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Monday, December 3, 2012

Master showmen of crisis

Experts are already correcting the mythology of the fiscal cliff. It will not affect investment all that much since most stock ownership is not subject to taxation (401k, pension funds, etc.). Indeed its real effects are likely to be much less than predicted, which is not surprising.

There is an increasing divergence between real and virtual. Example, good news for Main Street does lead to Wall Street gains, and vice versa. (I wonder too whether the big US birth rate drop is related to this phenomenon, more virtual contact on Facebook but less real contact; that is a topic for another post).

What's cute is how the Boehner, Geithner, Obama and the rest go on like there is a major decision over the virtual crisis known as fiscal cliff.

If there is a major decision to come in 2013it  is how can the two parties USE this so-called crisis to get the things they really want; permanent Bush tax cuts and Medicare reform and a slew of other favors for constituents and interest groups.

Interesting too that this crisis had to be manufactured and hyped to get to the point where some policy changes can happen.

That is likely to be the future of Western politics for some time to come. Postmodern political formula: hyped crisis, then policy change (e.g. Euro debt crisis allows for austerity). 
 

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