On 3/1/07, troy cochrane wrote:
Doesn't the SM itself reflect the power of capitalists - financial and otherwise, and therefore doesn't that make it an important to follow? The SM is how powerful capitalists understand and judge their own successes and failures. What is sickening of the media coverage is the cheerleading, not the fact of the coverage itself.
and:
But the fads and the like are just as important for capitalist power
as what is going on with the underlying material assets. < the SM reflects the power of the financial capitalists and in fact these days allows them dominance over the industrial ones. But I think that the elite of capitalists usually ignore the day-to-day fluctuations in the stock market. They diversify their assets (holding stocks and bonds and more, refusing to put all their eggs in one basket) and hold those assets for long periods -- while putting a smaller segment of their portfolios in "Hedge" funds or direct control of some corporation. That is, they typically hold most of their assets in a safe way and take risks with the rest. On the risks, I believe they follow the "put you eggs in a basket and then control the basket" strategy. Because of this, I would guess that the cappos treat the SM's fluctuations like sport scores, i.e., interesting but inessential (but I don't know any, so I'm not sure). (Of course, if you're George Steinbrenner, sports scores are essential. But he and other sports moguls and stars are the exceptions.) -- Jim Devine / "The truth is more important than the facts." -- Frank Lloyd Wright
