eurotrib dot com) on Fri Feb 1st, 2008 at 09:03:13 AM EST
[ Parent ]

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