Posted by
m0t0r1zed on Monday, October 13, 2008 10:21:28 AM
wall street
people that work on wall street are greedy and not risk averse. and that's a good thing. they serve an important function.
- region of higher selection pressure
- higher risk, greater rewards
- things evolve more quickly
- gives us a competitive advantage against other nation-states
Net result is that it helps to proliferate innovation and technological advances. Companies that can revolutionize society.
Risk of dangers also. Need to keep the risk contained - so that if the market crashes, the rest of the economy shouldn't be signficantly affected. Tech bubble, housing bubble, oil bubble, etc.
Of course, not everything that Wall Street comes up with will be good. Unscrupulous or dangerous beasties may arise and escape into society to proliferate and wreak havoc. Regulators have to be vigilant for parasitic, viral creations. Make sure that they do not create situations outside of Wall Street that could destabilize society.
I suppose that every so often a particularly nasty beastie will evolve that is good at fending off the regulators - perhaps by paying off Congressmen - or is good at evading detection by disguising / falsifying its behavior and insidious nature.
I consider memes to be "living" things (mind viruses), so I suppose financial instruments and their associated concepts could also be considered to be memes. How many people it infects to create advocates and converts is something to monitor.
Also, is it any wonder why there is a deep-rooted "crisis of confidence" when the memes of economic disaster, recession, and depression have been proliferated and inculcated for about two years? A lot of people have been brainwashed into the inevitability of financial collapse, so deprogramming people to behave more rationally is going to be a hard task. Oh well, I suppose if you have a bit of cash on hand, it's a great buying opportunity. Heheh, just call this "CNN's Recession #1."
Now, I'm not saying that this economic mess was created purely through memes. However, I think it's possible that a downturn could have been worsened into a collapse since psychology and speculation plays a significant role.
There is also a conflict of interest in the media since they are ratings driven. Sensationalizing disaster is important for their viability - especially within a competitive market. The bigger the disaster, the better.
i could be wrong, of course, but it's interesting to think about.
edit: why the heck did i put dashes in "every so often" for no good reason? my brain isn't functioning.