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• Saturday, August 18, 2007 07:06 PM

  Real and Unreal, Touche!

  Capitalism is simply unreal. Capitalism is what free markets morphed into once pools of money reached a critical mass. Then the money took on a life of its own. Medical science says something similar happens when an obese person's fat layers begin producing their own enzymes and hormones--all toxic. When did this economic obesity happen? With the Venetians, the Fuggers, with Max Weber's Protestants saving instead of spending like Enlightenment spendthrifts Voltaire and Th. Jefferson?

  In "It's a Wonderful Life" we get the basics of home loans: the cleaning ladies, bricklayers, bakers, etc. pool their money, then you borrow it promising them to pay it back, then some. Nice and neat. But somewhere the pyramid scheme takes off. You can't pay X% interest unless you're able to get an X+Y% return yourself...and so on up the pyramid. Just as life is one big Stockholm Syndrome, capitalism is just one bing Ponsi Scheme. And whenever the growth hiccups, the pyramid shakes.

  Now there's pressure to spit out the bullet by sinking interest rates. Ha! Then the unreal money games Mr. Leonard describes just continue, right? Since I'm big into Schadenfreude, I just can't wait for the oil prices to slam us with big inflation pressures. Bwaaahhaahahahhhaaaa!

  My advice: avoid debt like hemlock, get involved in real supply and demand of real things...and you'll never go wrong.

  —galanolwe Read galanolwe's other letters
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