Anonymous

(Kalia aime le maïs).
Anonymous a laissé un commentaire sur mon article concernant les financiers l'autre jour. Mon frère me demande de le traduire en anglais, ce qui est bien, parce que c'est ce que je pensais faire.

(Kalia loves corn-on-the-cob)

Anonymous left a comment on my post about heads rolling the other day. I thought it was probably worth making a post out of. And my brother pushed me in the right direction by asking for me to translate it... (I suspect anonymous may be an English speaker and live in the US, given that there are several links in English, and that he/she knows who Ron Paul is. That and the fact that the French don't do irony that much - but then again Americans aren't said to either.)

Yeah, well obviously it's the neo-liberal market which created laws like the CRA (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Community_Reinvestment_Act) which incited millions of households to get into debt. And it is also 'laissez-faire' which gave birth to state-sponsored companies (Fanny Mae and Freddie Mac) which were supposed to ensure all these doubtful lones, come what may. And let's not forget that the US central bank which manipulates interest rates and thus creates housing bubbles - amongst others - is a purely liberal invention… (http://www.marxists.org/francais/marx/works/1847/00/kmfe18470000b.htm -> 5. Centralisation of credit by the state, by means of a central bank, who's capital will belong to the state, and who will have an exclusive monopoly).

Yes, yes…

Before talking about 'laissez-faire', read up on the subject:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Austrian_economics
And particularly learn about the theory of economic cycles, which we have to do with at this time, and which you seem to have some difficulty with:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Austrian_Business_Cycle_Theory
And see a US liberal presidential candidate, to see what that translates to in reality:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IWfIhFhelm8
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FG2PUZoukfA

Finally, on the subject of traffic which you also mention in your post:
http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/12.12/traffic.html

Some light reading for this weekend, and just maybe some of your presuppositions might be changed.

Kind regards.

My answer in the following comment translates to:

It's true that I'm not an expert, but I'm not sure that it is the dodgy lending in the US which are the cause of the current crisis. If I understand correctly, it is the 'derivatives' and speculation based on those mortgages which spread the rot....

I read somewhere that Warren Buffet has been warning about this problem for several years ... does he count as an expert, at least?

If it's too good to be true, it surely isn't. But greed and crowd-thinking make people tend to believe that the disaster is for 'later', and that 10% profit with zero risk is realistic.

My problem with neo-liberal theories is that too often it is only the bits that benefit the rich that get put into practice.

We're supposed to be against protectionism: So let's break down all those protective barriers in third-world countries, and go and buy up all their public services. But you'd better not lay a finger on the cotton-growing lobby in the US!

Free movement in a free market? Yep, for money and arms, but not for people - not poor people anyway.

What makes me mad is that since we have killed off God, morality and ethics, the only value which is still accepted in public discourse is the value of money, and the ethics of economics first.

//I had a colleague who said that the best thing for road safety would be to have a 10-inch spike sticking out of all steering wheels...

(If I had the time, I'd create another blog about the weirdness of traffic signposting here in Switzerland. There really would be enough for a whole blog!)

People who met me briefly at university would be amazed to read this stuff on my blog. I used to hold out about how Christians shouldn't get involved in politics. I guess that was in the time before I learnt to think for myself!

I actually don't really care for politics or money. But I do care about people, and justice. And unfortunately you can't care about people and justice without paying some attention to politics and money.