Now I realize that some of the smartest minds in the world have set their brains to work on the credit crunch. Some, like John Paulson, Falcone, Einhorn and Ackman have ventured towards the more parochially selfish, some might even argue nefarious, in applying their energies to profiting from problems that have beset what may in the end affect billions of people?
But need it have happened at all? Might we imagine an alternate, decidedly rosier future, one where American Triumphalism is eternal? What if we had all just continued down the unquestioning path of believing and assuming that the prevailing price was right? That current account & budget deficits need not be heeded? That real estates always appreciate? That war can be financed by future generations? That the supply of liquid hydrocarbons is inexhaustible. That HumVees are cool? That global warming is someone else's problem? That no public interest is the best public interest? Where am I going with this?
I was simply wondering whether all this is financial furor is simply, well, psychological, behavioural, maybe even imagined? And if so, perhaps, rather than embarking upon some of the messy heavy lifting and austerity seemingly required to alter consumption, savings and political orientation problems, we can simply alter our minds. Enter Neuro-Linguistic Programming. Why has this been relegated to the likes of McDonalds and the soap-powder advertisers, when the world of high-finance is simply screaming out for quick and easy solutions to the big financial and economic problems of our day such as sustaining the price s of level-3 assets, monoline solvency, performance of Alt-A or BBB mortgage tranches as well as extending the maximum amount of leverage households and the US government might safely assume before the lenders say no?
Indeed when one watches the fabulous Derren Brown operate upon a dyed-in-the wool cynic like english actor-director-writer Simon Pegg, (embedded below - and a must watch for everyone)
one might wonder why any of us feel there is anything wrong at all...
the absolute evil of advertising. "free speech" my ass. What happened to the distinction between political, personal speech and COMMERCIAL speech? What happened to the regulation of deceptive advertising?
ReplyDeleteanything wrong? you kiddin. you must notta watched Barry today. everything is going to be jus fine
ReplyDeleteI just don't believe this. Perhaps because I had no clue what a BMX
ReplyDeletebike was and so was unaffected by
NLP. Vicim was convincingly bewildered though, I must say.
... check out
ReplyDeletethis one
The first one is Simon Pegg, writer, director of "Shaun of The Dead", "Hot Fuzz" and "Run Fat Boy Run".
I not vouching for any of it, (though I'll admit to being impressed) just thought it was amusing to contemplate its impact upon financial problems and peceptions thereof...
Interesting, but on a societal level this needs a high level of control.
ReplyDeleteIf you're simultanously being fed two or more reality perceptions, you have a vast number of mental links, where new perceptions can dock on.
These perceptions can invalidate your mental operating system.
If you're living in a complicated world and actually interact with it, there are all sorts of openings where reality leaks in.
This is the line I was on when Gramm came out with the mental recession rubbish. As if his own checkered past wasn't enough. I did hear that some big firms and banks are using variations of NLP for training their execs and traders, but I think most of that was boom time soft spend. Keep up the good work Cass, I'm trying desperately to stop some of my mates from buying UK property! Cheers, JL
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