Re: [Pen-l] Hey, Secretary Paulson, Whatever Happened to Shock Therapy?

[Sandwichman <lumpoflabor@xxxxxxxxx>]

On 9/20/08, michael perelman <michael@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

> I only have one question for market fundamentalists.  If these bailouts
> succeed in putting Humpty Dumpty together again, will our fundamentalists
> agree to tax the fat cats or will they revise history and tell us that their
> rebuilt wealth owes everything to their hard work and intelligence?

No. All the King's fed chairmen and and all the King's treasury
secretaries COULDN'T put Humpty together again precisely because
Humpty was never allowed to hit the ground shatter/splatter. I
strongly suspect that the coming quarrel will NOT be with market
fundamentalism because the orthodoxy will shift to a new shape. MF
will be passe. The new certitude will be governance. Governance,
governance, governance. Governance fundamentalism. The sober hues of
melancholy realism will replace the phosphorescent sparkle of
irrational exhuberance. Instead of the glib promise of pie-in-the-sky
trickling down, there will be invocations of austerity rising up from
the grass roots.

The fight back is not about taxes. It has to be about the hours of
work. If the state can bailout the bankers and regulate the financial
industry, it can limit the hours of work: i.e., "the limitation of the
working day is a preliminary condition without which all attempts at
emancipation and improvement must prove abortive."

-- 
Sandwichman
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