Is economics the new church?

Truly paradigm-shifting ideas often come from the margins and sometimes arrive completely accidently.  And it almost always takes a long time for the value of new theories and discoveries to be evident.  Challenging conventional wisdom is not something society encourages.

The how-to-solve-it announcement yesterday gathered up all the discourse to appease conventional wisdom as it was speaking to Society.  The complexities of politics demand that. 

The announcement is better looked at in philosophical terms.  It was a humanist kind of offering rather than an economic one.  It offered a religion rather than a cure.  The masquerade of a cure revealed itself through the use of medical terminology, such as "stress test" for financial institutions.  It offered an illusion of power to us by the promise of transparency which will be available on the comically unfinished website financialstability.gov.

Does that mean it was bad?  Of course not.  It just did not speak in the kind of detail everyone had hoped for.  And, if the plan had proposed something truly radical and innovative, what would happen then?

What are we asking for?  Is economics the new church?  If so, yesterdays sermon was a from the American Universalist Individualist New Capitalist sect.  Here are my notes:

1. They will look at these things we call financial institutions in great detail.  Like a doctor rather than a scientist.

2. There will be a Thing designed.

3. The gentle Talf will roam the fields, eating and growing.

4. You the individual will have somewhere to live.

5. They will talk to the rest of the world.

6. The plan will adapt and change.

The economic paradigm has already shifted and the prescriptions outlined above keep that in mind.  In other words, vagueness is the new black.  Where we will end up is a complete mystery.  In that regard, it is not a church.

Come talk to me later

It is terribly unfair that the world economic crisis has given out homework again this weekend.  New acronyms are spinning about and the gentle sounding Talf is wandering around the field again with a big new friend consisting of Things-To-Be-Announced-On-Monday-But-Known-Beforehand and all the groupies and enemies of big new friend are mobbing around chattering madly.  Missmarketcrash is staring with wide hungover eyes, courtesy of spending an evening with a Glaswegian who is officially classified as a Giant (6'7"), a crushingly intelligent Irishman, a few flirty girls and a Ewan McGregor look-a-like.  We spent much of the evening discussing "when is it literature and when is it porn and when is it both...". But I digress.  I can see where this is all going if I am mixing last night's conversation with this mornings homework.  No no no. Come talk to me later.  

to be continued...

Intelligent Civilizations...

"Intelligent life forms are out there and there could be thousands of them" said the BBC yesterday.  Well then.  Where are they?  Do you think they know how to fix a broken economy?  

Rockets ahoy - we are talking about alien life forms again.  According to research published in the International Journal of Astrobiology paraphrased by the BBC, "there are at least 361 intelligent civilizations in our Galaxy" and the possibility of many many more.

Intelligent Civilizations?  Did the scientists say that, or, the BBC?  Because if they really truly mean civilizations in the finest sense of the world, I'd like to migrate.  Missmarketcrash is a fan of intelligent civilization as a concept and thinks it ought not to be a utopian one.  Here on earth we are challenging the term "Intelligent Civilization" with our world economic crisis.  Perhaps just "civilization" would suffice as a description at the moment.

The word "civilization" carries a kind of intelligence within itself.  The old school latin meaning of the word implies a delineated area where people dwell governed by laws.  As in a town.  To be "civilized" may carry a cultural connotation of proper manners and/or love of the arts.

So, then, what about the phrase "Intelligent Civilization"?  Perhaps this is a science term employed by alienologists and I am missing the point completely here.  Indeed, it seems to be. A quick google reveals it to be nothing more than a classic case of transference - not unlike humanizing animals in childrens storybooks. 

Pity.  I could use a new place to live.