(Déjà vu characters from 424 BC ~ courtesy of ARISTOPHANES[1] with some minor name changes for the sake of clarity.) [A Duel of Economic Ideologies (including personalities): continued from the previous two posts.] SAUSAGE-SELLER. The story is worth hearing. Listen! From here I rushed straight to the Senate, right in the track of this man; […]
Duel of Abuse ~ Round Xn2 Read More »
(Déjà vu characters from 424 BC ~ courtesy of ARISTOPHANES[1] with some names slightly amended for clarity.) In the last post, Dimisthenes asks, “Who will get us out of this mess?” And who should promptly show up but a sausage-seller! He is swiftly recruited to the cause. What follows is an Aristophian distillation of mankind’s
Duel of Abuse ~ Round Xn1 Read More »
(Déjà vu characters from 424 BC ~ courtesy of ARISTOPHANES[1] with some names slightly amended for clarity.) [DIMISTHENES:] I will begin then. We have a very brutal master, a perfect glutton for bean[counting], and most bad-tempered; ’tis Demos of [DC], an intolerable old man and half deaf. The beginning of last month he bought a
Duel of Abuse 2012 ~ Prologue Read More »
(or The Toxic Fallout from Ayn & Uncle Miltie) Posted in observance of April [etc.] Fool’s Day Here are a few quotes from Boomerang by Michael Lewis—a déjà vu of “what you sow is what you reap [eventually**]”: “They created fake capital by trading assets amongst themselves at inflated values, … This was how the banks
A Series of Massive Delusions* Read More »
Isocrates ~ 436-338 BC: “Democracy destroys itself because it abuses its right to freedom and equality. Because it teaches its citizens to consider audacity as a right, lawlessness as a freedom, abrasive speech as equality, and anarchy as progress.” WikiCommons ~ Public Domain I am almost finished Boomerang: Travels in the New Third World
Déjà vu: Back & So-Forth Read More »
(or A View from the Pit We Have Dug for Ourselves) No so long ago: ▪ Owners managed their own small businesses (some of which grew very large);▪ Then in pursuit of more capital (translating to more power, influence, prestige, capacity, market share, etc.) some owners came to share ownership with total strangers via corporate
(*Adam Smith, that is) “LABOUR, it must always be remembered, and NOT any particular commodity or set of commodities, IS the real measure of the value both of silver and of all other commodities” [The Wealth of Nations, Bk 1, Ch. XI, Part III, p. 214; capital and bold emphasis added]. So why do we: