Cheeni, I liked ur mail :) Sent from my BlackBerry® wireless device -----Original Message----- From: Srini RamaKrishnan <[email protected]> Sender: [email protected] Date: Sat, 29 Oct 2011 23:09:16 To: <[email protected]> Reply-To: [email protected] Subject: Re: [silk] Revealed – the capitalist network that runs the world - New Scientist - New Scientist
On Sat, Oct 29, 2011 at 6:11 PM, Gautam John <[email protected]> wrote: > On Sat, Oct 29, 2011 at 8:17 PM, Srini RamaKrishnan <[email protected]> > wrote: > > > The top 50 of the 147 superconnected companies > > Why is it surprising? I'd totally expect finance/banking companies to > be there. After all, they do fund much of the economy. > > It isn't the unexpectedness of it or even the super connectedness of it, but the empiricality of it. The Occupy Wall Street movement is indeed pointing the finger in the right direction. The age of the too-big-to-fail banks may not have started out as a conspiracy but collectively denying that Wall Street is a problem is where the conspiracy starts. Capitalism is a demonstrably failing or even failed system, even though any reasonably grownup adult of a country today looks to economic development and growth as barometers of success. The lack of an alternative has everyone worried, but at least for now apart from China no one else has an existential-boot-to-the-behind to explain their ideology. If one isn't found soon, the public will supply one as always, anarchy. Despite the occasional token gushing at the Utopian Bhutan of Gross National Happiness fame, everyone and their sister bets on the GDP. GDP applauds for the profits made by Mc Donalds and Phillip Morris just as loudly as it does for the bottom lines of AXA and GSK. This the crowning achievement of capitalism. Where one half causes the problems for the other half to fix, it's a never ending engine of success in GDP terms. One half digs the hole for the other half to badly fill, and we call it good business, and sound economic development. A random sample of ten minutes of advertising on any US TV channel should make the question rather obvious. For every commercial promising a glorious lifestyle accessory there's an ad for pharmaceutical brands that promise a return to normal human existence with hurriedly whispered horrors of incurable side effects. Since when did the human race need pills regularly for digestion, sleep, good humor and sex? 7 Billion people now, and 9 Billion by 2025. We are quite likely the last generation to see glaciers, and the capitalistic system denies it's raping the planet and the human race?
