I readily confess my ignorance of most things financial. And so I know better than to try and play the stock market, etc. If I were smarter, I would be wealthier. But my gut feeling for years has been that America made a transition during the past 35 years or so, that seems financially unsound. In fact it seems just dumb, regardless of the reasons behind it. During this time we moved from a manufacturing/agricultural economy to a service economy. More specifically, a financial service economy. And so, as a nation, we no longer make things like tractors and medicine and shoes. Instead, we just move money around. And as a nation, we expect to make a living from doing that. It just seems wrong.
But again, I don’t understand money and some very smart people have been pushing this concept for years, and at the same time they’ve been pushing changes in our financial laws to make this shuffling of money easier. Laws like repealling the Glass-Steagall Act, a law enacted after Great Depression I, to help our nation avoid Great Depression II. Apparently it seemed like a good idea at the time. At the moment, I’m not so sure. Incidentally, one of those very smart people directly responsible for such rule changes was Phil Gramm, one of John McCain’s current economic advisors.
For a refreshingly succinct and well written piece about stuffing Gramm’s genie back into a fiscally responsible bottle, read this brief article.
Posted on September 16th, 2008 by jack-of-all-thumbs
Filed under: Uncategorized
Where I grew up they put people in jail for the kind of shell games we call Wall Street Business. Unfortunately, it seems that that is the foundation of our current national economy. More fragile than a house built on sand.
You have to be a ways outside they system to see the flaws, or caught in its collapse (or even a stumble, which is where the gulf coast finds its self today, and where we were in Ohio this past week.) It is such a frail system, built on bubbles, and when some little thing goes wrong it all falls apart.
Hope your money, like mine, is in something real like land and chickens rather than the ephemeral world of the stock market.
You could be reading Making Money or (i think you have to read this one first,) Going Postal. Don’t to interrupt the flow, but some things are relevant now.