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I doff my hat to the Guardian's clickbait team on this one. This is the best I've read in ages. Is it self-parody? Is it bullshit? Does the guy believe this non
by to3m 10y ago
I doff my hat to the Guardian's clickbait team on this one. This is the best I've read in ages. Is it self-parody? Is it bullshit? Does the guy believe this nonsense? I CAN'T TELL. My slack-jawed incomprehension remained firmly in place throughout the entire article, with only my motivation changing. A master craftsman is at work here. <sheds single tear>
(More generally: a few years ago I saw a random comment on somebody's blog suggesting that it was only a matter of time before savers were rebranded as hoarders. So it's interesting to see this perhaps (finally) start to come to pass.)
- neolefty 10y agoIt's not individual savers, but institutional investors that collectively hold ~$100tn, as estimated by the IMF. They're risk-averse, which leads to rent-seeking. That's $100,000,000,000,000. I don't get to write that many zeroes very often. The article argues that we would all be better off if that money were spent on the common good -- infrastructure, green tech, education, even ag & manufacturing -- rather than being put into buying up what used to be the public sector and putting a price on it without improving it. Of course, how to make that happen is a hard question.
- vkou 10y agoUnfortunately, given our current course and heading, the answer to that is as likely to be molotovs and guillotines as it is to be something sensible. Populism is on the rise, and the demagogues steering it aren't actually going to fix any of the problems that created it.