InterPress: This Sucker Could Go Down

[marmar]

via CommonDreams:



Published on Wednesday, October 8, 2008 by Inter Press Service
This Sucker Could Go Down
by Peter Costantini


Crises seem to awaken the inner poet of the commentariat, and the Crash of 2008 is no exception.

In the effort to wrap the mind around a phenomenon as expansive and convoluted as this one, literal description falls short. And so the metaphor mills have been grinding at full capacity.

'It's like living through an extended earthquake,' explained television commentator David Brancaccio, 'only we don't know yet if it's the big one or a foreshock of a big one to come.'

The New York Times offered 'a landslide changing the financial landscape'. Others likened the events to Hurricane Katrina or an eruption of Mount Vesuvius.

Even President George W. Bush reportedly chimed in at an emergency meeting with what sounded vaguely like a haiku: 'If money isn't loosened up, this sucker could go down.'

But perhaps the most popular, and most apt, comparison has been to a casino.

Commentators have identified the culprit as 'casino capitalism' or a 'casino economy', and more than one has proposed a small tax on securities transactions to slow down the betting.

The financial system, however, is an odd sort of casino. In most gambling houses, management runs the gaming so that the house always makes a profit. Card counters are thrown out by the bouncers. .........(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.commondreams.org/view/2008/10/08-4

[barbtries]

1. after reading this i feel as if

i have a much greater understanding of what is going on. thanks for posting

[peacetalksforall]

2. Thanks ,,,, this is a good way to explain the Cheney Bush gift to the world.