Douglas Rushkoff vs. Wall Street

[alice wellintown]

“Economists are trained to think about eventual outcomes and work
backwards, and that’s the way financial markets function, too,” said
Charles Wyplosz, an economist at the Graduate Institute in Geneva.
“That’s 180 degrees from how politicians function. They ask themselves
about tomorrow or next week or maybe the next election and solve
problems as they come. So they’re always behind the markets.”

The general misconception about how wall street thinks, that is, that
wall street thinks about short term profits, is only one stupid idea
that those who hope to take an honest look at whatz goin down need
disabuse themselves of.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/06/world/europe/europe-tries-to-stave-off-a-reckoning.html?ref=todayspaper


On Thu, Oct 6, 2011 at 10:46 PM, alice wellintown
<alicewellintown at gmail.com> wrote:
>  Writers get royalties, advances, and bonuses. And penalties too.
>
> I think the kids and the unions need to protest. I'm not in favor of
> shutting them or anybody else up. They are just fighting the wrong
> fight. The Unions should know better. And they do. But because they
> only have power while they can pretend to represent the workers as
> they sell out the workers they have to keep it up.  The kids are,
> well, the kids. I love them. They are naive and beautiful in their
> passion and playfulness. But Wall Street? That's just stupid. People
> are pissed because the government is saving companies. Banks,
> Investment Banks, Insurance Companies, Automobile manufacturers. Lot
> of money paying for wars and benefits to kids coming back from war
> with damaged minds and bodies. Lot of people getting weaker while a
> few get more and more powerful. If only it were as simple as greed and
> bonuses and bailouts. But we know it aint like that. It's a
> complicated situation. No easy solution. Got to adapt, to manage, to
> have some luck to get anything to go. Got to have some selflessness,
> some belief in what we can do. Too much cynical thinking is a drag.
> Propaganda all is phony...don't need a weatherman to know...just put
> your nose to the grind stone uncle Remus.
>
> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KdsRppc86uI
>
>
> On Thu, Oct 6, 2011 at 10:12 PM, Albert Rolls <alprolls at earthlink.net> wrote:
>> So we (or the lefty protestors, as I'm personally just sitting at home raising my kid and hitching my wagon to a higher-education market that's pushing students through regardless of how good or bad they are to get their financial aid dollars for as long as possible and paying adjuncts and MAs to teach so that the salaries can be kept down) should all shut up, go home, and accept that the way things are going is the way they should go. Writers, by the way, don't get bonuses; they get royalties. If they sell enough copies to be owed more royalties than the advance, they get more money but not a bonus, just the royalties owed them. Of course, they could get a huge advance and not sell any books. Maybe one could describe that huge advance as a bonus for past performance. But then isn't the bonus sort of the product of a failure?
>>
>> -----Original Message-----
>>>From: alice wellintown <alicewellintown at gmail.com>
>>>Sent: Oct 6, 2011 8:22 PM
>>>To: pynchon -l <pynchon-l at waste.org>
>>>Subject: Re: Douglas Rushkoff vs. Wall Street
>>>
>>>> And what is it the wall street bankers want - and get?
>>>
>>>We all have the right to make a profit. Bankers don't have a monopoly
>>>on profit. Apple makes profits. Intel. IBM, MMM, MCD, Mrs. Martha's
>>>Baked Goods, Paul, Ringo, Gaga. Banks invest tons of money so that
>>>they may have a profit in the future. Of course, they need short term
>>>and long term profits. Some banks and some investment banks pay some
>>>of their employees with bonuses. Bonuses are often tied to long term
>>>and short term profits, sometimes to specific business ventures within
>>>a large firm so that one group may get a bonus while another group
>>>gets none. If the Yankees win the World Series, the players get a
>>>bonus. If Pynchon seels more books, he gets a bonus. Bonus pay is
>>>usually contractual. But a bonus has nothing to do with fees charged
>>>to kids who run up their credit cards or default on student loans.
>>
>>
>