Tuesday, August 30, 2011

When The Rich And Powerful Overplay Their Hand

JAMES LAXER


We are in the grip of a socio-economic crisis in which the rich and the powerful in the United States, the United Kingdom, the Euro Zone countries and Canada refuse to share the burden of coping with the economic disaster they did so much to unleash. A few among them -- Warren Buffet and Liliane Bettencourt -- get it. The rich can overplay their hand and can end up spoiling the whole party for themselves and their wealthy confreres.

The problem is that right-wing revolts can get out of hand and can create difficulties, even grave difficulties, for the rich and the powerful and the states that do their bidding. Those at the helm on both sides of the Atlantic are playing dangerous games. It is far from certain that they will be able to control the forces they are unleashing. Some may believe that we live in the eternal present of neo-liberalism. History shows us that that is not a good bet. The old spiritual is almost certainly a better prognosticator: "No more water, the fire next time."

4 comments:

  1. White people don't know anything about being third class citizens. If white people continue to vote republican, they will surely learn though.

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  2. Chavez Launches War Against US Dollar
    Thursday, August 18, 2011 – by Staff Report

    http://www.thedailybell.com/bellinclude.cfm?id=2814&bid=1&StartRow=41&PageNum=3#postFeedback

    Hugo Chávez "gold thug"...
    Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez ordered his government to repatriate $11 billion in gold held in banks abroad to safeguard the country from the economic crisis and said he'll nationalize the local gold industry. Venezuela has about 211 tons of its 365 tons of gold reserves held abroad at institutions including the Bank of England, JP Morgan Chase & Co. (JPM), Barclays Plc (BARC), Standard Chartered Plc (STAN) and the Bank of Nova Scotia (BNS), according to a government document. ... Chavez, who has said he wants to eliminate the "dictatorship" of the U.S. dollar, has called on Venezuela's central bank to diversify its $28.7 billion in reserves away from U.S. institutions. – Bloomberg

    Dominant Social Theme: The government knows best how to manage the money supply; Chavez will lead the way.

    Free-Market Analysis: Whoa! Hold the US dollar horses, folks... the global reserve currency game just got a whole lot more interesting. There is, in our humble opinion, a whole lot more to this story than just the repatriation of gold being held at foreign central and commercial banks. It is perhaps the biggest story to unfold in the currency markets in many years.
    ***
    Chavez has been aparently watching thelooting of Libyan national economic reserves?

    Cancer or not, this is now a dead man walking
    JP morgan and Benny boy will not be happy

    ReplyDelete
  3. This is the kind of article I simply hate, seeded as it is with class warfare rhetoric. The author and his ilk are praying for a Force Majeure moment to become the champions of the day and lead people into their Fabian mold. The dead give away was his mention of Warren Buffet as "getting it", Come on man! Warren Buffet is as sly as any fox sniffing the wind! I fart in the general direction of progressives.

    ReplyDelete
  4. The rich and powerful never overplay their hand; they just change the rules, this is their ability to adapt, they change the environment to suit their needs. The rest of us have to change our behavior to adapt to the environment.

    ReplyDelete

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