Obama, Jay Leno and Robot HRP-4C

Think about robots.  The old-fashioned image of robots conjures up squareness, flashing lights, perhaps an incomprehensible sound.  A mechanical automaton, moving on its own accord, perhaps a bit unpredictable.  A certain menace, or, a comedic aura surrounds the idea of robots-of-old.

Now.  Think about banks.  The old-fashioned image of banks brings forth a sturdy imposing building, men in suits, a kind of properness, reliability and authority.  This image is almost gone.  It is hard to recall because that kind of nostalgia has been erased by current events.

Robots have advanced tremendously since inception.  A new image of robots is evolving in the cultural psyche.  This re-mythologizing process is also underway with the concept of banks. Below is a robot design quite unanticipated by the collective imagination.  Even with consideration of all the models of robot-ness the culture has brought forth, the robot shown here on the BBC website catches one by surprise. And so, it is with Banks.  Expectations are changed.  With regard to the latest robot, known as HRP-4C , an unease and distrust is softened by its feminine features.

Reshaping the cultural palatability of banks and financial instututions is a very tough proposition.  Obama is soon stepping into the cultural myth-making world of television to give his best effort on the Jay Leno show, but, it is going to take much much more than that.  

Japan has produced an amazing array of humourous and odd cultural artifacts since their economic crisis.  The angst has transmogrified into a creativity unique to the country.  If America can do the same with its displeasure, it will be something to look forward to. 

The Best Bank

Through the post with a resounding thud this morning comes a Special Admissions Ticket to an event held at the rather glamourous sounding Palmetto Ballroom.  But, alas, it is not a glamorous ticket but rather a ticket to attend a meeting for the proposed merger of Bank of America and Merrill Lynch.  Still looking for a glamourous angle I look up the location online.  If I were to spend my last pennies on attending I would be able to do a bit of shopping at the important sounding International Trade Center where the Palmetto Ballroom is located.  I could go to "Belle Ville" and buy some "Chic European womenswear".  I know I should not say it, but, I do wonder what North Carolina's idea of "Chic European" is.  Or - oh - I could go to the Bank of America Store and buy hats, keychains, mugs branded with the BoA logo.  Feeling giddy with it all, I press the link for the BoA store.  Amazing.  They have an online merchandising shop - www.bankofamericastore.com.  It is an interesting array of toys for what presumably would be the children of American bankers.  Tumbling Towers wooden blocks game, a travel-sized naval battle game, a disfunctional looking yo-yo, and best of all, a piggy bank...

I've spent weeks researching banks and here is the best one found before my very eyes.  It has a cork in its nose to keep the money from falling out...

Strictly come spending...

After the U.S. markets closed yesterday I turned the BBC Live News on to see what they had to say about it all.  Well...they were much like my dear friends on the matter - they were on the glass half-full side and discussing "Strictly Come Dancing" and John Sergeant's departure.  In that moment, I decided I do love the BBC.  The truth of the matter is, if they had put economists on to discuss the markets it would likely have been just as meaningless as the SCD debate (Yes - acronyms seem necessary when dealing with an economics blog).  MissMarketCrash loves economists, but, truly, what they say today makes little difference when we are on a high speed trip down the whirlpool and things are changing by the second. But, non-the-less, I'd rather see a sexy economist than talk about Strictly Come Dancing.  Oh dear -- do not run away dear readers....read on, I am indeed capable of escapism...

Now that there is not much left in the way of a reliable reality, I look at my children as if they could be Charlie, from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.  Not to win a golden ticket, but, more importantly, to be sheltered from the gloom and doom surrounding us.  I remember most clearly the message of the movie was about being able to shape your own version of reality - that how the world was was to a large degree shaped by how you perceived it.  Now that is heavy philosophy 101 stuff but it was more or less a light-hearted song about candy which conveyed it to me at a young age: 

"If you want to view paradise

Simply look around and view it.

Anything you want to do, do it.

Want to change the world?

There's nothing to it."

After I got over a very lengthy childhood crush on Jean Wilder I grew up and umm...that little song was embedded in me.  It was no doubt an American thing which has been post-modernly translated into Nike's "Just do it" ad campaign.

Now how to keep the next generation on the sunny-side can-do side of the street?  The economists should curb talking to the government and go straight to Hollywood for some reality-shaping.  But I think that is what Hitler did.