Tuesday, September 22, 2009

Minsky? Of course, you cough!

So you don't like Big Guvmint, eh? Lets play a little game, shall we?

Lets say the Big Guvmint, hereafter referred to as the BG (yeah, like the singing group...sheesh) had refused to step in and bail the losers out (you know - banks, insurance companies - all them greedy bastids.) By now, all of us would be standing in breadlines, selling rotten bank notes on the corner just to feed the kids, and planning another march on Washington to protest Guvmint intrusion into our lives - er - socialism.

Why, you ask? Well, that's part of the game. Where does money actually come from? If you can answer that correctly, you get to go on to the next level of the game, where you can try to answer two other questions - where does all that money go? and why doesn't it go to you?

Ever heard of Minsky? The economist? Hyman Minsky? No? Well, he predicted this mess, and no one listened to him, because he wasn't all that popular in the mainstream of economics. (See boston.com) His work raises the final question in our little game, namely, how much of this is your fault?

Now, to win this game, you have to read the article mentioned above, and here, for redundancy. If, after reading the article (we don't expect you to read his books - they are thick and have a lot of words - just read the article and get the central premise of his thoughts on macroeconomics,) you still can't answer this last question, well, you lose. If you can answer it, you darn well better start teaching that lesson to everyone you know.

Because it will be painfully clear that, yes, Virginia, it CAN happen again.

1 comment:

  1. I posted a commentary on the boston globe hyman minsky article this morning @ SuburbanThinker.blogspot.com

    The article was definitely interesting!!!

    ReplyDelete

If its not rational, well-crafted, on point, and civil, fugedaboudit. I will delete all comments that abuse, are obscene, or refer excessively to how right you are.Otherwise, have at it.