Saturday, September 5, 2009

Rare voice of reason

Simple, honest, well-reasoned and bound-to-be-ignored post:

http://www.winterspeak.com/2009/08/looking-back-at-bailouts.html

I will paraphrase from an influential article by Clay Shirky, with my changes in italics :)

Revolutions create a curious inversion of perception. In ordinary times, people who do no more than describe the world around them are seen as pragmatists, while those who imagine fabulous alternative futures are viewed as radicals. The last couple of decades haven’t been ordinary, however. Inside the papersnation, the pragmatists were the ones simply looking out the window and noticing that the real world was increasingly resembling the unthinkable scenario. These people were treated as if they were barking mad. Meanwhile the people spinning visions of popular walled gardens and enthusiastic micropayment adoption schemes to repackage bad assets into good assets, visions unsupported by reality, were regarded not as charlatans but saviors.

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The header photo is a Creative Commons image (but was published in 1906, so it should be in the public domain).

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The Old Barkeep hails from Phoenix and lives in San Francisco, where he can keep an eye on things. This blog is his public notepad.

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