I blogged on this topic. Take a look at: http://www.freewebs.com/edweick/blog.htm
Ed ----- Original Message ----- From: "Mike Spencer" <[email protected]> To: <[email protected]> Sent: Sunday, August 02, 2009 2:44 PM Subject: [Futurework] [OT] Re: No melt-down > > pete <[email protected]> wrote: > >> On Tue, 28 Jul 2009, Michael Gurstein wrote: >> >>> I think the what's dominant now is the ever-popular Wiley Coyote school >>> of >>> applied economics... >>> >>> M >> >> I think this needs a T-shirt.... > > And one for the Wiley Cat School of Security Studies: > > When Ah sees a stranger sneakin' crosst mah backland, Ah ups with > Ol' Betsey and BLAM! And Ah tells if he's friend or foe when Ah > turns him ovah. -- Wiley Cat > > > I've mentioned before my favored metaphor for the origins of the > financial melt-down: uncoupling of respiration from phosphorylation in > mitochondria, i.e. while the respiratory chain goes on, furiously > burning sugar, the energy isn't handed off to ATP synthase but gets > turned into heat. Catching up recently on my obsolescent biochem, it > turns out the brown adipocytes in small rodents have dedicated > "uncoupling proteins" and their action actually facilitates > temperature control. But mitochondrial uncoupling in general is a > consequence of pathological or toxic conditions. > > So a little finance is a good thing for the social organism but when > the financial system uncouples itself from producing useful, real > stuff for real people and takes off on its own, it doesn't take so > very long before it's burning up astronomically more resources/assets > without regard for the social organism's overall needs. > > One guy gets a clue: > > It was July 2007 and [Wendell] Potter, a senior executive at giant > US healthcare firm Cigna, was visiting relatives in the > poverty-ridden mountain districts of northeast Tennessee. He saw > an advert in a local paper for a touring free medical clinic at a > fairground just across the state border in Wise County, Virginia. > > Potter, who had worked at Cigna for 15 years, decided to check it > out. What he saw appalled him. Hundreds of desperate people, most > without any medical insurance, descended on the clinic from out of > the hills. People queued in long lines to have the most basic > medical procedures carried out free of charge. Some had driven > more than 200 miles from Georgia. Many were treated in the open > air. Potter took pictures of patients lying on trolleys on > rain-soaked pavements. > > For Potter it was a dreadful realisation that healthcare in > America had failed millions of poor, sick people and that he, and > the industry he worked for, did not care about the human cost of > their relentless search for profits. "It was over-powering. It was > just more than I could possibly have imagined could be happening > in America," he told the Observer > > Potter resigned shortly afterwards....now works at the Centre for > Media and Democracy in Wisconsin.... > > -- http://www.truthout.org/072609R > > but he hardly makes a dent in the relentless, uncoupled financial > focus of (inter alia, of course) the "health care industry". > > > > - Mike > > -- > Michael Spencer Nova Scotia, Canada .~. > /V\ > [email protected] /( )\ > http://home.tallships.ca/mspencer/ ^^-^^ > _______________________________________________ > Futurework mailing list > [email protected] > https://lists.uwaterloo.ca/mailman/listinfo/futurework > _______________________________________________ Futurework mailing list [email protected] https://lists.uwaterloo.ca/mailman/listinfo/futurework
